Home Grown

by bats

Rating: mature
Tags: Slice of Life, Sex, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance
Length: 13074

Twilight and Applejack struggle to find a way to have a foal together where they won't have to compromise on what's important to them.

Two years into their marriage, Twilight and Applejack feel the time is right to start having foals of their own. Unfortunately, attempting to meet each other's priorities and personal philosophies for expanding their family limits what options are available.

They find a rather unconventional solution where they won't have to compromise on what's truly important to them, but they both think it sounds...icky.

Editing by Peroth E and JetstreamGW.

Content Warning: Contains magical marecocks.

Published 2014-06-11 20:00:03 UTC
Last updated 2014-06-11 20:00:03 UTC

Home Grown

Twilight hesitated as she moved through the lower level of her home, turning out the lights and picking up the day’s coffee mugs, broken quills, and empty ink pots. Her eyes jumped to the staircase and skittered away, roving over the large living room, lingering on the couch in front of the fireplace, over the bookcases lining the walls, telling herself she was just looking for something out of place.

She glanced back up the stairs, then double-checked dining room, study, and kitchen as well. She went to make sure the door was locked. It wasn’t, so she turned the bolt. She stepped back to the base of the stairs. After a few moments of deliberation, she decided that her home—an old barn in the west orchard of Sweet Apple Acres that had been converted to a house for her and her wife—was far enough away from town that locking up was silly, so she went back and undid the bolt.

Taking a deep breath as she ran out of delaying tactics, Twilight climbed to the second floor of her home. She went to Spike’s door to check on him, but heard snoring and didn’t want to wake him. She turned to the guest bedroom, which had slowly become a second bedroom for Apple Bloom on the nights she stayed over too late. It sat empty that night.

Twilight was running out of options.

She thought about brushing her teeth again, but she did that before going to tidy up the lower level. There was reasonable stalling, and there were signs that a pony was going crazy. Mustering herself up, Twilight turned and opened the door to the master bedroom.

Applejack glanced up at her from their shared vanity by the balcony door, running a brush through her mane. They exchanged a nervous smile.

Twilight swung the bedroom door shut, but hesitated further, leaving a gap open, staring out into the hall. She closed her eyes and gathered her resolve again, pushing the door until it clicked. She turned back to her wife, who had moved over to the bed. Applejack lay sideways on the mattress with her front propped up on her forelegs, watching Twilight. Applejack’s voice came out as unsteady as Twilight felt. “…Everythin’ alright, sugarcube?”

Twilight’s eyes lingered over Applejack’s hindlegs, catching moonlight from the balcony, spread on the bed and every bit as curvy as Twilight remembered. A shock of nervousness raced up her spine and she cleared her throat, looking at the floor. “…Are you still okay with this, Applejack? I’d understand if you aren’t.”

Her wife’s gaze dropped to the bed and she drew circles on the sheets with a hoof. “I’m…I’m okay. You okay? I don’t want you doin’ somethin’ you ain’t wantin’ to do just for me.”

Twilight nodded. “I know.”

A lull fell over the room, and Twilight stood at the door, unable to bring herself to look up for more than a moment at a time, Applejack not meeting her gaze either. After a moment, Applejack chuckled and shook her head. “Look at us, Twi. S’like it’s our first time all over again.”

Twilight met her wife’s smile and felt the harried amusement in the expression. She couldn’t help but grin back, a bit of tension melting off her shoulders. “I think I’m more nervous now than I was then.” She left her guarding position at the door and approached the bed, snuffing the lantern on the bedside dresser and sliding in next to her wife. “At least then, I was so pent up from staring at you for weeks I was ready to tackle you off the bed.”

Applejack laughed and shook her head. “Are you kiddin’? You were wound up so dang tight if somepony set a fire cracker off, ya might’ve exploded ‘long with it. Compared to then, you’re as cool as a cucumber right now.”

Giggling, Twilight scooted closer and kissed Applejack on the lips. “Like you were much better. I bet you would’ve been less nervous fighting a pack of timberwolves.”

Her smile turned coy. “...Yeah, maybe.” Twilight closed her eyes and kissed Applejack again. She slid the rest of the way forward until their chests pressed together, nuzzling Applejack’s neck and taking a steadying breath, one filled with the smell of shampoo from her lover’s mane. Applejack wrapped a hoof around her back and murmured, “We can do this tomorrow if you ain’t feelin’ right about it.”

“…No, I don’t think waiting is going to make this less weird. Probably make it worse.” Applejack nodded against her cheek. She closed her eyes and focused on the heartbeat thumping next to her chest, feeling how much slower it was than her own jackhammering nerves. She ran a hoof through Applejack’s mane and kissed her cheek, thankful to have a wife so grounded and solid. The thought crossed her mind that if somepony did set off a firework, she’d probably jump out of her skin. Stroking Applejack’s mane and listening to their heartbeats, Twilight stalled again, holding onto the moment of normalcy with her wife.

It was a different moment of normalcy when the seed had been planted.

Twilight grinned as Applejack climbed onto the couch, rolled onto her back with her head resting on the arm, and held all four legs open in invitation. Twilight climbed into her customary spot, head on Applejack’s chest and wrapped up in hooves.

Over the course of her marriage, Twilight’s sleep schedule had gradually shifted earlier and earlier, until she was getting up right alongside her wife and ready to sleep at the same time, so evenings that used to be prime studying time became shorter periods of idle relaxation; her time for recreational reading, conversation, and most importantly snuggling with her wife. She floated two books over from one of the floor to ceiling shelves and held them open, one off to the side of the couch where she could read it and the other just above her head for Applejack.

Applejack stroked her mane and she sighed in contentment. She read through well-worn and memorized sections of her fantasy novel while being petted, interrupted only by Applejack flicking a page forward before returning to her head. Despite the familiarity, Twilight found herself distracted, so when she got to the end of a chapter she shut her book. She turned to half on her stomach and stretched against Applejack. “Mmm, how are you, Honeycrisp?”

Applejack grinned at the pet name and ran her hoof down Twilight’s back. “I’m alright, Twi. Everythin’ alright with you?”

“I’m fine. I just saw that letter for you from the Peaches and got a little worried.”

“Nn.” Applejack’s muzzle crinkled in a small grimace and she shut her floating book. Twilight dropped it next to hers on the floor as her wife sighed and lay back against the couch arm. “Well, it wasn’t good news. Just them sayin’ they ain’t makin’ it to the family reunion.”

Twilight frowned, sitting back a little to look Applejack in the eye. “That could be benign. Maybe they really can’t make it.”

Sighing, Applejack brushed her bangs to the side and shook her head. “If it was just the reunion, yeah, but after they said they weren’t makin’ it to the weddin’, they’d have busted their humps to make it to the reunion no matter what to show they were for us.”

Twilight’s frown turned sad and she wilted against Applejack’s chest. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Ya don’t need to be sorry.” She flapped Twilight’s ear back and forth, then caressed down her lover’s neck and back. “Ain’t nothing you did, Twi.”

“I know, but I’m still sorry. I know how important family is.” A weak grin forced its way onto her face. “I still remember being scared to death over what Granny Smith would think of me.”

Applejack chuckled. “Whole lotta worryin’ over nothin’ there, but heck, this branch a’ the family’s always been forward thinkin’ like that. If’n we weren’t, we’d all still be back on my great-great-granddaddy’s farm smack in the middle a’ Manehattan, wonderin’ where all them dang skyscrapers came from.”

“Is that what happened to the Oranges?” Twilight asked, amusement coloring her tone.

“They’re forward thinkin’, too, just a different sort. An’ you saw ‘em at the weddin’; they were all happy as clams to be there.”

Twilight took a deep breath and burrowed her forelegs between Applejack and the couch cushions until she was hugging her wife around the middle. “Yeah, they were. Both of our families were so happy to be there…crazy to think that was two years ago already.”

Applejack kissed the top of her head.

“I guess in some ways it could have been a century ago, though. It’s getting hard to remember what it was like without you in my life. Sort of feels like it’s always been like this.”

A smirk crossed Applejack’s face. “Well, Twi, you might not remember what it was like before, but I sure as heck remember it started on Hearth’s Warmin’ Eve when ya got so hammered you could barely stand up, dragged me under the mistletoe, kissed me, ‘n then barfed on my hooves.”

Twilight scrunched her eyes shut, letting out a sigh and rubbing her cheek against Applejack’s chest. “You know, despite how drunk I was, I do fully recall that night. You don’t have to remind me about what happened every chance you get.”

