Merge - Yet Another Ponies on Earth Story

by Kawa

Rating: mature
Tags: Human, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Other, Romance, Princess Luna, Original Character, Comedy, Princess Celestia, Sex
Length: 31437

A series of interconnected shorts about... exactly that. (Not TCB.)

Not a Conversion Bureau fic.

What would life in the near future be like if there were ponies on Earth, brought there by an overzealous little princess?

After the two or so introduction chapters, this'll be mostly a dumping ground for my headcanonical answers to the above question. Rated mature for certain kinds of obvious human/pony interactions.

Not a Conversion Bureau fic.

Published 2013-07-14 19:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-01-07 14:35:59 UTC

As it happens on Earth

In the summer of 202X, around midday, a naval flotilla out in the Atlantic was suddenly rocked when a pillar of light shot up from beneath the waves. Shortly after, a cylindrical wall appeared from the pillar, nearly transparent and faintly shimmering in the sunlight. The closest vessel quickly found itself gently but insistently pushed away by the rapidly-expanding cylinder.

“Contact the nearest base. Tell them everything,” the ship’s captain ordered as he watched closely. To his surprise, when he looked closely he could see that the few birds in the area were also pushed away. The captain could only assume the same applied to the fish below. For just a moment he thought about the reefs and other such ocean fauna, but shook it off. He was military. There was no need to worry about anything below his vessels, save the odd submarine.

“What’ve we got?” the captain asked one of his officers.

“Nothing beyond what we can see with our own eyes, captain,” the young man hesitantly replied.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing on scanners, sir. I’m detecting shifts on the ocean floor, and displacement of creatures in the water… but nothing inside of the event. All I can tell about it is that it’s expanding fairly rapidly. Permission to leave my post and try to touch it, sir?”

“Granted.”

The captain tried to suppress a smirk as he watched the officer dash away. He half-expected it to hurt until he remembered the birds. Looking down out the window, he could see the crewmember excitedly run up to the bow with a large pole.

“Complete lack of discipline, but I can’t blame the kid.”

On the deck, the crewman had reached the far end of the ship and carefully extended his pole. To his unwarranted surprise, the pole was swiftly pushed back by the rapidly expanding column. Within moments, Andrei Chekov had been thrown against the deck with a bloody nose.

The captain thoughtfully stroked his beard at the shenanigans. “What are you?” he muttered to himself. Just as he closed his eyes, he could swear he saw something inside the column of light, which had by now almost reached a kilometer in radius. It looked like a mountain with something sticking out the side, which didn’t make much sense to the captain, dimensionally speaking. He hadn’t paid much attention in math class, but he knew you couldn’t fit a mountain with a castle on the side of it into an area that size.

He looked almost as foolish as the crewmember bleeding on the deck when he spent the next two minutes trying to see the image again – by blinking like he was having a minor seizure.

“Captain? Is everything alright?” asked another crewmember.

“Did any of you see that?” the captain asked hesitantly.

“See what, captain?”

“It looked kinda like a mountain with a castle on the side. Noone?”

“I think I might’ve, captain.”

“Inform the others. Keep our distance from this thing. If that mountain is going to do what I think it’s going to do, we probably don’t want to be right on the threshold of this phenomenon.”

“Aye aye captain,” the crewmember acknowledged. “Base agrees. We are to hold relative position near the event and inform them of any changes beyond growth. Shall I tell them about the mirage?”

“Yes please.”

As the hours passed, the mirage flickered into view at an increasing frequency as the column of light slowly kept expanding.

Early the next morning, an island snapped into physical existence inside the then-enormous column. As the column faded away, the crewmembers of the surrounding ships could see three settlements – two smaller ones on the ground, and one more like a city surrounding a beautiful castle in a rough half-circle. The other half was blocked by the mountain that it was built against.

“Crewman Chekov,” Captain Hartnell called out.

“Aye captain?”

“Inform base: An island has appeared inside the column. We’ll build a small force from the various ship crews in the flotilla and make landfall in two hours.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

Like a well-oiled machine, personnel from each vessel shuffled around and made their way to a beach-like area. It was almost, but not quite entirely unlike a beach, and the strike force’s leaders, which included a curious Captain Hartnell, decided the island mustn’t have been an island before it appeared in the Atlantic.

What they saw when they went further inland surprised them all.

Ponies. Nothing but ponies. Most of them were clad in golden armor, some a darker blue. There were regular ponies, ponies with horns, ponies with wings, white ponies, gray ponies, ponies with spears and ponies with… the captain could barely believe it, as if he didn’t have enough trouble already – ponies with fresh apple pie. Just about the only thing they all had in common was that their armor looked ridiculously outdated, and they all had remarkably large eyes.

They seemed afraid, and the unicorns on the frontline projected what seemed like force fields to cover themselves and their un-horned comrades.

Unfortunately, Private Princip had a bit of a phobia regarding horses (he’d been bitten by one long ago) and, like his fellow strike force members, carried a rail gun. It was your typical electromagnetic coil that fired a small slug of metal at ludicrous speeds. They had become standard issue a few years back when the power supply problem was solved.

Even at near lightspeed, the metal slug merely knocked over the unicorn whose shield had been hit.

Much to the continued surprise of the staff officers watching Princip make a total ass out of humanity and shouting at him, a much larger, more horse-like creature majestically vaulted over the frontline. It was as almost large as a regular horse, with a pair of wings and horn, a near-white pink coat, a confusingly colored, even more confusingly animated mane, and impressive gold barding. She (it was quite clearly a mare) landed right between the toppled unicorn and Private Princip.

Five seconds later, the stupid git had fired again. Another slug connected cleanly with the alicorn’s forehead. A small smattering of royal horse blood clung to her ethereal mane as her head whipped back, but she remained standing. In fact, when she faced the human again, her forehead was as good as untouched, and she simply stared at the guy with a huge grin. Her horn flared up in a brilliant golden glow, and Princip found his rail gun gently but insistently pulled from his grip. The men formerly next to Princip found their good sense, broke rank, and pulled him away.

“Greetings, my… over-enthusiastic visitors,” the magnificent horse spoke in perfect English as she held the gun in mid-air next to her. “I believe you must be wondering what we are, how and why we are here? Allow me to introduce myself first, if I may. My name is Princess Celestia of Equestria, from the world of Equis. Who among you is in charge?”

The captains looked at each other, each as in-charge as the other. “Captain Sue, why don’t you go? Woman to woman?” Captain Hartnell offered.

“I could take that as sexist, Mr. Hartnell,” Captain Sue argued. “But I can see where you’re coming from.”

“I will speak for my colleagues, Princess,” Captain Sue called out as she walked to the frontline. “My name is Captain Mary Sue of the United States of America, from the world of Earth.”

“God, why’d she have to snowclone the horse?” Captain Hartnell facepalmed.

“Tis a pleasure to meet you, Captain Mary Sue. If we can trust your forces to lay down these interesting magnetics, you can trust mine to do the same, and we might discuss the answers to the questions I spoke of earlier.”

“That might be best, your highness. If my colleagues can join us, that is.”

“I see no reason why not.”

Author's Note

And here we go. Thanks to #fimfiction for all sorts of suggestions, corrections and whatnot -- mostly Dram.

You might wonder, why do I write about Celestia getting railgunned in the head when I have an outspoken opinion on dark/gore fics? And why isn't this one marked as such despite said scene? Well, that's because aside from a little blood, Celestia is perfectly fine in the end and noone dies, or is permanently damaged.

Names: Captain Hartnell, named for the First Doctor. Crewman Andrei Chekov, after Pavel Andreievich Chekov. Private Princip, suggested after the guy who shot Franz Ferdinand. Captain Mary Sue, obvious.

None of these are likely to be relevant when the intro's good and over. B)

As it happens on Equis

“Twilight, are you sure this will work?”

Princess Celestia strained to hide the concern on her face as she watched her former student prepare for a major spell of her own design. She’d been told that the spell would let them gaze upon other worlds, as if they were there in person. It was one of those high-power spells, and Twilight had never cast it before – it was all pure theory that was about to be put into practice. It was, in fact, such an incredibly costly spell that the very incarnation of Magic was uncertain she’d have enough power to pump into it and had asked Princess Celestia to help.

Princess Celestia, after all, rarely used any magic besides minor telekinesis, sending messages, and moving the sun. She had plenty to spare. And now they were standing in a specially-cleared room of the castle, about to break the “most power put in a single spell” record.

“Almost entirely, pri- I mean Celestia,” Twilight Sparkle tried to assure.

“Okay Twilight. But if you destroy the world or something, I am so holding that against you,” Celestia relented.

“Why would you think this’d destroy the world?”

“With all this magic we’re about to put into your new spell… if it fails, that energy has to go somewhere.”

“I guess so. But I’m confident enough in this,” Twilight insisted as she lit her horn. “Okay… here goes.”

Twilight braced herself in concentration with her wings out wide. She rapidly raised the power of the spell she was weaving, and reached her natural limit shortly after. If she used any more, she’d put her body in danger. A thin golden line pierced the room in front of Twilight, from floor to ceiling, perhaps further – there was no clear way to tell unless somepony were to see it on another floor and burst in to talk about it.

As the thin beam wavered, Celestia took her cue and engaged her own magic. Standing on the opposite side, she pumped her own phenomenal cosmic power into the spell being woven before her. The feedback allowed Twilight to tap into her element (which she had planned to happen), giving her the ominous white eyes.

With all that power, the column very quickly expanded, engulfing the two princesses, then the room they were standing in. The entire castle quickly followed.

Between the two of them, the blackout must’ve lasted a good ten minutes. All they could do was pump magic into the spell, nothing else.

When it was over, nothing had changed. Or so the princesses thought. There was no projection or similar effect of the kind that would let them “gaze upon another world”… nothing at all seemed to be different in any meaningful way.

With a huff, of which Celestia couldn’t tell if it was for apparently failing or for being completely exhausted, Twilight stomped out of the room. She was back within seconds, looking more surprised and confused than anything.

“Is something wrong, Twilight?”

“Celestia… we started around midday, right?”

“Yes we did. I should know.”

“You would. And we weren’t out for more than a few hours, right?”

“It certainly feels that way.”

“But when I just looked out of the window, it was morning outside.”

“That can’t be right. I haven’t cycled the sun, and Luna would’ve contacted me if she had to do it in my place.”

“It gets worse.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “How could it possibly be?”

“From this high up, I could see water in the general direction of Manehattan.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Twilight shook her head. “See for yourself.”

Celestia galloped out of the room, found the nearest balcony, and took off. At a fair altitude above Canterlot Castle, she slowly looked all around, finding water all around an island containing Ponyville, Canterlot, and a handful of other settlements. No Manehattan, no Appleoosa, no Crystal Empire…

Celestia teleported back in the experiment room with a frightened expression, surprising Twilight.

“It’s gone, Twilight. I don’t know how, or why it’s all reversed, but most of Equestria is gone.”

“That is strange, Princess,” Twilight said, forgetting she was on equal standing with Celestia and thus had no obligation to call her by title. “You’d think it’d be Canterlot and the surrounding area that’d be gone.”

“How are you so calm, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Well, just before you came back I heard something interesting.”

Celestia calmed down almost immediately. This was potentially very good news. “What did you hear?”

“I heard myself, saying ‘I guess nothing happened. And it looked so promising.’ So I’m guessing there’s more to our current situation.”

Suddenly, Princess Luna stormed into the room. “Celestia, where is our moon!?” she shouted.

“What do you mean, dear sister?”

“We can no longer feel our connection with our moon. What else would we mean?”

Princess Celestia raised a foreleg in concentration. “Now that you mention it, neither can I feel the sun. That’s certainly strange, because I’d seen it right there when I was outside just now…”

A sudden shout behind her broke Celestia’s concentration. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Twilight Sparkle, what do you think you are doing?” asked the night princess.

“I’m trying to confirm a theory,” Twilight beamed.

“I hear you, Twilight,” another, unseen Twilight faintly shouted.

“Great! What’s the status over there, Twilight?”

“Everything’s perfectly normal. We’re a little weak from using so much power, but I guess something did happen, right?”

“Right, just don’t ever cast that spell again.”

“Sister,” Luna called out. “There are vessels approaching the edge of the land. We do believe the natives must be restless.”

Author's Note

This obviously happens during the other chapter, leading directly into Princip's big scene.

No name jokes to explain here, move along.

Two Best Friends Discuss

“And so, after five years of tedious legislation, all but one state allowed equestrians in public schools.”

Martin paused the TV’s playback and turned to his roommate. “This sort of thing is why I’m ashamed to be from Kentucky.”

“You have to admit though,” Steve objected, “that everybody thought Texas’d be last.”

“Point taken.”

“Have you met any?” Steve asked as reached for his drink. “Ponies, I mean?”

“Have I ever! There’s at least five at Providence alone.”

“Well, North Carolina was one of the first in line. Hey, you got more of these cans?” Steve asked as he crumpled the tough plastic shell that formerly held his Coke. Martin nodded.

“Don’t drink all of it, okay? We’ve got a guest coming over in a few.”

“Right, right. Somebody I know?” Steve joked.

“Some pony you probably don’t,” Martin corrected with a knowing smirk, putting just the right amount of stress on the word “pony”.

“You’re kidding me? From Providence?”

“Eyup. She goes by the name Sky Dancer,” Martin said wistfully. The tone didn’t escape Steve, even if he was a legit dumbass.

“Oh, what’s this?” Steve teased, posing with a fresh can. “You like ponies, don’t you Marty?”

“Shut your face,” Martin exploded. “She just seems nice, okay? So what if she looks good in shirts and I was the first human student she dared speak to?”

“You really do like her.”

“I might. I’m not entirely sure,” Martin admitted. “At least, not yet. That’s actually one of the reasons I said yes to her.”

Steve handed Martin a can and a questioning look.

“I mean… sure, there’s the stuff I said just now. But she’s not even human, dude. She’s… some kind of small, sapient horse thing. I’m feeling rather conflicted about it, actually.”

“Heh… You mentioned shirts. Does she wear anything else?”

“Hush, you. You’ll know soon enough,” Martin said softly, pointing at the street where a little pony was trotting up to their door.

Sky Dancer was a graceful sort. She had a pleasing wisteria coat, long eggplant-brown mane, and stark magenta eyes revealing just a touch of mutual nervousness. The entire scheme went well with the large black shirt draped around her lithe form, but then again black went with everything. Looking out the window, Steve could imagine how it must’ve happened between the pony and his roomie. Before Sky Dancer could reach the door, Martin was there to open it for her.

“Hello Sky,” Martin greeted, receiving a hug from the pony that only he had expected. “I’d like to introduce my roomie and best friend Steve. Steve, this is Sky Dancer.”

“Hi.”

“Pleased to meet you, Steve,” Sky Dancer said before giving Steve a hug of his own, rearing up and wrapping her forelegs around his torso.

“Woah! A little too pleased, maybe?”

Martin tore an equally surprised Sky away from his roomie. “Nah, I got the impression that’s just the way ponies are. Real touchy-feely sometimes. Sky, you didn’t mean anything special with that, did you?”

“Not really, no. I’m just a little… nervous to be here. My first visit to a human residence…”

“Well, it’s not much to write home about, but please come in,” Martin insisted as he led the pony to the living room.

Said room seemed to be your typical high school students’ living room, with all the typical amenities 205X had to offer – a somewhat outdated flat-screen TV, an equally outdated media recorder, and the latest Nintendo console on one side, a comfy couch on the other. Against one wall, an older rail gun model with the control system, power source and slugs removed hung on a sturdy nail, surrounded by a series of vintage movie posters from classics such as The Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Equestria Girls, and The Great Gatsby.

It wasn’t until Sky had taken a spot on the couch and laid down that Steve found the answer to his question. Sky did not indeed wear anything besides her shirt. He could see as much, and thanked his favored deity that Sky had her tail loosely wrapped around her rump. Sky was little enough to allow both roomies to sit on the couch with her, with the arm rest within reach of her head if she wanted. Martin quickly popped off to the small kitchen and returned with another Coke that he’d stuck a straw in, placing it on a side table on Sky’s side of the couch.

“Thank you Martin,” Sky said with a nod and smile. She reached out and took a sip of the divine beverage as Martin sat down in the middle. The three sat there in silence for a few moments until Sky felt something on her haunches.

“Martin, are you?”

Martin caught himself softly stroking Sky’s soft fur, just above her cutie mark. “Oh ah… excuse me. It’s just…”

“It’s okay, Martin. You can stroke me there if you want. Just don’t get any funny ideas.”

“Oh hey,” Steve interjected. “That reminds me! With a name like yours, I expected you’d be a peggyseuss.”

“Pegasus, Steve,” Sky corrected, “and no, sometimes the obvious meaning isn’t the correct one. I dance.”

Steve bent over to get a close look at Sky’s flank. “Oh yeah. When you consider the tat, it does make more sense.”

“‘Tat’ as in ‘tattoo’? You must mean my cutie mark.”

“Yeah.” Steve sat back and pondered the term for a few seconds. “What do the boys call theirs?”

“Colts and stallions also call them ‘cutie marks’. Why?”

“They do? It sounds so… emasculating.”

Martin chuckled. “I’m surprised you know the word.”

“Fuck off, Marty. Anyway, why not give them some cooler name, like… ‘bootie badge’?”

“It certainly has a nice ring to it. ‘Bootie badge’… I should discuss this with my pony friends. Some of them are male.”

Suddenly, Sky gasped. “Martin! Where are you touching?!”

Martin retracted his hand. “Oh, sorry! Was that too close?”

“Haha, yeah. Maybe if I wasn’t quite so nervous and we knew each other a little better?”

Steve harrumphed in an exaggerated manner and put his drink down. “As long as you get a room first instead of making out on the couch I am also sitting on, you just do what you want.”

“Are you serious?” Martin asked somewhat incredulously.

“Mostly. Why?” Steve replied with a smirk.

“I wasn’t even looking, dude. I wasn’t looking and I didn’t know exactly where the ‘bad touch’ zone starts. Now I know, a’ight?”

“Look. Marty, dude, just look. I know you’re into this lovely young mare. Why else would you bring a female into our apartment, right? And then spend the next ten minutes stroking her butt.”

“Haunch,” Sky corrected, sitting up a little to look at Steve.

“I’m just saying, the lady seems un-nervous enough by now and I’m perfectly willing to pop down to the store and get some pizza or whatever, and some more drinks, if you catch my drift.”

“You are a bigger pervert than I am, but your concern is appreciated,” Martin said mock-seriously. “We do need something for dinner.”

“And I’ll admit, I’m not nearly as nervous as I was before,” Sky added.

Steve finished his drink, crushed the can and threw it away. “I’ll be off, then! And remember: play safe, kids!”

Author's Note

To be continued in Chapter 4 - Up All Night To Get Yucky.

Thanks to Frigo for the pony's name.

The two best friends are named after, of course, Steve Martin.

Guidance

It was shortly after most of the important legal matters had been settled that Princess Celestia sat back on her throne. She wanted to yawn but felt she had to keep up appearances, even though the only other people in the throne room were her guards and Busy Quill, her assistant for the month.

“Are there any ponies – or humans, I guess – who require an audience, Miss Quill?” the princess asked, glancing down at the little bespectacled unicorn.

“Just the one, your highness,” Busy Quill answered and checked her list. “A certain mister Easter Hay, a donkey. I didn’t think donkeys would request audiences, if I may be so bold.”

“You’re right,” Celestia agreed. “There hasn’t been a donkey within these walls for six hundred years. But that doesn’t matter.” The princess turned to the guards at the far door. “Guards, let mister Hay in, please.”

The door guards nodded curtly and each took one handle of the sturdy door in their mouth. The door opened to reveal a youngish donkey with a sad expression hiding a strong spirit.

“Mister Hay? Please, approach the throne so I may listen to what you have to say.”

