Cultural Exchange

Cultural Exchange

By Naughty_Ranko

Prologue: Sold!

The day is finally here! I've been trying for a year to get into this event, and finally my application was accepted. My heart was beating a mile a minute, when I stepped through the magic portal that connects our worlds. In an instant, I was no longer in the place I grew up in. Instead I was in a world of magic, Equestria.

All the volunteers got a guided tour of Canterlot. We even visited the royal palace. Unfortunately we didn't get to see Princess Celestia, since she was busy with matters of state. For months after First Contact, only ambassadors were allowed to travel between the two worlds. Even after the signing of the Canterlot Accords, travel between Earth and Equestria was tightly restricted. Less than a thousand humans have been to Equestria and vice versa. Now I am one of them.

Today the big event is taking place that will decide how I spend my weekend here. It's the 28th of August. Two years to the day since First Contact.

Right now I'm in a big changing room behind the stage of a Canterlot theater with nine other women, and we're getting ready to go out there. After putting on my lipstick, I check my red hair one last time in the mirror.

Looking around, I ask a blonde woman nearby. “Excuse me, would you mind zipping me up?”

“Sure,” she replies with a smile, coming over and standing behind me to zip up the back of my red summer dress. “This is your first time in Equestria, right?”

I blush slightly. “Yes, how did you know?”

Her face pops up over my shoulder, and I can see it in the mirror. “The tour. I could tell that you'd never been to Canterlot before. I was afraid your head may come off, since you were craning your neck so hard to take in all the sights, …” She leaves a meaningful pause.

“Julie,” I answer the unspoken question. “Julie LeBlanc.”

“Samantha Carter, but you can call me Sam. Nice to meet you.” Her smile turns a little bit naughty, and her hands trace my figure. “You're pretty stacked for a redhead, you know. You're gonna drive the stallions wild.”

My face turns even more red. “Oh, I don't know about that.”

“Of course you will. You do know that things turning sexual between a human woman and a stallion is the norm, rather than the exception, right?”

Well, they did tell us that this kind of thing is permitted, even though it's not the point of the exchange. I'd just assumed that it didn't happen that often. “Really?”

She nods. “You know how mares have this thing called an estrus cycle, right? Well, us humans are different. We're always ready to have sex, so we send out pheromones on a constant basis, rather than just once in a while. It makes stallions go crazy.”

Well, I can't say that I'm not intrigued by it. I've always wondered what it would be like. “Have you ever done it with a stallion?”

“Yes,” she admits readily. “Last year this one pegasus bought me, Bulk Biceps. We ended up fucking like horny teenagers the whole weekend.”

Wow, she's blunt! That's one way to interpret 'Make love, not war,' I suppose.

“Alright, girls,” the attendant says, clapping her hands. “Line up in single file at the stage entrance. The men will come in from the other side. Just do it like we rehearsed.”

We all do as we're told, and I end up in front of the line, with Sam standing just behind me. I bet she'll drive the stallions more crazy than myself, with that form-fitting black evening dress of hers. I look fairly plain in comparison. The men on the other side are mostly wearing tuxedos.

“Good evening, fillies and gentlecolts.” On stage there is a podium with a mic. The mare in charge, Ms. Harshwhinny, is giving the introductory speech. “And welcome to our second annual H.E.R.A. Charity Auction.”

It's starting. My heart is already racing.

“Calm down,” Sam says from behind me, sensing my anxiety. “She's a little long-winded.”

Well, Sam might have heard this speech before, but it's all new to me, so I listen intently, even though I know most of this stuff already.

“Two years ago to the day, Princess Twilight Sparkle's research into alternate realities, which was begun by Princess Celestia almost a millennium ago, culminated in First Contact between humans and ponies. Soon societies on both sides formed, with the purpose of cultural exchange and learning more about each other.”

“Yeah, though nobody these days wants to admit that ours was started by a group of furries, who were only looking for ways to get themselves a harem of mares,” Sam snickers.

“Last year the Canterlot Society for Human Exploration and the United Pony Research Community merged to form the Human-Equine Relations Association, or H.E.R.A. for short. Our first joint project was a charity auction. Ten men and ten women were selected to journey to Equestria, where wealthy citizens could bid for the privilege of spending the weekend with one of them. Ten stallions and ten mares were selected to take part in a similar event on Earth, leading to increased appreciation on both sides. The event was a resounding success, and it was decided to make it an annual tradition. I'm proud to announce that your donations last year have made it possible to finance the first ever co-ed school, which both ponies and humans will attend together.”

