Fricabis Solis

The darkness that gripped that small, one-window room was absolute. It had outlasted the candles, outlasted Twilight’s night-owlish nature, it outlasted every light in Canterlot, from magical to the old-fashioned oil lamp. Not even the moon dared show its face before this night.

But this was not an oppressive, threatening darkness. No evil beings hid amidst it for some nefarious purpose. This darkness was gentle, almost warm. It embraced all that it touched, not swallowed, much like the tender embrace from a loving mother. In this darkness, one would usually find a peaceful, restful slumber, which is exactly what Jonathan found.

The young man was out like a light. No nightmares haunted him, no worries or fears gripped him. Warmth bathed his body, from the top of his head to the bottom of his heels. The bed that he laid on was one of the most comfortable he had ever known. The pillow that he laid his head upon was firm and soft. There was a comfortable weight on his chest that moved with him with each breath that he took. He felt safe, he felt warm; as he snoozed he could hear the gentle thump-thump of a heart.

But then something changed.

The air around him became electrified. With each breath that he took he could no longer smell pumpkin and vanilla, but ozone. The thump-thump in his ear began to increase in pace and strength. For a few moments, a great weight settled on his entire being; a weight that not only bared down upon his body but his very soul. His heart, trying to compensate for the disturbance, began pumping blood to his extremities with greater force. And with that came a series of consequences.

Jon began to squirm. His grip on whatever he was holding tightened, and his feet began to gently kick back and forth. He began to murmur incoherently, face scrunching up as he was slowly but surely pulled from slumber’s embrace.

And then, as if a switch was thrown, the night began to fade away. The blackness brightened, colors began to come alive. Rays of light poured over the mountaintops. The sole window in the little room became brighter and brighter. Soon, the first ray of sunlight poked through the blinds. Another followed that one, and another, and another, until much of the darkness was chased away and only shadows remained.

A beam of light to the face was the last nail in the coffin for Jonathan. Though he tried with all of his might to stay asleep, wiggling and rolling and covering his face with his hands, sleep fell through his hands like sand.

“God… damn sun. Lemme sleep…”

He cracked open an eye, then the other, blinking the sand and the blurriness from his vision. Mumbling a curse under his breath, he yawned, before burying his face into something soft and warm and closing his eyes again. To his surprise and confusion, a hum tore through the silence of the room as he did this.

Eyes snapping back open, he pulled his face away and picked his head up. That was when he saw it. That mass of white fur, those wings that were wrapped around him, soft, silky, rainbow-colored hair that stood out amongst the whiteness like a mountain of coal in the middle of a snowy plain.

“What the hell…”

His eyes slowly traveled upward. Up that plush, furry, muscular chest, up that thick, strong neck, past all of that hair that seemed to have a mind of its own. They stopped at a delicate, adorable, horsey face, with its smooth, feminine cheekbones and powerful, authoritative jaw. A pair of massive, amethysts eyes, unfocused and half-lidded, stared back at him as he slowly blinked.

That was when it all came back to him. The breakfast, the talking, the crying, those candles that lit up the room in the most particular of ways.

Princess Celestia, Lady of the Sun, Tetrarch of Equestria, smiled down at him as he exhaled explosively, the tension leaving his body. “Good morning, Jon,” she whispered.

It seemed like the two had somewhat changed positions during the night. Celestia not only had a hoof wrapped around him but both of her wings as well. Jon, meanwhile, had both of his arms wrapped around the alicorn’s barrel and had laid himself in such a way that he had as much of himself pressed up against her as possible.

Looking forward, he could see the place where his head had rested in her tuft. When he moved his hands, he noticed that they were nestled on either side of her wing joints. As he moved his feet back and forth, he felt her tail all around his legs. The two of them hadn’t so much embraced each other as almost fused into a mass of feathers and fingers and warmth.