“I’ll stop tellin’ it when it stops bein’ funny.”

Twilight groaned. “Why do I have the feeling we’ll be eighty, sitting on rocking chairs, and you’ll still be telling me about that?”

“’Cause it’ll still be funny.”

Giggling and shaking her head, Twilight nipped Applejack’s coat and gave her a squeeze. “Anyway, I do remember how welcoming the Oranges were. Your whole family really has made me feel at home.” She listened to Applejack’s heartbeat, her smile fading away. “…Do you want to take a trip out to the Peaches and talk to them? I’ll come along if you want…try to show them that I’m not planning to tear the family apart, or something.”

Applejack cupped Twilight’s cheek, holding her wife’s head against her chest. “Thanks, Twi. I’ll think about it…Part a’ me feels like if somepony’s thinkin’ that about you that I don’t much care to try reconcilin’ with ‘em, but that might just be my pride talkin’ right now.”

Sighing again, Twilight closed her eyes. “I don’t even know if the problem’s because we’re both mares or if it’s that I’m not an earth pony.”

“Don’t matter to me what their problem is, either way.”

“I don’t think knowing would change anything. I just worry.”

“I know.”

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling the rise and fall of Applejack’s chest beneath her, drawing comfort from the closeness. “I love you, Honeycrisp.”

Applejack flapped her ear again. “I love you, too, Twi. Ain’t no stick-in-the-mud branch a’ kin gonna change that.” She nodded and tightened her hug. “And listen to me, hon. I know ya like to get all caught up in thinkin’ too much sometimes, but don’t you go doubtin’ anythin’ about this, okay? I ain’t got a lot of regrets, an’ marryin’ the pony I fell in love with ain’t ever gonna be one of ‘em.”

Twilight nodded again, with more conviction. “I know you’re happy, Applejack, and I try not to worry about things I have no control over, but…”

“But you’re you, sugarcube, I know.” Twilight giggled. “Don’t you worry none about them Peaches, alright? If I get the itch to go pick a bone or two with ‘em, I’ll remember your offer to tag along, but until then put ‘em out a’ your mind if ya can.”

She sighed and shook her head. “You know, I’m supposed to be comforting you about this, not you comforting me.” She bit Applejack again. “Stop being so put together.”

Laughing, Applejack ruffled her mane. “Can’t; sorry. You’re stuck with me like this.” Twilight squeezed her again, and she leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. “So enough of all that, anythin’ else on your mind?”

“Not really…I’m not very good at ‘putting things out of my mind’ when I start thinking about them.” Applejack snorted at her and she stuck out her tongue. “I don’t know. I’m happy, and I know you’re happy, and there’s very little I’d do differently if I had the chance to do it over again, it’s just…I’m sorry; I’m rambling about this.”

Applejack shrugged against her. “S’alright, sug. If ya need to talk it out, go ahead an’ talk it out. I’ll listen.”

She frowned in thought and let the silence stretch out for a moment. She pulled one of her hooves free and rolled all the way onto her side. “I guess I’m just thinking about regrets in general now.” She leaned her head up enough to look Applejack in the eyes. “Do you regret anything?”

“Well, uhh…I regret waitin’ to build the bedroom balcony ‘til after we moved in an’ makin’ a mess of half the house, but I don’t think that’s what you’re pokin’ at.”

Twilight smirked. “Okay, for example...um...Oh, I regret not talking to Spike about us earlier than I did. Everything worked out fine, but, well…when I told him you had invited me and him to your family’s harvest feast...that was when I told him we were dating...and it was also when I came out to him.”

Chuckling, Applejack messed up her mane worse. “I remember you sayin’ that. Poor kid must’a had the best look on his face. He was fine by the dinner, though.”

She nodded and grinned. “Yeah, it all worked out, I just…don’t think I’d do it that way again if I had the choice.”

“No kiddin’. I ain’t got a clue why ya waited like that; Spike ain’t never been the sort to judge ponies or nothin’.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried about how he’d take it, I just…” Twilight looked at her wife from the corner of her eyes. “…didn’t…think about telling him.”

Applejack snorted and rubbed the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof. “You forgot.”

“I didn’t forget, really!” Twilight objected, giggles breaking up her voice. “I made the decision when he was still a baby to talk to him about sexualities when he asked and he never did ask me—I think he talked to Princess Celestia about it—so I never told him. And you and I were just starting to get serious back then, so telling him for that reason hadn’t come up yet.”

Shaking her head, Applejack patted Twilight’s cheek in consolation. “There ain’t no helpin’ ya, is there?”

Twilight blew a raspberry and then shared a grin with Applejack. “How’d you handle that sort of thing? You never told me your ‘coming out’ story.”

“Yeah, ain’t much to tell.” Applejack shrugged. “I had myself pretty well figured out as a filly, an’ I was raised up knowin’ that no Apple was gettin’ turned away just ‘cause of who they loved. As soon as I knew, my folks, Granny, an’ Mac knew, too.”

“What about Apple Bloom?”

Applejack smirked and winked at her wife. “Well, I sure as heck didn’t tell her right before that harvest feast.” Twilight groaned and prodded her in the belly with a hoof. “AB did ask me about love ‘n stuff when she was gettin’ to that age, so I told her then. Told her about you when I was gettin’ ready for our first date. That was a mistake; had to fend her off from tryin’ to do my mane up. ”

Twilight smiled and gave her a squeeze. “Oh, you should have let her! You covered in pig-tails and bows would have done wonders for my nerves.”

Applejack laughed as she stifled a yawn and rubbed at her eye. “Yeah, that’d be how that’d go. Poor Mac.” Twilight leaned back, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on her lips. “I sicced her on him to purdy-up. Should’a gotten a picture.”

Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof and shook her head. “I wish I had a story like that with Spike, instead of, ‘We’re going to dinner with Applejack, oh, also I’m dating Applejack, and also I like girls, too.’ You’re always so good with Apple Bloom.”

“Yeah. AB ‘n me have always been pretty dang close, since our folks. I ain’t been able to be a momma for her, but I was somethin’ for her anyway.” Applejack’s grin slowly faded as she went back to stroking her wife’s mane. “…I guess that’s somethin’ I regret. Ain’t so much about you, seein’ as if I’d had that much to drink, it might’a been me draggin you under the mistletoe an’ kissin’ you, so I ain’t got regrets about us...”

“You left out the part about vomiting on my hooves.”

“I can hold my liquor better’n you.” Twilight shoved her and she chuckled. Rubbing the sore spot, her mouth drifted back to a neutral line. “Just somethin’ I been thinkin’ about here ‘n there since I figured myself out.”

Twilight raised her head to look Applejack in the eye. “What is it?”

Letting out a slow breath, Applejack brushed her wife’s bangs to the side. “It’s...always been hard knowin’ I ain’t gonna have the chance to have foals of my own. Apples’re family folk, an’ outside of raisin’ up my sister right, me bein’ the way I am means I’ll never be doin’ my part for the family.” She sighed and looked away. “When I was real little, I always saw myself havin’ a whole bunch a’ foals when I was grown. I like the pony I am and I wouldn’t change anything, but I miss bein’ that little filly ‘n havin’ those dreams.” She gave Twilight a half-hearted smile. “I’m probably bein’ all sentimental.”

Twilight returned the strained smile and shook her head against Applejack’s chest. “No, I understand completely...You know I wouldn’t change what I do have for the world, but I wanted foals ever since I was little, too. If I’d ended up with a stallion instead of a mare...but that’s not really here or there.”

“Somethin’ else we got in common, I guess. Couple’a fillies dreamin’ of big families and growin’ up to marry each other.”

Twilight carefully removed her hoof from underneath her wife and sat up on her haunches, her expression introspective and far away. “…If we both want foals…”

Applejack sat up as well. “Don’t tell me we should adopt.” As the words left her mouth, a wince crossed her face. “Sorry, that came out wrong; I didn’t mean it like that.”

Her eyes sharpening back into focus, Twilight turned to Applejack. “I would at least have to bring it up as an option.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“No harm in talking things through, Applejack. And I can tell you aren’t comfortable with the idea.” Applejack turned away, but Twilight caught her chin and brought their gazes back together. Twilight pecked her on the lips. “Just talking.”

After a moment, Applejack nodded. “Yeah, I ain’t keen on adoption. I mean...I’m sure there’s a bunch a foals out there needin’ good homes, and I’m sure if we made here a home for one of ‘em I’d love ‘em just the same as flesh ‘n blood…”

A weighted pause fell over the room, and Twilight watched her wife fidget in place. “...But?” she supplied.

