Rookie guard-in-training Shining Armor trotted through the grand halls of Canterlot Castle, his golden armor clanking with each step that he took.
While he walked, the alabaster unicorn stallion looked around the hallways, taking in the glorious designs of the great building that served as the capital of Equestria. Ivory tile walls with arcing space, decorated with well cared for potted plants; a long, red carpet underneath his hooves; stained glass windows that doubled as a chronicle for a significant time in Equestria. The beauty of it all was endless.
But that wasn't what Shining Armor came to see on his first day off from training.
No, he came down this part of the castle for something -or somepony- much valuable to him.
After taking a few turns away from the stained glass hallway and up a flight of stairs, Shining Armor smiled as he came across a set of double doors colored teal, the same color that Princess Celestia herself described to him. Using a gentle hoof, Shining Armor opened the door a little more, and when he looked, his smile became a toothy grin. Inside that room, was a little lavender unicorn filly reading her book, using her magic to turn the pages before she continued to read on the subject that was obscured by her head.
Shining Armor smiled once again before he silently closed the door, knocked on the door, and getting a tiny "Come in" as a response. He opened the door and walked inside, seeing his sister get absorbed into her books like water getting soaked in like a sponge. As he suspected, Twilight was too preoccupied with books to even look at who came into her room.
But he knew one way to her head out of the pages.
"Did Princess Celestia send you?" she asked, not even looking as she levitated a closed book next to her and moved it to Shining Armor, who carried in his magic. "If you did, could you please ask her if there's an updated version of this book? It's a few years outdated, and I need something more recent."
The stallion chuckled. "You know, I would," he said, making the little filly perk up and gasp, "but I don't even know where the royal library is."
Twilight jerked around and gasped as she saw her big brother best friend forever standing in her room, which followed with a squeal. "Shiny!"
“Twily.”
Shining Armor took his helmet off, fell to his haunches, and opened his arms up to his sister, who pounced into his embrace. The two Sparkle siblings shared in their hug for a moment before they broke apart, and nuzzled each other.
“Oh, Shiny! It’s good to see you!” Twilight exclaimed. “I’ve missed you so much, BBBFF!”
“Aw, I missed ya too, kid,” Shining Armor replied. “How have you been, being the princess’s new student and all?”
“It’s so great! I’ve got to learn so many new magic spells, and I’ve been practicing them with Princess Celestia on the weekends!” Twilight told, bouncing around in a circle excitingly. “Also, I’ve been going to the School for Gifted Unicorns as a full-time student, and I’ve already met some great friends!”
“You did!? Twily, that’s wonderful!” Shining Armor swept Twilight up in his hoof and gave her a friendly squeeze. “How do you like that!? You’re eleven years old, and you’re making some new friends! If I didn't know any better, I'd say, you're starting to grow up!”
"But Shiny, I'm already grown up!"
"Not when I look at you, you're not," the stallion quipped.
"Shiny!"
The alabaster unicorn chuckled as Twilight pounded his stomach in a minor temper, finishing off with a pout and a pinkish hue on her cheeks. Shining Armor gave his little sister best friend forever one last hug before his eye caught on the open book that Twilight was reading by the time he arrived. "What's that you're reading, Twily? Is that something for your class?"
Twilight looked over to her open book. "Yep! It's pony anatomy! I'm learning the basic functions of the equine body, like how we breath, how we eat our food. I tried to read into how little foals are made, but my teacher told me I had to wait until I was older so I could have a talk with mom or dad."
Shining grimaced at the thought. "Believe me, Twilight, you'd have to have a strong stomach if mom and dad want to have that little 'talk' with you."
"Yeah, I know," Twilight replied.
"So, is there anything I can do to help you with your class?" the stallion asked, making his sister think by tapping her chin with her hoof.
"Come to think of it, I might need your help with an essay on how digestion works," she said. "I'm supposed to take notes on what happens after somepony swallows their food and write a five-paragraph paper about it, but these books don't provide me with enough information. And they're the ones that were updated this year, and it's got the illustrations inside."
Shining Armor raised an eyebrow. "So what is it that you need me to do? Go find you another book about anatomy?"
Twilight shook her head and looked back to her brother with wondrous, expanding eyes. "No, I need you to eat me."
