The Primrose War

Her hindquarters were getting numb, and Rosewater was certain the cups of her hooves would be wrinkled beyond recognition, both fore and hind, by the time they got out. But Collar was nestled in her embrace, his cheek resting at the base of her neck while most of him was underwater.

Moving wasn’t something she wanted to do right then, not after they’d soaked for the last hour since their frenetic lovemaking had drained both of them. Thoughts of breakfast fizzled and drifted away. He’d fallen asleep at some point during a slow, meandering conversation about where they would have their next outing, when, and whether or not it would be safe to invite Cloudy along.

The conclusion was that inviting Cloudy along would be safer. It would give Collar a reason to be away from the Palace, not alone, but romancing his love out where nopony like Wing or any of his obstinate children or relatives could get to them.

From there, it had meandered around and around what to bring, what dinner would be like, speculation about the weather, and just how big of a tent they would need anyway to house three full-grown ponies who might or might not want to engage in carnal acts.

They’d even toyed with the idea of somehow getting Rosewater to stay overnight at the palace, but the timing would need to be just right, and they would likely need to wait until blizzard season came until they risked such a bold move.

Then, Collar had started to drift after a long fight against post-coital and morning drowsiness, and she had almost joined him in slumber, but her mind kept revolving around the fact that she was in her own home, with her secret lover, holding him to her breast and not wanting to let him go.

Dreams of nights together with all of her loves drifted in and out of her thoughts, thoughts of he and Dazzle, and her between them, having sex for the pleasure of it, and relaxing afterwards into a slower, more intimate and loving round of lovemaking. Dreams of Bliss enticing Collar, and Rosewater and Cloudy urging him on, encouraging him to drink deeply of the love the Garden shared.

Transitory thoughts, wishes for days and nights that might never come, carnal nights that he might not want. But dreams all the same of sharing in the pool of love that she’d rediscovered.

Too, her thoughts wandered farther afield and further into the future, to when Merriedamme was real, when she and her loves sat on the throne and taught ponies to love and respect each other, to be friends above all else.

Her children, their children would grow up in a city without the constant strife and wondering if the next ruler, the next week would see their parents having to fight to keep them and their friends and family safe from ransoms, without having to wonder if their friends’ parents would be captured in a failed raid.

Trying to imagine what they would be like, the fillies and colts that would fill her and her loves’ lives with joy, brought up fuzzy images of Rosemary as a young filly, and Seed beside her causing mischief for her and Carnation.

They would be the same, but without that cloud that had seemed to hover of Carnation in the quiet moments in the night when they lay together in bed, talking with a line of pillows between them—parents without the intimacy, wondering how their daughter would fare in the coming years.

In those pauses in the dark, Rosewater now imagined that Carnation had wanted to tell her, to bring her in on the grand conspiracy to bring down Roseate held in secret between her and Lace. Likely a fancy, but maybe not.

She wouldn’t know, and couldn’t know, until she did end Roseate’s reign and rescinded the orders of exile formally.

That meant having a child of her own to formally claim her heirship as inviolable and concrete as the pilings of the Primrose Bridge.

Collar would be the father, and her precious child would be a bridge of their own, a symbol of unity between two cities, and the two ruling families.

“Stars, I wish you weren’t so,” Rosewater murmured, stroking her hoof down Collar’s side. “I wish, so much, that you could be only you…”

His ear twitched at her voice, and a moment later he stretched his hind legs out, pushing against her, rising up out of the water and lowering the level to below her shoulders.

“I was only half asleep,” Collar murmured when he settled back down, his eyes half-lidded, his hooves braced against the side of the tub to look up at her. “Who do you wish could be themselves?”

Almost, she denied her worries to him, not wanting to break up the perfect morning, but his look, trusting her, loving her, pushed aside the impulse.

“Our child. Our firstborn. They’ll be more than our child, Collar. He or she will be a bridge between our families and our cities.” Rosewater swallowed and looked up at the rafters, resting the back of her head against the tub’s raised lip. “I wish our child didn’t have to be a symbol, Collar. I wish they could be only themselves, free to love and laugh and be a foal, a young adult, an adult, without everypony reading into what their relationships meant, without reading into what each action, whisper, and embrace meant.”

“I know,” Collar murmured. “It was… a part of my reluctance to date you, you know, that it would be for politics. That you needed a child to secure your heirship.” He raised a hoof to touch her chin and stop her from replying. “I know that’s what you need, but I was afraid, when you proposed the path of our ‘negotiations’ that you weren’t doing it for love. I know better, now. I know that if we hadn’t meshed, if we hadn’t, that…”

Rosewater wanted to say it for him, saw the name on the tip of his tongue. She didn’t, barely, waiting for him to work past the conflict in his heart as his gaze darted to her, drifted, and darted back.

“You might have ended up with Dazzle,” he finished softly.

“I might have. He’s a dear friend and lover, and…” Rosewater stroked a hoof over his shoulder.

“You want him to be happy.”