The donkey carefully made his way to Celestia, alternating between looking at the carpet directly in front of him and the throne. He noticeably tensed up when he reached his goal and looked directly at the princess.

“Princess?” the donkey anxiously started.

“Speak, my dear subject.”

Easter Hay looked down in doubt. “I really don’t feel good about this, but your highness? There is no Easter Hay.”

Celestia was justifiably surprised and raised a single eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve been cut off from our queen and the rest of our people,” Easter Hay said in a suddenly much lower tone of voice as he lay down on the floor. “We don’t know what to do anymore.”

Celestia’s mind raced. Mentioning a queen and claiming the person he identified as didn’t exist could only mean one thing.

“Reveal yourself, changeling,” the solar diarch ordered. Without even a moment’s hesitation, Easter Hay was shortly engulfed in green flames, revealing a somewhat bulkier than average changeling in blue barding, still laid down. The nearest guards jumped, but Celestia ordered them to stand back with a single hoof gesture.

“Explain yourself.”

“My name,” the prone changeling introduced as he stood up again, “is Commander Crucible, your highness. My infiltrators and I were scattered around the area, feeding on ambience and friendship, when Princess Twilight’s spell took hold. When we found that we’d moved, we tried to contact our queen, but failed. We learned of what happened, discussed our options, and decided to appeal to you and your infinite wisdom.”

Commander Crucible bowed deep. “My life and that of my charges is in your hooves… my liege.” Inside, he was in abject terror of what could happen next. One of the guards off the side, Crucible heard, broke off and stood next to him.

“Private Barricade?” Celestia called out. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I stand by my commander, your highness,” the guard reaffirmed and bowed just as deep, promptly turning a shiny black but retaining his uniform, his wings stuck underneath his flanchards. Celestia thought it amusing to see these two changelings side by side, contrasting in such ways. One was bulky and clad in dark blue, the other as sleek as any changeling she’d seen and clad in bright gold. Before she could consider how little their barding differed in actual design, Celestia realized that one of the guards had been a changeling all along.

Somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to think badly of it. Barricade had served her exemplary, was one of the first (but not the first) to react to Crucible’s reveal, and they hadn’t done anything that could be considered actually aggressive all this time, unlike at her niece’s wedding.

“Very well,” the princess decided. “I take it your people are already aware of our laws?”

Both changelings nodded once at almost the same time.

“And I can trust you to abide by these laws, and those of the other countries of this world?”

The two nodded twice. It was almost unnerving to see how they timed it like that.

“Busy Quill,” Celestia called out to the little unicorn hiding behind her throne, “see to it that this becomes law: I hereby declare the changeling population of Earth to be Equestrian citizens, given the same rights and duties as any pony, griffon, human, or other sentient being in these lands.” She paused to stomp her hoof on the dais. “Sic fatur Caelestia.”

“I never thought I’d get to hear that phrase and feel happy about it,” Crucible joked under his breath, then spoke up, “In name of my people, I thank you, your highness.”

“Good luck, Commander,” Celestia said as she watched Crucible turn back into a donkey and leave. “Private Barricade,” she called out, “back to your post.”

Barricade saluted sharply and returned to his spot near the wall. When he got there, he assumed the standard Royal Guard stone face expression, but retained his changeling appearance as he watched his commander leave. If it unnerved the guard standing next to him at all, he didn’t let it show.

Celestia felt bothered by something she’d learned, and called out again. “Private Barricade?”

“Princess.”

“How many other guards are changelings?” she asked. It wasn’t that the princess felt unsafe, knowing that there was at least one guard who was, until very recently, officially an enemy. Rather, she felt she wanted some disclosure, considering what said guards were supposed to do. Any other infiltrators or sleepers, as Crucible had called them, she really didn’t care about.

“Just one other, my liege,” Barricade revealed, “Steel Bearing of the night guard.”

“Is that his real name?”

“As is mine. If you wish so, I could find and inform him.”

“That may be a wise thing to do, Private. Though I’d suggest you take unicorn form again before you walk through those doors.”

Author's Note

Names for this chapter: Busy Quill, Barricade, and Steel Bearing are just your regular somewhat-appropriate names for a secretary-like type and members of the Royal Guard. Easter Hay is from a Frank Zappa track, "Watermelon in Easter Hay", and Crucible is my attempt to avert the bug theme, thanks to Nighthawk.

A flanchard is the part of a horse's barding (horse armor) that protects the flanks, extending from the saddle.

Pudding Pop for President

It was election time in the US of A, in the specific year of 2060. The sixty-ninth president was to be decided by his slash her people, when two old codgers met in the supermarket.

“Harland.”

“Ronald.”

“How’s your back holding up?” asked Ronald when he spied Harland holding a feeble hand to his spine.

“Pretty good, all things considered,” Harland shrugged. “They fixed me up something fierce, but it’s those restraining bolts, ya know, they tickle inside me.”

“You know that’s all in your damned head, Harland. Ya ain’t got no sense of touch inside your fool body.”

“Well, you can say a lot about President Jameson,” Harland joked, “but at least he didn’t fuck up our healthcare or I’d really be up shit creek with no paddle and a busted back!”

The two paused to share a healthy, deep laugh.

“It’s too bad he did fuck up so many other things,” Ronald recollected.

“But at least we know not to blame those blasted ponies,” Harland offered in counter. “If anything, they helped fix it.”

“I know, Harland, I know. Wasn’t one of your surgeons a unicorn?”

“That’s right, Ronald, and a fine job he did. I’m not even scarred!”

“Getting back to that other topic,” Ronald interrupted as he sized up a cucumber to perhaps purchase, “did you hear ‘bout this year’s election?”

“Afraid not. The missus doesn’t let me watch any news about it. And put that thing away, it’s no good. Get the other one.”

“There’s a pony running.”

“No shit!” Harland spat, tightening his grip on the shopping cart in surprise. “Republican or democrat?”

“Neither, far as I heard. I think she went on the record saying they were both, and I quote, ‘full of crap and creampuffs’.”

“Oh, that’s a good one, Ron. I should get some while I’m here anyway.”

“Crap?”

“That too. Anyway,” Harland joked, “who’re you gonna vote for? Republican, democrat, or pony?”

“I’ve lived long enough to be fucked up the ass by both, Harland. I’m with the pony.”

“So… you said ‘she’ earlier. A woman pony running for presidency,” Harland mused. “Jesus Christ naked on a runway, Ron. What is this world coming to?”

“We can only go up after the shit Jameson pulled,” Ronald offered. “What about you, then?”

Harland remained silent as he picked out some nice tomatoes. “I’m seriously considering the pony, to be honest. What’s her name again?”

Ronald took a turn in silence. “Ah, let me think… dammit.” He turned to a young man who incidentally passed to get some apples. “Hey, kid. Do you know the name of that one pony running for presidency?”

Steve pushed up his shades as he looked back at the old man. “Pudding Pop, sir. I’m considering a vote for her, actually. Is there anything else?”

“Nah, thanks kid.”

“Have a good day sir,” Steve nodded. He mumbled to himself as he returned to his own shopping, “Now what kind of apple did Sky ask for again…

------=======------

When Ronald got home with his groceries, he sat down at his heavily outdated (but still younger than he was) computer.

“What did that kid say again? Ah right. ‘Pudding Pop’,” he recalled as he entered the candidate’s name in the search field. “Blasted old age. I’m hardly over ninety and I can already feel my mind going. Now, if only I could remember to look into those memory implants they’d been writing about.”

Ronald was pretty fierce on using dark comedy to stave off the terror of early-onset old age.

“Senator Pudding Pop. There we go…”

Pudding Pop is expected to not get as many votes from the Equestrian populace because of her ancestry. Pudding Pop is a direct descendant of the infamous Chancellor Puddinghead, who was known for many ill-advised choices in the political arena of pre-Celestial Equestria. Even so, there are estimated to be plenty ponies who do not hold the sins of the father against Pudding Pop. In Texas, there is significant disagreement on the senator’s refusal to swear on the Bible, saying that she was raised Celestial and feels one’s “political capabilities should not be judged on some dusty old book.”[14]

“Well… that oughta be interesting,” Ronald mused. “Hell, even if this Pudding Pop is as nutty as this chancellor, she can’t do much worse than Jameson!”

------=======------

A few months later, Ronald sat in front of his TV (as old as his computer) and switched to the election news just in time to see a pretty young thing he couldn’t remember the name of stand in front of a CG state-by-state info display, in a tasteful black and blue ensemble.

“And winning by a landslide against current president Jonah Jameson and Senator Creed, Senator Pudding Pop takes Minnesota,” the young lady reported as behind her, a bar rose up that was mostly pink, with small bits in red and blue. “George, what does that mean for the overall election?”

The camera switched to a sharp-dressed, dark-coated unicorn stallion behind a desk, well-polished hooves resting on the ever-present little stack of papers. They didn’t even use those on the news, and hadn’t for years now, but they were tradition. Ronald suspected they only had the one set. It took a moment for him to notice that George didn’t have a pony-like name.

“Well, Linda, it means that in the grand scheme of things,” the stallion started with a silky-smooth voice, “it’s very likely that Senator Pudding Pop will win this election and succeed President Jameson.”

Ronald took a wild guess at what George’s cutie mark could be. Probably one of those old-school fancy-looking microphones, with a voice like that.

“It should be pretty interesting, though. Latest news has it that the senator, if elected, will compromise on the whole ‘swearing on the bible’ thing by instead using a copy of the Tenets of Celestia. We’ll see how that works out in the upcoming Texas tally.”

A picture of the two senators and sitting president appeared behind George with the caption “2060 ELECTIONAL RODEO – 8 HOURS REMAIN”. George turned around to look at the picture.

“Wow. How’d I miss that all this time? Pudding Pop looks like the Element of Laughter. That’s actually kinda scary.”

True enough, Pudding Pop came quite close – pink coat, darker pink mane. But her eyes were a deep purple, with an almost politically-appropriate predatory look to them. And the senator’s cutie mark, George knew, was completely off. Flashing his horn, the stallion pulled his cellphone out from behind his desk and held them in front of him. The camera view switched again, showing both hosts in frame just as Linda returned from the big display and sat down.

“Ah, there it is,” George announced. He swiped his horn from the phone’s screen to the image behind him, basically throwing whatever he’d looked up into the background and revealing three pink ponies in a row – Chancellor Puddinghead, Lady Pinkie Pie, and Senator Pudding Pop, all very clearly different when shown side by side.

“No need for alarm, ladies and gentlemen,” George joked as he wiped some nervous sweat from his brow.

With a comically exaggerated “bloop”, the images disappeared again. “Linda, what’s the status on Texas, if you have it?”

“They’re still tallying the votes, George.”

Linda turned directly to the camera, which duly, slowly zoomed in.

“I, for one, welcome our equine overlords.”

Author's Note

Thanks to JunkyardDog for QC.

Names: The old codgers are named after Ronald McDonald and Colonel Harland Sanders. The 62nd president is named by Warmaisach, and the other guy by JunkyardDog.

And yes, the subplots are interconnected.

Sins of the Grandchild

“No shirt, no shoes, no service,” a typical pegasus stallion by the name of Deli ‘Dale’ Sandwich read from a sign in the window of a little store – a pawn shop, if he understood correctly – then looked down at his hooves. “Yeah, I’m good.”

With just a modicum of grace and a lot of nose, the cornflower blue pegasus pushed against the door, snug in a tie-dye shirt and not one but two pairs of special-made sneakers. The moment he passed the threshold, the cashier turned to him.

“Hey,” the cashier called out. “We don’t serve your kind here!”

“My kind, sir?” the pegasus echoed. “What exactly would the problem be? I saw your little sign in the window – no shirt, no shoes, no service – but nothing else.”

“Don’t be coy, horse,” the shopkeeper, a burly middle-aged Afro-American, spat. “No service to your kind.”

Deli Sandwich stared up at the shopkeeper, a vague smile ever-present on his muzzle. He really wanted to buy the little statuette in the window, and couldn’t imagine another store in the area having it. Vaguely, he could recall something from Earth Orientation Class.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Deli smirked as he found his hook and turned back. When he was out of sight of the shopkeeper he lifted off and carefully perched right on the store’s roof. Deli nosed his shirt and pulled out a tablet, which he then placed in front of him. Pulling out a stylus from the side between his teeth, he turned on and unlocked the device.

“Good reception up here,” the pegasus muttered to himself. “Now, let’s see…”

About fifteen minutes later, Deli circled around to street level and entered the store again. The burly shopkeeper was on his case immediately. “What did I tell you, horse? No fucking service!”

“Now now, sir. There’s really no need to swear,” Deli deflected calmly. “I just wanted to ask you a simple little question.”

“Price checks are service, horse.”

“No, not a price check, sir. Tell me, you are what humans call… ‘African-American’, correct?”

The shopkeeper was slightly taken aback by the (to him rather obvious) question. “Well… yeah. I am. What’s your point, horse?”

Dale could swear the venom increased every time this asshole said the word, and he really didn’t take kindly to being called that. He could only imagine what it’d be like for a human to be called an ape, but felt countering like that was below him. More importantly, he had to show that he held the higher ground – Dale was very well aware of the Hearth Warming story and the inherent racism that drove said historical plot, and he wasn’t one to fall into the trap of not learning from history.

“Are you aware of the history of Afro-Americans in this country?”

The shopkeeper nodded sharply, with a hint of pride on his lips.

“From, say… the late 19th to early 20th century?”

Another nod confirmed Deli’s plan was likely to end well.

“Are you,” Deli asked, punctuating his words with a short power walk to the counter, “at all aware that you, sir, are doing basically the exact – same – THING!?”

The shopkeeper blinked in dull surprise and took a step back, even though there was a counter between him and the pegasus.

“If your grandfather – or even his father – could see you now, sir,” Deli finished, putting about the same venom in the word ‘sir’ as the shopkeeper had in ‘horse’, then whispered, “I daren’t imagine what he’d think.”

Deli stepped back from the counter, calmly looked at the window and extended a wing to point at the trinket he’d been after.

“Now, might I purchase that little item, please?” And don’t even think about raising the price, fuck-ass.

The shopkeeper, sufficiently cowed into submission by the idea of his grandparents’ shame, silently nodded and retrieved the beautiful little statuette of a rearing alicorn from the window.

“Did you know, by the way, that this statue is of Equestrian origin?” Deli remarked as he scanned his card and stashed the little Fausticorn down his shirt. He turned to the door just in time to not let the shopkeeper see one massive shit-eating grin.

Author's Note

Short one this time.

When Fraggy met Sammy

Sam Reynolds was on her way home from work late in the afternoon when she passed the same street corner as always. This time, though, something was different. Clustered around the streetlight, there were three little ponies – one of each kind, Sam recognized, of which two were male – talking about whatever it was little ponies would talk about and feasting on some products from the Burger King two blocks away. To Sam’s surprise, she found half the dinner was actual burgers and nuggets.

“Evening, filly and gentlecolts,” Sam greeted as she approached the group.

“Evening, miss,” the pegasus mare acknowledged as she produced a salad from the Burger King-branded bag in front of her. “What’s shaking?”

“I couldn’t help but notice you’re eating meat. Did I miss something? Cos I always thought ponies were vegetarian.”

The unicorn held up a hoof as he swallowed the nugget he was eating at the time. “That’sh a common mishconception, ma’am,” he explained. “We don’t usually eat meat, because Equestrian cows, you might’ve heard, are sentient. Gives aaallll sorts of ethical issues to even consider, so meat’s relatively rare. Name’s Piercing Gaze, by the way, but just Pierce’ll do. And the lovely lady is Smokescreen.”

The earth pony put down the double bacon cheeseburger he’d been working hard on and turned to Sam next. “Fractured Mindset,” he introduced with a low rumble as he held out an oddly non-greasy hoof for Sam to shake.

If Sam had to list three interesting things about this Fracture character, his piercing, almost-glowing blue eyes would be first, closely followed by his contrastingly dark coat and a voice almost but not entirely like Darth Vader.

“Earth meat lacks the constraints that Equestrian meat has,” Fracture rumbled. “The only thing we will never willingly, knowingly eat is another equine.” He picked his cheeseburger back up and resumed eating without breaking eye contact with Sam.

“Too close for comfort,” Smokescreen added in agreement.

“But to be honest,” Pierce smirked, “if you think ponies eating Burger King is… interesting…”

Sam nodded. It was an interesting thing to see and learn about.

“…then you might want to consider bringing our dear Fracture with you.”

Fracture grinned with a mouth half full of bacon and cheese, quickly swallowed and (much to Sam’s surprise) started to sing. “I can show you the world,” he crooned. Sam found it made her guts rumble and wondered how (or even why) a pony would know the lyrics to such an ancient movie song.

“He’s interesting,” Smokescreen offered.

“Is he now? In what ways?” Sam asked as she curiously approached the dark pony.

“Many,” Fracture answered vaguely as he polished off the last of his cheeseburger.

Thinking most ponies would be safe enough to be around and feeling more than a little lonely sometimes, Sam gave her sense of self-preservation the finger and nodded. “Okay. Mister Fractured Mindset, would you like to come with me for some coffee?”

“That sounds great, miss…”

“Reynolds. Samantha Reynolds.”

“I’ll see you lovebirds tomorrow,” Fracture said as he got up and bro-hooved Pierce. “Smoke can have my fries.”

“We’ll clean up all these wrappers when we’re done,” Pierce offered. “See ya ‘round, Darth.”

------=======------

“Well, this is it. This is my house,” Sam announced as she and Fracture entered her living room. “Have a seat, make yourself comfortable. I’ll get some coffee.”

“Thank you, Miss Reynolds,” Fracture called out after Sam as she popped off to the kitchen. “I take mine plain, by the way.”

Fractured Mindset was not one to appreciate aesthetics beyond that of the body, but he took the time to check out Sam’s living room anyway. As he expected, it had the usual amenities. Plenty space as well, and he noticed the overall color scheme was one of those indicative of a hidden displeasure. For a moment, Fracture sat back on the loveseat and wondered what that displeasure would be.

“There we are,” Sam said as she returned with two cups of well-hot coffee and set them down on the table, close to the loveseat. “One for you, and one for me.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that something’s been bothering you for a good while,” Fracture brought up as he watched Sam sit down next to him. “If there is, I’d like to know it, so that maybe I can help.”

“Oh, it’s nothing really,” Sam deflected, turning away from Fracture’s ever-staring eyes. “But hey. What’s with the eyes? I didn’t know they could glow like that.”

Fracture smiled. “You probably thought I was an earth pony, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I kinda did. No wings, no horn, so you gotta be an earth pony, right?”

“There’s a fifth kind – that’s including the alicorns, just in case – that you may not have seen yet, even though they were here from the start,” Fracture started to explain.

“And you’re one of those? So what is the fifth kind?” Sam guessed.

“I am indeed. It might surprise you, but my kind used to be widely regarded as monsters.”

Sam scoffed. “Well, aside from the glowing eyes I really can’t image why.”

“It wasn’t until… three years ago now that one of ours stepped up to Princess Celestia, revealed our presence, and pledged allegiance to her and her sister in name of the rest of us.”

Fracture paused to drink some of his coffee. “Name was Crucible. Miss Reynolds…”

“Just ‘Sam’, please,” Sam interrupted.

“Sam, can you promise me not to freak out?” Fracture asked with a hitherto unheard care and almost fearfulness in his voice.

Sam nodded her reply.

“You have your… human ‘vampire’ stories, correct?”

“Yeah,” Sam acknowledged, slightly taken aback. “You’re not trying to tell me you’re a… vampony, right?”

Fracture chuckled. “Hah, no. Seriously, ‘vampony’? Something close, though. No freaking out, now.”

“Okay,” Sam reaffirmed as she sat back in her spot on the couch and tensed up to await the big reveal.

“I am that which is known as a changeling. You could consider me an emotional vampire, in that I take sustenance from very specific feelings around me. No burning in sunlight, though.”