Jon looked down at himself and at the princess. He wiggled around, trying to gauge the situation that he was in. Finally, he looked back up at the princess, smiling as best as he could this early in the morning.

A part of him wanted to get up. He wanted to get up, roll away, and apologize for some reason. But a time-honored rule—that he had staunchly held to since he was out of diapers—prevented him from doing so. That rule was simple: If you were warm and comfortable in a bed, you were obligated to stay in that bed until forced to leave.

He was warm and—while a little surprised—definitely comfortable, so he could not leave. Jon might have been many, many things, but a rule breaker wasn’t one of them.

“Good morning, Celestia,” he whispered back.

As if it had a mind of its own, his left hand began to scratch right under the princess’s wing joint. Celestia’s eyes widened sharply in what might have been surprise. For a moment, Jon thought that he had done something wrong, but this fear was nullified when her smile grew.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, wiggling back and forth ever-so-slightly.

Jon nodded, scooching a few inches away from the alicorn so that he could get a bit of breathing room. “Yeah. I slept a whole lot better than I thought I would actually,” he admitted, moving his hand downward so that he was scratching her side.

He must have had some discomfort on his face because Celestia frowned. “Would you like to get up, Jon?” she gently asked. “I would be more than happy to release you from my wings if you’re getting uncomfortable.”

To prove that her intentions were nothing but pure, she began to pull the wing on top of him back against her side. Jon’s eyes widened when he felt the warmth leave his back. A chill took its place; a horrible, stinging chill that no man should know before eleven o’clock. Making a face, he once again pressed himself against her.

“Like I said yesterday, I’m fine,” he assured, a shiver running up his back. “Please put your wing back where it was before I freeze to death.”

The princess regarded him for a few moments before a teasing grin graced her lips. “Very well, if you’re positive we can stay here for a little longer...”

The blanket shifted as she once again wrapped her wing around him, bathing his body in warmth. Jon sighed—almost groaned, really—appreciatively as he wiggled his toes back and forth. “Thank you. It’s freezing in this room.”

“The weather team brought in a cold front in preparation for winter just the other day,” Celestia told him. “It’s not quite bad enough that ponies need to bundle themselves up when outside, but it can get a bit chilly in the mornings.”

“No kidding,” Jon murmured, picking his head up and looking around the room.

He could see Twilight in the corner, a blanket wrapped around her body as she sat precariously on her chair. Her notebook was on the floor, open and covered with ink smudges, and her quill was stuck behind her ear, the writing end pointed at the ceiling. Smirking at the sight, he then looked over toward the window.

“Did you raise the sun already?” he asked, letting his hand wander down toward Celestia’s belly.

Celestia’s diaphragm shook as she let out a pleased hum, her back-leg twitching in delight at his touch. “Yes. Though it was a little tricky, I managed to do it from the bed so that I didn’t wake you,” she replied, smiling ruefully. “Though it appears that I’ve failed, since you’re up and talking to me.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it,” Jon said with a yawn. “I usually feel shitty if I sleep all day anyway.”

He once again picked his head up and looked over at Twilight. “I hope that Twi over there wasn’t up all night writing in that notebook of hers.”

Celestia shook her head and sighed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she fell asleep only a few minutes ago,” she said, beginning to gently run the frog of her hoof up and down his back. “Though I love Twilight like a daughter, she has the horrible habit of jeopardizing her health over the silliest of things. Her research included.”

Twilight, as if she had heard her name being said, let out a horsey snort, her whole body jerking before she went still.

With that, the room fell into a comfortable silence. Jon continued to nuzzle his cheek into his feather pillow and scratch Celestia’s back and side with a hand. Celestia, making sure to do as little as possible so that she didn’t make her bed-buddy feel uncomfortable or threatened in any way, limited herself to rubbing his back with a hoof and holding him tightly within her wings.