“I do. I worry for him, that he fell in love with me so quickly. I think he’s been waiting to find somepony to settle down with, somepony…”

“Like you. A pony yearning for love and affection, something he had ample to give.” Collar’s voice wasn’t accusatory or judgmental, but musing. “And…”

“He’ll find somepony, or ponies,” Rosewater replied gently. “We four are already a full marriage contract. I want… I still want to be with him when I can, Collar.”

“I want you to.” Collar pushed himself up and nipped her jaw, then rolled away and sat up, facing her, sending a slosh of water over the edge and down the drain. “I’ve been thinking, Rosewater, not just napping.”

“Not napping?” She asked, half-teasing, though it faded after a moment.

“A little napping,” he admitted, touching her foreleg with a gentle hoof, then glancing down at the water, swirled his hoof about in the water, and sighed. “I tried to make my peace with him last night. I’m not sure… that I did. Not all the way. He loves you, Rosewater. Is in love with you, and he’s still struggling, just as I am, with… jealousy. Of his time with you, of the freedom he has to be with you any time he wants.”

“We can be together any night we want, Collar. If we take risks. If… if I took a risk. I won’t risk you here in the open or outside a warded home.” Rosewater crossed her foreleg over his. “Not like we are now. Not without the treaty as a shield for our being together.”

He thought that over, his ears ticking slowly he snake back against the side of the tub to mirror her pose, his hind legs mingling with hers under the sudsy water. “And… the war would go on.”

“It would. Maybe. It depends on what we managed.” Rosewater pushed her crossed hoof ahead to touch his shoulder. “But we would be together. We could fight her together. We could keep Damme safe for our children… and hope Rosary is kinder than mother.”

A slim hope. She uses her own daughter as a spy.

Collar sighed. “Happier things. This is our date, Rosewater. We can talk strategy and the grim future of failure some other day. I want to be happy today. That I’m in love with you. That we’re lovers. That… we’ll someday have children.”

My child. Rosewater swallowed the fresh stab of panic at having her child be in Rosemary’s position, a pawn in a game between mother and daughter. She won’t be. She’ll be a bridge, but she won’t be a pawn.

In the instant after, her thoughts jumbled to a stop. She? Stars, she was already certain what gender her child would be. “I’m… getting lost in thoughts and worries. We… should do something. Play cards? There’s a deck of them I would like you to take to Damme. They’re a family heirloom. After, we can talk about…”

“Growing up?” Collar asked her, smiling and nudging her under the water. “I would like to hear what it was like growing up in the Garden.”

“And I, what it was like growing up with Lace and Dapper for parents.”

“Mmm. Participating in cookie raids with dad was fun. Lace sat us both down and scolded us like children. And I the only child.” Collar laughed softly at her expression. “He hasn’t changed much from how you know him. He’s always been a little wilder. I think…”

Rosewater watched his smile fade. “I think he was afraid that growing up without a sibling would hurt me somehow. And… wanted to make up the difference as much as he could. He never said as such, but some of the things he’s told me lately after one of his talks with Rosemary hinted at it.” The smile came back more. “She and I share that, at least. Only children.”

Rosewater wanted to correct him, but… thinking back, they weren’t at the Garden every day. Only most days. And on frequent occasions, nights. But Carnation wanted to be back home on most nights, and fretted when she wasn’t, and more as Rosewater grew older with Rosemary. More still when Rosewater took more parental duties and let Carnation settle into a role as co-mother, no longer stretching herself so thin.

“Thinking back,” Rosewater murmured. “I think… she really was, in many ways. I think it made her want to reach out more. Something to talk to her about. I don’t know if she ever felt that way. Or knew how to express it. Until I turned into a recluse.”

Collar coughed and nipped her cheek. “She calls Seed a brother. That’s family.”

“She does. And she has other semi-siblings in the Garden, too. Other ponies the same age as her that she grew up with.” Maybe… she wasn’t as alone as I worried. Her thoughts started to drift away towards her father, wondering if… No. Stop. Rosewater shook her head and snapped her attention back to Collar. “We need to do something.”

Collar’s worried look didn’t help. “Rosewater, if…” he reached out, gathering up her other forehoof and bringing it to his lips. “If there’s anything I can do to help. Please, I want to.”

Share it. Tell him. She opened her mouth to do just that, stopped herself, and drew the pain and the anguish back into its box. It was too personal. She’d not even told Dazzle. Not Seed, nor Petal, nor Rosemary. Not even Carnation. His death… how…

It was easy to put the lid back on the box and tuck it back away into the farthest reaches of her psyche. She had enough practice, and more lately. Even if the box spilled over more often of late. She could keep it up.

“Rosewater?” Collar’s eyes searched hers, his ears nearly flat. “Stars, mare… I’ve never seen you look so sad. What…” His ears flicked, and a dawning look of comprehension flashed across his expression. “Your—”

“Don’t. Please.” Rosewater stopped him before he could open the box again. “Please, let me keep… keep this…” She drew a shuddering breath and slammed shut that part of her mind. “It’s a long story,” she said more evenly, steadily. “Best saved for a rainy day.”