“Feelings?” Sam pressed. “What kind of feelings? And if you eat those, why’d you have a hamburger earlier?”

“Because I really like their cheeseburgers of course, Sam. But feelings of love and” – he paused for a euphemistic-sounding cough – “related feelings are a hundred times as nutritious to me.”

Sam took a big gulp of her own coffee. “Let me guess. That isn’t your true form? Cos if we’re gonna continue the vampire theme, I’ve seen plenty in movies and such that have them reveal a monstrous true form.”

Fracture laughed a deep laugh that made ripples in his coffee and Sam’s guts alike. “You’d be right. You might want to put the coffee down.”

When Sam complied, Fracture hopped off the couch and took a solid pose on the floor. “Ready, Sam?”

“Ready.”

For just a second or two, a gout of green flames obscured Fracture from view, then revealed a more bug-like being that resembled him if you squinted a bit. His eyes had turned a solid blue, his coat had been replaced by a shiny dermal armor, and his legs were riddled with holes. When he spoke, he revealed two big fangs. “When Pierce said I was interesting, he meant it.”

“You mean, he knew?” Sam asked when she recovered from her shock and surprise.

“Of course he knows. He and his marefriend are my primary providers!” Fracture admitted as he clopped back to the couch. “I don’t hang out with them just because they’re fun to be with. Which they are.”

With a quick buzz, Fracture revealed his wings and flew back onto the couch. “Do you know how I know you are displeased with your life?” he asked.

“Not really,” Sam answered.

“I can tell,” Fracture stated matter-of-factly. “You have certain feelings, and nopo—nobody to share them with. It frustrates you, so you try to express it in your interior decorating.”

“We all need a hobby,” Sam joked, hoping her frustrations weren’t that obvious to others besides any other changelings she might meet. She took another sip of her coffee. “So tell me, if you’re so attuned, what is this frustration of mine?”

Fracture’s eyes flashed green and became like they were earlier, showing that he was once again staring directly into Sam’s proverbial soul. “You’re lonely, in the romantic sense as well as the sexual,” he revealed. “If I had to guess, you probably have low self-esteem or something, preventing you from connecting to people enough to initiate things. The only relationships you probably have are familial and professional. Am I warm?"

Sam was silent for a good ten seconds. “Spot on, for a guess.”

“As an infiltrator, you get lots of practice. But you… You really shouldn’t feel that way. Has nopony – nobody ever tried to… initiate?”

“One guy did,” Sam admitted, though she knew not why. “I felt he must’ve wanted me for just my body. And… I was right.”

Fracture sighed. “It’s really not that much better with the ponies. They just handle that kind of stuff in a different way.”

“Such as…?”

“A swift buck to the face seems awful popular,” Fracture joked. “Of course, if you’re going to approach from behind...” He drained his cup, levitating it in front of his muzzle with his true form’s horn. “On the other hoof, to approach somepony for their body would never fly for a changeling. After all, it’s their love that feeds us.”

As he spoke, Fracture slowly came closer to Sam. “Are you trying to hit on me, Fraggle?” she asked with a smile as she carefully stroked the rim of one of Fracture’s forelegs.

“I don’t believe I have to, since you’ve already given me a cutesy nickname,” Fracture purred. “I’ll let the intimate gesture slide just this once.”

“That was a…? Oh! I didn’t mean to, really,” Sam apologized, pulling back her hand.

Fracture winked. “It’s no use trying to deceive me on such matters. You should know that by now,” he reminded as he stuck the foreleg out in invitation.

As Sam carefully resumed stroking the rim, Fracture laid his head on her shoulder. For a moment, Sam expected to be bitten in the neck, but instead heard an odd breathing noise. She couldn’t see, but Fracture was actively breathing in the building affection that Sam radiated.

“Fraggle, what are you doing back there?”

“Enjoying my rimjob,” Fracture replied, blissfully unaware of the human understanding of the word, “and feeding.”

“What’s it taste like?” Sam asked curiously.

“Delicious honey,” Fracture purred. “If it were actual honey, it’d be a little runny, but it gets better.”

“You’re… purring,” Sam realized. “Is this – heheh – rimjob that nice?”

“D’ya think I could make you purr?” the changeling half-joked.

“Oh my god Fraggle you did not just say that,” Sam laughed in response. Only then did she notice that over time, she’d been pushed onto her back with Fracture looming over her, pinning her down. Even worse, she found Fracture was actually nipping at her neck very carefully and there was a certain unmistakable something stuck between their bellies. The realization that she was the cause of it turned her on. She could practically feel her panties moisten, and there was an almost certain dampness on her shirt as well that she could only assume had come from Fracture’s member.

“Ah,” the changeling said, muffled by Sam’s shoulder. “There it is.”

“What is?” Sam asked breathily.

“Lust.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam denied, her common sense fighting against her more animalistic urges. Fracture got up and gave Sam a peck on the lips on his way down.

“I told you, it’s no use trying to deceive me,” Fracture reminded as he carefully rubbed a hoof against Sam’s crotch. “Especially when you’re this obviously… turned on, I think you humans call it?”

“Oh god,” Sam sighed. She put her hands on her flushed face in a token attempt to hide her embarrassment, just catching sight of how Fracture’s horn flared up in a bright green. “Wha-?”

Fracture used his telekinesis, which he wasn’t too proud to admit was not as good as some unicorns’, to unbutton Sam’s jeans and slowly pull them off, revealing a pair of plain light-blue panties with a growing dark spot. He carefully nuzzled it and inhaled some more of Sam’s growing lust. “May I?”

“Oh god yes, please~”

Fracture roughly magicked Sam’s sodden panties away and happily started lapping away at her thoroughly moistened slit, his hot breath only exciting her further. He found the human’s vulva oddly similar to a mare’s, but paid it no further mind as that only helped him ‘get around’ as it were. Carefully, he wriggled Sam’s lips apart with his muzzle and worked his tongue inside of her, licking up the sweet nectar she was producing. Sam put a hand on his muzzle, encouraging him to go further.

“Fracture… stop,” Sam moaned after a few moments, much to Fracture’s surprise. He complied regardless and extracted his muzzle from between Sam’s legs, a line of juice connecting them.

“What is it?”

Her judgment well and truly clouded, Sam gingerly got off the loveseat. Fracture curiously followed her down and watched as Sam crouched down in front of the furniture, resting her arms on the seat and sticking her butt out. “Fracture,” she sang, catching a look at the changeling’s throbbing, shiny black cock, “make me yours~”

“Are you sure?” Fracture asked. As much as he wanted to, he liked to take good care of potential ‘recurring food sources’, as he liked to call them. “I wouldn’t want to… hurt you.”

“Frag, you couldn’t possibly hurt me,” Sam insisted. She reached back with one arm to invitingly slap her pussy. The sopping sound certainly made Fracture believe she might actually be right – he didn’t have quite that much experience in the field of sexual intercourse and in fact based his earlier cunnilingus on an attempt to eat an ice cream cone – but with things that soaked in lubricating juices, he couldn’t imagine much trouble.

It didn’t help that his judgment wasn’t entirely clear by then either.

Breathing heavily, Fracture skittered into position behind Sam and climbed onto her back. He valiantly tried to align his shaft to his target, slapping Sam in all the right ways in the attempt until she reached out and took hold of it to help. He hopped forward a little bit and rubbed his dick against Sam’s waiting snatch to see how she’d take it.

“Oh god, Fraggle. Stop teasing me and fuck me already!”

Fracture smirked as he teasingly slapped his cock against Sam’s crotch. “What was that?”

“I said fuck me, you filthy, delicious, buggy horse thing,” Sam spat between breaths. She was like a totally different woman now that she was all riled up, Fracture thought. “Take that black bastard and tear me apart!”

That was really all Fracture needed to know. He leaned forward, opened his mouth to suck in as much lust and love as Sam exuded, lined up his cock one more time and started pushing. He found Sam was pretty tight, even though she was soaked and had his muzzle in there minutes ago, but didn’t have a proverbial fuck to give about it. Instead, he focused on the lone, literal one and hilted himself. Sam moaned rather loudly, especially when Fracture’s medial ring passed through, and Fracture found himself almost surrounded in a (to him literal) fog of lust. It was like bathing in the richest chocolate bits could buy. He pulled out almost to the head, took a deep breath, and started to properly pound his new favorite meal.

Author's Note

Dear Princess Celestia, this thing was as large as chapter four before it even got close to the sexy part!

Names for this chapter: Samantha Carter + Malcolm Reynolds. Fractured Mindset with thanks to CloudHop. Smokescreen from the Transformers, and Piercing Gaze as a line-of-sight-ish name based on his having a horn.

Once More, With Feeling

Sky Dancer got up after one heck of a night with her new best friend Martin feeling very relaxed, a little sore, and a teensy bit dirty – especially behind her. Still slightly groggy, she unceremoniously let herself fall out of Martin’s bed, scrambled up on all four legs again, and wobbled over to the drawn curtains.

“Aaah,” she sighed as she pulled away the curtains and drank in the magnificent view of the biggest city in North Carolina.

“It’s another bright day in the city of Charlotte
I just got a new human friend
He’s okay with all the things that I ask him
And to top it off he’s kinda hot~”

Martin stirred, awoken by his new girl—no, marefriend and a suspicious feeling in the back of his head.

“Why do you have to sing so early
Though I will admit it’s nice
I know the city’s skyline inspires
But you sound like a Disney rej-wait, what?”

“Pegasus teams work the sky once more
Earthies are off to the farms
That’s not to say that every pony’s such a cliché
And I don’t mean to say that I don’t want to stay
But adventure waits behind that door~”

“No seriously,” Martin interjected. “Why the flying fuck are you singing?”

“Why not?” Sky teased, one hoof already on the handle of Martin’s bedroom door.

“More importantly, why was I singing?”

“Dunno. I’m gonna make breakfast. You want eggs?”

Martin was silently confused for a few seconds. “Sure.”

“It’s odd,” he thought to himself. “I can barely even remember the lines. Something about inspiration and Disney?”

Martin helped himself out of bed and put his pants back on, figuring he’d slip back and get clean clothes after breakfast. When he finally made his way to the kitchen, he found Sky somehow handling a skillet, frying eggs. Martin was, if he was honest to himself, glad to have missed what’d come before as he expected the mess to be at least a hundred times bigger.

“Looking good, darling,” Martin joked. “And the eggs, too. Where’s Steve at?”

“Nursing a hangover on the couch,” Sky answered as she put a dash of pepper on one half of the fried eggs.

Martin grabbed two plates and set them on the smallish kitchen table, then took a seat himself. “So... you wanna tell me what the deal was with the song earlier?” he insisted.

“Not really? It’s just something, y’know? It just happens sometimes,” Sky attempted to explain as she shared her culinary work between the two of them. “You get this beat in your mind and the words just… flow.”

“Some sort of pony magic?” Martin guessed. “Cos I certainly didn’t expect to sing along like that.”

“Maybe it is. I never really considered it myself. Then again, this is only my… fifth song, I think? And I’m already thirteen years old!” Sky paused in thought for a moment. “Well, that’s excluding the songs I participated in. If I counted those, I’d be closer to… about twenty, I think?”

Martin froze in shock. “Wait. How old did you say you are?”

“Thirteen. My birthday’s next month. Don’t forget it,” Sky responded with a wink.

“But… last night, we… oh my god!”

“Oh, relax and eat your breakfast, Mart,” Sky shrugged. “I’m totally legal. Got my bootie badge and such, can bear foals…”

“Right, so ponies are legally adult at that age? Good to know,” Martin acknowledged as he finished his breakfast. “That was a great egg, Sky. Thanks. I’ll be right back, then we’re off to school, okay?”

“Okay honey!”

“You want to borrow a shirt?”

“Thanks honey, but I think I’ll go au natural today,” Sky declined with a smile. It’s not like just a shirt covers up anything important, she thought as she put the dishes in the sink and got a glass of water for Steve.

------=======------

On the way to Providence, Steve, Martin, and Sky Dancer passed a group of construction workers that just finished setting up shop for the day. Most of them were human, but three were burly earth ponies in various shades of dirty brown. As the youngsters passed, the ponies got their tools out and noisily began their work while the humans climbed further up their scaffolding. To Martin’s surprise (and Steve’s cranial agony), there was a noticeable beat to the noise, as if they did it on purpose.

Halfway past, the first one started to sing, with the other two joining in a scant two lines later. It reminded Martin of a movie he’d seen, and he racked his brain trying to remember the title. He was specifically thinking of a musical number that was obviously rehearsed, yet passed off as spontaneous.

“One, two, one two three four
If you want to renovate
A storefront of this size
It helps to have a steady beat
It makes the work go faster”

Martin kept his jaws tightly shut as he continued on his increasingly worried way. He noticed that Sky was bobbing and humming along, thankfully not singing, only to find a woman – most empathically a human woman – washing the windows of her house fully entranced by the almost-infectious melody, a cream-coated stallion running on the road towards their current position.

“One two, one two three four
Cleaning dirty windows
It’s usually a chore
But if you keep a steady beat
It makes the time seem faster”

“One two, one two three four
Got to keep in shape
The ladies here don’t dig the flab
Gallop to a steady beat
They’ll notice you much faster”

“Dude, what are you even worried about? I’m no expert on pony flanks,” Martin interrupted. The stallion hopped in place, ready to take off as he smiled and listened. “But I can’t really find much flab here.”

“Thanks kid,” the stallion replied. “I just really like a good gallop, y’dig?”

“Yeah okay. Sorry for bothering you, dude,” Martin excused. The stallion held his position for a moment, then ran off exactly on the measure. That was uncanny, Martin thought.

“Heheh, ‘no expert on pony flanks’, he says,” a voice whispered behind him. Martin turned around with an expression of mock outrage.

“Which one of you motherfuckers said that!?”

Both options grinned, Steve a little more pained than Sky. Martin shrugged and smiled, turned back around, and resumed leading the way to Providence. His concentration, however, was well and truly broken, and he soon found himself caught.

“One two, one two three four
Acting on a rhythm
When everybody’s doing it
To not join in would be insane—”

“They got. The mustard. Out!”

Martin and Sky turned to Steve in surprise, who was lazily posing as if he was holding a piece of fabric. “What was that?” Sky asked.

“Song’s over, we’re here,” Steve curtly explained as he shook off the last of his alcohol-induced ailment. Behind the group, mostly unnoticed by the guys and blatantly ignored by every last pony, the humans who had joined into the song stopped to wonder what they were doing.

Author's Note

I am so in need of lyrical assistance.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RoQ9iJjJbaNfZvV-TriZI5Go2Fb2GI10gkiiZRD8RbY/edit
If this gets anywhere, I'll adjust the chapter accordingly, maybe extend it. *shrug*

Take Your Clothes off When You Dance

A few months after the merge incident, when ponies were just starting to mingle with humanity, a representative the American government had chosen met with Princess Luna and, by the Princess’ request, Fancy Pants. They met in the gardens of Canterlot Castle, around noon, with a tray of small cakes and cookies prepared for the occasion.

“Well now, mister Davison,” the night princess started, “what exactly did you feel like discussing with us at this unholy hour?”

“Don’t let your sister hear that, your highness,” Fancy Pants lightly scolded.

“You are correct, Sir Pants. That was out of line.”

Representative Davison coughed and put down the cookie he’d been eating. “Well, your highness… it’s about the ponies visiting other countries, mostly the United States.”

“Were there any laws broken?” Luna asked.

“See, that’s the problem. There’s no law that says horses – and I use that word with no ill meaning – have to be clothed. What we do have was always taken to apply to just us humans, and states that in most if not all areas, public nudity is expressly forbidden.”

“Please, elaborate,” Luna invited as she levitated a cupcake to her face.

“Well, there are places where it’s perfectly okay for a human to walk around ‘in the buff’, such as in their own homes, assuming the curtains are drawn as to not surprise any passersby, and special parts of beaches. And though most states these days allow both men and women to at least go topless in public, one must still cover the lower bits out of simple decency.”

“Wait,” Luna responded, “we believe we know where this is going.”

Fancy Pants looked up at his royal superior. “You do?”

“Sir Pants, what are you wearing right now?”

“My suit, why?”

“Tis ironic to see a stallion named Fancy Pants go without. Don’t you agree, Mister Davison?”

“I guess it kinda is. And there’s the rub. I’ve noticed the ponies here in Canterlot tend to wear either upper-body clothing or dresses. And said dresses often enough don’t reach all the way back.”

“We fail to see the problem,” Luna admitted.

“It might be a cultural thing, milady,” Fancy suggested, “If I may be so bold.”

“And why is that, Sir Pants?”

“Well, what I think is – and feel free to correct me if you think I’m wrong, my good sir – that most humans become aroused by the naked form, especially the genital region.”

“Just about, Mister Pants,” Davison agreed. “Might I ask how you got that idea?”

“You most certainly may, sir. My dear Fleur and I have partaken of your… what was it called, internets? Twasn’t long before we found several images of an erotic nature, their purpose quite obvious.”

“Oh dear,” Davison muttered under his breath as he scanned the tray for something to distract his mind. “The ponies have found the porn.”

“Whereas… milady, may I be so bold?” Fancy interrupted himself. Luna nodded her consent. “Whereas we ponies are quite inundated by public nudity. Even in Canterlot, the backside is often left bare. I believe it has to do with the cutie mark? So the way I see it, if for example a woman were to present herself to a man while naked, it would indicate a certain sexual willingness…”

He paused and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Davison, who gave a ‘close enough, carry on’ shrug with a mouth full of cake.

“If she were to be clothed at the time, it would indicate something more romantic, perhaps. A general ‘I find you interesting and we should get to know each other better over drinks’, I might guess. Now, we ponies have similar… levels, as it were, but the amount of clothing is all different. A naked mare displaying certain looks or poses towards a stallion would like a drink, but a naked mare displaying certain specific physical signs would like the D.”

“You did not just use that joke,” Davison groaned.

“I mean, we see the genitalia of other ponies incredibly frequently, from birth,” Fancy Pants continued, picking up steam. “The foals, which easily run between adults’ legs, actually have it the worst…”

“…from a certain point of view!” Luna and Fancy Pants finished the statement together.

“I see,” Davison agreed. “The problem is there’s a fair amount of people who feel that a sentient, ostensibly civilized creature should not walk around with their nuts on display. Their words, not mine, especially the part about civilization. Most of the ponies here in Canterlot wear clothes, but like Fancy Pants, nothing covers their backsides. Not that it matters, though – I’m given to understand most Canterlot ponies would rather stay here in Canterlot. Saves a lotta hassle if you ask me.”

“Quite. I find humanity quite interesting myself, to be honest,” Fancy argued. “But do you know what would really bake your noggin, sir?”

“What?”

“When a mare wants to look sexy, she brings out the lingerie.”

Davison was reasonably shocked at the idea of an equine in lacy underthings.

“Or at the very least, socks,” Luna admitted, “If they’re not to keep warm. We have a very nice pair. But if you gentlemen will excuse us, we must meet with our dear sister.”

“Very well,” Fancy Pants acknowledged, “and please give her my regards.”

He and Davison watched Luna rise and turn away, her ethereal tail swishing from one side to the other. Both men caught an easy glimpse of the royal plot hole and what lay beneath as its owner walked away. From the corner of his eye, Fancy Pants could see Davison blanch at the view.

“Is something bothering you, sir?” Fancy Pants asked sotto voice.

“I have never seen such a magnificent pussy in my life,” Davison muttered. “And yet it feels so wrong. How does this not faze you?”

“She was obviously not interested.”

“How could you tell?”

“Remember when I mentioned specific physical signs?” Fancy Pants asked as he appraised a piece of shortcake. Davison nodded. “Her highness was not displaying any of them. The tail swishing around could be mistaken for one, but that was obviously because she was turning around so we can disregard that. Do Earth horses… wink, sir?”

Davison paused to recall what the term meant in context. “Yeah, they do when they… oh.”