Sighing and rubbing the back of her neck, Applejack continued, “Bein’ an Apple means somethin’, Twi; it’s in our blood, it’s been in our blood as far back as ponies’ve been keepin’ track of family trees. Part of me wantin’ foals is wantin’ my part in that. And everypony says ‘adopt’ like it’s just that easy, but you know it ain’t, and…shopping…for a little filly or colt sounds like a dang nightmare to me.”

Applejack grimaced and flopped back against the couch. “Ya probably think I’m bein’ selfish.”

“Actually…” Twilight rubbed her knee and gave Applejack a strained smile. “I understand. My family is the same way...maybe not quite the same, but I’d want a foal to really be mine if I could help it. Bringing a foal into a home like that is so...bureaucratic. If the circumstances were maybe different, it would be one thing. Like, say Apple Bloom wasn’t your sister but your daughter, or if Spike were my son. Me adopting Apple Bloom or you adopting Spike would be different.”

Applejack sat up and nodded. “Yeah, that would be different. Heck, we sorta did do that in a way. Half our suppers’ve got AB down from the house ‘n bickerin’ with Spike like she’s me with Mac.” She smirked to herself, her gaze remote, then she refocused on her wife. “That’s just bringin’ our families together. It ain’t sizin’ up a group of foals like they’re prize hogs.”

Twilight nodded. “The other thing is...I’ve always wanted to have a foal…” She touched her belly with a hoof and a smile lit up her face for a fleeting moment, before she sighed and ran the hoof through her mane. “I bet you wanted that, too.”

A wry smirk spread across Applejack’s muzzle. “Ya know, Twi, you ‘n me are awful good at agreein’ with each other.” Twilight rubbed her face and giggled, then Applejack scooted closer and poked her in the ribs. “I’m guessin’ adoptin’ wasn’t the only thing you were thinkin’ about, if ya weren’t keen on it yourself.”

Twilight sighed. “I’ve heard about other lesbian couples finding a stallion who’s willing to stud one of them, but us both wanting the foal to be related to us sort of shoots that idea down.” She looked sidelong at Applejack. “...Unless we went with Big Macintosh or Shining Armor.” Applejack nearly choked, coughing and sputtering at her wife. Twilight pinned her ears back and grimaced. “Just talking, Honeycrisp.”

“There’s talkin’ and there’s crazy-talkin’, Twi.”

Shifting back and forth on her haunches, Twilight looked away. “I know it sounds weird, but if Shining Armor studded with you, or Big Macintosh studded with me, our foal would be related to the both of us. I’m not saying I’m comfortable with the idea, or that either of our brothers would be comfortable with it, either, but it is a possibility.”

Applejack grimaced and shook her head. “Might be possible in the sense that it wouldn’t be no miracle for it to happen, but that don’t make it really possible. Pretendin’ I could wrap my head ‘round the idea of my brother ruttin’ my wife—and that’s a real big pretendin’—and that Mac’d be up for that, too, I ain’t sure Mac’d feel too keen about bein’ an uncle-daddy.” Twilight snorted and covered her mouth with a hoof. Applejack smirked and shook her head at her wife. “Ya know what I mean; I’m just sayin’ the sex ain’t the only weird part.”

Twilight kept the hoof pressed to her lips. “I do, it’s just…” She scrunched her eyes shut and fought back the giggles. “Uncle-daddy!” Applejack struggled to keep from laughing alongside her. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Anyway, yes, I understand. Finding a stallion for studding does not also involve asking that stallion to be in the foal’s life like it would be if we asked your brother.” She rubbed her chin, still struggling to keep her composure. “I imagine Shining Armor would have similar reservations about that, provided both he and Cadence were receptive to being asked about studding.”

“And that’s the other thing.” Applejack pointed a hoof at Twilight, a wild grin fighting to show on her face. “Ya up for askin’ your BBBFF to stud your wife?”

“...I’d rather jump off a bridge.”

Their eyes met, and they lost control of their giggles. They scooted closer and wrapped their hooves around each other turning to press their sides together. As their laughter tapered off, sitting and staring out over the living room of the home they shared together, a silence stretched out. Applejack turned to Twilight, her voice tentative and quiet. “Is…is this all the choice we got? Adoptin’, pickin’ some stallion and figurin’ out whose family ain’t gettin’ their blood passed down, or askin’ our brothers?” She shifted, pulling Twilight closer. “...That or not havin’ a foal at all?”

Twilight caught her wife looking her over with a guarded hope. She turned in the loose embrace and grabbed Applejack’s free hoof, holding it in her own. “Let’s not rush and say it’s this or nothing. We have plenty of time to think about all of these things.”

Applejack sighed. “Yeah, I’ll be thinkin’ about it a lot, believe me. I was just hopin’ you knew about somethin’ else.” Her eyes flicked to Twilight’s horn.

“...I don’t, Applejack. Fertility magic isn’t something I know very much about.” Applejack nodded and dropped her head. Twilight nuzzled her neck and drew her gaze back up. “But I can look into it. I know we can’t be the first two mares who wanted foals before who were unhappy with either adopting or studding. There might be something I just haven’t heard of.” As she spoke, her eyes lit up, glittering with curiosity.

Applejack grinned and leaned forward, kissing Twilight’s cheek. “This was all just an excuse for you to pick up a pet project, ain’t it?”

Chuckling, Twilight nuzzled into her wife’s neck and wrapped a hoof around her shoulders. “Maybe.”

“That’s my girl.”

Twilight closed her eyes, and all at once felt the day catch up with her. A few years previous and the inkling of new knowledge would have launched her into a pile of books to search out an answer deep into the night, but her routine had changed. Right then, she was looking forward to ascending the stairs to her bedroom, climbing into her bed, and curling up around her wife. The quest for a solution could wait until the morning.

She yawned. “Applejack?”

“Hmn?”

She grinned to herself, feeling like she might fall asleep right there and need to be carried upstairs to bed. “I’d love to have a foal with you.” In the silence, she approached the cusp of her consciousness, and for a moment floated somewhere between waking and sleeping.

“...I’d love that, too, Twi.” Applejack caught her chin and pulled her out of her half-sleep and into a kiss, deep and emphatic, and she was dragged back on top of her wife. Hooves ran down her neck and over her wings, stopping to cup her cutie marks. Her lover gave her a squeeze and she squeaked into Applejack’s mouth.

Perhaps she wasn’t quite ready to fall asleep.

Applejack could almost mistake the evening for any other, lying in bed with Twilight in her hooves. She may well have spent the last quarter of her life holding her wife through the night, summer or winter. Applejack’s body ran like a furnace and Twilight was always cold, so even on the hottest nights they found themselves wrapped around each other.

She could almost mistake it for any night, save the shiver running along Twilight’s spine.

Twilight kissed her cheek again and nuzzled her neck, so she gave her wife a squeeze and closed her eyes, imparting whatever comfort she could from their closeness. Twice she felt Twilight’s throat bob against her as if about to speak, only to hear her lover’s teeth click shut again, and each time she slid a hoof up and down Twilight’s back. She knew it was a waiting game between Twilight’s nerves and Twilight’s stubbornness, and Twilight just needed time and patience before—

“Oh, to heck with it,” Twilight hissed.

Applejack’s eyes snapped open as Twilight rolled her onto her back and kissed her, deeper than the little pecks before. Twilight settled on top of her, forelegs running up her chest and into her mane, and she opened her mouth in invitation. Her hooves snaked around the small of Twilight’s back. Twilight nibbled her lip.

She let out a contented sigh, catching her breath and grinning as Twilight sat up. Her grip around her wife’s waist drifted down to cutie marks, and she kneaded Twilight’s soft and firm rump in her hooves. “There’s my wild girl.”

Twilight flashed a grin back at her. She darted forward and nipped Applejack’s chin, before trailing kisses down her lover’s throat. “Neither of us are going to be relaxed enough for anything,” she said between pecks, sliding down Applejack’s chest, “until after we do something normal.” She ran her hooves along Applejack’s sides as she backed away, onto the mattress between her wife’s legs with her butt in the air and tail swaying side to side. She bit down on Applejack’s belly, hard enough to draw a gasp. “I like normal.”

Eyes roving over Twilight’s rump, Applejack felt her own tension evaporate, and her grin widened. As Twilight reached the bottom of her stomach and switched to an inner thigh, a spark of need made itself known, making her back hooves twitch. “Ain’t gonna hear me complain.”