He clutched her foreleg more tightly to his chin, watching her for long breaths, then nodded and let go. “I will hold you to that, Rosewater. Cloudy, and Rosemary, have told me about sharing. Not love alone, but support. It’s a… core part of even a Dammer relationship. Relying on each other. It’s even more central for your culture.”

“I… I know.” It was something she’d pushed aside for so long. “But not today. Please. I want today to be happy, Collar. We can make pancakes for breakfast, and play Petals together, and…” Go for a walk. Stare at the clouds and be lazy. “Stars, I want to just be outside with you, Collar. I want to be unrestrained. I want… all of us. I’ll… I’ll share when we’re all together. When we all have an afternoon together.”

Collar fixed her with a firm look, nodded, and nipped her ankle. “I will hold you to that, Rosewater. You need to let go of whatever is causing you so much anguish, and we can help.”

“I… I know, Collar. But this morning,” she tapped his chest. “This morning is for us. This afternoon, and evening, too,” she went on when he started to object. “Collar, day after tomorrow, I’ll be at the palace for negotiations. I’ll share then.”

A scrabbling, fearful part of her brain tried to tell her they wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t understand why she’d kept it secret for so long, or why it hurt so much.

He studied her for another moment, nodded, and leaned forward to kiss her, whispering as his lips touched hers, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she whispered back. It was enough to push back the fears. Love meant something. It had weight and meaning in her mind. Solidity that she needed.

She wrapped herself around it, bracing herself against the fears that wanted to invade, even on a day like today. They loved her. They would understand.

“I didn’t think a pony’s frog could wrinkle quite so much,” Collar murmured nearly an hour later, mostly dry and laying out on a couch in a room Rosewater had introduced as the music room, an upstairs, sprawling portion of the attic that was clean, well-ordered… and had no musical instruments visible. Only the breadth of the floor hinted that maybe this had been a dance floor.

Though, an upstairs dance made him nervous, regardless of how well-braced the floor was, and it felt extremely solid, as if it’d been laid out directly on stone.

She was… calmer, more collected than she had been before they’d set about cleaning each other in earnest. Whatever it was she was hiding, she’d kept it hidden for almost three decades. Perhaps from everypony.

Does Rosemary know? Does Seed? Did Carnation?

But she seemed bound and determined to keep it secret for at least two more days, and focus on finding a deck of playing cards she insisted needed to be protected and made safe in Prim Palace. “How long were we in the bath?”

“At least two hours,” Rosewater said, shifting about a trunk with a spell, then flipping the lid up. “Where are you…”

“Why this deck of playing cards?” Collar heaved himself up, tested the play of his hoof, found the floor feeling odd, with the strangely textured floor covering tickling a part of him he usually barely paid attention to. “I saw a deck of paper cards on the sitting room table.”

“These are great aunt Rosefire’s deck of Petals cards. They were… for private parties, and they’ve been in her family for generations.” The grin she gave him told him just what kind of private parties they were for. “I want to give them to you so we can play them with Cloudy and Rosemary later.”

“Why not us together?” Collar asked, his ears perking up. “We can play a hoof today. Or two. Or three.” Anything to fill the time and talk. Something safe to do. More and more, he wished they’d had the freedom to go someplace else without the risk of discovery. Or at least more time to plan. But…

Today was important. They’d already consummated their relationship, and… with that… existed the future of their marriage. Children. Her ascension to the seat of Merrie. No matter how hard he tried to avoid the latter, it was a real consequence and boon to their union. Or would be.

“They’re… hm. One moment. They came with a warning not to play with less than three ponies. But the ruleset isn’t the one common to the Garden and its Petal Nights. It’s an old variant of the game from Rosewine Rosethorn’s time.”

“And we’re looking up here, because…?” Collar feigned a sneeze. “It’s dusty.”

Rosewater paused in her rummaging to stare at him over her shoulder. “Dusty. Collar, there isn’t a speck of dust up here. I cleaned yesterday.”

“Attics are dusty. This is a well known fact, and this is an attic, regardless of whether you call it the music room.” He stuck his tongue out at her. “I win. By definition.”

“I won’t concede.” Rosewater chuckled and pulled out a lute, a violin case, a horn, and two small drums from the trunk, hefting each one up and showing him, then setting it down deliberately. “It is the music room because, when this was a house filled with family, music was played up here.” She went back to rummaging in the trunk, briefly lifting up other instruments or what he thought were instruments, and either setting them aside or placing them back in the box. “And it was also the card parlor.”

“Because it’s the biggest room in the mansion?”

“Because of that, yes. It used to be an aerie for the pegasi that lived here, but Aunt Rosefire’s mother had it remodeled to be more comfortable for friends and family when they visited.”

A stack of books, then another, and another came out and, curious, Collar called one over to him. Lover’s Cove by Terrace Roseby. A simple title for a thick book. He flipped through a few pages while Rosewater continued to mutter and grumble, and even more stacks of books joined the first three.

