Aileris and Rising Star sat together outside their lonely cottage, looking out at the nearly empty prairie around them and to the mountains beyond. He laid his head atop hers, closing his eyes, and whispered into her ear, “It’s quiet, ‘Leris, a little bit too quiet. I know there are all sorts of ideas in there. I can feel them running around in your mind.” He nuzzled into her raven mane. “And you know how I love hearing your ideas.”

She grinned and lifted her head slowly, prompting him to let hers free. “I do ‘ave a lot of good ideas, but I’ve also got a lot of bad ones too.”

Rising heard the smile in her voice and raised his eyebrows. “But those are the most fun, sometimes, aren’t they?”

Aileris giggled. “Aye! Let’s see what we can think up.”

She flopped onto her side and rested her head on the ground, pondering, while Rising tapped a hoof against his chin, idly musing, “What to do? What to do…? Shall we try our hooves at making frictionless materials?”

Aileris lifted her head up, looking at him. “Anti-gravity? Like in Stalliongrad, but without being afraid of getting killed. That’d make it a lot more fun! Ooh! Or breathing underwater. I bet ye could whip up a spell for that.”

Rising put a hoof up to a scar on his neck. “I… don’t think I want to do anti-gravity if I don’t have to.”

Aileris winced, feeling old memories surface in her husband’s mind. “Sorry, Star. Don’t go back there. Stay with me.” She got up and cupped his chin with her hoof. “Just look at me, and listen to my voice.” She stretched up and kissed his cheek. “Feel how much I love ye.”

She opened the mental link between them wider to let her love pour through, commingling their minds more than they usually did and pushing back the dark memories. As she reassured him with the warmth of her love, she felt new thoughts begin to swirl through his mind. Ideas and associations tumbled together, picking up previously disconnected knowledge.

Aileris recognized it as one of Rising Star’s brainstorms. The last one had resulted in them getting a two-week vacation for the anniversary of their wedding. To everypony outside the spell, it seemed as though they had only been gone a day. Watching that plan form had taught her that she didn’t like the surprise being spoiled, so with a bit of mental effort and a slight frown, she restricted the flow of thought between them. Waiting for him to speak, she stood before him, smiling.

“Maybe… sensory conversion?”

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, a grin forming. “Sensory conversion?”

“Yes… switching around things like hearing and sight, touch and taste…”

Her grin grew wider, and she settled to the ground. “I see where yeh’re going.” She rolled to her back and closed her eyes. “But I’m so comfortable right now.”

“Maybe you could taste the comfort.”

She giggled. “But what would that taste like?”

He grinned. “Who knows? Let’s find out!”

She opened her eyes and looked up to him, smiling. “Okay!”

She rolled back to her hooves. “So, um, how do we do it?”

“Let’s see… I usually do this sort of thing first. Why don’t you try to lead this time?”

“Okay.” She closed her eyes and focused on the leylines within them, her horn lighting. She found the pulse of those in Rising’s ears and of those in his eyes. She paused, her grip loose on those leylines. “I think this might work. Ye ready?”

His magical grip settled around hers, ready to catch her should anything go wrong. Through their bond, though, she felt his confidence in her. Aileris nodded to him and pulled the leylines from their source and switched them, carefully transplanting them in their new locations.

Rising’s ears twitched back and forth. “My word!” He blinked hard at the sound of his own voice. “Everything’s fuzzy, and I can see around corners. I can see inside things — even you!”

He slowly shook his head. “And things are so quiet… but only behind me. Whoa… That is seriously disorienting. Your field of vision… it becomes your field of hearing…”

Aileris circled around behind “So, ye mean, as I walk behind ye, ye don’t ‘ear anything? That’s pretty bizarre. Yet, without yer eyes, ye can see everything around ye, right?”

As she passed behind him, he reached back with a hind hoof, stopping it a little before her nose. “I can’t really hear you back there, but I can see you, sort of.”

She grinned, amused, then walked in front of him and sat down. “Okay, that’s definitely a yes.”

She hummed to herself, realizing something. “Ye know, if we ‘ad known we could switch yer eyes with yer ears, those missions for the Princess would ‘ave been much easier, especially since we would always be in touch. Ye wouldn’t need yer eyes, ears, um, ‘earing-things, anymore.”