“There are, of course, less subtle methods to show one’s interests. But the princess did not display any of those either.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem at hand though,” Davison argued. “We still have humans getting freaked out by un-covered pony behinds.”

“Would a token article help assuage their nerves?”

“Perhaps,” Davison shrugged. “I’ll have to take that up with my superiors.”

“Then I shall do similarly. Good afternoon, Sir Davison,” Fancy Pants agreed, sneaking one more snack from the tray.

Davison twitched at the view of Fancy’s pants-less-ness seen from behind, then shrugged it off and chomped into a distracting éclair.

Author's Note

Thanks to The6thMaster for some valuable input.

Only name this time is another Doctor Who actor, Peter Davison, who played the Fifth.

Too Damn Late

Raucous applause sounded out, from hands clapping as much as hooves stomping, as several lights from above lit up a decorated desk in the middle of a large studio stage. A smarmy looking man sat there, making winning gestures at his audience.

“Thank you, thank you. Welcome to Too Damn Late! I’m Rick Lately, and it’s wonderful to see you all here tonight,” the host yelled over the noise. The stage lights stopped their little blink-and-twirl, leaving a single, neutral flood in their place. The host, Mister Lately, was your typical late night talk show funnyman, with a deceptively smart suit, hair lightly slicked back, and a toothy yet disarming grin.

“We’ve got a wonderful show lined up for you today, ladies, gentlemen, fillies, gentlecolts, and perverts,” Lately announced. One camera panned past the audience as he spoke, ending squarely on recurring hero Martin, who flipped the bird to the camera man, Rick Lately, and the viewers at home in one fell swoop.

“And that confirms it. I don’t know who you are, but you just outed yourself on national TV.”

“Blow me,” Martin said, even though there was no boom mike to pick up on it.

“Off to a good start! Now, our first topic tonight is sort of related, it is of course the human-pony marriage act that’s been all over the news recently.”

An image appeared behind Lately, showing a cartoon pony with a bridal veil. “Art department couldn’t find an actual mare willing to appear like that and their Photoshops won’t start. Something about licensing servers and Anonymous, I’m not entirely certain on the details. Anyway, with us here is our correspondent in all things pony, Pipsqueak!”

The camera pulled back to reveal a lanky pinto seated near the right edge of the desk, dressed in a billowy white shirt that reminded of a classic swashbuckler and nothing else. How he got there was obvious to the studio audience, but the viewers at home could only hope they guessed right.

“’Ello again, Mister Lately,” Pip greeted in his stereotypical brogue, which the audience couldn’t quite determine if it was exaggerated for the show or not. “So, the marriage act? Where do I even begin?”

“Well,” Lately considered, “why not any famous people, or yourself?”

“I can’t roitly say a’ve any personal experience, Mister Lately, consid’rin’ me luv’s roit dere in d’stands”, Pip deflected, pointing a hoof at a particular mare in the audience. “’n I’m not exactly ‘ware o’ any famous people jumpin’ d’species barriah.”

Lately pointed behind him, where the image of the pony in a veil had been replaced with a photo of President Pudding Pop kissing her rival in the recent election; Senator Creed. The audience gasped.

“Ah, that one doesn’t count, guv. That was a little consolation prize.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Lately grinned.

“Swear it on me mum. Bu’ anyway, there’s guvmintal institutions all o’er sayin’ it’s okay, even if it’s as useless for procreation as, f’r example, gay marriage.”

“It’s funny, you know,” Lately recalled. “Back when gay marriage was such a hot issue in America, there were certain groups who warned that next, people would want to want to marry their pets, or horses. A slippery slope argument if I ever saw one. I don’t mean to be too insulting here but in a certain way those people were almost right. I remember way back then I saw them on the news and I thought to myself, ten or maybe twenty years from now we’ll look back at this bullshit and laugh.”

“Yeah but really, Mister Lately? Not two days ago this one couple wen’ and got married, a Dutch lady ‘n a unicorn stallion? I’m told the reception set a record or summin’.”

A video came up showing the reception in question. The pastor who’d married the lucky couple was huddled in a corner with a very stiff drink and the bride was trying – and failing – to ride the groom, dressed in something straight-up Tolkien. It was rather unclear why she couldn’t mount the strapping unicorn; it could be the fact he was just a little pony, their mutual drunken state, and/or the lady’s long, billowing dress.

“Leave it to the Dutch, people,” Lately deadpanned when they cut back to the stage. “Thanks for your input, Pipsqueak.”

Behind Lately, the image was replaced once more. It now showed the official logo of Celestialism, the single most common religious belief among Equestrians, a slightly altered version of Princess Celestia’s sun mark. “Our main attraction today, ladies and assorted creatures, is in a class all of her own and she’s here to discuss religion, politics, and basically anything the viewers at home throw at us on the Internet – please welcome Princess Celestia YAY!”

Normally, a studio light would track the guest as they entered stage left, but not this time. The guest, you see, was luminous enough on her own. As her theme music played in a subdued fashion (and stark contrast with an inhuman stomping noise from the audience), she calmly trotted up to the left side of the desk where a stage hand quickly put down a large fluffy pillow.

“It’s good to have you here, your highness,” Lately smiled.

“It’s good to see the old clichés are still going strong, my dear Mister Lately,” Celestia countered.

“Now, one thing I noticed, right,” Lately opened, “is that you apparently have your own religion.”

Celestia smirked and rolled her eyes. “I just want to make this clear right now; I did not found Celestialism. My little ponies came up with that on their own shortly after I took charge and laid down some ground rules.”

“Ah yes the, eh… tenets, you mean?”

Celestia nodded solemnly. “The tenets, yes. They found out soon enough that my sister and I would not grow old, inferred that we were immortal, and the next thing I knew we’d been deified.”

Lately recalled his pre-show studies, and how one of the marines who made first contact had railgunned Celestia through the skull. “I understand alicorns – is that the right word? – are notoriously hard to kill, so I think I can accept immortality… are you immortal, though, or just very long lived?” he asked carefully.

“If it’s long enough, the distinction becomes meaningless,” Celestia half-answered.

“You heard it here first, boys,” Lately winked at the males in the audience, who laughed and clapped in approval. “So tell me about these tenets. We humans have the commandments and such, and I’m just sitting here wondering how they’re different.”

“That’s quite elementary. I’ve seen these commandments, and I think I prefer the tenets.”

“Of course you would. You wrote them.”

“Take for example the first one,” Celestia offered as she pulled a small plank-like piece of wood from under her wing and hovered it within reach of Lately. “I thought I’d bring one with me, though you, nor even anybody else in this room is likely able to read it.”

The small piece of wood was a beautiful dark red, with a lacquered surface and beveled edges. On the front, a sentence was written in an odd, angular script. The glyphs had been lightly etched in, then burned. All in all, it seemed written by horn.

“So what’s it mean, highness?”

“Please, call me Celestia.”

“Only if you call me Rick,” Lately smirked.

“Very well, Rick. This is the first guideline. From top to bottom, it reads ‘thou shalt treat hoofed creatures with due respect.’”

“No respect for humans, then? I see how it goes,” Lately said with a mock glare.

“That’s one difference between the tenets and your commandments, Rick. Yours are unyieldingly set in stone,” Celestia argued calmly. “This is merely the first, original version of that particular rule. Ponies follow only the most recent version of a given rule.”

“Oh? Then, how many revisions are there?” the host asked with genuine interest.

“This particular rule has been amended five times since, in the last three thousand years. Others have been adjusted much more often, though it’s not an easy process.” Celestia frowned. “I also noticed about half or so of the commandments are specific to certain religions.”

“Wait, hold on. When did you read Exodus?”

“Deuteronomy actually,” Celestia corrected with a smile, “shortly after my little ponies got here. The tenets, on the other hoof, make no references to me.”

“Missed a good chance there, ma’am,” Lately joked.

“Was my implication not obvious enough? We were deified. That doesn’t mean we have to accept it, let alone act on it. When a religious human breaks a commandment, that human, I’m given to understand, is doomed to go to Hull upon their death.”

“That’s ‘Hell’, ma’am.”

“Ah, thank you Rick. But when a pony, religiously-minded or otherwise, breaks a tenet, they just…” Celestia paused to find suitably strong words. “…piss me right off.”

Lately flinched. “Ouch. Then what happens?”

“That depends on what they did, obviously. But whatever the punishment is, it is exacted soon enough,” Celestia said with a threatening undertone. “What matters is; I consider myself something of a mother to my little ponies. I love them all, unquestionably. And a mother has to spank her children sometimes, when they act up.”

“Right. What’s particularly interesting is that there are humans who turned to Celestialism,” Lately remarked.

“They’re welcome to do so,” Celestia smiled. “I had a website set up with the latest revisions if they want them.”

“Now, I just got word that our first write-in questions have been submitted and picked out. Would you like to answer some questions from the viewers at home?”

Celestia smiled and nodded.

“First question… ‘Frigo’ asks, ‘why do you still enforce a monarchic society instead of seeing reason in thousands of years of human socio-political development and switch to something preferable?’”

Celestia turned to face the camera and closed her eyes in thought. “There is a saying common to humans and ponies, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ For any political system, its success depends entirely on its execution. The Equestrian diarchy – and it’d serve you well to remember my dear sister is as politically powerful as I – might be outdated or even suboptimal, but we’ve been on our thrones for thousands of years, and there have been little to no complaints from our subjects, even as society around us changed in the wildest ways.” She paused to take a quick sip of water. “There has been dissent, of course. It’s unavoidable. We would allow representatives of the opposition to sit with us and talk. They never last. Except for that one time where Luna and I gave them the political power they wanted and went on vacation. All we did for a week was raise the sun and moon, and by the third day they were practically begging us to come back.”

Lately was awestruck by the anecdote. “You are a manipulative plothole when you want to be, aren’t you?”

Celestia chuckled lightly. “You should’ve been there when I sent Twilight Sparkle, who was my faithful student at the time, to Ponyville, ostensibly to help prepare for the Summer Sun Celebration and make some friends while she was at it. Everything went as planned.”

“That’s… that’s horribly awesome. It’s a good thing you’re not evil. ‘Hibachi’ asks, ‘what’s your birthday, and how old are you?’”

“I first assumed this form on the twentieth of June,” Celestia answered vaguely. “You might recognize that date. I’d say how old I am, but after thousands of years I’m afraid I’ve lost track. Before you ask, I do know that Luna came to be shortly after me, say… fifty years or so, and skipped a thousand years while on the moon.”

“You don’t look a century over twenty, your highness. That same guy as before, ‘Frigo’ asks, ‘what was your worst fuckup as a tyrant?’”

“I’m starting to dislike your sense of humor, Frigo. I am not a tyrant. As for the rest of your question, that would be when I found myself forced to lock my dear sister in her own moon.”

Lately carefully thumbed his earpiece and quoted what was whispered to him. “Dear Princess Celestia. Hugs? Signed, Pink Pony in Ponyville.”

Much to the surprise of both the host and his audience, Celestia promptly reached out to the left of the frame, revealing a sudden Pinkie Pie in her forelegs. They hugged for a solid minute as Rick Lately watched on in confusion. Pinkie suddenly jumped onto his desk, gave the host a comical smack on the lips, then disappeared behind the desk, leaving naught but a single cupcake behind.

Celestia sighed happily. “I needed that.”

“How did she…?”

“I would suggest you don’t dwell on Pinkie Pie too much. The human mind can’t possibly withstand such things.”

Lately coughed in an attempt to recover his composure. “A certain ‘Accel’ asks, ‘my little filly is marrying a monkey.’ Wait, seriously? This question? ‘Assuming they’re able to conceive, will my grandfoals be freaks of nature?’” He scoffed and dropped his earpiece on the desk. “That’s just… Wow.”

Celestia, at least equally angered, turned back to the camera. “Ponies and humans”, she said putting stress on the proper terminology, “can’t interbreed without a whole lot of purely theoretical assistance. There’s no telling at this time what their hypothetical offspring would be like.”

The studio lights dimmed on their own accord, leaving only the glow of an angered demigoddess. “That was also incredibly racist and I will not sit by idly. You’d best prepare yourself for a personal visit, Accel, for your daughter’s sake.”

“Princess Celestia, ladies and gentlemen,” Lately called out as the studio lights came back on. “Don’t cross her or she’ll have words with you.”

As the audience applauded and the cameras pulled back in preparation for a quick commercial break, Lately turned off his microphone and leaned in towards Celestia. “How’d you do that thing with the lights? Magic?”

Celestia smirked. “No, just bribed your crew.”

“But how could you know…?”

“A lady’s got to have her secrets, Rick.”

Author's Note

Name notes: Rick Lately was named by Alphacat. Thanks Cat!

I'm Making a Note Here

Research log – 13:32 May 5 204X
Author: Dr. Andrew Parker
Subject: Magic

My team has managed to secure permission from the Equestrian government to investigate the so-called magic powers demonstrated by the horned variant. One of our volunteers was able to describe some basics and various other points of interest when asked to do so. From this and simple observation we found the following data points:

Magic is channeled through a special sort of keratin-like substance.

This substance can be unconnected, idle, or activated.

The three most common expressions of the substance are the wings (specifically the shaft of the feather, or rachis), the hooves, and the horn.

For a winged or horned Equestrian, the hooves are unconnected, disabling the ability to express magic through them. For all variants, the simple lack of wings or horn implies enough.

Only the three known horned variants are capable of consciously controlling the effect of their magic.

Our volunteer was placed in various scanning apparatus with a bowling ball provided by Dr. Garfield and asked to raise it one meter above the floor for ten seconds. From our test results, we found that magic usage produces two kinds of known radiation; most obviously a glow in the visible spectrum, the exact hue varying per user, and a microwave radiation oscillating around 3 GHz, give or take.

This should not be enough to produce the observed effects.

------=======------

Research log – 16:25 May 10 204X
Author: Dr. Andrew Parker
Subject: Magic

Having recorded the exact radiation output of several volunteers and constructed a testing device capable of reproducing it, I fear we have gotten nowhere. There must be a third effect in play here. I’ve submitted a request for more funds with which to acquire more scanning devices in the hopes of finding what makes this so-called magic work.

After all, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

------=======------

Research log – 20:02 June 26 204X
Author: Dr. Andrew Parker
Subject: Magic

With a lot of jury-rigging and elbow grease, we’ve discovered that magic works through a special sort of field that we do not fully understand yet.

Actually, we don’t understand it much at all. All we know for certain is that the odd keratin-like substance, now dubbed “magicite” is a key factor, possibly in its structure as well as molecular makeup.

If only we had a separate piece. No volunteers will allow us to cut off a piece, for obvious reasons, and we can’t force them to let us…

------=======------

Research log – 13:37 July 2 204X
Author: Dr. Andrew Parker
Subject: Magic

It seems there’s a flipside to everything as thanks to a skirmish between the Royal Guard of Equestria and a certain anti-pony terrorist organization, we now have a sizable piece of horn. We’ve scanned the horn quite thoroughly, and I’m pleased to say that it seems likely both the physical structure and molecular makeup would seem important. Later today, we’ll try to build a wand of sorts and hook it up to our testing device…

------=======------

Research log – 15:00 July 2 204X
Author: Dr. Andrew Parker
Subject: Magic

Goddammit!

Look. We know that magic must have a basis in perfectly normal, understandable physics. These people apply it instinctively, and it has clearly observable effects in the natural world. That ball-lifting test? They’re not negating the effect of gravity, they’re actively lifting the ball up as anybody with hands would do, in a struggle between their telekinesis and gravity. Much more interesting is how a pegasus can pull a cart through the air and have it remain upright as it floats behind them. Or how they hover in place, oscillating no more than a few centimeters at most, while flapping those obviously undersized wings at not nearly a high enough frequency.

Screw this. I’m going home early today. During lunch, I made a little pendant out of leftover synthetic magicite that I intend to give to my pregnant wife, Mary.

------=======------

Andrew’s personal log, June 26, 204X.

Though my work has got me down, my personal life couldn’t be better. Mary’s pregnancy has gone absolutely fine and little Raymond came to us as healthy as a father could want his baby boy to be.

But if there’s one thing you don’t give to a man of science with a slight paranoid tendency and a bunch of better-than-medical grade scanning devices, it’s a firstborn. With Mary’s approval, I’ll bring a handheld scanner from work next week.

------=======------

Andrew’s personal log, July 4, 204X.

You’re not paranoid when you’re right, or so the saying goes.

I can only imagine it was months of constant exposure to magic – at crotch height no less – that’s to blame, but it seems… well…

Little Ray might have magic fingers. It’s hard to tell if it’ll express as a green thumb, full-on wizardry, or hopefully nothing at all, but if there’s one thing I never could’ve seen coming, it’d be that my seed would be affected.

On the flipside, if his grasping reflex is any indication, his fingers should be structurally fine.

I wonder if I should notify Doctor Garfield. He too was awfully exposed, though last I checked he was also awfully single.

Author's Note

Scientific support by CloudHop, heftig, and tiwake. Thanks guys!

Names: Doctor Andrew Parker takes after Andrew Garfield, who played Spider-Man. It all spins out from there.

Rise from the Crashes

In 201X, not long after the Xbox One and Playstation 4 had been released, the inevitable happened. The videogame industry all but collapsed under the glut of increasingly cookie-cutter first person shooters and certifiably insane focus on hyper-realistic graphics to the detriment of simple gameplay innovation, with a heaping helping of so-called copy-protection on top.

It was 1983 all over again, but worse in so many ways. The public had all but lost faith in the Big Three; Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Microsoft had their home computer software to fall back on, and Sony had other divisions, losing only the game console market. Their media players no one could deny.

Nintendo was the only one left. It took many years of jumping through the most elaborate corporate hoops imaginable, but they managed to stay afloat. Investors were wary, but Nintendo did have an awfully impressive track record, and if they said the investors would not be sorry… most of them would trust the former playing card producers.

Near the tail end of 201X, a year or so before the ponies would arrive, Nintendo unveiled their new system. They had studied the past well – not just their own, but that of their rivals and partners alike. Consumer feedback that usually went unread, actual living conditions of all the major demographics…

They even marketed the system under the same name it was developed on, unlike the Ultra 64, Nitro, or Revolution.

With a renewed focus on innovative, simply fun games, the new system struggled a bit to gain the foothold its investors hoped for, but in the end it managed to rise from the ashes of the Great Videogame Crash of 201X.

The Phoenix had risen.

But everything changed when the ponies arrived.

------=======------

“Fluttershy, darling. It’s so good of you to come and visit!”

Rarity, ever radiant, reclined on her favorite couch in the private area of Carousel Boutique, slightly off-center to make room for one of her best friends.

“It’s nothing, really,” Fluttershy squeaked. “You wanted to show me something, Rarity?”

“Why yes. I’ve decided, after a substantial amount of deliberation, to invest in a video game system.” Rarity waved a hoof in the general direction of the shiny flat-screen television set mounted to the wall. A small but ornate cabinet sat below it, housing what was pretty much the only video game system on the market.

“Wait… I’ve seen one of those before,” Fluttershy realized. “I thought the controls were too tiny for a pony to use? Why would you have one?”

“That used to be a problem, darling,” the dressmaker acknowledged. “But you know how ruthless businessponies can be. Or businesshumans?”

“Businessmen, I think they’re called,” Fluttershy offered.

“Thank you, Fluttershy. Now, when we came to this world, it didn’t take the company behind this wonderful device long to realize there was a major un-tapped demographic.”

“That sounds so nice for them,” Fluttershy mumbled through an honest smile.

“Indeed! So, you know what they did?” Rarity asked energetically.

“Not really. I don’t watch TV very much so I miss a lot of advertisements.”

Rarity shrugged and patted her friend on the head. “That’s perfectly alright, darling. See, what those geniuses did was to make a special pony edition of the glorious little thing.”

Fluttershy perked up, despite feeling slightly insulted by the patting. “What’s a pony edition, Rarity?”