It was the story of how a Canterlot bound ship, full of Merriers and Dammers alike going to pay a visit to the capitol, had gotten shipwrecked, and the survivors, four Merriers, and four Dammers, had to survive on a deserted island. The first few pages were little more than a summary of what had happened in the prior book. They’d set up a miniature replica of the cities, with the Merriers on one side, with a goodly supply of fresh water, and the Dammers on the other side, with an even better supply of wild, edible plants.

“Was this very popular in Merrie?” Collar asked, floating the book over to her. “I’ve never heard of it. Or the author.”

Rosewater paused in her search to look, brows rising. “Stars, I haven’t read this since I was fourteen.” She flipped to the back, frowned, and dug around in the piles of books until she found two more. “Here. It’s a trilogy. Lovers’ Voyage, Lovers’ Cove, and Lovers’ Rescue. I think you might like them. It’s set almost a hundred years ago, so… no Reformations.”

“And we were raiding just as often as you were,” Collar said with a sigh. “It’s curious, then, that such a book would be written. Let alone published and, apparently… typeset?”

“It was written when your mother enacted the Reformations, and published out of Canterlot. It’s a series about hope, Collar. For the future and what it meant. While Roseline and my father were still alive.” Rosewater ducked her head back into the trunk with an alacrity that alarmed him. “It gave me hope, as a teenager.”

Collar set all three at his side. “I’ll give them a read, then. I’ve been looking for something to surprise Cloudy with. I don’t know if she’s read these. She’s never mentioned them at least.”

Rosewater let out a squeak and hopped back, a thick deck of thin, hoof-lacquered, copper cards, the case they’d come in settled on the top of the trunk as she closed it. “Ah! Here they are!”

“Stars, copper cards, Rosewater? What in the world?”

“Well, these are… enchanted cards. Of a sort. The enchantment is passive, but… subtle.” She pulled one free and tapped it against her hoof, making it sing briefly, sending a shiver across Collar’s skin. Magic hummed in the sound, but not the magic that was at its core.

“They’re… they enhance desire,” Rosewater explained, hesitant again. “Activated by either body heat or spell, they… encourage what a pony is feeling. What they want.”

“An enticement spell?” Collar asked, watching her from a short distance away, his instinctual distrust of enticement and lure spells running into the trust he’d built up for her intentions. He’d come to know her well enough by now— By now? Stars, you’re in love with her. You know she wouldn’t do that to you. Not when she only had to ask, and he’d be eager for her.

He heaved himself up and tucked his reservations away and came down to sit by her, leaning into her shoulder and studying the back of the card. Shiny lacquer covered etchings in the copper, some of the lines filled in with gemstone dusted paint of some sort in a pattern pleasing to the eye… and a faint radiance that didn’t seem to be coming from any of the few streamers of sunlight breaking through the curtains to light the music room.

“They’re… I…” Rosewater cleared her throat. “They’re safe for occasional use, but, like many things in Merrie, overuse might lead to reliance. They’re active right now, but since we’re not… looking at the paintings on them, our desires are…”

“To be with you, right now,” Collar murmured, nuzzling her cheek. “Show me.”

She flipped over the top card, and Collar found himself looking at an intricately detailed painting, a green-coated stallion lounging on four cushions shaped like hearts with an erection, and a dappled one at that, laying across one of smaller pillows, a thin tracery of pearl inlay trailed from the tip down to pool on the ‘floor’ of bare copper. Behind it, the same traceries of etchings in the metal betrayed their permanent spell. Weak with so little gemstone.

“Well.” The stirring in Collar’s sheath surprised him. No doubt the earth pony stallion was well-built, and his penis was exceptionally fine, even if it was an artist’s rendition of a statuesque pony. What about you… He blinked, chuckled, and kissed her cheek.

She stirred next to him at the movement, a heat spreading from her shoulder to his. “Do you feel anything?”

For a moment, Collar paused with his mouth open to deny it, then shook his head. “No, not particularly.” Something about the open way the stallion lay, inviting all eyes to stare, did wake something. That could be me. “The style of painting. Neoclassical realism?”

Rosewater gave him a sharp look, chuckled, and nodded. “They were, I understand, commissioned by Aunt Rosefire’s great-great-great grandmother to celebrate the founding of the Garden of Love. And, well, the ending of the threat of civil war. Which, I imagine, is the reason she gave for ordering them made.”

“It was meant for orgies.” For a moment, Collar’s mind descended to the level of ponies rutting with no rhyme or reason before a more recent orgy surfaced. A measured affair, planned and coordinated, not a riot of sex and rutting, but a time for making love between friends and spouses. “Like the one you and Cloudy attended. Dinner, a story, and sex.”

“Orderly, yes. Games played and enjoyed with friends, lovers, and spouses.” Rosewater flipped to another card, this one of a mare on her back, her two hind hooves supporting a string of six roses, with a seventh painted in where her anus would be. Her forehooves were clutched over her hips, opening herself to the viewer, inviting a closer look.