A deafening silence filled the room for a moment. Afterwards, Shining Armor began to chuckle, nervously at first, but then it grew into a laughter that muffled out Twilight's growling pout. When the volume of the laughter lowered, Shining Armor wiped his eye clear of a tear and cleared his throat.
"That's a good one, Twily. For a minute there, I thought you said you wanted to eat me." Another moment of heavy silence filled the air, and Shining Armor was looking down at the disapproved face of his little sister. Suddenly, it became clear; what Twily told him wasn't an elaborate prank, but a simple request, and him laughing only discouraged her.
"Wait. You're not serious, are you?" Shining asked.
"As serious as I ever will be," Twilight replied.
"But... but Twily, you can't go through with this. You won't survive one full hour inside my stomach, let alone fit inside my mouth."
"I know. That's why I perfected a shrinking spell that could make me small enough to fit in your mouth."
"But you're willing to have me swallow you!? Twily, everypony has gastric acid inside their stomach that was made to melt away anything that enters in there. You're likely to die from my acids, that is if the air inside doesn't kill you first."
"I knew that, too. I've practiced a full-body enchantment that would withstand to any physical injuries for the next five hours, so I'll be safe from digestion."
"Yeah, but..." Shining tried so hard to come up with a plausible argument to talk his sister out of her research, but he couldn't find the right words to say. "Twily, I'm not trying doubt your magical abilities here, but what'll happen if something goes wrong? You're Princess Celestia's student. You're still learning how to perform spells from every book you find and I think you're not really cut out for this."
"Don't worry, Shiny, nothing will go wrong," the unicorn filly assured. "But of something does happen and I need to get out of your stomach, then I'll have to give you a signal, something like uh... if you feel me pound in your stomach, or if your belly starts glowing red."
"I don't see how that'll make me feel better, Twily. I mean, if mom and dad gets word about what you were doing, then we're gonna be grounded until we're about the same age as our grandmother."
"Nothing will go wrong, Shiny. I promise," Twilight assured, more firmer this time.
A collected, defeated sigh snorted from Shining Armor's muzzle as he hung his head down. He really did not want to do this, but his LSBFF made up her mind. Once Twilight made up her mind about something, there was no trying to turn her back. "Alright, Twily, I'll do it," Shining Armor said with a slight smile, "but when this is over, you're never telling anypony about this, not even Princess Celestia. Deal?"
Twilight giggled. "Deal."
A glow of magenta light engulfed Twilight's horn, and in an instant, a notepad and pencil was lifted from the nearest table and hovering around her head. With her note-taking tools ready at hoof, Twilight concentrated her magic to the size-alteration spell, and in the process, her body began to reduce significantly to the size of a bean. At her point of view, Twilight looked up and saw the colossal form of her big brother -now her BIGGER brother- towering over her, his hooves like white pillars with a hard, navy blue base. Shining Armor laid down on his stomach, creating soft tremors that nearly knocked Twilight over, and placed his forelegs in front, giving him the appearance of a Neighgyptian sphinx.
The titanic stallion laid his muzzle to floor before Twilight, hot jets of air blowing from the orifice of his nostrils. His twin white pools that were his eyes moved their azure irises and pupils down to meet with the tiny mare on the floor with a look of wonder and concern. "Are you sure about this, Twily?" the giant asked Shining Armor's booming voice. "This has got to be one of the craziest magical stunts you've pulled so far, aside from your entrance exam of course."
"I'm sure, Shiny!" Twilight shouted so his ears would pick up her now squeaky voice. "I trust you completely with all of my heart, BBFF!"
The mention of his very little sister calling him her BBBFF made Shining Armor sigh, washing the tiny unicorn with a warm gust of air. "Alright. Here goes nothing, I suppose."
Shining Armor's lips parted wide, giving Twilight another gust of his breath as he revealed his dark, pink, open maw to his sister. Twilight stared wondrously at the inside of her brother's mouth, noting in her head how moist it looked inside, a strand of saliva connecting from the base of one of his molars to the bitter palate of his slippery, oily tongue. The white teeth set in the top and the bottom jaw helped frame the dark passageway to his stomach, the entrance to his esophagus with the dangling muscle hanging precariously overhead.