Rarity floated a booklet from the cabinet towards Fluttershy. “From what I understand it’s the base system, but it comes with larger controllers, specially designed by a pony, for ponies.”

“That’s nice,” Fluttershy whispered. “Anything else?”

“A different set of pack-in games, I believe?” Rarity answered uncertainly. “I think the regular edition comes with a game about that one portly man with the ghastly overalls. I’m not sure what the other game was. Racing or something.”

Fluttershy recognized the description and quietly wondered how Mario had survived the Videogame Crash. “So, what does the pony edition come with?” she asked as Rarity used her magic to turn on the TV and console.

“It has something called ‘Puzzle League’, I think, and this utterly delightful little game.”

On the TV screen, a short clip played as the console initialized various subsystems, showing an Equestrian phoenix rising from ashes that were just off the bottom of the screen. The bird smoothly changed into a more cartoon-like, two-dimensional style, then into the logo of the Nintendo Phoenix. When the sound faded out, the logo turned around on its axis, changing into a game disc that started spinning up, with a small line of text on the bottom reading “START – Menu”. When the disc reached full RPM, the screen faded to black.

Fluttershy was not prepared for what happened next. A bright, upbeat song came forth from the TV set, accompanying an equally bright title screen.

Rhythm Heaven Rebirth – Press A to Start!

Rarity floated a controller over to the couch. It was wireless, with no more than four marked buttons and a directional pad. The physical shape of the device and the specific layout of the buttons were entirely customized to make it a reliable input device for ponies. Rarity placed it within reach. A small strip of lights on the device lit up and blinked once, leaving just the leftmost lit, indicating that this controller was for the primary player. Rarity tapped the button indicated on the screen. A panel appeared on the screen, showing six tiles. Two of them had a little portrait and some statistics in them, saying those were saved games for Rarity and her little sister. Below the tiles, there were buttons labeled “clear”, “copy”, and “mods”.

“Would you like a go at it, darling?” Rarity asked as she selected the third tile, the first one that was empty. Fluttershy nodded, intrigued by the game’s presentation. Rarity pressed the button again and quickly set up a profile for her friend to use.

Another screen appeared, showing a single, relatively small tile labeled “Rhythm Training”. Rarity selected it and placed the controller on Fluttershy’s lap.

“This first part should be easy for you, darling. After all, you have your birds.”

“I’m not actually sure it works that way, Rarity. But if you say so,” Fluttershy meekly denied. A simple cartoon character that neither pony was certain was entirely human appeared in front of a curtain, explaining through a speech bubble the general controls for the game.

“But first, let’s see how good your rhythm is right now. Hit the A button in time with the beat,” the creature explained as the curtain rose, revealing a beeping contraption with an indication screen. As the brilliant executive who got the idea for a pony edition expected, Fluttershy was quite good at keeping the beat once she had the timing offset down. The creature was certainly impressed.

“Now, sometimes you’ll need to press A and B together, but you’ll know when. Please enjoy the game!”

“I will, thank you mister creature,” Fluttershy squeaked as she dismissed the final line.

The earlier screen returned, and a second little tile appeared next to the earlier one. This one was labeled “Karate Mare”, which intrigued Fluttershy.

“Rarity, why is this one named ‘Karate Mare’?” Fluttershy asked. “I didn’t expect pony games.”

“It’s modified, darling,” Rarity explained. “You can get a… thing from the internet that replaces a few things. Surely you’ve seen the ‘mods’ button earlier? I think this was ‘Karate Man’ first. But that doesn’t matter now, does it?”

“I suppose it doesn’t,” Fluttershy agreed as she pressed the button. On the screen, a simply-drawn earth pony stood on the left side, facing away, wearing a martial arts outfit. A box appeared to explain the game – the aim was to kick away all the stuff that’d fly in, to the music. It sounded pretty straightforward. When Fluttershy dismissed the box, a simple drum line started playing. On the beat, an apple flew towards the eponymous Karate Mare, who bucked it away when Fluttershy hit the button.

“This should be easy,” Fluttershy remarked. Shortly, the training session was over, and a much more impressive, somewhat faster song started playing.

As Fluttershy played (and seemed to beat Rarity’s score), Rarity pondered the act depicted on her TV screen. “Fluttershy, darling?”

“Yes?” Fluttershy acknowledged on the off-beat.

“Do you suppose Applejack would like this particular concept?”

“Maybe…”

“I think she’d like it more if she were the one actually bucking instead of just pressing a button, though.”

“You’re right – that does – sound like – something – Apple – jack would – do! Oh, is the song over already?”

“If only because she doesn’t even have a TV to play it on,” Rarity mocked. “Oh, that wasn’t very nice of me to say, now was it?”

“Shame on you, Rarity,” Fluttershy lightly scolded as she tapped Rarity on the head, “shame on you.”

------=======------

Twilight threw her controller – the regular model for humans because she had her magic – out the nearest window as the console’s built-in online store mocked her. “A hundred and fifty bits for a development kit?” she exclaimed. “What a rip off!”

“Oh, chill out, Twilight,” Spike admonished his royal pseudo-sister. “A hundred fifty for an official kit that runs on a system with pretty tight anti-piracy measures sounds pretty good when you think about it.”

“And why in the name of Luna’s left butt cheek would that be ‘pretty good’, Spike?”

“You know, Twilight, I would’ve thought you’d study the company’s history more. I mean, all of this did sort of start with you studying history, after all…”

Author's Note

The code names listed are those of the Nintendo 64, DS, and Wii. And what's this? Support for mods on a console?

History lesson: until the 3DS, no Nintendo product had an official development kit for indies to use. The 3DS hasn't, at this moment, gotten an unofficial kit like pretty much all the others have, because it has some seriously tight anti-piracy measures in place involving a lot of per-system signing. So if this hypothetical console has 3DS-level measures, and Nintendo allows indie development, then that must be through an official development kit. Having it cost ¤150.00 would balance it out well, I reckon. Speaking as an indie developer who has dabbled on Nintendo systems.

And now for something completely different.

In a dilapidated room with bad lighting, there sat five dilapidated men around a nice and shiny new table. The man at the head of the table, a large sort in an ill-fitting black suit, stood up and put his hands down on the surface.

“Gentlemen, you know why we are here,” he rumbled.

The man at the far right cut him off. “Oh no, you are not leading us into an impromptu Jesus Christ Superstar rendition, Dwayne!”

“Goddammit, Edgar,” Dwayne moaned in frustration. “Fine, we’ll focus on the matter at hand. That being those goddamn horses.”

A white-dressed man on the left side of the table coughed. “Ponies, Dwayne. There’s nothing wrong with the horses. Equestrians if you want to be specific enough not to-”

“Fuck you and your nomenclature, Tony,” Dwayne roared. “I don’t care how you want to call them! Of course the horses are fine! It should be obvious from context what the fuck I’m talking about!”

The man sitting opposite from Edgar, an older sorts with a huge beard, mumbled incoherently.

“For the last time, Ahmed,” Edgar said as he slapped his neighbor on the back of the head, “we’re not bombing shit. Stop suggesting it, you’re not former Taliban.”

Ahmed spat some violent-sounding words at Edgar.

“No, fuck you. You’re not even Muslim, shut your beard.”

Tony shook his head at the shenanigans. “Why’d you even invite the guy, Dwayne?”

Dwayne sighed as he slumped back in his chair. “I don’t even know, man. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But anyway, this country-”

“And many, many others,” Tony cut in.

“-thank you Tony – is getting overrun with these… Equestrians-”

“Thank you, Dwayne.”

“-fuck you Tony – and needs to be stopped before it gets out of hand. Especially those shiny black assholes… what were they ca-”

“Changelings, Dwayne.”

“Eat a bag of dicks, Tony. You can never tell which one’s which, or even if a given pony of another kind isn’t one. Now, even without them, the ponies are a problem. If you thought the illegal immigrants were bad, stealing our goddamn jobs…”

“With all due respect to your arguments, Dwayne, nobody else wants to do those particular jobs,” Edgar objected. At Dwayne’s “do continue” look, he obliged. “We don’t want to be the ones picking up other people’s trash, and the immigrants can’t get better jobs. That’s exactly because they’re illegal. And in the end, somebody has to go around collecting the trash, right?”

“Damn you and your education, Ed. Anyway-”

“I’m not finished, Dwayne. The ponies also brought entirely new kinds of jobs, like weather control. Humans can’t do that sort of stuff.”

Edgar’s words had barely left his mouth before he realized those would be his last. Ahmed, Tony, and the last man, who had remained silent up to now, jumped back almost simultaneously at the gunshot.

“Anyway,” Dwayne roared, louder than before, “it’s not even the jobs thing that gets me. It’s the rape packs!”

“Oh shit no!”

“Shit yes, Tony. The news won’t report it because of those namby pamby Princesses, but dammit they’re sneaking around at night, snatching our women right up!”

Dwayne paused to take a breath, and leaned in for dramatic emphasis.

“Do you guys know what a horse dick can do to human pussy?”

“I think I can imagine,” Tony said carefully. Ahmed nodded.

“And that,” Dwayne continued, “means our women can’t bear our children anymore! They’re depopulating our goddamn planet!”

The last guy beckoned for some attention. “I heard,” he said with a thick Italian accent matching his costume, “that they got changelings pretendin’ to be human doctors, and whenever a guy gets operated on, they gives you a free vasectomy on the down low.”

“My God, Rico. Now then, what do we do about all of this? And Ahmed? Don’t be predictable.”

------=======------

One month earlier…

“Look, Slipstream. It doesn’t matter how much you try,” one changeling said to another. They were sitting on the roof of an apartment complex, taking in the sight of Earth’s sun setting in the distance. The two looked almost exactly alike, were it not for the holes in their limbs. “It won’t fucking work.”

“Screw you, Hopper. We’re shape shifters, we should be able to do this,” the other changeling, Slipstream, argued fruitlessly. “This is not just some pride thing! Why shouldn’t we be able to do it?”

“Because, you daft punk, we’re quadrupeds, and we’re equine,” Hopper hissed, poking Slipstream’s chest armor for emphasis. “We can only change into other ponies.”

“Have you… have you tried?”

“Sure I have. I was young and naïve once too, y’know?” Hopper jokingly admitted.

“We’re the same age, asshole.”

“But yeah, I really did try,” Hopper insisted. “The result… you wouldn’t call it ‘human’ at all.”

“Show me. Try turning into… into that one lady on the news?” Slipstream challenged. “You know the one; the blonde human female who likes to wear blue.”

“Ah… hold on,” Hopper said, concentrating on who he saw on TV the day before. With a burst of green flames, Hopper changed his form to the best of his ability. When the flames died down, there stood a pony approximation of the woman known best as simply Linda. “See,” he spoke with the newscaster’s voice, “it can’t be done.”

Slipstream shook his head in disapproval. “I’m sure it can be done. It must be something instinctive or whatever.” He stood there in thought as Hopper turned back into his own original form. “Wait, I have an idea!”

“Enlighten me.”

“What if I took it step-by-step?” Slipstream considered out loud. He reared up and tried to hold that pose, comparing his stance. He let himself fall back down again, took a few steps on all fours, then got up again and tried to take a few more steps on his hind legs.

“What the fuck are you doing, Slippy,” Hopper deadpanned. It wasn’t even a question.

“I’m studying.”

“Bro, you haven’t studied since you first left home.”

Slipstream gave Hopper a nasty look and dropped again. “Okay, you know what we need, Hop?”

“Mental help?” Hopper joked.

“Forget I asked.”

Slipstream turned away from the peanut gallery and considered his options, rubbing a hoof against his chin. It produced a nasty scraping sound that neither changeling paid any attention to, but did cause a pegasus that was napping nearby to fall of her cloud.

“Got it!” Slipstream exclaimed. Focusing his powers on his hips, he slowly stood upright once more. As the flames died out, the experimenting equine found his first idea to have worked perfectly, or at least as far as he could tell.

“By the Power of Ingenuity… I AM A BIPED!”

Hopper facehooved. “We’re doomed. Please tell me you can revert that?”

------=======------

“And that’s that. That’s how we can get these people to realize the ponies must be driven out of the country.”

“You’re a genius, Tony,” Dwayne admitted, nearly driven to tears by the sheer audacity of Tony’s plan. “Ahmed, you on board with this?”

Ahmed happily mumbled something through his beard.

“Rico?” Dwayne called out. But Rico didn’t respond. He just sat there, leaning back in his chair with an odd smile. “Rico, answer me. Are you with us?”

Slowly, Rico straightened up his chair. He grabbed the arm rests and audibly smirked.

“Rico. Answer me, you smarmy Italian asshole.”

Slowly, Rico rose from his chair and adjusted his fedora. “I heard ya, boss. Keep your pants on.”

“What’s the matter with you, Rico?” Dwayne growled.

“There’s something ya oughta know at this particular juncture, boss,” Rico said in a dramatic rumble. With his eyes closed, he pulled out a cigarette, slowly stuck it between his lips, and held both hands in front of his mouth, as if to light the cigarette without any wind. He was, like the rest, standing inside.

“Rico, this is no time to smoke.”

To the shared surprise of Tony, Ahmed, and Dwayne, the light of the flame behind Rico’s hands was not the regular yellow and orange colors, but a stark green. Before the others knew what was happening, the Italian’s hands had erupted in bright green flames that quickly spread to his arms and chest. Within seconds, there stood a monstrous creature with shiny black skin and bright cyan eyes, wearing a practical dark blue armor – a bipedal changeling. The only thing retained was the unlit cigarette and white fedora.

“Changeling! Kill him!” Dwayne barked as he pulled his gun.

“I’m unarmed!” Tony shouted back. Ahmed, in his shock, just froze in place, smelling of fresh urine.

The changeling formerly known as Rico handily deflected each shot with his forearms, earning a few cracks in his dermal armor that he would heal later. Counting the shots, he waited for Dwayne to empty his clip, and slapped the gun out of his hand.

“By the power vested in me by Princess Luna of Equestria,” the creature spoke with a different, deeper voice that nevertheless still had Rico’s accent, “you are all under arrest for plannin’ da eradication of a sentient species.”

“You can’t do this, hellspawn!” Dwayne spat. “We have rights! You have to read our rights!”

“If ya were to check with Equestrian law, you’ll find that I don’t,” the changeling said with a smirk. He produced a sticky green glop and bound the would-be terrorists’ hands and feet with it, then stuck them to their chairs. Confident in his work, he flashed green once more, revealing his usual – and slightly less frightening – quadruped form, and tapped a hoof against a small device in his ear.

“Come in, Night Guard. Sergeant Ransack here, Changeling Squad Alpha. Yeah? Targets are secured. One casualty, not mine. Okay, very good, Commander.”

Ransack sat down on one of the remaining chairs. “Man, walkin’ on two legs is a pain.”

“Your kind… you’re horrible, you know that?” Dwayne hissed.

“Maybe. But hey, somebody has to come and collect da trash every now and then, right?” the Italian Stallion joked as he finally lit that cigarette.

Author's Note

Thanks to Nighthawk for some very good suggestions on the opening scene.

The one with the lesbians

“Happy birthday, Rachel!”

Several humans and ponies called out, scattered around Rachel’s living room. A banner hung above the TV reading “Happy 26th Birthday”. All of Rachel’s friends had come, of which there weren’t many – about five, but each of them had friends of their own that they’d brought along. Rachel’s old classmate Steve, for example, had brought Sky Dancer, who he later explained filled in for his roommate, who was otherwise occupied. Steve didn’t care much about that. He felt Sky Dancer was a pretty cool mare.

“I don’t believe you’ve introduced me to your pony friend yet, Steve,” Rachel said as she approached Steve and Sky, beer in hand.

“You’re right, I haven’t. Great party, by the way. Congratulations,” Steve confirmed, cradling his own drink and a small container of popcorn. “This is Sky, my roomie’s buck fuddy.”

“Sky Dancer, my pleasure.”

“Hey,” Steve interjected, “mind if I watch some TV? There’s something I wanted to catch…”

“Knock yourself out,” Rachel said, ever the excellent hostess.

“Thanks, Ray.” Steve planted his fat ass on the couch, took the remote, and turned on the TV just in time to see the thing he wanted. Three medical-looking figures stood on a stage with a lectern. One was an older man, clearly a veteran doctor, the other a younger woman who somehow looked nearly as learned as the old man, and the third was a golden-brown unicorn with glasses. The old man stood in the middle, behind the lectern.

“—to our attention. At least half of these rumors can be dismissed with but a cursory glance at a recent book or website on biology,” the old doctor said. “For example, one of the rumors suggests that pony-on-human intercourse can cause major physical trauma. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I have been involved in updating at least four major medical and biological websites and several school textbooks. A horse may cause physical trauma, and I don’t recommend trying for too many reasons. Little ponies however, are in the end still exactly that – little ponies. Even the larger specimens aren’t much better endowed than the average human male.”

The unicorn standing next to him seemed insulted, which amused Steve and the ladies watching over his shoulder, leaning against the back of the couch.

“Not like Ray would be at risk,” a unicorn mare joked from behind the couch. “Am I right?”

Rachel chuckled. “Yeah, you are. It’d be a pretty weird day in Hell when you catch me with a man’s meat ‘twixt my nethers, pony or otherwise.”

“Who’re you?” Steve asked, turning around to face the newcomer. She was a tiny sort, with a power blue coat and a curly olive-colored mane held in place by some decorative barrettes and a length of ribbon.

“Hi. I’m Dawn Breeze. I’m in Sky’s class.”

“Steve, it’s a pleasure. I like your mane.”

“Thanks. All the colts – I mean, boys tell me that,” Dawn giggled.

Rachel gave Dawn a soft pet on the head and carefully stroked the olive curls. “I can’t be the only girl here who’d agree with that sentiment?”

“I’m sure you’re not,” Sky Dancer teased, poking Rachel in the upper leg. “You’re not looking half bad yourself though.”

“Yeah, I’ve never seen hair that long on a human,” Dawn agreed as she magically took the lower end of Rachel’s hair and held it in front of her face. The black mass easily came down to her butt and had clearly seen a good half bottle of conditioner that morning.

At just about that moment, Sky Dancer realized what Rachel had said. “So… what was that about not taking any ‘man meat’?”

“It means she prefers company of the female persuasion at night,” Steve jokingly explained. “She’s, well, she’s a lesbian.”

Sky’s ears perked up in understanding. “Oh, you mean she’s like a fillyfooler?”

Steve shrugged. Behind him, Ray giggled at Sky’s terminology. “Well, I can’t rightly say I’ve ever – heh – fooled around with a filly before.”

Unseen by Rachel, Dawn blushed and bit her lip, still holding Ray’s hair. “I’d…”

Steve leaned back in an attempt to get a good view of Dawn. “You’d what?”

“Never mind,” Dawn squeaked.

Rachel sighed happily. “Y’know, Dawn? I never thought I’d say it but this magic shit with my hair? I can feel it all the way up my scalp. If I wasn’t supposed to be hosting my birthday party I’d let you do that all day.”

Sky narrowed her eyes in thought and considered the situation. She knew something about Dawn that the others weren’t likely to know. “Y’know… you don’t have to be here to entertain us. Why not pop off to somewhere nice and relatively quiet? You can stroke each other, and we’ll make sure you’ll still have some drinks and stuff left when you come back.”

“Gee, I dunno…”

At Sky’s signal, Steve got up and forcefully pushed the lady and unicorn towards the bedroom door. “Go on, you two enjoy your privacy,” Steve smirked as he closed the door behind them. Feeling something was missing, he turned to the nearest female human, silently pointed at the bedroom door’s knob, and made a rude gesture. Understanding, the lady expertly took off her bra from underneath her sweater – quite a feat that Steve hadn’t witnessed nearly often enough – and hung it on the doorknob.

From the living room, they could hear Sky call out. “Who wants to play DDR?”

------=======------

Rachel sat on her bed, looking at the unicorn in front of her.

