Ava facehoofed. "Pinkie... those were bodice-buster romance novels, weren't they?" Craning her neck around to read the title of the one Shai was holding, she groaned. "Oooh, yeah - I accidentally got my hooves on that one as a foal in the library once," she snickered wryly. "Shai, those are, well, fiction. They can be fun to read, and some ponies fantasize about having a relationship like that, but it doesn't usually work like that."

Atom tried hard to keep a straight face, and failed. "You got hold of At the Precipice of Forever as a foal? Wow. I'll bet your mother was just thrilled about that," he snickered.

"Believe me, you have no idea," Ava replied, rolling her eyes. "Inquisitive foal plus adult romance novel equals... a lot of questions. Most of them beginning with either 'Mommy, what does this mean' or 'why,'" she giggled.

"The basic biological aspects are accurate, of course," Atom said, nodding towards the book. "But the conversation is... rather more romanticized than how it would usually go. And the stuff in that book probably isn't first date material," he added. "In all honesty, Shai Ni, the best advice I can give you is to just be yourself - that's what any stallion worth dating is attracted to," he smiled.

Sweetie Belle followed in her big sister's hoof steps when it came to generous behavior.  While Silver Spoon wasn't sure that any of this was going to end well, she did at least appreciate the small gestures... though Applebloom sure didn't seem happy to have one of the local bullies sharing space with her.

"Alright girls! Next stop Sweet Apple Acres and then Cutie Marks!"

"Well, we're certainly going to get to one of those..." the bespectacled filly rolled her eyes, though the speed at which Scootaloo accelerated made her yelp and grab hold of Applebloom for support.

--> And the three exit right back out again for Sweet Apple Acres
This message was last edited by the player at 20:06, Sun 24 June 2012.

"What's wrong with those?  She was asking about stuff like kissing, so I thought it'd work out just fine~!  Plus Chineighs ideals about romance are waaaa~y different than Equestrian, so it's good to get a new frame of reference on the whole thing, right?" Pinkie didn't quite seem to understand the potential consequences of giving the rather literal-minded Shai Ni such tawdry reading material.

"Though... well, Big Mac is a pretty traditional sorta guy.  Real down-to-earth." she added after a beat.  "I don't think you're gonna have to worry about kissing or anything too soon, Shai."

Still brightly glowing, Shai Ni floats the book back onto the pile and asks, "Do... do you all mean that?  That... that is not how they usually go?  And... it is not expected to happen on the... first date?"  Sure, Twilight has caught on fire a few times when overly embarrassed or enraged, but Shai Ni's glowing is entirely new - and likely due to a similar effect.  Thankfully, the assurance that the contents of the novel she was just reading are not standard fare for a date, especially a first date or with Big Macintosh in general, help her calm down considerably to the point that she is no longer literally glowing with embarrassment, and it is now just her cheeks once again.

Looking a bit ashamed, either for having read such things or for her mistaken conclusions, the blushing unicorn asks, "... What do you mean by... first date?  Are there different levels of date?"

"To some extent," Atom nodded. "Avi and I kind of skipped a few steps because we were best friends even as foals - we've known each other for as long as we can remember. But usually there's a period of just enjoying each other's company while you get to know each other better. Just relax, do something you both enjoy, and have a nice evening together."

Ava nodded. "It's not that there's anything wrong with those books - there isn't. They can be a lot of fun to read. But while the tawdry stuff can be fun with someone you're that close to, they're not exactly likely scenarios for a first date." She snickered. "Also, kissing like they do in THOSE books triggers my gag reflex something awful," she giggled. "Atom's right, Shai Ni - just relax and have a nice evening."

Slowly nodding, Shai Ni takes some more notes, this time in her native language, likely elaborating on what she has just learned about dating... and what she has learned she has not learned about dating.  It appears to be rather extensive for such a thing, especially the latter, but there are many, many strokes, so she could just be writing "Dates = Confusing" and nobody would be the wiser.  After a good ten or so seconds of scribbling with the levitating paper and quill, Shai Ni looks up and asks, without a single hint that she is joking whatsoever, "What is... kissing?"