“Whoa,” Twilight thought as she reluctantly took her first step towards Shining Armor's open mouth. The behemoth tongue settled onto the tile floor, giving it a bland taste on Shining's palate, but it was about to change the second Twilight would lay her hoof on his tasting organ. The lavender hoof settled down on the tongue, and as the bumpy tastebuds would have it, a signal was transferred to Shining Armor's nerves and to a part of his brain, telling him that the first thing he was tasting was like a mixture of plum and tart raspberry flavor.
Twilight climbed onto the tongue now, the little pitter-patter of hooves like the tickle of a little bug's legs to Shining Armor, and took in the senses of her brother's mouth. The tongue was indeed slick and moist from saliva, but the inside of the mouth that constantly transitioned to cool and extremely humid with every airy breath taken in and expelled from Shining's lungs. Twilight moved her pencil and scribbled down the ominously threatening teeth around her area, from the chomping incisors at the front to the mashing molars near the back. It was becoming interesting for Twilight, really, to have an up-close look of the equine mouth.
"Fascinating," Twilight muttered to herself before turning her attention to her brother. "Okay, Shiny, what I need you to do next is to go and find something simple to snack on! I have an apple that I haven't eaten with my lunch, so that should do the trick!"
"OKAY!" came Shining Armor's voice at a deafening volume that made Twilight cover her ears and scream.
"Shining, lower your voice! I'm in your mouth, remember!? Everything you say at an indoor voice is like me getting blasted by stereo speakers on maximum!"
"OH!" Shining gasped before he quickly realized his mistake. "I mean, oh. Is that better, Twily?"
"Much, thank you!"
Shining Armor closed his mouth and looked around Twilight's room to look for the apple, easily distracted by the delicious, fruity flavor of his sister in his mouth, and the feeling of her trying to keep her balance on his tongue with her scurrying movements. He tried so hard not to swallow the little filly, but his urges to savor her like a little piece of fruit was becoming too much for the stallion. He shivered and whimpered uncontrollably, and just as his sister was about to say something, he brought his tongue to the roof of his mouth, and suckled on Twilight's shrunken body. He moaned in delight, blocking out the screams of his sister.
After Shining Armor closed his mouth, Twilight was left in a prison of darkness, humidity, and slippery slick moisture, with her magenta-colored magic being the only dim light inside. The unicorn tried to hold her stance on Shining Armor's tongue, but the saliva and the movements of his head made it so hard, she nearly fell face first into her brother's tasting organ. The tongue undulated a little, as if it wanted to push her back into the esophagus and send her deep into the stomach of her BBBFF where she would not only be part of his after-lunch snack, but she would miss the chewing, the first stage of digestion.
A deafening, teen-like whimper rang all over the interior of the mouth, causing Twilight to cover her ears again. "Shiny, what are you...?"
Before she knew it, Shining Armor’s tongue skyrocketed and pinned Twilight to the roof of his mouth, causing her to squeal as she felt his brother tasting her. “Shiny, what are you doing!? Lower your tongue right now!”
The thunderous moans from Shining’s throat confirmed Twilight’s fears; she tasted good, and Shining Armor was enjoying his living treat. Twilight screamed as the tongue lowered and curled to the shape of a “U”, catching the flavor from both sides while she was being rolled over on her back, covering her in saliva. Her open-mouthed scream made it possible for a drop of saliva to enter her mouth, causing her to choke on it a bit while she unwillingly downed her brother's spit and it settled into an upsetting stomach.
"Shiny!" Twilight choked. "Shining Armor, STOP!"
Outside, Shining Armor shivered pleasurably as he played with his little sister's flavor, rolling her over with his tongue. He moaned again as he scooped up Twilight with his tongue and pressed her against his cheek, humming to his enjoyment of the fruity taste and the struggles she made on his tastebuds. Twilight, on the other hoof, was being tortured by the very tasting organ belonging to the very same pony she hoped would help her with her anatomy. She was lifted up by the tip of her brother's tongue and slammed into the malleable, fleshy wall, flailing her limbs around to get Shining Armor to stop what he was doing, but that only added flavor to his palate.
"Shining Armor! Stop! For the love of Celestia, please STOP!!!"
Her louder-than-usual voice finally fell onto Shining Armor's sensitive ears, as it made him freeze up and open his mouth wide, letting in all of the light into his maw and all the excess drool to drip out of his mouth. "Aw, no. Twily, I'm so sorry!" he said, his mouth full of his sister. "Are you okay, kid!?"