Twilight giggled against her leg, leaving pecks all the way down her leg. She let out a gasp as Twilight bit the underside of her hoof, then trailed back upwards Just before reaching her sex, her lover switched legs, kissing and suckling down towards her other hoof. Applejack felt her marehood warm up, then grow damp as Twilight worked, and she propped herself up on her forelegs to watch. Twilight gave Applejack an impish smile as she arrived between her wife’s legs again, then nibbled a trail back up Applejack’s middle.

When Applejack took the lead, she went fast and rough, delighting in making Twilight squeak and cry out. Those nights ended with them both gasping ragged breaths against each other, but the nights her lover took control were usually languid affairs. Twilight played with her, raising her arousal on an incline where half the fun was tempering her own impatience. On nights like that, their lovemaking rarely took her breath away, but always left her grinning and lightheaded for ages.

That night, with her legs twitching with growing impatience and Twilight circling ever closer to her sex, Applejack was more than happy to take it slow.

Applejack bit her lip as Twilight at last arrived at her need, sweeping up her folds flighty and teasing. Twilight’s hoof wrapped around her flank to stroke her belly fur and she lifted her leg to accommodate. When Twilight’s tongue slid past her lips, delving inside with playful flicks, she raised the other leg. Twilight hugged Applejack’s ass and cradled it against her chest, muzzle pressing deeper inside, tongue moving with more strength and confidence.

Applejack squeezed her wife’s face with her thighs and Twilight’s eyes shone with happiness in the moonlight. One of the hooves on Applejack’s belly turned over as it always did. She lifted a foreleg from the bed and held Twilight’s hoof in her own, gripping with a gentle strength. Her wife nuzzled her clit and their eyes shut at the same time. Her head fell back as her jaw went slack, panting breaths into the room as her lover pressed at her inner walls, the pressure in her core growing with no sense of urgency. She rocked her hips back and forth against Twilight’s muzzle, holding hooves and basking in the pleasure of the tongue meandering its way around inside of her.

It could have been any night.

Her breaths turned to small moans and she felt her lust sneak past Twilight’s mouth, wetness running down her rump and dampening her tail. She squeezed Twilight’s hoof. “Oh, Twi, don’t stop, I’m gettin’ close.” Twilight hugged her flanks in response. “Right there…”

She grunted as her wife’s tongue slid out of her entrance and traced along her inner lips, before finding her most sensitive spot. Twilight pressed in against her clit, kneading and massaging it with her tongue and puffing hot breaths across her marehood. Her moans changed to coos and whines as her wife suckled her. When Twilight started flicking with her tongue faster and faster, Applejack fell back against the bed, one hoof still gripping her wife’s tight, and the other racing to the back of Twilight’s head. She arched her hips, driving Twilight against her sex.

“I’m—I’m—Oh!”Applejack’s eyes sprung open as she hit her peak, a ripple of muscles seizing up thundering across her body. Through the wave of pleasure, she felt her wife’s mouth widen, covering her twitching marehood, catching the extra juices spilling out. Twilight lapped and probed her as she spasmed against the bed and rode the tide of her bliss.

With one last slow swipe of her tongue, Twilight sat back up. Applejack cracked an eye open and grinned at her wife’s wet face in the darkness. She rubbed her thighs together and groaned in satisfaction, earning a smug, if drippy smirk. She spread a foreleg and Twilight crawled up the bed and into her embrace. She kissed away her own lust from her lover’s muzzle, sharing the taste of her orgasm with Twilight in what transformed into a deep and lingering kiss.

As the aftershocks settled down enough for Applejack to think again, Twilight leaned back, her eyes uncertain and tentative. Her voice came out shaky. “I’m…going to cast the spell now.”

The grin slid from her mouth and after a moment, Applejack nodded. Twilight’s horn flashed with light and they both shut their eyes as magic filled the room, raising their coats in gooseflesh.

Applejack trotted in from the snowy fields, racing the winter’s early sunset home. The light changed from gold to purple as the sun went behind the Crystal Oaks Library on the other end of town. Applejack grinned at the glare and stopped short from going inside, lingering on her front porch and contemplating the hazy silhouette. Once upon a time, when the castle was new, she recalled helping Twilight rebuild the town’s library in the lower levels.

“What? Ponyville needs a library, not a castle,” Twilight had said. Applejack remembered the confusion on her other friend’s faces as Twilight rejected ownership of ‘her kingdom,’ but she had only smiled. Friendship didn’t need a seat of power, and Twilight didn’t want one. The lower levels became the new and improved library, the throne room became their group’s base of operations and sort of a clubhouse, and Twilight took a small room high up in the tree’s branches for herself, one with a balcony where she could see the stars.

Applejack’s grin widened as she looked out at her wife’s ‘job’ and former home. Nopony else understood why Twilight seemed to force everything to go back to normal after she had found her place as a princess, but Applejack did. Twilight wanted purpose. The other frills were just that for her: frills.

Sometimes Applejack wondered why she hadn’t asked Twilight to marry her sooner.

She took a deep breath and shook out her legs before going inside. “I’m home, Twi!” she called out into the house, kicking the door shut behind her and grabbing an empty mug by the couch on her way towards the kitchen. “Ya know if Spike’s plannin’ on makin’ supper today? If not, I’m cookin’. I gotta cravin’ for red beans ‘n rice.”

Twilight’s voice filtered through the study door in a distracted tone. “That sounds nice.”

Applejack sighed and shook her head. Before she could ask the question again, Spike yelled from upstairs, “Kitchen’s all yours! I’ll help you if you want, AJ!”

“Thank ya kindly, but beans ‘n rice don’t need much mindin’. Just know supper’s gonna be on the late side. If ya want, ya can run up to the main house in a bit an’ see if Apple Bloom wants to join us.” She smirked and turned to face the study. “An’ when ya come back, shake Twilight outta whatever book she’s got her snout buried in so deep she can’t hear properly.” She heard Spike snort from upstairs and Twilight scoff from behind the door. She went into the kitchen snickering.

Dumping the cup in the sink, Applejack buzzed about the room, pulling ingredients together in a big pot to simmer. She hummed as she went, flicking on the lights as the sun finished setting and falling into the act of cooking. When the beans and veggies were bubbling together, she stepped back and nearly jumped out of her coat when a hoof prodded her flank.

She skittered forward with a meep before catching herself. She turned around and adjusted her hat. “Lan’ sakes, Twi, ya startled me.”

“Hmn?” Twilight glanced over her shoulder, her ears lowered, and turned back to Applejack. “Oh. Sorry.” She gave a sheepish smile. “You’re cooking.”

Applejack snorted and shook her head again. “Them books really do a number on ya.”

Glancing back over her shoulder, Twilight asked, “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“I reckon the beans’ve got an hour to just sit and cook ‘fore I need to start on the rice—hey!” Twilight’s foreleg snaked around her neck and yanked her towards the study. Twilight pushed her through and glanced up the stairs before filing in behind her and snapping the door shut. She dusted herself off and grumbled, “What’s eatin’ you, Twi? You’re actin’ all rabbity.”

Twilight walked past her to the desk and stared at the open book, then gave her a furtive glance. Applejack saw her wife’s feathers puff out in nervousness. She shoved aside her annoyance and lowered her voice as she stepped closer and put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “What’s buggin’ ya, sugar?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Um. I found something. Maybe.” Applejack’s brow knit as she watched her wife’s gaze jump from her, to the book, to the wall, and back again. “It’s…weird.”

“Twilight…” Applejack took a deep breath herself. “I’m gonna need somethin’ to go off of if ya want me to know what you’re talkin’ about.” Twilight grimaced. She stifled a groan and looked past the source of her frustration at the book, but everything was written in runes. “…I’m gonna go stir the beans some ‘less ya start talkin’ words, Twilight.”

“Foals,” Twilight forced out. “It’s about foals, about us having foals.” Applejack’s jaw snapped shut and she perked her ears up. “I’ve been digging through books about fertility magic and up to this point it was mostly spells to help straight couples who are having trouble conceiving, but I found this…weird…thing.” She tapped her hoof on the page and chewed her lip. “I, uh, found it a few hours ago and have been debating whether or not to tell you about it.”

