Velvet fell in step beside her daughter. Twilight refused to look at her. "Thank you so much, Mother," she said through clenched teeth. "Those three were just petty gossips before. Now they've got a grudge to hold. Dealing with them is going to be miserable!"

"As if it wasn't before?" Velvet said dryly. "I really think you're worrying too much, dear. They've less spine and brains among them than a trio of flatworms."

"Mother--" Twilight bit off her reply and sighed. "You don't understand, Mother," she said wearily. "While you get to go home again and forget all about those three, I have to stay here and deal with them . I wish you'd think of that before you do things that I'll have to live with long after you've left."

Velvet stopped, chagrined. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said, her ears folding down. "Those nasty harpies were making fun of my baby girl. I couldn't just stand by and say nothing." She nuzzled her daughter. "And don't think for a minute that I'd go back home and forget all about my little filly and her troubles."  She gave a smirk. "Trust me, this will work to your advantage."

"You're a novelist, Mother," Twilight said, amused in spite of herself. "I'm a Princess. I think notoriety works a little different for you than it does for me."

"Exactly." Velvet preened a bit. " Now those three gossips will be chattering about is how scandalous my behavior is. They won't even think about talking about you. You be all aloof and princessly... I'll wade into the mud pit myself instead."

"Yeahhhh, that's a possibility," Twilight said in amused skepticism. "I don't think you're going to be an effective distraction from what I did to Lord Blueblood." Her mouth set in a grim line. "Besides, half the nobility have it in for me already."

"Ah well then dear," Velvet said. "If you're going to be the scandalous one no matter what you do, why let it bother you? Do as you please and let them say what they will. You might as well have fun with it."

Twilight sighed. "Is that what Dad is up to? Out raising a rumpus in town? You'd think he'd be laying low after that little incident with the marriage contract."

Velvet chuckled. "Oh no, dear. He's just out bonding with your fiancee'."

"Mom...." Twilight said on an ascending note.

"Oh stay calm, dear; have a little faith in your father," Velvet chuckled. "You'll get your fiancee' back in one piece."

Night Light plunked his rump down at their table and took a long pull on his root beer float. "Ahhh," he sighed in satisfaction. " Root beer floats. Nothin' beats it. How about you, lad?"

Ink Spot toyed with his drink nervously. "More a cherry phosphate kind of stallion, myself," he said, indicating his drink.

"Good, good," Night Light said, beaming around his cigarette holder. "If you're going to have a vice, make it something innocuous."

Ink Spot looked at him skeptically. "Um, didn't that whole, ah, incident with the Bluebloods start with--"

Night Light grimaced. "It started with me chucking back a cider. Then a hard cider, 'just this once.' Then a little Appletini. Then a straight up martini. Then working my way around the fruits and vegetable aisle to balance things out--"

"Fruits and vegetables?"

"Corn moonshine, plum brandy, rye whiskey, potato vodka...." the grimace doubled. "And this nice fellow who I'd never met before plying me with still more congratulatory drinks as he shoved an inkwell and a quill into my hoof... I swear to you, boy, I puked so hard I saw my back hoof pop out of my mouth. I think I threw up my will to live.

"Then my wife found out what happened and the real pain started. No, that's one experiment I shall not repeat ever again. Don't drink, don't smoke, don't chew, don't date girls that do."

"You've got a cigarette holder in your mouth," Ink Spot pointed out.

Night Light grinned. "So? I got shoes on my hooves, don't mean I'm walkin'." Ink Spot couldn't help it; he glanced down at Night Light's clearly unshod hooves. "Oh come on, young fella, it's a turn of phrase !" Night Light said. "I'm not so daft as to actually let somepony nail a chunk of iron to my body like some iron age barbarian..."

Ink Spot shook his head. Talking with Twilight's father was like trying to ice skate on a moving train. "So you said you wanted to have... a little chat," Ink Spot said. He winced inwardly; he was genre-savvy enough to guess what was coming next.

