And Strong

The silvery face of Luna’s moon rose steadily on its nightly ascent, casting its soft white light across the Equestrian countryside. In the town of Ponyville, the silken silver blanket of moonlight draped the rooftops and entwined its embrace with the warm summer air that bore up the aromas of cut clover and field flowers. It was as beautiful a night as there had ever been.

And it was utterly lost on McIntosh Apple.

Every step he took as he left the Lucky Clover with Diamond Tiara following silently behind felt like an ever increasing weight pressing down inside him. It didn’t matter how pleasant the air was or how sweet the aroma of the flowers. He wasn’t there. He was where he always was in moments like this; back in the orchards, where great-granddad’s walnut grove met the Everfree, in the damp dying light of that wet spring evening, watching, as his parent’s died. He’d never forget as his mother lay there half buried in the rubble of the mudslide, as he promised her he could be ‘big’ and go get help … he never had a chance, she had expired there in front of him, her last words “Look Mackie, you’ve gotten your cutie mar …”

He’d gotten his cutie mark, and lost his parents. He turned his head, looking away from Diamond, and back at his cutie mark. The big green half apple that everypony knew marked his as a member of the Apple family. Nopony seemed to see the flaw in it the way he did. Yes it was an apple, but the seeds were wrong. The oblong brown seeds, though superficially correct, weren’t displayed like those of an apple, no apple cultivar showed a seed arrangement like that. At his core, he knew he was flawed, even if he was the only one that could see it. Flawed like all his endeavours. AJ might be the living heart of the farm, but he’d become it’s backbone that she used to support it. He had his investment business, but he had little time to see to it properly beyond the physical, and what profits he did make mostly ended up funneled back to the farm or family; Granny’s hip surgery, equipment costs and repairs, AJ’s latest financially overstretched ‘drum up business for the farm’ scheme. At least in the years since Apple Bloom had gotten her cutie mark, the costs of medical bills and property damage from wildcat attempts to ‘earn’ a cutie mark had dried up.

McIntosh sighed as he turned at the corner of Affirmed Way onto Alydar Street. It wasn’t much further to where Filthy Rich lived up at 11 Everfree Terrace, just a little way past Spooner Street. Once he delivered Diamond home, that would be the end of it; they could sign the dissolution papers in the morning ending the stud contract.

“Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”

Diamond’s sharp high call cut through the evening stillness, shattering McIntosh’s reverie into tiny painful shards like glass that dug deep into his psyche, deep into the recesses of his being where he could feel something stir, something he never wanted to feel again, dark and angry, the poison at the core of his apple.

“What?” he snapped as he whipped his head around to face Diamond, only to find the young near mare-grown filly no longer trailing by his side.

“Over here, silly colt,” the pink pony sang out.

McIntosh slowly turned and glowered in the direction of Diamond’s voice, to find the frost and lavender maned filly still standing on the opposite corner of the intersection on Affirimed Way.

“I thought you said you wanted me to take you home?” he rumbled, the ire in his tone growing

“And why exactly would I want to spend one more night under the same roof with the very ponies that all but sold my plot for their own benefit?”

McIntosh snorted in frustration at Diamond’s statement as he made his way across the intersection to her.

“And just where did you plan on me taking you when you said ‘home’ then?” He tried to keep his tone as flat as he could, but his irritation was hampering him as sure as a tangled harness on plowing day.

“I figured you might let me spend the night at the farm,” Diamond answered with a sweet nonchalance. “That is the Apple way? Isn’t it?”

Mac wanted to say something, but his voice and vocabulary failed him as his jaw clenched ever tighter, throbbing in frustration. It was true; hospitality was the Apple Family way, it always had been. Ever since his great-grandfather had been granted this valley by Princess Celestia herself and brought the Smith family here, they’d welcomed every new pony that settled here like they were family. He remembered AJ’s tearful confession and apology when she had realized her folly, when she had tried to deny Diamond Tiara that hospitality promised by their parents. It was fine if another pony refused to accept the offer, but it was a hideous sin to deny offering it. A sin confessed and forgiven, in warm hugs and wet tears, and now it was his choice.

“Eeyup.” He slid the word between clenched teeth as pleasantly as he could. Even the two halves of his conscience were silent on the matter.

“Thank you,” Diamond replied with a gentle smile before starting to turn back onto the path down Affirmed Way towards the outskirts.

“You know that the contract hasn’t been dissolved yet.”

“Awww,” Diamond turned back to McIntosh, a soft pouting look of hurt accompanying her words as she placed a well polished front hoof on his yoke. “I’m sure such a strong, noble gentlecolt like yourself knows better than to ask such a question of a young mare, especially after I’ve made my decision.”

Mac grunted a wordless and displeased agreement through his nostrils; he was spending the night on the couch it seemed. With grudging clarity, he set off down the street Diamond once more following behind.

* * * * *

Well, that went trottingly.