Applejack blinked at her wife, frowning and raising an eyebrow at the book. “What sorta weird’re we talkin’ about? If it’s dangerous, we can just keep thinkin’ on it…”

“It isn’t dangerous, it’s just…” Twilight made a face like she’d taken a bite of raw onion. “Okay, maybe I’m overreacting, I don’t know, but it’s just—”

Applejack rubbed Twilight’s shoulder with a hoof and felt her freeze up. She leaned into Twilight and gave a comforting nuzzle to the neck. “Just talkin’, Twilight.”

Taking another steadying breath, she nodded. “Right. Just talking.” She shivered and pressed back into Applejack in silent gratitude before stepping away and turning to face her. “Okay. The weird part. I should just say it.” A heavy pause of silence fell over the room as Applejack watched Twilight’s eyes vibrate like they wanted to jump out of her skull. All at once, the words poured out of her. “It makes you grow a penis.”

Applejack’s jaw fell open.

Twilight turned back to the book and kept going, her voice turning into a ramble. “The spell is cast over two mares, and one of them is partially transformed, giving them functioning male anatomy, while the other’s eggs are stimulated and attuned to the same magical frequency, allowing both of them to conceive together with one mare acting as the ‘father’ of the foal, all it takes is for one of us to grow a penis and…” Twilight scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head hard enough to make her ears flap. “Eww, I don’t want to think about you having a penis, eww!”

Unable to help herself, Applejack lowered her head and looked back between her own legs. The image of a sack dangling between her thighs leapt into her mind, followed by the bulge of a sheath extending up her belly. She jumped up straight. Twilight had turned away from her to cringe, and her eyes and mind once again disobeyed her direct orders. They lingered over her wife’s backside and pictured a set of balls. She snapped her eyes shut and shuddered. “Yeah, I don’t wanna think about that, neither.”

A huff of relief escaped Twilight and she turned back to Applejack. “Oh, thank Celestia, I’m not overreacting. It’s weird right? I’m not crazy?”

“Oh, you’re plenty crazy, sug, but not about that.” She offered a half-hearted smile, then turned towards the book and cleared her throat. “Alright, so we ain’t off to a great start, but…just…tell me about it.”

Twilight took a deep breath and stepped up to her desk to run her hoof over the runes. “Okay…so the spell is an old one, and it was designed to do exactly what we’re looking for.” She flipped a page, her voice gaining strength as she talked. “Two mares can use the spell to have a foal together, and the foal is the genetic offspring of both ponies. Since the subject of the transformation only has female chromosomes, the foal could only be a filly, but she would be both mares’ daughter.”

“So…weird or not, it’s a sure thing?”

Twilight turned another page. “It’s as sure a thing as a mare and a stallion trying to conceive without magic.” She sighed and leaned back to rub her temples. “So it isn’t a guarantee on the first try, but it would work eventually. And it’s so complicated and intricate I wouldn’t even know where to start trying to modify it to be more reliable. All that aside, this is what we’re looking for. It’s just so…icky.”

Applejack nodded, turning to pace the room. “I’m…still tryin’ to shake the image outta my head.” She frowned to herself. “So, uh, this all we got to work with as far as magic goes?”

Sitting down, Twilight nodded and dropped her head. “This spell wasn’t designed with mares in our situation in mind. It’s to fill in for a stud when one isn’t available while not needing a full transformation, which is nearly impossible without a team of unicorns. I’ve looked through the rest of this book and other books…” She looked up at her wife. “This is it for magic.”

Applejack grunted in affirmation and turned to pace again. “Then…we got gettin’ a brother to be a stud, or givin’ ourselves the heebie-jeebies.” Twilight shivered. “Let’s just think about this, hon. Is this really as strange as we’re makin’ it out to be?”

Twilight’s muzzle wrinkled in disgust. “How could it not be? I can honestly say that I’ve lived my whole life without ever wanting a penis.” She looked at Applejack questioningly.

“What?”

“Well, uhh, have you?” Curiosity cut through her expression.

Applejack froze and shifted on her hooves. “No. I—I guess if I was bein’ totally truthful, I thought about what it’d be like, but thinkin’ and wantin’ ain’t the same.” She cleared her throat and forced down her blush. “You sayin’ you ain’t thought about it?”

“…No. I guess I have.” She looked down her front and made a face.

“Anyway, point I was makin’ was maybe we’re thinkin’ about this wrong. Ain’t either one of us real keen on gettin’ boy parts, or seein’ ‘em on each other, but we been talkin’ about studdin’, maybe even with a brother. Mac get ya real hot ‘n bothered, Twi?”

Twilight blushed and smirked at her wife. “Do I have to answer that?”

Applejack winked, then went back to walking back and forth through the room. “I ain’t got an eye on Shinin’ any more than I got one on any stallion. Yeah, we ain’t that happy about askin’ either of ‘em, but it bein’ gross ain’t been somethin’ we talked about.”

Twilight’s mouth pressed into a line in thought, and her gaze grew introspective. Applejack stopped her pacing and faced her wife as the silence settled in. After a moment, Twilight refocused and mused, “I guess it’s just…well, studding is just a thing mares do with stallions for the sake of having a foal. It’s expected to be sort of uncomfortable. And…this spell is taking the place of a stud.” Another lull fell before she set an uneasy glance on Applejack. She stood up and stepped closer. “But…I don’t want sex to be uncomfortable with you.” She nuzzled Applejack’s neck.

Applejack pressed back against her lover and nodded. “I getcha.” She kissed Twilight’s cheek as she stepped away. “It’s just that what we’re really talkin’ about here is havin’ a bit of bad sex. Is doin’ that with each other for the sake of havin’ a foal really much different than doin’ the same thing with family?”

“I…” Twilight’s muzzle wrinkled and she turned away. “I guess not,” she groaned. Applejack nodded in satisfaction, but she frowned when Twilight’s shoulders started shaking. Frustration bubbled up in Twilight’s voice as she whipped around and lashed out, “This is so gross, though! Even if we did this we’d have to decide which one of us gets the penis! Do you want to debate who gets a penis? I don’t want to debate who gets a penis!”

Applejack grunted and rubbed the bridge of her snout. “You’re still thinkin’ about this wrong, Twi. I ain’t wantin’ a dick, you ain’t wantin’ a dick, and neither of us are wantin’ a dick on the other. Debate over. What we’d be decidin’ is who’s carryin’ the foal, and whoever’s bein’ the ‘daddy’ gets the daddy parts.”

Her lip quivering with annoyance, Twilight let out a huff and sat down. “Well, I want to carry—”

Applejack cut in, saying, “So do I.”

She flicked her hoof. “Yes, I know, we both want to carry, so we’d need to figure out who actually would. But it’s basically foregone, anyway, because it makes more sense for me to carry; a pregnancy would interfere with maintaining the farm, so—”

“Now that ain’t true at all,” Applejack interjected, finding her tone rising to match her wife’s ire. “Part a’ runnin’ a farm is havin’ foals. Mac an’ me knew the drill when my momma was havin’ Apple Bloom, and both him an’ AB would know they’d be pickin’ up some slack when I got big, but it’s just as much my duty to the farm to have foals as it is to be buckin’ trees.”

Twilight’s jaw opened and shut a few times as Applejack finished. She frowned and sat up straight. “As a Princess of Equestria, it would be my duty, too, and—”

“That’s a load of cow manure, and you know it,” Applejack snapped.

They exchanged a glare for a moment, before Twilight broke eye contact. “But…my job doesn’t have me on my hooves; it would be easier for me to carry.”

“I can holler from a chair just as easy as you can sit on a throne or check out books.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “I…I want it, though.” She held a hoof to her belly and shut her eyes. “I want it.”

Applejack stamped her hoof on the floor. “Don’t you think I want it, too!?” As Twilight grimaced, a pang of sympathy made Applejack clench her jaw. She wrestled to drop her voice and dispel the growing tension. She took a deep breath.

Twilight let out a roar of a groan and stomped back to standing. “So since we both want to carry, all it really comes down to is who gets the penis, doesn’t it? But that isn’t fair! I have to be at the disadvantage here because for Celestia knows what reason you’re okay with me having one!”

Her ears fell flat to her head and her nostrils flared. “Oh, don’t even try to say it ain’t hard for me!” She jabbed a hoof in accusation at her wife. “At least you like dicks! You forgettin’ who’s the gay one an’ who’s bi, Twilight?! I ain’t wanted nothin’ to do with a stallion’s thing in my life, and somehow this whole thing’s harder for you?!”

“I like them on stallions, Applejack. I married a mare, because I fell in love with her as a mare. And maybe it’s fine for you if I got rid of my vagina, but I like your vagina!” She prodded Applejack in the chest. “I don’t want it to go away! I’ve gotten rather fond of it, regardless of how little you care about mine.”

