My life is a glass...

Having nobody beside you every morning wasn’t just terrible.

For Hard Knock, it had become the worst thing imaginable.

He would never have thought that being separated from someone could affect his mood this much. On the late hours of this Tuesday evening, he struggled to recall the feelings of gratefulness for the peace and quiet in his hospital room. It had not been a whole day since the release of his marefriend and the melancholy already crept into his mind.

At least he wasn’t completely without company. After a very thorough cleaning and change of bedsheets on Rainbow’s former bed, the nurses had brought in a new patient during lunch. The stallion, a cream colored earthpony named Fuzzy Slippers, was the latest transfer from some special clinic in Manehattan and seemed a nice enough guy.

No replacement for his marefriend, but he figured that nothing could at this point.

According to the head nurse, Fuzzy’s treatment entered a state where no personal doctors and equipment were needed anymore. Ponyville Hospital had been chosen for his seasoned staff and facilities in relation to such a remote location, far away from all the hustle and bustle of the busy city life.

Ponies from outside still had the misconception of Ponyville as a quiet town.

Fuzzy wasn't the most talkative sort, weirdly fascinated by the subject of comfy hoofwear and the occasional medical second-hand knowledge. He had learned a lot through personal experience during his stays in the medical facilities around the world, sharing without hesitation if something wasn’t as good as he had seen elsewhere to the great chagrin of the nurses around. In that aspect, Hard Knock thought himself more lucky with his severe but ultimately mundane and fixable injuries.

The broken bones in his body would heal with enough rest. In comparison, the small tidbits of Fuzzy’s past treatments made him shudder. The cliff notes on radiation therapy alone had Hard Knock worried that the skeleton of his bed neighbor would glow in the dark and rob him of his sleep.

The guy looked just fine superficially. Besides his missing mane and tail, you would have never guessed that this stallion had ever been deathly sick, although, you would have hoped so after such a long and well-documented road to recovery. Fuzzy Slippers was on his last steps to a healthy life, and Hard Knock found a source of inspiration in that.

He had an excellent and prismatic reason to get well as soon as possible.

Hard Knock leaned back into his pillows and tried to relax. This time he was almost asleep when a loud noise made him open his eyes. There was just enough time to raise the bedsheet over his face to shield from the shower of glass and wood splashing over him from the window. The window that had exploded in thousands of pieces during an earth-shattering collision of something big and bulky entering the room through it.

The unidentifiable blob of black cloth began to wobble where it landed. Fuzzy was already on his hooves, slipper in mouth and ready to pounce. Hard Knock had doubts about the effectiveness of hoofwear as a bludgeoning weapon but appreciated the gesture of aid from a stallion which he barely knew longer than half a day.

The two stallions continued to watch how the intruder struggled around in a desperate attempt to orient in the self-made cloth prison, which turned out to be an oversized cloak around a pony shaped body. The entangled culprit finally succeeded in guessing the difference between up and down, rising from the ground as a hooded monk.

At first, Hard Knock couldn’t see more of the face than the muzzle, before the fabric shifted a bit under the movement and revealed a small tuft of familiar rainbow mane. Another glance at the other end showed an equally colorful tail sticking out.

The scratchy groan from the pile calmed his nerves entirely. “False alarm, Fuzzy. That's my marefriend.”

“Lucky bastard...” The slipperphile drew the curtain around his bed with a sly smile and answered the small nod of thanks from Hard Knock with a lazy salute of his own.

Guys had to stick together.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t leave a small crack open to enjoy the show.

“I underestimated how heavy this thing is…” Rainbow’s eyes darted around nervously from the shadow of her cloak. “Are… are you alone?”

“Nopony is gonna bother us, Rainbow,” he sighed after a taking a good look at his battered marefriend. “Are you ok? Why would you fly around like that and risk getting hurt?”

Rainbow Dash had managed to get on steady hooves by now, still wrapped in the large cloak to hide as much as possible from her body.

“Well… you see…” She began and stopped. In the face of her coltfriend, coming here didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. How could she explain what being seen in public in her current state of dress would do to her? There was getting in touch with her feminine side, and there was the ridiculous thing she was currently doing. Rainbow Dash didn’t believe in taking baby steps, but even she had some doubts at this point.

The awkward tension in the room was pierced by the sound of metal against stone. On the windowsill of the broken window, firmly lodged in with its sharp metal hooks, a black painted grappling hook had appeared.

“Did you come with company?” Hard Knock asked, getting a violent headshake as an answer from his visibly distraught marefriend.

Seconds later, they could hear grunts and groans getting louder from outside. Faster than Hard Knock had ever seen somepony do anything, Rainbow Dash shed her cloak and dived for his bed to get under the blanket.

He could have sworn there had been a significant amount of white in that blue blur. “What are you doing? Why are you hiding?!”

“I panicked, ok?” Rainbow hissed between his thighs, breathing hot air into his crotch.

“Why?” Hard Knock tried to ignore the tingling sensation on his private area and pressed for answers. “You're allowed to be here remember? And whoever is scaling the wall outside is most likely not.”