This card did stir him more, and he shifted as his sack tightened and he felt a rising tension growing in his sheath that he kept a lid on for the moment.

It was… more than he was used to seeing in a painted piece. He licked his lips. “They weren’t… shy about painting sexual scenes on these cards.” He could have kicked himself for saying something so obvious, but she only giggled and leaned against him.

“They’re meant to be fascinating. You can find these in card parlors around the city, but they’ll charge a hoof and a hindquarter to play with them. A single replacement card costs forty bits.” She tapped the edge of the card lightly against her horn, making the metal sing briefly again, higher pitched. “These…”

Collar whistled, staring at these antiques and tried not to think about how much such an artifact from almost two hundred years ago would be valued. They were priceless, in point of fact, he knew. Memories of a time long past. Even new ones needed the expertise in metalworking to make flat cards, nearly of a mirrored surface, and the know-how to etch a spell into copper.

He imagined whatever guild owned the patent on the process guarded the secret jealously. He turned over the next card more gingerly than he probably would have in any other situation, and nearly dropped it. After a moment, he started laughing. “Celestia’s teats, what a card.”

Rosewater chuckled. “That they are.” Princess Celestia lay regally on golden cushions… her hind leg raised to show off pink teats and the hint of a pink marehood. Her expression was amused, her ears perked, and her ethereal mane that he’d never actually seen up close, almost leapt out of the drawing.

“They really did that? Painted the Princess?” He waggled the card back and forth, his brows rising as the mane shifted and sparkled. “Did… they paint her mane with gemstones?”

“The family legend, as Carnation related to me when I found the deck… and found me masturbating to this very card, is that Celestia herself posed for the card, and that she found such a thing amusing rather than scandalous.” Rosewater’s eyes darted to his, then back to the card. “I… had more than one fantasy of laying with her after.”

“I suppose, having lived for most of recorded history, something like a salacious painting would be a welcome diversion from the humdrum of running a country.” Collar returned the card to the back of the deck, a thrill of the forbidden running up his spine. “Did she lay with any of the Garden ponies?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Rosewater said with a shrug. “She has had children in the past. My father…” Rosewater held up her hoof, tilting it so the creased cleft in the fore of it was more prominent. “Might have been one of her descendants. If you look close…” She drew the card back out, humming to herself as she tilted it this way and that. “There, look.”

“Are you sure that’s not…” But it was too close to Rosewater’s hoof, even at the relatively tiny scale of the painting. A deeper, darker cleft, but in the same place as it was on Rosewater’s hoof. “Or from the same stock she came from?”

Rosewater shrugged. “I have nothing but speculation, and have had no chance to ask her.” She replaced the card. “I’m not sure if I would if I did.”

“Well, already I’m learning more about your family…” Collar settled in against her and nodded at the case they cards had come from. “What’s the last piece there?”

In a separate slot in the wooden case, a larger, thicker plate of copper stood out, the edge high enough for teeth to catch it if needed.

“The rules of this variant of Petals,” Rosewater murmured, her cheeks flushed. “They’re… explicit.”

“Big surprise,” Collar snorted, turning over another card and finding a mare and a stallion engaged in oral together, his cock far enough into her mouth to almost be in her throat, and his tongue deep into her vagina. “What’s this?” He couldn’t keep his arousal lidded anymore, and let it slip free, dangling limp almost to the floor yet, but stars… the detail on the cards was incredible. He doubted any parlor card could match the artistry of these.

He could almost hear and smell the sexual…

Ours. The cards were enhancing their desires. They… they were gently pushing both of them to what the paintings inspired in them. Collar swallowed. He’d known, and accepted, and even wanted to be pushed, but the subtlety of it, combined with imagery that would already make him dream of laying with even Princess Celestia…

“I… can see why you gave me a warning preamble before showing them to me,” Collar murmured, his belly flexing as more want washed over him. Entirely his own this time, he was certain. He wanted to see more, to be pushed more. He wanted to make love to Rosewater again, try out the position on the card. “Stars… I can’t tell what’s mine and what’s the card.”

“It’s all yours. Simply… pushed. Like the Longest Lust scent I made for Cloudy.”

“That’s… stars…” He didn’t want to turn away from his own desires. He swallowed again, glanced at the worry in her eyes, and kissed her cheek. The worry, the instinctive push against enticements, he pushed aside. He was with a pony for whom enticements were… a part of how she made love. Enhanced it. It was, for her… flirting. Another Merrier would likely recognize it for what it was immediately. “What card is that?”

“The Lovers. They’re a wildcard in the suit on the card. They can be anything from Lord or Lady to a two.” Rosewater kissed his cheek, raising a hoof and dipping it between his legs to stroke his belly just above his sheath. “The rules say if a pony draws two of them, they can give the other to another and re-enact the display.”

Swelling in his sheath, his cock and balls told him to draw another card and see if it would come to be. “Have you ever drawn two?”

“I have.” Rosewater’s hoof paused on his belly, then drifted lower, trailing over the rim of his sheath, barely brushing against his stiffening flesh. “Do you want to hear the story?”