“This is definitely a spell that could have been useful. But…” He blinked a few times. “But it sure takes some getting used to.”

Aileris watched his face as he talked, noticing how often he blinked. “‘Ey, when ye close yer eyes, do ye stop ‘earing?”

He nodded. “Almost entirely. You know how you can still see bright light through your eyelids? It’s sort of like that but with sound. Like shoving cotton balls into your ears, I suppose.”

Her eyes sparked suddenly. “Yeh’ve nearly mastered chronomancy, right?”

“About as nearly as anypony could hope to master the temporal flow… which is to say I have a healthy respect for it. What do you propose? Wait… Let me guess…” He sat, and a familiar look crossed over his face.

“Okay… changing time… what does that have to do with this…?” He tapped a hoof on his chin, thinking aloud. “Sound. Sound is slow… If I could slow time enough… I could walk forward and see myself getting there!”

He reached forward and hugged his wife. “Oh, you do have the best ideas, Aileris!”

She giggled. “No, that’s not what I was thinking at all!”

“Oh. Well then.” His ears flopped over, and he cleared his throat. Then, he noticed something. “Hmm. That’s like squinting… Strange.”

Aileris burst out with peals of laughter and only managed to control herself after holding her breath for a few moments. “Okay, ‘ow about this? If ye could go back in time and teach me this spell or at least give me the idea t’learn it… imagine how many of Waxy’s rants we could ‘ave ignored.”

“Dear, you know I can’t just change the past like that. If I did, it would change the future, now. We might not even survive to now.”

Her ears drooped. “Oh. I… I guess yeh’re right.”

Rising put a hoof on her withers, rubbing a small circle on her back. “Do you want to try this out, though?”

She smiled. “Aye! It sounds fun.”

“Let’s make things really interesting, why don’t we — more than just switching sight and hearing? There are more senses than that to change.” His horn shone with power, and he reached for her leylines with his own.

“Let’s see what you can do. I can barely wait to see — hear? — what it’s like!” Aileris let herself relax into the glow of his aura, smiling at the light but powerful touch of his magic. Shivers ran down her legs as her husband wrapped his magic around them too. Soon, her whole body was aglow.

“Ready, love?”

She nodded. “Aye.”

Rising reached out with his magic and took his wife’s leylines in his own, cradling her coppery flows with his red ones. Years of living with her and sharing magical experiments together had taught him to expect the unevenness of her magic’s flow, a property contrary to every other’s he had encountered. Those same years had taught Aileris to trust him with affecting her leylines. With ease, Rising rerouted his wife’s leylines, plucking them from one part of her body and placing them in another.

Aileris’ world went dark and soundless; the only thing she could readily perceive was the shining beacon of Rising’s magic — even the ground seemed to have disappeared from beneath her hooves. When she thought about it, she couldn't feel them either. Paying more attention to her own leylines, she noticed that he had taken away most of her senses, sight and hearing, touch and taste, as well as heat and balance. She was glad she had locked her legs. Her magic let her know that her leylines were just about to settle into their new locations, guided by the gentle coaxing from her husband.

The first thing she noticed was that the soft touch of the grass under her hooves was a mild sort of flavor, quite unlike what grass actually tasted like. That was followed by the sensation of being pushed from all sides as touch became the sole purview of her tongue. She could hear for miles in front of herself; light exploded all around her; up became scorching hot and down freezing cold; everywhere the temperate air touched her was the feeling “upright.”

Aileris stiffened, her face screwing up, then fell over, her face hitting the ground hard.

“Spicy!” The scream’s reverberations around the walls blinded her, and she curled into the fetal position, twitching as if in an epileptic seizure.

Even though Aileris had closed down on their bond, reducing it to a mere trickle of what it usually was, Rising was still staggered by the turmoil that erupted in Aileris’ mind. He shook it off and rushed over to kneel beside his wife.

Brushing her coat with only the lightest of touches, he whispered, lest he hurt her further, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, I swear. Let me undo it.”

He surrounded her in his aura, preparing a spell to counteract the one afflicting her. Aileris smiled as the succulent taste of his touch caused her whole body to shiver. As he charged his spell, she struggled to stand up but ended up stumbling over herself again. The taste in her mouth went bitter again. “Please… Star… ‘urry!”

