Trixieverse 7/Adorable Monsters

Chapters

Zebra Crossings
Impending
Sprung
Delicious
Guest
Reversals
Unmasked
Mama Knows Best
Fluttershy, Revised
Research And Development
Meanwhile Back At Canterlot
Circus
Do It
Accept The Magic
Hornucopia
Adorable Monsters
Gimme A Dun Dun Dunn

Zebra Crossings

“Dear pink and fluffy pony-style, why must your face refuse to smile?”

Zecora gazed solemnly at the heap of blankets, under which lurked a pony. A pink tail protruded.

Zecora considered herself an expert on pony tails: she’d even enchanted a special, magical one for the pony of her dreams. Well, something like that—if the lovely mare in question had stayed the pony of her dreams, Zecora would surely have worshipped her from afar and nothing would have happened. Waiting wasn’t wrong. Zebras were good at waiting, and sitting with their feelings.

But Fluttershy technically wasn’t a pony at all, not anymore. She’d been bitten and infected with vampirism, and had become a vampony, and one dark night Zecora had opened her door to find those huge lovely eyes gazing imploringly at her out of the scruffy bat-winged body of a monster… and heard, through that raspy voice, Fluttershy begging her for help.

Even if she had not been in love, she would still have agreed. Later, she’d learned that Shy could have compelled her with a gaze: but on that night there was only the lovely little pegasus mare, dreadfully changed, and in desperate need.

Zecora had ignored her own desperate need with the stoicism of a true zebra and worked on into the night, and by dawn they had a set of mane and tail extensions that masked Fluttershy’s condition, and when wearing them, Fluttershy returned to her devastatingly adorable appearance. And when she’d hugged Zecora, wings held high in delight, something had lurched inside Zecora and she knew she was lost forever, without undergoing a single vampiric compulsion. She knew that within the vampire was the pony girl she’d crushed on, and her path was set, fate established with a single enchanted pony tail.

But THIS pony tail before her wasn’t enchanted at all! It didn’t even fluff up, it stretched out straight, limp, and morose before Zecora’s disapproving gaze.

And ‘straight’ was the most unreasonable word imaginable for THIS little pony, thought Zecora. Even more than herself, Pinkie Pie was truly a raging lesbian, and had only fathered a foal with Fluttershy due to that quirk of pegasus biology that blended the magic of a stallion with a pegasus mare. They went in for wing-biting and it induced ovulation, just as the unicorns had to arc magic between their horns to ovulate. Zecora knew about ovulation, she’d brewed up enough ‘earth pony’s friend’ in her day. And Pinkie was quite capable of playing the stallion if it meant biting Fluttershy’s wing and kindling an egg to be fertilized by a stallion the usual way.

It made Zecora wonder, and she’d come to Pinkie’s Sugarcube Corner apartment carrying a little sack, prepared to experiment and see whether Pinkie Pie could play into some of her own fantasies. Zecora was a complicated mare, she knew, but she’d had time to think about herself and her sometimes contradictory urges, and she trusted her ebullient earth pony lover to not judge her.

That ebullience wasn’t very obvious at the moment. Zecora had not known Pinkie to mope with her head buried under all the blankets, as if hiding. If, she corrected herself, it even WAS Pinkie Pie: the tail color was right, but the poofiness was completely gone.

She poked the lump of blankets tenderly. “Perhaps your tummy’s feeling ill? I’ll brew a potion to make you well?”

There was no reaction. Zecora’s ears laid back. It seemed almost time to break out Elder voice: where you sat, and spoke without refinement or rhyme, unhurriedly thinking. Those words that were more about listening than talking, those times without judgement where all present knew to hear, and feel, and wait for fullness and understanding to placidly arrive.

This pony, if it was indeed Pinkie Pie, was the farthest thing from Elder voice that Zecora had ever imagined, and so Zecora hesitated, and prodded again with her hoof. “What’s the deal, lemon peel?”

The pile of blankets began shaking violently, and Zecora shied away, her ears laying back… and then in a flurry of activity, everything changed. The lank tail shook itself and foofed out into vast fluffiness and seemed to become even pinker, the pile of blankets rocketed towards the ceiling and fell in a shower of laundry all around them, and suddenly Zecora was confronted with a beaming pink pony, huge wide blue eyes blinking cutely at her, and a smile too joyous to be true.

“I am NOT lemon peel!” giggled Pinkie Pie. “Because lemon peel isn’t fun at all!”

Zecora bridled. “My recipes are quite abtruse! Indeed that peel is of some use!”

“Nah!” said Pinkie. “I think I’ll get Mrs. Cake to leave it out of the decorations and garnishes, ‘cos it’s just plain yucky! Like… Anyway, HI! What are you here for, Zecora? I bet I can guess! Let me tell you, sister, I am here to make you happy and that’s what makes me happier than anything, so your wish is my command! And the funny thing is, I never knew zebra pussy was so good until I met you so my wish is also your wish, how awesome is that?”

She bounced off all four hooves at once. Zecora regarded her suspiciously. “Thanks for your compliments, my dear—in truth your words have soothed my fear,” said the wary zebra mare.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of at all!” said Pinkie Pie, with a great big manic smile and an eye twitch.

“Oh? What about those times when you know not what you declare, or do?” demanded Zecora. “I’m pleased to see you’re feeling well. But ‘never fear’? Like pony hell!”

Pinkie was undaunted. “That’s just Pinkie Sense, silly! Everybody in Ponyville knows that! Now come over here. We’ll have the best day ever, ‘cos EVERY day deserves to be the best day ever!”

“Perhaps we may,” said Zecora. “Perhaps we might. I bring fantasies of the night… for things you’ve done with Fluttershy suggest some things I’d like…” and she gulped, “…to try.”

Pinkie had twitched again at the name, but brazened right through it. “You bet! You’ll get the works, stripey lady, bottomless enchantress!”

Zecora’s ears were splayed to the sides in pitiable flusteration. As always, Pinkie was charging ahead and sweeping everything along in her enthusiasm, and Zecora was sure it would end in hysterics and really copious orgasm. And this was not to be scorned, but all the same her private wishes needed to be honored—and if Pinkie would not wait up, then Zecora would have to jump ahead in her attempt to steer matters.

“Cease, fluff! ‘Tis enough!”

“You’re not supposed to say that until you can’t walk anymore!” giggled Pinkie, confidently.

Zecora caught her eye with a dark zebra stare that checked the torrent of words, and began to speak with a rising passion.

“Pinkie Pie, I do not doubt your special gifts to lay me out. I revel in your tender care as much as any Zebra mare, and I am grateful for your gifts, which always give my day a lift. But this can be a special thing, a secret present that I bring… an intimacy we can share, but only between mare and mare.”

“Mare and mare is the best way to share!” squeaked Pinkie, bouncing again. “And I’m the best at it that ever was, so lay back and I’ll get busy!”

Zecora shook her head, desperately trying to keep hold of the conversation as it kept wrenching itself towards frenzied cunnilingus. “Let me explain! And don’t reveal the things I will admit I feel: it’s taken years to understand what my libido does demand. Do not mistake the things you see, intended to be used on me, and draw conclusions from the sight to infer things that just aren’t right! I swear to you, I am not sick. I brought…”

She trailed off, looking nervous. She walked quietly back to the doorway, took hold of a large sack and carried it to Pinkie with her teeth. She opened the top of the sack, redolent of the herbs and potion ingredients of her lavishly decorated hut, and drew the cloth back to expose the contents: first sturdy fabric harnesswork as finely crafted as any bondage gear of Rarity’s, then revealing more and more of a thick and lovingly carved expanse of ebony, quite literally. Its girth was astonishing, its length spectacular.

It became impossible to ignore what Zecora had brought, and the big zebra scuffed the floor with a forehoof, blushing red-and-black, unable to complete her rhyme, and not needing to.

For indeed, the thing she’d brought intending to be used on herself was a big, black wooden dick.

Just as her eyes lifted and dared to meet her lover’s, Pinkie Pie burst into loud laughter.

Zecora froze, blushing even worse if that were possible, going nearly black on black in her humiliation. She couldn’t look up, but then she felt a little hoof lifting her chin, and Pinkie Pie was kissing her, kissing with a passion to set cities ablaze.

“I don’t NEED that,” asserted Pinkie, every word a monument of her personal truth. “And you don’t either!”

Zecora shook her head weakly, her eyes apologetic. “Pray take no offense. My longing’s intense… but never, of course, for a real male horse! Don’t think that of me! I just wished to see…”

Pinkie’s eyes were triumphant. “Oh, you’ll see, all right! You know what this tells me?”

Zecora blinked. “What?” she said, forgetting to rhyme in her confusion.

“You need a stronger dose!” declared Pinkie. “I remember once I got to play with Rarity as a present, from…” She twitched, and carried on, “…and I knew she wanted me to go all out and it gave her a nosebleed and shook her up something fierce! And she really liked it though I don’t think I really did all I could. And you’re so roomy and big, how did I never think of that before? I’ve just been pleasing myself with the deliciousness of you without thinking of your needs!”

Zecora’s ears wilted. “My offer, it dismays. There will be other days…”

Pinkie gave her another kiss. “Not at all! I’m not the least teeny itty bitty bit dismayed, or sad, or anything like that! Not ever! But this is a very special day for you, stripeybutt. Today you LEARN!”

Zecora’s eyes were wide, and though she remained frustrated at the rebuff, as always Pinkie’s onslaught had her feeling submissive and mare-ly. So, rather than argue (and argue in a very ponyish, contentious way that didn’t sit well with a zebra), she batted her eyelashes and inquired demurely, “Learn what, fluffy-butt?”

The glint in Pinkie’s eyes melted Zecora’s pelvis, and her resistance. So fucking stallionish, for a raging lesbian. If only! She tried to figure out what a gentle tender stallesbian would be like—but there was no time. She was very aroused, and very mare-ish, and her earth pony wasn’t looking gentle at all. A mad light danced in those blue eyes. Zecora hesitated, then surrendered to the advances of her lover.

“Today,” said Pinkie, “you’re gonna learn just how much you don’t need…”

Slowly, solemnly, Zecora lay back onto Pinkie Pie’s bed and watched those bright blue eyes move closer and closer.

“No, darling,” said Rarity. “Not in the least. Nothing of the sort.” Her voice shook with every syllable.

Fluttershy gulped, wincing. “B… but I think it maybe is just the teensiest bit pushy?”

Seeing the wince, Aloe hastily withdrew her hooves. “Too firm?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, that’s just right, Aloe, thank you. I was thinking of something else.”

Under Vera’s pummelling hooves, Rarity struggled to speak with authority, sounding extremely odd as a result. “Fluttershy, y-y-y-you must trust me about this. We-e-e-e-’ve spoken of it befo-o-o-o-re.” As Vera switched to kneading Rarity’s back with her full weight on her forelegs, Rarity hastened to make herself clear. “You’ve got to communicate! I entirely understand you wish to feel mastered. There’s nothing wrong with that, nor in the desire for piquant stimulation, even if it crosses lines for some ponies.”

“But I haven’t even told you all of it,” protested Fluttershy, “and I still feel even this much is being pushy!”

“Eeee!” squeaked Rarity as Vera’s hoof found and flattened a knot of muscular tension. “You see? I am living proof that pain and pleasure can be inextricably linked. The key is communication! I am inexpressibly grateful to dear Vera for this, yet it eeeEEEP! would not be suitable to do just walking down the street, or without permission! They’d lock her right up in fact!”

Vera was panting with effort, but took a moment to ask, “Is this too harsh, miss? Is it a complaint?”

Rarity gave her a hideous grin. “Don’t you dare let up! Ahhnnn!”

“Yes, miss,” said Vera, redoubling her efforts. Rarity’s eyes rolled back in her head, while her gentle friend composed her thoughts, and for a while the only sound was the fashionista’s gasps and squeaks, interspersed with occasional tiny wet noises. All the ponies politely ignored this. The spa ponies did not deliver more personal services, but Rarity often came to them with dreadful stresses and tensions that required Vera’s fiercest attacks upon her aching body. They’d long since established that Rarity’s personal reactions to delicious pain were her business and not grounds for cessation of the deep-tissue massage. Weeping and pleading and grovelling had been part of this negotiation.

As a result of their bargain, Vera did not notice or remark upon Rarity’s orgiastic responses, nor did she attend to the little rag that Rarity decorously laid across the massage table in an appropriate spot to catch her marehood’s enthusiastic juices. Rarity, in turn, had promised never again to moan “Was it good for you too?” afterwards, but had insisted on permission to cry out wordlessly. This, she pointed out, was valid feedback on the massage technique that might be expressed by any spa recipient.

They tactfully didn’t discuss the hypocrisy of this. Cries of obvious pain, that would be grounds for caution from other ponies, were just precursors to Rarity orgasms. Since she’d walked away from most of her secret sadomasochistic life, the spa was one of the few places where Rarity could get off to physical torment. This wouldn’t have swayed Vera in the least, but on the other hoof Rarity orgasms worked wonders at softening her cramped muscles and helped the massage go much quicker, and so the arrangement persisted.

Fluttershy watched thoughtfully as Vera leaned into her work, and made no observations as her elegant friend gasped and squeaked and shuddered, and privately deemed Vera something of a prude. Yes, Rarity was getting off, her lovely alabaster body quivering in pretty little spasms, but she just as clearly didn’t mean to, whatever silly Vera might think.

Fluttershy had watched Rarity come on the end of Pinkie Pie’s tongue. She’d arranged it for them, in fact. The things Pinkie had done inside Rarity’s body had doubtless been just as painful as a deep tissue massage, but on that occasion the fashionista had flung herself into the experience with explosive results, and there was really no comparison.

The combination of stolid back-massage and unicorn gratification did its happy work. Soon, Rarity lay relaxed, her tongue lolling slightly as evidence of the technique’s effectiveness.

“My concern,” said Fluttershy primly, “is that my Dursaa doesn’t wish to harm me. How can it be right to go against his wishes, or trick him? It feels wrong and unkind.”

Rarity drew in her tongue, and gave Fluttershy a sharp glance. “And you know this how?”

Fluttershy blushed.

“You do it anyway,” accused Rarity. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be seeking my advice, would you? I bet you’re going to go straight home and do it again, hmm?”

Fluttershy didn’t answer, but her lovely butter-yellow wings stubbornly lifted to stand erect. She looked away. Aloe and Vera glanced at each other, and Rarity caught their glance.

“Yes, darlings, I believe your labors are completed,” said Rarity crisply. “We will enjoy the hot tub, thanks ever so much. Bill me. Now, it seems our conversation may become private. Hmm?”

Aloe and Vera shared another glance. Aloe smiled. Vera scowled. Together, they tactfully retreated.

“Now, Fluttershy,” cajoled Rarity. “Out with it! Mama Rarity will help you solve this, yes she will! I think you mentioned that you were persuading your husband into sex whilst you were in pony form?”

Fluttershy blushed worse. It was only their privacy that allowed her friend to refer so bluntly to her vampirism and its accomodations. She relied upon the enchanted mane and tail extensions Zecora had made for her, and few in Ponyville had ever seen her true nature. The trouble was, her zebra husband Dursaa had seen it and liked it, for various reasons, one of which had become a bone of contention—and Fluttershy, as always, wasn’t good at contention.

“Tell me!” demanded Rarity. “Then we can properly discuss this! Why specifically are you trying to entice his lovemaking in pony form, when we’ve already settled that he prefers you in vampony form?”

Fluttershy couldn’t meet her eyes. “It hurts.”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed in satisfaction. “And by that, poor darling, you mean that your true form is made of sterner stuff. It’s far stronger and more durable, and you can take a zebra husband in that form and not even flinch. And he likes it that way, but you want to flinch, don’t you? Come on, confess, you’ll feel better. It’s only Rarity, we have been through much! Tell the truth.”

Fluttershy nodded, sulky. “I’m not sure I should feel better…”

“Note whom you are talking to!” said Rarity. “Don’t insult me, darling, it’s for your own good. You wish to be in pony form with him because…”

Fluttershy pouted. “It hurts a LOT.”

“He’s too big?” pressed Rarity, her eyes dancing.

“Oh yes,” said Fluttershy, her wings stiffly erect. “If I let him notice it’s hurting me, he stops right away.”

Rarity licked her lips. Some kinds of girl talk were just too much fun. “Soooo… how hard do you fight to keep him from noticing?”

Fluttershy blushed scarlet. “Hard,” she said, grimly.

The next thing she knew, she was being hugged. Rarity’d zipped over to embrace her, and gave her a little shake. “Listen! It’s your husband, darling, for your well being you should sort this out. He’s making you the delicate flower, is he?”

Fluttershy nodded, pouting again.

Rarity glanced around, checking the doorway, the windows, and bent to whisper in Fluttershy’s blushing ear. “Am I correct that in your pony form, your vampire healing powers still function?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Well… yes! Of course they do! Please don’t say that again, it’s hard enough getting Dursaa not to say it.”

Rarity scoffed. “But that’s my point exactly!”

“What is?” blinked Fluttershy.

Rarity fixed her with a stern gaze, after checking again for listeners. “Darling, really. As much as you adore Dursaa, you cannot let his whims dictate this. You and I both know he could split you asunder and you’d not die. Er, die more? My point being, dear, you are a formidable submissive. You’re essentially undamageable!”

Fluttershy gasped. “I am not! Not submissive, I mean. Maybe I am? I’m sorry.” She shook herself. “What I mean, Rarity, is that I don’t go do the things you used to do in bondage clubs! Maybe I am very submissive but it doesn’t matter if mean ponies could tear me to shreds and I wouldn’t die. I don’t want them to do that! And it would be such a strain on my pegasus magic to put my pieces back together and heal them, it would take weeks, months if I was in many pieces! No!”

Rarity blinked. “Don’t you mean vampire magic?”

“Shh! And no, that stops me from ever dying. More, I mean. I’m pretty sure it’s my pegasus magic that heals my injuries, and it’s a big strain too!”

Rarity gave her a look. “Are you doing it right now?”

“No!” denied Fluttershy. When Rarity’s gaze didn’t waver, she flinched. “Maybe. Oh all right, yes. I haven’t been beating my heart all morning or I’d leak from there, deep inside. I’m not quite done fixing it.”

Rarity licked her lips. “Damn. It’s almost a shame Discord destroyed my old club. You’d be incomparable. Just as well, really, I’d be tempted myself to beg you for, you know… just a little nip…”

Fluttershy went from red to white. “Rarity, no! Don’t ever say such things!” Her eyes glistened. “I don’t want you to suffer, I’ll never pass on this curse to anything ever, so don’t even joke!”

Chastened, Rarity bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy. You’re right, and I am wrong. And anyhow, it’s more exciting to flirt with boundaries when there are consequences.” She glanced at Fluttershy, sidelong. “You know, we are not as different as you might think. I have a similar problem with my Derpy Hooves. She’s happy to take a turn with our magic bit on occasion and I can excite her into heedless passion, but like you I have to suppress my reactions. She only plays that rough if she doesn’t know she’s hurting me. And I like her to hurt me, very much.”

“It hurts very much?” gasped Fluttershy.

Rarity made a sour face. “No, no! Not really. It’s just piquant, dramatic, you know? Being overpowered. You do know, it’s written all over your face. Your Dursaa is quite a lot bigger and stronger than Derpy Hooves could ever hope to be. On the other hand, you have dark vampiric regenerating powers and can get away with more. Lots more.” She twitched. “Sweet Celestia, I must admit I am envious.”

Fluttershy didn’t reply, she just gave a look so miserable that Rarity shook herself and pressed on urgently. “Don’t cry! But do listen, please! We want to maximize your satisfaction, and by that I mean your satisfaction with your husband. He’s not in the least dismayed by your true form. You have got to explain to him that when he is harming you in your pony form, he’s not really harming you! You are indestructible, darling, you can write your own ticket!”

“But he IS harming me,” protested Fluttershy.

“And you like it.”

Fluttershy dropped her gaze, blushing again. “I LOVE it.”

“You shall have it! Communicate, you must communicate. That is always the answer. Go at once and explain to him!”

Fluttershy hesitated. “But that’s not the only thing I…”

Rarity glared sternly at her dear friend. “One thing at a time! You must go and speak to your husband. Our spa visit will have relaxed you, I can see our discussion has aroused you, but we should not continue it in a public spa! Scat!”

She smacked Fluttershy on the bottom with a hoof, sharply. The gentle vampegasus squeaked and zipped off out the door almost before Rarity could blink, and Rarity smiled.

That ought to do it. Fluttershy’s other concerns could be attended to later. No wonder she’d been fretful: Dursaa did tend to treat her like a fragile flower, while also enjoying every bit of indulgence a besotted vampony could provide. It was plain to see his idea of a domestic princess didn’t involve a good hard bucking.

Rarity shook herself, and headed home. After Vera’s attentions, she’d not need a good hard bucking for at least a day or two.

Zecora melted back against the pillows, her legs falling open. Pinkie Pie zoomed in like a vagina-seeking missile. Her mouth opened…

A thick mass of extruded tongue slammed against Zecora’s pussy, prying it wide and plunging into her with forcible urgency.

Zecora whinnied shrilly, twisting on the bed, her eyes showing their whites. She shivered, balancing between erotic excitement and alarm. Excitement quickly won, because she’d not felt anything that thick and hard enter her, just like…

Pinkie’s eyes shut, and her face contorted with effort.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeehhh!” squealed Zecora.

Just as she’d begun to get really excited about the stallionish qualities of that massive tongue, it had changed. Without losing any bulk, it writhed, writhed inside her body like some savage anaconda, churning her. She kicked, writhed herself, to no avail. She felt the hot breath from Pinkie’s nose against her winking clitoris, and then the mad pink earth pony began nuzzling it without slackening her efforts.

Zecora heaved two deep breaths, screamed, flailed… and melted down completely, exploding in orgasm, all coordination lost as her body gave way to a flurry of spasms, nearly passing out. The thick writhing tongue didn’t stop, stretching her out in all directions with cruel force.

Pinkie wailed something, sweating. It could have been ‘more!’ if a pony could articulate that word with all their tongue somewhere else.

Zecora struggled. She’d lost control of her body and her voice, and let out another wild whinnying cry. There was an overtone of anguish to it. While she invited a lesbian tongue-lashing, loved feminine lovemaking, and also craved a big stiff one, she’d hoped to get all of those blended together in a particular way, rather than a big squirming snakey tongue up her, delivered with stallionish ferocity and aggression. It was the best and the worst of all things, all at once, and Pinkie would not let her rest and kept shoving against her G-spot and nuzzling her clit…

Zecora screamed and fainted.

Pinkie sagged. After a while, she reeled in that enormous tongue, wearily.

“…best day ever?” she croaked, and coughed. She turned to arranging pillows under Zecora’s head.

Fun didn’t used to be so hard.

Fluttershy hovered outside her cottage, a few hundred feet up, peering in the window. She often did: while she’d always peeped in windows while flying around Ponyville, there was something peculiarly fascinating about peeping in her very own window.

Inside, the dance of grey, white and black unfolded for another precious evening.

Dursaa wasn’t literally black and white, though his mane and tail stripes got close. Like Zecora, he was stripey shades of grey, his mane going paler, his deep aqua eyes bringing color to the equation. He moved calmly, with authority, the bulky muscles playing supple under his coat and bulging as he moved. Fluttershy quivered to see it, but her husband wasn’t the only part of the choreography.

Off to the side, a white dot hopped. This was Angel, light of Fluttershy’s life, source of all radiance, her beloved bunny and the so-reasonable pet who allowed Fluttershy things like a husband and foals and life itself.

Well… unlife. Logically, Fluttershy knew this was an odd attitude, as she considered her vampirism a curse. But it hadn’t been Angel’s fault when he got drunk off fermented apples, got in a fight with a vampire fruitbat, and bit it. And of course he had still been drunk and obstreperous when she’d come to fetch him and he’d bit HER. And that was it, really. He was the most wonderful and enthralling bunny ever, and his demands for salads were very reasonable, and he did love her very much. And Fluttershy couldn’t help but love him forever. She twitched, realizing this thought was being literally expressed. But who better to spend an eternity of cursed unlife with?

Shaking off the insidious waves of affection, she saw more black and white, and found herself emotionally enchanted for yet another reason. Another little spot of grey stripes flashed across the window, but this time with higher-contrast streaks. It came to a landing in front of her Dursaa, and bounced, and it too was Dursaa: she’d named him after his father, because it had been up to her and she wanted nothing better than to serve Big Dursaa in all things. He was a tiny pegasus foal, and unique among pegasus crossbreeds with earth ponies, he was a true pegasus with tiny black-and-white feathered wings.

He bounced again, crying out something Fluttershy couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter, for he had as yet only one word. Her foal Rock Candy by Pinkie Pie and Big Macintosh had begun speaking with a sentence: ‘when it’s funny?’. There was always something uncanny about little Rock. Rainbow Dash’s Northern Spy had begun with ‘okay!’ and stuck on that for a while. Little Dursaa didn’t need more than his one word for the time being, and certainly not when fluttering into his father’s firm hug: he was all set. Fluttershy imagined she could hear that adorable little chirp, so thrilled.

“Da!”

And his ‘Da’ cuddled him with a gentleness that belied his great size, and carried him up to bed. Fluttershy lost sight of them for a moment, and then Big Dursaa returned alone. Angel gave him a sour look and hopped upstairs too, for he got bunny-jealous at times, but he was such a good bunny and remembered the best thing to do. And Big Dursaa sat down to wait.

Fluttershy flew sedately down to rejoin her family, so well-adjusted and solid and alive. Well, except for Angel and herself, but Angel was so truly wonderful that he couldn’t be faulted for that. She pulled open the door, and walked demurely in, feeling Dursaa’s warm gaze, shyly peeking up from under lowered eyelashes to submissively meet that gaze.

“My hooves, dear wife, are passing sore,” rumbled Dursaa. “When you’ve rubbed mine, shall I rub yours?”

Fluttershy trotted over, and began to knead his weary hooves between her own. “Does that properly rhyme, dear? You’d have to call them ‘sores’, I think, and I’m sure we’re both very grateful they are hooves rather than actually sores.”

He shrugged, and she swooned to see the muscles bulge and shift under his striped coat. “A hard day’s work has tired my brain, it’s true! My secret’s safe when shared with such as you.”

“Oh, you’re tired, poor darling?” crooned Fluttershy. “How tired would that be?”

Dursaa rumbled a wordless dismissal, and shook his mane. The gesture seemed to shake the whole room, and Fluttershy got quivery feeling it, and more quivery when he elaborated, “I’d pull a plow from break of dawn to sunset’s close, and still return to rub your tiny precious toes!”

“My hooves are perfectly fine, dear,” replied Fluttershy.

“Is there nothing I c…”

Dursaa broke off, rhyme unrhymed. Shy had peered up from under those long eyelashes and froze him with a glance. It wasn’t a Stare, wasn’t any form of vampiric compulsion at all, but for all that he found himself speechless.

“If you’d like,” said Fluttershy, and dropped her gaze, blushing.

Big Dursaa sniffed the air, and gave a jerk, rocking the house again slightly. “Mm. Mmmm!”

“I suppose that counted as a rhyme,” said Fluttershy, “but if you ask me it’s not a very difficult one.” She flicked her tail, coquettishly, and winked, not using her eyes. He couldn’t see it, but he sniffed the air again with great interest.

“Shall we spend some happy minutes, ‘tween just me and you,” said Dursaa, “celebrating pleasures given to the form that’s true?”

Fluttershy frowned. “Must I? I’m used to wearing this mane and tail. Can’t you love me for how I am?”

Dursaa’s eyes widened. “My preciousest lover, won’t you reconsider? Do please think again! I fear that our coupling with you in this body can cause quite a strain!”

Fluttershy stamped a hoof, and then immediately dropped her gaze again. “Oh, fine. Then you take them off. Just like you did once, remember? Go on. I love you.”

He hesitated. “But… why do you mope? It’s my fervent hope to cause you no slight, to bring you delight. Oh, Fluttershy, I’m terrified our mating is travail. Why must a Zebra stallion try to tap that pony tail?”

Fluttershy heaved a small and fluffy sigh. “Fine,” she said, flicking the tail in question. “We’ll use the butter again. Since you don’t trust me with zebra penis without artificial help.” She pouted.

Dursaa’s eyebrows expressed pitiable uncertainty. “Are you sure, darling mare, that’s the cure for fitting in there?”

“Of course I am. And that wasn’t a very good rhyme,” chided Fluttershy. Then, she winced. “I’m sorry! Technically it was fine and it was the scansion which was off, but more importantly I’m being manipulative and trying to vex you! Please forgive me?”

Dursaa snatched her up bodily and hugged her, and she felt like a tuft of feathers snuggled by a draft-horse. “Of course I shall! I don’t begrudge the ploy! My only wishes are to bring you joy!”

“Ooooh!” gasped Fluttershy, and winked again. Being seized by Dursaa always excited her, though it never led to anything as fierce as she wished. It was always this strange tension between the warm glow of his love, and the fiery passion of feeling her small and vampiric body grabbed up by a vast and good creature that could seemingly destroy her without effort. This balance haunted her fantasies.

The fantasies kicked in, hard.

“Go get the butter, NOW,” ordered Fluttershy. “Hurry!”

She stood, legs trembling and set well apart, as he thundered into the kitchen, wrinkling his upper lip to hang on to the pheremones she was winking into the air with soft wet kissing noises. Every time he grabbed her that way, Fluttershy lost all control of her libido, and it was all she could do not to manipulate and coerce him into screwing her violently. But not coerce, no! Never a Stare, never her powers, it was bad enough that she wanted to wheedle and con and trick him into doing it. Fluttershy fought to be good, feeling bad, awaiting the sanctity of his erotic blessing and punishment. It was wonderfully hard to tell the difference at times, and it triggered her on every level at once.

His hooves came clopping back, and the house shook again as he thudded down onto his butt. Fluttershy whimpered and winked again, looking behind her to see her zebra husband, with a look of intense concentration, smearing butter with his hooves onto every inch of his massive and hardening erection. He didn’t want to leave the tiniest bit unlubed, except…

“Farther down,” ordered Fluttershy, with a shaking voice.

Dursaa’s eyes bugged out. “Exquisite mare… I would not dare!”

“Do it!” squealed Fluttershy. She panted. “I can take it. I promise. Please, please, please…”

Dursaa bit his lip, and smeared butter a few inches lower. Then, as he held her gaze, he continued, watching her lovely hindquarters tremble and her pussy wink, until he was lubing up his swollen medial ring with a questioning look.

Fluttershy moaned. “Yes! Give me that.”

Dursaa paled beneath his stripes. “You give me far too free a rein. Such madness I won’t entertain.”

“No rhymes!” squealed Fluttershy. “No thinking. Oh, my husband… fuck me!”

Dursaa shut his mouth. His eyes were wide, his nostrils flared… and he walked, step by step, over to his pegasus wife, dwarfing her.

Fluttershy screwed her eyes shut with a little ‘eeee!’ and set her hooves farther apart, bracing herself against his great weight. Behind her, she heard him speak softly. “You’re sure the butter is enough?” He sounded frightened.

An impassioned squeal was the only answer he got. He glanced up the stairs anxiously, but little Dursaa slept like a rock and had been accustomed to night noises nearly from birth.

Dursaa mounted.

Fluttershy gasped as her zebra’s weight crushed down on her dainty hindquarters. That wasn’t a problem, she could bear that sort of load if she was braced and didn’t try to move. What turned her to jelly was the fact that with his weight bearing down on her, she couldn’t move even if she did try to. Helplessness… or at least it seemed like it as long as she felt like a frail and delicate pegasus mare and not an undead monster.

Helplessness it was, then. Fluttershy found it much easier to pretend if she wasn’t showing scruffy ears and fangs and exuding vampiric toughness. With Dursaa mounting her, she felt very small and weak again.

That wasn’t all that felt small. Fluttershy had known stallions, but rarely. She’d started a foal with Big Macintosh, but he’d been on his back and passive at the time. She’d had a rather nervous farm worker stallion, once, and she’d goaded a pack of stallions into a gangbang. Dursaa was like the most mind-blowingly intense experiences of her life, but that way every time… and if she was careful not to reveal too much, Dursaa had some very special qualities.

He didn’t know his own vast strength, and he didn’t really understand what it felt like on the other end of his dick. To him, pinching or wedging or cramping sensations around him didn’t mean a lot. Even Big Macintosh couldn’t claim that: the Apple stud-horse had worked the other side of the fence with Braeburn, his second cousin, and knew the alarming results of a big dick poking too far.

Dursaa, the hulking zebra, was a hopeless romantic but had no sense of this at all—and Fluttershy waited, heart pounding, to experience his inexperience. Every time was like dying… again, she supposed. It was so wrong, and so right.

He prodded, and she fought back a shriek, her body winking frantically against the blunt fleshy surface that jabbed her entrance.

He took a deep breath.

Then, Dursaa’s hips slowly pressed forward and Fluttershy felt her frantic vagina get wedged ruthlessly wide, the hot hard bulk scraping into her like some huge uncompromising machine. He moved with care, but he so obviously didn’t understand. What was a stiff tight band to him, uncomfortable yet piquant, was a battering ram to her, searing fire.

Fluttershy made a feeble croaking noise, and her husband instantly stopped.

“All right?” he murmured. He never rhymed while having sex. He’d said it was a moment of great importance and attention. It wasn’t a moment, it was typically seconds, but even counted in mere seconds Fluttershy knew it would take her to her utter limits… especially the end.

She forced herself to be silent and make no more pain noises, and she wriggled her butt under him, as best she could.

He sighed, the poor fool, and with a tender shove he sank the rest of his stallionhood into Fluttershy, to his usual depth.

Fluttershy’s eyes bugged out. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. The sensation of getting penetrated by a fence-post had in a single powerful gesture become the sensation of getting penetrated by Canterlot, or at least a tree-trunk. He might as well have been a dragon. She felt like a thin scrap of pegasus stretched agonizingly over a burning phallus the size of her whole body. It wasn’t true, his cock wasn’t even the size of a foal’s head, but she’d had foals and one thing about them was they started out buried deep in a mare’s womb where penises did not go.

Dursaa’s penis hadn’t got the memo.

She felt his weight shift, and with a soft infatuated grunt he began moving. He’d learned through repeated experience that his mare seemed to get excited by taking a lot of dick, taking it very deeply, a good hard shove. Nopony had told him otherwise, and he had not made love to any other mare.

For what it was worth, it was true, but Fluttershy had her own reasons for things, some of which she did not reveal. She adored Dursaa’s infatuation and tenderness, but there was a part of her that wished her cursed body to be destroyed.