Either she never learned the word in Equestrian, or she is completely innocent about the concept.  One can only hope it is the former.

Atom smirked. "This," he grinned, leaning over and kissing Ava on the lips - definitely not the torrid sort of case described in graphic detail in yon stack of tawdry bodice busters, but definitely more than just a slight peck.

Ava blushed a bit, but while easily embarassed, she clearly was not upset with her stallionfriend in the slightest - she just hadn't expected to be put on the spot in front of somepony else with no warning. "You show-off," she teased, giggling and nudging him in the flank with her back hoof before kissing him back.

"What? She asked, and that was a lot more straight forward than finding a dictionary," he smirked.

"Staright forward, or just forward?" Ava giggled. "As if you wouldn't take any excuse."

"Avi, I need no excuse," he laughed, kissing her again, on the cheek this time.

Shai Ni stares in wonder at the show of affection before the synapses in her brain fire off with the act she is familiar with back home.  "Oooooooooooooooh!  That is kissing!  Back home, that is a show of affection reserved for somepony's... ah," she says, pausing for a moment before continuing, "I think I have a better idea of what a 'date' is now.  Is kissing only done on lips, or is another other part of the body allowed as well?  Such as the cheek, or the forehead?"  She is no longer blushing, as growing up with her parents let her see such things as kissing on a regular basis (not to mention being kissed goodnight when she was a young filly).

Ava nodded. "Cheeks and foreheads are fine - probably more likely than lips on a first date. A guy who's a bit of a traditional gentlestallion might kiss a mare on the fetlock, too - just above the hoof," she added, as Atom took it upon himself to demonstrate the latter - as he'd said, he needed no excuse.

"Uh-huh~!  There's all kinds of kissing too~!  A kiss for every mood and every relation~!"  Pinkie Pie chimed in as she hopped over beside Atom to cant her head in close and bat her eyelashes, tickling his cheek with them.  "There's butterfly kisses--"

With a quick swish she slid over to Ava's side and grabbed her chin, drawing her in close to rub their noses together playfully.  "--and there's Eskimo kisses..."

Next she bounded up onto central desk in the library where a large carving of a horse head bust sat, which she snagged in her hooves and reared back.  The party pony soundly headbutted the carving with a sharp 'whack!' of her noggin', leaving her dizzily swaying about as a result.  "--that's a Glasgow Kiss, but it's not really very romantic unless you're a Ram..." she explained shakily as she dropped off the desk with a thump but immediately bounced back onto her hooves all the same.

"And, of course, there's French Kisses too~!" she giggled as she hopped over to Shai Ni.  Before the more sensible Atom or Ava could do anything to stop her, Pinkie took Shai Ni by the shoulders, dipped her back, and planted a deep kiss right on her lips with an exaggerated 'Mmmmm~wah~!' sound.  Unsurprisingly, it turned out Pinkie Pie tasted quite strongly of sugar.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:32, Mon 25 June 2012.

Shai Ni watches with fascination as Atom demonstrates the gentlestallionly greeting to a mare with Ava, then her fascination turns a bit less inspired and more like she is watching a train wreck as Pinkie Pie moves to demonstrate the various times of kisses.  At first, she giggles at the butterfly and eskimo kiss demonstrations, then winces at the Glasgow kiss.

"Thank you, I think that is en-mmmmmmmmMMMMmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm~" she begins to say before finding herself bent backwards and kissed deeply by the (overly) friendly Earth Pony.  Strange feelings are mixing in Shai Ni's heart.  On one hoof, she knows that she is not attracted to mares in such a fashion, and so this experience is weirding her out rather strongly.  On the other hoof, Pinkie Pie is definitely no beginner, and aside from the sweet taste, the technique is certainly enjoyable, if a bit... sudden for the poor, romantically inexperienced Chineighs unicorn.  Also, she's glowing again.  Brighter than before.  It is noticeably brighter inside the library than it is outside, and the light coming from the embarrassed mare is beaming through the windows.