“Oh Celestia… Oh Luna… I didn’t mean it. I’m so sorry,” he practically pleaded as he gathered the last of the magic he needed. Under his guidance, the leylines in her body swung back to normal, and Rising Star gathered her in his forelegs, rocking her.

A near constant stream of apologies came from him as he clutched her close to his chest. She curled up in his embrace, burying her face in his coat and patting him all over, testing her sense of touch. Her panting gradually subsided as she listened around, hearing only his soothing voice and not light.

Never again, I promise. I’ll never do that to you again. Never. Princesses strike me dead, I never meant to hurt you.” He stroked her mane, being as gentle as possible.

She pulled her head from his chest and looked up at him, tears still streaming down her cheeks. She kissed him softly. “It’s okay. I know.” She smiled weakly. “Sometimes yeh’re just too powerful for yer own good, and ye can go a little overboard every so often.” She kissed him again. “But it’s okay.”

“I would trade all my abilities for never having hurt you.” He let out a shuddering breath. “Nothing else has ever made me feel so worthless, so terrible… I can’t stand to see you hurt… and hurting you myself…” He blinked back tears. “I can barely stand it.”

He let out a shaky, humorless laugh and wiped at his eyes. “It’s like hearing under water…”

She wrapped her forelegs around his neck and pulled herself close again. Into his chest, she mumbled, “But ye fixed it. It’s okay.” Her heartbeat slowed, and her breathing normalized as she squeezed tighter around him. “I’m fine.”

Rising let out a long sigh, hugging her tight to his chest. He held her like that for some time while she kissed his neck all over, clinging to him and consistently telling him she was fine and it was okay.

He calmed down, eventually, and let her go. “Maybe… maybe some nice, safe friction reduction.”

She grinned. “Aye, I like the sound of that.”

“But first, I’d like to actually see right…” His horn flashed, and he blinked a few times. “Wow, that’s disorienting both ways.”

She laughed, having forgotten his senses were still switched. “I dunno, hun. Running around frictionless with bat vision sounds like it would be fun.”

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, now… We just… saw, I guess, how that turned out,” he said, ears drooping.

“Ye just went a bit far, which, given ‘ow enthusiastic ye are—” she scooted beside him and slyly whipped his horn with her tongue “—doesn’t surprise me.”

He jumped a little, startled. “Aileris?”

She feigned innocence. “Yes?”

“Now just doesn’t feel right…” He sighed. “I mean, I feel terrible about that.”

She sighed. “I was just trying to get yer mind off it for a moment.”

“It’s not quite that easy… You… you just looked so helpless and pained and scared… and it was my fault. I can’t just let that go so quickly.”

He looked out over the landscape, his back to her. “Every time I hurt you… I think a little of me dies.” He hung his head, staring at the dirt.

She pressed against him and softly rubbed his back. “Every time ye hurt me, ye fix it. If anything, ye should feel better about yerself. I forgive ye every time—” she rested against him “—and I always will.”

“I know, and it means the worlds to me — all of them — but there are some things I can’t change, and that is one of them.”

She sat directly beside him, brushing against his neck, and looked out at the horizon. “If it can’t be changed, we must learn from it. That’s what me mother taught me when I was learning me trade. I almost botched the whole job, but instead of yelling at me, she just turned to me and said, ‘A mistake is simply a chance to learn ‘ow to better approach the situation.’ So please, don’t let it ‘urt you.” She pressed against him desperately. “Because when I see ye get like this, I ‘urt too.”

“Golden Shadow sure knew how to raise a good mare.” Rising put a foreleg around her. “I’ll try. For you,” he said and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead.

She smiled. “But, if you would like to make it up to me…”

A brush materialized in front of him and fell to the ground. He glared at her from the corner of his eye and said, “You are evil, you know that?”

When he picked the brush up in his teeth anyways, she sat down in front of him, grinning, and said in a singsong voice, “Of course I know that, but ye still love me.”

“Mmhmm,” he mumbled around the brush. He leaned forward and ran it through her mane, pulling it through her silken locks.