Twilight groaned dizzily. Her senses were shaken up, her head was swimming like it was swept up in a maelstrom, and her breathing was deep, but overall, she was alright. "Shiny, what did you do that for!? Didn't your forget that I was still in your mouth and now you've treated me like I was some piece of candy!?"
"Oh, Twily, I'm sorry. It as just that..." Shining Armor shivered. "...you just tasted so good, I couldn't help myself."
The filly sighed; she could understand why she tasted so good. Just last night, she accidentally spilled plum and raspberry juice all over herself when she was trying quell her midnight thirst. The colors were washed off, but the flavors were still stuck to her fur. "It's alright, Shiny, just refrain from swallowing until we begin the research, okay?”
“Okay,” Shining Armor said before he closed his mouth, trapping his sister inside. He looked over the room, and on the bed was Twilight’s aforementioned apple, red, ripe, and ready for the feasting. “Found it.”
“Great!” Twilight said, hopping on the malleable tongue. “Now, I want you to take a bite out of that apple and keep chewing until I say you can swallow.”
“You sure about this? You do realize that if I chew that apple up, you might get chewed up as well.”
“Hey, protection spell, remember?” Twilight reminded. “No matter how hot the acids or how hard the pressure, nothing’s gonna do me in like that.”
She fell on her haunches and rubbed her hooves together with anticipation. “Besides, if this is what’ll give me an ‘A’ on my essay for science class, then this is gonna be worth it.”
Twilight felt a deep, hot gust of air blow on her back as Shining Armor heaved another defeated, uncertain sigh. “Whatever you say, Twilight,” the giant’s voice resounded as he brought the apple to his mouth, his jaws parting and the lips opening to welcome the red apple to its final destination.
Before the incisors tore into the skin of the apple, Twilight cast a magical aura in the form of a sphere around her, blinking magenta flashes a few times for effect just as the teeth chomped through the apple with ease and tongue jolted. Then in a slow, chomping motion, Shining Armor clamped and unclamped his jaws, reducing the apple to a crunchy pulp, liquefying the fruit into mush because of his saliva. Almost immediately after the first bite, Twilight began to hastily scribble down her observations and dictated them to herself as she went along the way.
"The incisor teeth, also commonly known as the front teeth, is used to cut down food that enters the mouth. While in the process of mastication, the molar teeth grinds the food down into little bits with the saliva reduces solid food into a liquid-like substance. This is the first step into the process of digestion."
Twilight finished her notes with perfect timing as Shining Armor's tongue tossed her along with some apple to the right side of the molars, flinging her onto the top of the enamel as the top jaws came down on her. Twilight squealed and flinched, squeezing her eyes shut as she waited to get crushed under her brother's teeth. But she didn't feel any pain. Instead, when opening one eye, Twilight saw the top half of the jaw hadn't crashed on her, but on an indestructible shield that she conjured earlier. Smiling at her successful casting of her spell, Twilight rolled off of the molar and back onto Shining Armor's tongue, allowing the molar to crunch down on the rest of the apple chunk.
“Whoa, that was close,” Twilight said to herself. “Looks like I might make it through to write my research, no problem.”
“Twily? Are you doing okay?” Shining Armor’s voice came through.
“Yeah, I’m alright!” Twilight yelled to her gigantic brother.
“Oh, good. After I couldn’t bite down with that last bite, I was afraid I might’ve chewed you up.”
“Not entirely. My protection spell… well, protected me just as you chomped up the apple.”
“Thank goodness that you plan ahead of these things, Twily,” Shining Armor complimented. "So, now what?"
"And now, it's time for the main event..." Twilight said as she placed her pencil behind her ear and enforced another layer of the protective sphere around her. "Shining Armor, I would like you to do the honors.”
Shining Armor sighed as he knew what Twilight was referring to. It was high time that he helped his sister out, but he didn't want to do it just yet. Shining Armor had to show Twilight the last light of day before she would be banished to the dark pits of his stomach. "Alright," Shining Armor said, trotting towards Twilight's mirror and opening his mouth up wide.
