Rising slid off of Aileris’ barrel and offered him a hoof to help him up. When she pulled, instead of Aileris rising up, Rising stumbled forward onto him.

Aileris giggled, a strange sound to come from his mouth, and helped prop her upright again. “Ye forget I’m tiny?”

“No, I forgot I’m tiny!”

Aileris rolled to his hooves and stood, Rising following suit. Aileris looked down at her and smiled. “That ye are!”

He reached out and pulled Rising back into a hug, wrapping his forelegs all the way around her, and said, “I’ve always wanted to cuddle my little Star like this.”

“Hey, only my mom can call me that.” There was no force to what she said, and she nuzzled against Aileris’ neck.

Aileris held Rising like that for a while longer, nuzzling the top of her head. Through their bond, he could feel Rising’s contentment and waning consciousness. As much as he would love to hold Rising as she slept, he knew that there was no way to tell how long the change would last.

“Star?”

She stirred against him. “Yeah?”

“Do ye like being me?”

She laughed a little. “‘Leris, anything that culminates in hugs like this is good in my book.” She pressed back against him a bit more. “And compared to the other things you’ve turned me into… I mean, a legless freak and a putty pony… there’s no real comparison.”

Aileris giggled. “Remember ‘ow we copied that entire newspaper on ye? And then it stayed when ye changed back!”

“Aye, I remember the joke! ‘What’s big and red and covered in the newspaper? Rising Star!’” She grinned like a fool then started laughing. “Read like the newspaper and red like me!”

A fit of laughter overtook Rising, and they both rocked back and forth, merriment overflowing. Aileris was the first to calm down.

Aileris was never the first to calm down.

He stared at the mare in his forelegs for a few moments. “Star…?”

The only response Aileris got was another riot of laughter. He slowly let her go, and she slumped to the ground, sides shaking, tears streaming down her face.

“Star?”

Rising flailed around on her back, hooves kicking at the air. Aileris’ eyes opened wide. “It wasn’t that funny.”

“Not what Squall thought!” No sooner had Rising said that than another wave of laughter swept over her. By then, she gasped for air between outbursts.

Aileris’ mind raced for a way to calm her; Rising looked to be about ready to pass out. With a gasp, he lit his horn and cast a spell over her, wrapping it around her like a warm blanket. The effects were almost immediate. Rising’s eyelids fluttered closed, and her frantic motions slowed to a stop.

Aileris released his hold on the spell in favor of rubbing Rising’s back. “I’m sorry, Star. I should’ve warned ye about ‘ow bad it could get.”

Rising snuggled against Aileris’ barrel. “Mmm… I knew you got gigglier after an episode, but… how do you keep from getting like that?”

“Years of getting used to it. I’ve had ‘em since I was a wee filly back in Scoltland.”

“I suppose that would help. Say, was that the spell you use to help Nova get to sleep?”

Aileris nodded. “Think yeh’ll be alright now, hun?”

“Yeah, I think I just need something to help keep me focused.” A glow sprang up around Aileris’ horn, and Rising said, “That’s exactly what I was thinking — almost like you knew.”

Aileris giggled and rolled his eyes. “Almost exactly like. But that spell I just used worked so much faster than normal, and yeh’re a lot bigger than a three-year-old — even though yeh’re being me right now.”

Rising perked up her ears. Placing a hoof on the tip of Aileris’ nose, she said, “Yes, but that goes both ways. You’re me, and you’ve got my magic. Why don’t you try something else out, something fun?”

Aileris thought for a couple seconds, then his eyes lit up. He and Rising stood, and Aileris settled into a casting stance.

“Fire-retardant spell,” Rising said, watching the corona of magic build around his horn.

“Of course.”

A small measure of the gathering energy spread in a pulse, leaving a glistening sheen over the grass and their cottage. The expenditure barely dented the growth of the charge gathering around Aileris’ horn, and moments later, a second layer of magic built around the first. Rising watched, feeling first her horn tingle then her entire body.

Aileris released the spell, and a rush of displaced air tousled their hair as a giant creature flared into existence. As one, their ears twitched towards the roaring flame.

They stared up at the towering golem. Its blazing, equine body was featureless save for its soulless, white-hot eyes, which looked directly at Rising like Aileris did.