She was clinging to him like bubblegum to a shoe. “I… I just don’t want anypony but you to see me right now.” Rainbow shakily made herself as small as possible and wrapped his legs around her in a protective manner. “Please hide me…”

Hard Knock threw a telling glance through the crack in Fuzzy’s curtain. The stallion on the other side nodded with a sigh and drew the curtain in full, leaving Hard Knock to feel for her head under the blanket and caressing her cheek when she leaned into him.

“I’ll try to get rid of this nuisance through talking, but when push comes to shove, I will need a strong mare to protect me from the bad guys.”

Something incredibly soft rubbed his chest. “...love you...”

The unusual words of endearment hit home for Hard Knock. They had kissed, fucked like rabbits and became a couple without ever saying those three simple words to each other.

“I love you too, Rainbow.”

She was so headstrong and confident most of the time, making it all the more special at moments when she let the guard down and showed her gentle side for him.

Or getting sappy in her words.

“We did it! See? It works exactly like in the instruction book!” A black limb swung itself in sight from outside the window and struggled to pull up the attached upper body. The dampened reply of another voice confirmed at least the existence of a second pony. Nobody inside could understand it and had to piece the meaning together from the response of the first pony.

“I have a book on burglary for completion's sake. The bookshelf looks so empty without this one between ‘Bureaucracy For The Advanced' and ‘Burlesque Stageplays Through the Ages'.

The figure climbed inside the dark room, and Hard Knock could already tell that this pony wasn't naturally black. She, Hard Knock could also tell this much from her voice, wore a full body catsuit with a small opening around the face he couldn’t see.

“Be careful during entering, Fluttershy. The window is broken, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t hit it with the hook.”

The bundle under the blanket quivered at the mention of that name, and Hard Knock realized who those intruders were. “Mrs. Sparkle pardon my prench, but what the buck are you doing here?!”

Twilight Sparkle, the protege of Princess Celestia, an element of harmony and savior of Equestria, had just broken in into his room with another element as an accomplice.

“Ah, you’re awake Mr. Berry. That simplifies things.”

It was times like this when Hard Knock wondered when his life had become this weird.

Almost casually, the purple unicorn fixed the broken window just in time for Fluttershy to bump against the reappearing pane of glass. Twilight was too occupied with fumbling in her saddlebags to hear the loud thud of a body hitting the grass and join the sympathetic flinch of the other ponies in the room.

The lack of screams meant Fluttershy was unharmed at best or unable to do so at worst, most likely due to loss of consciousness or brain as the head it contained has made acquaintance with solid ground.

Then Twilight unfolded a scroll and intended to read a prepared speech until a soft knocking from the outside interrupted her. The fluttering pegasus in the air also wore a catsuit that obscured everything besides a small part around the eyes and two slits for the wings. Twilight had the decency to blush as her magic opened the window.

“What do you want here?” Hard Knock asked again with a glance at the large scroll. "Make it short please."

“I need another sample of your sperm.”

For onlookers, it seemed like his crotch started to shake under the blanket after Twilight had made her request. Hard Knock’s hoof quickly shot underneath towards the bulge and began to stroke until the moving stopped. How they interpreted this was evident by the blush on the visible parts of Fluttershy and the mesmerized look on Twilight’s face.

So he tried to divert the focus by playing angry. “What sample? I gave you nothing!”

“Barely anything, I know,” Twilight sighed, scratching the bald spot on her cheek. “The little amount in my coat didn’t last very long for testing.”

Given the frustrating nature of this mare, playing angry wasn’t that hard to pull off for Hard Knock.

“And for what reason is your friend here?”

Twilight smiled, happy to get to the briefing phase already. “Every scientist needs an assistant for help and documentation. Spike isn’t old enough for these kind of studies. In the distant future maybe, when I need some material on dragon procreation.”

“That’s your brother for Celestia’s sake…” Fluttershy squeaked, removing any remaining doubt of her identity.

“I said ‘distant', didn’t I?” Twilight grumbled defensively, “On my watch, nopony is going to touch his little dongs for a long time. Not even if it should be Rarity by some miracle.”

“You seem quite knowledgeable for somepony without experience.” Hard Knock said and meant it, a little creeped out by the zealous unicorn.

“I thought so too before our little encounter, Mr. Berry.” Twilight rubbed the bald spot on her cheek again with a faraway look. “I realized how incomplete my knowledge is. I could name every vein, vessel and artery in a stallion's phallus from memory, but theoretical data and diagrams from textbooks only get me so far. That's why I need some practical demonstration of the process to complete my notes.”

The bulge under the blanket tipped to the side as Rainbow Dash tilted her head in confusion, making Fluttershy squeak in fright and Twilight squeal in delight at the activity of their specimen.

Hard Knock cleared up his marefriend’s confusion by putting it in simpler terms. “You want to watch me shoot my load?”

“Crudely spoken, yes. I’m aware of your medical history and the physical problems you might have with that at the moment, so I offer my assistance.”

“A hoofjob?”

The bulge began to shake again, wrongly interpreted by Twilight as excitement for her proposition.

“I had something more magical in mind. How much would you like it to walk again?” Twilight said in a cocky tone, which died in her throat at the moment she got a good look at the sharp glare coming her way from the bedridden stallion.