Shut it. I don’t want to hear it right now, Diamond hissed back to her conscience as she followed McIntosh down Affirmed Way. Even her good side could be annoying at times, Diamond had to admit, as they turned onto Count Fleet Court, which lead back through the Renaissance district on the south side of town. McIntosh had been silent ever since they’d left the restaurant, save their little exchange at the corner of Affirmed and Alydar, but something had changed there at the corner.

Since the corner McIntosh looked strained, like a pony under load, every step down the road he gouged the ground with his hoof as he moved it, his muscles twitching under his crimson hide like it took his every bit of his strength to stay on his hooves and keep going. His demeanor, though similar, was in stark contrast to how he had seemed between the restaurant and the corner. Then McIntosh had seemed deflated and distant. She couldn’t exactly blame him; he’d arranged a lovely ‘welcome home’ dinner and had seen it end far less favorably than it should have. Heck, even she was disappointed with how that ended, she had wanted to tell him so differently as to her decision on the contract. But when her mother had charged straight into the subject …

You let them know exactly what you thought of what they’d done.

I said ‘Shut it.’ Diamond reminded her conscience, only to have the cherubiform filly march itself down to the end of Diamond’s nose, snap a hard about-face, shove its battered halo forward on its brow with a hoof, and glare at Diamond in a manner far less friendly than she’d ever expect from her ‘good side’.

I. don’t. think. so. The little haloed filly bit the words off one by one for emphasis.

And why not? Diamond glowered back at her defiant conscience.

Because you’re not in control right now. The little pink ponyform psyche-sprite grinned back.

Yes I am! Diamond asserted forcefully.

Really? came the sharp smirking reply, sounding so much like her own fillyhood taunting voice.

Yes, yes I am. Diamond could feel her ire building she was being goaded by her own ego, again.

Then by all means, stop me.

Diamond focused her will on the task only to hear the growing hoots and cackles from where the other half of her conscience was rolling about atop her croup, laughing its flank off.

Not going so well? the haloed filly tittered. The infectious mocking laughter of the horned imp continued to rise as McIntosh turned onto the well worn cart path that lead from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres.

Diamond tensed her mental focus trying to form that sixteen ton weight of sheer will and squash the increasing cacophony. It didn’t work; she couldn’t muster the inner strength to. The more she tried the more frayed her will became and the louder the imp’s laughter became with each failed effort.

Why? Diamond moaned at the angelic phantom filly in front of her. Why you?

Because, the haloed hallucination smiled softly as it settled itself on its rump at the end of Diamond’s nose, you need me to tell you that you know what you did wrong, and that you know that to get back in control you need to fix it.

Internally Diamond nodded. She was lying to herself, and to McIntosh, about the situation and it was eating her inside. With a sigh of resignation she made her choice to end it, the mad hysterics of the imp’s laughter vanishing with the breath.

“McIntosh,” Diamond softly called to her companion, stopping on the path as she did. The night’s stillness and the looming trees made her feel small as she addressed the much larger stallion.

“What is it now?” the big red work pony grumbled back, “Did you change your mind? Do you want me to take you back to town and get you a room at the inn?”

“Nnope.” Diamond returned flatly causing McIntosh to freeze in his steps as she slammed the barn door shut on his ‘closed questions’. Diamond could see the bolt of angry tension dart up his spine, causing his crest to shiver.

“Then what is it?” the red pony snarled through clenched teeth as he turned his head around to glower back at her.

Diamond nearly fell back onto her rump as Mac glared at her as he spoke. If she had felt small a moment before, she now was sure she was fetlock high to a foal as McIntosh fixed her with those big green eyes. His eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, an unnatural brilliant emerald green with a power behind them that he was straining to hold back. A power that, while yet held back, still reached out and skewered Diamond through the core.

But Diamond stood her ground, even as she felt that force cutting through her soul, she could feel her own strength holding firm as she spoke.

“I…, I’m sorry, McIntosh, I … I lied to you.” Her mouth stumbled over the words making her sound less certain than she knew she was inside.

Diamond had expected a horrific explosion of green-eyed red fury to burst out of McIntosh and sweep over her as she finished speaking. It didn’t. Instead the big colt blinked erratically several times shaking his head as he did, the hot glow fading from his eyes like a green sunset.

“You… lied to me, Diamond?”

Diamond nodded sullenly.

“When did you do that?” McIntosh’s voice was deep and soft as he offered up his disbelief to her.

“At the Lucky Clover, when I told my parents what they could do with the contract.” Diamond dropped her head, staring initially at the ground in shame, and then lifting her eyes to watch for his reaction.

McIntosh tipped his head thoughtfully to one side the expression on his face calm and considerate as he seemed to carefully weigh out the situation on some complex mental balance.

“Nnope.”

Diamond felt her shame fall away as she cocked an eyebrow at McIntosh’s minimalist reply.

“But you heard me tell my parents.”