In the reflection of the glass, Twilight saw her and Shining Armor in the mirror, his azure eyes gazing at the tiny-sized unicorn in the middle of his tongue. To think, Twilight had willingly volunteered to become part of Shining Armor's snack in an effort to pass her science exam, and now there she was, standing his wet, hot mouth, surrounded by strands of saliva and a mulched chunk of a red delicious apple. The uvula in the back of his mouth dangled over his esophagus, rising and falling for every open-mouthed breath the stallion took.
'So this is what food feels like,' Twilight wondered just as Shining Armor closed his lips, sealing her in darkness. Then, his tongue undulated, sending the apple to the back of his throat, catching the filly in the bolus. With a tilt of his head, Shining Armor opened up his esophagus, and swallowed everything in his mouth down, apple, Twilight and all. He shivered as he felt an apparent bulge slide down his throat and disappear in his underbelly, where he felt it settle in his stomach and his sister’s movements scuttling inside, tickling him. Smiling, Shining Armor took his hoof and gently rubbed his belly, part of him hoping that something doesn’t go wrong with the research as his belly began to gurgle a little.
Twilight’s trip down her brother’s esophagus was a bit thrilling. Even through her protective shielding had kept her from drowning in a deluge of liquefied apple mush, she could barely see anything else beyond it. She never got the chance to witness how the esophagus was shaped, nor did she actually get a good look at the sphincter that squeezed her and the apple through into Shining Armor's stomach. That came as a sudden drop feeling that made Twilight yelp as she plummeted into the pond of murky liquid, her protective sphere giving her buoyancy that made her bob in the sludge and the surface.
Using her the light of her horn, Twilight lit up the entirety of Shining Armor's stomach in a magenta glow. Shining Armor's stomach was about the size of her room in her eyes, fleshy lining leading up to a puckered ring of flesh. His stomach acid bubbled and gurgled, releasing a hot, pungent gas that made it a bit hard to breathe inside. The splashdown of food and Twilight must've agitated the acids upon impact.
"Wow, it's like an oven in here," Twilight commented as she looked around and saw another piece of food half-submerged in the liquid. It was a little hard to tell in the light, but Twilight saw it was the half-eaten remnants of a digesting daisy sandwich sat there motionlessly, slowly being eaten away by the bubbling soup. The sight alone was enough to present Twilight with a perfect opportunity for note-taking.
"Hey, that should be perfect for my essay!" she said to herself as he observed the digestion of the sandwich and wrote down what she saw. "Stomach acid is composed of mostly hydrochloric acid, potassium chloride, and sodium chloride. The combination has a slow-lasting effect that breaks down food in the time lapse of thirty to ninety minutes. Afterwards, the food gets sucked into the small intestine and starts its journey through through the digestive tract."
"Twily, can you hear me?" she heard her brother's voice come in like a slight muffle.
"Yes, I can hear you, Shiny!" she replied.
"Twily, are you doing okay? You're not getting hurt or anything, are you?"
"Quite the opposite!" she said happily. "I just finished my notes on how food gets digested in your stomach! It's a bit gross, but it's also quite fascinating!"
"Glad to hear you're doing okay," said Shining Armor. "How long do you plan on staying in there?"
"Until I get to the end," Twilight answered, making her brother grimace.
"Yuck! Twily, don't tell me you're gonna..."
"Yes, I am," Twilight insisted. "If I'm gonna take those notes for my essay, then I better make sure I capture everything that happens... and I mean everything."
"Twily, I'm not so sure about this..."
"It'll be fine," Twilight assured her brother. "As long as I'm safe in my protective sphere, I'm never gonna get hurt. I'll get out safely, BBBFF, you can trust me."
The little filly heard a deep intake of air, followed with a big exhale, presumably made by Shining Armor's sighing. "Alright, Twily, I trust you," he said. "But on the second you get yourself into trouble or something starts to go wrong, I'm pulling you out immediately."
"Fair enough," Twilight said. While she observed the secreting fluid dripping from the fleshy ceiling, Twilight decided to break the prolonging silence, not counting the stomach's grumbling and the rhythmic heartbeat. "So Shiny, how long do you think you're going to stay until you're going back to the training academy?"
"I'll be headed back later tonight," Shining Armor's voice came. "So I've got time to meet with mom and dad and have dinner with them before I have to get back to the barracks."
"You are!? Can I join you guys at dinner, please!?"