“Why’d you let go of my hair?”

“Well”, Dawn hesitated, “I think they meant for us to do more than just stroking our manes...”

“Hair, Dawn. It’s called hair for humans,” Rachel corrected with a soft smile. “But you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, are you?”

Dawn looked down at the bed sheets and softly pawed at them. “Ray…”

“What is it, honey?”

“Do you think I’m pretty?” the unicorn asked shyly.

“Ah?” Rachel considered the question for a moment. “I’m not sure. I’ve never really considered ponies like that. But to be entirely honest… yeah, you are pretty.”

Dawn blushed a deep red. “So… what about me do you like?”

“Well,” Rachel said as she reached out towards the pony, “I really like your mane.”

“You can stroke it… if you want.”

Happily, Rachel scooted closer towards Dawn and ran her fingers through the unicorn’s curls. “Do you like anything about me, besides my hair?”

“Umm…”

“Don’t be shy. It’s just us girls now,” Rachel reaffirmed. She glanced at the door, confirming it was indeed locked, and softly scratched behind one of Dawn’s ears. In response, the pony scooted closer in turn, closed her eyes, and carefully rested her head on Ray’s chest.

“These. I like these,” Dawn finally answered.

“My tits? I feel I could do with smaller…”

Dawn audibly smirked. “At least you have tits. I’d only get them if I were nursing, and even then nothing this… big.” She removed her head from Ray’s rack and held up a begging foreleg. “Can I…”

“Hmm?”

“Can I touch them?” Dawn squeaked.

Rachel softly giggled at the request. “Sure.”

Gingerly, Dawn put a hoof on one of Rachel’s breasts. To Ray’s surprise, it felt not quite as hard as she’d expected a hoof to feel – sturdy, but with a bit of give, though it was hard to tell with a tit. As Dawn stroked the firm sack of mostly fatty tissue, Rachel carefully put her hand on the same hoof, feeling around for where the fur would end. She found it hard to tell from sight, pony hooves reminding her of that one cartoon series that just wouldn’t end until it finally did a few years back. Just as Rachel found the threshold between leg and hoof, said hoof caught on a nipple that Rachel was barely aware had grown stiff with all the attention, right through her top and bra.

“You can keep doing that if you want to,” Rachel whispered as she pulled her unicorn bedmate closer. As they looked in each other’s eyes, a certain urge grew inside of them. They both closed their eyes and indulged, their tongues exploring their mouths. Rachel found Dawn’s tongue to be almost unfairly large and muscular, yet as fine and dainty as Dawn must’ve found Ray’s. Emboldened by the kiss as much as the hoof that was increasingly roughly massaging her tits, Rachel reached a hand down to where she hoped her target was. A soft yelp-like noise from Dawn confirmed it, and Rachel carefully tweaked the pony’s nipple, poking through the fur just in front of (or above, considering her seated position) her pony pussy.

“That’s not fair,” the unicorn softly complained. With a quick, controlled application of her magic, she pulled off Rachel’s top and unhooked her bra, letting each fall to the side of the bed. “They’re beautiful…”

“No they’re—what are you doing!?” Rachel hissed in surprise as the pony latched onto the nearest nipple, still mare-handling the other tit. She could almost feel her inhibitions going, with her mind in general struggling to keep up. An errant twitch made her lose the stiff pony nipple she was playing with, and her hand was left blindly feeling around for the missing teat. Instead, Rachel found her hand on Dawn’s vagina, which she couldn’t bother to be surprised at was increasingly moist. “Damn it…”

“What’s wrong?” Dawn asked, sending unintentional vibrations through the breast she was nursing.

“Oh, god this is so hot,” Rachel admitted, throwing the pony off of her. Dawn’s teeth scraped and pulled at Ray’s abused nipple, which only served to work her up even more. As Dawn lay on her back, dazed and slightly confused, Rachel took just a moment to aggressively remove her skirt and panties. “Dawn, honey… have you ever had someone eat you out?” she asked breathily.

Dawn shook her head as she watched Rachel move into position between her hind legs. “One pony tried, once. But he was no good.”

“I thought you weren’t into males?”

“I didn’t kno—oh wow!”

Rachel’s human tongue may not have been as flexible and long as Dawn’s but she used it like a pro, switching between licking the pony’s fat lips and the overflowing walls inside of her, then suddenly taking a few precious moments to assault her throbbing clit. What Dawn couldn’t see was that one of Rachel’s hands was knuckle-deep inside of her own sopping entrance.

“Ray… Ray. Don’t stop!” the pony moaned, quickly approaching her limits. If she wasn’t on her back she’d whip her tail back and forth in excitement, but she was, and her tail was pinned by Rachel’s body.

“Mmmhmm?” Rachel hummed just as she was working on Dawn’s clit. The reaction was instantaneous as Dawn sprayed mare fluids all over Rachel’s chin. Somewhat to her surprise, when she regained a reasonable grip on her senses, she found Rachel sitting up, licking and wiping most of it off of her face and swallowing it with a lusty smile.

“So that’s why they call it a candy vag,” the human purred. “Here, see for yourself.” Rachel reached down with both of her hands, wiping up a good amount of her own girl cum and holding it out for Dawn to lick off.

Ripped from the Headlines

Child with possible “magic fingers” to be homeschooled – Silicon Valley, 204X
The firstborn son of Dr. Andrew Parker, who is ostensibly gifted with the potential for Equestrian magic powers, will not enter the official school system, the child’s parents have decided. They feel there are several high risks regarding their child, spanning from being teased or worse for having abnormal fingers to actually being capable of using pony magic and possibly doing damage in an uncontrolled environment.

Princess Celestia officially out of the dating pool – Canterlot, 202X
Her Royal Highness Princess Celestia of Equestria made an official statement today, saying she is not and will not have herself be considered an eligible bachelorette. Inside sources say this is because of her apparent immortality. Word on the Internet adds that she would therefore only date other immortals and that “Twilestia is bestia.” There is at this time no word about her sister, Princess Luna.

#ponymisfits
yeah well if i could do magic id
You'd what, dipshit?
im almost afrai dto say
cough it up, bro.
okay
id telekenanisstily hold twiligt sparkle in place
and have my wahy with her ass
Jesus fuck, Poop. You can't just say that sort of thing here!
why not fagt
she's on this server and doesn't like it when people do that.
It was nice knowing you, man.
how cud she even know asshols
shes not on this channel
* WellReadMare (sparkle@silence.in.the.library) has joined #ponymisfits
Did you honestly think that would keep me from finding out?
* SuperPooperScooper has quit IRC (Quit: Magic, bitches.)
george orwell called
he wants his privacy concerns back.
Oh relax, FactChecker9000. I was joking.
Thanks again, JackMichaelson.
* JackMichaelson bows

How to train your pony – excerpt from Cosmo
7. Bigger is better. When dating ponies, always try to find the largest-hung stallion you can.

An open letter from a concerned man of science
Dear Mrs. Terwilliger.
In your recent article in Cosmo, “How to train your pony”, you suggested finding “the largest-hung stallion”. I urge you to reconsider this stance as above-average stallions can easily cause damage to the receiving woman. You might remember the statement made last month about how intercourse with a pony stallion is safe. This assumes intercourse with an average stallion. The average woman is not built as deep as the average mare and it will hurt.
Yours truly, the stallion on stage during that statement.

Changelings open brothel, local Catholics go wild – Manhattan, 204X
Everybody saw it coming. Not one week after opening, the erotic establishment known best as Wish Fulfillment has come under fire from the nearby church. A spokespony for the brothel has gone on record saying, “We’re not that concerned about it. Client confidentiality prevents me from naming names, but in the single week since we opened the place we’ve had twelve members of this very same church ‘make use’ of our services. You know who you are.” The pastor was not available for comment.

Pony programmers pickle potential privacy problem – Redmond, 203X
While testing the recently released beta of the upcoming new Microsoft Windows version, a group of Equestrians known on the Internet only as the Face Stab Squad have discovered a method that Microsoft and potentially anybody else could use to record all Internet activity. A spokesman for Microsoft has claimed that this possibility was not planned for. The FSS are still investigating the possible origin of the security hole, while a court order urges the programmers at Microsoft to patch the hole regardless.

First potential human/pony hybrid? – New Jersey, 204X
Some say she cheated. Some say it’s a miracle. Either way, a woman in New Jersey who married a unicorn became pregnant. The scientific community is torn between accepting that maybe Equestrians, who are technically extra-terrestrial, and humans may be biologically compatible, or that the woman did in fact cheat. We will know more next month when the fetus has hopefully grown enough to tell. One popular theory holds that the unicorn, a published biologist, has tampered with his own reproductive DNA and/or possibly altered something about his wife. The religious right, when they caught wind of the theory, is suspected to have painted a hateful warning on the wall of the couple’s home, teaching the world that graffiti and unicorn telekinesis go together like oil and water.

Two dead in nearly-foiled terrorist attack – Cebu City, 202X
A Portuguese offshoot of the anti-pony organization known as the Friends of Humanity has attacked a pony marketplace in Cebu City with a suicide bomber. The only casualties were the bomber himself and the salespony closest to him. Thanks to the quick reflexes of a unicorn standing nearby who wishes to remain anonymous, little to no further damage was done.

From the Twitter feeds
“i cant believe ppl still think only humans can be #gay.” – @itsokaytobepony
“@itsokaytobepony I know, right? My brother was caught in the wrong neighborhood last week. An Earth pony stallion... surprised him. #buttsex” – @tallslimandhandsome
“@tallslimandhandsome wait did you mean earth pony or -earth- pony? #wordswordswords” – @itsokaytobepony
“@itsokaytobepony Earth as in from this planet, as in dumb near-mute that'd violate my slightly feminine-looking brother.” – @tallslimandhandsome
“@tallslimandhandsome Why would you put that online!? I TRUSTED YOU BIG BROTHER! Now I feel #violated in another way! #nahitscool #werecool” – @ruminantphilosopher

Luna Replies
“Yes, our dear Twilight Sparkle is known to react in such ways when somebody offends her on the Internets. We assure you, the people she snatches are returned unharmed, and they are rarely away for longer than ten minutes. It’s but a simple scare tactic, nothing more.”
“Is it not obvious? She does not approve of random strangers lusting after her body in such ways. Neither do we, or our dear sister. The main difference is, Twilight Sparkle has decided to do something about it.”
“I fail to see the issue. The artwork and stories exist, and more is still produced, but those are not her. There is no danger to her purity of body or mind in such cases. I feel it is like how our dear sister has always allowed authors to depict her in their stories, even if they were the raunchiest sexual fare imaginable. So do we and Twilight Sparkle, and I believe dear Cadenza as well, but not quite as much, I believe.”

Tired of getting your plot handed to you?
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Author's Note

Name notes: just the one.

Through the Looking Glass

It wasn’t long after Equestria had appeared on Earth that ponies discovered human technology. In fact, their first was a perfect example of what humans tended to use their collective smarts for, courtesy of a trigger-happy marine with an unfortunate phobia. Friendlier items of interest quickly followed.

Astute readers might remember a certain movie poster.

Though the series had died peacefully in its metaphorical sleep years before, after a finale that would inspire authors as if it were penned by the Bard himself, the fandom was still going strong. They too, after all, were particularly susceptible to inspiration. Therefore, when the dust (both metaphorical and literal) of their appearance had settled, it was almost unavoidable that the Equestrians would encounter their own merchandise.

“Mister Hartnell,” Princess Celestia gently called out as she sat in the captain’s office, her gaze fixed at a small figurine on the human’s impressive mahogany desk.

“What is it, your highness?”

“It’s this, mister Hartnell. How is it you have an image of my dear Twilight when we had just met?”

The captain stood there, shocked into silence as realization dawned on him. He recalled when his daughter, dear sweet Susan, had given him the little toy figurine to “counter the stuffiness of his workplace a little,” as she explained it. Thinking back, he remembered the oddly popular TV show that had ended a few years after he acquired the little violet unicorn.

It wasn’t a unicorn, but Captain Hartnell found he couldn’t recall the more fitting term. “Unicorn” would do. If he accidentally insulted somepony, he’d handle it at that time. There was no need to worry about semantics yet.

“That’s a very interesting question, your highness,” the captain started. “Now, normally when one is given a reply like that it actually means the speaker doesn’t know the answer at all, but I do have something of an answer.”

“I’m listening,” Princess Celestia acknowledged without even a trace of anger in her voice.

“Some years back, there was this really popular television show – the fourth go at it, in fact – about, well, ponies.”

Celestia raised a curious eyebrow, the rest of her face completely still.

“It had a toy line, as it goes with popular shows. Surely you’ve seen that before?”

“I have,” Celestia nodded with a faint smile as she recalled an old Equestrian play that she particularly liked, and the plush toy based on its lead character that a little filly had given her one day. “Please, continue.”

“I’m not sure, I’d have to look it up, but I believe there was a Princess Celestia in the series too,” the captain obligingly continued, a single bead of sweat on his brow as he pondered the implications to the best of his knowledge. He found said knowledge lacking – there was something about a paradox of sorts but he couldn’t recall. It seemed more up Mister Chekov’s alley to him.

“Was there now?” Celestia said, her smile steadily growing.

“I think so. Let me just…”

The captain reached into one of the desk’s drawers and retrieved a tablet computer. He opened the browser and quickly found what he was looking for.

“Here we go. ‘My Little Pony Friendship is Magic’, a children’s television series that ran from 2010 to 202X, unexpectedly popular with older viewers. Would you like to see for yourself, Princess?”

Celestia nodded and magically grasped the device. “It says here you can watch full episodes. Do I dare try?”

Captain Hartnell shrugged. “I don’t know what to expect, your highness.”

“Me neither, my dear captain,” Celestia agreed as she applied a measured amount of force to a particular spot on the screen. The image of the webpage was quickly replaced by a pure black, marred only by a little spinning icon dead center. Moments later, the music started and a familiar book appeared on the screen.

“Once upon a time,” the voice-over narrated, “in the magical land of Equestria...”

“Oh that looks nice. It reminds me of a tapestry in the castle,” Celestia remarked. “Except that one isn’t animated.”

When the Princess’s animated counterpart appeared, standing on a cloud with her sister on the other side, Celestia laughed. “Oh, oh wow. Pink? My mane isn’t pink. Where’d they get that idea?”

“I haven’t a clue, Princess,” the captain shrugged. Celestia hummed and skipped ahead a bit. After waiting on the spinner some more, she found another error. “Aha!”

“What?”

“The letters are wrong.”

“Your highness?”

“Twilight sent me a letter back then, and the phrasing is entirely different. Hers was a lot more informal than this… show depicts. So was my reply. Just about the only thing that matches, to the best of my recollection, is the ‘make some friends’ at the end. I particularly liked that part.”

Captain Hartnell smiled and nodded. “I believe there’s a name for this sort of thing. Damned if I can recall, though… ‘Reciprocal fiction’? No… something with an R though.”

With a gasp, the captain remembered a very important thing. “Your highness?”

“Yes, captain?”

“The show was very popular and there are many fan-created works, made even to this day.”

“Isn’t that nice,” Celestia smiled. It wasn’t even a question.

“Perhaps, but I was just thinking…”

“No really, it’s all good,” Celestia insisted. “It’s always nice to see creative minds at work and I’m sure the results are of a reasonable quality. And logically speaking, these fan works aren’t about me or my little ponies, but these fictional… whatever you want to call them.”

Hartnell swallowed, perfectly aware of the flipside of that particular coin.

“Is something the matter, captain?”

“Some of these works are a little… ahem…”

Celestia shrugged, sighed, and faintly smiled as she closed the video. “That much was to be expected of any popular work, no?”

“I guess?”

“I can’t speak for my little ponies, but I for one am perfectly comfortable with the idea of somepony… some human, perhaps… well, clopping off to a saucy image of myself. That’s what you get when you place your likeness in the public domain. And considering the human works don’t technically depict me…”

“Legal Celestia porn? That’s a thing that exists, and you’re okay with it?”

Celestia nodded and smiled a little wider. “Would you like to see some?”

Hartnell would’ve answered no, but merely choked in surprise.

“Oh, a picture archive,” he heard Celestia say to herself. “More pink mane… what is it with the pink mane?”

Celestia dropped the tablet from her magic onto the sturdy desk and stood there with a somewhat shocked expression.

“What is it?”

“…Eggs don’t go in there.”

Author's Note

"Recursive Canon" comes pretty close, Cap'n.

In her home at Canterlot, darling Celestia waits dreaming

“Don’t do it! You’re only sixteen, kid!”

Marcus wouldn’t listen to the cries from below as he stood on the edge of Canterlot. His snazzy (if not slightly damaged) coat flapped in the wind and his hands were starting to hurt from holding on to the railing. One false move, or even simply releasing his grip, and he’d surely plummet to certain death.

Behind him, at a more than respectable distance, was a small group of worried onlookers, human and pony alike. A human police officer and a pony guard stood at the front, shouting meaningless drivel.

It was all useless. Humans kept causing each other misery and pain. There was no hope for mankind, Marcus had considered years ago. And then the ponies came. Somehow, despite a rough start, the ponies had managed to do the one thing humanity still couldn’t. Somehow, they got along. They had an army, but they never fought wars against other ponies. They… fought dragons and stuff.

“Don’t be an idiot, kid! Step away from the railing!”

It sickened Marcus to the core, and having lost all hope in the future of mankind, he had decided to escape from his pathetic reality. Purely as a statement, he’d do it right there in the pony capitol, considering they were what pushed him over the proverbial edge.

“Officer,” Marcus heard a beautiful female voice behind him say, “May I?”

He heard the soft clip-clop of a pony princess’s boots on the tile, approaching slowly.

“No… stay away from me and let me do this, please…”

“Marcus Carlsberg?” the princess called out. Without looking, Marcus identified the voice as the younger princess, Luna.

“Don’t… I’ll do it! I’ll jump!”

“I most sincerely doubt that, Marcus Carlsberg,” Luna softly insisted. Marcus found, to his surprise, that he could not release his hold on the railing. “Why don’t you just climb back down and sit with me?”

It was hardly a question at all. Something in Marcus’ mind worked against him, possibly the same thing that made him grip the railing. He looked back to find the Night Princess sitting right there, her forelegs extended in invitation, her wings slowly extending to hide the audience, and her nebula-like hair ever drifting in a strange cosmic breeze.

Marcus could swear the sky was darkening as he slowly acquiesced to Luna’s request. He slowly walked – nearly crawled – his way to the princess and collapsed into her embrace. Her wings folded around him, and all went black.

A momentary feeling of weightlessness overtook the human, less to his surprise than he expected. When he opened his eyes, the princess and he were in a strange, almost non-descript place, the only things that could serve as any sort of description being utterly unrecognizable stars and an omnipresent fog that completely obscured the floor, assuming there was one.

“Hush, child,” the Night Princess spoke. “Be at ease, and tell me what ails you.”

“Where are we?” Marcus asked.

“This is the Celestial Plane, child. It… ostensibly belongs to my dear sister, as the name implies, but only for a minor technicality.”

Marcus found himself oddly accepting of the answer and carefully leaned his head against Luna’s breast.

“So… you and your sister… you’re basically gods, aren’t you?”

“That is what most of our little ponies call us.”

“Then what are you?”

Luna remained silent for what seemed like a few minutes. “Basically gods, I would think.”

“Isn’t that a contradiction?”

“We cannot fault our little ponies for calling us gods. We are, after all, virtually immortal and wield incredible power, each of us…”

Marcus considered the Princess’ answer, listening to her heartbeat.

“This isn’t even your true form, isn’t it?”

Luna was taken aback by the sudden question. “I... how did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Marcus softly smiled. “What are you, really?”

Luna considered her answer for a few more minutes. “I am Luna the Night Mare, guardian of the dream fields, former Element Bearer. I am tens of millennia old and even so older still for this equine form is but one.”