“Eeyup, I heard you, and I don’t think you were lying. I think you genuinely told your folks what you thought of this whole ordeal. You may have been a little louder than was needed, but you weren’t lying, not for a moment. I told you in that first letter that it’s your choice to end this contract, and that you have my support, whatever path you choose. And if you need a place to stay while you get back on your hooves, you have my friendship and hospitality if you need, no strings attached. And I’m sorry about that comment regarding the contract not being dissolved yet. I was wrong to have said it.”

Diamond could practically feel the weights of her conscience, one homunculus across each ear, bug eyed and slack jawed. Had he just said what she thought he did? Yes he had, she was certain he had.

“Thank you,” she sniffed. “I’m sorry I spoiled the lovely dinner you arranged. If my parents hadn’t been such royal scat-piles I was hoping to have found a better time to tell you.”

“Diamond,” Mac’s voice took on a roll of gentle thunder as he took a step towards her, “your parents are not anything that low. They love you very much, so much that they’d choose to play the villains so that their beloved princess might find salvation somehow.”

Diamond wrinkled her nose at Mac’s words, as if trying to find the whiff of a lie in them, but unable to. There was still, though, something out of place. No chance it could all have been an act.

“At the spa, the day I ran away,” Diamond stepped to within a hoofspan of the crimson colt’s muzzle as she spoke to him, focused, confident, direct, “I heard my mother, ‘filly or colt, it really doesn’t matter to us, so long as Diamond doesn’t get the business.’ You can’t tell me that my parents weren’t plotting to replace me with our foal.”

“Nnope, I can’t. I never agreed with what your Daddy wanted to do with that contract, morally. But I could see the pain if they had to lose you, no pile of bits could ever replace their only foal. The decision was to save the company, in order to save you.”

“But what my mother said at the spa. It proves I was just a means to an end for them, all they wanted was a new foal to replace the bad one.” Diamond verbally parried and cut back at McIntosh, her words trembling with emotion as she fought him verbally and herself for control within.

“I regret not putting it in the letters I sent you, but I didn’t know how you’d take it if I did, so I left it out. Perhaps now I shouldn’t have.”

“And that is?” Diamond slid her words out smooth and sharp as she regained her self control, her anger in check but ready to be thrust out at a moment’s need.

“What your mother told Lotus and Aloe before Silver Spoon opened the door that day.”

“And that is?” Diamond offered again, guardedly this time as she stepped back with a hind foot as if bracing for the impact of Mac’s forthcoming statement.

“‘The gender doesn’t matter. If Diamond can’t grow enough to eventually take the reins of the company, then, filly or colt, it really doesn’t matter to us so long as Diamond doesn’t get the business.’”

Diamond’s mental guard crashed to nothingness as she deliberately tucked her hind legs under herself and set her rump on the ground.

“But… but that night in the shed. You said I had lost it all, you lied to me.” Somehow, as she spoke Diamond wanted to feel anger towards him for his lying, but all she felt was a sad sense of confusion. He hadn’t lied to her then, she was sure. But if that was the case then, this made no sense now. As she mentally wrestled with the incongruities of what she'd just learned, Mac came over to her and placed a hoof of sympathy on her shoulder.

“Just because something was lost then, doesn’t mean it can’t be found again later. There are very few things that when lost, are truly gone.”

With his last sentence, Diamond noticed he had turned away from her, looking back over his shoulder towards the Everfree Forest beyond the farm. His eyes were damp with tears wrought of painful memories she knew not what of, but maybe someday he’d tell her.

Diamond leaned forward and let her head rest on the heavy wooden yoke about his neck as he took a moment to recover himself.

“Let’s go home, McIntosh,” Diamond finally sighed as both of them seemed to have recovered from their emotional exchange, “I could really do with a warm bath after this day.”

“As you wish,” Mac rumbled distantly as the two ponies set off again towards Sweet Apple Acres, Diamond trailing by a neck but holding close to her warm, red coated companion.

Diamond could see the change again in McIntosh as they followed the well traveled path back to the farm. Somehow, he seemed lighter to her, more like he normally was each day. It was as if the phantom burden that he seemed to have been struggling with since she had diverted him off Alydar Street and down Affirmed Way had been left with their emotional baggage back along the road.

“McIntosh,” Diamond put thought to words as they walked, “could I ask you a question?”

“Eeyup,” came the expected reply.

Diamond smiled, there really wasn’t much need for more of an answer than that as she forged ahead.

“A personal question?”

“Eeyup.” Again, a simple answer to a simple question. Diamond gave herself a faint nod of satisfaction for having anticipated his succinct response to her ‘closed question’.

“Why didn’t you and Miss Cheerilee ever get married?”

Diamond watched the big pony stallion for a reaction to her more open inquiry. Her heart had skipped a beat when she finally asked the question that had been worming its way up the back of her tongue since they had passed the schoolhouse not long after their little ‘meeting of the minds’ just outside town. She’d almost expected to see his temper flare back to life, but her hope for a more civil response from him bore fruit as he just tilted his head away from her in contemplation before returning a calm weighed response.

“We couldn’t come to an agreement over my contract.”