Do I want to hear how you’ve made love with other ponies? The question wasn’t simply a question, but asking him if he was comfortable with that aspect of sharing in Merrie. “Cloudy told me how you, um… toyed with Rosie Bliss. How you tasted. How… how…” he shuddered as his shaft slipped free and touched her hoof, the cool, smooth rim of the cup planted over his head. “She made love to Rosemary.”

Collar flipped over the next card. It took him a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, nearly all of his attention farther down, where a warm band of magic had wrapped around his shaft, cupped his scrotum, and was rolling his testes back and forth slowly.

On the card was a mare crouched with her hindquarters in the air, her forelegs straight in front of her, looking back at him while a spell pulled her outer lips apart. In her puckered anus, a jewel rested, shaped like a star.

“The ace of stars,” Rosewater murmured, rubbing her cheek along his neck while her spells continued toying with him. “Trading it for a stallion with an erection… the giver can request anal sex. Or…” Rosewater’s spell left him and swirled in front of him to form an appreciable copy of his own cock. “A mare with a mist fae spell on the card.”

Collar’s cock twitched, and his anus puckered at the thought of her using a spell to penetrate him. “I’ve… never asked Cloudy if she would like anal. I’ve… all the Dammeguards banter stories about anal, both giving and receiving. Barracks bragging and passing ‘stories’ Merrieguards have teased them with. I’ve heard enough stories, myself.”

“Ponies will be ponies,” Rosewater said, leaning against him and letting the cock disappear. Her spell didn’t return to his shaft, but her hoof kept rolling slow, gentle circles over his belly, her ankle brushing his erection now and again. “The game… it’s best played with at fewest three ponies, and at most six. But it can be played with two. If you don’t mind the game descending into sex before too long.”

“Maybe later?” Collar replied, arching his back into a stretch, groaning, and standing to walk a short circle around the carpet, watching her watch him, her eyes straying along his body and the coat on her hindquarters twitching whenever her eyes danced across his backside or dangling shaft. “I love being intimate with you, but…”

“But…” Rosewater stood, her tail flicking aside, and sighed. “Stars, I wish I’d had more time to plan. All the board games and… and even most of the books I have left here are either dry dissertations on philosophy or…”

“They’re also sexual in nature?” Collar guessed, grinning.

“They can be,” she shot back, her ears flattening defensively, then she laughed. “Stars. They’re from when I was a far more sexually active young mare. Most of Rosemary’s have migrated to her rooms in Prim Palace. Some of them are nothing but collections of sex scenes masquerading as instructional guides for how to make love in this position or that position.”

Collar’s interest flared, and he glanced at the cards, felt their magic again tickling his fancy. Or is it the cards? I want to make love to her again. What he was interpreting as the cards may have only been his natural want.

“I do have a regular pack of Petals cards,” she said, following his gaze. “If you want to play. But I wanted you to take these back to Prim Palace to give to Rosemary for safekeeping.” She slipped the cards back into the wooden case and tapped the cover back in place, the cork seal around its lip fitting snugly. “For the four of us to play later.”

Collar’s eyes lingered on the case, feeling his arousal linger and grow at the thought of all four of them playing with cards that aroused their desires. What would one game today hurt?

“You don’t want to take them to the garden?” Collar pulled his eyes away with an effort, stretched his hind legs, then his fore, and watched Rosewater’s attention follow the sway of his erection. “I thought… I mean, Dazzle would like to play with you, I’m sure.”

To his surprise, Rosewater’s cheeks flushed darker and her tail lashed, then arched and fell to cover herself again. “We… I mean… yes, the garden has a deck already. A special deck. It’s repainted every generation with the members of the garden. I haven’t played on it yet, but I have played Petals with him. And Bliss.” Rosewater raised the deck of cards and pushed them gently at him. “I’d rather Roseate never even know of these. They’re… an heirloom.”

Collar’s ears perked. “I understand that, then.” He licked his lips and glanced at the deck agan, then back to her. “There’s… cards with you? With you posed on them?”

“Not me,” Rosewater murmured, glancing away. “But Petal… Or Seed. I’m sure they’re going to ask me to, now that I’m returned.”

A sudden desire rose up in Collar, and his cock rose to slap his belly, swell, and bob stiffly. The Lovers. He could pose with Rosewater, could feel her mouth over his cock, he could be painted in that pose while he was tongue deep, or deeper, in her. Or… if there were other poses, he could mount her, or lay under her, or…

Positions and angles, ideas and images of him playing Cards with her image staring back at him while she winked at him in the real, maybe… with a card of him with his cock erect. Upside down, with a trail of precome to his chest, or on his side, exposing himself with one leg up.

A shiver went down his spine at having that be public, or as public as it ever would be, and know that other ponies were playing and using his image to trade or cheat for sexual favors. Even the idea of mounting Rosewater while Rosemary and Cloudy watched sent a shiver across his coat, down his hind legs and back up.