Rainbow had trouble breathing from the unexpected pressure around her head. Her coltfriend had gotten so tense that his thighs could have probably popped the skull between them like a grape. She reassuringly rubbed his belly to calm him down and save her noggin, eliciting another embarrassed shriek from Fluttershy when the dick shaped limb began roaming under the blankets.

Twilight would have felt excited as well if her full attention hadn’t been focused on the eyes that continued to bore into her. “Don’t mock me with empty promises, Mrs. Sparkle. I’ve been through too much to let that slide.”

“That’s not my intention!” she reassured him fiercely, desperate to get the tension out of this conversation. “I can’t heal you; that is beyond any known magic, but what if I told you there is a spell for making you as good as new for a short duration?”

Hard Knock continued his stoic expression to the point Twilight started to sweat. “Your file says that all internal damage to organs is fixed, so the only parts I would have to simulate are your muscles and the skeletal structure beneath.”

Hard Knock furrowed his brow. “You would control me?”

Twilight explained further. “I could, but that would break several moral and magical laws. Instead, I would make the spell controllable by your thoughts. It scans the signals your brain would usually send to your muscles and translates it to moving your body accordingly.”

“‘How long?” All of the coldness gone from his voice, Hard Knock sounded curious and almost hopeful.

Hook, line, and sinker. Twilight allowed herself a little smile, now that she had managed to garner his interest.

“As long as I keep recasting it, indefinitely.” She watched him intently for any signs of his opinion on it, going for the simplest and straight to the point description when there was no outright refusal visible. “The only thing you have to do with your regained mobility would be to masturbate and bring yourself to a natural ejaculation. We analyze your performance and gather more samples of your sperm for testing.”

Said so clearly and boring, Rainbow Dash realized in all of its crudeness what his approval would mean. Her coltfriend would get hard and big in front of other mares. They would see every inch of his fully erect penis for scrutiny, watching him every step of the way to his climax. Other ponies would learn of the little quirks and ticks his body had, which Rainbow had come to adore and relish in creating. Things like the funny twitch of his hindlegs from hard strokes, the slight contraction of his ballsack after cumming or the cute little squeaky sounds when he basked in the afterglow.

Personal things, Rainbow had learned from making love with a stallion she had come to love.

Nevermind all the tasty seed wasted in laboratory vials instead of being on her warm tongue for tasting. Her major obsession with Hard Knock's sexual fluids didn't strike her as something vile or freaky anymore.

If anything, the thought of sharing made her mad. She was treated unfairly here. She was the marefriend, so Hard Knock and everything about him belonged to her and only her! Why should she have to let other mares have this? Why should she let another mare claim something so precious from her beloved? What right did they have to anything of him?

She would not tolerate this.

She could not!

He belonged to her!

ALL OF HIM!

“EVERYTHING TO THE LAST DROP!”

Even the stupidest person would not mistake the movement under the blanket for male excitement. Firstly, male genitalia usually doesn’t scream at ponies, and secondly, the new size of that bulge would have put a full-grown dragon to shame. Rainbow had stood up from his crotch, turned around and poked her head out to face the filthy thieves of her property.

“I think my marefriend has some objections to your proposition.”

“Rainbow Dash? Marefriend?” Twilight said in rapid succession, adjusting to the new information by growing a gleeful smile on her face. “That’s wonderful! Think of the additional data from the interaction between genders! Rainbow, you and your coltfriend have the opportunity to help a groundbreaking scientific research...”

The blanket on her back made Rainbow uncomfortably hot. She needed to get the weight off her feathers and some air on her skin to cool down. She shook herself free like a dog and let everybody see her fully for the first time in the moonlit room.

Rainbow Dash let them bear witness of Rarity's masterpiece.

A see-through nightgown, her body a gentle glow from the light reflecting off the glossy material. Velvety white stockings enveloping her slender legs, pronouncing every curve as they flowed up to her thighs like liquid silk. Hard Knock had the urge to stroke them, feel their smoothness with his underhoof to satisfy his curiosity. Rainbow tensed under his cautious touch but relaxed instantly from his tenderness as it slid upwards towards her cutie mark.

The faint blue of her bountiful buns shimmered through the pure whiteness of those seductive panties. Angelic ruffles and sinful lace did their part to present the desirable assets underneath. Every second spent not fondling seemed like a crime, something Hard Knock chose to change by letting his hoof wander.

On contact, Rainbow’s attention turned towards him fully and revealed the profile of her face to admire. And admirable it was: Full, luscious lips, shimmering with the slightest hint of gloss, the barest touch of shade in her eyelids and eyelashes, yet no trace of actual makeup. If somepony would ever question the taste of the beautician because of the minimalistic approach, those critics would also fall silent from one glance at the marvelous hairdressing.

Like bringing order to chaos, the unkempt and rowdy mess of her prismatic mane had been brought to a neat arrangement of colors, enhancing the natural beauty without losing its wild nature. The hair looked more voluminous, shinier and so much softer, making him want to run his hooves through to feel it.

Preferably during a deep kiss on those lips.

“You look beautiful…”

Rainbow’s ear twitched, the faintest blush appearing on her face. She glanced back at him and his groping hoof on her backside with desire, opening her mouth slightly but closing it as fast because of an unexpected sound that threatened to melt his heart from cuteness.

Rainbow Dash had cooed at him like a dove.