So, as Dursaa drew his stiff erection partway from its cramped confines and then slid it in to where his wife liked it, Fluttershy’s eyes instantly crossed with agony… and she also began to orgasm ferociously. It seemed to ram way up inside her, beyond her womb and female parts, though what was happening was simpler and scarier. Her vagina was being stretched on the end of that hard horsecock, shoved up into her chest. It didn’t open to let him deeper, because it couldn’t. He’d just pushed deeper anyway, puzzled at the solidness inside her, reassured by her frenzied shudders and clenches.

Fluttershy could really clamp down at extreme moments. It didn’t do much against an aroused zebra cock. Dursaa was incompressible, like granite with his infatuation. He made tender little nudges way deep inside her, harrowingly rammed against her displaced womb, nuzzling her mane as she shook and gritted her teeth.

If she screamed, he’d stop instantly, or even withdraw. Fluttershy absolutely, utterly refused to scream.

Instead, leaking tears she was desperate not to let him see, she wriggled her shuddering rump against his crotch again.

Dursaa moaned, taking the hint. Fluttershy felt like the top of her head was getting ripped off as he set up another languid thrusting, dragging the monstrous thing out through her tight-strained pelvis and the searing band of slick labia that strained her clit right up against the moving shaft, and then with an easy unhurried motion, cramming Fluttershy’s helpless body full of stallion-meat beyond imagining again. She knew she wouldn’t get him to move roughly no matter what she did. And there was nothing she could do, anyhow, besides that ridiculous little wriggle. Her voice would betray her, she was pinned down with no hope of moving, and in some ways that excited Fluttershy most of all: she was rendered utterly passive, and her stallion was just taking her as if he didn’t care.

And he cared, he cared so much, but as long as he didn’t know the truth he would keep on grunting softly, shifting those massive hips, and the whole country of Equestria would continue to shove into her hated vampiric body, agonizingly splitting her down the middle, sucking back out with a huge hollowing-out sensation, and then shoving heedlessly too far again until she nearly felt that medial ring enter her, and all too soon her eyes widened with a stricken, doomed look as she felt him throb and his flare expand out where there was no room for it to expand, searing her with tearing sensations inside and…

Dursaa grunted, and began to come.

Inside Fluttershy, thick gouts of zebra come began to pump, irresistibly. Zebra magic included the copious ejaculation of the stallions. It was a mating thing, one of the sexual peculiarities of equines, meant to squirt in and wash out competing stallions’ issue.

Fluttershy had never told Dursaa what it felt like if you were a smaller pegasus mare, with a zebra crammed up to your neck, feeling him begin to do that even while you were too tight to allow the fluid to spurt out.

Silently, in the privacy of her own mind, Fluttershy died—her body burst asunder, exploding from the internal pressures even while clasped lovingly in her zebra husband’s forelegs. Her body turned to fire, then light, a milky white light like the bountiful zebra semen that pumped in tighter and tighter to displace the vampire parts and crush them, leaving only the physical evidence of his love for her unworthy self, or the pony she could have been had things gone differently. In that wild mixture of agony and orgasm, Fluttershy felt herself that little pegasus pony, frail and delicate and not equal to the forces of her virile husband, and she cried out at last in sweet anguish as the white fire flooded her brain, and tottered under his weight, her vision dimming…

She came to, still braced, still impaled, but Dursaa seemed to be trying to take some of his weight on his hind legs.

Her eyes were still crossing from the physical agony. She could feel her vampire nature kicking in, a powerful and insidious sensation of strength. It took no pain away, but suddenly there was no unsteadiness and she could have supported his whole weight if she’d had to. She loathed the feeling, but there it was. She could have gone again, but already she felt him softening, and the equine flare that had rent her asunder was dislodging itself.

Dursaa nudged her ear, and unthinkingly she turned to look at him, forgetting her eyes.

His face crashed in dismay as he saw the pain and tears. He opened his mouth and no words came, and Fluttershy panicked as she saw his dreams collapse around him.

“I’m fine,” she rasped, the stress rendering her pony voice nearly vampony-like. “It’s good. Was… it good for you?”

He gulped, his ears laid back, the whites of his eyes showing. “But… don’t cry…”

His cock had fled the instant he saw her pain, as usual. It’d shrunk away and popped out of her, followed by a torrent of zebra semen. Slightly pink zebra semen, even though she’d stopped her heart to try and avoid revealing any damage he did.

Fluttershy fought through the pain she’d been welcoming, scrambled for an answer, but all that came to mind was Rarity’s advice, that she’d ignored. She hadn’t communicated. She’d made a big point of not communicating, because there was no way he’d understand, and now here she was, with her husband who probably wouldn’t have sex with her anymore, and so what more was there to lose?

“We need to talk,” she said apologetically, still shivering and twitching from the forces that had briefly ruined her.

Dursaa’s eyes were anguished, tragic. He couldn’t even rhyme. “What?” he said.

“About what I need from sex,” explained Fluttershy, very gently. “I’m sorry, it might upset you.”

Dursaa gulped. “Is it… you are a pony, after all. You do not wish a zebra lover?”

“Oh, no! It’s not that,” said Fluttershy. She hesitated, and glanced up at him. “I’d like… two.”

Impending

“Oh, no, I quite understand, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, ruffling her wings nervously.

Twilight Sparkle lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Celestia averted her gaze, to Trixie’s obvious amusement, and added, “I don’t mean to offend. Perhaps I’ve erred? It wouldn’t be the first time, dear Twilight Sparkle, and doubtless won’t be the last. We can fall back upon simpler ways, if you like. I know you have been through so much, and if I…”

“Wait,” said Twilight Sparkle.

Trixie watched, with great satisfaction, as Princess Celestia did just that. She stopped mid-sentence, and peered at Twilight Sparkle with some trepidation but not a word of objection: best of all, with a kind of deference. Not deference as shown to a superior, no, but a respect as between equals. Twilight hadn’t even raised her voice or looked up, but for all that, the Princess waited.

Of course, Twilight was a Princess too… in a sense.

Princess meant Alicorn. It turned out to be a condition one could attain through exceptional service to magic itself, and the alicorns had seen many strange methods of joining their ranks. But until Princess Twilight Sparkle, they had never seen a pony become an alicorn, take on all that power, willingly accept it… and then have it all go terribly wrong.

If not for the sacrifice of Fluttershy, Twilight would have destroyed herself and Celestia and Discord in a fit of jealousy and madness. If Fluttershy had not been already dead and thus unkillable by even an alicorn death-bolt, the events of that day would have been incomparably tragic. As it was, Twilight’s alicorn nature had been stripped from her at a stroke, and she’d reverted to the unicorn form she’d been born with… the form Princess Celestia had patiently raised and educated for years, the form that had driven Celestia to prudery in desperate attempts not to take liberties with the endearing, bookish filly in her charge. She hadn’t thought she swung that way, but the power of a lavender unicorn girl was strangely irresistible.

Celestia had also been occupied trying to sort out her feelings for the alicorn Chaos: once Discord, before that Starswirl the Bearded—her stallion lover thousands of years past. A complicated and tricky relationship to be sure, yet it was Chaos who’d encouraged her to dally with her once-student Twilight in the belief that all the terrible drama had been borne of simple sexual frustration.

Truly, they had been through so much.

Trixie smirked. She’d been through a lot too during Twilight’s alicorn period, but she’d won out quite conclusively. The lavender unicorn of contention was hers, and had wound up as mortal as she was. And one shocking afternoon of restrained royal debauchery and pony-spanking had stripped Twilight of her old worshipful feelings for her mentor, leaving a very shook-up unicorn mare who had a lot of thinking to do.

Trixie liked being with Twilight while she was thinking—or reading—or pretty much any activity, if it came to that. She happily watched Twilight think, and felt an extra twinge of satisfaction to see Princess Celestia remain silent and attentive.

Twilight had retained the title of Princess, because nopony had ever known a Princess to de-alicorn themselves in a fit of violence, and since no final harm had been done by it. But it wasn’t the title that silenced Celestia. It was love… and respect.

Twilight spoke.

“I never said I wanted to go back to our old ways, Princess. I don’t want to turn back time. What I said was, ‘don’t’. Don’t invite me and Trixie to your chambers, don’t make hints, not right now. You’re subtle, but it’s easy to guess what you’re suggesting. I’ve learned so many things I could never have imagined. I like learning things. I feel certain that I would like to learn more…”

Celestia’s eyes lit, but she didn’t speak. Trixie’s amused gaze held her, and then Twilight glanced her direction and she couldn’t speak, for those violet eyes took her breath away.

“I remember, you see,” said Twilight. “I remember what it felt like being an alicorn exploring the fullness of my body. I remember how it felt on that side, and now I’m in Trixie’s horseshoes for a change, getting both sides of it… Do you know what I feel like when you look at me that way? I’m a moth, Princess. We’re both moths, Trixie and I…”

Trixie snorted, fondly. Twilight glanced her way.

“Okay, fine! Just me, then. Trixie’s a, a… blue-arsed fly, and not impressed by your flame…”

“Oh, really?” sniffed Trixie. “Mistress is so complimentary!”

“Would you rather be a red-arsed fly?” threatened Twilight, smirking.

Trixie stuck her tongue out at her beloved, and ceased her sarcasm.

Twilight turned back to her Princess—whose eyes glistened just a little, who trembled faintly—and continued with an odd gentleness. “You must understand. I feel like I’m a moth, and you’re the flame, and that isn’t the way we should be. I understand that Starswirl once felt very similarly, and look what happened there! Princess, you’ve got to give us time. I know I’m mortal, I know compared to you I’ll be gone so quickly… nevertheless!”

Princess Celestia gulped, her heart hammering. Even Trixie’s gaze turned more sympathetic.

“I’m sure we can be with you, in time,” said Twilight. She glanced at Trixie, wryly. “My marefriend is much less impressed with you and isn’t one bit scared of you. We trust you to be responsible and not arc with us, and anyways you’re no adolescent. And I still love you, I always will. But slow down! Doesn’t Chaos keep you busy?”

“Chaos will last,” said Celestia softly. “As will my Order. It is the fugitive that haunts my thoughts.”

Trixie’s eyes bugged out. “A fugitive? Are you going to break out the hoof-cuffs? Can I have some? Eeee!”

Twilight smacked her disobedient rump, with another smirk, both unicorns giggling like schoolfillies. “Behave! She means ephemeral! Like soap-bubbles or mists!”

Then, she glanced up to see her Princess’s eyes shimmering in earnest, and Twilight’s heart went out. She hopped to her hooves, trotted a few steps and strained Celestia to her in an embrace, with no argument from her Trixie. Celestia couldn’t speak for lip-quivering, so Twilight looked her in the eye and did the talking.

“I am NOT a soap-bubble!” she asserted. “You take care of yourself and me and Trixie will work this out, and we’ll find a way to be part of your life. Private life, I mean. Now I know how she felt when I was a crazy alicorn! Take a deep breath. Maybe I should have failed more tests when I was a filly! You’re totally hung up!”

Princess Celestia shivered. “I love you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight gave her a sharp look. “Is Chaos keeping you busy? Or is this her little game, pointing you at me?”

At that, Celestia drew herself together. “Twilight! Nopony ‘points’ me, first of all. And yes, Chaos spends time with me. Perhaps that’s part of it. It’s been thousands of years since that side of me found exercise.”

“In what form?” demanded Twilight, shrewdly.

Celestia flushed. “I, ah… several, in fact. All right, many. My darling is ingenious.”

“No no,” said Twilight, while Trixie watched in unconcealed delight. She’d always suspected Big Snobby had a capacity for debauchery, and now she was getting the inside scoop. Twilight pressed further. “I mean, is Chaos using a magic bit and turning male for you… or is she teaching you stuff I should know about?”

Celestia couldn’t answer at first. On the one hoof, the questions were unthinkably intrusive. On the other, the two unicorns whose presence she shared were individuals she longed to bring into her innermost circles, longed to have no secrets from. She gulped. “Chaos… is teaching me to be better with mares. Sometimes. When I permit it. Enticing me, you might say.”

Trixie squeed. “You used to be so stuffy! Trixie knows little Chaos is both cute and clever, but how is she managing that?”

“By turning herself into… into…”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. Her ears laid back. “WHAT are you suggesti…”

“PRINCESS TWILIGHT!” came the voice from outside the Golden Oaks Library door, and all three ponies jumped.

The door swung open, and Applejack barged in. “Beggin’ your pardon, but if you could jes’… oh!”

Close behind her came a trail of little and still littler ponies. Rock Candy followed Applejack attentively, his half-brother Little Dursaa bouncing along beside him. Rainbow Dash trotted alongside Fluttershy, and at the rear of the procession was Northern Spy, pouting and looking sullen… until she looked up and saw who was inside the Library.

A tiny fillyish squee cut through the air, and then a small green form cut through the crowd, jostling Rainbow Dash and knocking Rock Candy to the side in her mad charge. Northern Spy pounced and hugged Princess Celestia around the neck in glee, with the thoughtlessness of one who’d been invited to sleepovers in the Princess’s castle in Canterlot since almost before she could talk.

Princess Celestia flailed a forehoof and flapped awkwardly, but Spy clung on like a limpet, crying out “Princess!”

“It is good to see you again, little one…”

“Make Mom leave me ‘lone! It’s ‘portant!” insisted Northern Spy.

Twilight and Trixie wore matching looks of astonishment, and Applejack turned to Twilight sheepishly. “Uh, we just come out here to see if you could give some advice to our lil’ tearaway?”

“She won’t listen to us,” added Rainbow Dash, “and I can’t always catch her anymore.”

The unicorns’ astonishment doubled. Rainbow Dash blinked at their dumbfounded looks. “What?” she said.

Twilight reeled in her dangling jaw. “First of all, why us? Secondly, how is that possible? And you seem not very bothered by it!”

Applejack visibly sulked, but Dash looked smug and said, “I did this too when I was a kid. Real chip off the old block, this one. We just gotta keep her safe while she gets through this stage, okay? And that means going and looking for someone she might listen to who’s not Mom. And look, look!”

They looked. Princess Celestia was cuddling Spy who still hadn’t let go, cradling the filly in an enclosing foreleg as Spy chattered.

“She says I can’t go out and it’s super important and we gotta fight the monsters and how can we do that if Mom makes me stay home and it’s really not fair and I’m a big girl and make her not say that any more!”

Twilight’s ears laid back. She murmured to Trixie, “She never cuddled me that much!”

“Would you want that,” whispered Trixie, “knowing what you now know?”

Twilight twitched, stricken. “Good point.”

Applejack cleared her throat. “So… on account of our lil’ equine delinquent is too much like her Mom and won’t attend to us no more… Princess Celestia, will you kindly tell this little pony not to bust out of second story windows and run away from us when she’s grounded?”

Celestia boggled. “Good heavens. Second story windows?”

“Yep,” confirmed Dash, with a wicked grin. “And I used to say baby can’t fly.”

“Is this true?” continued the Princess, turning to her clinging filly necklace. Spy, sensing disapproval in Celestia’s horrified tone, dropped to the floor and scowled, chastened.

“It was important!”

“But how?” cried Celestia in dismay. “You’re ephemeral enough without daredeviltry!”

Twilight shot her a glance, and she hastily composed herself. For generations, Princesses hadn’t fussed terribly over the shorter lifespans of little ponies, and Twilight’s look suggested that the presence of the old, calmer Celestia was in order. Other, more intimate discussions would wait.

Northern Spy had lit up with pleasure and pride, and was already answering. “Easy! I just aim for the little hillside. It dips down so I don’t hit so hard. All I gotta do is tuck and roll and not flip too many times or I get dizzy. Then I run really fast and I have to dive into the…” Her eyes bugged out, and she glared at Blue Mom and went stubbornly silent, unwilling to give away her escape routes in Dash’s presence.

Dash’s smirk threatened to leave her face. “Oh, keep going,” she suggested. “Dive into the what? I’m dying to know.”

Fluttershy tsked. “Northern Spy, you should not be running away from your parents! Don’t you want to be a good little pony?”

“Nah,” came the reply. Not from Spy, from Dash. She was still grinning. “So here we are. Thanks for coming along and bringing Rock, Fluttershy. Maybe we can work through him?”

Rock Candy blinked up at the grown-up ponies. His appearance couldn’t be called dignified, for he was wearing his little brother like a hat. Little Dursaa had fluttered his way up into the air again, and landed on top of Rock’s head, nearly toppling him. Finding himself secure, he’d gone for a itty-bitty pony nap, his black-and-white-striped wings folded. He made for a very large hat but as yet a very small little brother.

“It really is important,” said Rock softly.

Two pegasi, two unicorns, an earth pony and an alicorn all blinked in surprise.

Spy nodded proudly at Rock. “It totally is!”

“We should go?” said Rock, looking at Spy.

“Like hell you will,” said Applejack, setting her jaw. “Time you answered to somepony! Rock Candy, I saw you born, you mean to tell me you’re goin’ along with this foofaraw? How you ‘spect you’re gonna get away from this crowd? All we’re lackin’ is the Elements of Harmony!”

Rock blinked innocently at her. “I might not, but the Green Streak can rescue Rock Lobster from any imprisonment, so only one of us needs to get away.”

“Rock what?” said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack moved to block the door, grimly. “Keep talkin’. I reckon you’re gonna stay and hear us out, and that goes double for our girl here. Rainbow? Fluttershy? Cover all them exits. Watch her! Now, Mister Rock, what do you think you’re gonna do?”

“This?” said Rock meekly.

They stared, uncomprehending, for a moment. Then, Fluttershy shrieked at about the same time that little Dursaa fluttered his wings and woke. Rock, with a deadpan expression, was toppling over to the side, carrying his little sleeping brother as he went.

As Fluttershy rushed to catch him, Northern Spy made her break.

She bolted for the Library door, but Applejack blocked it, so she swerved and dodged Rainbow Dash’s swoop, leaving Blue Mom to knock over Trixie and a bookshelf. “Cease!” cried Princess Celestia as Applejack demanded, “Fluttershy! Stare her!”. Fluttershy, catching the tiny flapping colt just as he was about to thump to the ground, replied “No!” and Dash burst from beneath the wreckage of the bookshelf, pulling incredible Gs in the confined space, trying to match the trajectory of her fleeing filly who was using centrifugal force to run right up a wall and, ducking her head and twisting in midair, was about to smash right through a…

Northern Spy slammed directly into a glowing violet field of force.

She dropped, but instead of hitting the ground, found herself flailing at hyperspeed in midair, suspended by a violet glow that had seized her little powderblue tail. She floated, held well clear of any target for her thrashing hooves, over until she hung upside-down in front of her captor.

Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat. “ONE Rainbow Dash smashing through my windows is enough,” she informed Northern Spy.

“Eeeee!” squealed Trixie, delighted. “Twilight with the interception!”

Applejack stampeded over. It was only a few feet, but she managed to stampede in even that short a space. “What do you think ya doin’, Northern Spy? You’re bringin’ shame on our family with them outlaw ways! Apologize!”

Dash blinked. “Whoa! Wait a second. What if it was a double feint? Is Rock…?”

She looked over. Little Dursaa was bouncing happily, making tiny squeaks of excitement at the wonderful show. Rock sat quietly, a look of saintly patience on his face, Fluttershy firmly standing on his tail.

“Apparently not,” said Dash. “Hey, Fluttershy? No Stare, huh, even at a time like this?”

Fluttershy caught Rock’s eye, but found no sign of further shenanigans. She released his tail. “Certainly not. Rock Candy, you are grounded for a week for roughhousing with your little brother. I realize he is a zebrapegasus but that means nothing if he is sleeping, and he might have hurt himself.”

In Twilight’s grip, Northern Spy scowled dreadfully, and trembled with the urge to flee madly in every direction. “You’ll never hold the amazing Rock Lobster!” she raged.

“What does that even mean?” demanded Twilight.

Spy blinked, puzzledly. “Uh… I dunno,” she said, and shrugged. Then, she glowered again, getting back into the spirit of things. “You’ll never get the Rock Lobster to make sense! He’s a genius and the brains of the outfit!”

“I’m afraid part of that is a teeny bit true,” admitted Fluttershy. “Besides the obvious brains part, I mean. He is a very clever boy but it’s true he is odd. But Mommy loves him all the same, isn’t that right Rock?”

“Will Mommy still love him in a lil’ pony jail?” demanded Applejack. “Cos so help me, if this goes on…”

“Stop!” came a commanding voice, and all the bickering ponies did. It was the voice of Princess Celestia, with just a hint of Royal Canterlot Voice, and all heads turned toward hers.

She cleared her throat, and it was Northern Spy, dangling truculently upside down by her tail, whom she addressed.

“Why? Northern Spy, why are you and your little colt friend doing all this? Please be so good as to tell us.” She gave a subdued royal glower. “At once.”

Spy met her gaze, and there might have been sparks flying from the clash of wills, but Princess Celestia had seen many recalcitrant foals in her thousands of years. She didn’t yield, and showed no sign of hurry.

“Tell Twilight Sparkle to put me down and I’ll tell you. But only you,” said Northern Spy.

Twilight bridled. “Princess-only, huh? Little girl, there’s more than one Princess in the house.”

Rock Candy blinked, struck by a stray notion. “The hizzouse?”

“No, it’s her house,” explained Trixie, but the contentious ponies weren’t distracted for even a moment.

“You got no wings!” said Spy scornfully.

It didn’t faze Twilight. “I’ve got your tail. Think again.”

Princess Celestia was undeterred. “Nay, Northern Spy! You must needs admit your secret to all present. Do you know why, little pony?”

“Why?”

Celestia bowed her head solemnly. “It must be a dreadfully big secret. You bear the signs of a pony out on a mission of grave import, facing terror, danger and doom quite fearlessly. You must learn to trust your friends. Including, I fear, parents.”

Applejack snorted, “Aw, COME on…”

“Sh!” hissed Dash, for she saw the look in her kid’s eyes.

Spy considered this. Yes, she thought, she and Rock had to protect all the silly grown-ups and parents. Yes, it would be a terrible thing if some annoying horse like Blue Mom stole all the glory, which she would surely try to do if Spy was any judge. And yet… the big beautiful wise Princess was right. She was calling to Northern Spy’s most ponylike nature, and the call said: how can you deprive other ponies in the herd of a fair chance at glory and excitement? Even, horrifyingly, parents?

“Put her down, Twilight,” urged Celestia. Quickly, she added, “Not on her head!”

Twilight rotated the green filly and placed her decorously on her hooves. Quietly, she murmured “Damn…” to Trixie.

Spy took a deep breath. “We need to go find the monsters that scream. You can come if you want.” She pouted, disappointed to share the laurels, but her pony decency and the wise gaze of the good Princess compelled her to.

The response was in unison. “WHAT monsters that scream?” retorted every adult pony.

Spy’s eyes bugged out. It hadn’t occurred to her that the grownups didn’t know about this. Full of glee that she knew something the big ponies didn’t, she began bouncing in place and squeaking, “The monsters! You know! Rock heard them! We’re getting closer and closer to finding them! It’s super important, let’s go right now!”

This time, Dash caught her by the tail, for her attention wasn’t on evading Blue Mom. She turned and cried, “Come on, Mom, let’s all go get ‘em!”

“Whoa there,” ordered Applejack. Spy, in her new cooperative mood, quit tugging against Dash’s grip and sat, her gaze pleading with all those around her, but Applejack wasn’t done. “Is that what the whole mess was about? Rock heard stuff and you’re haring off to investigate? You’re an Apple pony right enough, but kindly fill us in, short stuff! What do these monsters sound like?”

“I think I heard some too!” squeaked Spy. “Rock heard them and we made up a team of superheroes and we’re gonna save the day!”

“They scream at night,” said Rock quietly. “It’s awful. It sounds like they hurt. They hurt so bad, but there’s something wrong about it, it’s more than just hurt.”

Fluttershy’s eyes shrank to pinpoints. She stared at nothing, and slowly began to blush red.

“What makes these sounds?” demanded Applejack, turning to Rock.

“We don’t know! But it must be something very bad. Sometimes it’s real quiet and sometimes not so much and then quiet again, like it doesn’t want to be heard. But it can’t be a regular thing hurt very bad, because it keeps going on and on and on…”

“Where?” pressed Applejack.

“Mostly out by the Everfree Forest, near Mom’s house. That’s why we have to do something about it before it gets Mom!” pleaded Rock Candy.

Applejack blinked. “You telling me somethin’s ready to attack Fluttershy, and you never told…”

She erfed, and whipped her head around to glare at Dash, who’d poked her butt with a hoof. “Do you mind, Rainbow?”

“Look at her,” hissed Dash urgently.

“Look at who?” said Applejack, and then she followed Dash’s gesture.

Fluttershy was scarlet with embarrassment. Her eyes begged for some kind, any kind of help in changing the subject. And her wings were standing stiffly erect… quivering.

Applejack stared in stupefaction for a moment, then gathered up her jaw and her wits and resumed talking.

“Er, well, all righty then! Dang. Uh… Right grateful to you lil’ scapers for huntin’ down what you might call, um, wild animals…”

Rainbow Dash heroically almost fought off a snigger. Fluttershy thwapped her with a hoof.

“My point being,” continued Applejack, “there’s things you little ones don’t know. Without tellin’ too many tales, I think you’ll find them noises you’re worried about ain’t that bad. In fact, I think I can tell you that all you’re hearin’ is jes’ plain other ponies, doin’ stuff. Um… of which stuff, I ain’t gonna tell you. Exceptin’ that it’s grownup pony business, and don’t you pry, an’ one day maybe you’ll find it ain’t exactly pain of which you’re hearin’…”

“Only if you’re doing it right,” quipped Rainbow Dash, smirking her little blue face off.

“Don’t,” mumbled Fluttershy, scarlet.

“My point being that y’all need to lay off the sleuthin’ and superhero-ing!” declared Applejack. “I promise it ain’t nothin’ but other ponies an’ one day you’ll understand, hopefully a long way off an’ Celestia help us on that day is all I can say…”

“It’s not,” said Rock Candy.

“Whut?”

Rock stared at Applejack as she boggled at him. He didn’t blink, or waver. “It’s not. No pony voice can make sounds like that.”

“Wanna bet?” murmured Trixie Lulamoon. Twilight, smirking, cuffed her.

“I promise, hon,” said Applejack. “Ain’t nothin’ but us ponies. Don’t you be afraid.”

“I got a thing from my Mom,” admitted Rock. “It’s pretty weird. It tells me things I don’t understand…”

“Earliest puberty ever,” murmured Trixie, trying not to burst out laughing.

“Trixieee!” wailed Twilight, and cuffed her harder, provoking a fit of giggling that she promptly joined.

“She calls it a Sense,” said Rock, and the grown-up frivolity abruptly stopped. He added, “That’s why I know it’s not a pony. There’s something terrible and wrong, and it’s getting closer.”

Applejack set her jaw. “Now listen here. We’ll go and talk to your mom Pinkie as soon as we can and find out whether she’s Sensing anything. She might be a lil’ weird if she is, but don’t you mind that. Why do you think you’ve got your own Pinkie Sense?”

“He might,” said Fluttershy. She looked worse than before: not just embarrassed, but sick with shame and guilt. There was a peculiar sullenness about her suggesting that whatever was driving her to those noises, she wasn’t ready to give it up.

Applejack glanced sharply at her, and then looked around the room. It seemed clear enough: ponies could be awkward, and then when you got magic ponies it just made things more complicated, and then when ponies got real frisky with each other the complication turned impossible and sometimes downright alarming. They’d all seen the signs. It seemed the more special a pony was, the more harrowing her sex life became, and Fluttershy was unique. She wasn’t even equine anymore. Nothing equine could take the damage Fluttershy had undergone, and live. And indeed, Fluttershy did not live, but it didn’t stop her sulking and blushing and looking stubborn.

They couldn’t talk about everything in front of the kids, but they most likely didn’t need to. Unspoken glances were explaining an awful lot.

“Listen,” said Applejack briskly. “I’mma tell you that Fluttershy ain’t in no danger. Isn’t that right, Fluttershy? I’ll remind us all that she is one tough, ah, pony.”

“I am in no danger,” confirmed Fluttershy, quaveringly.

“Your mother is more powerful than you know, young Rock Candy,” reassured Princess Celestia. “Mayhap we had better not say why? She has saved even my life, and need not fear anything that could come out of the Everfree Forest. She cares for dangerous creatures and they flock to her in love and friendship. Do not fear.”

“Not only that,” continued Applejack firmly, “I can tell you somethin’ else. There won’t be any more scary noises. Understand? Them noises, they’re gonna stop. I promise. Now you gotta stop the carryin’ on. Understand? Stop the carryin’ on!”

Rock and Spy looked uncertain. All the grownups seemed so sure of themselves. Fluttershy hesitated with a stricken look at Applejack, and then reluctantly nodded and said, “There won’t be any more scary noises. They will stop.”

“I found some awesome trails near the Everfree Forest,” said Northern Spy disappointedly. “Can I still follow them?”

Rainbow Dash tousled her foal’s mane. “You know what? We’ll go follow them together. We can be our own little superhero team. How about it?”

Spy’s face broke out in smiles. “Awesome!”

“Can I still be Rock Lobster?” said Rock plainitively. He glanced up at Fluttershy, clearly fretting over her distress.

“Totally!” replied Rainbow Dash. She flew over and hugged him, and then poked Fluttershy. “Hey. Smile! Everything’s gonna be okay.” She leaned over and whispered fervently, “…soundproofing! I’ll help!”

Fluttershy gulped. She hugged Rock as well, and said, “I’m so sorry, Rock. Don’t worry. I would rather not explain what’s been happening, but things will, um, er… it will be very complicated but there won’t be more noises, okay? Almost certainly not, okay? Not for a while. And if there are, pay no attention, dear sweet Rock Candy. Please!”

Applejack glanced at her. “Dang. It’s that good?”

“Shh,” urged Fluttershy.

“Do you have, like, a rental program?” teased Rainbow Dash.

“Dashie!” objected Applejack. “Ah think maybe we best disperse. Sorry for invadin’ your home, Twilight.”

“No problem,” said Twilight. “At least this time I don’t have to replace the window!”

“Perhaps I’ll be going as well,” said Princess Celestia, bowing her stately head in farewell to each dear little pony. Lastly, she leaned down to nuzzle Twilight’s smiling face… and stiffened briefly for no reason any other pony could see.

Twilight’s smile didn’t leave her, but just for a moment her magic had seized Celestia’s lovely ear, and the lavender unicorn had favored her with a whispered message.

“Stop the ‘carryin’ on’!”

“Sorry,” whispered Celestia, her face reddening.

“The real thing is coming,” hissed Twilight, and then turned away, still smiling, to usher her pony friends out.

Celestia hastily took to the air. After a few minutes of flight, she felt composed enough to meditate on the peculiar flavors of vanity, and how they could express themselves. The message she’d been given was essentially unchanged, but clarified. Truly, all unicorns sought by alicorns felt themselves special and chosen, and the call was undeniable. She resolved to not call too loudly, whatever her feelings, because it wasn’t fair to Twilight Sparkle. Better for the lovely unicorn to come of her own accord.

Celestia twitched. She’d have to speak to Swirlie about that. The chaos power had to have some limits. No more improper pretending… even of Twilight as orgasmically-linked triplets. Whatever she did, she would have to be able to admit to.

Applejack trotted into Sweet Apple Acres, well satisfied with the resolution of things. Dash and Spy had zipped ahead, far quicker than she could follow, to go look at some of Spy’s trails as long as they weren’t too near the Everfree. Fluttershy had gone home with Rock, and Applejack hoped she’d behave: that mare (well, vampire, technically) was a real challenge and got awful horny. Of course, she led an exotic life, too. It proper made Applejack wonder what it was like with a…

She reared and whinnied with alarm at the sudden, striped, huge shape that moved out of the corner of the room.

“Oh, older, wiser Apple mare, I didn’t plan for you to scare!”

“Land… sakes! Mister Dursaa, now I recognize you!” said Applejack. “What on earth brings you here this time of day?”

“Applejack, you know my wife: to Fluttershy I’ve pledged my life. She’s borne my foal, she brings my joy, and nothing shall that love destroy, save trouble I cannot avert, which does my psyche disconcert…”

Applejack boggled. “The hell you talkin’ about, Dursaa? Stop talkin’ fancy!”

He gulped, gathered his wits, and proceeded to talk fancier and plainer at the same time—and Applejack’s eyes widened in comprehension.

“I’ve come to you because I needed wisdom and advice. Why does she want our sex to hurt when I want to be nice?”

Applejack took off her hat.

“Dang, honey,” she said, weakly.

…

Somewhere, deep in the Everfree Forest, something moved.

It didn’t move very well. There was no chance of that. But it moved all the same, dragging itself along.

It paused, exhausted, for a time unable to drag itself further.

Faintly, a ghastly and tormented wail rose out of the darkness.

Silence resumed. Then, even weaker scrabbling noises.

It continued. How could it not?

Darkness… deepened.

Sprung

“So,” said Spike. “How’s our good little not-doing-crazy-stuff unicorns today?”

Twilight cackled. Spike’s face fell.

“Are you at least going to stay out of some kinds of trouble?” he suggested, hopefully.

“Sure, Spike,” said Twilight. “Oooh! This one, I’ll wear this one!”

She held the garment up for Trixie’s approval. This approval came in the form of a moan, because the garment was one of Rarity’s finest. That wasn’t quite the same as ‘nicest’, for it was a deep blue garter with seafoam-green lace. Held up against Twilight’s rump, it had the effect of suggesting the hint of a rosy blush through color contrasts.

Spike gawked at Trixie’s expression, and hid his face in one small draconic claw. “You guys don’t really get the ‘live simple pony lives with less excitement’ thing, do you?”

“What good is that?” scoffed Trixie.

Spike was undeterred. “Good is exactly the point! Look, I get it. You’re grown mares, you have these interests. I’m not exactly a grown dragon, but I’ve known Twilight a really long time, and I’m just wondering about a few things.”

“Such as?” asked Twilight, smiling.

“Such as, what was that laugh about? It didn’t sound like a good little pony laugh. More like, Rainbow Dash playing a prank.”

Twilight’s smile dropped. “Oh, That. Um… it might be a little hard to explain?”

Spike crossed his arms. “Then you’d better.” After a moment, he added, “Please? I still worry about you, Twilight.”

Twilight and Trixie exchanged a concerned glance. “I don’t want that, Spike,” said Twilight. “What do I need to…”

“Tell me why that underwear is so funny,” said Spike. “I know it doesn’t tickle, because you don’t laugh like Rainbow Dash from being tickled.”

“Yes she does!” protested Trixie. “Trixie can show you! She can even do the squeaks if you exhaust her enough!”

Twilight eeked and scampered away from her marefriend, her ears back. “Nooo! Down, Trixie! It was a real question!”