While he worked at her mane, she hummed a happy tune she had learned as a filly. She had always enjoyed a good brushing.

Even after the job was clearly over, he continued brushing her — though he was more nosing through her mane and tickling the top of her head with his lips than anything.

She shuddered more and more as he kept brushing her, wondering at just how good it felt. Slowly, he worked the brush from her mane and onto her back, pulling in measured strokes with the natural direction of her coat.

“Mmmm.” Her body shivered noticeably, but it was to be expected; his massaging brush-strokes soothed her as they always did, and so he continued working down her back, stopping occasionally to pay closer attention to roughed-up patches in her coat. But he steadily worked his way lower.

She lowered herself to the ground, curving her back to meet his strokes and making no attempt to hide her enjoyment. Rising smiled around the brush in his teeth and kept working, smoothing the hair on her left flank before making his way back to her haunch.

She shuddered, and her tail flipped erratically, brushing against his face as he groomed her haunches. He stiffened, clenching his teeth against the brush. Then, he very carefully made his way to her other side and worked the brush through the hair of her flank on the right.

As he approached her other haunch, she shuddered again and rested her chin on her hooves. She watched as he made his way to her cutie mark, a mark as unusual as the rest of her. Despite that, Rising had never pried into its meaning and had responded only with fascination when she had allowed the twisted-up ouroboros to move, something she only did in private.

He showed such fascination now, tracing the brush over its winding path, following its motion.

Beginning to brush down the back of her leg, his motions became less measured and smooth, to the point of becoming almost erratic.

His self-control snapped.

The brush fell from his mouth as he panted, taking hold of the end of her tail. He rubbed it against his face, breathing deeply, a shuddering sigh.

Aileris giggled and turned her head. “You alright back there?”

“Ooh yes…” He tugged gently on her tail.

She gasped, still grinning playfully at him, and flipped her tail around. He grinned, almost predatorily, and grabbed a hoofful of hair near the base of her tail.

She laughed, attempting to wiggle her tail free, but to no avail. “I knew you’d never be able to help yourself!”

He closed his eyes, reveling in the sensation as she wiggled the base of her tail slowly. He hissed in pleasure, tongue flicking out between his lips. He reached out for dock, which she wiggled to avoid capture. Then, thinking better of it, she stopped and let him take a hold of it, amused.

He ran a forehoof down her lower back, tracing her spine, and as it ran out into her tail, a shudder passed through him. He plunged a foreleg through the raven tresses and reached upwards to lay his hoof against the naked skin of her dock. Aileris gasped as he stroked the hairless flesh, and her tail whipped upwards.

He bent towards her nethers, horn aglow. His horn met her dock as his lips came to her slit. A tingling sensation leaked through his horn into her as he ever-so-lightly licks up her. Her dock stiffened, and she let out a quiet, contented hum.

Rising pressed forward, pushing aside her folds with his tongue, and laid his horn fully against the naked underside of her dock. The tingling grew as he teased at her clit, and her hum became a low moan. Her tail began twitching, heat building unbearably.

Tongue swirling inside her, he lapped at her fluids, questing deeper. His horn grew hot, and the tingling became true waves of pleasure. Aileris dug at the ground, pressing back against him, her body overwhelmed by the intensity of the waves moving through her, and she shuddered uncontrollably.

He pulled back, leaving her empty, and rolled her onto her back. Moving up, he stood over her, looking down at her with his muzzle wet from her juices. He slowly, deliberately licked at it, and the aura around his horn crackled, the power dancing through it sending sympathetic tingles through hers.

She stared up at him, panting, his teasing making her grow wetter still, and with a grin, she slowly lifted a rear hoof and ran it up his hind leg toward his crotch. As her hoof brushed against his cock, it sprung even more erect, and he grinned wickedly.

In a low voice, he growled, “You should punish me for what I did…”

She matched his grin as she lowered her hoof. Her horn flared, and she threw him backwards, where he landed prostrate. Aileris appeared above him at his hips.

A loud “Oof” came from him, and he shook his head, gaining his bearings. Between his legs, he spotted her, and a bead of pre-cum appeared on the tip of his cock. She smirked as she toyed with his hardened shaft, running a hoof up and down its length. Her long, forked tongue whipped from her mouth and lapped the pre-cum from the tip. She looked toward him, gauging his reaction, as she slowly ran the tip of her tongue down the underside of his cock.