Unfortunately, her loving gaze averted from him to turn towards the others and any kindness vanished like a puff of smoke. Rainbow stood broadly over her stallion with all of the earlier worries forgotten under a thick layer of primal instinct to protect what’s hers. The little body frame of his marefriend somehow managed to look intimidating with the puffed chest and vicious snarl on her face. Her mouth opened again and released a clear warning that sounded like a mixture between the hissing of a cat and the angry caw of a bird.

As unicorn and earthpony, Twilight and Hard Knock had no idea what was going on, but Fluttershy instantly recognized the behavior and blushed.

“Oh, my…” The chittering yellow bundle of nerves inched closer towards the bed, finding the little piece of needed evidence in Rainbow's flared left wing. A small white band around one of her feathers. “He is the one?”

Rainbow lowered her head and pawed at the mattress as her noises turned to awkward whickers. Fluttershy instantly put her friend in the tightest hug imaginable. It was as if her touch broke the spell on Rainbow and she hid in the embrace of her friend as the gravity of what had happened hit her.

Fluttershy understood why. They shouldn’t be here and disturb this.

“What was that? I’ve never seen a pony act this way!”

The voice of Twilight was like nails on a chalkboard for Fluttershy's strained nerves. “It’s a pegasus thing.”

“Really? I’ve read hundreds of anatomy books on all pony tribes and have no clue!”

“It’s cultural and not medical,” Fluttershy answered curtly and sighed at the visible displeasure of her friend for the short answer. “An old courting ritual that went out of fashion with most pegasi. In the few remaining cases, the pegasus usually doesn’t want other ponies to know because it’s incredibly intimate."

Fluttershy looked down at the shaking head on her chest and swallowed.

“The invitation to start a nest.”

A single groan of anguish escaped Rainbow's lips, and Fluttershy caressed her head in apology. If she had known, Fluttershy would have fought Twilight tooth and nail to avoid coming to this damn hospital.

Heck, she would have volunteered to do the dirty deed for Twilight herself.

“A nest? Like a bird?” Twilight asked bluntly and earned herself a withering glare from Fluttershy as Rainbow’s body went rigid.

“The pegasus mare invites the partner to join the nest with the presentation of her feather.”

“A feather?” Hard Knock asked in turn, remembering the little white bow in her left wing.

“Not just any feather, a primary feather,” Fluttershy answered him in a much warmer tone. “The feathers that enable us to fly. No matter how gifted a pegasus is, he or she can only safely lose a few before flying becomes almost impossible.”

The non-pegasi in the room looked at the ribboned feather in Rainbow’s wing with a new sense of awe.

Twilight and Hard Knock both knew how important flying was to Rainbow Dash and listened when she quietly spoke into Fluttershy’s chest for the first time since her unveiling. “My mother always said a feather from the left wing is given to create a bond with your special somepony. One on the right is laid to rest with the body of your beloved at the funeral.”

Another voice from the door said what everyone thought at this point.

“That’s a pretty hardcore way to start a relationship!”

Light flooded the room by a flip of a switch, and four pairs of squinted eyes turned towards the newcomers with varying degrees of dread.

Twilight, because of her fear of getting caught and thrown out.

Fluttershy was worried about her friend.

Hard Knock, because he recognized the mare by voice without looking and didn’t know if he could deal with this particular pony right now.

Rainbow Dash just wanted this embarrassing nightmare to be over.

And Big Macintosh wished he’d chosen a better day to get brownie points with the Berry family.

“I mean, how long could have this been going on? A week? Two tops?” Only Berry Punch seemed happy to be here, sauntering into the room with the biggest grin on her face. “I hope she doesn't want something similar from you in return, Hardy. Otherwise, she might cut something off while you’re sleeping.”

Nobody dared to say a word, watching the approaching train wreck unfold.

“Like an ear! She could wear it as a necklace around her neck. Morbid and romantic!” Berry wanted to laugh, but something pressed itself roughly against her nose. “Never imagined the yellow one was the tough mare in your group of troublemakers.”

Muzzle to muzzle, Fluttershy was staring down Berry with an expression that screamed murder and mayhem. The kind of madness that was born from a burning desire to remove a source of discomfort by any means necessary.

Should these two collide, they would shred each other to pieces.

Where lesser mares might have backed out at this point, Berry Punch was made of sterner stuff and doubled down by locking heads with her adversary.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked in a conversational tone that didn’t convey the magnitude of the cataclysmic throwdown that was about to happen.

One that Hard Knock intended to prevent. “Miss Sparkle, I would advise you to cast that spell on me.“

Twilight reacted with a frown. She hadn’t gotten an agreement out the stallion and wouldn’t give up on her only bargaining chip. If push came to shove, she would simply separate them with their magic and wait for them to calm down.

“I’m confident in my magic ability Mr. Berry.”

Nothing to worry about in her opinion.

“Is that ability great enough to cast a spell when your horn has been ripped off and shoved down your throat?”

The only magic user in the room waited for a laugh to mark this statement as an exaggerated joke.

He didn’t do that.

Twilight’s horn started to glow.

“Why the long faces everypony? We brought drinks!” Berry pointed at the case Big Mac was carrying and focused the attention of the room on the silent stallion. ”For the self-mutilator over there, we hoof out something from the stiffer stuff to disinfect wounds.”