“Very well,” sniffed Trixie Lulamoon. “Does that mean you have a real answer?”

Twilight’s ears drooped. “I suppose I’d better.”

Spike folded his arms again, expectantly.

“We’re going on a sleep-over, in Canterlot. With the Princess,” admitted Twilight, beginning to blush.

Spike studied her. “Gosh. Maybe it really is true. I thought I was imagining it for a while there.”

“What?”

“You really did start doing that icky sexy stuff with Princess Celestia, when you were an alicorn,” said Spike. “Well… I guess I’m glad that’s working out for ya, but it seems risky.”

Twilight paled to lilac. “We’re not! I’m not. Seriously. I… what gave you that idea, Spike?”

He regarded the two unicorns levelly. “Did so.”

They exchanged another glance. Twilight gulped and admitted, “A little. We’re not going to do any more, not yet. It was me deciding that part, though you might not believe me.”

Spike looked at the lacy garter, still dangling off the magic of Twilight’s horn. Hastily, she dropped it.

“All right,” said Spike. “I even believe you. But, and I understand that this might hurt my head a whole bunch… what exactly are you doing with that?”

Twilight went back to blushing, but didn’t let it stop her. “We’re, um… teasing Princess Celestia. She agreed me and Trixie could have a sleep-over and she wouldn’t expect to do anything with either of us. She just would like to have me under her own roof again, as a guest, She’s really not gonna do anything, Spike. I trust her self-control as much as any pony I’ve ever known. It’s perfectly safe. So… well, we were going to think up stuff to bring and wear, and say it’s night attire.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” said Spike.

“I told you, I trust her! We both do. Trixie’s even willing to sleep in the same palace as Princess Luna because Celestia is there.”

“But that’s not what I asked,” said Spike. “Of course Princess Celestia will be good. Though the idea of her getting crazy with the rest of you ponies scares the flint outta me… no, what I meant was, is that the kind of thinking we used to expect out of Princess Twilight? Is that what I’d think of as… Princess wisdom?”

Twilight hesitated, and Spike looked dismayed. “It’s not, huh? And you know it?”

“This is the part that might be hard to explain to you,” said Twilight.

“I got all day,” said Spike. “Try.”

“Well… It’s not that I don’t know it’s naughty. I get that,” said Twilight. “I even understand that it might not be exactly Princess-responsible. I really am glad that you’re such a good dragon who knows right from wrong. It means a lot to me. I don’t want to suggest there’s anything wrong with you being unfailingly responsible. You’re my number one assistant and totally dependable in every way and that’s great! But, Spike? Here’s the thing. I don’t have to be. Not anymore.”

Spike searched her eyes, and she let him. Nothing was found there but unicorn earnestness, and so Spike waited for her to explain further, and she did.

“I was an alicorn, Spike. I had all this responsibility, my power was so great it was dangerous, Trixie was in a lot of danger and I can’t say I was all that good about staying responsible. But now? I’m back the way I was. I’m a very powerful unicorn, still, but… it’s so different, just so different.”

“Trixie loves you in every possible form,” insisted Trixie.

“Immaterial,” retorted Twilight, and winced. “Sorry, Trixie. You know I love you… and you, Spike, though not at all in the same way…”

“Phew!” offered Spike.

Twilight smirked. “Your opinon is noted! But do you understand what I’m saying? I had to be incredibly responsible. I had such power. And now… it just doesn’t matter, Spike. I’m not scary. I don’t have to be so responsible because I don’t matter nearly as much as I did…”

“Ha!” scoffed Trixie.

“Oh, you!” giggled Twilight. She turned to Spike. “Would you believe, it means I can play?”

Spike considered this. “Hmmm.”

“Maybe it was surviving Magic Kindergarten a second time. Maybe it was having Trixie to go through it with me. I don’t know what it is,” said Twilight, “but I always worried so much and was such a good little pony, and now it’s like I’m…”

“A troublemaker?” suggested Spike, helpfully.

“Free.”

Trixie’s eyes shone with happiness. Twilight gazed at Spike earnestly. Spike gave her a weary look.

“If they put you in pony jail,” he said, “I’m not sure I should bail you out.”

“There’s no pony jail!” protested Twilight.

Spike considered this. “Hmmm. Wait, I know, this used to make you hide under the covers. …Magic Kindergarten! For a third time!”

Twilight stuck her tongue out at him. Trixie giggled.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Are you at least going to be nice? My little troublemaker?”

At that, Twilight trotted right over and hugged him, nuzzling his cheek. “Of course I will, buddy! How nice do you want me to be? Can I be as nice as Trixie?”

Spike made a face. “Let’s be a little more ambitious than that!” he suggested, and Trixie pouted.

“How about as nice as Rarity?” offered Twilight. “You love Rarity, and she and I have things in common. Being unicorns, certain hobbies…”

“I do love Rarity,” admitted Spike, “and no, not Rarity.” He gulped. “Though she is very wonderful… but yeah, not so much. I was hoping for more of a… how about Fluttershy? Can you be as nice as Fluttershy?”

“Trixie suspects even Fluttershy is not as nice as Fluttershy,” said Trixie. “Have you forgotten the whole vampire thing? And apparently she had sex with ALL the farm ponies at once…”

“Not Fluttershy!” said Spike hastily. “How about, uh, Applejack? Wait, did you say… ew! How is that even possible?”

Twilight wore a sour expression. “Definitely not Fluttershy,” she said. “I wish I could come up with a little payback for dear sweet wonderful Fluttershy, if I can do it nicely.” She twitched. “Sorry, it’s a bit of a sore spot. Every time I see her I remember her flinging herself in front of my horn, getting in the way.”

Trixie gasped. “You don’t mean you would rather have gone through with your attack? Mistress, Fluttershy not only saved Chaos and Princess Celestia, she most certainly saved your life!”

“And shortened it quite a lot,” grumbled Twilight. “All right, all right, I’m grateful because she saved absolutely everything and everypony. And how she knows it!”

At that, Trixie looked thoughtful. “Trixie is not sure she does, Mistress. She doesn’t seem happy, even though she has that zebra husband and a family and everypony loves her. There is something dark and troubling there.”

“The stench of vampiric evil from beyond the grave?” hinted Twilight.

“Mistress! Fluttershy is very nice! Maybe she feels guilty about being a vampire? It doesn’t seem to worry her husband.”

“Maybe that means she has him in her sick, perverted thrall, sucking his willpower along with his…” and Twilight glanced at Spike and hastily amended, “blood?”

Trixie stamped a hoof. “Fluttershy wouldn’t do that! She is very strict with herself. She doesn’t even seem like a monster, she’s charming, very submissive. It really means so much to her to be treated as just another pony. When she wears those mane and tail extensions it’s easy to forget.”

“Maybe that just makes her thrall easier?” suggested Twilight. “It’s, like, pony thrall? Would that be a more adorable kind of thrall to be in? You know, cuter and more seductive?”

“Whoever heard of pony thrall?” retorted Trixie. “You’re right, though, it sounds adorable…”

“Girls!” cried Spike. “I never even heard of pony thrall! Stick to the subject. Twilight, can you try to be as nice as Applejack? For me. C’mon.”

Twilight blinked at him. “Firstly, you’d be surprised at what that mare gets up to… no, you wouldn’t, would you? You’ve been privy to some things about Applejack’s private life all along.”

“Well, Applejack’s a really good pony,” said Spike. “You know that.”

Twilight’s ears were laid back as she contemplated the prospect. “I don’t know, Spike. I don’t think I can be as simple as Applejack, and that’s part of her niceness. I’m no farm pony. I’d get bored. Are you gonna suggest Rainbow Dash next? I think I might be able to manage that one.”

“How about no!” cringed Spike. “Okay, last offer. It seems like you really want to have more fun. Can you be as nice as Pinkie Pie?”

Twilight blinked at him, taken aback.

“Be careful what you wish for, Spike…”

Applejack peered fretfully in the doorway. “Uh… Pinkie?”

“HI!!!”

“Gyahh!” wailed the trusty farm pony. “How’d you git behind me, Pinkie?” She whirled to face her dear, cheerful, sometimes disturbing friend. “Ah was just checkin’ on you, makin’ sure you was all right!”

“So did Cloud Chaser!” replied Pinkie, bouncing into the room. “Because she had to pull a double shift and she didn’t want to leave me all alone! And she flew down down down ever so fast and gave me a big hug and then she flew up up up and was all gone!”

“What were ya doin’ in the stairway,” asked Applejack, “and why din’t I see ya, Pinkie Pie?”

“I wasn’t doing anything in the stairway!” said Pinkie, bouncing in place. “I can be anywhere I want and I don’t have to be in my house and I could be in anypony’s house if only I asked! Stairways are fun! They’re the way for one place to go to a totally other place, did you ever think of that?”

“Uhhh, right enough,” said Applejack. “We, that is me and Dashie, thought maybe it might be nice to see how you were doin’ and all…”

“As if she hadn’t been through enough, the poor pointy-ended wretch!”

“Whut, Dashie?” gawked Applejack in confusion.

Pinkie blinked innocently. “What?”

Applejack shook her head, as if to clear it. “Anyway, because of some things that’s been happenin’… hang on, honey, where’s Rock?”

Pinkie bounced again. “Rock Candy is visiting Little Dursaa and his Mom! Or maybe it’s big Dursaa because we can’t tell because it’s the same name! How funny is that?”

“Yeah,” said Applejack uncertainly. “Them folks seemin’, you know, happy? Content?”

“But too pointy! She’s too pointyyyy!”

Applejack laid her ears back. “Aw, honey, I kinda agree with you but ol’ Fluttershy, she can’t help that, it’s how she’s made! She’s real good about it and we all got to do our best, please don’t turn against Fluttershy ‘cos I fear that would hurt her awful bad…”

Pinkie blinked, startled. “What? I don’t understand what you mean, Applejack, and I would never hurt Fluttershy in any way. I love her and always will! Don’t ever think I would abandon her, that would never ever happen. Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye, Pinkie Promise I will always care for Fluttershy, you silly! What are you even talking about?”

Applejack bridled, eyes wide, the whites showing. “Don’t be mad, please, sugarcube? I din’t mean to insult you. It’s jes’ that you said… Well, you said, ‘too pointy, she’s too pointy’ and natural I figured you was talkin’ about Fluttershy and that’s why I said…”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” asserted Pinkie Pie, brightly. “And I was standing right here so I ought to know!”

Applejack faced down the big, bold smile. “Uhhh… Pinkie honey, could it be that you’re gettin’ your Pinkie Sense again? You know, them times when you say stuff and don’t know what you’re saying, and all like that?”

“Probably!” said Pinkie. “But it’s all perfectly okay!”

“It is?” ventured Applejack. She flinched. The smile had brightened. “Ah mean… it is! Sure enough it is!”

“It is,” insisted Pinkie Pie, “because everything is going to be one hundred percent totally and completely fine, even when I don’t understand all of it! I just know that things are going to lead to happiness and joy for all the good ponies and you must know it too and it’s even okay if you are doing the same thing as silly Chasie and checking up on me because it just shows how nice you really are!”

Applejack shied away from the incandescent glory of that Pinkie Pie smile. It totally lacked fangs, which was easy to tell because she could see nearly all of Pinkie’s teeth. Why, then, did it make her more frightened than fangs would have?

“Wull… okay,” she said. “Hey, I got th’ afternoon, do you want to trot down to the Whitetail Woods? There’s a nice field me an’ Dashie had some fun in. Uh, I ain’t hittin’ on you or nothin’, not unless you want me to, I jes’ thought we might spend some time…”

“That’s very sweet and nice and kind and totally awesomeriffic,” said Pinkie Pie, “but nope! Right now I have very important things to do, so go ahead and play your games with Rainbow Dash in the field and don’t mind me.”

Applejack’s ears were laid back again. “Now see here, Pinkie Pie…”

“Nope nope nope! You should see her in the field like you said. I bet that’s not all you do in the field! Go and do that, I have very important things that can’t wait!”

“Ah’ll help you do them,” vowed Applejack. “Ah will! Don’t care what they are.”

“Do you mean it?” squeaked Pinkie, bouncing. “Do you, do you?”

“Hell yes I do!”

“Go fetch the left hand leaf of the sixteenth three leaf clover third from the left just behind the rock under the waterfall near the brook by Whitetail Woods, where me and Spike were announcing from the balloon!” cried Pinkie. “Hurry, hurry, right away!”

Applejack charged straight out the door, down the stairs, out of Sugarcube Corner, and screeched to a halt with all four hooves braced, right in the middle of the street.

“Whut th’ HELL was that?”

And she went back, but the door was locked—and after much fruitless banging and entreating, eventually she proceeded on her way.

Inside, a straight tail stuck out from under Pinkie’s trembling bedcovers. It had been very important to hide under there until she could force herself to keep up appearances again.

Rock would be home before very long. She needed to be the Mom he knew, and it had to be good. Sometimes, he seemed to read her a little too deeply.

It worried him, and that terrified her. What did he see in there that he wasn’t talking about? He wasn’t saying. He just clowned harder and tried to amuse her. It was to laugh, clearly. And so, Pinkie Pie made sure to happily laugh at her child’s endearing goofiness…

…FOREVER.

A tiny powder-blue tail lashed.

“Slowly, the Green Streak crept through the scary dark forest…”

“It’s not really dark,” suggested Rainbow Dash.

“What?!” squeaked Northern Spy, much affronted.

“It’s not, it only seems like it because the canopy of leaves is so dense,” said Rainbow. “We can still be back in time for dinner.”

“YOU’RE so dense!” accused Spy.

“Yeah yeah. Sorry for harshing your mellow, okay? Carry on,” said Dash, trying to fight back her smile. It wasn’t even a smirk, for Spy was just that cute, but all the same the fond smile would annoy the tyke.

Spy flounced her mane and resumed her ominous crouch. “Slowly, the Green Streak crept…”

“Since when does a green streak go slowly?”

“MOMMM!” wailed Spy.

“It’s a real question! Kid, you’ve got an amazing turn of speed, and I should know,” argued Rainbow Dash. “You tellin’ me we’re going to go deep into the Everfree Forest and not use it?” Privately, she thought: and if you do go anything like ‘deep into the Everfree’, not just ‘barely across the road from Fluttershy’s place’, you’ll see my speed too…

Spy flared her tiny nostrils in contempt, adorably. “That’s for when I pounce! This is the sneaking up on the monsters part! Now be quiet! Slowly, the Green Streak crept through the scary dark forest…”

Dash carefully avoided goading her filly on further. Her ears were perked to catch any dangers, and barely twenty feet away from the road so near to Fluttershy’s on a lovely afternoon there was truly no chance of danger, which was why she’d suggested the location.

“Can I sneak too?” she whispered. A tiny apple-green ear swiveled to listen.

“Yeah, if…”

Spy froze. Dash stiffened. It hadn’t been a loud noise, but it was worrying. It was very distant, and it was a sort of croaking scream, impossible to interpret except for one thing. There was no way it was a pony, much less a carousing mare up to sexual mischief. And it was deep in the Everfree Forest.

“Oh, crap,” breathed Rainbow Dash.

Before she could draw another breath, the Green Streak was gone.

“SPY!” shrieked Rainbow, instinctively taking to the air with a roar of powerful pegasus wings. She nearly burst through the tree canopy, and then she saw foliage rustling in the distance and realized she didn’t dare lose sight of Spy’s path. Kid could be almost anywhere in seconds. She dove for the area she’d seen moving, crying out, “Spy! Meet up!”

She landed in what passed for a clearing, looking around frantically, drawing a deep breath, but before she could call out again the leaves parted before her. A tiny green head appeared, glowering like Applejack crossed with Granny Smith crossed with a terrible stomachache.

“Be quiet!” demanded the Green Streak. “This is the fast sneaking part!”

Rainbow Dash tried to gulp her heart back down her throat where it belonged. Her voice shook. “Kid you know we weren’t actually meant to CATCH…”

Northern Spy’s teeth were gritted with determination. “Sneak quiet or go home! No yelling! I should have got Rock for this, I knew it.”

Dash’s eyes were wide and terrified. It wasn’t over her own safety. It was for Northern Spy’s proven ability to evade Blue Mom. She was about to go hunt the monster, with or without help.

Chip off the old block, then.

“Applejack’s sooo gonna kill meee…” moaned Dash, very very quietly.

“That’s better,” hissed Spy. “This way!”

She vanished. Dash choked back a whimper, and followed. The powder-blue tail receded through the underbrush with surprising stealth.

“I have a better idea,” managed Dash when she’d caught up, voice still at whisper level. “You wait by the road, I’ll do an air strike.”

Spy ignored the suggestion. “No, I need you for the final pounce.”

“Uh, right, I’m great at those,” whispered Dash, “so how about we turn around and you can direct me from a strategic position, huh?”

The tiny filly gave her an exasperated look. “That’s dumb! No, when I pounce on the monster it might try to run away. Or maybe I would smash it so hard it’ll fly into the air. You have to be there to catch it out of the sky in case I can’t get a good enough jump, so be ready.”

Dash paled. “Oh no no. Uh-huh. I’m bigger, I get to do the pounce. Maybe you can, I dunno, herd it toward me? Go behind the danger and drive it in this direction.” She boggled privately at the suggestion, imagined herself trying to explain it to Applejack, hastily stopped thinking about that.

“The Green Streak doesn’t let mommies do her pouncing!”

Rainbow Dash was hyperventilating. “Hoo boy. Uhhh…”

“This way,” hissed Northern Spy, and vanished into the underbrush again.

Dash followed suit, every shadow seeming to hide filly-eating monsters. She weighed the chances of simply tackling Spy and carrying her off, no matter what the enraged foal might do to her ear or other edible Rainbow parts that presented themselves. The trouble was, ponies got mobile in a big hurry. Spy’d picked up not merely a ponylike ability to run, but a formidable strength and agility combined with a determination that was like an alloy of both Dash and Applejack, plus the power-to-weight ratio of Big Macintosh. Northern Spy would never be a pegasus, would never fly, and her bones and sinews were sturdy like a plow-horse—but the reflexes that powered them came from her Blue Mom.

Rainbow Dash was not at all sure she could wrestle Spy away from the danger, but she was sure of one thing: if she tried and failed, that would be the last she saw of her kid for a while. Spy’s escapes had become legendary, and Dash had been curiously proud of that. Now, she saw the other side of it.

She eeped. A little green face with its pale blue mane had popped up right in her path. Spy wasn’t trying to flee her this time. The Green Streak was trying to whip Blue Mom into shape.

“You gotta be quieter! We can get there in less than a minute if we sneak real quick but you gotta be quieter!”

“I’m sorry,” whispered Rainbow Dash desperately. “I will. Can, can we both pounce?” Out here, there was no Apple family to be annoyed by her kid’s pushiness, no other adult ponies trying to pull rank and pissing the tyke off. Out here, Rainbow Dash recognized a kind of equal, far less experienced (tragically less experienced? no, don’t think it!) but a personality she recognized as akin to her own. Out here, in the thrill of the hunt, it didn’t matter that she was asking Spy’s permission. Spy was on the trail and would not be dissuaded, but she could be bargained with.

The small filly face scrunched up in thought, then cleared. “Sure. But you need to be ready in case I knock it in the air!”

“I will!” whispered Rainbow Dash, with absolute conviction. That got her a radiant Northern Spy smile, and Rainbow melted inside to see it, and privately vowed: if it’s dangerous, kiddo, it will have to go straight through me to hurt you. I bet I can outrace you when I’m this keyed up. You think you are too—you think you’re cranked to the limit, I can see it in your eyes—but you don’t have a foal, and you can’t begin to understand.

The world seemed to crackle with energy as Dash silently crept along after her foal, who’d grown so amazing but was still so terribly naive. She hoped the sound of her heart pounding wouldn’t alert anything.

Spy froze.

“What?” hissed Dash furtively, and then she heard it.

It was just a tiny rustle of something shifting its weight, but it was a big something, much larger than a bunny or a bird or any small animal. It wasn’t where they’d been heading. It was to the side…

Spy was gone, just like that. The rustle turned into a scrambling noise among the underbrush, just an instant of something pony-sized or larger detecting its danger and reacting… and then an awful squalling noise ripped the air.

“SPY!!” shrieked Dash.

She dove through the foliage, not caring what was on the other side, and smacked straight into a treetrunk and spiraled out of control into a bush. Shaking her head to clear it, she struggled to her hooves, twirling in place to look in every direction and nearly falling over…

“Stop, help, quit it! Gaaaah!”

That wasn’t Spy’s voice. But all the same, it was unmistakable. Dash dove straight through the bush and burst out the other side.

“GILDA?” she squealed.

Gilda the Griffin stood at bay in a small clearing, unable to flee. She was trying to, and her formidable beak and front leg talons were free to do battle, but she was captured all the same. Technically, her hind paws were free as well, and the claws were bared in alarm and agony… but one feline hind leg was not only clasped in filly forelegs, but was also clamped in pony teeth.

Tears came to Gilda’s eyes. Blood was running down her leg. “For fuck’s sake, Dash! Why do I always have to be the pony chew toy?”

Rainbow didn’t know whether to weep with relief or scream with rage. “What the fuck are you DOING here?”

“It’s complicated… owww! Make it stop!” wailed Gilda.

“Kid! KID! Northern Spy!” yelled Dash, running over and whacking Spy with a hoof.

Spy’s eyes met Dash’s. She clung tighter with her forelegs, opened her mouth, licked her lips and cried, “I got it! Help Spy fight monster!”

“Hey! Look again!” demanded Dash. “Look, look! It’s fuckin’ Gilda, you know Gilda!”

Spy looked.

Spy squeed.

“Gilda is awesome!” she cried, and instead of savaging her paws, Spy wrapped forelegs around her neck in an eager pony hug.

Dash panted, her body shaking with reaction. “There you go. Sorry about the griffin-eating monster. How did you not attack her, Gilda? Holy crap! You’re in the Everfree and something does that to you and you just stand there? Not that I’m complaining!”

“I told you it was complicated,” moaned Gilda. “Ow, ow… Of course I didn’t attack, Dash, I’m fucking in love and it’s gonna be really awkward and there is just no way it can work unless… dammit, I try so hard, I’m half starving and I don’t know if I can do this but…”

“Slow down,” ordered Rainbow Dash. “You left the griffins again? I know you always had a weakness for ponies but I thought we kinda scared you the last time. I’m still with Applejack, babe, but you knew that. Is that what’s so impossible? Talk to me, I’m not gonna let you fall. We care about you, so explain what’s going on.”

“I know you do!” protested Gilda, trying to lick her injured paw. Spy was still clinging affectionately to her neck, but she’d never been afraid of Gilda even as a tiny foal. “Maybe you can help? Owwww… maybe you can help me walk, even? I could fly but I don’t know if that would go over well, but now I’m not sure I can walk…”

“I am so sorry,” said Rainbow helplessly. “Dammit, Spy! This is Gilda, you hurt Gilda!”

“Yay, Gilda!” squeaked Northern Spy, nuzzling her face against the feathers of Gilda’s neck.

“Oh, settle down, Dash, don’t look so tragic,” muttered Gilda. “You know how griffons are. I’d joke how that was great foreplay, but I know this is your kid, plus my heart apparently belongs to a pony already. Sorry, Spy, that didn’t win my love after all. Griffins play a lot rougher than that. We’re such fuckin’ sluts for a good ass-kicking, aren’t we? I’m just sick about it, Dash, you gotta help.”

Dash kicked the ground with a forehoof uncertainly. “Wait a minute. I thought I knew what was going on. You’ve got this weak spot for ponies and we had a thing together, me and you and then you and Applejack, and that went in bad directions and you went back to your people, but now you’re back in Ponyville…”

“Yeah,” admitted Gilda, her face-feathers ruffling.

“And you’re being super peaceful even with my kid eating your foot, and you say you’re half starving and I KNOW what you eat…”

“Got to stop it. Got to. Somehow,” muttered Gilda.

“And that always bothered me though I don’t remember Applejack being upset by it, but you didn’t try to change for me, did you—you told me you can’t eat grass!” said Dash. “Which I thought was true. It is true, Gilda, look at you, you’re not anything like a pony! And you’re asking my help but you’re not hitting on me.”

“Sorry,” muttered Gilda. “You’re still awesome. I just… Dash, I can’t get over her, I seriously can’t. I’m so pissed off with myself I can’t stand it. You gotta help me. Can griffins eat acorns or something? Do fish count? I’m not sure she counts fish as animals.”

Rainbow Dash wobbled. “You’re in love with…”

Gilda’s facefeathers were so ruffled with blushing that she looked like a baby chick. A tear dripped from her eye.

“Fluttershy,” she admitted.

Delicious

“Wait, Rainbow, start over,” said Twilight. “Slow down. Gilda’s back? Does anypony know that? The last time she was in town we nearly had a riot! Rarity got trampled trying to protect Derpy Hooves!”

“She’s not really in town!” said Rainbow Dash. “I told you! She was in the Everfree Forest, lurking around trying to get some hot pony action! And that’s not the craziest part, either!”

Twilight was blinking rapidly as thoughts raced through her head. “I suppose the Everfree Forest might be an appropriate place for Gilda…”

“She’s in love with Fluttershy!”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. She stared at nothing. “Guh…”

“Rainbow Dash, you broke Mistress!” accused Trixie. “Trixie thinks you did that on purpose!”

“It’s the truth!” said Dash. “I know it sounds weird, but it’s a griffin thing, they play really rough. I still have a little but seriously badass scar on my tit from doing Gilda extra well. And don’t you remember, Fluttershy totally kicked her ass and that’s, like, foreplay for griffins! She can’t even help it, all she wants is Fluttershy now! It’s kind of a relief, she’s really hard for me and Applejack to handle.”

Twilight made a sour face. “I’m not sure I believe it. What does she want to do, pick flowers? Feed bunnies? That seems extremely implausible.”

“She wants,” said Rainbow Dash impressively, “HOT PONY DICKINGS.”

Twilight Sparkle twitched. She stared at nothing again, her eyes pinpoints. Her ear twitched.

“Huh,” she said.

“Well, she does,” protested Dash, but Twilight wasn’t finished.

“Heh. Heh-heh. Hee. Hehehehe… heeheehaahahahahaha…”

“Oh dear,” said Trixie concernedly. “That laugh again. At least Spike isn’t here to hear it this time.”

Twilight twitched, and came out of her trance. “Trixie! Back home at once! We’re going to prepare a wonderful gift for the happy couple!”

Trixie blinked. Then, she smirked. “Oh, you…”

Rainbow was glancing hectically back and forth between them, and then her eyes bugged out. “Oh my gosh!”

“I’m sure Miss Gilda will have no complaints,” said Twilight, fighting back mad giggles and almost succeeding.

Rainbow’s wings had pomfed to a fully erect position, and she looked stunned. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh. But she’d never agree to do that… but oh my gosh Gilda would just explode, she’d go insane… but Fluttershy’s a vampony, no matter what Gilda did to her it wouldn’t kill her… that would be outrageous, the… AAAHH!”

“What?” demanded Twilight, for Dash looked suddenly horrified.

“You can’t! Don’t give Fluttershy a magic bit, she’ll fuck Gilda and Gilda will go crazy on that huge thing and she’s gonna bite Fluttershy!”

“No, she won’t.”

“She will! She can’t help it when you do her that hard, she claws and bites and if she bites Fluttershy that will make her a vampire griffin! That would be horrible!” squeaked Rainbow Dash. “Okay, kind of awesome too. But do you trust Gilda to be a nice vampire? ‘Cos I know Gilda real well, and I kinda love her even, but I don’t trust her to be a nice vampire! What would fangs on a beak even look like? You can’t do it, Twilight!”

“That’s not what I meant,” objected Twilight. “I said, she won’t. Fluttershy will never go through with it. Don’t you remember how much she hates using a bit and doing the stallion thing? She’s never ever done it and she had plenty of chances!”

Trixie made a face. “Has so.”

“What?” blinked Twilight.

“You’d remember, if it had been shoved into you,” winced Trixie. “Trixie forgives you, but ouch! Don’t you remember the very first magic bit, the cursed one, that turned all of you into stallions and compelled you to service Trixie? Trixie will never forget that awful moment when it started to wedge in. Do you think she was a vampire already, then?”

“Oh, Trixie, I’m sorry,” said Twilight. “You’re right, she did, but that was a powerful compulsion spell the first bit cast! We had to figure out how to destroy the curse, the ones we make now are fine. Fluttershy could use one in perfect safety… but she won’t, I promise she won’t.”

Rainbow’s face was scrunched up in worry and perplexity. “Then… why do you want to give her one to use on Gilda?”

Twilight trotted over to put a foreleg around Dash’s shoulders, companionably. “You of all ponies should understand. It’s a prank! You know, fun? It’s funny. I just want to see the look on her face, okay?”

Rainbow shot her a glance. “Oh. Heh. That’s ridiculous! Yeah. Right, Fluttershy will crap little vampire-apples, that’s just perfect… but wait a minute. We still can’t do that, Twilight. Pinkie Pie would be mad at us. She got real mad the one time I was fixing to prank Fluttershy. She said Fluttershy is way too sensitive. Isn’t that obvious?”

“Pinkie Pie, who’s obsessively in love with Fluttershy and probably always was?” suggested Twilight. “Being protective of her ‘ultimate straight mare’, so sweet and delicate and fragile?”

“Yeah, your point?”

“That straight mare we now know is an unkillable vampire with dark arcane powers who can compel ponies and animals and withstand any kind of physical or magical attack unharmed? Face it, Rainbow, if she could take an alicorn deathbolt point blank, nothing is ever going to kill her. And she’s known all the time, hasn’t she, and never said a word about it?”

Rainbow boggled. “Um, yeah. Now that you put it that way, Fluttershy doesn’t seem all that fragile and delicate anymore.”

“Yeah, I can vouch that she’s not exactly fragile,” said Twilight wryly. “I guess it’s just as well, but she took my immortality and my wings and didn’t even end up with a sniffle on her side of it. Being overprotective of Fluttershy is an absolute crock, and probably not good for her.”

“Wait, SHE turned you back into a unicorn?” squeaked Dash.

Twilight and Trixie exchanged hasty glances. Not that many ponies were privy to the full truth of what had happened to Twilight… or exactly what Twilight had tried to do, only to have Fluttershy interpose herself.

“Something like that,” said Twilight. “It’s a long story. In the end it all worked out as it should. Let’s just say I was unleashing a devastating magical attack, and Fluttershy got in the way. It didn’t even give her a scratch. Um, the magic part at least.” Being impaled through the heart with an alicorn horn counted for at least a scratch, but that hadn’t killed Fluttershy either. It had only turned her sulky and petulant.

“Oh my gosh!” said Dash. “Did you kill whatever it was you were attacking, in the end?”

Twilight considered what she’d been attacking: the notion of an irresistibly powerful wicked alicorn of Chaos, seducing and subverting everything including Princess Celestia. How naive she’d been! How shocked and saddened she would have been, to learn that Chaos was only old Discord in the end, and that Princess Celestia wasn’t subverted: was, in truth, just a very powerful pony with natural pony drives like Twilight’s own. To learn that the whole enemy she’d been fighting was a mere phantasm, her own screwed-up ideas projected onto an unwilling victim… that she’d come out the other end mortal again, with her ideas of the immortal sexless benevolent Princess Celestia in tatters, and that she’d find herself rebuilding her relationships in alarming but exciting new ways. Even, perhaps, someday, with the maddening Chaos.

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “Yeah, I killed it.”

“Woo!” cheered Rainbow Dash, and hoof-pumped in celebration. “Okay, so if Fluttershy can do all that, I think you’re right. It’s probably not good for her to treat her the way we do. We gotta put some self-confidence into that pony! But wait, even if we do prank her, we still can’t let her fuck Gilda. I’m telling you, if Gilda took that huge crazy Flutter-cock she would flip out. Even if it didn’t hurt her just from bigness alone, she’d claw and bite Fluttershy, so she’d still turn into another vampire! We can’t do it.”

“You know she wouldn’t go through with it,” repeated Twilight. “It’ll never happen. But it’ll be the funniest joke ever, just to see the look on her face!”

Rainbow looked skeptical. “Mmmmaybe. Wait, hang on, I know! We’re pretty sure Fluttershy doesn’t actually want this bit, right?”

“Since when has she ever behaved like she did?” snapped Twilight. “I think we can assume that as one of our axioms!”

“So, we present her with the bit,” said Rainbow Dash, “and if she makes a move for it, I can swoop in with super-pony speed and I’ll just grab it and fly off with it.”

Twilight lifted an eyebrow. “And if Gilda is there watching?”

“Then I swoop by her and bop her on the beak with MY dick in passing,” suggested Dash, a twinkle in her eye.

Twilight smirked. “Jealous, much?”

“As if!” boasted Dash. “Okay, a little. I don’t get how Gilda can be not interested anymore in me and Applejack, after the times we had. It’s a relief but it’s also insulting, ya know? She wasn’t even coming on to me, she was just desperate and crazy in love. I guess the power of a good ass-kicking is hard to deny if you’re a griffin.”

“Come on, Trixie,” said Twilight. “We’ve got some work to do.”

“Don’t do this without me!” squeaked Dash. “Seriously! Tell me when you’re gonna do this, there is no way I’m going to miss it! Are you gonna do it today?”

“It’s getting late,” said Twilight. “How about tomorrow? No, wait, we’re going to be in Canterlot. We might have to wait until tomorrow just to make the bit, we’re expected in just a few hours! The day after that? Meet us here, and you can go over first and check that it’s a good time for the prank.”

Rainbow smirked. “A lot you know, Twilight. It’s always a good time for a prank!”

Twilight giggled. “Okay, I’m a novice. But I’m learning!”

“You’re learning fast,” said Rainbow Dash, “and I love how imaginative it is. Who in all of Equestria would even think of giving Fluttershy, of all ponies, a big monster stallion cock?” She hastily added, “I mean, for her to fuck with? No, I mean outside of her usual way…” and she trailed off, surrounded by snickering unicorns. “Ahh, never mind!”

Zecora hesitated, approaching the cottage. Her ears laid back, involuntarily.

It wasn’t about the sack she carried, either. That was bad enough, but no. It was him.

It wasn’t even that Dursaa could be expected to have traditional male zebra attitudes. He surely objected to her. Herb doctors were traditionally male, but in the Everfree Forest close to Ponyville such things didn’t matter… at least, not until a traditionalist zebra stallion came to town.

No, it was another thing, one she’d only heard of third-hoof but which shook her terribly.

It had been a quiet evening, and she’d been returning home from a shopping trip to Ponyville when she heard the ponies gossiping.

“Oh my gosh, Applejack, you’re not going to believe this! Twilight said Fluttershy has a fiercely churning crack!”