“I did it! I conjured Chenny!” Aileris did a little dance, the fire golem replicating it.

“Went a little overboard, too,” Rising said, craning her neck up.

“Did not. Check again. Yeh’re tiny now, remember?”

Looking closer, Rising noted that, indeed, Aileris’ horn was exactly level with the top of its leg.

“So you did. Good job!” She nuzzled under Aileris’ chin then hummed to herself. “Yes, I quite like being able to do that.”

Aileris beamed, and the fire golem’s cheeks flamed a little brighter.

“So, Aileris, what do you want to do with Chenny?”

“Headstand. Oh, and try to make it look like a pooch.”

Rising blinked a few times then shrugged. “Go for it.”

With a bit of mental effort, Aileris added a layer of separation between himself and his construct. Not long after, it was balanced on its head.

“Seems a lot less threatening that way, doesn’t it, Star?”

She nodded slowly. “Aye. I would’ve never guessed that my capstone project would do that one day. Then again—” she looked down at her body then out to the mountains “— I never would have guessed a lot of things.”

She shook her head as the golem got to its hooves. “In any case, the best way to go about making it look like a dog is to reposition five of its six central spell matrices. If you move the ones for the limbs and head farther inside the torso, you’ll make them narrower right away. From there, you can—”

Aileris’ aura clamped around the golem and crushed inward, forcing its body into a new shape.

Rising didn’t react for a few seconds, watching the retriever-shaped golem. “Of course,” she said at length, “there’s that option, but you’ve probably done irreparable harm to this casting.”

Aileris shrugged. “I wonder if I can get its tail to wag.”

Its tail fell off and dissipated into a cloud of smoke.

Sighing, he said, “Guess not, then. Too bad.”

“I could do it for you sometime if you want.”

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Aileris said then bent to kiss her. By the time they came up for air, the rest of the golem was smoke on the wind.

As they watched it drift away, Rising said, “Well, that didn’t last too long.”

“Nope.”

She looked down at her hooves. “This might not either.”

A light nip on the ear sent a shock all the way to Rising’s hooves, leaving her jittery.

“Feeling adventurous?” Aileris whispered into her ear.

Rising bit her lip and nodded, turning to kiss him again. Tongue questing forth, Aileris raised a hoof to cup her cheek, and he pressed forward hungrily. Melting into the kiss, Rising’s eyes widened as she explored her tongue’s ability to wrap all the way around his.

They pulled back, and Rising licked her lips, running her gaze down Aileris’ form. “Oh, I shouldn’t have let my tail grow that long…”

“Ye still feel it? I thought it stayed with me, because I sure do,” Aileris said, reaching back to fondle Rising’s tail.

She let out a yip at his touch, and a look and a flurry of thoughts passed between them. Rising lay on her back on the grass, Aileris taking a position standing above her. She watched as his shaft slid from its sheath and towards her face. Rising’s tail, guided by his magic, slipped between the ground and her head, lifting her to his cock. Biting her lip, she reached up to brush it with a hoof, and she hissed in a breath as the head flared.

Aileris settled to his fore-knees and fanned out Rising’s tail with his magic then rubbed his face against it, savoring the feeling of her silken locks. Pre-cum started to ooze from Aileris’ penis, and Rising hesitantly wiped it off with a hoof, sniffed it, then licked it. The salty flavor spread across her tongue and disappeared all too quickly. Rising worked Aileris’ shaft with a hoof and lapped the pre-cum off as soon as more leaked out, relishing the novelty and the knowledge that Aileris was loving every second of it.

Laying his tongue on the naked flesh of her dock, Aileris slowly licked down its length, watching the tremors it sent through her ebony tresses. He didn’t stop when he reached the bottom, continuing to part her tail with his tongue. The tastes of tail and slightly smoky grass mixed, and Aileris hummed deep in the back of his throat.

The tail-play left Rising squirming, wanting more, and Aileris delivered, trailing kisses up her dock and onto her outer lips. He nosed her folds apart and licked the moist inner walls, caressing them with his tongue.