Applejack lunged forward, baring her teeth and pressing her snout against Twilight’s. “Oh, don’t you ever think I don’t love your li’l snatch, Twilight, it’s…” Applejack froze. She stood up straight and looked wide-eyed at her wife. “Twilight…”

“What?!”

“Are…are we really yellin’ at each other about who likes whose privates more?”

A beat of silence passed. Twilight let out a shotgun blast of a snort, clamping her hooves over her muzzle. Their eyes met.

Applejack’s chest shook as she held in her mirth, her mouth struggling to stay a neutral line. Twilight scrunched her eyes shut as squeaks escaped around her forelegs. Applejack threw her head back and brayed laughter, falling against her wife who exploded into giggles, hugging her around the neck. Through their helpless cackles, Twilight choked out, “I’m sorry; I know you love my vagina.”

“Damn right.” Applejack stepped back as their howls trailed off to snickers and they grinned at each other. “Listen, hon. I ain’t sayin’ I’m sold on it or nothin’, just sorta thinkin’ out loud about it, ya know? And besides, we ain’t gotta decide anythin’ right this minute. Heck, nopony’s sayin’ we gotta do any of it. I was happy to live the rest of my life with just you in it, Twilight. If havin’ a foal just ain’t gonna work, I’m still gonna be happy.”

Twilight took a deep breath and gave her a slow nod. “I know we don’t have to decide anything now, but…” She folded her ears back and looked at the book. They stood together in silence as her expression faded from ambivalent to resolute. When she turned back to her wife, her eyes were set hard. “…I want a foal, Applejack. Every night since we talked about it and the idea got in my head, I dream about it. I want to watch her grow, I want to show her all the stars in the sky, and watch her learn to buck apples. I want to curl up on the couch with her and read her stories until she falls asleep on the both of us. I want it so bad.”

Applejack took a step forward and raised a hoof to Twilight’s cheek. “…‘Her’?”

Her voice came out very small, almost a whisper, as she closed the distance and nuzzled into Applejack’s neck. “…She’ll be ours, Honeycrisp. Really ours.”

Feeling her heart speed up, a wobbly smile stretched across Applejack’s face. Her mind played through the images Twilight gave her and countless others: a hoofbuilt crib by their bed, an extra stocking on the fireplace at Hearth’s Warming, high chairs and toys, birthdays and holidays, and countless other memories waiting to be made, all with a face she hadn’t had the chance to meet yet. She could almost hear the clack of tiny hooves filling the house. She buried her face in Twilight’s mane and drew their chests together.

“…I still want to carry,” Twilight whispered.

“I know, sug. We’ll figure it out. We got plenty a’ time.”

“But what if we can’t decide?” Twilight leaned back from the embrace. “What if we just fight about it forever?”

Applejack let out a slow breath. “Look, hon. All we’ve done so far is decide we’re definitely havin’ a foal. An’ that’s enough. This is cause for celebratin’.”

“But—”

“Twilight, I want ya to promise me that for the rest of the night, we ain’t havin’ one more word about who’s carryin’, who’s gonna be sportin’ a Johnson, or who’s more keen on whose crotch. Tonight, we’re just gonna be happy. We’ll start talkin’ about all that other stuff later.”

Twilight frowned and searched her eyes.

“Promise me.”

“…I promise.”

Applejack grinned and kissed her wife. “Good.” Her smile widened and she whispered, “We’re gonna have a foal, Twilight.”

The reservation in Twilight’s face melted away as she held Applejack’s gaze. She lunged forward and stole a second kiss. “We are.”

“I should make sure the beans ain’t burnin’.”

Twilight’s eyes flicked back to the book and she snapped it shut. “Need any help?”

“Nah, but I’d love some company.”

Twilight followed Applejack back into the kitchen. Through the rest of the evening, they talked and laughed, with each other and with Spike and Apple Bloom. They kept the promise of letting the subject drop, but whenever their eyes met, they exchanged knowing grins and felt lighter on their hooves. When they went to bed that night, they fell asleep wrapped around each other, their thoughts buzzing with half remembered nursery rhymes and the sound of tiny laughter.

As she felt the magic flow under her skin and warm her belly, Applejack opened her eyes to see Twilight close the gap, kissing her, pushing inside her mouth in earnest. She shut her eyes again and caressed her lover’s tongue.

Twilight probed Applejack’s mouth and tasted her wife’s cinnamon toothpaste. With the savory taste of sex on her lips, the spice tasted tantalizingly sweet and she sought every bit of it. She kept her focus pinned on the familiar of Applejack and ignored the magic thrumming through her.

This was it.

Applejack’s mind played back over weeks, turned to months of fights with Twilight. Some she’d just as soon forget from the bitterness and anger brought out of one or the both of them. She remembered a night where they got so loud they had frightened Spike, abandoning the debate to console him. They had gone to bed with unresolved tension and pangs of guilt. A different fight ended with her leaving Twilight sobbing, so tuned up she had charged out to the orchards to buck trees that didn’t need it, shaking leaves from branches and leaving scars in the bark. She eventually calmed down enough to comfort her wife and renew a promise to not talk about it for another evening.

Other arguments she’d just as soon forget based on how far they descended into ludicrousness. A month into their debate, Twilight wrote out a formal agreement outlining that both parties acknowledged the other loved their partner’s vagina and therefore accusations to the contrary would not be tolerated. Applejack had trouble signing through her giggles. Another night, Twilight glamoured a strap-on to look like the real thing, and then they took turns in what the both of them described afterwards as a ‘demented fashion show.’

A winter had passed around their fighting, both sides resolute with no end in sight, until Applejack feared her wife had been right and they’d never agree. The weight of that fear pulled at her heart. To think that sleepless nights, tears, screaming, and long jags of silence would all be for nothing, but despite her fears, Applejack couldn’t back down from what she wanted.

But with a single, anticlimactic question from her wife, Applejack’s worries were put to rest. They had just gotten home from a party at Sugarcube Corner, still buzzing from sweets and dancing and giggly from being up later than they were used to. With Spike already asleep, they fell into each other’s embrace on the couch and got farther than they usually would outside their bedroom. Humming with both sugar and horniness, she dragged her wife towards the stairs, but Twilight had paused at the bottom of the steps and grown quiet. Before she could say anything, Twilight looked up and asked in a small voice, “If…if we have a second…can I carry that one?”

And then it was over. And this was it.

Twilight ignored the sensation of her marehood, still swollen and wet from the excitement of her earlier lovemaking, sealing up to a smooth patch of skin. She probed deeper into Applejack’s mouth as a soft weight settled on her thigh, trying to lose herself in the kiss. A sheath rose along her belly and swelled with heat, and she banished to the back of her mind the feeling of cool air caressing the head of her new anatomy as it poked out, gripping the mundane with all four hooves, trying to exist somewhere where kissing her wife was all that mattered. Each pulse of her heart drew more of herself out, but that didn’t matter. Applejack’s mouth over her own mattered. Applejack’s hoof sliding down her side and over her wing mattered.

And then her erection prodded Applejack in the belly.

Their kiss broke and they held each other’s gaze. Applejack glanced down for a second and muttered, “Dang, that brings me back to my homecomin’ dance.”

Twilight blinked.

Applejack coughed into her hoof. “Nothin’, nevermind.”

“Oh, no. You can’t say something like that and not explain it!” She sat up on her haunches and crossed her forelegs. Her stallionhood bobbed up and down from her speed as if nodding in agreement. Applejack covered her eyes and snorted. A hysterical giddiness settled over them both, and Twilight shoved and poked Applejack upright, choking out through giggles, “Come on, story time!”

Applejack sighed and shook her head. “It ain’t anythin’, Twi.” Her wife gave her a look and she sighed again. “Alright, so it ain’t what you’re thinkin’. I wasn’t really out yet back in school, an’ even if I was it ain’t like there were a lot a’ fillies I could’a asked anyway.”

“So you went with a colt?”

“Nah, I went stag. Mostly goin’ to be part a’ things for the town, but also the dance was in the east barn.” She smirked at Twilight and shrugged. “I was keepin’ the snacks full an’ talkin’ with friends for most the night, but there was this little wallflower colt who came stag, too.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”

Giggling, she shook her head. “I told ya, it ain’t what you’re thinkin’. I felt bad for ‘im, and he was always nice to me in class, so I asked him for a dance to be neighborly. So we get on the floor and a slow song starts. We start dancin’ and he was real light on his back hooves, and right when I’m gettin’ ready to pat myself on the back for brightenin’ up his night…” She smirked and flicked Twilight’s dick, still standing at attention.