"I don’t know, Twilight, can you?” Shining Armor asked, his questioning tone making Twilight's ears fall back and her head droop. What Twilight didn’t know was that outside of the digestive sac, Shining Armor sported a smug smile across his muzzle. "After all, you have told Princess Celestia that I was coming down, right?"
"No, you just surprised me with your visit."
"That's right," Shining Armor nodded his head. "And do you think that Princess Celestia would allow you to come home without asking her permission, especially since that you are now her personal student?”
“No…”
"And what's gonna happen when you do something without the princess's consent?"
Twilight whimpered. "She'll suspend from school for a full week, possibly even expel me..."
Shining Armor could hear the fear and guilt inside his sister's tiny voice. With a concerned face, he brought his hoof up and gently massaged his stomach, rocking the stomach acids and Twilight in her protective sphere around her gently. "Aw, don't think that way, kid. I'm sure Princess Celestia will understand if you want to come back home just for the night. All you gotta do is ask her; it's as simple as that."
Twilight's ears unfolded, and she lifted her head up to the stomach ceiling. "Really? You think so?"
"I know so, Twily,” Shining Armor replied. “In fact, if I hadn’t asked nicely, I wouldn’t be in the Royal Guard like I am today.”
Twilight felt a smile creep onto her muzzle. “Thanks, BBBFF. I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome kid,” said Shining Armor.
Suddenly, the display of the loving brother-sister relationship was interrupted when a loud gurgle resonated and reverberated off of Shining Armor’s stomach. Twilight jumped at the sudden volume, and Shining Armor froze as the liquid began to drain at the very bottom of the stomach floor, sucking in the digesting food and Twilight along with it.
“Uh oh,” the filly whispered.
“Twily, what’s going on in there?” her brother’s voice asked her.
“It’s your stomach!” Twilight answered. “The digestion process has already ended, so half of the contents in your stomach are now being emptied inside of your small intestine!"
“What!?” Everything inside the stomach seemed to hum with Shining Armor’s yelling, provoking Twilight to flinching immediately in response. “But that was so sudden! How could my stomach already pass half of whatever I've eaten now when I swallowed you like twenty minutes ago!?"
"That depends!" Twilight yelled. "How long ago did you eat!?"
"Around dawn, about six o'clock! Why!?"
"Because it takes food about 2.5 to 3 hours for the first half of the contents in your stomach to empty into your intestines! If you really woke up at about six and the time is around noon, that means that the rest of your food is being sucked into your smaller intestines right now!”
“How do you know that!?”
“It was in the book I read before you came!” Twilight yelled, using her magic to flip back a couple of pages before and reading the time tables of the gastrointestinal transit. “I even wrote it down just in case!
“Oh! So, how long does it take for food to get into my colon and… out?” Shining Armor asked hesitantly as Twilight looked at her notes.
“About 30 to 40 hours.”
In that entire moment, everything went silent. Shining Armor’s eyes widened, his pupils shrunk down to Twilight’s size while on the inside of his stomach, Twilight looked at the drainage with a terrified look on her face and a frown that nearly stretched to her knees. After a moment of intense stillness broken by another gurgle, the two Sparkle siblings screamed in panic, a scream that only reached the doors of Twilight’s room and no further.
"Twily, you've gotta get outta there!" Shining Armor barked as her sister's struggles became felt in his stomach. "If you don't, you'll be be stuck in my intestines forever!"
The tiny filly ran around her spherical cage like a trapped household rodent, her actions causing the acids to agitate. She lit her horn up to activate her teleportation spell, but by the time her magical conduit glowed, she felt herself being jerked by a suction force and surrounded by a whirlpool of acids and mushed, digested food.
"I can't!" Twilight panicked. "I'm too deep to use my teleportation spell, and I can't see with all this food in my way!"
“Twily, you need to get out of there NOW! There’s no way you can survive 30 hours stuck inside of me!”
“I’m trying, but I can’t... WHOA!” Suddenly, Twilight felt her protective vessel being sucked into a ring of puckered flesh as the sphincter to the small intestines opened up, transferring the rest of the contents in Shining Armor’s stomach into the hours-long journey to his colon and beyond. Twilight couldn't help but whimper in terror as her brother's voice became muffled while she was pushed into the digestive tract, only hearing what appeared to be her name... not "Twily", but "Twilight"... as the sphincter closed behind her.