Rising gasped and arched her back, taking Aileris’ dick in her mouth with a muffled sound of appreciation. She settled back into the supporting embrace of his tail and stroked down his shaft to toy with the edge of his sheath. As she began to suck, taking more of his heady fluids into her mouth, she caressed Aileris’ balls, rubbing them and tugging them gently to tease more pre-cum from him.

Aileris had to lock his hind legs to keep them from buckling. He retaliated by spreading Rising’s slit open wider with his magic and burying his muzzle in her, lapping at the fluids within. Rising moaned around Aileris’ throbbing cock and tried to take more of it in but gagged as his head pushed against the back of her mouth.

She backed off and eyed its glistening, veiny length then licked his balls, fondling them with her tongue and tickling up his sheath with its forked end. Soon, his essence dripped onto her chin, and she swirled her illogically long tongue around to the back of his penis to capture it as it flowed from his head.

Aileris grunted, thrusting futilely against Rising’s tongue, begging for release. He sought the nub of flesh that would allow him to reciprocate and, with a wicked grin, kissed her clit before bathing it in a sea of tingling magic.

Rising gasped and desperately rocked her hips, needing to be filled. A low moan tore from her throat as she writhed under Aileris’ assault. Pressing upwards, she ground her slit into Aileris’ smiling muzzle. He only kissed her outer lips and expanded the field of magic, bathing her insides with tingles.

With a high-pitched scream, Rising climaxed, inner walls rippling, clenching around nothing. Her eyes fluttered closed, and her little chest heaved as she laid her head back into the supporting embrace of Aileris’ tail. He gently lowered her to the ground and turned to look down at her. When Rising opened her eyes, she saw Aileris standing above her, smiling and licking her juices from his muzzle.

“You didn’t finish,” she accused.

“‘Ey, I—”

Rising reached up and put a hoof over Aileris’ mouth. “I always finish what I start. My body, my rules. Now—” she reached up with a hind hoof and placed it on Aileris’ still hard cock “—you are going to fill me up like you’ve never done before.”

Aileris giggled. “I ‘aven’t! And I was just getting started. This tail thing…”

Rising pulled Aileris down into a kiss, and each tasted the other’s fluids on their lips. After falling back, Rising said, “Show me whatever bad idea you’ve got.”

Aileris rolled Rising over and spread-eagled her then parted her tail out into two strands. She looked back over her shoulder at the stallion behind her, biting her lip in anticipation, twitches still running through her hindquarters. Then, Aileris’ horn began to glow, and warmth spread through Rising’s dock.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth went dry at the sight of her tail growing, lengthening under Aileris’ coaxing. She recognized the spell at work, and, given how much energy Aileris put into it, she could tell what he planned to do.

When he was done, Aileris had turned Rising’s tail into twin rivers of inky black hair, each easily several times the length of her body. They parted around him where he sat, trembling, trying to focus. Slowly, he guided the strands to loop through one another just below the dock. Then Aileris wrapped them around Rising’s back fetlocks, the silken hair cinching tight, before passing them through themselves on her back and looping them over her front hooves. The bit that remained, he tied around her neck, trussing her up completely.

She couldn’t rise if she tried; her own tail would start to strangle her if she did.

She was completely at his mercy.

Rising stared down her back, tracing her tail with her eyes and wiggling inside its hold, feeling it hug tight to her coat. The way it crossed over her spine entranced her; she only noticed Aileris when he stood directly above her. Their eyes met.

“Take me,” Rising whispered.

Aileris lay down atop her, and her breath came out in a whoosh.

“I’m not ‘urting ye, am I?” he asked.

Rising shook her head and wiggled her hindquarters, all she could do in her position. Aileris grinned and pressed forward, rubbing his barrel over her back and drawing the binding about her hind legs tighter, spreading them farther apart.

He slid his penis into the loop of tail he had made below her dock and shivered at the sensation, her tail rising to lay against his belly and lifting his balls. Taking a mouthful of her mane and pulling her head back, Aileris thrust into Rising, who screamed. He fell into a slow, deliberate rhythm that Rising usually used, plunging deeper into her vagina with each stroke. Rising’s breath matched Aileris’ pace, gasping in as he filled her and letting out whining sighs when he drew out.