It had been Rainbow Dash, bringing a juicy bit of pony chatter to her marefriend. Zecora’s jaw had dropped. To say such rude things about the pegasus she adored! But Applejack was already talking. “Why, Dashie, you’re right: I ain’t believin’ a word of it. Twi would never say such-like. What’s th’ matter with you, ya silly?”

“I swear, Applejack, she did. It was after we got home, remember when Shy and the Princess and Lyra all foaled? We were back in the library. I was about to leave, and Twilight sort of mutters, ‘I bet her crack won’t be so fiercely churning for a while’.”

“Really?” Applejack had said.

“I went, what? and I bugged her until she admitted she was talking about Fluttershy!” Rainbow had said triumphantly.

“But why in Equestria would she say a thing like that, honey?”

Rainbow had leaned closer to Applejack, and Zecora, listening, had gone totally silent, hoping they wouldn’t notice her eavesdropping.

“Well, it was that zebra! It was him who said it! She’d gone over to their house and she was all rubbing his hooves, you know, typical Fluttershy, and she says he was all smug and they were totally doin’ it with her as a vampire! He liked it that way!”

“No!” Applejack had gasped.

“Aw yeah! And she said that HE said, ‘Between the clever, snakey tongue and fiercely churning crack, a zebra who goes batty surely never will go back!’ Is that crazy or what? And she was all happy with that, too! And then the next thing you know, her water broke and they were all foaling. She’s probably right, Fluttershy must have given it a rest. How do you get your pussy to churn, anyway? Sounds intense! And does she really have a freaky tongue as a vampony?”

“Rainbow, put it this way: thanks for th’ special nightmares Ah’m sure to have, and here’s hopin’ I never get to find out…”

Zecora had had enough. She’d skulked away unnoticed, that evening, and ever since she had cordially loathed Fluttershy’s husband Dursaa. What a typical thick-headed stallion remark! Was she nothing to him but a set of erotic tricks? Was Fluttershy merely a tasty novelty to be carnally used? Revisiting her outrage, Zecora’s nostrils flared and she nearly dropped her sack.

Remembering what was in the sack and what she proposed to ask, Zecora did a double-take and blushed at herself. She did indeed love and care for Fluttershy just as sincerely or more than any one-track-minded stallion clod, but all the same she too was thinking carnal thoughts. She, at least, was bashful about them.

“My reticence embarking on this evening’s lunacy, is hindrance, yes, but proves I do not show hypocrisy…” mused the nervous zebra mare.

There was a stir from inside the cottage. “Who’s there?” cried Fluttershy, sensing a presence out there in the evening gloom.

“Why profess chagrin?” came Dursaa’s voice, lazily. “Go and let them in!”

Zecora glowered. So bossy! Always ordering his mare about as if it wasn’t even Ponyville. Her annoyance was so acute that she missed Fluttershy’s quieter reply, and then in no more than a moment the door was opening and a face looked out and saw her standing there.

It was a stripey face. Two, technically. Dursaa stood at the door, and his little winged colt sat on his head and peeked through his mane.

Zecora relaxed slightly, because it was impossible to stay cranky confronted with that adorable tyke while gazing into his eerie pink eyes, just like Fluttershy’s in her vampire form. He wasn’t a vampire foal, but he’d got the eyes somehow. He made them look even cuter than Fluttershy did. Dursaa, by comparison, seemed troubled.

“Miss Zecora, into Ponyville I see you roam. What has brought your wayward hooves to this, my happy home?”

Zecora’s ears flattened. She thought, your home? It’s been Fluttershy’s cottage all this time, now it’s yours? And she found herself saying, “This, then, is YOUR property—as agreed by you and she?”

Dursaa stood a little taller. “With my devoted wife, I’ll share both home and life.”

“This is a pony town and theirs are pony ways. I’d like to speak to Fluttershy about something today,” said Zecora firmly.

Dursaa’s eyes widened. “Forgive me if my questioning is importune. I had imagined Fluttershy was quite immune from all the entertainments Ponyville does host. Do you suggest it’s lesbian horses she craves most?”

At this, Fluttershy roused herself from her sofa, and trotted over. “Good evening, Zecora! It’s such a pleasure to see you again. I don’t need a recharge on my mane or tail extensions yet. Have you brought me something in that big sack?”

“Just my private surprise,” muttered Zecora, blushing. She glanced sharply at Dursaa, and little Dursaa balancing on his head. “Not meant for foalish eyes!”

The warning seemed not entirely directed to the baby colt. Big Dursaa’s face fell, and he let out a little whimper, but Fluttershy had already taken the lip of the sack in her mouth, and drawn it gracefully open to peer inside. Her jaw dropped, and the sack flumped to the floor, and before either zebra could react, Fluttershy was hugging her husband, her wings bolt upright.

“Eeee! Oh, honey, you shouldn’t have! I didn’t even think you liked each other though it’s unkind of me to suggest such a thing, and look what you’ve arranged! But you know, in Ponyville we can do better than that, it just takes a little help from some of our magical unicorns. I haven’t even made any inquiries because I’m not really sure how to ask, but I promise first thing tomorrow I’ll go and see Twilight Sparkle! I love you so much, my sweet darling, you did this for me?”

Fluttershy trailed off. Both zebras were nearly stripeless with embarrassment. Zecora’s ears were plastered back against her head in a rage, and Dursaa’s expression was one of abject misery.

“What must be must be, my dearest,” he mumbled, “though on me it’s tough. May I ask, nay, may I beg her not to be too rough?”

“A lot you’d know about such things, oh stallion-stud of male mountings!” retorted Zecora, hotly.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “But how could you say that, Dursaa, don’t you remember our conversation? I thought we’d talked about my needs…”

Dursaa trembled, staring at Zecora. “Your things I abhor. Depart from my door!”

“With bliss seraphic,” snarled Zecora, “you big stupid pr…”

“STOP it!” demanded Fluttershy, outraged. “What’s the matter with you two? Dursaa, do you mean to tell me this is not your special present just for me? Because you’re not acting very nice to my old friend! And, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re standing inside MY door and anyone who enters this house can be expected to be kind!”

Dursaa sagged. “I’ll try to be benevolent. Just… why’s it her for which you sent?”

“Oh, never mind. My gift’s maligned,” said Zecora. “Go find recourse with your big horse. You needn’t look for glee, from the mere likes of me.” She turned, seething, shamed and despairing, to go.

She didn’t get far. Her tail was held so low it dragged the floor, and before she’d gone a step she yanked to a halt, as Fluttershy had stepped on it.

“Zecora, come back,” ordered Fluttershy with gentle firmness. “I don’t understand what’s happening here but we need to talk. Has Dursaa not asked you to come with your toy after all? Dursaa, please take little Dursaa upstairs now!”

Big Dursaa trembled, and then burst out, “Nay, my love! I must resist this madness on your mind, somehow I must force your hoof and let wisdom prevail! Nay, don’t ask this wicked mare to practice acts unkind, and with ebon wooden object wreck your little tail!”

Zecora’s eyes widened in outrage. She drew a deep breath fit for at least twelve stanzas. Fluttershy turned to Dursaa, ready to scold him. Dursaa stood his ground…

A feathery head poked around the edge of the door. Gilda the Griffin peered in. She was shaking in fear, which showed in her voice as she said, “Um. Is this not a good time?”

Three sets of pony eyes flew wide.

“You!” squeaked Fluttershy. “Gilda, you were supposed to go far away! What are you doing here?”

Trembling, the massive predator slunk over the threshold, as both zebras stared.

She gave a nervous little laugh. “Er… I guess if I was Dash I could say, ‘you!’. Uh, if, if, if, if,” stammered Gilda, “if you’ll fuck me?”

Zecora and Dursaa exchanged a horrified glance.

Fluttershy’s expression, already cross, darkened further. “Anypony ELSE planning to turn up and be difficult?”

“Hello, hello! I smelled the most wonderful piquant chaos. For me?” said Discord, poking his draconequus head around the edge of the still-open door.

Fluttershy exploded. “EEEEEEEE!” she squealed. “GET OUT! All you rude cranky weird things having fights in my beautiful home, go away until you can be nice!” She hopped up and down, beside herself.

Zecora whinnied shrilly and ran for it, leaving her sack behind. Dursaa whirled and thundered up the stairs to the bedroom, kicking the door closed, all the while keeping his colt balanced carefully on top of his head. Gilda bristled out in all directions, let out a hideous yowl, and blasted past Discord in a feline streak to the safety of outdoors, where she promptly climbed a tree.

Discord simply quirked his eyebrows in surprise, staring at the little and adorably raging vampony. “Is it that time of the month? It hadn’t occurred to me that alone could bring the spirit of chaos upon you, but on reflection it makes perfect sense. I know my own experiences as an alicorn mare have been most instructive in that regard.” He flounced in, and petted Fluttershy’s mane. “Deep breaths, my lovely! There you go!”

Fluttershy panted. She allowed him to smooth her mane, for her anger had caused it to become ragged and vampire-like. “What are you doing here, Discord?”

“But I told you. I smelled the chaos. It was marvellous! Was it good for you, too?”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Fluttershy decidedly. “Oh, Discord! I’m sure it’s my fault, I should never have told my husband what I really wanted, but I did and now everything has gone all wrong!”

Outside, they heard Gilda let out a wail of dismay, and fly up out of the tree and off into the Everfree Forest, leaving them in relative peace.

“Say it’s not so!” protested Discord. “Not to my favorite ephemeral! Except you’re not even, you’re far more interesting than that. We might be friends for ages and ages until some bright spark stakes you through the heart!”

Fluttershy pouted. “Twilight tried that. It didn’t work.”

“Whatever is the matter, Fluttershy my dear? It wrings my heart to see you moping this way!”

“First tell me what you’re doing here,” insisted Fluttershy. “I thought you were in Canterlot now! And why are you Discord again? I thought you were seeing Princess Celestia, and being another alicorn mare!”

“Oh, I am,” said Discord. “But Celly’s having some unicorns over to visit and thought it was a good time for me also to go visiting. Naturally, my first thought was to visit the wonderful friend who loved and accepted me even at my randomest, and how delightful to discover you’ve made me a snack!”

Fluttershy blinked. “I haven’t cooked anything. I haven’t had Dursaa cook anything, either.”

“The chaos, my dear,” reminded Discord. “As I said: delicious!”

“I didn’t make that!” protested Fluttershy.

Discord gave her a knowing look. “I’m almost certain you said you’ve told your husband what you really wanted. Whilst that is laudable and terribly optimistic, I fear it’s also an ideal recipe for chaos and strife. I’m sorry, did I say fear? I adore that it’s also an ideal recipe for chaos. I did enjoy it, was it too much trouble to make? I’m full, in case you’re wondering. It was such rich chaos.” He belched a small pink mushroom politely, and watched it turn into an adjustable crescent wrench with ears and spectacles, and then into a puff of smoke.

Fluttershy gazed forlornly at him, her lip quivering.

“You needn’t make more,” added Discord. “I’m good.”

At this, Fluttershy trembled, then burst into tears, gazing at her strange old draconequus friend. Discord squawked in dismay and bent to hug her, embracing the little vampony tenderly. “Fluttershy, sweetest of ponies, kindest of hearts! What is this?”

“I’m not!” she sobbed. “I’m bad! And I can’t get what I want, what I need! It’s so awkward and they just won’t listen and they wouldn’t ever understand, it’s pointless to try and explain it…”

Her tearful eyes widened. A leonine paw pressed her lips, hushing her protests.

“Tell ME,” said Discord gently, a twinkle in his eye.

“How could that even help?” sniffled Fluttershy.

That got her a sarcastic eyebrow-waggle and a “Please! Don’t insult me! Haven’t you learned the extent of my powers?”

Fluttershy pouted. “But… it’s sort of a vampire thing.” She winced. “It’s so twisted and wrong, but I can’t help it. I’m ashamed, Discord.”

He winked. “Go on, tell me. Nobody here but us monsters, right?”

At that, Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Oooh. That’s right. You promise you won’t be horrified? Everypony is so horrified and I can’t bear it.”

“That depends on how I parse your request,” said Discord cheerfully. “I could turn into something horrifying for you. Then I would be horrified, but it might help you feel the depths of my monstrosity. Would you like that? I could become a…”

“No thank you,” said Fluttershy in haste. She snuggled into the crook of his lion arm. It was warmer than the bird arm, and she needed that, needed not to call on dark vampiric ways to warm the chill of herself. For a moment, she tried to pretend she was just a cold sad pony without the ability to call upon fevered deceptive heat from some evil undead source.

“Very good,” purred Discord, snuggling her closer. “Now, fess up. What’s got the cute little pony so upset, hmmm?”

Shy rubbed her eye with a hoof. “I want my husband up the butt. But he won’t do it.”

Discord chuckled richly. “Kinky! Just that?”

“No,” added Fluttershy. “I want double zebra. Since you asked. But I have to use my magic very much to recover from it, and I’m not sure that’s right. Is that okay? I wish I didn’t have to bother recovering, but nopony is going to let me have it my way, so I’d better.”

“Fluttershy,” said Discord, “what consenting ponies do with each other is their business. Why, I remember back when I lived as a glorious unicorn stallion—you mightn’t believe it, but I did that.” He waggled his eyebrows. “With Celly. All you’ve got to do is go carefully, so you don’t do the happy lady an injury, perhaps with some form of lubrication…”

“No!” squeaked Fluttershy, blushing. “I mean, ew, with the Princess? Please don’t talk any more about that. But also, you’re not understanding! I don’t want him to go carefully.”

Discord blinked, startled. “You don’t?”

“No!”

He squeed in delight. “Eeee! Oh, you clever thing, you’re positively rolling with your monstrosity, aren’t you? Of course, you’re a vampire, he can’t kill you twice! Fluttershy, you magnificent slut, that’s some epic sensation play. You’d like two of them? I could clone the one you’ve got, if you like. Just say the word. Would you like them larger, or with multiple penises?”

Down the stairs, a dark solitary figure began to creep. It trembled, but didn’t turn back. Dursaa had heard the crying, and ensuing conversation, and he was determined to be there and support his impossible, confusing, undead wife.

“Oh, no,” said Fluttershy miserably. “That’s no good. I love him as he is, which is part of the problem. There’s another zebra I can try and talk to, but she’s mad at me now, I think.”

“Oh, I know!” said Discord. “I’ll lend you Crowbar! Did you ever see him? He’s not very bright. I keep him happy in my Chaos form through using chaos magic to reshape myself, and Celly sometimes enjoys him when I’m not around. He’s perfect for you, Fluttershy!”

“How?”

“Why, he’s the sweetest little horse ever, but strong as an ox with a simply titanic penis! If you let him mount you, he will be as affectionate as you could wish, but all the same he’s bound to do you a lot of exciting injury! We can try to wrap you securely in tape in case you burst when he comes. I’m sure that wouldn’t kill you either but it would be a lot of trouble to clean up!”

Two ponies wailed in distress at this suggestion. One was Dursaa, his mind reeling at such a horrible fate for his beloved.

The other was snuggled in Discord’s lion arm.

“You don’t understand!” protested Fluttershy, crying again. “How is it so difficult to explain?”

“But I promise, all the while he’s doing it he will be as tender and loving as can be. Rather disturbing, really, but he doesn’t understand what he’s doing inside a mare, poor thing.”

“Nooo! I don’t want tender and loving!” protested Fluttershy. “I don’t deserve that, I’m evil, I want them to hurt and punish me! I should be terribly injured and left to die!” She stopped, and pouted. “Except I can’t! Can you help me get punished in some very extreme way even if my husband won’t cooperate?”

Discord had gone pale. He licked his lips. “Erm. I would suggest consulting Rarity, dear, but I see a more fundamental problem…”

Down the stairs thundered Dursaa, all subterfuge abandoned. He ran up, and grovelled on the ground before Discord and Fluttershy, weeping openly.

“No! Do not speak this way, my lovely bride! How can you be so damn bereaved inside, and give sweet voice to sickness of the mind? Oh, Fluttershy, how can you be so blind?”

She stared at him, drinking in his misery, her face falling more and more. Behind her head, Discord’s deep voice spoke softly.

“Seconded,” he said.

Fluttershy’s lip quivered. “But you just don’t understand. I need this. It keeps me in check.”

Discord just looked at her for a moment. She fidgeted, flapped her lovely wings, and then, reluctantly, listened.

“I think it’s you that doesn’t understand,” he said. “Look at me! Look at my form, loathed by so many, yet from you I got nothing but love. Look around you, all the happy little animals and things, cared for and cherished by you. Look at this fine big zebra fellow you take to bed. Good eye, by the way, do you lend him out, hm?”

“He wouldn’t,” said Fluttershy with a kind of despair. “I don’t even control him but it’s just as if I did. He won’t.”

“He loves you,” said Discord. Dursaa’s pleading eyes underscored every word.

Fluttershy winced. “No…”

“Don’t you love him?”

Fluttershy shuddered worse. The tears started up again. “How I love him…”

“I’m going to talk to Celly when I get back to Canterlot,” mused Discord. “I think she may be better at this sort of healing nonsense than I am, and you deserve the best healing we can get, my dear. Not only that, I think ‘sweet fat and stripey’ here deserves it as well…”

At this, Dursaa blinked his tearful eyes. “That is puzzling: one like me, accused of obesity?”

Discord smirked. “My alicorn form, shall we say, enjoys a bit of girth in her stallions. Never mind. Fluttershy! Don’t cry. We’re going to try and straighten your poor head out. Mind you, I enjoy the sheer chaos emanating from it but it’s making you unhappy and we can’t have that. My good zebra sir!”

“Erm… yes?” said Dursaa, hanging on Discord’s every word.

“I can see in your eyes how much you love this dear little mare. Quite understand, really, I’ve felt that way about Celly since before your grandfather was born. May I conclude that you enjoy physical intimacies. and that they are well?”

Dursaa trembled. “My love’s delights are wondrous, the fairest of the fair. Yet she insists on turning from them like they were not there. I want to love her truest self, but all the time she’ll feign this simple pony form: this even though it brings her pain!”

Discord’s eye was sharp. “Ah! So, our little vampony doesn’t want lovemaking in her natural form, but you do?”

“From the cute little fangs to the scraggle tail, nothing about my love could ever go stale,” breathed Dursaa earnestly.

Discord quirked an eyebrow, as Fluttershy began to pout and blush. “Hmm. And you say in her real form, she’s not experiencing pain with you?”

Dursaa wiped a tear. “This zebra thinks your questioning begins to make him flinch… but yes, my darling’s truest self can relish every inch.”

Discord’s jaw dropped. He gawked at Fluttershy. “You never told me that! Is he making it up? Does that mean you’ve got sort of chaos powers of your own? What exactly is he…”

Fluttershy thrashed, and got loose from Discord’s cuddlesome embrace. She glared. “Discord! These things are private, stop asking my husband about them!”

“Well, it got you to stop moping,” Discord shot back, “and it’s simply fascinating! My dear, as a creature who can work similar tricks I have to wonder if you’ve gone totally mad to turn your cute little nose up at such pleasures. He’s hilting in you and you’d rather do him in pony form and be injured every time?”

Fluttershy sulked. “It’s personal and you’re not understanding and you make it sound bad…”

“Enough!” decreed Discord. “We’ll return and revisit this. Celestia will help you make sense of it. If you really do need to experience some heavy sensory-play or even the feelings of punishment, I’m nearly certain that Rarity can come to your aid there, and we can persuade all the zebras you wish, or transform them if necessary. We’ll work on this. I think Mister Stripey here is a bit of a Pony Scout, honestly: sir, you need to learn some things about mares or you’ll always be the colt next door. Perhaps not: you’re pretty well fixed as it stands. Do you understand me, sir? What’s his name, Fluttershy? I’ve forgotten it. Ephemerals, you know.”

“Dursaa,” said Fluttershy softly. “He is Dursaa, and he is my husband. He claimed me, just as I was. He didn’t turn away.”

“Well, then, Mister Dursaa, we’ll talk to you and knock some sense into that stripey head. I’m actually surprised, it’s not usually difficult to persuade male zebras to be dominant and conquer their mares. They are rather patriarchical, don’t always mix well with ponykind. Your Mister Dirtball is a zebra of a different stripe, wanting to be all lovey-dovey like that. Never fear! In time we’ll have him giving you a real jolt just how you like it! But I’ve got different, and more immediate advice for you, Fluttershy. This fellow Durable, he wants to make sweet love to your vampire form, yes?”

“He does,” sulked Fluttershy, “and I’ve tried to explain why he should not…”

“Let him,” interrupted Discord, sternly.

“I don’t think you understand what…”

“No!” said Discord. “Listen to me, Fluttershy. As one monster to another, remember? Let him.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth, saw the look in Discord’s eye, didn’t speak.

“Thank you,” he said. “I don’t think you quite understand your situation, or his. We know you can’t be injured, and he’s going to have to come to terms with that if you want spice and danger in your lovemaking. But you need to come to terms with your Mister Durrface’s ephemerality, Fluttershy. I am telling you that you’ll be sorry if you don’t. You are going to leave him behind. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that, as much as you love him, he’s always got to do it your way?”

Fluttershy trembled, tearing up.

“You’re not even equine if you can’t enjoy it his way,” said Discord. “Which you’re not, of course, but I think you know what I mean. I don’t have to imagine, I’ve had that sort of thing. It’s your emotional issues getting in the way. The fact that you love each other makes it even worse! It must be phenomenal, albeit terribly intimate. No wonder you’re both rather whiney and overdramatic. I think you’re capable of responding to him the way he wants you to be, and it’s your hangups about being a vampire that are the problem.”

Fluttershy pouted. Dursaa couldn’t even breathe, watching the battle of wills. It didn’t worry him that the contest was between Fluttershy and her monstrous friend. Deferring to Fluttershy didn’t feel wrong to him, and so he waited.

“You’re asking a lot,” said Fluttershy at last.

“Do you love him, or don’t you?” said Discord.

Fluttershy set her jaw. “I love him. All right. I will.”

“I now pronounce you stallion and monster!” cried Discord, clapping paw and claw together. Glittery fireworks burst forth, spelling out “AND THEN THEY FUCKED” only to dissipate. He beamed fondly at the sulky, tearful couple.

“Well?” he said. “You promised.”

“Dursaa?” quavered Fluttershy.

“Yes, my love?”

“Kick his butt out!”

So many things had been baffling and complicated. This was not. With a snort, Dursaa reared and charged at the no-longer-welcome houseguest, who responded with a squeal of delight and disappeared in a poof of chaos that formed the word “YAY” and was gone.

Fluttershy and Dursaa looked at each other.

“I’m so sorry,” said Fluttershy helplessly.

At that, Dursaa’s face began to crumble into grief. “Oh, Fluttershy. You had… to lie?”

“I didn’t say that. I… give me a minute. I’ll be brave.”

Dursaa’s eyes lit with excitement. “Really?”

“Shhh,” she said. “Discord is right. I love you. Um… you can undress me. If you want.”

His heart began to pound, and all thought of civilized rhyming left him, and he took a step toward her.

“Will you… like it?” he breathed. “It has been so long.”

Fluttershy visibly shuddered. She gazed into space with a haunted look. Another shudder rocked her, and Dursaa saw her pussy wink out, hard. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, yes. I will like it.” The haunted look didn’t leave her, but her eyes seemed to already be glazing with lust.

Dursaa stepped forward again, and took the enchanted mane extension in his teeth. Slowly, he pulled the magical contrivance away from his bride, his heart pounding harder, eyes rapt as his beloved’s mane seemed to bristle out and become more ragged, wilder, more passionate…

Fluttershy’s heart didn’t pound. It didn’t need to.

As her zebra husband drew away the tail extension, she felt that familiar surge. For a moment, she stood, defying it, a female creature who didn’t have to answer to her urges or anything like that, and the chill struck into her and she welcomed it, welcomed the calmness of her own death, so soothing and patient and restful.

She gasped. Dursaa was tenderly licking, not her vampire vagina, but her cutie marks. The real ones, the ones that were pink bats.

As he did, the flesh under his tongue went from chilly to warm—not from his body heat. She felt the energy gathering. It rippled across her skin, from where he’d touched her.

“HHHhhh!”

He’d bent down and kissed her, there. It was like the casting of a spell, and in some mysterious way it was. He was not her thrall… but something inside her kicked in, and a flood of warmth seemed to gush into her like a jet of hot water into an icy bath. It went right up her, warming her dainty pussy, plunging in with a cozy glow that was the most delicious sensation imaginable, and for a moment Fluttershy just shivered, baring her teeth in sharp ecstacy, cute fangs glinting against the light.

She shut her mouth determinedly, while she could. It wasn’t going to be possible for much longer. She would be singing his song like a dark angel, soon enough.

Just like that, he’d mounted. He was all stallion, all right: not for Dursaa, the extended foreplay of lesbian mares. He’d not learned it, and Fluttershy had not tried to teach him. But for all that, Dursaa’s personality still came through, and never more than at such moments.

Tenderly, lovingly, his massive stallion cock prodded her. It never hurried. He was thinking of how she felt, though he couldn’t really understand.

That wasn’t his fault. She was two different mares, and wildly inconsistent, and in every form she either experienced or feigned obscene pleasures beyond mortal pony. He could only guess what was going on.

As he prodded, Fluttershy’s vagina swelled and heated, melting against him, exuding a slippery nectar, and this wasn’t so out of the ordinary for a mare but Fluttershy could feel herself giving in to it, could feel it going beyond what mortal mares could do…

She made a little croaking noise. Behind her, where the stallion-cock prodded, she’d just felt her pussy melt and part, as if physically sucking the head into herself. He moaned as if the sensation surpassed anything imaginable, and even then he did not plunge heedlessly into her. Dursaa had no real sense of her proportions and didn’t show caution on that account, it was just that his idea of lovemaking was… deliberate.

Slowly, Dursaa began to enter her, and Fluttershy banged the floor with a forehoof, panting and wild-eyed.

It wasn’t that he hurt. She’d have welcomed hurt. That felt equine—mortal. Instead, it felt like her pussy being filled with celestial fire. Every placid inch illuminated her, filled her body with scintillating energy.

Fluttershy squeaked, and Dursaa grunted. She’d clenched onto him, her pussy locking down with un-equine strength. It didn’t feel cramped upon him, it felt like being seized by some loving and powerful force. She shuddered, a gush of slick fluid emanating from her walls. The disconcerting thing about those clenches was their suction. They pulled him in, where a natural pony would tend to squeeze him out doing that.

She began to hyperventilate, for it was always the same, how it went. The lust, the energy seemed to swirl within her, a dark vortex eager to play its games. Dursaa’s loving forelegs tightened upon her…

Fluttershy let out a ghastly, obscene shriek, as Dursaa’s hips swung easily forward to press his crotch against her rump. She held her wild-eyed pose for a moment, frozen in shock and joy. Deep inside her, his zebra cock’s medial ring bulged her vaginal walls with its neat firm ridge.

She, the cute little vampony with the scruffy mane, had taken a giant zebra cock literally to the hilt in one fluid motion. Dursaa had never learned this was impossible. He was as tender as always, but from the first time he’d been inside Fluttershy’s vampire form, he’d pushed deeper and deeper, always yearning for a little more of that intimacy.

And, just as she had the first time, Fluttershy felt her body suck him in and keep going, and the numbingly powerful surge of vampiric energy had kicked in, and the next thing she knew, her seething and impassioned vagina reached nearly to her unbeating heart.

It had been a terrible shock the first time it had happened. Nobody’d told Fluttershy about the seductive qualities of vampire mares, the instincts to take in the male and give him more than any mortal ever could. She’d had no choice in the matter. Her undead body had taken over, and Dursaa had done the rest.

Fluttershy stared wildly at the wall, feeling her beloved clasp her so sweetly, feeling his stallionhood throb within her. It nearly split her pelvis, yet there was no pain. Her vampire magic wouldn’t let her feel pain, even as his mammoth cockbase pried her so wide and shoved her rump-cheeks apart. She jolted, clenching on him, feeling her butt squeeze the sides of his shaft. It felt so alive, so horribly, obscenely alive. She drew a shaking breath, and jolted again, feeling herself sucking him in even though there was no more cock to bury within herself…

Dursaa groaned, and began to work his hips, keeping that enormous cock always hilted in her, but delivering increasingly eager shoves.

Fluttershy’s hooves rattled on the ground. She let out breathy, lurid shrieks, feeling that vast bulk begin to churn back and forth, surging within her helpless body, always with that eerie absence of pain. Instead, it just goaded her on, fed the swirling forces that coursed through her and flooded her body and battered her mind with insidious, savage pleasure.

The way of the seductive vampire mare was to be fully, utterly swept up in the experience. Her body was not going to leave her a cool, calculating bystander. That was the dreadful part. The seduction of it cut both ways. Fluttershy fought against the waves, even as Dursaa’s cock seemed to nuzzle her breastbone.

She didn’t have to beat her heart. His was pounding for her, and she felt it in every vein. His heartbeat thumped in eager throbs against her insides, beat against the slick juices that made her whole body feel like excited fluid in a pony-shaped bag. She was an ocean, she was a wave, he was the earth against which she washed, a rock around which she broke and reformed…

Dursaa began to whimper with pleasure, his eyes squeezed shut. He started to draw his hips further back each thrust, only to plunge to the hilt again with a juicy slap.

Fluttershy screamed, a ghoulish cry of agony-ecstacy. She’d become a whirlpool, a mad storm of erotic excitement flaring higher and higher and higher.

“Come for me,” moaned Dursaa, pumping her.

Fluttershy shrieked, shaking her head, kicking the floor, clenching against his cock with ass-cheeks like steel.

“Come for me!” moaned Dursaa, tensing.

Fluttershy came.

With ungodly screams, shaking like she was in the jaws of an angry timberwolf, Fluttershy exploded in orgasm. Her pussy churned and clenched, going berserk on Dursaa’s cock like nothing natural ever could. Her mind was blown apart by incandescent pleasure that seared all rational thought from her dead brain, and she thrashed and writhed like a wild griffin as Dursaa jabbed deep inside with his last, eager, awed thrusts.

As Dursaa orgasmed and gushed zebra-come endlessly into her, Fluttershy slowly collapsed like a house being demolished. Her eyes, unseeing, took on a stricken look. Her scruffy ears, mane, tail seemed to bristle out. Her screams went breathless, then haunting—long, yearning howls of pleasure that seemed to flood her as surely as her zebra husband flooded her shuddering body with his come.

Slowly, the couple sagged, until they rested twitching on the floor. Fluttershy’s body was feverishly hot, limp like jelly, the heat radiating from her leathery wings. She couldn’t breathe, from the intensity of the sensations that still jolted her: still feeling every heartbeat through Dursaa’s deeply buried cock, her butt squeezing languidly at the base of his shaft. He slid it a bit deeper, and Fluttershy shook and shuddered all over, with a sweet little cry she couldn’t withhold.

The warm darkness rose up and enfolded both lovers in a blood-red shroud, and they both swooned from sheer carnal pleasure.

Fluttershy’s eyelids flickered. She was the most sated, gloriously full mare in all Equestria. She stirred, feeling like molten jelly, savoring the heavy weight of her husband upon her. He was the most wonderful thing ever, wrapped around her, still sunk so deeply into her body, still erect from her magic’s influence, his head sprawled exhaustedly over hers.

Lovingly, Fluttershy nuzzled him, her eyes glowing with affection. Nothing could ever, ever feel this good. Everything was just perfect. She didn’t have to think, almost couldn’t. All she had to do was feel. With a gentle, graceful motion, Fluttershy turned her head, Dursaa’s neck against her dainty muzzle. Lovingly, she bared her fangs, and lovingly she

no!!!

NO.

Fluttershy paled. She closed her mouth, and she began to shiver.

Dursaa wriggled, the weight of his body seeming to knead hers effortlessly under him. He took a breath, and yawned.

He murmured, besottedly, “Was it good for you too?”

Fluttershy stared fixedly at the wall, a tragic look in her eyes, and felt the chill sneaking back into her body. Slowly, a cute little tear appeared, dripped down her face, and was gone.

“Yes, my love,” she said, so gently. “It was.”

And for the rest of the night, he held her so close, so close and tight and warm, and she did not try to leave.

Guest

The drapes were luxurious in the Diplomacy Suite, sumptuous and brocaded. Trixie eyed them speculatively.

“Nice, huh?” said Twilight. “This is for visiting dignitaries. When I was growing up here, Princess Celestia wouldn’t let me play in this room, even when nopony was using it.”

“Is that so?” said Trixie. “Why are there curtains even where there are no windows?”

“There’s drapes for the windows too,” replied Twilight. “See?”

“Thick,” observed Trixie, her horn glowing as she pushed aside masses of fabric. She blinked, entertaining a thought, and then peered sidelong at Twilight, a fugitive smirk playing about her muzzle.

“What?”

“Soundproofing,” decreed Trixie Lulamoon. “Trixie likes this room! Trixie is sure the visiting dignitaries enjoyed it as well.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Oh, come on!”

“Trixie is sure they have,” said Trixie smugly. “Well… come on, or come in. Depending on what the dignitaries were served as,” and she licked her lips, “refreshments.”

“Are you being intentionally naughty?”

“Yes. Can’t you picture it? Those tall, handsome Saddle Arabian horses, retiring to their luxurious suite after a long day negotiating. They are tired and unsure whether they’ve given away too much at the behest of Princess Celestia. To their surprise, they are greeted with a large platter topped with a gleaming steel dome. It is so heavy, it requires two Saddle Arabians to lift. Grumbling, they proceed to uncover what they think is their dinner. Only then do they discover, on the platter, a cute little unicorn. She’s trussed up, hog-tied and gagged, and her eyes are very wide. As the lengthy stallionhoods of the Saddle Arabian delegation drop into sight, her eyes go wider still…”

“Trixiee!” wailed Twilight. “That’s horrible!”

“On the contrary,” sniffed Trixie, “it sounds delightful. Trixie volunteers, at once. Trixie is certain she is not the only pony to have volunteered for such duty. Dinner forgotten, the diplomatic delegation negotiates strenuously over and over until the cute little unicorn delegation is positively flooded with good will and interspecies harmony…”

“Saddle Arabians aren’t really a different species!” objected Twilight, blushing with her ears laid back.

“Oh, sorry,” said Trixie blithely. “Trixie may be confusing them with the Diamond Dog delegation, or the Minotaurs. Whatever. The cute little unicorn delegation likes the Saddle Arabians, because mrrrowr.”

“Wouldn’t that be the Griffin, or Sphinx delegations?”

“Did you have Saddle Arabian delegations visiting the palace when you lived here?” asked Trixie. “Obviously you didn’t get to be the cute little unicorn on a platter, but did you hear eager squeals in spite of all this soundproofing? Trixie is dying to know…”

“Stop it! Princess Celestia wouldn’t whore out her unicorns,” insisted Twilight.