“You’re an awful pony...”

“And you look cute when you’re angry, Buttertub.” Berry pinched Fluttershy’s cheeks.

Fluttershy visibly shuddered and slapped the hoof away. “Don't touch me.”

“Why not?” Berry switched to drawing circles on Fluttershy’s chest, “Afraid you might like the attention?”

Fluttershy shuddered again with ragged breath, doing nothing to stop Berry.

A plum colored hoof did it for her. “I think that’s enough, sister. What do you want?”

Berry looked at her brother in awe as he stood to his full height, no bandages or casts on his body, staring down with a disapproving look. Had she been dreaming? Had this whole horrible situation just been a giant nightmare? Her hope died on a closer look and the slight purple glow that radiated from his body. Twilight Sparkle was sitting in a nearby chair with a concentrated look and horn glowing in the same color.

He tightened the grip around her hoof with the strength she knew from him and forced his sister out of her stupor with a wince.

Then Hard Knock saw red. Literally.

A mountain of flesh had pushed itself between him and his sister, forcing the stallion to look upwards into a very masculine face of an angry apple farmer. Big Mac had never been in a real fight. Yes, he was strong from work on the farm, but he couldn’t recall ever using his strength to hurt somebody.

Judging from the look Big Mac was getting back, Hard Knock had. “Get out of my face farmcolt, or I can show you in what unnatural ways a neck can bend.”

“Don’t mess with my brother, Big Mac!" Berry plead, "He was always the better fighter from both of us!”

Big Mac gulped hard after digesting this piece of information from his employer. The outlook of getting beat up by a stallion that was assumedly more capable than the mare who had tossed him around like a tin can wasn’t encouraging.

“Nope…”

Nonetheless, he would stand his ground against the odds.

For her.

“Tough guy, huh?" Hard Knock sized him up, "Who are you, asshole?”

Berry flinched at the unusual use of profanity. Her brother never swore and kept a clean image for both of them in town. The lack of his usual politeness showed her how seriously pissed he must be. The question itself confused her also, knowing for sure that her brother knew who Big Macintosh was.

Big Mac introduced himself nonetheless. “I’m Big Macintosh Apple, Big Mac for my friends and Mr. Apple for you. Mrs. Berry hired me.”

A lippy attitude against her brother didn't end well most of the time for the other stallion involved. Being violent wasn't in his nature, though he inherited the short fuse of their grandfather for cocky bastards.

“Really Berry? Are you now paying stallions to fuck you over? You’re pathetic. A hooker at least gets some money with the dick!”

“Hardy, I…” Her ears couldn’t believe what she was hearing, folding themselves backward in shock. He had never said something this mean to her through all of her numerous screwups in the past, always remaining her loving and understanding little brother.

The mare crumbled visibly and Big Mac bristled with anger. "That was uncalled for. She's your sister. Apologize right now!”

“Only amateurs puff up to look tough.” The mood in the room reached a dreadful low, matching to Hard Knock’s leveled and calculating tone. “Why do you bother with my deadbeat sister? Is her tail really worth the hassle?”

To Berry’s horror, Big Mac nodded, and Hard Knock drew his hoof back for a swing. Whatever Twilight Sparkle had done to her brother; the textbook arch from his haymaker was a testimony to its effectiveness. The limb shot towards the temple of her new assistant quicker than he would be able to react and Berry jumped to save him from the concussion of a lifetime.

“You pass.”

The dreaded collision of these two stallions never came, the lightning quick hoof only resulting in a quick pat on Big Mac’s shoulder and Berry tumbling to their hooves in a heap.

She scowled from the ground at her smug looking brother. “Did you just pull the same stunt dad used to do with stallions I brought home?”

He helped his sister up and patted the symbolic dirt of her coat. “I can’t stop you from shagging up with every stallion that comes your way, but I sure as hell can arrange that the dirtbags among them don’t stick around.” She gave him a hard poke in the ribs and shoved him slightly towards Big Macintosh before he turned to the confused farmer in their midst. “Every stallion that accepts a beating to protect his mare from harm is okay in my book. Your family name doesn’t hurt either. Apples are decent folk.”

“We are not…” Big Mac’s eyes went wide, and he almost grinned as well from the following words that every stallion wanted to hear from the brother of the mare he was banging.

“I like you Mr. Apple.”

“Call me Big Mac.”

Hard Knock turned back to his disgruntled sister and hugged her. "I'm sorry for the things I said."

"I've said worse to you."

"Yes, you did."

Words out of his mouth not meant as an accusation, merely stating the obvious. The moral high-ground was too far away for Berry to safely stand on for the foreseeable future when it came to giving her brother grief for misbehavior.

“Berry… I love her ok?”

The sincerity in his voice gave Berry pause. The normally so collected bedrock of her life never showed any sign of vulnerability, reasoning it away with being strong for both of them. Breakup after breakup, he had just sat there and endured the tearful temper tantrums for another scumbag that was only after her tail until both of them had become numb to the whole routine. In stark contrast, Berry couldn’t remember a time she met one of her brother’s past marefriends. There certainly had been a healthy number of female companionship due to his lifestyle of equal debauchery from her bad example; he just had decided to grow up and be an adult for both of them.