Diamond lost a half a pace against McIntosh’s gate as the answer caught her off guard. “You wanted Miss Cheerilee to sign a stud contract with you? Why in the name of cloven hoofed stupidity would you do something that daft?” Diamond all but physically struck him over the head with her astonishment and disbelief. Every pony in the school, and possibly the whole town, had thought the farmer and the schoolteacher had made a near perfect couple. Sweetie Belle was so certain of it she had started a secret ‘wedding pool’ among the other students, which Snails had won in the end by picking ‘not gonna happen’ instead of a wedding date.

“Nope.” The deep baritone of Mac’s reply rooted Diamond’s thoughts back to the present. “I didn’t ask her anything of the sort, Diamond. We were talking about a proper wedding, blanket ceremony* and all. But I felt I had to be honest with her and tell her about wanting to honor my parents and the contract they’d signed for me. After that things seemed to cool between us. I guess having spent that time doing her higher education in Canterlot she was less inclined towards my wanting to keep up family traditions.”

“Ahh-ha.” Diamond gave a quiet huff of surprise as yet another odd piece about this great red riddle seemed to fall into place as she proceeded to reason aloud. “I could see where that might be a problem. I don’t think I’d be too happy knowing my coltfriend was supposed to be having foals with a filly almost young enough to be my own foal.”

The stifled noise that came from McIntosh as they reached the main gate of the farmyard sounded like the sorriest excuse for a whoopee cushion she’d ever heard, or a deeper version of the sounds she remembered hearing from Snips and Snails during a lesson on the Equestrian legal system years ago, when Miss Cheerilee had mentioned the Equestrian penal code. McIntosh’s choked snickers continued, unabated, despite his best efforts to subdue them, eventually bursting out in a rolling torrent of full on laughter.

Diamond cocked her ears and furrowed her brow at McIntosh’s unexpected response. She’d been serious about what she’d said, yet he was laughing like Pinkie on April Foals Day.

“What’s so funny?” Diamond quipped in irritation, giving McIntosh a few moments to recover his composure as he leaned against the white rail fence and gatepost. She never liked being laughed at and this was no exception.

“That you …” Mac paused for air amid chuckles as he continued his explanation, “thought your contract … had been the reason … Cheerilee and I never got hitched.”

“It wasn’t?” Diamond scrunched her brow further and tipped her head. Just when it seemed she was fitting the puzzle together the picture changed it seemed.

“No, it wasn’t,” McIntosh admitted having sufficiently recovered his composure, his voice still carrying a mirthful lilt to it. “The contract in question, my contract, was signed by my parents when I was two. A good ways before your parents were even married.”

Diamond just looked at him. There was no hint of a lie to what he’d said she was sure. But…

“Then what about my contract? You’re the only colt in your family.”

“Your ma and mine were expecting at the same time, and my ma was as firm certain as the good earth that she was having a colt, only thing is …”

“She had Apple Bloom instead.” Diamond finished for him in shock of the revelation as Mac nodded his confirmation before being overcome with another bout of laughter.

Diamond snickered for a moment as she contemplated the implications of her and the schoolyard rival that their parents had hoped would be the colt of her dreams. Diamond wanted to feel hurt, or angry, or something otherwise foul, but the great rolling tide of laughter gushing from McIntosh as he draped a foreleg over the fence for support seemed to smooth her negativity away. How many times had her own plans and ambitions come to naught, she wasn’t sure, and Mac’s laughter was infectious.

As she gave in to the heaving of her chest and joined McIntosh in his revelry of laughter, the red stallion began to quote a poem between guffaws.

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' mares

Go off angley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

The words seemed for whatever strange reason to fit the moment as she reeled her head in the all consuming bout of laughter that inundated the two of them. Gradually the exertions of elation took their toll as the sweet night air brought an increasing dryness to her throat and ache to her sides. She needed a drink, and knew just who and what to ask for. Catching her breath, Diamond looked to McIntosh as he too was finally winding down.

“McIntosh,” Diamond asked softly as she took a deep breath and steadied herself on her hooves, “would it be too much trouble to get a cup of fresh cider? I’m getting rather dry from all that laughing.”

“Not at all, I could use a sip myself,” Mac returned as he too straightened himself up.

“Good,” she smiled as she stepped past him through the gate into the farmyard and turned for the barn-house, “you can bring it to our room while I take a shower, Sugarstud.”

She gave her long lavender and frost tail a broad swish in his direction as she did. Even as she reached the door, she could make out the shocked expression on McIntosh’s face still reflected in the window as he sat dumbfounded beside the gate.

Her timing had been perfect.

* * * * *

McIntosh sat there beside the farmyard gate and watched, transfixed in senselessness, as the barn-house door closed behind the near mare-grown filly. His jaw hung slack and his eyes bugged wide with shock. It was inside his nasal passages though, that tiny hot electric sparks of sensation flared to life darting up the neural pathways banging on his thought locked brain, begging for recognition. The only response though, came in the form of a phantom hoof knocking roughly upon his poll.