Twilight’s eye twitched at the contact, but then she covered her mouth to hold in her laughter. “I’m sorry,” she forced out, “it’s not that funny.”

“Yeah it is,” Applejack said soberly. Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, her body clearly vibrating with the held in giggles in the moonlight. Applejack shook her head and clucked her tongue, closing her eyes and falling into reminiscence. “That poor boy, his face turned so red it looked like he was tryin’ to melt into the barn wall. He ran out right quick. I should’a gone after him, but I was pretty shook up myself; first time I ever saw one of ‘em all…out an’ rarin’ to go like that. Probably helped me figure myself out, all said ‘n done.” She smiled to herself and she found her attention pulled back to the present and to the newest bit of anatomy that had jabbed her. She opened her eyes.

Twilight sat hunched over herself with both hooves on her erection, stroking and kneading the mottled flesh. Applejack sputtered and she straightened up, wings spreading from her sides as she hugged the cock to her stomach. “Wha—what the heck are you doin’?” Applejack stammered, shaking her head forcefully.

Twilight scrunched her eyes shut. “I’m sorry, it just feels so weird!” She looked down again and prodded the head. “It’s all hard and swollen, but the skin around it is loose and squishy! And it just…Gah! Everything about it is wrong!” She shoved it away from herself and it swayed back at her like an inflatable punching toy, taunting her. “I’m not sure what I was expecting it to feel like, but this is not it.” She poked at it again.

Applejack grabbed at her hooves. “S—Ju-just stop doin’ that, Twi,” she giggled. “’Fore I laugh myself to death.” Twilight pouted at her and she bit her lip, stifling her mirth. She took a deep breath and grinned at her lover. “I gotta say, hon, I was worried I’d be all grossed out, but that thing just looks goofy on ya.”

“Well, at least you’re not grossed out about it.” She pulled a hoof free and gave it one last prod for good measure. Her lip curled and she stuck out her tongue.

Taking another sobering breath, Applejack stroked the fetlock in her grip. “Is it real bad?”

Twilight closed her eyes and straightened up, finding her center. “…No. I’m okay.” She opened her eyes and gave Applejack a sheepish smile before nuzzling her neck. “I’m okay.”

Applejack nuzzled back, letting go of Twilight’s hoof to pull her into a hug. Kissing the base of her jaw, Applejack mumbled, “How, uh…how ya wanna do this?”

Grimacing, Twilight chewed her lip. She felt her stallionhood brush across the coat of Applejack’s thigh and shivered. “Um. Just, uh, lay down and…are…are you ready?”

Applejack scooted back from the embrace and smiled, imparting a bit of strength and calm to Twilight. She slid onto her back and spread her legs, snaking a hoof down her chest and over her folds. “Yeah, I’m still a li’l wet from earlier I think.” Her foreleg trailed away, leaving her sex parted and glistening in the moonlight with freshly spread juices. “Yeah, nice ‘n wet.”

Twilight swallowed the saliva in her mouth as her wife lay spread-eagle in front of her. Fresh blood rushed to her member, leaving it harder than before. She glanced down at herself, seeing the network of veins running the length stand out in detail. A bead of clear fluid oozed from the tip. She shook her head and refocused on Applejack.

Applejack lay in front of her, legs spread, outer lips parted, inner lips inviting and flushed even in the darkness, all attached to her wife, the pony she loved and was having a foal with, who smiled at her with encouragement. Tentatively, Twilight crawled up the bed. “Just…pretend it’s a toy,” she whispered, more to comfort herself. Applejack nodded.

Twilight hovered above her lover and fumbled with her stallionhood, which twitched in her hoof and didn’t seem interested in pointing quite the right direction. A nervous giggle escaped her throat as she looked down to see what she was doing. She at last found Applejack’s folds with the tip, blossoming warmth across the head of her cock. She looked back up at Applejack’s face and found closed eyes. Her own lids slid shut as she pressed into Applejack’s entrance. Slippery heat backed by firm muscle encased her inch by inch. Applejack was a furnace.

Applejack held her breath as Twilight pushed inside. She liked toys; Twilight would tease her for ages with them before riding her rough, leaving them both gripping each other in a layer of sweat. They had big ones, little ones, some made of hard plastic, and some made of bouncy silicone, and half the fun was in the variety.

Toys didn’t throb with a heartbeat.

With agonizing slowness, Twilight drew deeper into her tunnel, spreading her inner walls, twitching against her, until she felt the lip of her wife’s sheath press against her. For a moment, they lay connected and still. Twilight lowered down against her, raised just off her chest, propped up on her elbows. Applejack adjusted her position and hooked the points of her hocks on Twilight’s hips, drawing a whimper from her lover. She opened her eyes.

Twilight’s bottom lip trembled and Applejack could see a hint of a crease across her forehead as her brows drew together. She sat in silence as her wife took several steadying breaths. Twilight withdrew an inch and slid back into her, whimpering again. She raised a hoof and stroked her lover’s cheek. “We can stop if ya want, Twilight.”

Twilight’s expression deepened, the crinkles standing out in sharp relief even in the darkness. “Don’t.” She buried her face in Applejack’s mane. “U-unless you want me to stop, don’t ask me if I want to.”

Applejack’s brow drew together in concern, but she nodded against Twilight’s cheek. With jerky movements, Twilight slid out and back in three more times. Toys didn’t have a sack attached that thumped against her ass, either. She adjusted again, angling her hips better, trying to ignore how floppy silicone never felt this rigid and plastic was never this soft and warm. Twilight stopped, pressed in deep and almost huddled against her.

She stroked her wife’s cheek. “…Y’alright, Twilight?”

“Don’t—”

“Not askin’ if ya wanna stop.” Twilight’s wings were spread wide in the air and she ran her other hoof along the primaries, kissing Twilight’s cheek.

“I’m…” Twilight groaned in frustration.

“Twilight, look at me.” Reluctantly, she raised up enough for their eyes to meet and Applejack saw a war of emotions raging through her face. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Just…this is weird. It’s nothing. I’m okay.”

“It ain’t nothin’, and I can tell.” Twilight’s ears folded back. “Just talk it out; ya always feel better when ya can put what’s goin’ on in your head into words. What’re ya feelin’?”

Twilight fidgeted, her stallionhood angling around inside of Applejack. Muscles clenched around her and she bit back a gasp, pressing in again and holding still. The gentle weight of Applejack’s hindlegs on her hips coaxed her closer. Her body screamed at her to rock against her lover. “I’m…it’s…” She took a deep breath. “You feel good, Applejack. This feels good, but it feels wrong. This isn’t what sex feels like, this thing isn’t a part of me. I see why stallions like this, but this isn’t my body.”

She shivered and accidentally slid out of her wife an inch, the air of the room frigid on the exposed and soaking part of her shaft compared to inside Applejack. She thrust back in out of instinct. Pleasure squirmed through her cock and into her belly. Instincts came to blows as her body told her, ‘Do that again,’ and her mind screamed, ‘This is all wrong.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat. “This isn’t my body,” she muttered.

Applejack closed her eyes and fought to keep from fidgeting. She kissed Twilight, her lips slow and soothing, and she leaned back and stayed silent.

“I’m…I’ll…I’ll be okay. It won’t be so new in a minute. And…” She grit her teeth. “I want this foal.” She relaxed her jaw, closing her eyes and gathering her thoughts. Her wife was right. She suspected Applejack was always right about her, but she knew it then. Putting her feelings to words excised the quivering tension from her mind. She met Applejack’s gaze and gave a weak smile. “What’s it like for you?”

A wrinkle of distaste creased her muzzle for an instant. “Well…it ain’t a toy, that’s for sure.” Twilight bowed her head, and Applejack injected optimism in her voice. “But it ain’t, like, bad or nothin’. Just kinda funky. Nothin’ I can’t handle.” She offered a strained smile. Her gaze drifted upwards to Twilight’s wings and she ran her hooves through the feathers again. “It’s like this. If’n I was gettin’ studded by a stallion, it’d be feelin’ funky then, too. This way, least I got you.”