“I just want to introduce myself to the new mare in your life.”

Now she was given a chance, and she would take it gladly. The whole cider and money affair could wait until later. A time where Hard Knock could fully concentrate on celebrating it without distractions.

During their confrontation, Fluttershy had used the opportunity to hop on the bed and draw the curtain around her and Rainbow Dash. The first thing Berry saw after entering the makeshift lair was yellow and pink. The element of kindness had abandoned her virtue for now and sat there like the ever vigilant gatekeeper of the infernal depths, blocking any sight to the shaking blue pile of misery wrapped in blankets.

Seeing the two pegasi so close together showcased their dramatic differences in body type. Berry hadn’t thought about it as they were face to face, but Fluttershy had a huge build for a pegasus. You could easily confuse the mare for an earthpony regarding size and stature. Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, was the model version of a pony made for the sky. Sleek, slim, built like an athlete and noticeably smaller than any other pony in the room.

Due to those differences, the whole scene came off as a pink-maned lion protecting her colorful young and was weirdly adorable, if you didn’t think too much about the fact that they were almost the same age. The former had the same growl like a ferocious beast when Berry inched around the bed to the small bundle under the blanket. She showed Fluttershy a bottle of cider and pointed to Rainbow Dash, calming the caretaker enough to present her peace offering.

“Do you want a drink?” she said and popped the cap of her bottle, bringing about rapid sniffing sounds from the blanket cave.

The cider barely reached the entrance of her little hiding spot before two hooves grabbed for it. Berry was ready and held on, pulling the unsuspecting mare into the open and watching her pounce on the beverage in lightning speed to gulp it down. The brewer had reached her goal. Distracted by the delicious aftertaste, Rainbow Dash didn’t crawl back under the blankets after finishing and cradled the bottle like a newborn with a vacant stare into nothing.

“I can see one of your qualities. Impressive suction.” Rainbow shuddered and licked her lips for cider residue, still not meeting her gaze as Berry inched closer. “From your reputation, I figured you a different pony. Where is the outspoken loudmouth and braggart of Ponyville that believes herself to be better than everypony?”

A bit of fire lit up behind Rainbow’s averted eyes and Berry noticed the subdued reaction with a grin. “You know how to dress for the occasion, though. No wonder my brother gives you the time of day. Who wouldn’t with that kind of desperate incentive?”

The bottle began to shake in Rainbow’s lingerie clad hooves.

“On what street corner of the red light district do the mares wear stuff like that?”

It took a moment for her to realize what Berry was insinuating, but when it hit her, Rainbow hit back.

Right in Berry’s face with a bottle.

The deep groan from Hard Knock behind the curtain almost drowned out the sickening sound of battered bone and shattering glass. For her size, Rainbow could dish out an impressive amount of pain as Berry was soon bleeding profusely from her nose, lips and several cuts on her head, but didn’t so much as flinch when she wiped the blood out of her face.

Neither did she seem angry.

“Mrs. Sparkle could you do something about the broken glass?” A soft glow from outside the curtain took care of the shards and reattached them to a whole bottle. Berry took it and gave it back to the dumbfounded Rainbow Dash. “Are you feeling better after getting that out? Or do you want another swing at the evil town slut?”

Rainbow did feel better. A lot better actually. All the anxiety from her chest was gone after this little outburst of homicidal rage. Like hitting a reset button, her mental state had returned to true neutral and was reassessing the situation in front of her with clear eyes.

With the profusely bloodied sister of her coltfriend as a starting point.

“You did that on purpose?!” Rainbow went to wipe the blood away from Berry’s face with the sock on her hoof and got stopped by Berry, until she used the blanket instead of the exquisite white nightwear, “Riling me up and getting smashed in the head with a bottle?” She had dabbed away most of the blood and pressed the cloth against her wound to stop further bleeding. “I could’ve killed you!”

Berry shrugged with an audible cracking sound from her neck. “Violence is a surefire way to release any awkward tension. My brother gave me that idea, but as usual, he’s better with the execution.” A quick head shake threw a piece of glass out of her ear that Twilight had missed. “Also, don’t flatter yourself too much. You hit hard, but I had love taps from recent lovers that hurt more.”

Rainbow heard a sharp intake of breath outside.

“Oh, quit it, Big Mac! I said I like it rough!” Berry yelled over her shoulder, before taking the cloth from Rainbow and wrapping it around into a makeshift bandage. “A well-meant bit of advice from one mare to another; keep the sexy outfits to spice up your relationship and cut down on the melodramatic bullshit. I can see how uncomfortable you are in this role and so can he. I don’t think my brother has taken a shine to you because of your impeccable sense of romance.”

The sister of his coltfriend was insane. Totally bonkers as far as Rainbow Dash was concerned. Like her brother, Berry lacked any sense of self-preservation when it came to helping loved ones. Where Hard Knock saw nothing wrong in being bodily harmed to bring his sister back on the right path, Berry was equally happy to be glassed by her brother’s marefriend to cut the tension and give some relationship advice.

No sacrifice seemed too much for those two siblings.

Ridiculous, but admirable.