Hello! McFly! the dark half of McIntosh’s conscience taunted him. She practically threw herself at you. Now get off your ass and make like a tree and get some wood!

I believe, a more eloquent and articulate voice inside Mac’s head interrupted, the correct version of that phrase is ‘make like a tree and LEAVE!’ A mighty psychological buck accompanied the last word, sending the dark-sider sailing off into the night, to wink out somewhere in the distant shadows.

Unfortunately, the white clad haloed homunculus sighed as it settled down and stretched itself out, facing front belly down over the top of Mac’s crest and forelock, he will be back, at some point.

Eeyup, Mac agreed as he reclaimed his faculties.

However, as my less tactful and articulate counterpart was trying to point out. You seem to have gotten the knickers pulled over your eyes.

But, she told her parents... Mac began to reason with himself.

Ah yes, she did at that, and you know she wasn’t lying about it either. However, she also seems to have gone and apologized for misleading you about something if memory serves.

Eeyup, Mac acknowledged as the frustration seized gears of his mind began to turn again.

She also meant for you to bring her back here when she said to take her ‘home’...

Eeyup.

… used the inclusive plural possessive, not singular exclusive, when referring to the foal and the bedroom..

Eeyup.

… and has been wearing perfume, covering her scent, and carefully keeping herself downwind of you since she got off the train, to hide the fact that she’s in season.

Mac could feel his positive self talk stirring something inside of his chest. He could feel his pride welling up, yet he couldn’t feel at ease about letting it go free …

But what if it’s all just a coincidence? What if she really meant no? He gave mental voice to his own self doubt.

The haloed self image sighed in frustration, resting its face squarely in the frog of one hoof before addressing its larger self. Would you quit trying to drag defeat from the jaws of victory for once, please? There’s one sure way to find out the answer, and you damned well know what it is. So get up off that great, green half-apple ass of yours, go get that flask of cider, meet her in the bedroom, and ASK HER!

Mac swallowed hard, stood, and headed for the work barn and the entrance to his ‘reserve cellar’.

Ten minutes later he was sitting beside the dresser in the master bedroom. The flask of cider he had chosen from his private reserve had been opened and poured into one of the two cups he’d brought from the kitchen. It was from a fresh batch he’d recently produced; apple, of course, with a touch of strawberries. His clinging uncertainty hadn’t permitted him to pour the second cup.

The whole of the time since Diamond had left him there at the gate, as he’d gone to retrieve the cider, the cups, and bring them to the bedroom, he’d been trying to get his calm under control. He’d tried to think of all the teachings of Miyagi-sensei, the Ishiumajutsu** instructor that his parents had sent him to as a badly bullied schoolcolt. Somehow none of the old Neighponese pony’s wise words seemed to fit right now. He had opened the bedroom’s window in hope that the cool night air might help ease his tensions. A few deep breaths of the calm night air and the gentle rustle of the leaves in the orchard helped.

The sound of the bathroom door opening and closing caused his pulse to suddenly quicken. With the soft approach of the hooves in the hall, and then the click of the door latch to the bedroom, Mac felt his body chill with the rush of cold adrenaline that seemed to pour into him. Yet as Diamond entered the room, with her posture relaxed, her mane and coat still slightly wet from the shower, and her hindquarters wrapped in a damp towel, she seemed so… vulnerable.

Mac smiled gently at the young mare, hiding his nervousness with hospitality, and motioned to the cider on the dresser top. He watched as she approached the dresser, but not before pausing to push the door shut with a hind hoof, the sound of the latch fitting the striker plate felt like an earthquake inside him.

A quick survey of the cups and cider brought a quizzical look to her face as she tilted her head and cocked a brow at him.

“Just one cup? Why?” her voice seemed slightly hurt at the connotation of what she noted of the arrangement. “Weren’t you planning on joining me?”

“I …” his words caught in his throat. There were too many to come out at once. There was a question he needed to ask, yet he couldn’t remember it. His eyes darted about the room trying to find something that might remind him of what he had intended to say as Diamond sat down on the floor and pushed the one filled cup towards him.

“It doesn’t matter,” she cut off his wordless rasping attempt at an explanation as she took the filled cup in her hooves and took an elegant sip from it, pausing to savor the cider a moment, “I think we can share this one.”

* * * * *

Diamond accentuated her words with a relaxed and genuine smile as she offered him the cup, and he took it, softly covering her hooves with his as he lifted the vessel and drew a small draught of the sweet nectar from the cup before allowing her to place it back atop the dresser.

“McIntosh,” she began, her soft blue eyes gently latching onto his own rich emerald pair, before a flinch of modesty caused her to flick away, “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Mm-hmm.” His wordless reverberant reply brought a wave of comforting warmth to her.

“I’ve made a decision about the contract.” She turned her gaze back up into his as she shed her last remaining doubts with a calming breath.

“Alright.”