“Even volunteers, such as Trixie would most certainly be?”

“No way! She’d want the diplomants to learn respect for her subjects.”

“But not learn the glorious sexiness and desirability of her cute little unicorns?” countered Trixie. “Very well then. Princess Cadance, trussed and hogtied.”

Twilight’s ears laid back harder. “Mmmmmaybe. Trixie, what has you so randy? Sweet Celestia!” She fidgeted, feeling squishy and jittery.

“Trixie thought you liked her being randy. Also, Trixie notices that when you’re in Canterlot, you’re more uptight. Is it like a parent’s house to you, making this sort of talk more forbidden?”

Twilight shifted from hoof to hoof. “Maybe. It can’t be right to fool around in a luxurious place like this.”

Trixie lifted an eyebrow. “Please feel free to correct Trixie, but are we not here at the invitation of Celestia, who’s barely able to restrain herself from offering many other sorts of invitation besides this one? Are we not teasing the alicorn, enjoying her company and renewing her friendship while contriving to spur her interest?”

That got her a glower from Twilight. “It’s not bad. She admitted she wanted me. She needs to settle down a bit…”

“But not too much?”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah. That.”

“Is it making Mistress uncomfortable?” asked Trixie. “Bringing fantasy elements into what was a secure and unprovocative former home, where for years you pretended sexuality wasn’t even a thing?”

“I never said that!” objected Twilight. “It was totally a thing, don’t get me wrong. But it was a private thing, you never talked about it. I had lots of fantasies, but they stayed tightly under wraps.”

“Or behind soundproof drapes?”

“Are these really soundproof?” said Twilight hesitantly.

Trixie smirked. “Little Filly Twilight had never seen the inside of the Diplomacy Suite, until the day she hid on a great big platter, determined to discover its secrets. She waited in the dark, under the steel dome, for hours, and her eyes blinked in the light when her concealment was lifted. And they were wide and adorable, but they went wider still as she gazed at the six tall and powerful Saddle Arabian dignitaries that towered over her. And wider still, as she saw the strange foreign horsecocks shooting forth, galvanized by her sweet unicorn body, and swinging stiffly forward to face her…”

Twilight squealed and kicked at her maddening lover. “Trixieee! Stop it!”

“Trixie lets you tell her stories every night, just about,” said Trixie blithely. “Fair is fair, it’s time for Trixie to tell her Mistress a story. You don’t like it? Trixie made it up especially for you.”

“I’ll just bet you did,” muttered Twilight, trembling.

“Oh, yes,” replied Trixie. Her smirk grew and grew. It was true: Twilight was writing an increasingly complicated series of stories about herself, her friends and even Trixie, told the way she thought her life should have gone. Trixie loved the stories, even (or especially) when she played a villain, but there was one thing about them: they were a dead giveaway. They revealed just how much Twilight Sparkle lived a life of fantasy, telling stories in her head.

“I’m going to put Saddle Arabians in my story,” vowed Twilight. “And I’m going to have YOU interrupt them before they can do anything sexy to me! How do you like that?”

What one mare could tell, another mare could study: Trixie had learned that Twilight could not resist a good fantasy. She prepared to seduce her Twilight through storytelling, leaving her magic bit hidden in her hat until the last possible moment.

“Filly Twilight wriggled and made mewling noises through her gag…”

“I thought you said I was hiding under the dome of my own accord,” objected Twilight, shifting more restlessly from hoof to hoof.

Trixie blinked. “Oops. Er, Filly Twilight wriggled and said…”

“No!” blurted Twilight. She blushed, hard. “Keep it. And keep your voice down!” She glanced at the door.

“Ooooh! Mistress likes how it’s going?” giggled Trixie.

Rather than answer directly, Twilight trotted over to the door. She checked to be sure it was latched. Trixie saw her vagina wink, and privately calculated that her unicorn mate was well past quivery and heading towards squeals and shrieks at a good clip. Twilight also eyed the heavy drapes, narrowing her eyes.

“They’re fireproof,” said Trixie.

“What?” blinked Twilight. “Really? Soundproof and fireproof?”

Trixie shrugged. “Of course. Otherwise the cute little unicorn would burn the place down. You know! I’d give her about two Saddle Arabians, three absolute max, before she is squirting like a magic firehose and squealing in ecstacy.”

Twilight gulped. “Really.”

“Oh, sorry,” corrected Trixie wickedly. “Squirting magic until she’s exhausted… and making mewling noises through the gag that binds her cute little mouth. It’s like the sound of the magic crackling from her horn is louder than her muffled squeals.”

Twilight moaned, her hind legs shaking… and then whirled and dove for the drapes, ransacking them.

“Mistress?”

Twilight turned back, triumphant, brandishing a sash. “I knew it! Canterlot window treatments often include a sash of the same or similar material as the curtain!”

“Soundproof and fireproof?”

Twilight nibbled it. “Ew. I think so—that’s really strange-tasting. Whatever! It’ll work!”

Trixie grinned wickedly. “So… are you ready to make mewling noises through your makeshift gag?”

“Oh yeah,” crooned Twilight. “I’ll do the mewling noises. This time, you’ll be the storyteller.” She shivered in anticipation.

“Nay,” said Trixie.

“Huh?”

Trixie’s hat lifted. A magic bit floated into view, held by Trixie’s magic.

“I’ll get you started,” said Trixie, “and then I’m gonna be your Saddle Arabian…”

Twilight shuddered, a rush of arousal flooding to her nethers. “Are you sure this place is also fireproof?”

“Won’t matter,” replied Trixie.

“Why not?”

“Because,” purred Trixie with absolute conviction, “my horngasm is NOT going to go into the drapes.”

Twilight moaned, looking into Trixie’s hungry eyes, and then she whirled to face away from her lover, tail to the side, winking madly. Her horn glowed bright as she wrapped the gag around her mouth and tied it behind her head, fumbling in her haste.

Trixie wrinkled her nose, rejoicing in the scents of Twilight’s winking, dripping eagerness, feeling herself to be the luckiest Saddle Arabian ever to mount a mare. Languidly, she took the bit between her teeth with a delicate clink, feeling her artificial magic-induced Trixiecock drop and swing forward…

“MMM! Mmm mmmm, mmm m mmmm! Mm MMM mm mmm!”

Trixie’s ears splayed out to the side in chagrin. Twilight Sparkle had whirled and was exhorting her through the gag. It was somewhat ridiculous, as the lavender darling could have spoken more clearly, but chose to make ‘gagged pony’ noises with great earnestness, her eyes pleading with Trixie but her unicorn rump turned away.

Of course. She’d been promised a story. Trixie removed the bit from her mouth, and Twilight turned away again, eyes half-lidded, chin lifted in erotic reverie, tail lifted to match. Trixie gazed upon the glistening nook that was soon to be her target, and spoke.

“And Twilight screamed into the dense material of the gag as the long, thick horsecock of the Saddle Arabian diplomat thrust forward, wedging into her small body like… no, make that wedging into her small body for the very first time…”

Twilight visibly shuddered, and her pussy winked and drooled a bit of slippery lube. Trixie nodded—she knew her mare, all right. Dear Twilight sometimes had a terrible kink for ageplay, as her youth had been both frustrated and sheltered. Trixie moved closer, but rather than lick up the nectar, she breathed on Twilight’s shivering sex and continued to narrate: eyes wildly dilated, nostrils flaring at the compelling scents of unicorn horniness.

“And deeper and deeper it thrust, splitting her filly pussy and stretching her wide, and plunging on and on into her trembling body…”

Briefly, Trixie wondered if it made sense to say the stallion plunged ‘on and on’. Surely he would have to tug back out? She had the ‘trembling body’ right, though: Twilight was quivering all over. Heck with it, she thought.

“And on and on and on deeper and deeper into Twilight’s painfully tight fillyhood…”

The vagina in front of her face seized up and winked hard, clitoris jutting out. Trixie knew she was getting creative: any female pony as worked up as Twilight or story-Twilight would go soft and yielding, her vulva swelling out and readying itself for penetration. She saw it happening inches from her eyes, but all the same naughty Twilight got off on tales of dreadful tightness, as if she imagined herself a fawn or bunny on the end of a stallion’s voracious thrusts. The disparity didn’t worry Trixie: fantasy didn’t follow rules, and Twilight’s fantasies still less so. It gave Trixie ideas.

“And Twilight’s heart leapt into her throat as she felt the huge Saddle Arabian cock plunge so deeply, that, that she felt his medial ring push through her vulva and enter her, and still he kept sliding deeper, deeper, deeper…”

“Mmmmm!”

Twilight turned her head, her eyes glazed with lust, and though she used no words she communicated perfectly. Trixie continued, as best she could, though she was no storyteller and could only keep harping on the same tried and true themes.

“And she felt that ring thrusting still deeper into her shuddering body, his cock base so thick, and more and more and…”

“MMMMMMM!”

Trixie took her bit between her teeth, and mounted Twilight, who was hyperventilating through her nose. Twilight’s silky tail thrashed against her crotch, and she felt a spurt of mare-juice splash against the front of her shin.

“L’ke TH’S, RRRRRR!”

Trixie aimed and thrust, pushing her throbbing mare-cock into Twilight’s wildly excited, quivering pussy.

“AHHH! I mean MMMMM!”

Trixie fiercely fought back giggles, but her heart sang. The silly darling! She could speak quite clearly through the sash, but it pleased her to play the heavily gagged filly. Trixie happily played the ravenous, infinitely-lengthy Saddle Arabian Stallion, and wondered if Twilight was imagining being hogtied while she was at it.

“MM! MMMMM!!!”

Her vagina was such a firm, eager grip, and slippery beyond expectation: Trixie took pains to not swing her hips forward too quickly, judging that Twilight’s best response would be from mimicking the story she’d been told. Twilight reeled, shaking her head, stamping with her forehoof.

“MMMM! Ohcelestia, I mean MMM!!”

Trixie, grinning with her face pressed to the side of Twilight’s tensed neck, slid it in all the way and gritted her teeth on the magic bit, swelling inside Twilight and thumping her deepest depths with insouciant expertise, just firmly enough.

“EEEEH!”

She was rewarded with a genuinely fillyish squeal, and felt Twilight melt down completely, body shuddering and vagina beginning to clench and gush marecome… and Trixie realized her distraction had left her a brief moment before she inevitably followed her lover into climax. She was hard as a rock… but not quite ready to come. She opened her eyes.

Twilight Sparkle’s face was so beautiful behind the silly and ineffective gag, her teeth bared against it, her eyebrows arched up in beautiful pleasure-anguish… and then Trixie watched her tense, and a lovely purple gout of magic burst forth from her horn and soared through the air, accompanied by a ‘gheeee!’ from Twilight that also sounded irresistibly breathless and girly.

Trixie grinned, tightened her grip around Twilight’s body, bore down with her teeth on the bit, and delivered greedy, lusty thrusts against Twilight’s madly orgasming insides: hungry shoves, muscular steady churning of her beloved’s frantic pussy in spite of any clenching that sought to hold her still. She worked her swollen magical cock like she was kneading Twilight from the inside, relentlessly.

“AIIEEEE!”

Twilight staggered and shrieked, unable to stop coming, and gout after gout of beautiful violet horngasm gushed from her horn as if Trixie was literally pumping it out with each clinging, hunching thrust. The light show cast mad shadows all over the room, until…

“HRRRRR!”

“EEEEEEHH!”

Trixie came in a violent spasm, and blasted blue magic from her own horn like erotic vengeance. It locked onto Twilight’s violet-gushing release, and earthed itself immediately, and Twilight’s wide staring eyes lit up blue, her body outlined with a blue glow as her Saddle Arabian stallion spurted horsecome into her quivering womb, and simultaneously drenched her psyche and body with his magic through the conduit of her horn.

“RHHH! RHH! HHH! HHH!”

Trixie, the inexplicably unicornish Saddle Arabian Stallion, hunched and growled and spurted the last volleys of magically-induced semen into Twilight’s womb. Her horngasm, still flooding Twilight, weakened, flickered, and went out. Twilight wobbled, squealed, collapsed… and Trixie followed her down, nuzzling the side of her neck drunkenly, making little nudges into her fevered vagina with the still-swollen artificial stallionhood. She knew Twilight wouldn’t want to disengage just yet. Apart from the heady delicious madness of still making love through the afterglow, the horsecome would disappear with the stallionhood when the bit was released, and Twilight liked feeling it inside her.

“Mmmm, mmmm, mmm… EEEEE!” squeaked Twilight.

Trixie spat the bit. “Oh, crap! The drapes ARE on fire!”

Twilight screamed again, kicking her sex-weakened legs feebly and swishing her tail as she tried to rise. Trixie, by contrast, was up and running, but the direction for her to run seemed unclear. Whinnying shrilly, she dashed from one side of the room to the other, wanting to flee but unwilling to leave her marefriend.

“Mistress!” she squealed.

Twilight, looking stricken, quit trying to get up. As Trixie galloped little circles around her, Twilight’s horn lit bright and true. Her magic seized an exquisite vase, piled high with lovely roses in reds and yellows, and Twilight swung the vase at the wall in hopes there was water inside.

Smash!

The water inside was indeed plentiful enough to spray violently across all the flaming drapes, putting them out, and drenching Twilight and Trixie with after-splash.

Twilight stared dazedly out from under a soaked mane, holding a ragged bunch of thrashed roses in her magical grip. Trixie, brought back to her senses by the splash of stale vase-water, stared at her darling.

“Mistress?”

Twilight sulked. The ruined bouquet floated down to where she lay, along with an assortment of levitating crockery shards. She tried to fit them together, but her post-coital dexterity wasn’t up to the task. Twilight sniffled, and ate one of the roses.

Trixie snerked. Twilight pouted worse and ate another rose. Trixie began to smirk, and her grin grew and grew.

“We,” announced Trixie, “are the worst mischief unicorns ever!” She began to giggle at Twilight’s woebegone expression.

Twilight tried to cling to her tragic look, but the giggle was contagious. “Hey, gimme those!” she squeaked, as Trixie’s telekinetic powers grabbed for some of the roses.

“Share!” demanded Trixie. “How dare Mistress decide to eat all the evidence and not let Trixie have any?”

“Fine! I’ll eat these,” said Twilight, “and you snack on the crockery shards.”

Trixie stuck out her tongue. Twilight placed rose petals on it, which she happily munched.

“We’ll replace the draperies, of course,” said Twilight. “Rarity might know how. I think I might be able to work out an unshattering cantrip for the vase? It’s very much like a puzzle to assemble. Can you help me pick up all the pieces?”

“Mistress has come such a long way,” said Trixie admiringly.

“I beg your pardon, Trixie?”

“Trixie means,” said Trixie, “that some time ago you would have been hysterical at causing such damage to Celestia’s things. Now look at you! You are smashing her crockery without a care!”

Twilight blinked. “Huh. That’s not really true, I intend to fix this mess. I… you know, my feelings are quite embarrassing. Maybe I’m taking this ‘tease Celestia’ thing too far.”

“How so?” asked Trixie.

Twilight made a face. “I hate to admit it. There’s a part of me that would like things to return to the way I once saw them. At the same time, I completely feel the Princess’s interest in me. I’m flattered, don’t get me wrong, but… I guess I feel betrayed, at the same time.”

Trixie’s expression grew worried. “Mistress? That doesn’t sound like a happy thing.”

Twilight pouted again. “Oh, it’s all right. Some days I even feel equal to it. But do you know what I thought when I realized I’d broken that vase, and made a big mess? The first thought I had was, ‘it serves her right’. For disrupting everything. Maybe even for carrying on with Discord, or Chaos if you like. Trixie, is it right of me to think that?”

Trixie trotted over and hugged her. “Mistress! Let’s not think of it as wrong or right. As far as Trixie is concerned, teasing Big Snobby is perfectly fine, though Trixie started to like her much better as she revealed these surprising aspects.”

“Yeah,” said Twilight. “You loved it. I think maybe I’m not as over it as I thought.”

Trixie regarded her marefriend sternly. “Another hug!” she ordered, and snuggled her lavender unicorn until she got a big sigh and felt her body relax. “You’ll fix her broken crockery?”

Twilight nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Will you take a tiny broken fragment that’s not visible from the outside,” demanded Trixie, “and exempt it from the unshattering spell, so that there will be a flaw in the vase and you won’t tell Celestia about it but all the same you will know and have a smug look because you’re tricking her about something that would offend her sense of alicorn orderliness?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. She said, “…how?” and stared at her marefriend, who smirked and petted her mane.

“Trixie would do the same… if she wanted another spanking.” The blue unicorn chuckled. “Mistress, that’s very clever, but don’t. That is a Trixie thing to do. Mistress will be happier if she integrates her new identity as Princess’s pet, with the old one of the faithful love-puppy.”

“I’m not a puppy!” protested Twilight.

“Maybe not,” countered Trixie, “but for years you might as well have been. Mistress, listen. That is part of why Trixie loves you. First you were like that with Big Snobby. Then, you were after that farm pony Applejack, and it didn’t end well. It hurt you deeply when you had to choose between Celestia and Trixie, but your sense of loyalty was answering a new call. When you became an alicorn, Trixie thought maybe the faithful love-puppy was gone for good…”

Twilight gulped, tearing up, suddenly remembering quiet mornings when she’d wake just to watch the dawn’s light creeping slowly across sleeping Trixie. Remembering her feelings as she’d sit treasuring every second, drinking in the sight of her beloved as her mortal time passed, expecting to go on forever bereaved as an immortal alicorn who’d lost her true love to Time.

“No,” said Twilight. “That was me, still.”

Trixie hugged her for a third time until she’d calmed herself.

“But you see Trixie’s point? Go ahead and let yourself have feelings, Mistress, but don’t give up on the unicorn love-puppy business. Trixie is worthy of it, of course: besides being great and powerful, Trixie loves you right back. Well, Big Snobby does too! Maybe the way she proposes to love you seems too intense, but Trixie is sure she means well.”

Twilight stuck out her lower lip. “No missing piece to the vase? It would be kinda funny.”

“Mistress, there may come a time when you’ll be glad you kept faith,” said Trixie. “Because if Trixie is any judge, such a tiny discrepancy would drive that alicorn up the wall. And you’re right: that does make it more funny. But we will have laughter enough.”

“Probably,” said Twilight, with a wry halfsmile. “We seem to have a knack for low comedy and smashing crockery.”

“We can bring unicorn amusement to the stuffy halls of Canterlot!” declaimed Trixie. “But as Mistress has shown Trixie… we can do it with love.”

“Awwww,” said Twilight, nuzzling her bold and provocative mate. “You may be right. But what about Ponyville, then?”

“What about it?” sniffed Trixie. “We are not there. Where we are not, is not interesting!”

“Well, don’t they need us too? We’re like the super-unicorn magic team of Ponyville. They count on us for that. It seems like every other day, Ponyville is turning to ‘Princess Twilight Sparkle’ for something.”

Trixie scrunched her nose and pursed her lips. “Mistress… when Trixie thinks about it, between your alicorn days and our time with Rarity as our submissive and the pranks we still intend to play on various Ponyvilleans… maybe they are entitled to a break from us.” She kissed Twilight on the nose. “They will still be the charming but dull little town when we get back. Trixie promises.”

Twilight sighed, unconvinced. “You’re sure they don’t need us there?”

“Trixie thinks they must be keeping out of trouble more effectively without US around…”

Angel Bunny hopped up and down, gesturing like mad.

“What is it, dear sweet Angel? Did you eat your salad too quick, have you got a stomachache, shall I rub it to make it better?” crooned solicitous Fluttershy.

Angel hopped more, squeaking and waving.

“Outside? But it’s time for your nap, dearest, on your special pillow in the sunbeam. Do you need me to fluff your pillow up again? Are you asking me when lovely Dursaa will come home? It’s sweet of you but he is working and won’t return until later this afternoon…”

Angel folded his arms and glared, sticking out his lower lip.

“Well, I’ll look, but I’m sure he’s not back yet,” said Fluttershy. She swished her long, flowing, enchanted tail, and flew lightly down the stairs to her front door, opening it and peering fretfully outside. “There! Angel Bunny, there’s nobody here to let in…”

A peremptory bunny-squeal from upstairs made her cower.

“I’m sorry! I’ll look harder,” pleaded Fluttershy. She pouted, and with trepidation stepped out into the sunshiney day, glancing to left and right. All was quiet: too quiet, with a mysterious absence of little bird and animal friends. Behind her, Angel urged her on, a worried look on his diminutive bunny face. She tiptoed around the side of her cottage, where trees overlooked Angel’s nap window…

There was a cracking noise, and a horrible squall from overhead. Angel sprinted for the safety of the cottage, instantly.

“EEEEEE!” squealed Fluttershy, cowering back, but it was too late. A huge dark form plummeted down onto her…

Gilda Griffin slammed into the ground, inches from Fluttershy, still clinging to a branch that hadn’t supported her weight. For a moment, predator and pony just stared at each other in amazement. Then, Gilda began to whimper, for those big beautiful eyes weren’t so kindly anymore. Far from it…

“You SCARED Angel Bunny!” snarled Fluttershy, her teeth bared in unconcealed rage, her enchanted mane flying wild in her ferocity.

“I didn’t mean to!” wailed the hapless griffin, scrabbling back a few inches, her gaze pleading piteously for mercy.

“Gilda Griffin, what are you even doing here?” demanded Fluttershy. “You were up in my tree! You’ve frightened away all the birds, and a good thing too! You broke my tree, look there in your claws! That is a living tree, young lady!”

“I’m sorry!” wailed Gilda. She shook in terror, grovelled against the ground.

“WHY?” yelled Fluttershy, also shaking, but in fury.

“I, I, I, I…”

Fluttershy screwed her eyes shut, and made an awful face. There would be no murdering of any innocent little birds that day, if she was any judge. She took a deep breath. “Why, Gilda Griffin? Why do you plague me? You are a big meanie!”

The big meanie grovelled on the ground some more. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m trying! Please, won’t you help? I’ll be different, I swear!”

“You mustn’t swear here,” replied Fluttershy tartly. “My little zebragasus foal should not hear bad language.” Her eyes widened, and then narrowed into a glare of rage again. “Are you trying to eat him, or my wonderful Angel Bunny? Tell me right now!”

“Fuck!” squawked Gilda in a panic, then did a doubletake at her lapse. “I mean… augh! No, no, I would never, I don’t want that, please please help me be good and like a new griffin, I want to be like ponykind and be nice and gentle! Ask Rainbow Dash! Ask Applejack! Except that turned out kind of weird but I totally didn’t mean it!”

Fluttershy glared at her griffin tormentor, who writhed in dismay on the ground and couldn’t look away from her accusing gaze.

“Is this a trick?” she demanded. “Why should I believe you? I think you’ve killed dozens, hundreds of innocent things. I’ve watched you do it! Now you come to me and you tell me, me of all ponies, that you want to change. And so you should, but go and do it around Rainbow Dash or some other roughneck ponies! Why me, Gilda Griffin?”

The amber predator eyes filled with tears.

“Because you’re the poniest pony ever, nopony compares to you, you are all of the kindness and adorableness I could ever want, nopony else could be as good and sweet and kind…”

“But I don’t like you, Gilda Griffin,” said Fluttershy, gritting her teeth. “You are a big meanie with blood on your claws and I don’t want to see you around here. Why don’t you go ask Applejack how to be nice? In between having mean noisy rough sex and hurting each other?”

Gilda’s tears flowed more freely. Grief visibly flooded her, and her powerful feline body sagged against the dirt. Still, she couldn’t look away, and she tried to reply and found the words stuck in her beak, unsayable. She gazed miserably into Fluttershy’s lovely but judgemental eyes, out of answers… and then she’d shut her own eyes, her face contorted with self-loathing, and she forced herself to answer anyhow, no matter how difficult the answer was to give.

“Because I love you, Fluttershy. It’s you I need. I need to be like you.”

She didn’t dare open her eyes, couldn’t face that condemning expression.

“I don’t care what happens,” she added. “I’ll do anything. Anything. Just please, please, PLEASE don’t send me away…”

She said the words, and began to shake, the tears bursting forth anew once she’d put the unthinkable into words, and Gilda Griffin shuddered in her own private hell upon the unforgiving earth, awaiting her sentencing.

Then, her eyes flew open, and all they could see was the sun through a silky pink haze, and all she could feel was the cool and gentle presence of Fluttershy hugging her, that long flowing mane draped across her amazed eyes, and that beautiful tenderness and that soft firm pony body wrapped her in an embrace that just about stopped her heart.

Gilda’s mind nearly snapped. She drew her head back to see Fluttershy’s face, and the beloved pegasus had tears in her eyes as well, and looked cross, weary and determined, and her bottom lip stuck out in an irresistible pout that betrayed her deep reserves of stubbornness.

“Very well,” said Fluttershy. “Though you wouldn’t want to be too much like me. But you should have a chance, if you really want it.”

Gilda’s heart pounded. “No way. No way. No way…”

“Don’t contradict me,” snapped Fluttershy.

“Awk! I’m sorry! I… agh!” squawked Gilda. She vibrated, still clasped in Fluttershy’s embracing forelegs, her face-feathers bristling out with a thousand emotions, not trusting herself even to move or speak.

“You’ll have your chance,” said Fluttershy firmly. “Though it’s not really a chance. You asked for it! You SHALL be good, and you’ll stop hurting other creatures, no matter what. Even if I have to compel you. But I’d rather not, so learn to be nice and kind, okay? I’m warning you.”

“What?” blinked Gilda. “I mean, yeah! Oh my GOD, yeah, oh thank you, thank you so much you won’t regret this…”

“Quiet,” said Fluttershy, and Gilda shut her beak. Fluttershy gave a deep sigh of resignation, and Gilda shivered with blinding ecstacy, feeling that lovely pegasus body moving against hers. For a moment, her mind was filled with wild fantasies of very gentle and nice lovemaking, her feline body merging with the butter-yellow pegasus’s in waves of carnal pleasure that somehow weren’t as magical as just being held by her beloved Fluttershy, which was actually happening, which kept on happening until she was about to…

Fluttershy released Gilda from the hug, and sniffed the air with a little frown. “Hm,” she said.

Gilda’s lip quivered, and her look was tragic: she’d been inches from orgasm.

“Please don’t have sex with any of my animals either,” said Fluttershy primly. “I suppose you’re asking to be one of my animals, from the sound of it. You can go and have sex with Rainbow Dash, as long as it’s not here. But you have to promise not to hurt her! Or let her hurt you, if it comes to that, because she is a roughneck pony and probably likes such things. And that’s not good for real ponies.”

All Gilda could do was nod, her eyes wide, drinking in Fluttershy’s stern radiance.

“Come with me,” said Fluttershy. “I’ll show you where you can sleep. And we’ll start working on your diet right away.”

Gilda flinched. “But I’m not gonna eat…”

“No you are not,” said Fluttershy. “We’ll try you on what Fluffkin and Cinnamon eat. No arguments!” She turned, and began to walk back toward her front door.

“Fluffkin and Cinnamon?” said Gilda, following on trembling paws, watching the tender swing of those soft pegasus hips with fervent, obsessed eyes.

“My eagle and red-tailed hawk,” said Fluttershy affectionately. “We’ll feed you birdseed, Miss Gilda. Won’t that be nice?”

Gilda licked her lips, staring at Fluttershy’s gently rounded flank, pegasus nipples just visible between her shapely legs, pony heaven just a little way above them.

“Yummy,” said Gilda, and thought: anything for this, anything…

“Ain’tcha gonna go look for her, Dashie?” said Applejack, plainitively.

Rainbow Dash frowned. “Give it another minute. You told her that dinner was your apple-carrot-alfalfa casserole?”

“Yeah, and she says, the Green Streak isn’t hungry when injustice roams the Everfree Forest! And off she went, again!”

Rainbow chuckled. “Yeah. Give them a week to get over it. I know Rock Candy isn’t convinced. Do you think Fluttershy is going to stop fucking where they can hear her? I’m tempted to do a fly-over, that sounds incredibly hot.”

“She’d better,” said Applejack darkly. “She’s got ‘em all worked up. Rock jes’ keeps on saying the monsters are coming closer, and of course our Spy, she believes every word of it. Dammit, Dashie, she’s stayin’ out all night huntin’ for ‘em!”

“I’d be more worried for the ‘monsters’,” teased Dash. “Think for a minute, Applejack. Spy is getting so fast even I can’t catch her sometimes. Do you really think some timberwolf has a chance of getting a piece of her? She’s dead serious, and she’s so jacked with adrenaline they won’t get within a thousand feet without her ricocheting off rocks and trees and things. And do you remember what I was telling her?”

Applejack made a face. “You’re just feeding it, Rainbow, and that’s a fact. You got no business playing into such foolishness.”

Dash scoffed. “She listened, didn’t she? And I made sure to tell her how to pull her fellow superhero out of harm’s way. You saw. We practiced it! Rock Candy is still limping from some of those tackles, but you never saw a little colt so happy. And I’m happy too, because even if he doesn’t have spooky Pinkie powers warning him of danger, our Northern Spy can zip in and literally drag him out of trouble if anything bad attacks. Face it, Applejack, they’ll be safe enough. I told her not to try and sleep out there away from cover, she agreed to come home if they get tired or bored of it.”

“You told her to return to the Green Streak Secret Base!” accused Applejack.

“Got me there. It isn’t very secret,” admitted Rainbow Dash. “But I was talking her language. There’s nothing out there really, not like they think. Besides, if little Rock does have a Pinkie Sense, they’re probably even safer. Right?”

Applejack pouted. “Sure, if our baby didn’t make a habit of runnin’ TOWARD the danger…”

Dash’s ear perked, then Applejack’s.

“G’t one! I g’t one!” came the familiar voice.

In a moment, they were downstairs, the door flung open, and Northern Spy staggered toward them out of the gathering darkness, a wild gleaming light in her ruby eyes, and the end of a wriggling sack between her teeth. She dragged it as fast as she could, clearly wanting to trot with springy, proud steps, but impeded by her burden. Applejack paled, as a horrible unnatural cry emerged from the sack.

“Spy?” ventured Dash. “Whatcha got there, Spy?”

Northern Spy dragged the struggling sack right into the living room, and dropped it. “The monsters!” she declared.

“What, all of ‘em?” gawked Applejack. “In that one lil’ sack?”

Northern Spy blinked. “No. Take this one! Rock thinks he can find another! The Green Streak never rests!”

She grabbed the other end of the sack, and she gave it a yank, dumping out its contents—and just like that, she was gone, sack held tightly in her mouth.

“SPY!” yelled Applejack, galloping to the door, but too slow. “SPY! Consarn it!”

Behind her, she heard Rainbow Dash whimper. Slowly, she turned.

The monster was quite small. It flailed grisly limbs, and emitted another awful noise through the gory mess on top that made a mockery of the remaining patches of dirty fur. Rainbow Dash’s expression was memorable, her mouth turned down until it seemed to entirely leave her face. She cringed back in horror, and gave a little shriek as the horror began to feebly hop her direction, bent on…

Applejack blinked.

“That there’s a bunny,” she said flatly.

Rainbow scrabbled out of its way, her wings blasting the room with panicky gusts of wind as she got airborne and away from the monster. It hopped painfully on, until it bonked the wall, and then it stopped, confounded. Hyperventilating and almost clinging to the ceiling, Rainbow looked again.

It did resemble a bunny, if you ate parts of its legs and then ground it in the dirt for a while. However, there was one striking omission. It lacked a head. This didn’t seem to be stopping it from trying to hop through the wall, bent on some monstrous mission. It bonked the wall again, and fell over, and floundered, unable at first to rise.

Rainbow gulped. “What is it, a zombie? You call that a bunny, Applejack? What HAPPENED to it?!”

Applejack watched it twitching there for a moment. It made no move to attack her, or Rainbow. She watched as it made another horrible noise, causing Dash to cringe. She watched as it rose to its two-and-a-half remaining legs, and bonked the wall again, and fell over, helpless.

She took off her hat.

“I reckon it’s seen better days.”

The partial bunny wailed again, and continued to try and rise.

Reversals

“Is this awesome or what?” said Northern Spy. “Now come over here and let me do you. We’re a team!”

Rock Candy’s eyes were very wide. He trembled, and he didn’t move the slightest bit toward eager Spy, the newly Fanged Streak.

“What,” he said.

“Turn you into a vampire too, dummy!” snapped Spy impatiently. “I can feel it’s doing stuff that probably makes all spooky powers to do amazing things. Let’s both find out!”

Rock shook his head, screwing his face up. “No, I mean…”

“Whaddya mean, Rock?” said Spy, in sudden quietness.

“I’m just trying to say that…”

“You’re not… failing to be awesome, are ya?” goaded Spy. She stamped the ground with a forehoof.

Rock Candy knew he only had a moment. Northern Spy wasn’t patient at the best of times, and he did not like the tiny green filly’s tone of voice. He thought frantically, and then he threw it over to his deepest instincts, and heard himself speak—and he sounded angry, and—disappointed?

“I thought there was more to my name than that, Green Streak.”

Spy blinked. “Huh? What’s your problem, Rock?”

“I thought I was the Rock Lobster. To you,” he accused.

Spy sat on her little rump, perplexed. “Since when are you not? I still don’t understand what it means. You’re weird!”

“You do know what it means. We’re a team. Our whole mission is because you know what it means. Green Streak, you trust my instincts.”

Spy considered this. “Well, yeah. You could sense the presence of the tiny monsters that are coming into town! I still can’t, though it’s like I can hear their littlest motions now. And their noises make better sense,” she said. Her ears quirked, as she considered her own remark.

“I can sense many things with my Pinkie Powers,” asserted Rock. “I don’t always understand what they mean, but I have mysterious gifts, Streak.” His heart was hammering like a scared rabbit’s.

“Now we can make those gifts bigger and more creepy and awesome!” said Spy. “I bet it won’t hurt much, I think these teeth are real sharp now. So what do you say?”

“But I already told you,” said Rock.

Spy blinked. “This is you being weird again, right?”

“You said, is this awesome or what,” accused Rock. “I told you. It’s what. It is not awesome, and please don’t come any closer to me right now.”

He flinched then, as Spy banged the floor of their secret base with her hoof.

“This is NOT how this is supposed to go! I thought we were a team, Rock!”

“Of course we are,” soothed Rock. “We’re always gonna be heroes! I just need you to say that you’ll leave me the way I am. You know! The Rock Lobster, with the spooky Pinkie Sense, and totally not as amazing as you but I have my moments…”

“But we can fix that!” urged Spy, her eyes too bright. “Maybe you won’t ever be as fast as me, but we can share this!”

“Mom wouldn’t like it.”