When she is finally allowed to breathe once again, Shai Ni gasps and pants, her face a brilliant crimson, then looks at Pinkie Pie for several seconds before saying, "That... that was... I..."

I do not like mares, do I?  I have never felt attracted to them like I have to stallions, but... but that kiss... is there a way to erase my doubts? she thinks before spotting Atom out of the corner of her eye.  Blinking out of existence in Pinkie's arms, she reappears inches from Atom's face and stammers, "I-I-I am confused!  I need you to kiss me!"

Ava gave Atom a barely perceptible nod - she had no need to be territorial or possessive; she knew perfectly well that her stallionfriend was head-over-hooves in love with her, and she with him. His alleviating Shai's confusion would do nothing to change that. Besides, with her gag reflex, he almost never got to french kiss a mare, and she'd wound up accidentally biting his tongue more than once when he'd tried - let the guy have a little fun.

"Um, okay," Atom nodded, clearly more surprised than anything else. Leaning over, he kissed Shai on the lips - his french kiss was considerably less dramatic than Pinkie's, but he wasn't half-bad at it.

Still glowing brightly, Shai Ni very, very slowly pulls back from the kiss and immediately looks down at her hooves, coming to several realizations at once.  Firstly, she is indeed attracted to stallions, not mares.  Secondly, she finds herself wanting to try again.  Thirdly, she gave her first kiss to Pinkie Pie.

She gave her first kiss to Pinkie Pie.

In order to prevent herself from completely freaking out, Shai Ni forcefully shunts certain thoughts into the back of her mind to freak out about later as she says quietly, "... Thank you.  That was... lovely."  Even with her forcing some of the more extreme thoughts out of her mind, Shai Ni is clearly close to her breaking point from sheer embarrassment.

There wasn't much sacred to Pinkie Pie.  While ponies like Shai Ni and Twilight held some sense of treasure to their 'first kisses', she never really understood that concept and invested no merit in it.  What did it matter if it was the first kiss or the hundredth?  If it felt good and made ponies happy, who cared?

"Heeeee~!  This is way more fun than I usually have in the Library~!" the party pony giggled.  She'd produced a pair of dark sunglasses from nowhere in particular and had them on over her smiling blue eyes to block out the raw illumination Shai Ni was putting out.  "Though come to think of it, how come Twilight's not here?  And why was Applejack here instead?  And what're you guys all doing here?"
This message was last edited by the player at 03:29, Tue 26 June 2012.

"Well, we came here to find a book," Ava said, indicating the copy of Cations, Caustics, and Combustions which she'd retrieved from the shelf.

Thoroughly embarrassed, and thankful for the attention shift, Shai Ni begins inching away from the other ponies before speeding up to a very slow walk towards the books she had been recommended by Pinkie Pie.  Eventually, she makes it over to them, and carefully levitates them over to the ledger where Twilight Sparkle records book checkouts.  Very, very carefully, Shai Ni writes the titles of each book and notes that they are being checked out by herself, with a note saying it is for research (and recommended by Pinkie Pie).  She is not lying, and she will be able to read them... without others around... underneath several blackout sheets so she does not keep all of Ponyville awake with her glowing embarrassment.

She would leave, but she's still glowing rather brightly, and that will attract more attention than she wants.  Which is to say, it will attract attention period.

"Well, I came over 'cause I was sad about Rogue Heart, but it looks like my frowns jumped ship to Applejack instead.  Seems like everypony's been kinda odd lately, huh?  OOH!  I KNOW!" Pinkie squealed as she hopped up on her hind legs and flailed her forelegs about wildly.  "I'll throw a big fun party that'll help get everypony outta their weird funks~!  Hm... themed?  Maybe... costume party?  Those are always lots of fun~!  I wonder if I've got time to get a hold of Vinyl Scratch again..."