“What’s the other?” Marcus asked with genuine interest and a shine in his eyes that you wouldn’t expect from someone who had tried to throw himself over the edge just under ten minutes ago.

Luna raised a single eyebrow and shrugged. She stood up, leaving Marcus sitting on the metaphysical floor, and switched to her Nightmare Moon guise in a quick flash. The transformed mare of darkness looked down upon the human, expecting nothing but fear.

Instead, she only found wonderment, followed shortly by a tiny bit of disappointment.

“That’s not it, isn’t it?” Marcus insisted.

“The true forms of my sister and… would break you,” Luna warned.

Tears started to form in Marcus’ eyes as he gazed upon the Nightmare’s imposing form. “I must see it. If it kills me, let it be so… but I must see.”

Luna closed her eyes and pondered the request. “Very well. If this kills you, let it be your own fault.”

The Celestial Plane seemed to rumble, despite Marcus’ full awareness that this was supposedly impossible. He blamed his feeble human mind trying to make sense of things and chastised himself for it. Trying to make sense might very well kill him shortly. In front of him, the pony princess shone a bright black and seemed to dissipate, growing ever larger. Within moments what used to be a perfectly ordinary equine had become something that defied all attempts at description. The best Marcus could make of it was some kind of nebula. If it wasn’t several orders of magnitude larger than the bed of fog it might’ve actually mixed, and yet somehow despite its immense size, the lunar cloud somehow fit perfectly into Marcus’ field of view.

A voice that was simultaneously soft and motherly as well as basically loud as a metric ton of fuck spoke out.

Come to us if thou darest.

Marcus scrabbled upright and wiped a single tear from his face. Without hesitation, but with full knowledge and awareness of what he was doing entirely of his own unmolested volition, he strode forth. The cloud was surprisingly warm. Hot, even, and yet somehow freezing cold at the same time. The human basked in it even as his clothes burned away around him in flames of every color but red. As he walked further into the cloud, a shape resolved in front of him that looked not entirely unlike a human Luna, though Marcus couldn’t make out the apparition’s facial features. As the figure spread her arms, Marcus returned the gesture.

Come to us and find meaning in thy life.

------=======------

“What do you think they’re doing?” the officer asked the guard.

“Not a clue. Princess Luna has always been something of a mystery to us. Even to the Night Guard, actually.”

“Heads up, I think they’re done!”

Luna slowly folded back her wings, still sitting there on the tiled floor of the terrace. Marcus, surprisingly, was openly weeping on her breast, his face obscured by his arms as he held onto the Princess’ shoulders.

“Rise, my friend,” the Princess spoke as she prepared to stand up. Marcus released his hold on her shoulders, revealing a loving smile. “Will you serve me and my sisters?” she whispered.

“I will… my Goddess,” the youth agreed, saying the word with nothing but the most deeply rooted respect.

How Does That Even Happen

When Mr. Davison the government representative’s talk with Fancy Pants and Princess Luna was done, he found he had almost two days before he was expected back at the office. After a moment’s consideration, Davison decided he might as well pick up a little culture, being in the ponies’ capital city. Wandering around, the G-man found he wasn’t stared at like some strange bipedal curiosity nearly as much as he’d expected.

“I need a library or something,” he silently decided. He looked around to get his bearings and maybe find a sign with directions. Spotting one near a small plaza, Davison noticed that while the sign had proper writing (which he was thankful was just English with a slightly “off” font), actual places of business tended to have signs hanging from their walls with only a relevant picture. It reminded Davison of the ponies’ cutie marks, so he made note to check his little theory when he found a library.

Following the sign’s directions, he quickly made his way to what, if he read the building’s sign correctly, had to be the local library. He’d heard there was one in Canterlot Castle, but he’d just left there and didn’t feel like bothering the guards again.

“Good day to you, Mrs. Human,” an upbeat voice called out the moment Davison stepped inside. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, and if it’s all the same to you I am a man, thank you.”

“Oh! My bad, sir. I’m still a little new to humanity,” the owner of the voice apologized as he stepped out from behind a desk, a tan unicorn (as if Davison expected anything else in Canterlot) with a shiny black mane. “I haven’t had a good chance to memorize the details yet. Name’s Dusty. Dusty Shelves.”

“I’d hope not. Greg Davison. I’m with the US government.” Davison couldn’t help but flash his little badge. “Not to worry, I’m on break.”

“Ah right, right. So how can I help you?”

“Well, I was just thinking to myself that Equestrian literary history might be interesting to learn about. My grandfather was a lesser-known writer, you see?”

“Yes, yes… I think I can make this visit very much worth your while, sir. Tell me, have you heard of Flowing Script?”

“I’m afraid not,” Davison admitted. “A literary great, I presume?”

“Quite so, sir. He helped shape Modern Equestrian through his writing, introducing many new words into the lexicon. Had a thing for sonnets, too.”

“Not unlike our Shakespeare,” the G-man guessed. “He did the same thing. Expressions like, let’s see… ‘cold comfort’, ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, I recall. Wrote stories such as Hamlet, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet…”

Dusty remained silent for an awfully long time, his eyes tiny.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Shelves?”

“What was that second one again?” Dusty finally asked trembling.

“Midsummer Night’s Dream?” Davison carefully repeated.

“No, not that. The expression, please.”

“Brevity is the soul of wit?”

Dusty Shelves shook his head. “There’s no way that’s right. ‘Jealousy is the green-eyed monster’?”

“I think that’s one of his, yes, and I see what’s wrong now,” Davison admitted. “You mean to say that my Shakespeare and your Flowing Script are what? Is ‘analogues’ the right word?”

“Frightening thought, isn’t it?”

Davison took his turn to shake his head. “It actually reminds me of this one episode of a TV series I saw once. Science fiction, you probably never heard of it.”

“By now, I doubt that possibility,” Dusty joked.

“Haha, yes. It was about this parallel universe where all the good guys were bad and vice-versa, and the bad guys’ leader gains access to the good universe’s library. He then compares the two worlds’ literature and finds that most of the stories are more happy and friendly, relatively speaking.”

“Let me guess: Shakespeare was the same in both?” Dusty interrupted with a knowing grin.

“How’d you know?”

“I’m into literature, saw it coming.”

Davison finally took a seat opposite the librarian. “Do you think the same thing would apply here?”

“Well… maybe? Did your Shakespeare write about… let me think… a prince whose father is killed by his uncle?”

“He did, that’d be Hamlet,” Davison confirmed. “If I remember correctly, there’s a group of actors who act out the murder so Hamlet can check his uncle’s reaction – ‘the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch…”

“…the conscience of the king,’ I believe?” Dusty finished.

“Does Flowing Script’s version have two guys who accompany the prince at one point?” Davison asked, hoping for a difference.

“Yes, yes, Rosebush and Golden Dawn. They had their own little spin-off play at one point; Rosebush and Golden Dawn survived.”

“There we go! That’s the kind of difference I was hoping for,” Davison exclaimed happily. “Pony Hamlet actually has a lower body count than ours! Yes!”

Dusty Shelves shrunk back in surprise. “…Yes?”

“You and I, Mister Shelves, I do believe you and I will get along just fine while I’m still here.”

“You know, Mister Davison,” Dusty started, “I’ve been wondering.”

“About…?”

“Well, you’re awfully well-read for a government worker, even if your grandfather was a writer.”

“Oh well, you see Dusty, I didn’t want to be a government worker, initially. My father thought I should and he was a very pushy sort of man.” Davison paused to wistfully breathe. “No, I wanted to be…”

“…a lumberjack!” Dusty interrupted. At Davison’s perplexedly raised eyebrow, he continued, “Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of Neighagra. The larch! The fir! The mighty crystal pine!”

Davison was dumbstruck. “There is no fucking way you have Monty Python.”

Intermission - An Explanation of Things

You can skip this if you want. There's no story here, only promises of things to come.

And explanations.

Magic-using humans

In “I’m Making a Note Here”, Doctor Andrew Parker’s newborn son Ray is stated to have alicorn finger bones. As the doctor notes, there are basically three states for alicorn; “unconnected, idle, or activated.” The question he wouldn’t be able to answer is if Ray’s finger bones are connected. That is, is there a way for his brain to reach the alicorn in much the same way his brain can reach the muscle tissue that holds it?

If they’re not connected, Ray can’t use magic. If they were, he still wouldn’t. This is because to cast magic doesn’t only need the brain to be connected to the alicorn, but to also send the correct signals. At best, Ray would be able to “put a charge on it”, so to speak, and make his hands glow in the magic aura we all know and love, in some personal color.

If the alicorn in Ray’s fingers were connected, and his brain was wired to send the correct signals, and he knew how to consciously control it, Ray would be able to cast magic as a human.

Mutant humans

Mutant humans would be any Homo sapiens with non-cultural pony traits. For example, Ray Parker again, whose alicorn is the direct result of Doctor Andrew Parker having his reproductive DNA manipulated by extended exposure to powered horns. There’ll be plenty more examples of mutations in humans in later chapters, but since Merge only covers about 200 years, there’s not enough time for proper pony-human hybrids to appear – think anthropomorphic half-pony half-human creatures. Instead, the worst that’s likely to happen in so little time is something like funky hair and eye colors, and possibly the beginning of a fur coating.

Changelings

In this story, changelings count as a subset of ponies just like earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, and alicorns are. Any magic-using pony can shape-shift in a few seconds if they know the requisite spell and have the skill to pull it off, but changelings do it naturally and within a second or two.

Changelings start out neuter. When they grow up and find out what they self-identify as, their default forms adjust accordingly. Though they get no other bonuses from it, changelings are more comfortable disguising as ponies matching their own gender.

Default forms can be altered to a degree, allowing some changelings to have proper manes and such if they choose to. Their leg holes, which they cannot change, are supposedly unique to each individual and mostly serve to tell one from the other. This is a necessity born from the simple fact that they do not, in fact, have a hive mind, and all of them have the same pure green aura.

Changelings from different hives have subtly different default forms, such as their colors. Most if not all the changelings in Merge, however, are from the same hive and are therefore all the same color.

Spread

As implied in “Too Damn Late” and “Something completely different”, there are ponies in several countries besides the USA. But not all countries appreciate the Equestrians as much…

Open Fire

“Hmm. Vera’s getting a little dusty.”

Sky Dancer looked up from her book, somewhat surprised by what she’d hear her special somepony – boyfriend, she corrected herself – say all of a sudden.

“Martin, who’s Vera?” she asked, warily watching as Martin walked over to the kitchen to get a wet rag.

“My gun, honey. The big one hanging over there on the wall?”

Indeed, there was still a fearsome device hung on a sturdy spike in the wall, ever since the third chapter. “That’s a gun?”

“It so is a gun,” Martin confirmed as he returned with a rag. He carefully removed the rail gun and placed it on the coffee table. “Don’t worry. It’s only good for display purposes.”

“I’ve only seen one other gun in my life, you know,” Sky breathed in awe. “And that one gun didn’t look anything like this monster.”

Martin gently rubbed the wet rag over the odd-looking barrel of the gun. “What did it look like?”

Sky paused in thought. “It was… mostly metal, with a wooden part on the back, if I remember it right. Long and tube-like.”

“Sounds like your typical rifle. I’d imagine it’d be like a flintlock, maybe? Now, why would ponies invent guns in the first place?”

“That’s actually a very good question,” Sky admitted as she watched Martin work. “But before I tell you, why do you have a gun?”

Martin shrugged and made an indistinct sound with his nose. “I saw it, thought it looked pretty cool, and had some blank space on that wall.”

“Oh. Okay. What kind of gun is this anyway?”

“It’s a Heckler & Koch MAG4,” Martin answered matter-of-factly, pointing out the letters on the near side. “Fourth model of the modern generation rail guns they produced, along with a bunch of other defense companies. Things went predictably fast when they found a power source that was small enough to fit in the gun itself and still yield enough juice to fire it a bunch of times.” He tapped a little slot on the back end and poked it open. “See? No power. The control system’s removed, too. I think they’re up to MAG9 nowadays?”

“What does it fire? Equestrian rifles used to fire little iron balls.”

“This baby fired metal slugs. Not unlike your iron balls, really,” Martin answered. “It’s funny how that works – you start with little iron balls, work your way up to proper bullets…”

“Oh yeah, I remember now! I think they experimented with bullets at one point,” Sky interjected as the word triggered a long gone memory.

“What about that, eh? Anyway, iron balls, bullets, more complicated bullets, and now we’re back at… basically iron balls level again.”

Martin grabbed a tablet from next to him on the couch and quickly called up an image that he showed to Sky. “This is what goes into a Mag Nine,” he announced as he pointed at the image, a block of densely-packed short metal rods with slightly rounded ends. “They’re pretty much somewhere between a bullet and a ball.”

“Right… and this is the sort of thing that brained the princess?”

“Yeah, I guess if she ever goes evil we’ll need somewhat heavier ordinance than that,” Martin joked. “But that’s enough about the Mags. You never answered my question: for what reason would Equestrians have rifles?”

“To fight a war, of course.”

The very idea of ponies at war to such a degree that they’d need to invent flintlocks confused and frightened Martin, and his expression revealed as much.

“Second Pony-Griffon War. The first one was all mêlée and slings, but when the second started, the griffins had invented muskets. Unicorns can only shield so many other soldiers and usually not do other magic at the same time so the Equestrian army had a bit of an incentive.”

“An arms race, that’s lovely. How’d that end up?”

“When the griffins started using flintlocks, Princess Celestia realized there would indeed be an arms race. So she sent word of warning to the griffin palace and dropped a meteoroid on it.”

“She did what!?”

“The war was ended right then and there, and the griffins got a new source of iron out of it. It all hinged on the king being too cocksure to leave his palace. And that’s why you never call Princess Celestia a ‘namby pamby pink pony princess’,” Sky finished her story with a smile and about as much of a bow as she could manage from her position on the couch.

“Who even needs nukes when you can… but Celestia’s not pink, isn’t she?”

Cracked

Quick Fix: 4 Reasons Ponies are the Best Thing to Happen to Humanity
By Kawa, Luminous Gaze | March 12, 203X | 9001 views

It’s been a few months now since our glorious planet has been all but invaded by pastel pop culture revealed real, and several important things bear repeating. Actually, there are quite a lot of those things but as you know humor works better in more reasonable portions, and this is first and foremost a humor site. Let nobody ever say we can’t be reasonable people here.

Here then, are four of such things, painstakingly sorted out with the expert guidance from someone with a heaping helping of literal horse sense. Things like…

#4. The Reaffirmation of Linguistic Meanings

Last week, yet another human/pony couple got married and yet another politician got his ass handed to him for complaining. One of the things that politician was not alone in is that this is considered by those less gifted with the glorious invention of the dictionary to be some form of bestiality.

Pictured: a glorious dictionary (derpiboo.ru, kilala97)

The problem, we’re sure you may or may not have found out by now, is that “bestiality” is entirely the wrong word, as is “zoophilia”. A human having a relation with an Equestrian pony is better referred to as a xenophile, the love of the other. The recent glut of human/pony marriages has brought this distinction back to the foreground, and that invites us, as a whole, to rethink many other words we sling around so carelessly, such as “flank”.

#3. Shaking up Science

Unicorns can do magic. Actual, honest to whatever deity you believe in magic. Technically, all Equestrians can do magic but most are on a subconscious level and don’t really count for the purposes of this article. Now, Clarke’s third law states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This has the obvious corollary, a reversal of sorts – “any sufficiently studied magic is indistinguishable from science.” And by Andraste’s flaming underpants they tried.

This is the stare of a man who knows.

In the race to unlock magic, many things already known to man’s science had to be amended, just like when the planets didn’t move as predicted and we discovered Pluto. These amendments, of course, open up new avenues for research, and the cure for cancer inches ever closer.

#2. Friendship Really is Magic

War. War never changes. The only thing that does is what it’s fought with. We went from sharpened stones to spears to swords to guns to bigger guns to nukes. But the wars, on a fundamental level, stayed the same. When the ponies appeared, the first thing we did was to grab our rail guns and fire a slug through their leader’s skull.

Weak against goddesses. (hk-usa.com)

And the ponies? They used nothing but shields and, more importantly, diplomacy of a level that humanity hadn’t seen since forever. Since then, our politicians have slowly warmed to the idea of fighting battles with words, not swords.

War had changed.

#1. We Are Not Alone

Even if, as the popular theory holds, the Equestrians are not of this universe, they are still legitimate extra-terrestrials. And that means one of the oldest questions humanity has asked is finally answered. “Are we alone in the universe?”

You are here (nasa.gov)

Well, looping right back to #4, if the universe is considered all that exists – and it is – then Equis (the pony’s home planet, wherever that might be) must be a part of our universe and thus, the answer is a firmly resounding “yes.”

And yes, fan girls, dragons are real.

Kawa is sometimes a game developer, sometimes a writer, but always an incorrigible dipshit. Luminous Gaze is a unicorn and the textbook example of a black beauty. Can they share an apartment? Find out on Twitter.
Remember, we have an Android app for all your on-the-go dick joke needs.

Author's Note

Yes, the rail gun is from Halo, not H&K.

Up All Night to Get Yucky

Sky Dancer and Martin were still on the couch when Martin’s roomie Steve left. After a few tense moments, they both broke down in laughter.

“Do you really think he was serious?” Sky asked as she slowly rose and turned around, still on the couch. “I think he was.”

“You know, Sky, I’ve been living with him for a year now and I still don’t know sometimes.”

“What about you, then? How’d he say it? Are you really ‘into me’?” Sky asked with a little smirk.

“Well… it’s been on my mind, kind of… for the past two years or so.”

Sky’s smirk grew as she came a little closer. “And what exactly is it that’s been on your mind?”

Martin swallowed the last of his drink. “To, eh… To be, well… intimate. With a pony, I guess?”

“How bold,” Sky said somewhat in surprise. “Tell me, if you’re okay with that… have you ever been intimate with a human female?”

“Once,” Martin blurted out unthinkingly. “It was okay, as far as first times go. What about you?”

“Until recently I hardly even dared approach a human.”

“No, no. I meant, have you been intimate with another pony?” Martin clarified with some nervous jazz hands.

Sky Dancer contemplated her personal history. “Actually no, no I haven’t,” she admitted.

“So you’re still…”

“A virgin? Yes,” Sky said as she laid back down on the couch. She was on her back, with her head on Martin’s lap and her tail loosely curled between her legs. “Not that it means as much in Equestria as I am to understand it does here,” she cooed.

“How do you feel about that, though?” Martin hesitantly asked.

“Well, all my pony friends aren’t, so let’s start with that it makes me feel… not as adult as the others. And I’m not exactly the youngest mare in our little group.”

Martin raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I’m actually the third youngest,” Sky clarified as she bunched up the front of her shirt in her forelegs and pouted. It actually looked pretty sexy, to Martin’s personal surprise. He couldn’t quite help but smile approvingly at the slightly upside-down display on his lap.

“Hey… Martin?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think I’m attractive?” the pony in his lap asked with a smile. Martin took a moment to properly look into Sky’s huge eyes. He felt as if he could look right through them. The things were at least twice as big as his own and incredibly expressive. There was a certain charm in how Sky’s somewhat-voluminous mane tended to cover up one eye, as well. And here she was, all but offering herself to him, on her back with her only article of clothing bunched up between her forelegs.

“Yeah, you are.”

Sky smiled even wider and whipped her tail around a bit. “Rub my belly?” she half-whispered. Martin considered the request for a moment, holding his hand just above Sky’s exposed belly.

“How do I do this?” he asked as he carefully laid the tips of his fingers on the soft fur.

“Mmm. Just… sort of run your fingers all over it? Slowly?” the pony suggested as she closed her eyes. Martin smirked and obligingly started tracing some circles on Sky’s fur. She felt very soft on her belly, more so than on her back. It felt like something Martin could do all day.