“She’s a vampire herself!” scoffed Northern Spy.

“Fluttershy would be really mad,” said Rock. “She’d be really mad at me and she’d say I shouldn’ta. But I didn’t mean her.” He twitched, uneasily.

“Are you gonna side with me, your partner in superheroes,” protested Spy, “or are you gonna side with Moms? I can’t believe you’re siding with Moms, Rock! Are you kidding me?”

“How did it happen?” retorted Rock. “I can’t believe you want to do this and you don’t even know how it happened to you!”

“Do so!”

“Well, then?”

Northern Spy’s eyes, which had begun to light up in an eerie way with her anger, dimmed. She looked down, and scuffed the floor with a forehoof. “Okay, kinda. I felt so funny hunting those tiny monsters. They look like monster bunnies! I picked that one up to put it in the sack, and that’s when I noticed my teeth were funny. Do you think it… made this happen?” She shook herself. “Which is AWESOME and how dare you refuse to come be this way with me! Seriously, Rock? You gotta!”

Rock Candy began to feel his Sense kick in, harder and harder, and he let it guide him. “I don’t know, Spy…”

“The Green Streak!” demanded Spy, trembling.

“I don’t know, Streak,” said Rock, placatingly. “Does that mean they’re vampire bunnies? You caught it from them?”

“Well, how can I tell that?” snapped Spy. “The one I caught didn’t even have a head! How’s it supposed to have fangs if it has no head, Rock? Huh?”

“Did it make the awful noises?” pressed Rock. “Is that how you found it?”

For a moment, Spy looked haunted, and very small, like the filly she was. “Yeah. Yeah, it was making the noises. Even though it didn’t have a head. That didn’t stop it. So gross. That wasn’t a happy bunny I caught, Rock.”

Rock nodded. “Happy bunnies always seem to have heads,” he said, and then winced at how dumb a remark it was.

Spy didn’t seem to hold it against him. Her eyes flashed again. “We need to catch the rest of them! Power that great cannot be left to headless screaming bunnies, Rock Lobster! We’ve got to round up every last one of the monsters before they…” and she hesitated.

“Oh yeah?” said Rock. “Sounds dangerous.”

Spy drew herself up proudly. “The Green Streak laughs at danger!”

“I guess you can laugh even more at danger now,” suggested Rock. “On the other hand, it’s gonna be really awkward explaining this to your Mom, even if we don’t also have to explain me to MY Mom at the same time.”

Spy bared her teeth, and the little fangs flashed in the light. “It wasn’t my fault! They can’t be mad at me for that, I was just superheroing! How was I supposed to know it was a vampire bunny when it didn’t even have teeth or a head? Or that just touching it would… would…”

“I know,” soothed Rock, keeping as far back from his tiny, irate, vampiric filly friend. “That’s totally unfair.”

“Totally!” insisted Spy.

“The thing is, we might have to deal with it anyway. Do you know any way of not being a vampire anymore, Spy? ‘Cos I think your Mom’s gonna be mad. I’m just saying.”

“So what?” retorted Spy, defiantly.

“Right!” said Rock, keeping his distance. “Who cares what Moms think when it comes to superheroing? But it’s gonna change our plans, Spy. Okay? I think we have to assume you’re in trouble. Really big trouble, if we can’t put it back. Do you understand the trouble you’re in, Spy?”

Spy snorted, kicking the ground. She didn’t answer, and it was more alarming than all her raving. Something had got under her skin with that question. It seemed to be a really, really bad question, somehow.

“I’m serious!” protested Rock. “I don’t think we can just keep going as we were. I have a feeling they’re really going to freak out. That’s why I asked if you knew how to de-vampire yourself! If you can’t, I think your Mom’s gonna be really, really mad.”

Spy snorted again. She wouldn’t look up. She refused to consider the idea.

“Don’t you understand?” begged Rock, his heart pounding again.

No reply.

Then, Northern Spy did slowly look up, and for a long moment she just looked at him… and her eyes looked like the monsters sounded, when they screamed their agony in the night.

She licked her lips, for her mouth had gone bone dry.

“Rock? I think I’m… dead.”

He couldn’t speak, couldn’t look away. No uncanny vampiric force held him. Just love.

“I didn’t ask to be dead,” she continued unsteadily. “I can tell that’s what this is. I feel so cold. I don’t think I can stop being a vampire now. Won’t I just be… dead?”

Rock whimpered, his heart wrung, watching the torment of his very best friend.

Northern Spy tried to give a brave little smile, to hang on to that bravado and courage.

“W…” she began, and choked, her eyes stinging as tears attacked. She pressed on, defiantly.

“What more… can my Mom even do to me?”

Northern Spy’s lip quivered. Her face twisted.

The last thing she saw before her vision was blinded by tears was her faithful Rock Candy, charging over to wrap her in a tight, comforting embrace.

Rock clung to her fiercely, as if the ferventness of his hug could take the pain away. There were no words. Northern Spy’s small green body shook, and her little blue tail thrashed as emotion flooded her. She wept in silence, or tried very hard to—faint cries of anguish seemed to force their way out, against all her efforts. Rock clasped her even closer, allowing her to muffle her wails against his soft white fur, its pristineness stained with her tears.

He wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do, but he was sure that the danger had passed: for him, anyway. The danger hadn’t passed Spy. It’d got her. Her body seemed to be sucking warmth out of him, and he wrapped himself around her as best he could, trying to ward off the chill, though it was too late. She shuddered and sobbed, inconsolable, struggling the whole time not to make a sound.

Endless time seemed to pass. Rock let it.

Eventually, he felt Spy’s head stir against him. She was looking up, and he met her gaze. It was an unforgettable gaze, drenched in tears but strangely undefeated. And yet, Northern Spy seemed to have something left to say, something very important, more important than the coolness and awesomeness she so fiercely clung to.

“I’m s… sorry,” said Northern Spy, miserably.

“It’s okay,” said Rock.

“Shyeah, right!” sniffled Spy. “Nothing’s okay!”

“No, I mean, you didn’t bite me,” said Rock. “And you’re not going to, my Sense says the danger passed.” He blinked, and gave a twitch. “Um. Are you going to bite me?”

Spy made a face. “No way. It would be bad for you, so bad. This is so bad, Rock… It would be so horrible, so wrong. I’m sorry.”

Rock hesitated, then asked it. “So how come you tried so hard to talk me into it?”

The little green filly face contorted again with pain and grief, shame dragging her eyes down, and when she looked up at him again it was with an unmistakable Northern Spy angry sullen honesty. She’d never bothered to lie about things she could just brazen out.

“Would YOU want to be dead… just all by yourself?”

The tears returned, and the shaking, and Rock Candy returned to his cuddles.

“Imff mf plmf,” mumbled Spy despairingly against Rock’s side.

“What?”

She lifted her head just enough to speak, as if it had become very heavy. “I need a plan,” she sighed.

“No,” corrected Rock.

Immediately, Northern Spy scowled. Being contradicted suited her no better in death than in life. “Whaddya mean, no?” she blurted, and her lip quivered in another wave of despair.

“No no,” explained Rock. “WE need a plan.”

It took all of Northern Spy’s energy to curl her mouth up in the tiniest inkling of a smile, but it was worth it. With the chill seeping into her dead bones, Northern Spy basked for a moment in her Rock Lobster’s answering smile, and then snuggled up against him and dropped into an exhausted sleep.

Rock didn’t sleep. He curled around Spy as best he could, even draping his fluffy pink mane across her face, in efforts to keep her warm. He couldn’t help but notice that she’d got so tired she forgot to breathe, or beat her tiny heart, and a chill went down his spine to see it.

But the Green Streak would still expect to hear about his plan when she woke up, all the same.

The zebras cantered tirelessly on. There was so very far to go, to return to their ancestral homelands.

That said, both knew quite well that they weren’t covering the distance zebra-style. Quite apart from the obstacle of the intervening ocean, traveling through Hoofington to the south coast and Stableside, and then through the mountains of Cervidas and the ensuing desert, would be weeks of grueling travel. They weren’t provisioned for that, weren’t prepared. There was a reason traditional zebras did not appear in Ponyville: even in Canterlot the fine robes and bangles of Zebrican diplomatic delegations rarely appeared.

Traditional zebras journeyed on hoof, or in zebra-crafted boats, taking weeks to cross the great distances involved, setting hoof rarely on the Equestrian continent.

Zecora glanced wordlessly at Dursaa, cantering beside her. She’d had him pegged as a traditional zebra, but he’d surprised her on the trip. He knew where she was heading as well as she did.

The ponies didn’t put much stock in week-long laborious journeys, unlike zebras. The pegasus ponies certainly enjoyed rapid flight, but when it came to long distance travel, it had been the unicorns who really solved the problem… if you were not traditionalist, and if you were not easily frightened by arcane forces.

Zecora would never forget the series of portals she’d been told of. From a position outside of Zebrica but miles south of the Dromedor capital of Camelu, you were magically transported into the center of Cervidas, surrounded by creatures who didn’t even rhyme their polite words or speak your language. From there you sought out another portal that brought you to the northern coast, where there was still another portal taking you to Stableside. If the magical forces had not stolen your zebra soul and left you a empty, dried-up husk of a zebra walking like a person but secretly a dead puppet, you then galloped to Hoofington, and used yet another magic portal to skip past the impassable mountains and jump straight to Fillydelphia, where you’d emerge in a basement next to some nightclubs that confirmed the worst suspicions of decent Zebricans. If you got away from that place without being seized and carnally used by ravening pegasi, it was a straight shot to Ponyville, or of course nearby Canterlot.

No decent zebra would submit himself to such an unnatural series of conveyances, much less do it all over again but backwards to return to the homelands. Zecora valued some things about her heritage, but considered some of it nonsense, and she’d found the process liberating, even transforming.

Not that she believed herself transformed into a soulless husk! It was true she had shied away from the first portal despite the urgency of her desire to flee. She’d whinnied in fear, barely out of fillyhood, unable to remain but afraid to take the risk. And then she’d flung herself through the humming field of sorcery, and found herself among strangers, not even zebras, who were totally uninterested in her. They cared nothing for her well-being, for her bad behavior, had not the slightest concern for the way she violated custom. They simply, absolutely, did not care.

Exhilarating!

As she silently and shyly found her way to the next portal, Zecora had felt freedom and a kind of joy spark within her. By the time she’d made her way to the outskirts of Ponyville, it had become a proud blaze. The old ways were dead, and she didn’t need them, for no problems would arise. She would set up shop and no pony would question the gifts she’d provide: they wouldn’t even understand she was a herb doctor, much less realize that a mare herb doctor was a contradiction in terms, an abomination. She would thrive, even if she had to sneak into town and do business only with experienced, far-traveling ponies who weren’t alarmed by outsiders.

She kept the rings around her neck, her bangles and earrings, as her private rebellion: she was every bit a mare, for all that she’d taught herself the stallion’s crafts, for all that she had taken advantage of the unicorn magic portals to journey to Ponyville, her new home. Zecora knew she had done the right thing, knew it to the core of her being, defied anypony or zebra to suggest otherwise.

After all, she’d come out of that first portal, turned her head to look back, and saw the swirling thing appear on her flank as her cutie mark.

She glanced again at Dursaa. In the manner of traditional zebras, he did not have a cutie mark. That was for Elders, and zebras did not run about exploring new ways in hopes of discovering their uniqueness. Zebras kept with the herd, maintained the community. When they did pick up cutie marks, it was in the form of traditional zebra occupations, fishing or weaving or herb doctoring, not some swirling magic portal shape.

Zecora had seen his double-take when first he saw her mark, and had immediately assumed he’d accompanied one of the caravans galloping for miles across the desert. Why he’d chosen to work at Sweet Apple Acres was a mystery, but he seemed a traditional zebra stallion, almost to the point of being a rebuke for all she’d become.

Yet, he headed for that basement in the depths of Fillydelphia without even being told, like he’d experienced it before. And if he had, he’d most likely used the others too: and that seemed startlingly out of character.

Zecora glanced yet again at Dursaa. He had gone through four magic portals alongside her, without a word of complaint. She wanted to ask him about it, but could see he was still too emotionally hurt for casual conversation.

“Elders,” she said, as they approached the Zebrican capital. “Courage.”

Zecora gritted her teeth as a magistrate approached, not sure how the interaction would work. She refused to bow her head to a ranking city stallion, or any stallion for that matter, but she’d not risked a return to Zebrica since she’d left. She returned wearing the bangles of a Zebrican mare, but with the mark of an Elder on her flank, which was unthinkable… yet, also, in the company of a stallion, which was expected. To top it off, she feared she would have to speak for Dursaa and herself, which was so outrageous that it beggared belief. And yet, her companion remained silent and morose, even as the other stallion trotted to meet them.

“Our greetings to you, my good stallion, let us soothe your cares!” began the magistrate. “Welcome to Zevera, home for you and all your ma…” He broke off, his eyes bugging out. He’d seen Zecora’s flank.

Dursaa gave him a weary look, still not speaking, and rolled his eyes. Then, he glanced at Zecora.

Zecora gulped. It was no great favor to her. The stallion was expected to speak for his herd, but Dursaa knew she didn’t consider herself his mare, far from it. Very well, he seemed to say: take it from here. He had to know the implications, had to know that for her to launch into courtly speech as if she was the ranking stallion of the herd would be impossibly shocking, and yet there he stood, saying nothing.

She fell back on the urgency of their mission as the only course that might save her, and went straight to Elder speech, attempting no rhymes. “Elders,” she said, her voice shaking only a little. “We need Elders.”

The magistrate trembled, on the verge of panicked flight. He looked frantically around him, as if expecting lightning bolts to come down and smite him where he stood. He backed off a pace.

“That is plain to see,” he managed. He shuddered, violently, and concluded, “Better them than me!” and then he’d whirled and galloped off for all he was worth, vanishing into the town. Other zebras, seeing his panic, turned and left. It was easy to tell from his manner that something wrong was happening, and from elegant lissome mares to curious colts to strong and virile stallions, not one of them wanted to be there when it did.

Zecora stood, impassive. A muscle in her neck twitched, but that was the only sign of her frustration.

“They will come, though others fear,” she said quietly. “We need only remain here.”

Dursaa nodded. They waited.

“Rainbow, honey?” called Applejack. “You seen lil’ Spy around the place?”

Rainbow Dash stopped, on her way out the door. “Do you hear, oh, about six more screaming headless bunnies in the yard?”

“No!”

“Well, then, she’s not done rounding them up,” said Dash. She hesitated, then flew back inside, landed delicately and trotted over to hug her mate. “Listen, take it easy. Bunnies aren’t going to hurt her. We got this. All we have to do is find a place to put them, and maybe ask Fluttershy what they are. I’m glad you reminded me, I really should do that.”

“You’re goin’ out to talk to Fluttershy?” asked Applejack.

Dash made a face. “Not exactly. I got a date. With a couple unicorns. Hey! All the better, they might know what this is even if Fluttershy doesn’t. I just have to not ask until we’re at Fluttershy’s, or we’ll spend the day looking through boring textbooks.”

“Why, Dashie!” said Applejack. “Am I readin’ too much into that? You playin’ with Twilight and Trixie? I may say I understand th’ temptation but you know hoppin’ unicorn tail can be dangerous. Though I’m glad you ain’t still mad at ‘em for how they treated poor Derpy Hooves.”

“That was ages ago,” scoffed Dash. “We’re cool. You might even say… we’re hot.” She kept a straight face for a few seconds, then gave way to giggling. “Nah! It’s not like that. You want to know the truth? We’re going to prank Fluttershy. Guess who’s learning to play pranks? They promised I could watch.”

Applejack’s ears were splayed in fretfulness. “Oh my. Twilight, prankin’? I’mma go and tie down everything on th’ farm. What do you figure she’s gonna do, Rainbow?”

“I don’t have to figure,” boasted Dash, “I know. I watched her get the idea, and it’s going to be awesome. You know how Gilda’s fallen in love with Fluttershy, from the amazing ass-beating she took? Well, Twi’s going to present her with a magic bit for fucking Gilda with. I can’t wait to see the look on her face!”

Applejack blinked. “Wouldn’t Pinkie Pie be mad? You know we cain’t poke fun at Fluttershy. She’s too sensitive, Dashie, you know this.”

“Yeah, so you forgot she’s an unkillable vampire too?” suggested Dash.

“Uhhh… maybe it’s her feelin’s we need to be gentle with,” said Applejack.

“Or maybe,” said Dash, “she’d be happier if we just treated her like a regular pony. Applejack, you’ve seen Fluttershy give birth! You KNOW she is a total badass, deep inside.”

Applejack frowned. “Ah do know she would like her zebra honey to be more on th’ rough side. He don’t want to. Maybe she’s gettin’ tired of playing the delicate flower?”

“Exactly! Well, Twilight Sparkle is going to fix that. Don’t worry, she’s not actually gonna use the bit on Gilda, that would be crazy and maybe even dangerous. It’s a gag! We’re going to have some fun, that’s all. And then I can ask her what the zombie bunnies are. That should make her feel better, even if she gets an attitude about being pranked. Right?”

“Maybe,” said Applejack. “You be careful, y’hear? And if you run across Spy, you send her on home. There’s been enough bunny-herdin’ for the time being.”

“Got it!” said Rainbow Dash, and she gave Applejack a kiss, took to the air and zipped out of the door. The wind from her passage swung it slightly, but then it hung open, forgotten. Applejack sighed, and trotted over to close it after her raised-in-a-cloud beloved. She hesitated.

“Spyyy?” she called. No answer.

Applejack shut the door, and turned to do her household chores.

The zebra Elders approached deliberately, their eyes very wide. The story they’d heard had apparently been a shocking one, but the nearer they got to the strange couple on the outskirts of town, the more they believed it. Indeed, there was an unhappy and unfamiliar stallion awaiting them, and a quiet… anomaly.

Zecora shifted uneasily from hoof to hoof. As the Elders got near enough to touch, she drew back, just a little. She spoke, and half the Elders startled at her voice.

“Elders, sit with us,” she said.

There were five of them, with cutie marks from cooking to jewelry-making. They glanced back and forth among themselves, ears flattened.

Dursaa gulped, and licked his lips, and instantly they turned to him.

“Elders, sit with us,” he repeated.

The ears went from flattened in dismay, to perked forwards in fascination. One by one, the zebra Elders lay down on the grass in a circle. They looked up at Dursaa. Some glanced at Zecora, ears splaying in chagrin. They kept staring at her cutie mark, which they seemed to find unsettling.

Slowly, Dursaa lay down also, joining their circle. Zecora did likewise, and the nearest Elder with the fish cutie mark scooted away a few inches, surreptitiously.

They waited.

Zecora’s lips parted, but then she clamped them shut. I will be like them in wisdom as well as in marking, she thought. I will let the distressed one speak. I will sit with my own distress until understanding comes, or until a truth visits.

She gave Dursaa a look. He returned it. He sighed.

“We love a pony,” he said. “It does not go well.”

The Elders shifted, and did not speak.

“Mistress!” called Trixie Lulamoon. “What keeps you?”

“Just a moment!” came Twilight’s voice from inside Golden Oaks Library.

“Eeee!” squealed Rainbow Dash, and did a loop-de-loop. “This is gonna be so awesome!”

Twilight emerged, cute little saddlebags on her back, one of which she was closing up with a glow of her pert unicorn horn. “There!”

“Is that where the bit is?” said Dash excitedly. “Do you have it in a box, or something for her to open?”

Twilight’s ear flicked. “Huh! You’re better at this than me, Rainbow. No, I was planning to hold it behind my head while I told her. I can keep it out of reach, don’t you worry.” She smirked at Trixie, trotting alongside her. “Sometimes I make Trixie wrestle for ours. Makes her more lively.”

Trixie stuck her tongue out at her Mistress. “And Trixie saw her place it in the other saddlebag, so it can’t be that. We tested it, by the way, but didn’t properly use it. Now Trixie wishes she had!” She reared and tried to mount Twilight, who squealed in delight and galloped out of reach.

“So what didja bring?” asked Dash, swooping around the trotting unicorns.

Twilight winked. “You know how she was when she was carrying Rock, and little Dursaa. I just thought it’d be good to bring some insurance, and make sure she’s not sad or hurt. A little bribery. Corruption? A nice sweet sort of corruption, for a nice sweet vampony.”

“But what…” went Dash, but the saddlebag was already opening, letting her peek for an instant.

“Fudge!” proclaimed Twilight.

“Oh, Mistress!” cooed Trixie. “Lovely, so kind! That should work.”

Twilight eeked, and kicked out behind her. “Hey!” she yelled, for Rainbow Dash was trying to nuzzle her nose into the saddlebag while flying.

“Fudge tester!” insisted Dash, grinning ear to ear, and licked her lips.

Giggling, the three ponies headed at a brisk trot towards Fluttershy’s cottage.

“Now what is it?” declared Fluttershy, in exasperation.

Gilda peered up from where she sprawled worshipfully on the floor before Fluttershy. “It’s the things! I thought I was getting away from them! They keep getting closer to me!”

“What things?” demanded Fluttershy. “Gilda Griffin, you try my patience! Explain at once.”

Gilda gulped. Her head hurt, and she thought the birdseed was congealing into an unpleasant lump in her belly, unless that was what true love did. Maybe both? She hastened to comply. “Some kind of little monsters hunt me. They make these horrible cries that sound strangely wrong. I don’t know what they are but I thought I’d lost ‘em.”

“How would you know what’s wrong?” accused Fluttershy. “I’m here trying to teach you right and wrong, and suddenly you act like you know already? Young lady, some of the things I’ve watched you do are the wrongest things ever!”

“I’m sorry!” sobbed Gilda, and grovelled on the floor for the twelveth time that morning.

Fluttershy set her jaw. “Nopony is beyond redemption. I have to believe that, no matter what. No griffin, even.”

“Just beat me up again!” begged Gilda. “I can’t bear it, you hate me! Hurt me until you feel better.”

“No!” insisted Fluttershy. “That is not how we solve things, Gilda! Listen. There is a part of me that would like to get in a big fight with you, even let you hurt ME…”

“Noooo!” wailed Gilda.

“Listen!” said Fluttershy. “Just like I have a zebra husband, and there is a part of me that wants him to hurt me. And we have got to get past that and find out how to be loving and nice. Do you know that I have to be careful with my husband, and he with me? I want our lovemaking to be savage, but he may never nip me the way stallions do. I mean, I would love it but I know better, it is only a fantasy, because it would be dangerous. And here I am, they’re all gone and I’m stuck here with you and I don’t even like you…”

“I’m sorry!”

“LISTEN!” demanded Fluttershy, shaking. “It’s making me think! I was so frightened of you and imagined you tearing ponies to bits with your cruel claws. And part of me wants that, because I’m worse than you could imagine. But we have to do better, Gilda Griffin. It’s not just about you. I have to do better, somehow. My husband doesn’t want to hurt me, and I should be able to accept that, and here I am endangering a beautiful friendship with somepony special just because I want to be harmed even more, and then they l…left me…”

Gilda blinked tearfully in utter confusion. “Wait a minute. We’re a beautiful friendship now? Is this some pony thing?”

Fluttershy’s lip quivered.

There was a knock at the door.

Dursaa sighed. “I found a wife, far away. In Ponyville. She is a pegasus.”

The Elders glanced at each other, then returned their gaze to the bereaved stallion.

“She is very submissive,” said Dursaa.

Zecora frowned, but didn’t speak. The Elders nodded, solemnly.

“It is well,” said an Elder.

Another smirked, very subtly. “Indeed, if she is a sturdy mare, a zebra husband may be well with her as well!”

Zecora glared daggers at him, but Dursaa was speaking again.

“She wishes it to hurt… but I cannot conquer her as a stallion. It is different.”

He fell silent, and the Elders sat calmly, not rushing him. Finally, one cleared his throat, and spoke.

“Why can you not claim your mare as a stallion, sir?”

Dursaa gazed sadly at him. “I must not bite her,” he said. “She wishes my stallionhood, with ruthless force, until she cries, but I may not act as a true male and dominate my mare. Hear me, Elders. There is more to reveal.”

Zecora’s ears were laid back at the revelation, but some of the Elders’ ears were perked forward in glee.

“It would appear some part of your marriage is normal,” said one. “I have heard of this. Truly, the earth pony or unicorn or pegasus mares from faraway lands, who take as husband a zebra stallion, are in for a big surprise! If the mare can stand her husband’s force, she is a happy wife.”

“I love her,” said Zecora grimly.

The Elder glanced uncomfortably at her. “I do not know what you are. What are you?”

“I am Zecora, and I love her,” said Zecora defiantly.

The Elders glanced at each other.

“Sir,” said one to Dursaa, after a quiet pause. “When one goes to foreign lands, one finds their ways are strange. I see it is true: where here we know the mares flock to a strong male, to be seeded and cared for by him, yet there are places where the mares take many lovers.” He gulped, a faraway look in his eyes. “Especially pegasus mares,” he said, and shook himself. “Ah, yes!”

Dursaa looked unhappily at him.

After a little pause, the Elder added, “There are reasons why we do not mingle with ponykind, sir. It may be that you have made a mistake. If you desire to master your mare, but she wishes only your penis and instead to have this, this… visitor to bite her pert pegasus posterior and make her know her place…”

“Nay!” protested Zecora, but the Elder gazes silenced her.

“You do not understand,” said Dursaa in despair.

“Damned right they don’t,” added Zecora, but the Elder glares were even fiercer that time.

They sat in the angry silence, because that was their job: to sit until the anger drained away and they could try again.

After a long time, another Elder spoke very quietly and gently.

“Why may you not dominate your wife, sir?”

Dursaa gulped, and couldn’t meet his eyes. “I can mate her, but I cannot bite her rump. We agreed I must not draw her blood by my stallion teeth and reduce her to submission. I came too close, already, when I claimed her: the risk was great, too great. And… I do not want to nip her, though she would wish it with all her heart. I don’t want that. She is so precious. I want to make tender love.”

Elder eyes widened—as did Zecora’s. Contrary to their custom, several Elders began to speak at once.

“Is it this strange one who sways you?”

“Sir, the mare wishes to submit in fullness! You withhold what speaks to her deepest instincts!”

“Can pegasus mares really submit like a real zebra mare?”

“You risk being no stallion at all!”

Zecora’s eyes flashed. She banged a hoof in the dirt, shocking them. “She is a vampire horse!” she shouted.

Stunned silence.

An Elder gulped. “Sit with us,” he said. “Start again. We begin to understand why you came here…”

The door to Fluttershy’s cottage was tightly shut. Nopony responded to the rapping of Trixie’s hoof.

“Fluttershy?” called Twilight. “Are you home?”

“Eee!” squeaked Rainbow Dash, then covered her mouth with a hoof. Her eyes danced. “This is gonna be so funny!” she whispered.

“Trixie wonders if we arrived at an inopportune…”

Hoofsteps approached. Dash trotted in place, and her wings sproinged up stiffly.

The door opened, and Fluttershy peeked tearfully out, looking frazzled. Her mane was ragged, and her cute little fangs were barely visible: apparently, she was stressed out enough that the enchanted mane and tail extensions couldn’t entirely mask them. “What do you want?” she said. She concentrated, and the fangs faded from sight, her mane straightening itself a little.

“Oh, nothing much,” chirped Dash smugly. “Only to bring you and yours the most wonderful present ever!” She grinned, and frisked on the doorstep.

Fluttershy sniffed the air. “Is that… fudge?”

“Sooooo is Gilda here?” asked Dash, nonchalantly.

“And where else would she be?” retorted Fluttershy.

She squeaked and jumped aside, then, for Rainbow Dash zipped right past her into the cottage, looking around. “Yo, featherbrain! Where are you hiding? This is your lucky day! Come on in, Twilight, she’s here!”

Fluttershy chased after her. “Rainbow Dash! Behave! Gilda Griffin has had a very trying day and I’ve sent her to bed in her basket for a nap!”

“I’ll bet you have!” grinned Dash. “Have you sent her to the moon? Hmmm?”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped. “No, I certainly have not!”

“Oh well, the day is young,” said Dash. “She can have a nap after she goes and plays with Luna. In spirit, anyway!”

Out of a huge basket on the floor poked a disheveled, feathered head. “Dash? The fuck?”

“Eee!” squeaked Dash, and zipped over, hugging her old flame. “Hiya, babe! How’s it going?”

“I’ve been better,” muttered Gilda. Her eyes were bleary and reddened.

“Come see,” teased Rainbow. “We have something for Fluttershy you’ll like.”

Trixie frowned. “Rainbow Dash, something’s not right here…”

“And I know just what will fix that!” vowed Dash. “Right, Twilight?” She trotted over to stand before Twilight expectantly, wings aloft.

“Oh!” said Twilight, who’d been staring at Gilda. “Right! Um…”

“Candy?” suggested Fluttershy wearily. “Just ask Pinkie Pie, candy fixes everything. Right?”

Twilight confronted her, in a laughable mix of staginess and nonchalance. “Sort of! Because, uh, don’t look in this saddlebag because that’s for after, um, because we come, and I do mean come, bearing… SWEETMEATS!”

Her horn lit, and the shiny new magic bit floated out of the other saddlebag to hover before Fluttershy’s astonished eyes.

The applause was limited.

“Oh my gosh, Twilight, where did you learn to prank?” demanded Rainbow Dash, offended.

“From you?” retorted Twilight. “All right, what was I supposed to say, then? It’s a pun! You know, meats? Because she was talking about something sweet, and the magic bits give you a big fat meat and… oh, never mind!”

Fluttershy was glancing rapidly back and forth between them. “What is this? Twilight, Rainbow, is that what I think it is? What in Equestria do you think I’m going to do with that?”

Dash pouted. “Um. Cram it into a moaning, yearning griffin? What it gives you, I mean.”

“It is!” exclaimed Fluttershy. “You did try to give me a magic bit! Aren’t you a little late? Both the zebras have gone away to talk to their Elders. I don’t even think Zecora was willing to help me, after all. Everything is awful, and now this? You come here taunting me and pretending to give me a magic bit, as if I was going to use it myself? Why couldn’t you have brought it when the zebras were still here?”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “What do zebras have to do with anything… oh! Boy, this is more complicated than I thought! You’re saying that you really did want a magic bit, but only so you could give it to Zecora to use on you? But you’ve already got a…” She blinked again. “Oh. Gosh. You’re, um, braver than I thought! Really?”

Fluttershy pouted. “Don’t judge.”

“Oh, no!” said Twilight. “Far be it from me to… wow. Gosh! And… whoof!”

Trixie swatted her on the rump with a hoof. “Mistress! Stop filing away sexual fantasies and snap out of it, we have interrupted something important! Perhaps the pegasus and griffin are having a lovers’ quarrel, which our prank is not helping?”

“Good way to make up,” suggested Rainbow Dash, waggling her eyebrows. “Though kind of noisy. Take it from me!”

Fluttershy whirled. “Rainbow! You of all ponies would know why that is a cruel and foolhardy suggestion, take it back!” She considered. “You and Applejack would know. I don’t like to talk about this in front of Gilda because I am trying to be a good influence, but we all understand why that is a very bad idea!”

“Hello?” said Dash. “Prank, remember? It’s supposed to be a bad idea! Though it’s a shame, if you ask me, because Gilda’s in love with you and I think it would be the highlight of her whole existence to take even a little bit of the huge mammoth monstro cock that comes out of you! When you use a magic bit, I mean.”

“I don’t even like her!” raged Fluttershy. Dash froze.

“Not cool,” she said. “What the fuck, Fluttershy? Somepony does!” She flitted over quickly to hug Gilda, whose feathers were ruffled and who stared, stricken, into space. “We already knew you weren’t gonna fuck her, that’s why it’s funny. I didn’t think you of all ponies would turn nasty and mean.” She hugged Gilda tighter. “We’re gonna take care of her needs, and I’m really disappointed in you, Fluttershy. I thought you had more kindness in you than that. A joke’s a joke, but seriously?”

Fluttershy glowered. “Behave, Rainbow. I’m trying to like her. We both know I can’t have sex with her, even if I wanted to turn into a fake male pony, because at least twice now she has clawed and bitten lovers and she must not bite me. Not in my condition.”

Hearing this, Gilda struggled to extricate herself from Dash’s hug, to face the contentious group of ponies. “Stop it!” she squawked. “Stop being mad at Fluttershy! It’s not her fault, okay? I know I’m awful, but I’m trying to be better. I don’t even eat meat anymore unless she makes me eat fishes! I know she doesn’t want to fuck me but she’s letting me stay with her and learn how to be good!”

Twilight was staring at her, staring like she’d never seen anything so peculiar. Trixie backed away, alarmed by the passion of such a big predator.

Rainbow Dash stood her ground. “Gilda, mad romance is cool and all, but maybe not if it’s turning you into something you don’t want to be! You look terrible, and I know you lectured me once about how you can’t eat grass! I didn’t want to say anything, but maybe you ought to come with me and Applejack and get seriously LAID and forget about fucking Fluttershy, huh?”

Gilda shook her head, frantically. “No! I only want to be like Fluttershy in every way. It’s more important than sex! I don’t even care about sex! She brings me fishes to eat and she’s teaching me how to live on seeds and tea from pretty flowers…”

“Oh, bullshit!” retorted Dash. “You’re the horniest griffin in Equestria! You can’t quit that pony thunder, don’t lie! But you picked wrong, it’s just not going to work with Fluttershy!”

“Oh, my gosh,” said Twilight quietly, still staring.

“It will, it has to!” protested Gilda. “I’ll do anything she says. She knows best! I love her. I would die for her…”

“Rainbow, step back!” demanded Twilight, suddenly. Her horn lit. A glowing purple barrier began to form, herself and Dash and Trixie on one side, and Fluttershy and Gilda on the other.

Dash boggled at her friend. “What for?”

Twilight didn’t answer her. She spoke to Gilda, and didn’t blink as she stared the griffin down. “I think you did.”

“What’s going on, Twilight?” said Dash, at a loss.

“Look at her!” snapped Twilight. “Look at the way she looks at Fluttershy. You did die for her, didn’t you? That’s thrall, she’s another vampire! Fluttershy, she’s in your thrall! What have you been DOING?”

Dash blinked. “That’s impossible. She was in love even before she got here, Twilight. I saw her! And Fluttershy wouldn’t do that to her. I realize I was mad about Fluttershy not being kind to Gilda when Gilda’s really vulnerable, but are you crazy? Do you think Fluttershy is flying around at night enthralling griffins and making a vampire army?” She blinked. “Badass though that would be!”

“I am not!” wailed Fluttershy. “I wouldn’t do that, I haven’t! And I’m not being unkind and it’s very hurtful to say so! Don’t you understand how hard it is to struggle toward the good? Who would understand that better than me? I really believe Gilda is doing well with me and you’re going to give her a setback!”