The silence went on for a long while before Jon looked back up at the princess and spoke. “Hey… about the whole, hundreds of lovers’ thing…”

Celestia, whose eyes had begun to close as she began to quietly drift back off to sleep, looked down at him. Her brow furrowed for a few moments, as she contemplated what he had said, before a look of unease came to her face. “Yes…?” she asked carefully.

Jon’s mouth twitched. “I don’t know if I’d be able to go through that many people,” he admitted. “Sure, the constant sex would be great at first, but I think that I would get tired of it. If I lived as long as you, I’d probably become a celibate monk after like a hundred years.”

Though there was no hint of mockery or distaste in his voice, Celestia found herself stiffening ever-so-slightly. Looking him over carefully, she pulled her hoof away from his back and tucked it against her chest. “In my younger years, I did grow tired of the pleasures of the flesh,” she admitted, looking away from him. “And for many years after that, I neither thought nor acknowledged any sexual desire in any that I met for a very long time.”

This time, the human smiled. It was a pleasant thing that sat well on his face and put her at ease somewhat. “I bet you got some wild stories,” he mused.

The princess’s ears perked up and a small smile wormed its way onto her face. “I… may have a tale or two. Much of what I did in my younger years shouldn’t be spoken in polite company, however.”

The two chuckled, Jon drumming his fingers against her belly.

“So what’s the deal with wanting a kid so bad anyway?” he asked. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve already led a pretty fantastic life. You climbed the mountaintop, you got the belt, you won the gold medal.” He shrugged. “Having a kid would seem like a real step down to me if I traveled ancient ruins and fought demons made out of sticks and all of that stuff.”

“Yes… it does seem rather regular, doesn’t it?” Celestia asked with a dreamy sigh, her eyes becoming unfocused. “To feel life growing inside of you, to care for another being like no other will, to feel the pain of bringing them to this world.”

Though she looked down at him, she did not see him, lost in another world.

“After you’ve done as much as I have, Jon, wanting something as natural and as… pure as that is as exciting and as desirable as anything that I can think of.”

“So that’s why you’re asking me to do…this?” Jon questioned, waving a hand around the room. “Because it’s something new?”

Celestia’s smile became just a tad bit sad. “No, my little human. I haven’t asked you to consider this because I wish for something new,” she said, leaning down and nuzzling his cheek. “I do it because I wish for something old; as old as time itself.”

Jon twitched in startlement. He could not only feel the fur on her cheek, but her lips as well. He could feel them brush up against the side of his face, could feel her hot, moist breath wash over him with each breath that she took.

“All females can hear the call of nature, Jonathan,” Celestia whispered, her voice twanged with sadness and want. “Commoner or noble; from the mightiest alicorn to the lowliest of earth pony to the dragons on their mountaintops, we can hear it. It wants us to find a mate, wants us to know the feeling of having a child grow in us. It wants us to bear that child, watch them grow and teach them all that we’ve learned.”

She stopped her nuzzling, simply pressing her cheek against his and lightly breathing.

“For far longer than I can remember, I have heard this call. When I was younger, I ignored it and could do so easily, too swept up in my adventures and conquests. But now I am old, Jon.” Celestia sighed, holding him a little tighter. “I am so terribly, terribly old.”

Jon, not knowing what else to do, began to rub her belly. “You don’t look a day over five hundred,” he proclaimed.

Celestia’s mouth twitched and her eyes seemed to light up for just a moment. “Thank you,” she said, nuzzling him again. “But still, I’m not as young as I used to be. Nowhere near as young. Life has slowed down, become less hectic and dangerous and filled with uncertainty. Many of the monsters that ravaged the world long ago are dead or gone. Though there have been some… mishaps recently, there has been relative peace in the land for a very long time.”

Giving him one last little nuzzle, she pulled herself away from him and rested her head on her pillow.

“Things have slowed down for my sister and I. This slowness has given me a chance to think, to dream, to listen to that sweet, alluring call that I had once so steadfastly ignored.”