“Mmmyeah, just like that,” Sky cooed, softly kicking one of her hind legs. Fingers were like an all-new experience to her, and just about everything she’d imagined. Not that she was obsessed or anything – she just liked belly rubs and fingers seemed better-suited to that goal than hooves. “A little harder, mmm… sexy?”

The word hardly even registered to Martin. Only the request did. “Okay,” he whispered. Softly digging his nails in, Martin was all too happy to oblige. He found it oddly exciting. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it was even sort of arousing.

Martin couldn’t help it. His hand roamed lower down before he even realized that one thought was there.

“M-Martin! Don’t!”

Martin pulled back his hand in shock. “I’m sorry! I didn’t— I mean…”

“It’s… It’s okay, Martin,” Sky Dancer meekly argued as she opened her eyes and looked straight at Martin. “I just want this to be… right.”

“Ah?”

Sky carefully moved herself a bit further onto Martin’s lap by pushing off the couch’s arm rest. Leaning against Martin’s other arm, she moved her head closer to Martin’s.

“Just… right, you know?” the earth pony repeated.

“I’m not sure. What do you mean, ‘right’?”

Sky blushed right through her coat. “Ah… Kiss me?”

Martin wondered for just a short moment how that’d work, then turned his head to face Sky’s waiting lips. It’d been a good while since he’d kissed someone in a romantic fashion, but then again he’d never kissed a pony before, and he could only assume the opposite was also true.

He found Sky’s lips tasted of cherries. When he broke the kiss and opened his eyes again, he saw exactly how expressive a pony’s eyes could be. How she did it Martin would never know, but the highlights in Sky’s eyes were visibly shaking, and her pupils were dilated to such an almost-absurd degree that her eyes were basically like giant black spheres. With intensively shaking highlights in it.

“Martin…”

Martin didn’t say anything in reply. Instead he just reached for another kiss, and a third. At the fourth, he found Sky had her mouth open and he was happy to indulge her. Connecting his lips with hers once more, he slowly reached in with his tongue to find Sky’s waiting for him. They embraced as tightly as they could manage in their position, Martin bending down and pushing Sky in a more horizontal pose.

It was almost bliss. It took what seemed like several minutes before they finally released the kiss, leaving Martin’s mouth dripping with a copious, almost comical amount of pony saliva. He reached out and softly scratched his equine lover’s tummy once more, listening for an audible reaction. Sky was breathing somewhat deeply from the kiss, and every time Martin’s hand came closest to her holiest of holies, there was a soft gasp interrupting Sky Dancer’s breathing. Martin himself wasn’t exactly calm either by now. He’d come to terms with the idea minutes ago when he found his quickly-stiffening cock was crushed under Sky’s back. There was no way around it – unless there was something very off-putting to be thrown his way, he was soon going to fuck a pony. And he felt they were likely to enjoy it.

“Is it okay?” Martin asked breathily, holding his hand a little closer to Sky’s crotch. She nodded softly and whimpered as Martin approached her waiting folds. When he tried to stroke them, Martin found that beneath his fingers, Sky’s pony pussy was opening and closing on its own accord.

“What’s it doing, Sky?” Martin inquired as he softly stroked the surprisingly muscular outer lips.

“Ah? Oh… it’s ah… it’s winking,” Sky answered with a red face. At Martin’s reaction, she continued, “It does that when – oh dear – when it wants to, ah… you know.”

“When it wants something inside?” Martin finished and teasingly held two fingers against the inside of Sky’s lips.

“…yesss,” Sky hissed.

Martin smirked. “Sky… could you do something for me?” he whispered. Sky whimpered in response. “Could you tell me exactly what it is you want?” He didn’t know why he asked. It felt like a cliché way to ask, but something inside him drove him to make such a cute little thing say something potentially perverted.

Sky Dancer hesitated until Martin moved his fingers a bit, just at her entrance. “I… I want your f-fingers in my p—my special place.”

“In your what now?” Martin insisted as he slowly reached inside a little. “Use your big pony words, Sky honey. I know you know them.”

“Heh… ‘big pony words’,” Sky repeated. “I want your fingers in… oh dear. In my dirty pony p-pussy!”

Martin almost immediately shoved all four fingers inside of Sky’s soaked slit, leaving only his thumb. Sky screamed from the sudden feeling of fullness and buried her muzzle between Martin’s head and shoulder. She felt his fingers squirm inside of her and touch so many places at once, in a way she’d never be able to replicate by herself. It felt glorious, and even more so when his strategically left out thumb made contact with her waiting equine clit.

“Martiiin!” Sky cried out as she properly came for the first time in her life, soaking Martin’s hand up to the wrist in her juices. He slowly took it out and softly stroked the general area, waiting for Sky to recover as he cradled her with his other arm.

“Martin?” the exhausted pony whispered. “When will Steve be back?”

Martin looked at the clock on his media recorder. “Should be soon now, if he went to the usual store. Why?” he asked knowingly.

“That’s too bad,” Sky replied as she straightened her shirt and considered wiping her crotch with it. “I kinda wanted to… heh.”

“Do what, Sky?”

“Nothing,” Sky Dancer giggled. “But if not that… you wanna… maybe make out a little where Steve can see it?”

“Sky Dancer, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Author's Note

I'm thinking that's basically it for Steve, Martin, and Sky Dancer the ironically-named earthpon. Perhaps they'll return and we'll see how Sky's nothing goes. Perhaps I'll leave that to comment feedback.

Fun fact: that final line was added at the very last minute, when I had my converter already primed and ready. Just like in Casablanca.

A Comparative Study of Human and Equestrian Pornography

“Hey guys,” Sam Reynolds greeted as she approached the same street corner as before. Once again there were ponies hanging out at the street light. “Where’s what’s-his-face?” Sam asked, noticing one of them was missing, and that for whatever reason her little changeling friend was not in his earth pony disguise.

“Pierce is busy at his job,” the pegasus Smokescreen answered matter-of-factly.

“Don’t you have a job?” Sam carefully asked.

“Morning shifts, it’s all good.”

“And I don’t have a job,” Fractured Mindset admitted. “I just do odd jobs where I can get them.”

“I don’t like it when Pierce isn’t here,” Smokescreen mumbled.

Sam considered the situation. “Why’s that?”

“He always comes up with something to talk about,” the pegasus explained. “I’ve already learned just about all there is to know about changelings.”

“Before you ask, it is virtually a necessity for changelings to know all about other kinds of ponies,” Fracture added.

“Why not hang out at my place?” Sam offered, waving a hand loosely in the direction of her home.

Smokescreen looked doubtful. “I don’t know if we should impose.”

“Don’t worry about imposing, Smoke. I’ve done worse in there,” Fracture smirked. The two equines shared a giggle at the idea. Sam considered the possibility of Fracture running his mouth off about what they’d been up to. Somehow, it didn’t bother her nearly as much as she expected. In fact, it was almost flattering.

“I do hope whatever you shared with your little pony friends was positive?”

“Ah? Ah yes, yes it was. I had a great time, like I told you then. But yeah, I’d love to hang with you some more. Not necessarily in that way if Smoke’s coming along…”

Smoke audibly smirked. “I don’t see why not. It could be interesting.”

“Don’t count on it, honey,” Sam said with the tiniest twitch in her eye. “Follow me, I guess.”

------=======------

“So this is the place?” Smokescreen asked as she entered the living room of Sam’s house. “Looks about the way I expected,” she half-lied.

“I see you changed it around a bit,” Fracture remarked. Indeed, the whole place seemed a bit brighter compared to the first time he’d been there.

“Thanks, I guess,” Sam awkwardly acknowledged. “Why not watch some TV while I go get some drinks?” she offered as she turned on the TV and put the remote control in front of her equine guests. The TV showed a news channel, where a certain sharp-dressed unicorn newscaster was in the middle of a breach of professionalism, excusing himself and leaving his human partner to report on some group somewhere who had expressed their distinct displeasure at having a pony for president and how the whole world was basically going to shit. A random guy on the street shrugged as a microphone was aimed at him and said that it wasn’t that bad at all.

Smoke sighed. “And that’s ‘news’. This sucks, Fracture. Put something else on?”

Fracture nodded in agreement and picked up the remote control with his magic. He studied the buttons for a moment and realized he had barely a clue which button to press. While he intended to go one channel higher, he instead pushed the other button. Starting from channel one and going down, the value wrapped around. Much to the ponies’ mutual surprise, there was something very interesting on the highest channel.

It was pornography. Between the two of them, Fracture was the only one who had any experience with the human body in a sexual light, and even then only female. What he saw on TV, however, was not only exclusively human, but much less… nice. He had no other word for it than that. It was kind of brutal, with not a trace of love between the two participants on screen. Casting a quick glance at his pony friend, Fracture found that Smokescreen was somewhat disgusted and only just a little turned on – he always found it easy to tell such things.

“This is supposed to be exciting?” Smoke asked incredulously. “Did we miss the introduction or something?”

“Perhaps we did. I don’t expect it was very good,” Fracture argued weakly. At that precise moment, Samantha came back in from the kitchen, nearly dropping a tray full of drinks and snacks when she saw and heard what the ponies were watching.

“What the fuck are you doing watching porn?!” Sam asked as she put the tray down on the table.

“I was wondering that myself,” Smoke replied. “Is this what passes as ‘erotic’ for humans?”

“Oh hardly,” Sam denied as she tried to calm down and not look at the TV. She snatched the remote control out of Fracture’s magic and hit the mute button.

“By the hive, there’s a third one,” Fracture muttered as another man appeared on the screen. He looked about as stereotypical as the other one, who was on his back, busy being ridden by the buxom blonde woman. To the ponies’ disgust, instead of taking the newcomer in her mouth or something, he just crouched down behind the woman and rammed into her asshole.

“Dear sweet Luna, that’s nasty. He just… he just went in dry!”

“It is, isn’t it?” Sam agreed. “I honestly can’t imagine many people would get off on this kind of stuff, but logically there are or they wouldn’t still produce it.” She sighed and turned off the TV. “That and my… earlier experience with Fracture just make me wonder.”

“What is it?” Fracture asked. He could guess, and he was pretty sure he’d guess correctly, but he didn’t want to be ‘that guy’.

“Do ponies have porn?”

If he had fingers, he’d snap them. Before Fracture could answer, Smoke beat him to it. “We do, but I doubt you’d recognize it as such.”

“I’ve got my laptop in my bedroom,” Sam offered, pointing at her bedroom door. By now she was legitimately interested. “Perhaps you could show me?”

“Okay. But only if you work the keyboard; I doubt your laptop is adjusted for pony use.”

------=======------

Sam sat behind her laptop, on her bed, flanked by her pegasus friend and changeling lover. “Okay, where do I go?”

Smoke took a moment to recall her favorite source. “Ah… icancloptothis.eq, I think it was.”

Sam typed in what she was told and hit Enter. Within moments a bright, pastel-colored page appeared on screen. On one side was a picture of a sultry-looking pegasus mare in (much to Sam’s surprise) lacy underthings with just a hint of wetness on her panties. On the other, there was a strapping earth stallion with a friendly smile, no superfluous clothes, and the tip of his cock poking out of his sheath. A series of category thumbnails sat between them listing nearly everything a pony could want, topped off with a full-width search field. Sam couldn’t help but notice that most if not all the category thumbnails were roughly as tame as the two poster ponies, with choices like ‘filly fooling’, ‘colt cuddling’, ‘hugging’, ‘horn play’, and in the far corner there was a semi-translucent thumbnail with a little “work in progress” ribbon on it that read ‘changelings’.

“Wait, hugging is a legit category?” Sam called out.

“Yeah, everypony likes a good hug.”

“In a pornographic context?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, if you click that one you get all their results that include hugging. Some ponies just really like it, and think hugging is really important, so they put it on the front page.”

“It’s good to see they’re working on the changeling category,” Fracture remarked. “Can I make a suggestion?”

Sam and Smoke nodded. “Try searching for ah… ‘filly fooling, age difference, -sisters, unicorn’. That’s with a dash in front of ‘sisters’.”

“You have incest as a proper tag?” Sam asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Smoke admitted. “But most of it is either fake, if it’s visual, or gay. Or only loving and not fucking.”

“Like a nice little story about two sisters who love each other so very much,” Fracture dropped in, “but they know they can never consummate their love and get away with it.”

“What’ll really tickle your titties,” Smoke finished, momentarily confusing Sam with her choice of words, “is that there’s results for Princess Celestia and Luna.”

“Okay now I know you’re fucking with me,” Sam denied.

“No, it’s true. Honest.”

“I’d rather do what Fraggle said. What was it again? Ah yes,” Sam recalled as she typed in the suggested search query. “First result?”

“Why not,” Fracture handwaved.

“Oh, it’s a video,” Smoke pointed out. “This should be good.”

Sam couldn’t be surprised anymore. Not at the fact that the video was pretty long and started out with a very nice, slow pan across a small mansion, possibly somewhere in Equestria. Soothing piano music played in the background, somewhat muted from the low volume setting on Sam’s laptop, as the camera slowly went inside and found a music room. Sam never expected a diegetic switch in what was for all intents and purposes supposed to be a porno, but there it was: the piano music was being played by a young unicorn filly. She looked very young, younger than Smokescreen, but as far as Sam could tell she was old enough to be in such a production.

“Nice start,” Sam admitted as she and her pony friends watched how a well-matured mare appeared. The mare said something about how she loved good students. Clearly then, she was the filly’s piano teacher. The filly blushed and said something that Sam couldn’t make out. The older mare was slightly surprised and apparently asked the filly to repeat herself. She must’ve flubbed, Sam guessed, and said something about ‘loving you too’ instead of ‘loving a good teacher’. The filly took a sharp breath and looked the older mare straight in the eyes.

“I said I love you, miss.”

The proclamation was made loud enough to be clear, even at those volume settings, but what followed was again too subdued. “Haha, called it,” Sam joked as she tapped a key and increased the volume a bit.

The older mare seemed taken aback. She stumbled a bit, and caught her footing again. She blushed as the filly’s words sank in, then her features softened again.

“You know we shouldn’t. I’m a teacher, you’re my student.”

“I don’t care, Ms. Allegretto. I only asked mother to hire you as my teacher because I wanted to be close to you, to spend time together with you.”

“…I love you too, Moderato.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Sam interjected, “a little cliché, but sweet.” She could swear she heard Smoke wistfully sigh.

Sam would’ve expected the two ponies to start kissing at this point, but found them hugging instead, and not even real tightly. Soon enough they did tighten their hug, and carefully nuzzled each other. The older mare flared up her horn to take off her glasses. The filly she was embracing took that moment to finally kiss her lover carefully on the lips. Properly distracted, Ms. Allegretto’s horn was struck by Moderato’s while hers was still active. This caused a feedback of some sort that Sam was unfamiliar with, that caused the older mare to buckle. She would’ve pulled Moderato down with her if the filly wasn’t seated. Finally, they started properly kissing.

By then, Sam was lightly squirming in her spot on the bed. She found Fracture had snuggled up tight against her, and one of Smoke’s wings covered her lower back.

“Are you guys… cuddling me?”

“Maybe,” Smoke half-admitted. She lazily flopped around and laid herself across Sam’s lap, inviting Sam to stroke her wings with a soft swat. She took one last look at the video, and faced Fracture. Taking the hint, the changeling gave Smoke a soft nuzzle and a lick. Sam, untrained as she was in many manners pegasus, carefully stroked the edges of Smoke’s wings until she detected a soft, content moaning.

“Am I doing it right?”

“Good enough for a newbie,” Smoke rasped. “Do you want to switch? Let Frac and me… take care of you?”

As Sam was gently pushed backwards on her bed, she couldn’t help but wonder. “Smoke, are you gay?”

“I like to consider myself… flexible.”

Fracture considered piping in on how most changelings’ barn doors swung both ways out of necessity, but didn’t bother. Instead, he used the tip of his horn to pop the button of Sam’s pants open, and pulled them off with his teeth. It seemed sexier to him than using his telekinesis, or letting Sam do it herself. Looking up with a mouthful of pants, he saw Smoke gently licking Sam’s face and neck, and Sam stroking her Earth human breasts through her shirt. Fracture shrugged and magically pulled Sam’s shirt up to reveal the orbs of fatty tissue that were still so alien to the changeling, covered only by her – what was the word? Oh yes, her bra. It was an odd thing, Fracture considered as he carefully peeled it away, but he could somewhat imagine why human females would need them. He turned his gaze to Smokescreen, who had by now moved to deep but slow kisses, and quickly compared the human’s breasts with Smoke’s nipples.

“Yeah, I think I prefer them without those things,” the changeling decided as he carefully nuzzled Sam’s crotch. At Sam’s increased moaning, he climbed up to nuzzle his human lover and rub his slowly extruding cock against the spot he’d just vacated. Slowly, Fracture held a hoof near Samantha’s mouth. “Smoke,” he whispered, “you wanna see something cool?”

Smokescreen removed her tongue from Sam’s mouth and rolled back a little to give Fracture some room to work. When the somewhat dazed woman saw the changeling’s hole-riddled hoof, she grabbed hold of it and sloppily licked the edge of the nearest hole.

“Oh wow,” Smokescreen breathed. “I didn’t know that was a thing. Why is this a thing?”

If Fracture wanted to answer, he couldn’t. The rimjob was almost as delicious as the exquisite cocktail of love and lust he’d been drinking in all that time. Curiously, Smoke held her own hoof near Fracture’s, softly pressing onto Sam’s nose. Moments later, Sam took one hand off Fracture’s hoof and, holding it by one of his holes with the other, roughly brought it down to her breasts. With her free hand, she grabbed Smoke’s hoof, pulled it down to her mouth, and licked the bottom clean. Smoke was somewhat glad to be held and already lying on her side as it tickled as much as it excited her. When it was all cleaned up, the two equines switched; Smoke fondled Sam’s breasts and Fracture got another go-over with her tongue.

Well and thoroughly stimulated, Fracture magically pulled away Sam’s sodden panties. As he prepared to enter, Smoke climbed over the woman’s body, facing the excited changeling. Her rapidly winking slit dripped onto Sam’s chin, filling her nostrils with the typical – if not unfamiliar to the woman – scent of a mare ready for anything. The pegasus’ backside slowly approached Sam’s mouth and hovered there until Fracture slipped his eager cock inside Sam’s slick womanhood. A chorus of grunts and moans sounded as the two lovers and best friend kissed, fucked, and ate out each other. Sam reached between Smoke’s back legs and, much to the pegasus’ surprise, started tweaking her nipples. Nopony had ever done that to her, though Smoke had to admit to herself that she didn’t get eaten out very often to begin with. She nearly bit on Fracture’s tongue as she came closer to her peak and forced herself to let go of her changeling friend. A single finger was all it took to make her collapse on top of Sam; a sweaty, sticky mess, crumpled against Fracture’s pounding barrel.

With the pegasus pussy out of her face, Sam was once again able to properly vocalize, or at least as far as someone deep in the throes of being fucked silly by someone literally hung like a horse can be. “More,” she cracked, holding tightly onto Smoke’s haunches. Fracture, nearing the point of no return himself, happily obliged. He paused to take a deep breath, and hammered his dick into Sam’s sopping snatch, as deep as he could. Within moments, the point was reached. The first three streams of Fracture’s thick cum went deep inside Sam’s inner chamber, where it would be nonetheless challenged to be of any reproductive use. In a too-short moment of lucidity, he pulled out and let the rest of his load land in Smoke’s woozy face.

------=======------

Samantha Reynolds woke up in a heap, covered in sticky, smelly pony. As she recalled the reason for her present situation and smiled at the memories, as far as she could, Sam noticed something that had escaped her scrutiny the last time she’d lay with Fracture, aided by what was caked all over Smokescreen’s face.

As it turned out, much to Sam’s amusement, he came in green.

Author's Note

Name notes: Allegretto is a moderately fast tempo, about 98 to 109 beats per minute. Moderato is 86 to 97 BPM.