Dash sighed. The prank had not only gone awry, but it seemed to be sucking the day into a horrible vortex of madness. She struggled to make sense of it. “Right. Settle down, Twi. You’re trying to tell us that Gilda, who came all the way out here because she was in love with Fluttershy, showed up on her doorstep. And Fluttershy, our gentle little vampire pony who wouldn’t hurt a fly, gave the big birdkitty a basket and brought her fishes to eat and was super nice, oh except for biting her and sucking her blood! What the fuck, Twilight? Look at them! How can you think Fluttershy is hurting her?”

“No!” retorted Twilight, holding her force field. “YOU look! Look at her beak! It wasn’t as pointy as that, I saw it. Back when Gilda attacked the guard, Rainbow. It was the day I became an alicorn. I’ll never forget that time. Fluttershy, I think it’s time you told me the real truth about that!”

“I never attacked any guards!” pleaded Gilda, grovelling. “I was only trying to knock the guy off the cloud! He was a pegasus, it wouldn’t have hurt him!”

“Quiet,” demanded Twilight. “I wasn’t asking you. Fluttershy! They dragged Gilda Griffin to me, all chained up, and they said you had beaten her in a fight. Exactly what did you do to this griffin when you saw her attack the guard?”

“I never…” began Gilda.

“Shut up!” snapped Twilight grimly. “Fluttershy? What did you do?”

Fluttershy looked stricken. “I don’t like to think about that. I was wrong. I feel like this is my chance to make up for my cruel misjudgement of her, that’s why I’m giving her a home and teaching her. We should not be mean to each other.”

“What did you do, Fluttershy?” rasped Twilight.

Fluttershy blinked, and stuck out her lower lip petulantly. “Oh, fine, remind me then! Gilda, I am truly sorry, it was wrong of me. For your information, Twilight Sparkle, I thought she was about to kill the poor guard, and everything was at stake. I jumped from the top of the house onto her before she could tear him to shreds, and I had to make her stop right away, so I punched and I kicked and I bi…”

She froze.

Nothing moved, for a moment.

Gilda glanced back and forth between the ponies. “Oh no. Oh no no no. You just said Fluttershy… is a vampire?”

The ponies could only stare at each other in shock.

“I’m a fuckin’ vampire?” said Gilda weakly. “I feel this way because I’m a fuckin’ vampire?”

Dash was staring at Gilda’s hind leg. “And when we found her,” she breathed to herself, “Northern Spy bit…”

There was a loud bang. Fluttershy’s front door sailed out into her front yard, in several pieces, burst asunder.

Dash was gone.

Trixie gulped.

“Trixie has two recommendations,” she said.

“Yeah?” managed Twilight, shaking.

“We are going to get help from the Princesses and anypony else we possibly can,” said Trixie.

Twilight nodded. “And?”

“And right now, all four of us are going to share all of the fudge you brought…”

Unmasked

“Um…” came the little voice.

Applejack blinked. She looked behind her. She leapt two feet in the air and dropped her burden.

“Sour mash an’ sweet apples!” she cried. “Rock Candy, look at you! What in Equestria is the reason for that get-up?”

Rock pouted stubbornly. “Um, that’s why I’m here. I needed to ask you something.”

Applejack gawked at him. It wasn’t so much the rouged circles on his white cheeks, or the brightly colored green ribbons in his pink mane and tail, or the red rubber nose. The pointy candy-striped hat with big fluffy tassel was part of it. The blue and magenta swim flippers helped.

She gave him a hard look. “No, you can’t play in the irrigation creek. Not until you take a bath, young fella! We don’t want that clown makeup washin’ off and all gettin’ in the vegetables. Now one side, you lil’ scaper! I was carryin’ this rope to the barn. We’re gonna hoist some barrels of apples up to the second story an’ make room for the rest of the harvest.”

“It’s not that! I’m not trying to play in the creek,” protested Rock. “It’s important.”

“Well, all right,” said Applejack. “Shoot!”

Rock blinked. He nosed over toward his shoulder, where a blue rubber bulb dangled. He chomped it carefully with his teeth, and from behind his ear, a plastic flower shot a stream of water into the air, arcing cheerfully over his head and missing Applejack completely. He gave her a look like, ‘was that okay?’.

Applejack took a deep breath, reminding herself that this was Pinkie Pie’s kid. “I mean, ask me this important thing whatcha needed ta ask me.”

“Oh!” squeaked Rock. “It’s this. Is it okay for us superhero kids to, you know, dress up?”

“Is that what you’re doin’?” grinned Applejack. “Don’t see how I kin stop ya!”

“No, really!” pressed Rock. “It’s important! Can we dress up in our superhero costumes? Like, all the time? Please?”

Applejack’s eyes softened. “Aww. Rock, honey, you go ahead. I’m sure we’ll let you know if them things need a good old cleaning, so don’t you worry about it. Why, back when I was a little filly, I dressed up to go to Canterlot and be a fancy pony. Did you know that? And at the time, I was so excited I wanted to stay dressed up even when goin’ to bed. Took a while for me to learn what was right for me.” She looked pensive, gazing out across the farmland.

“Are you sure?” asked Rock, looking her in the eye.

“Dern tootin’ I’m sure! I had to give it up after a week, that stuff chafes ya in the personals! I’m much happier bein’ how I am!”

“No, I mean… Are you sure it’s okay for us to wear our superhero costumes all the time?” said Rock. “Even if it makes us look like different ponies than we used to be?”

“Rock Candy, I believe we can stand you in that crazy get-up for as long as you want to run around in it, which may not be terribly long but don’t you worry about that! A lil’ sweat and greasepaint ain’t gonna hurt ya. Go right ahead!” said Applejack, indulgently.

Rock drew himself up. “In that case… allow me to introduce… Bat-Pony!”

He hopped up and down, waving and gesticulating, the flippers flailing on his hooves. Applejack looked in the direction of his gestures, and broke into an immediate smile. Northern Spy had returned, peering truculently out from the darkness of the nearby shrubbery.

“Dang, honey!” marvelled Applejack. “You snuck into that bush so sneaky I din’t even hear nor see you! An’ look at you! Granny, come see, the kids are playin’ dress-up!”

“Whut’s that?” called Granny Smith, from indoors. In the distance, a prismatic streak blasted from the rough position of the Crusaders’ Clubhouse to a spot just inside the Everfree Forest, where it hooked a sharp turn and zipped off deeper into the forest, hugging the treetops.

“Huh, look at her go,” said Applejack. “Granny? Can you throw another tater in the pot? Rainbow’s gonna be hungry at dinner. An’ then come see our lil’ bat-pony!”

Reluctantly, Northern Spy began to emerge from the bush. Her head was wrapped in a dark cloth that covered her ears. Around her neck, another cloth served as a cape, draping her small body and not quite reaching to her powder-blue tail, which showed the signs of too much time spent crawling through bushes.

Her cute little fangs glinted over her lower lip, which was stuck out in a sullen and cranky look.

Applejack beamed. “Awww!” she said, and cuddled her foal. “Yikes! Get out into the sun, girl, the shade don’t suit you—you’re chilly! Granny, come see this!”

Spy flinched as Granny Smith stuck her head out the door. The old mare blinked and did a double take. “Aaaah! Them vampire fruitbats done got our baby! Help! Help!”

“Granny!” snapped Applejack, as Spy cowered, on the verge of panicked flight. “Stop pullin’ her leg, they’re only playin’ with costumes!”

Granny gave her a long look, as Rock trembled, his lip quivering… and then, she smirked at her granddaughter and great-granddaughter together. “Well, I kin see that, you daft horse! Who’s a cute little bat pony, yes you are! Where’d she get them fake teeth, Applejack? They’re gosh dern amazin’. Ooo, look at the scary cape, all black an’ dark and such!”

“It IS scary,” said Northern Spy resentfully.

“Oh, yes it is, a woodgy woodgy woo!”

“It’s not a woo, not even a woodgy one!” argued Rock Candy, glancing nervously at Spy. “It’s our superhero costumes, which we’re gonna wear from now on, okay? I’m, uh, Big Top and this is Bat Mare. We fight crime and catch dangerous monsters!”

Spy skulked back into the bush, looking tense. Overhead, a rainbow streak split the sky, as Dash went to scan Ponyville from the air, pulling intense G forces as she followed the road. Her shadow briefly flickered across the group of ponies, including Spy in her half-hidden position. Spy flinched again, to a look of concern from Rock Candy.

“What the HAY is going on over here when things are supposed to be going on over THERE?” demanded Apple Bloom, trotting up to the motley group of ponies. “Applejack, I asked for one thing. One thing! And look, there, in the dirt, what could that be? It’s the one thing I asked for. Bring your rope into the barn, I said, this very rope here, and we’ll hoist some barrels and make room fer more. Well?”

Applejack stuck her lower lip out. “Aw, Apple Bloom! You jes’ run out there and you didn’t say ‘right this instant’, now did you?”

“I got three strong farm ponies waitin’,” said Apple Bloom, “so what do ya think you’re doin’ standing around out here?”

“Lookin’ at my foal’s superhero costume, that’s what!” retorted Applejack. “Ain’t it a beaut?”

Apple Bloom blinked. She looked at Rock. “Dang. There a circus in town?”

“No no,” said Applejack. “Spy’s. Scary, huh?”

Apple Bloom swung suddenly around, with the authority of a small but righteous Boss Mare, and stared at Northern Spy. Spy cringed further into the bush, and hissed, baring her fangs, her eyes gleaming in an uncanny way. Rock Candy’s eyes widened, and he let out a little whimper, shuffling his hooves in the dirt in anxiety.

“Huh,” said Apple Bloom critically. “What’s th’ occasion? That is good. Real lifelike, that is.”

“Now, Apple Bloom!” reprimanded Granny Smith.

“What?” blinked the diminutive Boss, taken aback.

Granny winked. “Be a sport, won’t you? Yer only young once. Good, you say? This is terrifyin’! Oh heavens ta Betsy, the scarey monster’s gonna bite us all to deeeth!”

“To death?” said Apple Bloom, skeptically. “She ain’t much bigger than a short pile of crabapples.”

“To deeeeeth!” vowed Granny. “I tole you! We’re all gonna hide under our beds!”

Apple Bloom glanced at Applejack. “Uh-huh. Well all righty then. You kin go hide now, an’ Applejack can go hide under her bed once she’s brought us that fine rope she’s got. Now, I know you might be sayin’, here you are, bring it yourself and leave us to our play-toyin’ and lollygaggin’… but I asked my sister to help and she done said yes, she would. So, if you please, Applejack, take a moment out of your afternoon and come with me, bringin’ the rope like you said you would, and then you can hide under all the beds in Ponyville if it pleases you…”

There was a crackling noise overhead. The prismatic streak had returned from circumnavigating Ponyville, but rather than continue back over the Everfree Forest, Dash’s flight abruptly stopped, as if she’d hit a wall. Spy, wide-eyed, stared up at the motionless speck that peered down at the little cluster of ponies. Then, Rainbow Dash swooped down with terrifying speed, and slammed into the ground right in the middle of the group. She rose to her hooves, exhausted, shaking, sweating, staring only and utterly at her Northern Spy, and that little cape, and that cloth tightly wrapping her head, and the little fangs.

Spy drew back further into the bush… and hissed, like a wild animal. Dash recoiled, visibly.

“Now, that’s the way,” said Granny with satisfaction. “You see that, Apple Bloom? More like that. Trust her mother to play along like she means it!”

Rainbow Dash gulped, her mouth gone dry, horror in her gaze.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re gonna… I don’t know, but we’re gonna do something. You’re safe, Spy.”

Granny frowned. “Well, o’ course she is you daft horse! What’s th’ matter with you?”

Applejack looked at Rainbow. She looked at Spy, cowering in the bush. She looked at Rock Candy, and the incongruous expression of horror and dismay on his cheerfully painted clown’s face. She looked back at Rainbow, and her gut did a flip.

“Rainbow Dash, what is this?” she asked.

Zecora looked at the Elder that sat across from her. She took a breath, dropped her gaze, studied the grass for a moment. She looked up again, but didn’t speak.

The Elder looked back. His ear twitched. He glanced around, as if gauging the quality of the stillness. He nodded.

“We begin again,” he said, calmly. “You leave. You return. Hm?”

The Elder next to him considered this for a moment, and nodded. “Yes. Begin at the beginning. We are here. You leave. You return.”

Zecora watched Dursaa think about this. Finally, he nodded. “To begin: we leave, we return.”

“No,” said Zecora, and Elder ears twitched all around the circle.

They considered this, too. Zecora looked at the ground, and didn’t rush into an explanation.

Finally, an Elder cleared his throat. “Er. No, we do not begin? No, you did not leave? No, you do not return?”

Zecora still looked at the ground, unchallengingly. “I do not return.”

“Yet here you are,” suggested the Elder.

“I do not return. My home is not here,” said Zecora.

The entire circle stirred, murmurs of zebra approval everywhere, though not shared by Dursaa.

“It is well,” said the Elder. “We begin. We are here. You travel from home to see us. You seek aid, though you have gone far away?”

Zecora nodded. “I seek aid. My vision is not clear.”

The Elder, who sported a herb-doctor’s cutie mark, gave a warning glance to another of his number, who’d opened his mouth with a snarky expression. The other zebra subsided, without comment, even about how a zebra mare exile with a cutie mark plainly had more obscure visions than anyone wished to hear about.

Zecora never looked up. The first Elder nodded, in satisfaction.

“It is well to seek aid,” he said, gently. “We restate: the stallion, he loves a pony?”

“She is a pegasus,” said Dursaa. “She is… so beautiful…” He trailed off, tragically, gazing into space.

The Elder lifted an eyebrow, surprised at the tremor in Dursaa’s voice. “Very well, then. The stallion, he loves a pegasus? And the… erm…”

“Mare,” said Zecora, still not looking up.

“Thank you. The mare, she too loves the pegasus?”

His tone betrayed disapproval: but this was an Elder circle, and they sat prepared to hear many more unsettling things, if need be.

Zecora nodded. Dursaa remained sunk in gloom.

“Yet,” said the Elder, after a quiet pause, “you journey together. The mare does not return, she only visits what once was home. Does the stallion… return?”

Dursaa trembled. He shut his eyes, and then stared not at the Elders, but their town beyond them.

“Does…”

“I do not know!” groaned Dursaa. “It hurts!”

Zecora winced, at his obvious pain. For a zebra stallion to carry on so, the torment had to be nearly beyond endurance. For all that he was a big crude testicle-swinging clod, it seemed he did actually love Fluttershy an awful lot.

Not only that: they’d sought out the counsel of Elders because they lacked any other solution. Zecora had been surprised even to get Dursaa’s cooperation, for the stallion’s place was to rule his household, even (or especially) one he had usurped: but this was another thing entirely. For him even to be considering a return to Zebrica spoke of things going unthinkably wrong at home.

She reached out to give him a reassuring pat, then froze. All around her, she sensed the quiet nods of the Elders: the mare was there to comfort and serve the stallion, even an overemotional fussy stallion such as this. It was a tacit acceptance of her role, and she was playing into it just by responding compassionately.

She withdrew her hoof, and stared fixedly at the grass again.

The Elders glanced among themselves, and then they sat and allowed the silence to deepen. It was Dursaa who broke it.

“I cannot return and make a home here. I do not return. I love her. I want to care for her.”

This was a surprising sentiment, on several fronts. Zecora’s immediate reaction was a frown, for it seemed a ridiculous claim. The big stripey clod had Fluttershy waiting on him mane and hoof! She openly prided herself on her subservience! Yet, thought Zecora, if that was true, then caring for her might mean playing along with these wishes.

The Elders’ reaction was simpler. Their heads drew back, their nostrils flared, as if he’d suddenly developed an odor. Stallions did not serve and care for mares. They provided the strength, the leadership, the valiant and hopelessly phallic treetrunk of power for mares to flock to, but stallions did not express sentiments as Dursaa had. How could one say so helplessly, ‘I want to care for her’? One took stallionly action to support and feed and seed the mare, without expressing such wavering, soppy, passive attitudes.

“Care, or not, sir!” replied one Elder. “If you return only to lament, like no real stallion, you should leave! Or do you return to die?”

Zecora’s eyes widened, and her jaw tensed, but she still didn’t interject. This was an Elder meeting. Dursaa would not be at risk of execution unless every single zebra present, including himself, agreed that there was no other course. She wasn’t sure, but thought that her voice might count as well, though she could not expect to carry as much weight as a stallion. It didn’t matter: if a desperate or troubled mare crashed an Elder circle, the solution had to also address her needs. She’d be able to protect him. Fluttershy would want her to.

Of course, no other zebra mare would likely be interfering in the plight of a sad and weak stallion who could not find his way. They’d abandon him in droves. It wasn’t their responsibility, and wasn’t in any way appealing when there were plentiful real stallions sparring every day for their favors.

One Elder muttered, “He probably doesn’t even nip her haughty pony rump…”

“Vampire,” said Zecora clearly. “He cannot do such a thing even if he wished. Do you not remember? Dursaa cannot act as you,” and her lip curled in an involuntary show of contempt, “want him to act.”

Silence fell, yet again. The first Elder narrowed his eyes, thinking hard.

“You,” he said. “Mare. Zecora. What is it you wish?”

Zecora remained completely impassive, to murmurs of approval from the circle. She considered the question.

“I wish Fluttershy… the vampire pegasus mare… to be happy. She is not happy, Elders.”

“What troubles her?”

“Herself,” replied Zecora.

They nodded, solemnly. “The darkness draws her?” said one.

Zecora hesitated. “I… have helped her. With enchantments.”

“How can that be?”

Zecora licked her lips. There would be no going back from this one.

“The Call of the Dead,” she replied.

Every single zebra Elder leapt to their hooves, as one. “WHAT?” “You cannot have that power!” “Whose ancestors do you dare to steal?” “Accursed!”

Zecora didn’t flinch, though Dursaa’s alarm was evident. She remained lying on the grass, staring down at it, her manner calm. She even waited for the Elders to stop ranting and huffing and puffing, and then she glanced up, a tinge of exasperation in her gaze.

“I steal nothing. No masks of yours are missing, nothing from Zebrica displaced,” said Zecora. She made no mention of zebra traveller souls found stranded in Equestria and given new homes. They’d not understand… and it had been vital practice.

“Then what…”

“I found her soul, this Fluttershy. It is a lovely soul. I drew it forth and bound it…” began Zecora.

“How could that help?” demanded the herb-doctor Elder. “It is no mercy! You’d only let her watch the actions of a monster, from her spot on the wall!”

Zecora’s eye flashed, her lip curled. “I bound it to HERSELF.”

His jaw dropped, and he was speechless.

Zecora demurely lowered her gaze and studied the grass yet again as, one by one, the Elders sat back down in the circle, thunderstruck at the strange mare’s story. “I made a false mane, a false tail, with hairs from her own abandoned body. The dark spirit did not take her, not then, for even her captured mind and body fled immediately to seek the aid of friends. Her need was dire.”

“Your danger was great,” reminded the first Elder. “Mind and body could not endure long without life and a soul, and when she succumbed, you would be defenseless against her evil.”

Dursaa crumbled, hearing these words, tears coming to his eyes. Zecora held her head higher.

“I made the Call of the Dead,” she said. “I tied her soul to her mane and tail extensions, and returned them to her. Fluttershy wears a mask, and it is a mask of herself. She even resembles the pegasus she once was, while she uses them.” She broke off, her gaze softening, as she remembered.

“You ran a risk,” said the herb doctor Elder gravely. “What if her soul had not come? What if it had been some stray Zebra spirit? You would be doomed.”

Zecora didn’t reply at first. Her eyes glinted, though her expression did not change. She refused to speak until her voice could be controlled, yet there was still a tremor as she said, “There was no risk.”

“No?”

“No,” said Zecora. “I love her. I never told her, yet she must have known. There was no sense pleading with her about it. She did not wish a zebra mare in that way. She was very kind… but I loved her, beyond reason, beyond death, and so there was no risk at all.”

Zecora was looking down at the grass again, but this time it was to avoid any zebra’s eyes as she got the story out.

“Before her poor, vampiric body even knocked on my door begging for my help… I felt her spirit. It woke me from a sound sleep. I had no choice. Elders, I had to try.”

Dursaa’s eyes were wide. “You mean, when she was bitten…”

“Yes! I love Fluttershy,” said Zecora. “And when she died to a vampire bite long ago, her soul came to me, knowing of my love for her. And I found a way to return it to her.” Her gaze dropped. “Well… I found a way for her to keep up appearances, anyhow. It is better than nothing.”

The Elders stared at Zecora, in awe and fear. Finally, the herb doctor Elder spoke.

“PLEASE do not return!” he said, his voice trembling.

Zecora snorted, her eyes glistening with refused, treacherous tears. “No fear! My home is Ponyville. I do not wish to stay here any longer than I must.”

“Zecora?” said Dursaa weakly.

Another Elder chimed in, addressing Zecora. “How can we help you return home as quickly as possible?” His lip quivered.

“Settle down,” she replied. “Maybe we erred, perhaps we should not have come at all!”

“Zecora?”

Zecora turned her head, and glared at Dursaa. “What?”

His eyes were puppyish, tragic, whipped. “I yield.”

“You what?” demanded Zecora, astonished.

“I yield,” said Dursaa humbly. “I will remain here. Fluttershy’s love should be yours.”

All the zebras stared at him for a moment, aghast.

“Um, that’s okay,” said the carpentry Elder. “Really.” He made a face.

“Maybe if she left his balls here as well?” suggested the herb doctor Elder.

“Too late…”

“Hush!” said Zecora, in exasperation. She turned to Dursaa. “We speak in truth, and without rhyme. This is our serious Elder time. How dare you use this time to sit and spout self-pitying horseshit?”

His lip quivered, and she realized she’d been harsh. Some big stallion he was! Zecora began to understand how this Dursaa had found his way to foreign lands, and why Fluttershy felt so safe submitting to his authority. The truth was out: he was a terrible wimp. She couldn’t leave him here with them.

“Sorry,” she said. “Wipe your eyes. We begin again.” She glared around at the Elders, and they didn’t argue.

“Why should I?” said Dursaa. “I can stay here.” He gulped. “Even if this is where my path ends. I saw beauty. I felt love. It is enough.”

“I’ll tell you why you must return with me,” said Zecora.

“Must I? I do not deserve her.”

Zecora set her jaw. “She loves you.”

“But…”

“Oh, she loves me in her way,” admitted Zecora, speaking slowly and deliberately. “But I have seen her eyes when she looks upon you. She loves you, Dursaa. Whatever we resolve here in our Elder circle, it must make sense of you. I love Fluttershy, but it does not make her happy. She loves you, yet even that does not truly satisfy her. She seeks strange outlets, entertains lovelorn griffins, keeps a menagerie of wild creatures and yet it does not soothe her. So little does! We will not lightly walk away from the stallion that pleases her so obviously. She loves you, and you will return to her once we have found our answers.”

The Elders stared, politely dumbfounded.

“Perhaps,” said Zecora, “it is this meekness in you that our beloved adores. You are far more fragile than I had believed possible, and your stallionish bluster is either the cowardly, cruel abuse of weaker ponies than you, or simply—as I suspect—all pretend and fake.”

Dursaa crumpled a bit under her stare, and Zecora suddenly realized she was sitting with her head held high, effortlessly dominating an entire ring of males with the sheer force of her personality, and on top of that she was expressing judgemental scorn towards her hapless stallion companion. She was bullying HIM for being effeminate and sentimental, no true stallion.

And, no part of her wished to persist in that behavior: she had no desire to come to Zebrica and out-male all the males, and she had no desire to bully this new Dursaa. She’d never actually seen him bullying Fluttershy or dominating her. It was said he carried her to Canterlot to foal under the care of Princesses and royal doctors. Even when she’d heard him command her to answer the door, it had been him that opened it. He WAS a fake bully, to assuage his stallion ego, and she was trampling this false pose into pitiful scraps of lost dignity before the Zebrican Elders of the town.

And they were buying it, hook, line and sinker.

And she’d come seeking another point of view… not to step back into the Zebrican value system, much less to blindly adopt it. Everything she spontaneously saw in Dursaa as unstallionly folly was actually the hidden inklings of a Dursaa she’d never known, but one that perhaps Fluttershy had seen all along.

The carpenter Elder cleared his throat, nervously. “Um… lovelorn griffins?” he asked.

Zecora sighed.

“We begin again,” she said gently. “We left. We returned, seeking aid. And we love a vampire pegasus, who keeps her soul in her mane extensions where it can guide and comfort her, and who keeps lovelorn griffins as violent rambunctious pets. Oh, and she is very fond of zebra cock… but might just consider her zebra stallion a sort of pet as well!”

The Elders blinked puzzledly at each other. The herb doctor reeled in his dangling jaw, and spoke.

“Where to begin?”

Zecora sighed again, and shut her eyes, and all the other zebras waited for her to collect her thoughts.

“Fluttershy is unhappy and needy. She speaks of wishing to be punished, but it is dangerous to subject her to the stallion’s nipping teeth for her vampirism could be passed on. Whatever we need for ourselves, we are at the mercy of Fluttershy’s dark thoughts. We cannot comply with all her wishes, even if we wanted to. I cannot stand idle and allow her to despair any longer. Can we lead her away from this darkness?”

The Elders boggled at her. Willing to try and help, they had no familiarity with any world where a powerful, unhappy mare needed to be coaxed and nurtured away from self-hatred, and they were stuck just trying to comprehend the concepts. It was all too alien to them.

Dursaa, however, had no such problem.

“I will do anything, Zecora. Please, can we do this? Tell me how. It is strange talk, but I like it.”

Zecora nodded slowly. “Perhaps we can. I hope the Elders can help us. I have an idea.”

“How, how?” he begged, his emotions taking over again—and then he gasped.

Zecora had winked at him, and not with her marehood, either.

“The power of stallion love, and mare-ish gentleness,” she said. “To heal Fluttershy, we may need a great deal of each. The odd thing is, we may end up relying on you for the gentleness…”

Rainbow Dash licked her lips, staring down her foal. Those ruby eyes, so like hers, had never seemed so luminous. But they would seem like that, wouldn’t they? Even in the dead of night, they would.

“I’ll tell you later, Applejack,” she said. “Spy? Come on. Let’s go inside.”

“Is she… not s’posed ta dress up like that?” said Applejack uncertainly. “Cause of some pegasus thing?”

“Um… yeah! Let’s go inside without all these ponies all over the place and talk, okay?”

“But we need to dress up like superheroes!” protested Rock. “Applejack said it was okay! Granny Smith likes it!”

Spy shook her head, as much to clear it as to express a ‘no’. “I need the costume,” she said. “Because it’s awesome. How is this not awesome?”

Hooves came trotting up from behind. “What’s going on over here, Applejack? Is it a parade?”

“Oh, hi, Carrot Top, Roseluck,” said Applejack. “Ain’t rightly sure, to be honest! Rainbow don’t like their costumes.”

“Oh, no, not flower ponies, not now…” moaned Dash, going pale.

“They’re cute!” said Roseluck, beaming at Rock Candy.

“It’s pretend!” insisted Rock, loyally, staring sidelong at Northern Spy.

“But if it was real,” said Spy, “that would be even more awesome and powerful, right?” Her lip quivered, then she stuck it out petulantly and it squished against the cute little fangs.

“Uh, yeah, right,” said Dash, trotting in place. “But then also maybe if it was real it would be a horrible incurable bad thing that ruined everypony’s lives, so how about we go inside and definitely don’t bite anypony and we can have a nice quiet evening…”

Spy stamped a hoof. “I am the night! Rar!”

“Hoo boy,” moaned Dash. “Uhhhh…”

“Rainbow, what are you suggesting?” said Applejack, who’d gone slightly pale. “What do you mean, maybe if it was real? Only vampony around these parts is Fluttershy and she wouldn’t hurt our baby!”

Roseluck startled, visibly. “But… Fluttershy doesn’t look like a vampony…”

“Oh, sorry,” said Applejack. “That’s right! Fluttershy doesn’t look anything like a vampony, don’t you fret! Pretend I din’t say nothin’!”

“Yeah,” said Dash, “but supposing when she was beating up Gilda, she bit her, and then Gilda turned out to be just a teensy bit vampirey…”

“The griffin!” whinnied Carrot Top. “Where? Where?”

“Aw, pony hell, really?” said Applejack. “What’s that got to do with… you know, when we all run into Fluttershy on the road, ol’ Gilda was actin’ real funny! She was Fluttershy’s vampire slave then?”

“Eeee!” squealed Roseluck, trotting in place.

“So,” said Rainbow Dash, “can you please help me get Spy inside where it’s safe for everypony? I mean, for her? And for everypony?”

Applejack locked gazes with her mate. “Gilda would not bite our Northern Spy! No way! Not even if she was a wild griffin vampire here in Ponyville! Thought you said she was in love, dammit! Don’t even hint such things, Rainbow Dash, there ain’t no such thing as a wild bitin’ vampire Gilda!”

“EEEEEEEEE!” squealed Carrot Top, out-panicking Roseluck, trotting in place too but staying in the safety of the little arguing herd of ponies.

Dash gulped. “No, of course not. But if Spy bit Gilda…”

Applejack went white, reading the desperation in Rainbow’s eyes. “Oh, no… No, Rainbow, that’s the worst thing ever, that’s jes’ horrible…”

Northern Spy was shaking. “Is not! I am totally awesome! Tell them, Rock, make them understand!”

Rock snapped. He burst into tears.

“I’m sorry!” he wailed. “I didn’t do it! I didn’t let her bite me either! I tried to make her be good! We were scared!”

Everypony froze, even Carrot Top and Roseluck, their pony brains shorting out as they tried to process the implications of what he’d said.

Rainbow Dash gave up on using words. She bent over, seized Spy’s cape, and began to physically drag her out of the bush and into the house.

All it did was pull the cape and head-covering off, revealing Northern Spy’s ears.

Spy’s scruffy, obviously different, wolfish and no longer foalish ears.

Spy’s suddenly flaring, glowing, red eyes.

Spy’s long sharp fangs as she hissed, baring her teeth…

“EEEEEEEEEEEE!”

And then the evening was full of madly fleeing ponies running in all directions, with Northern Spy in full tantrum mode chasing them and raging “HOW IS THIS NOT AWESOME?”

And Rainbow Dash, the cape dangling from her mouth, staring at her stricken mate Applejack—who could only stare back in shock.

Dash dropped the cape.

“Well, shit,” said Applejack.

Mama Knows Best

Twilight Sparkle stamped a forehoof. “You come out from under that bed, Fluttershy!”

“Won’t!” sobbed the distraught vampegasus.

“This instant!”

“Never!” wailed Fluttershy. “I’m a bad pony! I’m going to stay here forever, go away and leave me alone!”

Gilda wrung her claws. “But you’re not, you’re so not, you are kind and gentle and loving and nice…”

“Oh, that’s very helpful, Miss Griffin Thrall!” cried Fluttershy. “You go away too! You’re my slave and have no business saying such things—you HAVE to say them, it doesn’t count! Go sit in your basket and be quiet, or I’ll Stare at you!”

Gilda gave a squawk of dismay, and fled down the stairs, as Twilight and Trixie scrambled out of her way. They heard her dive into the huge pet-basket Fluttershy had given her, and they heard her start to cry.

Twilight stared helplessly at Trixie. “Did Fluttershy just say, you’re my slave?”

Trixie lifted an eyebrow. “Had we but known! Trixie likes the imperious way she says it. Perhaps we can teach her to give wing spankings?”

“Noooo!” wailed Fluttershy. “And she is too my slave, and it’s all my fault! I’m sorry!” The pink tail sticking out from under the bed was distinctly scraggly, evidence of Fluttershy’s inability to maintain her pony appearance when overstressed.

“So are you going to come out from under the bed, now?” asked Twilight, her ears back.

“No!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Come on, Mistress. Maybe we can get an explanation out of the griffin?”

They trotted downstairs, and approached the basket and heap of blankets that covered Gilda. Trixie prodded it. “Gilda! Talk to us. What has Fluttershy been doing to you?”

A teary raptorial eye peeked out from under the blankets. “Uh… feeding me?” came the harsh, scratchy voice.

“Besides that!” demanded Trixie. “Has she been scening with you, or making you do things? She says you are her slave.”

“What’s scening?” replied Gilda.

“Well, that at least is a relief,” said Twilight, twitching. “The way she was talking, I’m not even sure what to believe. Gilda! Does Fluttershy continue to attack you? I mean, is she sucking your blood, or hurting you, or making you attack others?”

Gilda poked her head out, and her expression was horrified. “What? No, never! She would never! She’s the sweetest, gentlest…”

Twilight gave her a hard look. “Gilda, she attacked you once. She turned you into a vampire. Now we’ve got to clean up the mess thanks to what she did. Don’t play innocent.”

Gilda blinked. “Okay, let me get this straight. So I’m a vampire griffin. I knew I felt really weird. You’re saying it started when she kicked my ass for pouncing on that guard? And I was just trying to knock him aside, honest!”

“She bit you,” accused Twilight. “We have to assume malicious intent. She had to know what she was, and she had to know what she was doing when she turned you.”

Gilda was shaking her head. “But… hold on. You’re saying Fluttershy bit me, which yeah, I noticed and that’s when this all started. But you’re saying she turned me into a vampire on purpose?”

“She had to know!”

“Wait, wait,” argued Gilda, glancing fretfully up the stairs to where Fluttershy still hid. “What if she didn’t, huh? What if she didn’t mean it?”

“I didn’t! I’m sorry!” wailed Fluttershy from upstairs, under the bed.

Twilight’s eyes flashed, as she turned and yelled up the stairs, “Well you WOULD say that, if you were building a vampire army! Wouldn’t you?”

“Hold it!” protested Gilda. “I was there, okay? She thought I was attacking that pegasus guard. She was kicking my ass. Haven’t you ever kicked somebody’s ass?”

That stopped the lavender unicorn. “What do you mean?”

Gilda pressed on, determinedly. “Have you been in a fight? I mean seriously, losing your crap and beating somebody up? I have to ask because you ponies are so gentle and peaceful compared to us that maybe you never, even once, kicked somebody’s ass. Have you?”

Twilight looked shaken. “Sort of.” She licked her lips. Two occasions came to mind. On one, she’d gone after Rainbow Dash and Trixie had stopped her. On the other… she’d gone for Chaos, and didn’t care if Princess Celestia had been in the way. And Fluttershy, herself, had stopped it. It seemed not the wisest course of action to explain to the besotted griffin that she’d impaled Fluttershy through the heart and only her undead nature had saved her.

“Maybe I have,” said Twilight warily. “What of it?”