“Good pony…nice pony...” Berry felt a rubbing hoof on the back of her head and turned to see Fluttershy. The pegasus slurred heavily through her words with a dopey smile and glassy eyes. Something was wrong. The little wallflower had shifted gears way too hard. One second she was the fiery protector of her friend, and in the next, she treated Berry like a well-behaved pet.

“Rainbow Dash is an ugly dyke that smells like shit.”

A collective gasp rang through the room.

“Hey!” Rainbow reared up with flared wings. Sister or not, nopony talked to her in such a way and got away with it.

A swiftly raised hoof from Berry stopped the pegasus in her tracks. “Watch what she does.”

The reaction wasn’t as imminent like the others. Fluttershy acted in slow motion, turning her smiling face into a frown with the speed of dripping molasses.

“Bad pony… not nice… “ Timid and pacifistic Fluttershy reared up for a punch under the disbelieving stare of Rainbow Dash and the calculating expression on Berry’s face.

The latter caught the weak swing and used the momentum to catch her. “You’re barely holding together.”

Berry laid Fluttershy down on the mattress as gently as possible. Nonetheless, the pegasus squirmed from every touch like she was covered in ants, moaning and whimpering pitifully. Purple hooves moved back and forth in front of Fluttershy to make her eyes follow. The reactions were sluggish, almost robotic without any conscious decision behind it.

“Flutters?” Rainbow approached with tentative steps as Berry began to examine the body of her friend with a calm but serious expression. So calm, she almost shrieked in surprise when the earthpony exploded in activity.

“What are you doing?!”

Fluttershy was spread-eagled by two strong hooves as Berry buried her face into her crotch and began nibbling on the black catsuit, completely ignoring anything but the task at hand. The only possible explanation for the behavior of the shy pegasus bordered on the impossible. She knew the symptoms and needed certainty. How did Fluttershy gather the mental fortitude to defend her friend in this state? Where had the strength for that lengthy and coherent exposition on pegasi tradition come from? Purely measured by willpower, this mare would be a monster beyond anything imaginable.

Attracted from Rainbow’s yelling, the others pulled the curtain apart and watched with slacked jaws while Berry supposedly committed sexual assault on another mare, pulling, tearing and groping at the skintight suit. Three pairs of hooves grabbed the purple offender roughly, one around her barrel and two at her shoulders, trying to pull her off the squealing Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash, Big Mac, and Hard Knock did their best to stop whatever this supposed to be in their eyes. Berry pushed them angrily away and put her hoof on Fluttershy’s crotch again with a defiant glare at her attackers.

“She’s in heat! Marinating in her juices!” Her hoof rubbed the spot, and the material made a wet sloshing sound, creating another moan from poor Fluttershy.

“Impossible,” Hard Knock said, realizing what his sister was getting at with this stunt. “Any mare during an estrus that intense would have gone bonkers days ago, jumping anything remotely dick-shaped.”

Berry harrumphed at the usual rationality and doubt from her brother. Her head moved to Fluttershy’s nethers and got as much of the fabric as possible in her mouth before ripping a large hole with one powerful pull of her teeth.

"Exhibit A!"

The proof was in the result and trumped any longwinded discussion. Everyone choked at the sudden wall of musky smell coating the air with almost tropical humidity. The stallions in the room began to flare their nostrils uncontrollably and popped massive, throbbing erections that were impossible to hide.

“At least we have volunteers....” Berry grumbled with a good look at Big Mac’s dangling spire, ignoring the erection of her brother for the sake of her sanity. “This is the worst case of heat I’ve ever seen. She’s going crazy from horniness.”

“The poor thing...” Hard Knock whispered, lessening his sincere display of pity by having to keep his erection from dragging on the floor. “Is she ready for foals?”

At this point, you could see a change of expression take place on Twilight’s face.

“...toys won’t do the the same job as a dick and medication…”

A change from guilt-ridden horror to a look of determination.

“... Strong enough painkillers would do more harm than good…”

A look of a mare with a plan to redeem herself.

Out of a pocket from her saddlebag, Twilight levitated something small and presented it. “We can use one of these.”

Berry took the small purple object and mustered it curiously. “What is that?”

The little flat square in her hoof was only the wrapping for a smaller ring inside. She ripped it open with her teeth and suddenly tasted strawberries from the little amount of liquid coming out. The thing inside the package was indeed a soft, plastic-like ring in bright purple. However, the inside of that ring had a thinner layer of the material that you could push out. Pulling it this way over the neck from a cider bottle, it changed its shape from a ring to a small tube with only one opening.

“During my studies, I developed these prototype containers for storing semen directly from the source to prevent degradation of the sample; a pull on containment dome so to speak, but I called it ‘ConDom’ for short.” Twilight looked around to see any reaction to her cleverly branded invention. As nopony seemed too impressed by it, she continued her explanation with a much more subdued tone. “Applied to an erect phallus before coitus, they are designed to keep one hundred percent of the stallion’s sperm inside for further use, so the possibility of pregnancy is zero percent.”

The legs of Berry turned to jelly as the impact on ponykind from those little, unassuming packets sank in. Unlimited safe sex during a heat for every mare on the planet, not just unicorns with complicated contraception spells, and zero chance of getting pregnant? The privilege to bed a stallion during estrus and choose one by your attraction to his cock and balls, instead of his qualities as a potential father in case he knocked you up?