“I made my decision three weeks ago when I wrote to you and asked you to come and meet me in Hooferville this weekend.” Mac’s head bobbed kindly in acknowledgement, but he didn’t interrupt Diamond as she continued. “I wanted to be able to tell you there, face to face, what my decision was, and when you couldn’t be there, I knew I had to come back here. So that I could tell you that I choose to honor the colt that saved me and that if he wants me to honor the contract I will, willingly.”

“You don’t need to.” Mac smiled at her, expressing himself with easy warm words tinged with regret as subtle as the hint of cinnamon had been in the cider. “You’ve shown that you can grow. You can be a better pony. You don’t need to do this to earn back your family’s legacy. You don’t—”

A gentle pink hoof placed on his muzzle brought a halt to his protestations.

“I know I don’t have to,” she let her hoof slip from his lips down to the heavy yoke he still wore around his neck, caressing it lightly, “but, I can choose to. We can choose to, if we want to. Our foals, our choice, not mine, not yours, not anypony else’s. Ours, if you’re willing to choose it with me.”

For a long moment Diamond watched the depths of Mac’s eyes as her words sank in, and a spark took shape.

“I am, but what about the contract? Are you saying that you love me?”

Diamond hadn’t quite expected all of what he’d just said, but had for part of it at least.

“I think it might be a little early to call it that,” Diamond could feel the warmth of her blush in her cheeks, “but, I’m willing to wait and see what might grow given the appropriate time, attention, and care. As to the contract, I thought a smart business pony would be able to see the potential advantages of it, at least to start with.”

Diamond scooched in closer to Mac placing both front hooves below his yoke and began pushing the heavy restraint up over his head until it landed on the floor with a profound thud. No longer impeded by the intervening wooden barrier, Diamond stretched out her forelegs, closing her eyes as she did, and pressed herself chest to chest with Mac, letting her neck rest against his, feeling the powerful beat of his heart against hers. In response Mac dipped his head to rest his jaw on her poll, his forelegs sliding over her withers, completing the encapsulating hug she’d began.

Diamond nestled deeper into her stallion’s embrace, savoring the power and comfort she found with it. Slowly she moved her muzzle up to trace her lips gently along the length of his neck and jaw, his own nibbling their way down from her ear to cheek to meet his own in her first full on kiss with a colt.

A tightening ache in Diamond’s nethers began to spread a warm dampness into the forgotten towel wrapped around her haunches as the pair parted lips, nearly breathless, having plumbed the depths of each other’s muzzles for the first time. Finally sated, if only for moment or two, Diamond took in the longing look in Mac’s eyes, knowing it was echoed in her own as they contemplated a renewed effort.

“Mac,” Diamond headed off McIntosh’s attempt to renew their muzzle meld with soft voiced words she needed to say. “Do you remember, back in the ‘Love Shack’, when you told me why you chose to agree to the contract? Because you said you saw something in me?”

“Eeyup,” Mac affirmed, stealing a fleeting kiss from Diamond as he did.

“I see it too now, and tonight I saw something else. I saw a stallion of immense potential, a potential he hides behind a shroud of commitment, obligation, and shyness, even if it would be a greater help to him and his loved ones to let it out. I want to help you achieve that potential. To help you, the way you helped me.”

Mac nodded silently as she watched a tear of warm ‘liquid pride’ make its way down the side of his muzzle. Diamond plucked it away with a touch of her lips, tasting the salt of it as she smiled in assurance and confidence.

“Now,” she practically purred to him, deftly slipping a hoof down the side of his belly as she spoke, skirting the edge of his sheath close enough to cause him to shiver, “what say we deal with some mutual obligations?” Diamond shot a glance over to the wide, soft, bed that stood nearby, pulling Mac’s eyes along with her.

The rising prominence of his stallionhood told her he had his complete attention and agreement. As she stood, her forgotten towel slipped loose, the sodden fabric filling the room with the aroma of her arousal. A flick of her tail helped carry it to his nostrils as she flagged for him, letting him see her wet, winking, netherlips as she sauntered to the bed and skinned back the covers.

Mac was on her in an instant lathered and lusty, rampant and ready, but she brought him to a halt. Rolling onto her back so his momentum pushed her back onto the bed, she lifted a rear hoof against his belly stopping his attempted entry with his tip bobbing helplessly at the threshold of her moistened mareness.

“Mmh, Mmh, Mmh,” she tutted at him seductively, “no wham, bam, thank you mare, this time. I may still be the learner in many things yet, but in the bedroom, I am the master. Now,” She shifted her tone to a more commanding amorous form, patting the empty space on the bed beside her, “come to bed, I want to share my innocence with you properly, and pleasurably.”

* * * * *

Mac backed off and trotted around to the other side of the bed, one wary eye still on Diamond as the young pink mare stretched out on her back showing him her all, neck to nethers. His own throbbing arousal bounced as he moved, slapping mercilessly against his belly as if to unnecessarily remind him of its presence. As if somehow he might forget.

“Innocence?” Mac murred in puzzlement as he seated himself on the edge of the bed, before rolling out onto his back in imitation of Diamond’s own position. “What about before? The shed?”