"Ah yes, of course," the father of the bride said. "Let's see here." He levitated a scroll from the saddlebag on the floor next to him and unrolled it. "Okay... Insert Name of prospective here, check. Confirm engagement to offspring, check. Assert parental affection for daughter, assert best wishes, generic vague threat against fiancee's person,  reassert hopes for future, inquire about intentions for grandchildren, second more specific violent threat....."

Ink Spot stared. "What, are you actually going down a... yes, you are actually going down a checklist," he deadpanned when Night Light turned the paper around for him to see.

"Her mother made it," Night Light said. "Where do you think Twilight got it from? Look, son," he said. "I'm going to tell you the same thing my wife's father told me. I'm not going to make stupid threats about what I'll do if you break her heart blah de blah. I respect you too much for that. If I didn't respect you, you wouldn't have got within fifty miles of my little girl in the first place.

"Besides which, ponies make mistakes, especially with the ones they love. All I'll do is ask that you try your hardest to love her, and that when you do make a mistake-- and you will-- that you keep on trying."

"I will, sir," Ink Spot said, relieved. "Um, am I going to go through this with the rest of the family?"

"Nah. Why do you think they had me be the one to read the list? No sense in repeating one another, after all."  Night Light crumpled the list up and tossed it over his shoulder. "The real reason I wanted to have this little sit down with you is to prepare you."

"Prepare me?" Ink Spot said. He could feel his relief starting to carefully backtrack.

Night Light took a long pull on his root beer float and looked Ink Spot in the eye. "My boy," he said sympathetically, placing a hoof on Ink Spot's shoulder. "A year from now, you're going to be marrying into the Sparkle clan. You're going to be marrying a Sparkle mare. And you may or may not have noticed, the Sparkle mares, lovely and loving as they may be, do have certain quirks for which a prospective spouse should be prepared."

"Um, I've been there for one or two, I think," Ink Spot said. "The, ah, Miss Smartypants incident." He took a nervous sip of his cherry phosphate, looking embarrassed. "She told me about the, ah, Smarty Pants incident. She was late on a friendship report, got so strung out that she decided to make a friendship problem to fix and report, and... well, the next thing you know there's a riot going right through the middle of town..."

"Ah yes," Night Light mused. "The old Death Spiral. That's what Spike calls it anyway. Twilight and her mother are a lot alike; they can handle just about any real crisis you throw at them... I'll tell you a story about Velvet and a manticore someday... but put a minor hitch in a minor problem and they'll pull into a flat spin that would make a Wonderbolt weep with envy."

"I know," Ink Spot said glumly. "The therapist says it's social anxiety."

"Pardon?" Despite it being fairly dark inside the sundae shop, Night Light was still wearing his aviator sunglasses. He shot Ink Spot a look over the tops of the lenses.

"Twilight and I are taking therapy together for Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder," Ink Spot said. "We just put out a new psychology and psychiatry textbook series and I recognized the symptoms(1) while I was doing an editorial spot-check. I showed her the textbook and she recognized the symptoms. She was sort of in denial, until she saw that being in denial was one of the symptoms..." Ink Spot shrugged.

"Spot on, showing her the textbook," Night Light muttered. "Darling girl, but she'd follow a resource volume right off a cliff. But both of you?"

Ink Spot shrugged. "I'm a bit OCPD myself," he admitted. "For me, the triggers are work-related... stuff at the office sets me off. For Twilight it's social interactions, especially with peers she wants to impress."

"And how's that working out for you?"

"Well, we've made progress... I've stopped going into yelling fits at my interns for putting files on the right side of my desk instead of the left, and Twilight has cut back to one checklist a day. She double checks it twice, but-- little foal steps, I guess."

Night Light regarded his future son-in-law for several seconds. Two thoughts went through his mind:

Ye gods, they're the perfect couple.

Followed quickly by  Would it be a sign of weakness to ask him for this counselor's name and address?

"Ah well then. Moving on...."

1)

a:preoccupation with remembering and paying attention to minute details and facts

b:following rules and regulations

c:compulsion to make lists and schedules

d: rigidity/inflexibility of beliefs

e: perfectionism that interferes with task-completion.

f. denial-- insistence that they are not the ones with the problem; that if everyone else would just adhere to their rules everything would be fine.