Jon nodded slowly. “So… you’re becoming an old lady and you want to have a kid before you get even older?” he asked very, very carefully.

To his relief, Celestia chuckled good-naturedly. “I have been an “old lady” long before this kingdom was formed, Jon,” she said. “No, as I’ve said, I wish to experience all of the joys and hardships of being a mother. I wish to feel what mares have felt since the dawn of time.”

“But being a mom sucks,” Jon countered, brow furrowing. “You have to change diapers and clean up piss and vomit. Kids scream all the time, all night long, so you’re not getting a lick of sleep. They’re also germ factories that touch everything that they’re not supposed to, so you’re going to be sick and miserable all of the time along with being tired.”

With each negative consequence that he pointed out, the joy and excitement on Celestia’s face grew and grew until she was nearly glowing.

“Yes, it sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?” she asked with a sigh.

Jon’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re a masochist maybe.”

“As I said, I wish to experience both the good and bad of motherhood. All of it.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“What about if there was something wrong with the kid?”

“Whatever impairment or disability he or she had I would still love them with all of my heart.”

“What about if they’re a little monster growing up? What if they get into everything and cry and scream and throw fits over the stupidest things?”

You might have thought that Jonathan was singing the sweetest of songs onto the princess’s ear from the look that she was giving him.

“I’d like to think that I would do everything in my power to make sure that my child was raised better than that,” she announced, picking her head back up and placing her chin on top of Jon’s head.

He stiffened again, pulling his hand away from her belly. Celestia, still lost in her dreams, didn’t seem to notice. Mussing his hair up with a few purposeful nuzzles, she pulled away so that the tip of her snout was just a few inches from his face. Her mouth was parted slightly, putting her lips on full display.

Jon found his gaze lingering on those lips for far too long. Though he hadn’t the faintest idea why, his heart began to race.

Soft lips. Kissable lips. Lips that looked so familiar yet so different in the best of ways.

His eyes widened as he began to have thoughts. Thoughts that he had been having more and more regularly these past couple of months, much to his concern. They were thoughts that sent warning signals off in his head, but not as many as there could—and perhaps should—have been. And that made him nervous. Very nervous.

“What about if the kid was some kind of hybrid?” he demanded quietly, wrenching his gaze back to those big amethyst eyes staring down at him. “What if it had your head and my body? Or what if it had my head and your body? What if it couldn’t walk or talk? What if we made some kind of monster? Some freak?”

Celestia inched slowly downward, her eyes trained on his.

“As I said, I would love them with all of my heart. No matter what they looked like, how they acted, or what other ponies thought of them,” she said, the steel in her voice sending chills up his spine. Those lips came closer; so close that all he needed to do was lift his head up and he’d feel them. Taste them. “Nor would I care what ponies thought of my new pri—”

Jon’s eyes widened comically. “Bathroom!” he suddenly said, rolling out from in between Celestia’s wings. “I gotta use the bathroom.”

He could feel the princess’s eyes on him as he threw off the blanket, leapt from the bed, and marched over to the bathroom like a man possessed. He did his best to ignore it however, stretching his arms out nice and wide in what might have resembled a causal stretch if not for how jerky and forced it looked.

“Hey, how about we both go and get something to eat?” he asked, looking over at the still-sleeping Twilight. “That way we’ll be able to let that one rest for a while before she has us doing whatever she wants us to do next.”

Gathering up his courage— what little of that there was—he looked over his shoulder and at the bed. Celestia was lying exactly as she had been, her hooves outstretched and her head bent forward and her lips parted. There was now worry in those eyes of hers, however. Fear and worry and just a bit of regret.

She slowly picked her head up and looked at him. “Jonathan, I didn’t make you uncomfortable, did I?” she asked. “Because if I did, know that I—”

“No, no, no! It’s not anything like that,” the human protested, his voice cracking as it rose in pitch. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I was just getting a little antsy from lying in the bed for too long is all.”