Mac couldn’t forget the sweet sensation of that night in the shed as he’d savored his first filly. The tightness of her marehood as he’d sleeved his stallionhood slowly into it, so tight, so warm, so unforgettable. Yet he wished he could forget at times. Forget the pain he had caused her in his lust blinded eagerness to fill her with his hot seed. He’d given her his leg to bite on to stifle her screams and shun his sister’s sour wishes for vengeance, but still he had been poor a stud as to have the doctor shame him two days later practically implying he might as well have raped Diamond.

His gut turned in shame at the thought. He hated violence, hated the taint of it. His father had told him that the mare that chose to bear his foals deserved to be shown the utmost respect for her choice. He hadn’t honored those words very well it seemed that night.

“McIntosh Apple,” his reverie of misery slipped away as Diamond gently took his left fore-hoof and laid it across her belly as she nuzzled warmly at his neck, “you are the only stallion in Equestria who could have taken my virginity, but managed to give me back my innocence. Thank you for that. And now I want to share that with you.”

“But the last time … I hurt you. I want to … erhm …” he swallowed the word in modesty, but could see in Diamond’s smile she understood what he meant, “but I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“Then don’t worry about that,” Diamond whispered in his ear, easing his trepidation as she began to guide his hoof around her belly. “Let me show you how to please me instead.”

Mac could feel the smile on her lips against his neck as she finished. A moment later he felt the scritch of her teeth as she began to nibble gently at the very same spot as she slowly guided his hoof lower. She tilted it this way and that to tease her small teats with the hard edges, roughened frog, soft pastern, and long hairs of his fetlocks, cooing and whimpering affectionately as she provided a guided tour of her intimate areas. At last she brought him to her dripping marehood, triggering a fierce shiver of pleasure as she slid his shaggy pastern over her twitching folds and pressed it to her stiffened sexual stud nestled within.

As she lead him in the touching, Mac was focused on her eyes. Intently he watched the sparks of pleasure jumping and flickering in their depths with each warm shiver that she gave as she progressed with the ‘lesson’. His throbbing maleness was not wholly forgotten either, its painful, swollen, aching prominence drawing soft nudges with the fetlock and strokes from the pastern and cannon of Diamond’s other foreleg.

A gasp of pleasure escaped her lips as Diamond locked her thighs firmly around his dabbling forehoof, pulling it tight to her quivering wetness as another full body shiver caused her to let go a hot breathy groan of fixated pleasure. He could feel the dampness though his coat down to the skin beneath.

Her eyes had fallen closed as she wrapped her focus around the sensations of the lesson. He moved in cautiously, her muzzle’s parted lips his goal as she ran the tip of her tongue slowly around their edge while she had her mind elsewhere, only to be deflected by a sudden, stronger wave of motion.

Diamonds eyes went wide accompanied by a mighty gasp. Her already strangulating grip on his hoof held firm while the hotly aroused filly’s back arched wildly as she wrung her hips back and forth furiously against the bedding. He had to press his hoof even harder to her tender gate to keep her motions from separating his hoof at the coffin joint, and was greeted with a snarling “Yyyessssss,” as a third shiver brought her back to a more relaxed posture.

Mac touched his nose lightly against Diamond’s, giving it a light rub. He could feel the deep, powerful, smooth breaths as they moved through her flared nostrils as she settled herself. Cautiously he prepared again to attempt to steal a quick kiss. Her eyes flew open as he initiated the smooch, her head turning slightly and her tongue bolting between his lips like a crazed squirrel through a knothole. She caught the back of his crest with a pastern and pressed the kiss deeper as his tongue lashed back, twisting and turning in a wild chase between their jaws.

When in Roam… Mac, for a moment, began to rationalize, but abandoned his head for his heart with a shrug, simply enjoying the hot willing mare pressed tightly against his barrel.

Her foreleg released his crest allowing the pair to part with a heated gasp, and as Mac drew back the swirling scents of the room poured into him. A fiendish smirk played across Diamond’s face, her upper lip twitching slightly as she gave his heavy stallion scepter a teasing stroke from sheath to dripping tip as she finally relaxed her grip on his captive hoof.

“Mmm,” Diamond sighed as she used her frog to paint his tip with pre, “you are a good student it seems,” Mac nodded once adding a quick kiss to his agreement, drawing a naughty smile from Diamond in return as she continued, “and good students deserve to be rewarded.”

Diamond slipped a soft pastern behind his prominence and drew it down, teasing her teats with the flared head on the way to her warm, wet, mare-well. Her other hoof slid between his shoulder and the bed sheets as she silently directed him to move atop her, pressing her to the bed as he covered her belly to belly.

His cock slipped effortlessly into her rippling silken depths, eased by their mutual fluids. It was as if her channel was trying to pull him inside her. Mac shivered as he came to rest, his medial ring just inside diamond’s winking maredom. He had been watching her face, eyes to eyes as his maleness had merged with her feminine space, his belly moving slowly across her aroused teats. There had been no sign of discomfort, no pain, no reluctance or doubt. Only the glittering of her blue diamond eyes as soft and warm as the space he now filled inside her.