The assembled ponies in the audience begin to applaud, and we join in as well. I'm really happy to be a part of such a great thing.

“Our goal this year,” Ms. Harshwhinny continues, “is to raise enough money for a petition that will allow humans to participate in the Equestria Games, as well as give an Equestrian team the opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games. Now without further ado, allow me to introduce the lovely ladies and gentlemen 'up for sale' this year.”

Music begins to play, and Sam gives me a nudge from behind. Oh, right. That's the cue. Under the applause of the crowd, we march out onto the stage, joining up and forming a line with the men coming from the other side.

We all put on our best smiles as we march out, some of us waving, and the ponies in the audience muster us with curiosity. They all seem to be fairly well off. Ms. Harshwhinny moves down the line and stops next to Sam. “Let's start with this one. Samantha Carter from the United States of America. She's a physicist and astronomer, who also has taken part in last year's auction.”

Sam takes a confident step forward and winks. I can almost hear the collective stallions swallow.

“Who'll start us off with two hundred Bits?”

“Two hundred! YEAH!” a bulky pegasus stallion shouts immediately.

“Four hundred!”

Eventually Sam goes for twelve hundred Bits to a unicorn stallion. “Tough luck,” she whispers towards me as Ms. Harshwhinny gets started on the bidding for the first of the men. “I got the best one right off the bat. That's Fancy Pants. They say he takes his dates to all the high society events like the Wonderbolts Derby.”

Oh, I wish I could go there, too. Then again, I wouldn't mind spending the weekend with somepony more down to earth. I'll probably learn a lot more about pony culture in general that way, rather than just about the high society.

With the bidding for a gentleman from Argentina concluded, Ms. Harshwhinny now comes to me. “Now we've got a very special one for you all. Julie LeBlanc from France, actress. Starting bid is four hundred Bits.”

Special? How am I special? And introducing me as an actress. Well, she probably can't very well blurt out the kinds of movies I've 'starred' in. But isn't that a little misleading? And why is my starting bid higher than Sam's? For some reason a hushed silence has fallen over the crowd.

“Eight hundred!” somepony says immediately. Seriously? He doubled the starting bid right out of the gate.

I can only stand there in confusion as the bids easily reach the thousands, and there's no sign of the bidding war slowing down. “What the hell has gotten into them?” Sam asks, evidently as dumb-founded as I am while another stallion offers twelve thousand Bits to spend the weekend with me. That's ten times what Fancy Pants paid for her.

“Hell if I know.”

“One hundred thousand Bits!” a clear, female voice says from way in the back.

The entire crowd falls silent and turns their heads to look at the pink alicorn mare, who is standing near the doors with her arms crossed in front of her and a confident smile on her beautiful face.

Ms. Harshwhinny points at her without hesitation and says: “Sold! For one hundred thousand Bits to Princess Cadence!”

* * *

After the bidding had concluded, all of us were taken backstage and we were handed over to our 'owners' for the weekend at the back exit. Nobody else even came close to the astronomical sum that was paid for me.

Now I'm sitting in a carriage with none other than the Princess of the Crystal Empire. “Uhm, I hadn't imagined spending this time with royalty, … Your Highness!” I quickly add that last part. I really don't know how to deal with this.

“You won't, actually,” she tells me with a smile. “Celestia asked me to get a gift for two certain stallions. The money I paid was allotted to me for that purpose from the royal treasury. Plus it goes towards a good cause.”

“Oh.” I'm a little disappointed now, to be honest. Spending time with one Equestria's princesses would have been something amazing. So all that money wasn't about me personally, although I still can't figure out why everypony else was bidding so much. Maybe there's something to that pheromone thing that Sam mentioned after all.

“Don't fret, dear,” Cadence tells me, as if she'd just read my mind. Or maybe it was just showing on my face. “You're not expected until Friday night. In the meantime, you and I are gonna go shopping to make you a little more presentable. It's on me.”

A mall trip with the Princess of Love? I guess that's pretty amazing in its own right, although I don't see anything wrong with my attire. But it'll give me the chance to have a look at Equestrian fashion first-hand. Though I wonder who these two stallions she mentioned are.

The Princess is looking out the window as we pass a costume shop, and suddenly her lips curl into a grin that's almost naughty. “You said you were from France, were you?”