So many wonderful dicks attached to stallions with shit personalities opening up for the female population.

The rest didn’t react as strongly, most likely unable to imagine the possibilities like she could, almost smelling and seeing the wild, unbridled piles of horny ponies during every heat season before her inner eye.

Literal piles of ponies fornicating in the streets.

Twilight Sparkle had created a world changer.

“Are you ok, Mrs. Berry? Can we use my invention?”

Berry pushed those thoughts into the back for now. “We have the tools and the farmhoof to tend her soil.”

The attention of the room turned towards Big Macintosh, who barely had managed to get his erection into a state in which he wouldn’t knock over furniture.

“Me?”

“She’s not talking to me,” Hard Knock had taken a seat on a nearby chair, already completely calmed down to Big Mac’s great jealousy. He wished to have this kind of control over his libido.

“You damn right I don’t!” Berry huffed, “My brother just entered a very loving relationship. Letting him fuck off the yellow from one of her best friends in heat doesn’t sound like the best idea.”

“I’m not insecure…” Rainbow Dash protested grumpily, which everybody ignored as they still focused their attention on the large stallion drifting into deep thought.

And a growing boner.

On principle, Fluttershy wasn’t somepony he would push out of bed under normal circumstances. All of his sister’s friends were bombshells in one way or the other. Even the withdrawn nature couldn’t hide that fact about the quietest one. Behind that shy demeanor was a stunning, curvy and well-developed mare with killer legs to boot.

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want to. Your little Mac doesn’t lie, you know?”

The wandering thoughts and fumes in the air had reawakened his arousal fully. “You’re ok with that? I mean we just…”

The sudden reluctance of her hunky assistance made her raise an eyebrow. “We what? We had sex and will so in the future after you plowed a gorgeous mare out of her heat without repercussions. Sex for free! What’s the problem here?”

“Nothing I guess…”

“Good,” Berry said with a smile. "Now, use the multitude of your other impressive muscles to lay Fluttershy on the empty bed.”

“Allow me,” Twilight enveloped her in a purple field of magic, feeling the need to be more of use and causing Fluttershy to whimper a bit from being lifted. “On second thought, teleportation might be quicker.”

”No stop!” Hard Knock tried to stop Twilight, but It was already too late to prevent the squirming pegasus from vanishing.

A small flash of light from behind the other curtain showed her new position as whimpers turned to excited calls and sniffing sounds, mixing with groans that were a few octaves too deep to be hers. The parting curtains from the neighboring bed solved that puzzle and granted the gathered crowd front row seats to a very special peep show.

Fuzzy Slippers sat on his haunches with two pumping hooves around his stiff cock. The sheets around him were flecked with several strong smelling stains and gave a preview for what he was rapidly approaching for the fourth time. The stallion didn’t react to his unveiling, feverishly stroking his rod in a vivid daydream of plunging his stallionhood into the silky depths of a willing mare.

A mare that was currently lying in a heap to his hooves, the inhaling nose deeply buried in his ballsack and looking up at the masturbated shaft with burning desire.

“I know you can see me,” Fuzzy said non-plussed, continuing to jerk himself off harder to prove his point. “Do you think that bothers me? I had doctors prod, probe, scrutinize and touch every inch of my body for ages. I will not waste my first real boner in forever because of some spectators, who can’t wash their dirty laundry in private.”

“In fact…” He hunched forward, reaching a shuddering climax in an explosive arc of semen shooting over Fluttershy and the whole length of the bed. “It helps a little.”

“Fascinating…” Twilight grabbed a small cup and a pipette from her saddlebag. The mare stopped her advances under the deadpan stares of the ponies around her.

Fluttershy had jumped up and stuck out her tongue in a futile attempt to catch some of the flying seed like a dog after a frisbee, settling after failure for rubbing her muzzle longingly into a nearby wet spot and making everybody cringe.

All except one.

With purpose in her stride, Berry walked towards the foot of the bed and never broke eye contact with the panting stallion in his afterglow. Her hoof grabbed the clipboard with his medical file from the holder, wiping droplets of cum from the paper and whistled in appreciation.

“All the way down here… not a bad shot for a sickly stallion.”

Fuzzy tilted his head in confusion as Berry took her appraising eyes from him and began to read his file. “Fuzzy Slippers. Earthpony male. Severe magic poisoning from a factory accident in Detrot. Radiation treatment for purification in its last stage. No transferable diseases and no documented addictions or traces of illegal substances.” She flipped over to the next page underneath. “No remaining physical impairments besides the treatment-induced inability to…”

Her face lit up in delight. “...Perfect!”

Without another word, Berry sat down beside him and playfully ruffled his cock like a person would one’s hair and waved Big Mac over to follow. The stallion did so hesitantly, careful to sit down in a spot unsoiled from stallion spunk. Twilight climbed on last after a pointed look of Berry to hurry up.

“Mrs. Sparkle, get us out of here. We have a long night ahead of us.”

“Wait a second! I didn’t agree to any—”

In a flash of light, Fuzzy Slipper’s words of protest cut off with the disappearance of him, Berry, Big Macintosh, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle, including the bed these five had occupied.

"So..."

And leaving the two remaining lovebirds to pick up the pieces of a chaotic night.