He pawed at the ground, muscles tensing in his hindquarters, strain and need playing across his face.

She licked back up his shaft and wound her tongue around the tip, toying with him even more, and the tufts of grass he had been holding ripped from the ground as shudders ran through him. He moaned, loudly, as she played with his dick.

She let go with her tongue and, feeling merciful, closed her lips around the tip of his cock, ever mindful of her fang. Her care paid off as his hips began bucking. His breath coming in gasps, he begged, “Aileris… Aileris!”

She took in more of his shaft and sucked as she moved her mouth up and down, a little at a time. His hips rose uncontrollably, and he drew in a breath with a hiss. He tried desperately to use some sort of magic to pleasure her, but the waves of pleasure shattered his concentration.

Aileris’ movements quickened, taking in more of his shaft with each downward motion, then she suddenly stopped. She pulled back, freeing his cock from her mouth, and let it quiver in solitude, watching him with a grin.

He gritted his teeth, trying to hold back. As the muscles in his groin clenched, his horn flared, and something shoved into her from behind.

Completely caught off-guard, Aileris screamed out in pleasure. After regaining her composure, she eased his shaft in her mouth and forced her head down, taking its entire length. He gasped and, with the last of his control, pushed the conjured dildo all the way inside her. Then, with a throaty yell, he lost it, spunk shooting from his dick into her maw. His hot, thick semen gushed across Aileris’ tongue and down her throat, coating the inside of her mouth with his salty essence.

She groaned into his throbbing shaft, filling up with his load, and sucked harder at his penis. Easing up his length, her mouth filled with his seed as she massaged his balls with a hoof.

He let his head fall back as he sighed and worked his magical field to encompass the entire dildo. Pressing its now tingling surface against her clit, he worked it back and forth more and more rapidly. She fell onto his belly, her loins pulsating around the dildo, shuddering and moaning in ecstasy. He gathered her in his forelegs and slowly, gently, massaged her lower back.

Her entire body went limp in his grasp as the waves of pleasure continued to overtake her. Spent physically, but gaining ground magically, he let go of her with his hooves in favor of enveloping her in a cradle of his aura. It began to resonate in time with her natural magic, building on it while tickling over her coat.

She lay on his chest, still convulsing, the dildo hard at work between her hind legs. Craning his neck down, he wrapped his mouth around her horn, swirling his tongue around it. She cried out as the shivers ran through her body, crashing together from every direction. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, she climaxed, clenching hard around the dildo, pulsating from hoof to horn, and collapsed on top of him, panting heavily.

Her magic fed back through his, and he moaned, reveling in the second climax. They lay together, her atop him, and Rising kissed her nose softly, lips barely touching her.

But Aileris felt desire rise up in her, and she pressed forward, pushing his head back with the ferocity of her kiss. She pulled back, panting hard. “I’m not done with ye yet!”

“Whoa, ‘Leris…” Rising stared up at her, watching the rise and fall of her chest and feeling the building of power in her. “What are you…?”

Then, he realized that what he didn’t see was more important than what he did — her horn was not glowing.

At the same time, Aileris realized it wasn’t just unrestrained desire taking hold of her; it was also an uncontrollable energy.

“Oh no!”

“Not now!”

Aileris’ eyes blazed white, and the mental link between them slammed open, turning into a blinding line of power connecting them. A tumultuous flood of ideas and a lurch brought the experience to an end.

“Star, tell me I didn’t flip us upside down and get rid of your legs… again.” Aileris blinked, bedazzled vision slowly clearing.

“I don’t think that’s quite the case, ‘Leris,” Rising said, reaching a hoof between her hind legs at the change in sensation. Her hoof shook as she drew the dildo from her vagina. Rising gaped at it as her sight returned, unable to decide which was more interesting, the way her fluids glistened on its surface or that they were clearly hers.

Aileris looked up at the mare sitting atop him, tilting his head to the side. “Well,” he said, “this is a new one.”

Author's Note

Thanks to my editors: SaiKimura, Midnight Spark, Feather Scratch, and Cynewulf.