She kissed the tip of Twilight’s snout, her smile evening out to genuine as some of the worry bled from her wife’s features. “An’ even though it’s funky for you…I’m glad I’m makin’ you feel good.” She leaned forward and nipped Twilight’s neck, whispering, “I like makin’ you feel good.” Twilight’s forelegs drifted from either side of Applejack to around her shoulders, pulling her closer to her lover’s neck. Applejack teased Twilight’s wings as she bit and kissed where she could reach.

Twilight felt the hooves in her wings pulling her feathers side to side, drawing a shiver up her spine she knew very well. She closed her eyes and with trepidation drew her hips back. She inhaled the scent of Applejack’s mane and rocked forward, easing into a rhythm, letting her body guide the motions while her mind focused on the feeling of her lover underneath her, warm and familiar, mussing her wings and leaving dark bruises just beneath the hairs on her throat. Applejack met her thrusts, half guiding her movements with a flex of a back leg.

Her stallionhood swelled, harder still and almost aching as pleasure spread up her belly and danced along her spine, both familiar and foreign. Her incline of bliss rose faster and steeper than she was used to, rising less like a tidal wave and more like a plate of rock faulted upwards in an earthquake, and running through the alien length of her shaft. Her balls bunched against her, demanding release.

She choked back the disconnect between her head and her dick, pushing away how different she felt. Her rhythm grew erratic as muscles spasmed in anticipation, and she moaned into Applejack’s mane. Her lover’s teeth sunk into her shoulder as she slammed in a final time.

A rush of release flooded her mind as her cock pulsed against Applejack’s walls. A grunt turned into a mewl of primal satisfaction she didn’t understand as she felt come race through her shaft, pumping out into Applejack with each twitch, thick and heavy. She ground her hips into her wife, milking herself empty, her back arching and relaxing in Applejack’s embrace.

Applejack held Twilight close, focusing on the sounds her wife made, the flexing muscles and shaky hooves of pleasure. As the cock inside her throbbed, she felt a dribbling of wetness on her insides, and she tried to banish the image from her head of a leaky faucet left inside her snatch.

As fast as Twilight’s orgasm came on, her breathing slowed and she felt herself begin to soften inside her wife. She steadied herself mentally and lifted her hips away. Her dick came free and she fell backwards from the embrace onto her haunches, a spidersilk strand of their fluids still connecting the tip of her stallionhood to Applejack’s entrance. It snapped off, and with Applejack’s insides feeling slimy and the mental picture of it seeping out and into her tail playing in her head, she pressed her thighs together tight.

Twilight looked down at herself, watching her shaft gradually slide back inside her sheath, shiny with juices in the moonlight. She closed her eyes and pulled the last energies of the spell together to her mind. The room lit up with the glow of her horn and a tingle ran up her spine as the magic finished. A wave of fatigue rolled down her shoulders and she drifted onto the bed, flopping onto her back and dragging herself up to her pillow as her new anatomy melted away. She let out a slow breath of relief as the sensation passed. She ran a hoof over her crotch. She was herself again.

Without opening her eyes, Twilight cleared her throat. “So. Um. Now we wait two weeks and you can take a pregnancy test—”

“I know, sugar, ya told me this already.” Applejack rolled onto her side to face Twilight.

“…Yes. Um. I should go over it again just to be sure. So depending on the pregnancy test we—” Twilight’s eyes shot open and she let out a gasp as Applejack’s hoof pressed against her folds.

“Don’t ya mind me, Twi, go over it again if ya want,” Appleack teased.

Twilight swallowed the saliva in her mouth. “Uhh…w-we see i-if you’re pregnant, and if not, we try again….” Applejack rubbed her in lingering circles, growing faster as the slickness of her juices was spread over her sex. She spread her legs and bumped against Applejack’s thigh. She hoisted her cannon onto her wife’s legs to make more room. “Ohh…th-the spell causes ov…ovulation, so timing isn’t…isn’t…”

Applejack grinned and pressed against Twilight’s side. Her lover arched against her hoof and she trailed kisses up her neck. “Go on, I’m listenin’.”

“…We try again until…until…uuuuhn…” Applejack’s free foreleg pressed between her back and the bed. “Oh, to heck with it,” she moaned, arching off the mattress for Applejack.

Applejack snaked around Twilight’s middle and dragged her close, twisting her onto her side and pulling their bodies together, back to chest. Twilight lifted her hindleg into the air and snuggled into the embrace. Applejack’s teasing touches deepened, playing her marehood with familiarity, spreading her inner lips, pressing at her entrance, brushing her clit enough to keep her pleasure climbing but not too much to make her whimper.

The hoof around her middle held her in an iron band of muscle and she clung to it. Her wings rustled and spasmed as they tried to open but were trapped against her sides. Applejack bit her shoulder, drawing a cry from her throat. She rocked her hips in time with her lover, pressure building in her middle, familiar and tidal, bliss spreading down her legs, up her neck, spreading through her body.

Twilight mewled again and slammed her thighs around Applejack’s hoof. Waves rolled off her as she bucked against her wife’s leg, muscles clenching and releasing, Applejack an unmovable rock against her flails. A tear ran down her cheek to the pillow.

She released her thighs and wriggled with yearning in Applejack’s grip, twisting around, hugging her lover, burying her face in warm chest. She sniffled, nuzzling into the embrace with all her might.

Applejack’s throat bobbed in her confusion. “Twilight…”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight murmured. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”

Applejack stroked her mane. “S’alright, sug. I’m here.”

“I-I know.” The agitation in her shoulders made her twitch and shake. “You’re here. You’re here.”

Closing her eyes, Applejack held Twilight close, feeling the tension fade in fits and starts, breaths evening out, sniffles bleeding away. The strangling grip around her middle melted into the intimate hold she expected, no strength, just the comforting weight and warmth of her wife keeping their bodies in contact. Eventually Twilight leaned back and opened her eyes.

“You okay?” Applejack asked, brushing her bangs away.

With a deep breath, Twilight nodded. “I thought…I was afraid, I guess. I was afraid that maybe…maybe it’d be too weird for one of us. That maybe we’d do it and…and not be able to look at each other the same.” She ran her leg along Applejack’s side. She sniffed her throat clear, a tired smile on her face. “Just…being stupid and crying because I’m relieved, I guess.”

Applejack shook her head and kissed Twilight’s forehead. “Shucks, hon, you know me. No bit of crazy magic’s gonna change nothin’ in my thick ‘n stubborn skull.”

A wince crossed her face for a moment and she snuggled back into Applejack’s chest. Applejack rolled onto her back and Twilight pressed into her side, using her as a full body pillow. “It…wasn’t really you I was worried about.” She sighed, her tone growing guarded. “I’ve…been thinking I should have carried.” Applejack drew in a breath, but Twilight quickly continued, “Not because it would be better if I carried, but because of this. Those fights we had…you were right. As weird as it would be to me to see you with a penis, I think I could have gotten over that fast enough and wouldn’t have been that turned off about it being the real thing inside me. That and you’re so…unflappable. I think you would’ve handled having one better than I did.”

Applejack murmured noncommittally.

Twilight shook her head against her chest. “Doesn’t matter, because everything’s okay.” She gave Applejack a squeeze. “We’re okay. I was wrong and we’re okay.”

She nodded and kissed Twilight’s forehead again. “Yeah, we’re okay. I’m sorry it was scary for ya.”

“It’s alright. It…it was too important to not do, scared or not.” She let out a long sigh. “And it could have been worse.”

Applejack smirked. “Eeyup. Just a li’l bit a’ bad sex, with good sex before ‘n after.”

Grinning, Twilight nodded against her. “I love you, Honeycrisp.”

“I love you, Twilight.” Their embrace tightened and they held each other with conviction for a long time.

Twilight gripped the sheets with her magic and drew them up over their bodies, her eyelids heavy from physical and emotional fatigue. She adjusted against Applejack into a position where she could fall asleep, bringing her hoof to her lover’s chest, then trailing it down to cup Applejack’s belly and draw little circles.

“…What should we name her?” she whispered.

Applejack smiled at the wonder in Twilight’s tone. Her insides didn’t feel slimy anymore. She felt full of promise for things yet to come.

Author's Note

Man, this story took forever for me to finish.

I wrote this for the Variety is the Spice of Life challenge, it's my fifth one for the challenge overall, and my third for my personal Exta Spicy Edition challenge. I'm slowly working my way through all fifteen pairings twice, once rated teen or lower, once rated mature.

...The five stories I've written for this challenge so far hit about 54,000 words. I'm probably never going to finish it. :D

Anyway, this was mostly fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Thanks so much for taking the time to do so. Y'all are the best.