“That’s some fantasy,” Rosewater murmured, ducking her head to plant a kiss to the side of his erection. “Thinking about playing cards, with our own images staring back at us?”

Collar startled, his shaft stiffening more, the head flaring as precome beaded at the tip, dripped… only to be caught by her tongue, followed by her lips sealing over the flattened tip, her tongue teasing the rim of his cock “Stars. Yes… and more…” His hips bucked, but he managed to restrain himself long enough for her to pull back to kiss the side of his cock instead. “Rosemary. Cloudy. Us.” He could almost feel their kisses on his flesh, encouraging him to mount her, wanting him to mount her.

“More?” Rosewater purred, her voice humming against his flesh where her lips touched. “Must I guess, Collar?” When he didn’t answer immediately, lost in the feeling for a moment, she went on. “Perhaps… I as the Ace of Stars, and I trading myself to you for…” her lips and tongue caressed his flesh again, and his hind legs buckled as he tried to sit down and let her, decided to lay down on his side instead.

“Rosewater…” Collar panted. His upper hind leg rose of its own accord, exposing his belly and his cock, his tight scrotum, the flared head, taut medial ring, and for a moment it wasn’t him looking at himself, but from another’s perspective, a room with a crowd of friends all wanting to engage with him, with her, to touch and taste both of them. He rolled to his back, letting his hind legs fall open before the phantom crowd. “Stars.”

“Hmmm.” Rosewater followed him down, kissing his barrel and laying her cheek and ear against his ribcage. “Not the ace. An orgy.” Her eyes lit as she rose again and stepped over him, straddling his body so all he had to do was look down to see the pinkish expanse of her belly, the two ruddy teats standing out against the sparse white hairs covering the supple flesh between her thighs. “With ponies all around us.”

Mist swirled slowly into vague forms of ponies, faces and forms slowly taking shape as she worked her mist faerie spells into the moisture of the air. Cloudy sat by his head, her expression delighted, and wickedly so. Rosemary sat beside her, nibbling at her lover’s cheek.

She stopped there, her eyes troubled, her ears flattening and her coat shivering, and the rest of the mist dissipated as she arched her neck and shivered. “Stars… their pull…”

The cards? Her? Rosemary and Cloudy?

“Is this okay, Collar?” Rosewater asked more softly, gently. “Please tell me if anything makes you uncomfortable.”

Confused for a moment at the sudden shift in tone, Collar drifted back to the present and nodded. As he did, some of the fog of desire left him, leaving him calmer, more rational, and a heat that had suffused his coat and skin… faded. He shivered. “I… got caught in a fantasy.”

“Easy to do, with those cards,” Rosewater murmured, nuzzling his cheek. She still stood over him, her tail arched over her back, and a slow drip-drip-drip of mare’s precome pattered onto his sheath. More stained her inner thighs. “Tell me what you want.”

With Rosewater, his love, whispering in his ear, it was hard to suggest that they had such an effect on him when she was so incredibly more potent an encouragement, standing as she was, and laying as he was. But… rational thought crept back in, and cues and suggestions came to him again, reminding him of the moment they’d started.

Holding each of the cards. The lovers’ card especially, had excited an urge in him to explore more, and he had. Every moment after, he realized that he’d been drawn further and further down a path that he wanted to go, and so had she.

When he didn’t speak for a long moment, staring at the sealed deck, she shifted, moving away from standing over him, her expression more troubled still, and her ears almost invisibly flat to her skull.

“Wait,” Collar raised a hind leg to catch her flank and guide her back to over him. “Wait, please. It may have been the cards to start, my love, but you were right. It did only enhance what I wanted. I want to love you, Rosewater, and to make love to you.”

“Now?” Rosewater asked, her tail hiking briefly, then lowering.

“Now,” Collar replied gently. “You warned me. I accepted the risk, Rosewater, because I wanted to experience… I want to experience this with you. I want to have fun with you with cards, and Petals, and foreplay.” He raised a hoof to press against her breast, stroking slowly over the sensitive heart mark and sending shivers through her. “If I could… I think I’d like to wake up every day like this.”

Rosewater laughed softly. “They’re not for day-to-day play, because they can be addictive to use,” Rosewater added, her tail hitching up again, her smile coming back, then fading, and coming back again as she warred with herself over wanting what she’d guided them to. What he’d accepted her guidance to. “I want to make love to you, too, but I don’t want that to be our entire first day together.”

“Nor do I, and I’m finding that most things in Merrie society can be addictive, if consumed in too great a quantity. But the occasional indulgence, especially when something is so new, isn’t a bad thing, is it?” Collar reached up with his forehooves and a spell and gently coerced her to settle down atop him. Not inside her, but crouched over his belly, her heat close to his sheath, her tail hairs brushing slowly over his dock, over his sensitive scrotal skin. His cock rose to press against her marehood, then relaxed.

“No, no it… it can be good. Great,” Rosewater breathed, her breath shuddering as she closed her eyes, reaction thrumming through her and into him. Warm wetness spread slowly as her clit winked and strained and relaxed, her body shivering. “But too much of a good thing… stars, I want this, Collar. Too much?”