Rising closed her eyes and focused on how Aileris’ girth spread her apart. It was a feeling she knew, but only secondhoof from their mental bond. To have his length pressed inside her, to know how much Aileris wanted her, made her hum with pleasure. When he pulled back, he left her with a void, an empty, longing need that begged to be filled.

She wanted more than anything to be able to press back and take Aileris’ entire penis into her soft depths, but the bindings kept her from moving, and she had to wait — wait for him to pull back with intolerable slowness until only his head remained inside her before he would finally thrust in once more.

Rising’s closed eyes only heightened her awareness of what Aileris wanted, so when he let go of her mane, she tilted her head back farther. Aileris took her horn in his mouth and ran his tongue over its rounded tip, the sensitive spirals feeding a spike of ecstasy directly into Rising’s brain. She moaned, loud and long, as Aileris took her from both ends.

Aileris’ breaths grew more ragged as he listened to the mare beneath him moan and beg for more. He could feel her capacity for rational thought declining, and he loved it. It drove him harder, wanting her to snap and lose control completely. He buried himself in Rising over and over, rocking his hips faster. With Rising’s silken tail cupping his balls and her velvety depths surrounding his shaft, Aileris felt pressure begin to build in his loins. He groaned and pressed his teeth lightly against Rising’s horn at its base then slowly rasped them up it.

Pain and pleasure mixed intoxicatingly in her mind, and she moaned helplessly, squirming beneath Aileris’ weight.

As he reached the tip, he thrust completely into her, and she yelled out his name in a high-pitched squeal. Rising’s inner walls clenched around his shaft, milking Aileris’ throbbing cock for his load.

His self-control snapped.

Aileris grunted, and thick ropes of his sperm flooded Rising’s inner walls, filling her with his essence. He remained hilted inside her, letting everything he had gush out and coat her loins. He let out a long, slow sigh as he finished.

Laying his head atop hers, Aileris whispered, “I love ye, Star.”

Her ears twitched, and she murmured back something quadra-syllabic.

Feeling himself begin to soften, he pulled back out of Rising and rolled off her back, letting her breathe normally. She looked up at him with big eyes, and Aileris smiled then bent to kiss her on the nose. Looking over the trussing tresses, he frowned.

“I am not a barber.”

Rising sighed. “At least leave a good length intact.”

Aileris nodded before lighting her horn. Sheets of power sliced through the binding strands of tail, leaving it shorn off flat at fetlock level. He pulled the severed remainder off Rising and cast it aside; without its connection, all its allure was gone.

She rose to kiss Aileris, but her left hind leg gave out, and she stumbled into him. When she looked up to apologize, he silenced her with a kiss and gathered her into a hug. They didn’t need to speak; as they relaxed into one another’s companionship, their mental bond opened wider.

Rising nuzzled into his neck, humming, and closed her eyes. In moments, she dozed against Aileris’ chest, her own rising and falling slowly. He smiled down at her and ran a hoof through her mane, smoothing it. After placing a kiss on her forehead, Aileris laid Rising on the grass and snuggled against her, nose to nose.

He put a foreleg over her barrel as he watched her rest, stroking the soft hair on her chest with his other hoof. Rising’s lips curled upwards into a smile, revealing her lone fang.

Aileris giggled. “Ye know I know yeh’re faking.”

Rising nodded.

“It’s nice jus’ being ‘eld sometimes, isn’t it?”

She nodded again then looked at her forelegs, trapped between them, and back up at him. Aileris kissed her nose then scooched down, freeing them. Rising wrapped her hooves around his head and hugged it to her chest then buried her face in his mane. Aileris giggled before quieting, thinking and listening to the sound of cups beating against a table at irregular intervals, what passed for Rising’s heartbeat at the moment.

“Ye know, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad me da’ is Discord… almost enough t’make me want t’find ‘im.”

Running a hoof up and down Aileris’ neck, Rising said, “Whatever you want, ‘Leris. If it’s finding him, we’ll do it, and I’ll get to thank him for the past few years.”

“I wonder what yer parents would do if we did find ‘im and he showed up.” Aileris giggled.