His eyes began to drop from Celestia’s, down to those feminine cheeks and that powerful jaw, then tracing back up to those firm, soft lips. Realizing that he was staring, he shook his head like a dog, worry mixing in this his anxiousness.

“That and I actually really want to get something to eat!” he said a little too loudly, a forced smile coming to his face. “So don’t worry about it. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I should have lip—told you about it sooner.”

Though it didn’t look like she believed him, Celestia nodded all the same. “Very well, I shall ready myself and the two of us can go to the kitchens to get something to eat,” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Jon bit his lip. He opened his mouth to say something, but immediately closed it. “Yeah, we can keep talking like we were last night while we’re eating,” he said as he mentally kicked himself. “I mean, if you want to.”

Celestia nodded. “I would like that very much,” she told him, sitting up with her rear-legs tucked against her chest.

“Great. You go ahead and get dressed and I’ll use the bathroom real quick, then we can go.”

“I will wait here for you when you are finished.”

Resisting the urge to walk over and slam his head against the wall until one of them broke, Jon forced his smile to widen. “Great! I’ll be out in a second!”

Without waiting for an answer, he rushed over to the bathroom and closed the door behind himself as quickly as he could without slamming it.

Celestia, terrified that she had just overstepped her boundaries, let out a sigh. “Oh horse apples…” she quietly cursed. She then looked down at the bed, sighing dejectedly.

She could hear Jonathan pacing back and forth in the bathroom. He was muttering to himself, his feet pitter-pattering against the tiled floors. Celestia might not have been able to hear everything that he said, but she could hear bits and pieces.

“What the hell… Why would I… Every time I…”

A groan came from within the bathroom, which was immediately followed by something being thrown. A second later, the bathroom door was thrown open and Jon stepped outside.

His eyes were slightly wild and his hair looked like he had tried to run his fingers through it, only to give up halfway. He was staring at the princess hard, as if he was going to start shouting.

“You know, it took me six months to realize that you guys were people?” he blurted out, barely giving her a chance to look up at him and register his appearance. “I don’t mean that I didn’t know you were people, you’d have to be a dummy not to know that. I mean, I realized that you guys had jobs and family lives and businesses and mortgages. People-people stuff.”

Taking deep breaths through his nose, he began to pace the room.

“Back when I first got here, most of you guys just looked like a bunch of furry dogs to me. A lot of you were—and still are—really adorable, and I really wanted to pick you all up and pet you and baby-talk you guys whenever I saw one of you.” He began to wring his hands. “And I know that that wasn’t fair. Just because most of you look adorable doesn’t mean that I should treat you like that. You guys build businesses, you have a government, you throw parties. You aren’t animals, you’re people like me. I’ve realized that, and I’ve been doing my best to stop thinking like that.”

He stopped a moment and snorted, as if recalling something, before he began pacing again. “There’s been a couple of hiccups, more than a couple actually, but I like to think that I’ve done a pretty good job in that department.”

He walked until he was a few inches from the wall. Without missing a beat, he spun around on one heel and began making his way past Twilight.

“Lord knows what you guys first thought of me when I landed in that swimming pool,” he continued, so quietly that it was almost like he was talking to himself. “You all probably thought that I was some giant, hulking, ugly monster with weird, gangly arms. A couple of you probably thought that I was going to go on a rampage or eat one of you or some shit.” He snorted, as if the thought was so outlandish as to be humorous. “But even still, you all helped me out when I was scared and alone and didn’t know what was what. Even though I’m so different from all of you, I have pony friends and a pony employs me. Hell, on Thursdays, I go and play bingo and get drunk with a bunch of elderly ponies.”

Jon wrung his hands with greater force, rubbing a thumb over his fingernails. “Even though you all had every right to chase me into the woods or mount my head over a fireplace, you didn’t. Most of you didn’t see a monster. A lot of you didn’t even see me as someone all that different from you.” His brow furrowed as he looked down at his feet. “From almost the get-go, you saw me as a person.”