Mac savored the warmth of his young lover. This seemed more right, even as his turgidity trembled inside her, its task not yet complete, as the muscular ripples of Diamond’s sex cinched their grip ever tighter about his shaft.

“Uh-uh-uh, no fair cheating,” Diamond whispered lasciviously with a quick peck of his lips, her front hooves slipping overtop his cutie marks. “No half measures, all the way in, Sugarstud.”

Mac could feel his eyes going wider as Diamond pressed him deeper into her. He was certain his eyes were about to drop from their sockets as her fertile furrow came to rest against the mouth of his sheath.

“I… *gulp*… are… uhnngh…” He wanted to ask her if she was okay, if he was hurting her. Mother of the Sisters he didn’t want to hurt her, but her marehood’s grip had become tighter than he’d ever have thought possible, and his faculties for speech were strangled from the press of sensations.

And then it happened.

A teasing touch of her tail tip alighted as she graced him from testicles to tailhole. He remembered the look on her face, delicious and devious as she’d done it, heavenly. His eyes crossed, uncrossed, recrossed, and finally rolled back in his head. He felt his back and neck tighten as he pointed his muzzle heavenward and whinnied madly as the scalding sensation of release poured down his backbone, under his tail, and through into Diamond’s depths.

* * * * *

Diamond snuggled down against the soft dry bedding; it had been a gift from her parents, just as the strong, well crafted frame that held it had been a gift from Mac’s own family. Drowsy relaxation crept over her as Mac drew the covers over their flanks and settled in behind her, his body warm against hers as the gentle night air from the open window kissed the sweat from their hides. Morning would come soon enough, and there were chores to do, sure enough, and bedding to be washed and hung out. Mac had covered the soggy plot puddle that they’d made on the other side of the bed with a couple of pillows after rolling her over himself onto the drier half.

Diamond smiled at the thought. It had been a good night, she’d peaked three times, two small and one substantial, as she’d taught him how to touch her with his hoof, to draw out her pleasure before entering her. She’d had one more decent climax after he’d penetrated her, but not before he’d boiled over the first time. Diamond smiled inside as she recalled after he’d come down and tried to withdraw, she’d hooked her hind pasterns behind his hocks and held onto his flanks with her fores informing him that she was not letting him go until she’d had her own climax with him inside her, and she didn’t care if she had to wring every last drop of ‘appleseed’ from him to do it.

She’d gotten her wish, and harvested a second bushel of that hot seed into her waiting ‘apple basket’ shortly after.

Diamond’s left ear twitched from a breath from McIntosh as he slipped his neck across hers. She turned her lips up to meet his in another kiss as he laid a hoof over her shoulder. She moved it down from her shoulder to her belly, his pastern resting just above her teats. That’s where she always felt a lover’s embrace should be in bed. Silver had certainly never complained about it.

It was weird, she thought, to think of her womb as an ‘apple basket’, but then maybe not. She considered his stallionhood hers as much as she considered her sex to be his. She pondered the philosophy of sexual co-ownership as she drifted off, wondering if she was indeed falling for the big red colt whose strong heartbeat and steady breathing even now were lulling her to sleep. In her final conscious thoughts before fading, she made her realization: she’d let the contract stand until they were certain, that she was his and he was hers. She was falling for him, she knew, and had been ever since she’d chosen to become

An Apple Studded Diamond.

Author's Note

* In true earth pony weddings the stallion and mare exchange, and drape each other with, elaborate blankets as part of the ceremony. The mare in the heraldry of her husband's family, and he in that of hers. Symbolically this serves to show the adopting each other into their respective families. In rarer cases only one blanket is used, with the receiving pony being adopted into only the one family. (This was the case with Mac, AJ, and Apple Bloom's parents, as their mother, Orange Bloom, had been largely disowned by her family for going against her parent's wishes.) A young pony, most often a colt, (fillies being selected as flower-girls) is chosen as the blanket bearer to carry the blankets during the ceremony until the exchange take place.

** Ishiumajutsu - (path of the stone horse) - a Neighponese martial science developed to hone the physical and mental focus of the practitioner along with emotional control. Mac is an accomplished adept, but has never quite gotten total control of his inner self. Maud, on the other hoof, is a certified master.

Breeders Note: (Hey it's one of these again ) This is my take on natural, or pasture, breeding. In this type of arrangement as opposed to the more typical controlled 'live cover' used in most modern horse breeding, it is the mare who is in control. She may be turned loose in the same pasture with a prospective stallion, but if she doesn't want to, she doesn't have to breed with him. The mare does this literally by just walking away from the stallions advances if she decides she doesn't like him for whatever reason. If the paddock is small enough a stallion might be able to trap a mare and force a mount (and risk getting hoofed in the junk for his trouble if the mare really takes offense). Otherwise only if the mare accepts the stallion will she proceed to flag her tail, roll her hips back and present her self to him, and allow him to cover her.