Rising raised an eyebrow. “Anypony’s guess, really. It’d be interesting, alright.” She snuggled deeper into Aileris’ mane, yawning. “I really am warm and good for napping on, aren’t I?”

“Aye,” he whispered back, “ye really are. Why don’t ye take a quick rest before we head ‘ome?”

He felt Rising nod, her thoughts already slowing. Within minutes, her breathing fell into the pattern of sleep, and Aileris kissed her chin. With her asleep, the flow of thoughts between them became mostly one-sided, letting Aileris’ thoughts wander back over their relationship. He could feel them permeate through Rising’s subconscious, and he smiled, knowing they would give her pleasant dreams, possibly very pleasant dreams.

Aileris sighed, remembering how, at first, Rising had been so hesitant to even cuddle like this. Looking at her body, feeling how petite it was in his grasp, he could hardly believe how being with somepony like this could have scared him. Unbidden, thoughts of the nameless mare who had put Rising in that position sprang to mind. Seeing her face scrunch up, Aileris pushed the thoughts away to focus on good memories: when they first started practicing magic together before their first real mission, their brief and, more often than not, literally explosive courtship, their wedding and the night after, and the birth of their little colt, Hyper Nova.

At the thought of their foal, Aileris realized that she must have nodded off for a while too; the light was fading. She nosed Rising’s neck, rousing her.

“Hun, we should probably head back now. Guiding is going t’wonder if we’re gone much longer.”

Rising yawned and stretched, cracking her neck. s they stood, she shivered and pressed closer to him, saying, “Maybe we should have headed inside. It’s a little cold out here.”

He laid his neck across hers and nuzzled her opposite cheek. “It’s not bothering me that much, but I suppose I get that from you,” she said, giggling.

Rising nodded then turned to kiss Aileris’ cheek. Raising a hoof, she said, “To home?”

He took her hoof in his. “Aye.”

Rising reached out with her magic, extending her leylines up from her horn and over their heads. As they reached the peak of their climb and started to broaden out to form the glyphs that would return them home, her leylines twisted on themselves and broke free from her control, hurtling through the air, spell half-formed.

Rising Star and Aileris watched as the coppery light approached their cottage, their magic letting them feel that the spell had enough energy to be complete. They cringed before it made contact with the roof and activated, sinking through and leaving a perfectly circular hole, its edges smoking. It continued through to the other side, pulling the material out of existence, and flickered out when it reached the opposite side.

Rising looked up, grimacing. “I’ll… fix that when we get back. But what happened? I’ve never lost control of my magic like that!”

“Star,” Aileris said, tapping his forehead, “yer magic is over here. I felt ‘ow much ye were thinking when ye cast that spell. It doesn’t like being controlled that much, remember?”

“Aye…” Rising’s ears flopped down.

Aileris put a hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Star. Yer not used t’being me, and that school and the Guild drilled ‘precision, control, technique’ into ye. This time, I can guide ye!”

She smiled, ears perking back up. “I like the sound of that.”

Soft glows formed around both of their horns, and Aileris dipped her neck to touch Rising’s horn tip with his own. Their leylines merged at the touch, the color of their magic blending together into a dark orange as they Linked, their senses merging, their minds flowing around and through one another’s.

[You know,] Rising thought to Aileris, [if I had to guess when a mental swap like this was most likely to happen, I would have said during a Link.]

[Aye, but that’d make too much sense, and we can’t have that, now can we?]

[We can’t, no,] Rising thought back with a mental giggle.

Aileris’ mind filled with thoughts of home, and Rising’s mind cleared, settling into a meditative state.

[Let the magic flow.]

They did, and moments later, the ocher light of their combined magic passed over them, pulling them from the world.

The familiar sensation of motion-without-motion, of moving a million miles a minute while also remaining still, filled them as they rushed through the aether between worlds, approaching the one that contained Equestria and their home.

As quickly as it had begun, their journey was over, and they pulled back from one another, breaking their Link.

Rising looked from the crumbling-to-dust wreckage of their cottage’s roof to Aileris, and her face scrunched up. “I thought Linking might switch us back, and now we have this mess t’clean up.”

“I know. Seems not t’be the case, though, so now comes the hard part.”

She nodded. “Time t’tell my parents.”

Author's Note

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