“No.” Collar slid his hoof up her neck slowly, feeling her pulse under its cup, to her cheek, drawing her eyes to his. “Not too much. This is new and wondrous to me, Rosewater. Loving you. Making love to you. I want to indulge myself with you.”

“I… I want this, Collar. Not… rushed and frantic like our first. I want…” She shivered and slid backward, her marehood parting around his cock, over his sheath, and trailing over the bare skin at its base, her clit dragging along his flesh and drawing a shiver from her that sank into him and set fires along his limbs, numbing them and spreading need further. Then forward, drawing more shivers, more want from him, and coating his shaft to the head with her own silken desire. “I want to make this slow, Collar. I want to… experience love with you without the frenetic lust.”

“I want that,” Collar murmured, raising his other hoof up to cup her cheeks and guide her down for a slow kiss, encouraging her to lean forward, to give him that opening as his cock stiffened and pressed against the mound of her sex. Collar shifted his hips, pulling back until his head was under her opening, a shudder running through him with every agonizingly pleasurable moment of parting her soft, supple lips.

Their lips met, the kiss deepened… and he slipped into her without any fuss. A groan of pleasure escaped his lips and her breath caught briefly as they parted, a shiver running over her and sank in slowly, savoring the slow fire crawling along his loins, savoring the way her neck arched, her mouth opened, and her forelegs quivered.

He shuddered as his sensitive medial ring passed her lips, and feeling her response all around him as her back arched, her head lowered, and her forehooves danced backwards as she lowered herself all the way onto him, taking him to the base of his sheath.

There, she stayed for long, heavy breaths, their world frozen in a moment of passion and heat. Beside him, the image of Cloudy bent to brush his mane aside, then kissed his forehead. And vanished.

Rosemary remained a moment longer, her eyes locked on his, her lips parting and her tongue running along her lips as if the image wanted to kiss him, but couldn’t.

A moment later, the magic Rosewater had infused into her vanished as well, leaving him and her alone in an attic, joined for the second time that day in carnal bliss.

They made love there on the floor, slow and passionate, her voice and his rising and falling in softer waves as she controlled the pace, showed him how much she enjoyed the supple rise, the slow fall.

And he tried to show her how much he enjoyed it, rising with her as she came up, slower, and controlling his descent, almost slipping free, his flaring head pulling at her outer lips, cool air kissing his flesh before she descended again and drew a new groan from him. It was an exercise in restraint, but the reward…

When she came, it wasn’t explosive or sudden, but a tide rising in minutely tighter and tighter contractions around his entire shaft announced with a sudden wetness around him that spurred him to thrust up into her once, again, then hold as his whole body clenched, and for the second time that morning, he came.

Less forcefully, and with less seed, but it was no less a blissful end than their first, frenetic mating, if more peaceful, with more pauses to share kisses and nuzzles, to whisper about where Rosemary or Cloudy would be in this position, exciting them to laughter and brief spasms of pleasure.

After, they lay together, murmuring about dreams for the future and what they would do for the rest of the day.

Throughout it all, the cards that had spurred the encounter lay a hoof’s length away from both of them, the gilded carving in its face seeming to glint contentedly, its purpose spent for the moment.

He understood it, then, or thought he did. The glow of post-coital bliss fogged his thoughts, but… it wasn’t evil. His instinctual distrust of such magic felt… diminished. Not gone, but more discerning. They were no more than the scents that told him Cloudy wanted him to make love to her slow and passionately.

It was a tool, and while Rosewater had underestimated how potent it was, it was a tool that they could use to enhance their experience with sex. So long as they used it carefully.

He wanted this. He wanted to make love to the ponies that made his life brighter for their being in it. He wanted to hear them cry out, feel them shiver at the pleasure he could give them, and bask in the glow of the pleasure they gave in return.

And, as the glow subdued his thoughts, dreams of more, of family and days stretching out into the future flitted through his mine. Vague warm days of sun and grass and trees, snow and warm fires, warm, mulled wine and chilled, tart Dammerale.

Children that pranced and played and called out ‘Watch me, daddy! Mommies! Watch!’

Children that didn’t need to worry what would happen to their parents tomorrow night.

Children with wings and horns. Children that looked like him and Cloudy and Rosewater and Rosemary. Children that would see peace in a city of love, where love was free to be whatever it wanted to be. Tussen Twee, or Principes, or something else. Something new and exciting. A place where love could be explored in all its facets and rainbows of color.

It was, he decided, a dream worthy of making real, and one he would work for every day of his life.

“I love you,” Collar whispered yet again, reaching up to brush her forelock away from her eyes. Golden and pink, lidded and shaded until they were almost purple and orange, her eyes met his.

“I love you.”

She settled down beside him, her cheek across the broad side of his neck, and closed her eyes. Cleaning, it seemed, could wait for a short nap.

It was, Collar decided, a good morning, and he covered Rosewater’s shoulder with a hoof and held her close while he dreamt his beautiful dream.