Walking by Twilight, he reached out and booped the mare’s nose. Twilight snorted, her body lurching forward and her wings popping to full extension before they settled back against her sides.

“The books are made of ice cream,” the mare mumbled, before going still. “Ice cream and hayburgers…”

Jon, regarding the purple alicorn for a few moments, shook his head and continued walking. “And that’s a really great thing. I wish people back home were as accepting as you guys. I wish I was as accepting as you guys.”

Celestia, her ears perking up, sat up in the bed a little straighter. “Jon, I—”

“Just, let me finish my thought please,” he interrupted, raising a hand as he looked at her pleadingly. “I know that I’m rambling, and I know that I probably sound like a nutjob, but there’s a point here. Really. I promise.”

Taking a deep breath, the princess made herself comfortable and motioned for him to continue, which he did gladly.

“Now that I’ve kind of gotten past the whole ‘you’re-all-alien-dogs-and-I-want-to-pet-you’ thing, I can see it in all of you. The way that you move, when you laugh, when you all smile or yell at each other or at me. I can see the humanity in you. Some of you are so much like the people I left behind that it drives me crazy.” He stopped in front of Twilight. “Look at this one. I knew a guy that would sleep exactly like this. Her facial expression is the same and everything. Right down to the fucking drool going down her lip.” Reaching up, he gently placed his hand against her cheek, using a thumb to wipe said drool away. “You guys are so, so human that I can’t believe it. And that goes for everyone, you and Twi and Pank and everyone back in town. Everyone.”

Jon sucked in a lungful of air, holding it in for a few seconds before releasing it with an explosive sigh. “Everywhere I look I can see it,” he said, almost whispering, as he shrank into himself. “There’s a flash of human with each time that I look at any of you. I can almost imagine seeing Twilight here as some chubby little girl and you as some smoking hot babe that could get any guy that she wanted. But I can also see the—” he waved his arms around vaguely. “—the pony parts of you.”

He began to fiddle with his hands again, looking down at them with a frown. “I always see the pony parts when one of you guys puts your head in my lap and wants me to run my fingers through your manes. I see that part when you guys hug me or nuzzle me and all of that shit.” He turned toward her, a thousand emotions running across his face. “But when one of you gives me that “come hither” look or tries to flirt, or when someone flicks their tail out of the way and I see… you know, I still see your pony side, but I can also see the human part.”

He looked down at the princess’s mouth for a few moments before his gaze flicked back up to her face. He took a half-step toward her, then another.

“At first, I was really freaked out when I saw things like that; when you guys showed me that you’re people-people, or pony-people, or whatever the hell you want to call it. The longer that I stay here though, I get less and less bothered by it. I’m starting to stop seeing it as seeing the pony-person part of you and more as the people-people part of you. Tail and hooves and all.”

Jon took a few more steps toward her, until he was standing a foot or two away from the bed. Anxiousness began to show in his features. “Does that make sense? I hope it at least makes a little bit of sense to you, because I’m thinking about what I just said and…” he trailed off for a few seconds before groaning, covering his face with his hands.

Celestia looked him up and down carefully, her face an emotionless mask. She then took a deep breath. “Jonathan, come here,” she said, gently but firmly, beckoning him with a wing.

Jon, his hands still covering his face, took the last few steps toward the bed, spun around, and sat down with a sigh. Without missing a beat, the princess wrapped a wing around his shoulder.

“…I mean, I might be dumb but I’m not stupid. I’m starting to see what you guys see. There’s bare asses around me all way, and some of them are just so fucking… when I squint I think I’m ogling some cute girl walking down the street instead of some unicorn or earth pony.”

As he continued to ramble nonsensically, letting his hands fall from his face and into his lap, Celestia leaned him towards her, pressing his cheek against her chest. Jon barely seemed to notice it, staring hard at the ground.