[From - Ponyville Business District - Widget Whatsis' Wondrous Works]

With his hands full of a ledger-book, which Quill swore somehow got heavier on the journey between the workshop and the library, the young dragon awkwardly pushed the door to the library open with an elbow. Fortunately, the book did provide quite a convenient thing to hide behind and, with it raised up so as to cover as much of him as possible, Quill remained somewhat hidden behind the book. In the end, it was a choice between hiding his top half and his bottom half, and the top half had won out. Quill's tail, feet and stomach would simply have to fend for themselves.

"Um, I was wonderi-" Quill peered over the top of the book at the small group that had assembled in the library, "-oh, is there a queue?"

"Nope, no queue," Ava assured Quill.

"Well, except over there," Atom laughed, pointing a hoof at the 'Q' section of the shelves. "Whatchya lookin' for?"

While Atom went right into his easy friendly banter, Ava stepped over to Shai Ni and the library ledger, both to sign out Caustics, Cations, and Combustions and to give Shai a reassuring smile. She was herself rather shy, and quite naive about social interactions - it was only with Atom's help that she was improving. "You okay, Shai Ni?" she asked.

Atom's joke about the queue managed to sail over Quill's head and, nervously, he took a few steps in to the library proper, lowering the ledger enough that he could get a slightly better look around.

"Um, an answer to the four hundred and ninety five problem, I guess a book on mathematics, I guess that'd be under M for-" the young dragon stopped as the joke about the queue boomeranged back around and caught him, "I get it! No, I mean, I thought, there was... a, no, never mind, um. Four hundred and ninety five. I need a book about that number."

"Do you have the title?" Atom asked. "Or the author?" It seemed a rather random subject for a book...

"Well, um, no, I'm.. um, it's, can, um, ah, let me show you the problem, then you can help me find the book that's got the answer in, or at least where to start!"

Quill marched over to Atom and laid the ledger down carefully on the ground in front of the unicorn, flipping the book around so that he'd be able to read the pages a little more easily. Opening the book up to the first page, Quill indicated a row of numbers down one side as he read aloud.

"See? Two hundred and eighteen, eight hundred and twenty one, one hundred and twenty eight, six hundred and ninety three, nine hundred and sixty three, three hundred and sixty nine," the dragon paused to take a breath before he carried on, "five hundred and ninety four, nine hundred and fifty four, four hundred and ninety five! It always gets to four hundred and ninety five. Or six thousand and seventy four, but that's only for the bigger numbers."

He stared up at Atom hopefully, as if reeling off the list of numbers was explanation enough as to his problem.

"I'm good with numbers - let's have a look," Atom nodded. "What are these numbers from? They're not likely to mean much of anything without context."

"Well, the two hundred and eighteen is the number of lug nuts Widget ordered two weeks ago, so if you arrange those numbers from biggest to smallest, you get eight hundred and twenty one, then you subtract the numbers smallest to biggest, so that's," Quill peered at the book thoughtfully, his tongue poking out one side of his mouth, as nothing helps you concentrate more on a problem than that, "eight hundred and twenty one, minus one hundred and twenty eight, you get six hundred and ninety three. Then if you do the same thing to that number, you get five hundred and ninety four, then you do it again, and- bam! Four hundred and ninety five! It's the same with the one hundred and forty five different gears Widget has."

Pulling his gaze away from the book of numbers, he looked up at Atom somewhat skeptically.

"Um, I'm Quill, thanks for the help, good-with-numbers-pony."

Pinkie Pie had been rather amused by both Shai Ni's antics and Quill's appearance.  But all the talk of numbers has her pondering as hard as her ponderously pondering ponderer could ponder.

"Well, what about the seven-hundred and eighty one sprockets he has lined up in the workshop?  Or the five-hundred and seventy three shingles on his roof?  Or the one-hundred and fourteen steps it takes to get from his workshop to the flower stand down the way?" she piped in curiously.