“The warning signals still go off. They still tell me that I’m looking at a four-foot tall, colorful little horse’s ass, but those signals are starting to get quieter and quieter, and sometimes I don’t even…” He groaned again, the noise making Twilight twitch in her sleep.

Grimacing as if he were in pain, he looked up at her. “…I’m sorry for blowing up on you like this, Celestia,” he mumbled, his toes digging into the carpet beneath. “I’m always such a bitch in the mornings and—”

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Jonathan,” she said firmly. She reached down and grabbed his hand with her hoof, giving it a squeeze. “You’ve obviously been holding all of… that within yourself for a while now.”

Jon shrugged, looking over at Twilight. “I was just thinking, since we may or may not… become better friends in the near future, that telling you this might… do something?” He sighed again, slumping down. “It might show you why I’m a little flaky on this? Maybe it’s just to show you that I’m some fucking spaz that shouldn’t have kids.” He softly snorted. “I don’t even know anymore. It’s just that you and Twi talking to me about… you know, is making me think really hard about it.”

He sighed. “I’ve kinda been thinking about it already, what with a couple mares in town asking me out and stuff. I know that I’ve been telling them no, but I don’t know if that’s just because I don’t want to go out with them or if it’s because I don’t think that I should…”

Celestia’s grip on his shoulder tightened as he went quiet. “I’m honored that you’d confide something like this to me, Jon,” she said, almost sounding grateful. “It must not have been easy to come out of that bathroom and tell me all of this, jumbled and confused though it was.”

Jon snorted again. “I’m telling you, I probably blurted all of that shit out because it’s early in the morning and I haven’t had any breakfast or coffee yet.”

The princess gave his hand another squeeze. “There is nothing wrong with being afraid of the new and unfamiliar, Jon,” she said quietly. “It is only natural for you to feel like you do, and Harmony only knows how I would react if I were in your situation.”

“If you were in my world some nut-job would have probably cut you into pieces to see how you worked. Or if you were particularly unlucky, someone might have tried to eat you.”

Celestia, her nose scrunching up ever-so-slightly, gave him a nudge. “That being said, you shouldn’t run away from these feelings, Jon,” she advised. “Confront them, sort them out, and, if you can, overcome and understand them.” She then smiled ruefully. “Trust me when I say that nothing good comes from running away from or ignoring your emotions.”

For a long while, Jonathan didn’t say a thing. He continued to look over at Twilight, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful. But, after nearly ten minutes of silence, he slowly looked up at the princess.

“…I think that it’s like a muscle that I need to exercise,” he told her thoughtfully. “The ‘ponies-can-be-attractive-and-I-kind-of-like some-of-their-butt’s’ thing, I mean. If I just sat down and talked with someone long enough, I think it wouldn’t be all that bad. I think. Maybe. At least, I don’t think that it would make it any worse.”

Celestia gave him a look. “Well, we’re both sitting,” she began. “And I’m more than happy to listen to anything that you wish to tell me…”

Again, Jon was quiet, mulling things over in his mind. After about a minute of this he looked up at the princess. “Do you remember telling me that your sexual escapades shouldn’t be said aloud to anyone?”

Celestia nodded. “I recall saying that, yes.”

Jon nodded in turn. “Well, not to sound pushy or anything, but I’d like to hear a couple of them, if you wouldn’t mind,” he said, moving himself so that he was properly looking at her.

Celestia looked down at him for several seconds, an eyebrow raised, before a smile came to herself. “Very well, but just remember my warning.”

Jon chuckled. It was a weak thing, bogged down with emotion and cracking from stress, but a chuckle all the same. “I’m not telling you to go all-out on me right out of the gate. You can ease into it. Maybe you start with how you and a full grown, hundred-foot tall dragon got it on in a bit better detail, since I’m still kind of interested about it. You know, for academic purposes.”