Gilda licked her beak. “The thing is, I think she didn’t mean to do this.”

“I didn’t!” wailed Fluttershy, miserably.

“Shush, sweetie!” called Gilda, her voice imploring. “Let me handle this!” She turned back to Twilight. “We were in a real knock-down drag-out, Twilight Sparkle. I swear I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I meant to hurt that guard, but she didn’t know that, and she beat the living crap out of me. I remember her biting me, but it was all part of… you know, wrestling and punching and kicking and clawing…”

“Good times,” quipped Trixie, wryly.

Gilda lifted a feathery eyebrow. “Huh? Wait a minute, you know about griffin sex? To make a joke like that you’d have to know about griffin sex.”

Trixie smirked. “Not exactly. Trixie just has… unusual tastes.”

Gilda gawked at her. “Really? You shouldn’t play with griffins, though, it’s too rough for most ponies. Not really fair on the griffin. There’s no way to get that intense without it being really dangerous to the cute little ponies.”

“Oh, Trixie doesn’t know about that,” murmured Trixie. “Can those claws wield a whip?”

Gilda stared, wide-eyed. “Okay. Scared now. Of a pony.”

“I’m sorry!” sobbed Fluttershy.

“Not you!” called Gilda. She turned to Twilight. “But do you hear what I’m saying? You’re acting like when you get in a fight, you think out what weapons you’re going to bring to bear, calculate it and choose your attacks. But even if you’ve seen a lot of combat, it’s just not that easy, it takes practice to keep a cool head. I was lucky I remembered not to gouge and claw, she got the jump on me. It was a tough fight, Twilight, but it was real amateur hour, get me? I don’t think she had any idea what she was doing. Seriously. It was brutal, but you sort of go blank, and you do dumb things. She didn’t know what the fuck she was doing, and I was just trying to get away, and that’s why I lost. If I was out for pony lunch, I’m pretty sure she’d left some openings where I coulda taken her apart. She didn’t know she was biting me. She flipped out.”

Twilight studied the griffin curled uncomfortably in a basket slightly too small for her predatory bulk. “Hmmmm…”

“Seriously!” implored Gilda. “You’ve got to be nicer to Fluttershy, I’m begging ya. I was there. I’m sure she didn’t intend to bite me, and I didn’t know she was a vampire pony. Though I kinda noticed how badass she was when she kicked my ass in! Wow! But I’m telling you, it wasn’t expert fighting. She thought I was hurting that pegasus guy, and she just lost it, which I totally don’t blame her for.”

“Hmmmmm,” said Twilight Sparkle, thinking hard.

“You know what I mean!” said Gilda, earnestly. She cast about for further arguments. “It was like that kid, Dash’s kid, the green one. Doing stupid things in combat, not having a clue. You know, the kid that jumped me and tried to chew off my l…”

Her eyes widened.

Twilight blanched. “What did you say?”

A crackling, tearing noise approached through the air, and then with a whoosh, Rainbow Dash blasted through the same doorway she’d smashed out minutes previously, and slammed into the ground, bouncing off the wall, springing to her hooves.

“Gilda!” she begged. “You gotta come… NOW!”

“What is it, Dash?”

“Spy is flipping out! And maybe only you can control her!”

Gilda’s eyes widened more. “Oh, fuck, seriously?”

“Now!” begged Dash, and heedless of her danger, seized Gilda’s clawed foreleg gingerly with her teeth and began trying to gently drag her old griffin friend and lover out of the basket and out the door.

Gilda couldn’t resist Rainbow Dash’s desperation. As Twilight and Trixie trotted frantic circles around the pair, the big griffin got to her paws and claws, called up the stairs “Stay safe, be good!” to Fluttershy, and followed Dash into the air, headed for Sweet Apple Acres.

Twilight and Trixie were already galloping as fast as they could, to the same destination.

They arrived, panting and frothing, to a scene of total chaos.

Granny Smith was passed out on the ground, Apple Bloom trying to rouse her. Applejack looked gutted, staring bleakly at a coil of rope on the ground as if measuring it for a noose. A small group of farm ponies looked on in dismay, and a scattering of flower pony neighbors rushed to and fro, too hysterical to flee in any one direction, whinnying shrilly in terror.

And all around them darted a tiny green raging filly, baring gleaming fangs and crying “Rar!” and “Yeah! Run away, I’m better than you!”

Dash was shaking Gilda. “Don’t just stand there! Get her attention, dammit!”

Gilda trembled. Her eyes were panicky, following the green streak as it zipped blindly around. She licked her beak, and cleared her throat.

“Hey…” she said.

Northern Spy stopped as if she’d hit an invisible wall. Slowly, she turned.

“Hey,” said Gilda. “It’s me.”

Spy’s face was transfixed with delight and adoration. “EEEE!” she squealed, and then she’d darted from where she stood and leapt to wrap Gilda’s feathery neck in a mad, clinging hug. “Eeeee! It is you! These ponies suck! We’re awesome! They stink!”

Over by the cluster of farm ponies, Hollyhock glowered. “Yup,” he said, tight-lipped. “It’s true. Kid’s taken.”

Snowy Hocks said, “Thing is, can the kid, you know, fight back? Like, be a vampony but kill her vampire boss and be free?” His old voice trembled with urgency.

Hollyhock’s jaw was tight. “Can’t go back. You can’t ever go back. Kid took one look, and boom. You can’t even see the vampire master or you’ve had it.” He was sweating.

Snowy frowned, like he was trying to work out the secret.

It was nothing compared to the expression of horror on Applejack’s face. She was gazing at Rainbow Dash, who also looked distraught. She glanced at Granny, but Apple Bloom wasn’t having any luck with Granny. She glanced at the rope, a look of misery on her face. She looked back at Rainbow Dash, her lip quivered, and she began to silently weep, and Applejack slowly collapsed until she lay in the farmyard dirt, her nose by the coil of rope she’d brought to hoist apple barrels in the barn.

Rainbow Dash, her own lip quivering, turned to face Gilda.

“Um…” she said.

“What?” said Gilda, squirming as she was relentlessly nuzzled by a small green filly.

“T… take ca… t…” began Dash, and started to shake.

“Oh no,” said Gilda. “Uh-uh, Dash. Do not say what I think you’re saying, just stop…”

Dash screwed her eyes shut, grimacing, the tears starting. “Gilda…”

“I’m serious, dude, you’d better not be…”

“GILDA!” yelled Dash.

In the ensuing silence, four words dropped like bricks.

“Take care of her…”

Rainbow Dash crumpled. The farm ponies moaned. Apple Bloom looked up with an expression of utter dismay.

Gilda licked her beak, Spy still nuzzling her feathers in a trance, and then the vampire griffin spoke.

“Fuck this!”

Eyes widened all over the farmyard. Even Granny Smith stirred and looked up.

Gilda extended a claw, gripped, pulled harder and harder until Northern Spy, blinking cutely, was pried loose from embracing Gilda’s neck and placed on the solid ground of Sweet Apple Acres. She gazed up at Gilda, worshipfully, awaiting instruction.

Gilda retreated a step. Spy quivered, about to fling herself into a renewed embrace. Gilda took a deep breath.

“BACK OFF!” she squawked, and flung herself straight up, thrashing into the air as if chased by demons, and with those parting words Gilda flew back to Fluttershy’s cottage as fast as she possibly could.

Northern Spy’s face fell, and fell, and fell. Her lower lip quivered behind the cute little fangs. She looked around as if not recognizing anypony she saw…

“Eeeeaaaaaaaaaghhhh!” she screamed, and began to run about twice as fast as she had before, a small green lightning bolt of despair and destruction, menacing everything unlucky enough to be in her path.

The farm ponies whinnied in alarm and charged off, beating a frantic retreat to the barn, where they hid and slammed the doors behind them. From inside the barn, the sound could be heard of barrels and heavy objects hastily thrown together to become a barricade. It seemed as if the hysterical Northern Spy might smash down all the buildings in Sweet Apple Acres in her rage and betrayal.

Twilight, lilac-pale, shook Trixie. “Unicorn mage-meld! Right now! Remember?”

“But Trixie doesn’t know a spell to fix vampires…”

“To get help!” cried Twilight, and Trixie’s eyes widened in understanding.

“Yes, Mistress!” she said, and the two unicorns frantically concentrated, a blue and purple aura taking shape and seeming to reach out far into the distance as they cast one very special spell that hadn’t been cast in a long, long time…

With a foop, Princess Celestia appeared in their midst, teleported against her will by the emergency magemeld of Twilight and Trixie.

“Such a BIG bad w…” she moaned, and halted. Her eyes, tightly shut, flew open in a look of total shock.

Princess Celestia crouched, tail up, suddenly-empty alicornhood gaping and slick, her body entirely swathed in a crotchless pink bunny suit with big fluffy ears.

Granny Smith promptly fainted again.

“That went well,” managed Twilight.

Celestia dropped her radiant tail, leapt to a standing position. The bunny suit thrashed around her as her wings tried futilely to flare out to their full grand wingspan. She whirled, looking frantically about. “What the… Twilight Sparkle!”

“Princess?”

“Do NOT interrupt very private royal business, Tw…”

“PRINCESS!” yelled Twilight. “Look at Granny Smith, and Rainbow, and Applejack!”

Celestia looked, and saw.

“We need your help right now!” vowed Twilight. “I’m really sorry it was a bad time but Rainbow Dash’s foal is a vampire and she’s running around screaming!”

A doppler-effect scream gave weight to her words, as Northern Spy made a high-speed pass through the farmyard.

“Oh, no,” said Princess Celestia. “How did this happen, Twilight?”

“Gilda,” said Twilight. “Gilda was a vampire. We’re trying to work out whether Fluttershy did it on purpose. And then I guess Northern Spy somehow ended up biting Gilda’s leg, and now we’ve got a dangerous vampony hiding under her bed, and a pissed off vampire griffin, and the kid’s flipping out when the griffin bailed on her and…” She leapt aside, panicked, as Spy made a pass at her, fangs bared. “Aaahhh! Rainbow Dash, catch her!”

“But even before this happened, she was too quick…”

“Do it!” yelled Twilight.

“Awwww, horseapples,” moaned Dash. Hopelessly, she got to her hooves, limbered up her wings, and galloped in the direction of her streaking offspring.

As Dash took to the air and swooped down on the fiercely zig-zagging Spy, Twilight turned to Princess Celestia. “And while she’s doing that, I need you to find us a spell for curing vampires. This has gone too far!”

Princess Celestia gulped, the long floppy bunny ears dangling foolishly to either side of her regal head. “About that, Twilight…”

There was a sickening crunch. “Yaaaaa!” screamed Spy, victoriously. “You’ll never catch me! I’ll beat all of you!” She’d faked Blue Mom out and run her into a tree, swerving at the last instant.

Twilight’s nostrils flared. “Oh, is that so?” she declared. “I caught you before, you little monster, and I can do it again!”

“Monster, huh?” raged Spy, in full tantrum. “You’re the monsters! Go ahead and hate me, I’ll destroy you all! Stinkers! Everything is horrible! I’m going to destroy everything!”

“Like pony hell you are!” snarled Twilight, and her horn flicked on, and wisps of purple magic flashed out in the direction of the green vampire filly.

Spy sneered, her eyes glittering, and just when it looked like Twilight’s magic was about to grab her, she was gone: zipping around, emitting that high-pitched scream, a vision of tiny fangs rushing right up into the faces of onlookers and sending them recoiling, panicked, running for their lives. Rainbow Dash, who’d recovered from her violent crash, gave a little shriek and fled the other direction for a moment, trying to catch her foal but freaked out by the savagery of Spy’s mood and the obvious danger she posed.

“Princess! Help me catch her,” demanded Twilight urgently, “and then we have to lock her up and look up the cure! Okay?”

“Twilight Sparkle!” shouted Princess Celestia, losing her temper.

Twilight stopped spellcasting, and stared at her. Two little screams dopplered by as Spy chased Rainbow Dash right between them. Celestia didn’t blink, even then: just held Twilight in a stern gaze framed by absurd bunny ears.

“If I could cure vampirism, Twilight Sparkle, this would not have happened because I would have returned Fluttershy to life!”

Twilight gazed back, stricken. From across the farmyard, Applejack watched them both.

“You’re saying,” managed Twilight, “there is no hope? We… can’t save her? Ever?”

From the top of a tree, Rainbow Dash sobbed. Spy had nearly chased her right to the top of it. Powered by dark vampiric forces, baby could almost fly, after all. They heard the dreadful screaming cutting through the forest, a swathe of destruction accompanied by crashing timber.

“I am so sorry, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, and hung her head. “I don’t know how. She died. I would have hoped more of her personality remained in the vampire, were this to happen.”

Granny Smith’s eyes ran with tears. “There’s yer problem,” she muttered, brokenly. “It did!”

The screaming began to approach again. Northern Spy wasn’t done tormenting her betrayers. The sound raced nearer.

Applejack bent her head, and took the end of her rope in her teeth, with an air of finality.

Northern Spy charged towards the group of ponies, screeching.

Applejack’s head flicked to the side violently, and there was an audible CRACK, and then a heavy thump against the ground.

Northern Spy lay stunned on the ground of Sweet Apple Acres, lassoed by the foreleg. So fierce was her velocity that her little pony pastern bone, just over the hoof, was broken.

Applejack gripped the other end of the rope, her head held high and proud.

“N’rthern Spy!” she demanded.

Shaking her head, Spy twisted and sprang to three hooves, holding the other one in the air, her eyes glowing with an uncanny light. She just stared at Applejack, hissing, fangs bared.

Applejack didn’t flinch. “C’me here.”

Spy bridled, unwilling to obey, yet unable to pull away or break that gaze.

“C’me HERE!” demanded Applejack.

As all the ponies watched and held their breath, Northern Spy slowly, reluctantly approached her Orange Mom.

Applejack’s eyes burned with authority. Her teeth were bared around the tight-held rope, even as it hung slack. She spoke, through the rope, and Spy kept inching closer as if in a trance.

“Ah d’nt know ‘zactly what’s goin’ on h’re. You d’nt know eith’r, from th’ looks of it. I kin see y’r hurt an’ upset, and pow’fl angry too. B’t there’s s’mething you better g’t straight, whatever you are.”

The vampiric eyes seemed to be on fire, ruby infernos of fury and pain.

“What?” snarled Northern Spy, and inched one hobbling step closer.

Applejack, in one motion, dropped the rope and drew her troubled foal into a tight, fierce embrace.

“You’re my baby,” she said. “Still. An’ we love you.”

For a terrible moment, Northern Spy was tense as a wire in her mother’s forelegs, staring at nothing, the vampire eyes burning holes in the universe. Then…

“bwwwAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

Every pony relaxed, as one. Even Northern Spy, though for her it was more like a sort of shattering from within.

Applejack cuddled her tighter, urgently, as Spy howled and hiccuped like a very, very tiny foal. “Git down here, Rainbow!”

Dash swooped down, charged over at a gallop, wrapped herself around her baby from the other side. “Ahh! She’s so cold, Applejack!”

“Course she is y’ fool horse!” snorted Applejack, tearfully. “She’s dead, dammit!”

This provoked a fresh burst of wailing from Spy, and Applejack hastily switched her position, trying to wrap more of herself around her foal. She looked up, to see the two unicorns flanking Princess Celestia, all of them crowding the little knot of cold comfort.

“Applejack,” vowed Princess Celestia, “I swear to you, we will try and find a cure for this. None has ever been known. Something is lost upon the death of a pony, something vital that cannot be captured or restored. And yet, we will combine to seek an answer, something to help the sad plight of your little one.”

“We’re gonna do it,” insisted Twilight. “I’m not gonna rest until we have the answer. I’m not gonna SLEEP.”

Applejack wiped a tear. “Thankee, Twi. Thanks, Princess. Appreciate it. Spy appreciates it too.”

“We won’t give up,” promised Twilight.

“Twi?” said Applejack, plainitively.

“Yes?”

Applejack gave her a look. “Please rest, an’ sleep. Ah want you sharp, for this.”

Twilight blinked, and nodded. “Okay. You got it! We’re going to fix this.”

“On that happy day,” added Princess Celestia, “we will also be able to save Gilda the Griffin, and dear Fluttershy.”

“Oh,” said Twilight, with a twitch. “Right. Sure! The more the merrier. We’ll save everypony! And every griffin?”

Princess Celestia tsked. “Twilight Sparkle! We are serious.”

Rainbow sobbed… or was it a sob? Princess Celestia blinked at her. “Yes, Rainbow Dash?”

One blue hoof reached out… and tweaked one of the long, floppy bunny ears of Princess Celestia’s absurd costume. “Very serious,” said Dash, with another half-laugh, half-sob.

Celestia’s eyes widened, and she blushed scarlet. “Oh, dear. Oh, my ponies! This was not planned. I was summoned from a very private meeting. What can I say, except that I am so terribly sorry for my disgraceful and inappropriate attire…”

Applejack snorted, her half-laugh just like Rainbow Dash’s. “Ah ain’t!”

“What?” blinked Princess Celestia.

Applejack wiped another tear. “Get that off, pronto! It looks real fluffy. We’ll wrap li’l Spy in it, maybe she’ll feel more warm. All right?”

Celestia gave not a word of argument. She simply began stripping off her absurd costume, and passed it over to the grieving family.

As Applejack, snuggling Spy all the while, began to wrap her in fluffy bunny suit, Northern Spy let out a sudden shriek. They’d bumped her foreleg, and it had bent sideways. Eyes wide, cute little fangs forgotten, she held up her damaged hoof plainitively, trembling in pain.

Applejack made a face. “Eyup. Not surprised that broke, the way you were zippin’ around. Glad I missed your neck,” she said. Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash gently coaxed the hoof back to its rightful position again.

Spy’s face twisted. “It hurts!”

“Course it does. It’s busted.”

“Will it get better?”

Applejack hesitated. “That’s a good question. I ain’t sure you heal the regular way, anymore.”

Spy’s face fell, and scrunched up in precursor to another crying fit, but Applejack gave her a little kiss.

“Shush, now. We’ve seen Fluttershy do things to fix her hurts, of which there have been some doozies, let me tell you. Maybe she can teach you how to fix your leg up.” She snorted. “Can’t be too complicated if Fluttershy worked it out for herself. Don’t you fret! We will carry you in to bed, tonight. You’re our little baby, Northern Spy, all over again.”

“Uh-huh,” said Spy softly. She hesitated, and then said, “Mom?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Will I get better?”

That got dead silence from Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, and all the other ponies present. Northern Spy looked back and forth, miserably. Her lip quivered, under the little fangs.

“I’mma tell you all of the truth, child,” said Applejack. “Be good and listen to all of it, not just parts of it.”

Spy nodded, and listened as her mother spoke.

“We don’t know. We’re gonna try real hard, and there’s some mighty clever ponies gonna help you. It might be scary. Sometimes we’re scared, too. But be brave, and don’t forget: whether you get better or not, you’re with us and you’re a part of us, always. I guess you get to watch us showin’ you how true that is. Some dead folk don’t get that luxury. An’ that’s a natural born fact!”

A small and strange figure pushed forward, in red rubber nose, flippers, and tear-streaked greasepaint. Rock Candy hadn’t run away, he’d just hidden from the danger until it was over. He bent over where Applejack cuddled Spy, her face and the broken hoof poking out of a thick mass of fluffy fabric swaddling her, and he said, “We love you, Northern Spy.”

Spy looked back at her fellow superhero, solemnly. “Mama let me be her child, even when I’m dead!”

“Bet yer ass,” said Applejack gruffly, wiping a tear. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside.”

Zecora glanced over her shoulder. The road back to Ponyville awaited: the portals in strange lands, the journey.

“Zecora?” said the herb doctor Elder, his voice soft. Startled, she looked back.

He just gazed, patiently, calmly. Zecora was reminded that, while she saw judgment and even hostility in these zebra stallions, while everything she represented was an affront to their world—all the same, they sat in the Elder Circle. The very nature of their circle was to slow down, to not rush to judgement, even of so alarming a thing as a female herb doctor and her wussy stallion… friend?

Zecora’s ears quirked, as she considered the word. Somehow, in judging Dursaa unmasculine along with the Elders, the word ‘friend’ came to mind and completed her thought sentence.

The herb doctor spoke. “We are here. Before you go… do you need more from us? I see that already you return to your world, and your mind rushes back to it. This is not our way. Please do not rush. If we can help you on your path, we shall.”

Zecora blinked. “You are kind.”

He raised his head proudly. “We are the Elders. We are here to help. Even if your world is unthinkably strange.”

“But kind of hot,” added the carpenter Elder.

Heads turned. “What, what?” they exclaimed.

The carpenter Elder gave his fellows a wry smile. “Pegasus mares. This weak stallion has good taste in pussy.”

Dursaa was blushing. The herb doctor Elder frowned at his companion. “You are not satisfied with your mares?”

“I did not say that,” protested the carpenter Elder. “Only that I have travelled. Their story is suggestive.”

“Oh, is it?”

The carpenter Elder gave another wicked smile. “I have heard vampire mare vaginas have clenching and grasping power far beyond that of a mortal mare. It is how they seduce their prey. Weak stallion, is this true?”

Dursaa was blushing worse. He was half again as large and muscular as the old carpenter zebra, but seemed unable to stand up to the fellow, even when being asked over-private questions.

“I do not believe he needs to answer that,” said Zecora coolly, as Dursaa gave her a grateful look.

“Well, it would explain much,” said the carpenter Elder, disappointedly.

“Believe as you will,” said Zecora. “It does not matter to you.”

“Enough prurient gossip!” exclaimed the herb doctor Elder. “They have come from far away, seeking the counsel of Elders about their relationship with this troubled vampire pegasus. In spite of being alien and unthinkable in every way, this is the very essence of the Elder Circle. How can we fail our distant brethren by dissolving into coltish randiness? Is that respectful? Let us be quiet and begin again, and remember that it is zebra hearts we mean to guide. Er, and vampire pegasus hearts, I suppose.”

Zecora nodded. She sat a while in thought. Eventually, she said, “Our pegasus love’s heart suffers the most.”

“Why is this?” asked the herb doctor Elder.

Zecora’s ears were laid back as she contemplated Fluttershy’s actions, her attitudes. “She does not enjoy the pride and comfort of the mares of Ponyville. They live free, but she seeks bondage. She wishes to be hurt, wishes to crawl and be ill-treated.”

A new voice spoke. It was a zebra with the mark of a stonecutter, who bore a disapproving scowl. “And if you continue to deprive her, then she will indeed be an unhappy mare. Have we all gone mad? What sort of talk is this?”

“Their ways are strange,” said the carpenter Elder, placatingly.

“Mares are mares!” retorted the stonecutter Elder. “It seems this vampire pegasus is the essential female. She yearns to serve, to be conquered, to be penetrated and forcibly taken. You do her no service by playing along with the mad ideas of these fools!”

Zecora began to reply, hotly, but the herb doctor Elder caught her eye, and she subsided. She reminded herself that in the Circle, wisdom was not demonstrated by blurting half-formed thoughts or fighting. Instead, she forced herself to wait.

The carpenter Elder was thinking, too. “This vampire pegasus. Does she feel herself to be female? As we understand it? I ask our visitors, our… strange, confused visitors. Is she like you, or does she have better s… er, does she have the desire to act as a zebra mare?”

Zecora bared her teeth, fighting back the urge to reply, “I am still a zebra mare!” Instead, she remained silent.

Another Elder spoke, one with the marks of a tool-maker. “I have seen pegasus ponies. I have seen their stallions. Any pegasus mare who allows a zebra stallion to claim her, must have this desire. She must want to be hurt, to surrender to his lusty rutting. They are so small and fragile! How is that not feminine?”

The carpenter Elder turned to him. “But they fly! She would have the power, at any moment, to simply fly up and mock his authority! How could he chase her down, discipline her, return her to his herd in obedience? How could such a creature ever truly submit to her husband?”

“Then let her fly away,” replied the tool-maker Elder. “Surely, if this mare is no true mare, she will not stick around. It is a meaningless question! To remain under her zebra husband, to endure his savage thrusts and bites and be drenched with his seed, can only mean she is a zebra mare at heart! They would not even be here if it were not so! By the stripes of our ancestors, she submits to a complete milksop, is this not evidence of the deepest, most compliant femininity?”

Zecora was shaken. Her ears were flattened against her head at the ugliness of their talk, but she spoke quietly. “Vampire.”

“What?”

“She is a vampire,” said Zecora. “No stallion can bite her, lest he become undead himself, forfeiting his soul.”

The stonecutter Elder turned to her, triumphantly. “And she mourns this, does she not? Your pegasus mare, she is feminine. She yearns for what she cannot have: the rightful domination of the aggressive stallion. I see it in the distaste in your eyes. You don’t like it, but she is the true mare you will never be.”

The carpenter Elder was studying Dursaa, with a disappointed expression. “But the weak stallion has no stomach for this. It is well to seek the happiness of this vampire pegasus mare, but of these two, can we make a stallion out of the milksop? Or, should we consider this strange mare to be the stallion, and the stallion the mare?”

Zecora sensed Dursaa’s anger and dismay. He was getting emotionally trampled and still refused to lash out, for he knew the value of an Elder Circle, and the patient waiting for truths to arrive. Yet it was the Elders who now rushed ahead.

She slammed a hoof in the dirt, and all the Elders stopped.

“We. Begin. Again!” demanded Zecora, through gritted teeth… and she just stared them down, uttering not one other word.

Second after second passed. Slowly, Zecora’s ears unflattened.

The herb doctor Elder cleared his throat. “It is well. Begin anew.” He directed a cranky look at stonecutter, and carpenter. “You insult this strange Elder-mare creature, and you insult the weak stallion. Sir!” he said, to Dursaa. “Do you require apology before we continue?”

Dursaa blinked, startled. “What?”

“You are angry,” said the herb doctor Elder. “He called you a mare. You may demand apology, or call him out for a duel. He has forgotten himself and dishonors our Circle by his vile insults.”

“It is not that,” grumbled Dursaa.

Every Elder jaw dropped. “WHAT did you say?”

Dursaa bore the truculent gaze of a misbehaving colt. “It’s not! It would be nice to be with Fluttershy more like a mare. I am angry because to dominate her would not make her happy. You are wrong, it does not help!”

Of all the wide, astonished eyes that took in his pronouncement, the widest were Zecora’s. She stared at Dursaa and said, “How can you be sure? I fear there is some truth in their sayings, though it saddens me greatly. Why do you say this?”

Dursaa gazed at her. “I know I am right, and they are wrong. They don’t know her as I do. I love her. When she asks, I submit to her and do whatever she bids me to do, without question. I will open doors, I will gallop until my lungs burst from my chest, I will do anything. There is a part of Fluttershy, imperious and bold, that will never defer. I love that part because… through it all, I know she chooses to be mine.”

The Elders stared at him in horror, and he stared back, sticking his lower lip out like a petulant colt.

“You are proud,” muttered the stonecutter Elder.

“I am,” said Dursaa.

“Proud to be chosen by a female. You conquer nothing. You serve at her pleasure,” accused the stonecutter Elder.

“I make sweet love,” said Dursaa, defiantly. “My mare enjoys huge orgasms at my touch.”

“You are the mare,” hissed the stonecutter Elder. “Depart from here! Be gone.”

This time, it was the herb doctor Elder who banged his hoof in the dirt. “No! This is no fitting Elder Circle. We go farther from harmony, not closer to it! Do not insult and bicker! Silence!”

“Maybe it is no insult,” said Dursaa, his ears back. “I know my Fluttershy! I know how to care for her, but she is confused and doesn’t wish it!”

“Sh,” urged Zecora, and he subsided. She glanced rapidly back and forth between the Elders, noting the looks of rage, of perplexity, the sympathy of a few. She took a deep breath.

“Elders,” she said, “we did not go anywhere. Indeed we are as we were, when we arrived. If you were as you are, and none of us have found any common ground, how can we go farther from harmony? We were never near it in the first place.”

The herb doctor Elder hung his head. “Our Circle has brought you no wisdom. We have failed.”

“I did not say that,” said Zecora coolly, and he looked up with a quick and sharp glance into her eyes.

“Hmmm,” he said. “I would like to not fail you, strange though you are. I do not recognize your Elder sigil, but I recognize one much like myself. Do you lead the pony town where you live?”

“No,” said Zecora.

“Then it must have a great leader indeed. Well, Zecora, we stand divided, and we quarrel, yet you say it is not useless. What shall we do?”

Zecora thought. “Help me consider a few matters, and then we will depart.”

“I must make them understand…” began Dursaa.

“Sh!” chided Zecora. “I will speak here. Let me! I know her heart as well as you do.”

The more traditional Elders glowered in disbelief and disgust, as Dursaa considered her words, and nodded, and fell trustingly silent. It seemed a vampire pegasus mate was not the only female he’d defer to.

The herb doctor Elder nodded, too. “I will speak for our Circle.” He glared at his companions. “There will be no consensus here today! All who cannot tolerate the sharing of mere scraps of wisdom, the sad remnants of a failed Circle, they should leave. Now.”

Not an Elder left. They stayed, and they remained silent, watchful, judging.

“Your vampire pegasus, she is offered both of you, but in neither does she find the dominance she seeks—if it is even that she seeks,” said the herb doctor Elder.

Zecora nodded.

“What does she want most?” said the Elder, and Zecora thought, and thought.

At last, she said, “Dursaa is right. Fluttershy is very feminine, but it is not that which drives her to seek harm. She does not wish to suffer it or to cause it, in herself. It is guilt, terrible guilt that drives her desire for punishment.”

The carpenter Elder stirred, but did not open his mouth.

At that point, the herb doctor Elder won Zecora’s lasting approval and respect—even a bit of love. He sat across the circle, controlling the many angry zebra stallions around him, and when he saw his companion’s desire to speak, it wasn’t his own to whom he turned, or even Dursaa. It was to Zecora he turned, and in his gaze was a question. Allow his fellow to speak, or keep the discussion to just the clan leaders?

After a moment, Zecora nodded. She’d liked the carpenter Elder. He’d lived a more varied life, seen foreign lands.

The carpenter Elder gathered both his leader’s, and Zecora’s assent before speaking: even then, his voice was low and cautious.

“I have been with a pegasus mare,” he said. “A little one. She did not respect my dominance. Indeed, she laughed at it… but I entered her and seeded her all the same.” He gulped. “She… permitted this.”

The herb doctor nodded solemnly. It was a painful admission, risky, to speak of sex with the stallion and mare roles muddled in this way. “How did she permit it, sir?”

The carpenter Elder made a face, but it wasn’t all dismay: he was fighting back a smirk. “Oh, all right… by crying out, sink that fat zebra cock into me until I scream!”

Zecora facehoofed. “Don’t tell me. The Cirrus Lounge, just outside the portal in Fillydelphia?”

He paled. “I accompanied a caravan! I swear!” he insisted, his ears laying back.

She glanced around, but none of the other Elders seemed to register his indiscretion, or his anxiety. Zecora quickly decided to make no further mention of portals. “Very well. Why do you bring this up now?”

The carpenter Elder gratefully accepted the change of subject. “I bring it up for this reason. It was a pegasus mare I seeded, and a pegasus mare you speak of. You say yours does not wish to suffer harm, and it is guilt that causes her to seek it.”

“Yes?” said Zecora, lifting an eyebrow.

“Know,” said the carpenter Elder, “that my pegasus did scream. And what she screamed was, oh, but it hurts so good.” He sighed, reminiscently. “So juicy and tight. I ended up jumping into a vat of dye, and fleeing town disguised as a black earth pony. Before I, or she, keeled over from heart failure! Very determined pegasus, hunted me down wherever I went. In the streets, even.”

“Not an uncommon sight in some streets,” suggested Zecora. “Your point?”

The carpenter Elder fixed her with a knowing look. “A mare from foreign lands, with foreign stallionish ways, can still crave the suffering of too much cock, the lusty throb of a passionate penetration. Your pegasus may share the same hot blood, as gentle as you claim her to be.”

Zecora blushed, staring at him. She bit her lip. “Umm. A fair point. Yes, I suppose. To be fair… even I, free as I am of the stallion’s rule, can sometimes maybe um, well, might want to, ah… just to see what it is like…”

Every single zebra stallion ear perked up. Every damned one.

Zecora cursed herself, the Circle, the practice of rigorous honesty, the big black wooden cock she’d made in hopes of finding a suitable mare to brandish it, and above all, the times she’d spent trying it out on her own to see how it would feel. Tears of rage came to her eyes, and she bared her teeth, and then glared defiantly around the circle. To pony hell with it, she thought, and refused to utter one more self-betraying word.

“Me too,” said Dursaa, impossibly, and her revealing and enticing admission was eclipsed by unthinkable taboo.

Her head whipped around to stare at him. “Are you mad, stripe-assed lad?” she exclaimed. “That poor hole won’t take Zebra pole!”

Dursaa kicked at the dirt. “I only said maybe. To see what it was like. Mister Braeburn asked very nicely. I told him no. He said it was good enough for Big Macintosh. Then they kissed and went behind the barn…”

Several zebra stallions looked about to faint. Zecora said, weakly, “…as they will. Oh, Ponyville…”

“I think our Elder Circle is ending,” said the herb doctor Elder, looking a bit pale. “We had better be getting home. But first: your pegasus, your sad pegasus? Maybe between the two of you, she can find what she needs. Both in lovemaking, and to assuage this guilt you speak of.”

“The lovemaking doesn’t please her, unless it is literally tearing her apart,” protested Dursaa.

“And then she is even unhappier!” cried Zecora, distraught.

“Of course it is thus!” said the herb doctor Elder. “It is not being destroyed she truly wishes, but forgiveness!”

Zecora’s jaw dropped.

The carpenter spoke up. “If that is so, you had better find out what crimes she has committed that haunt her yet, and persuade her to confess and be forgiven before she ruins both of you with her pegasus lusts! Very determined, pegasus mares. Exhausting. No wonder you came to us.”

“She would never commit crimes!” argued Dursaa. “What do you think she has done to cause all this guilt?”

“How about being a vampire, for starters?” replied the stonecutter Elder, glaring. “And how about both of you going as far away from here as it is possible to go? And take your vampire pegasus with you!”

The herb doctor Elder stamped the ground, feeling things slipping out of control. “Quiet! I feel we are done. And yes, if this is a gentle submissive feminine little mare, and suddenly she is a blood-sucking vampire with no soul and horrible compulsions from beyond the grave, she might just feel her undead existence itself is very wrong. And yet she cannot relinquish it: nothing can restore a soul once lost. I am sorry for her and glad she is not anywhere near here. She is not? Please tell us your pegasus is nowhere near.”

“She is back home in Ponyville, trying to teach a savage griffin not to eat meat,” said Zecora, rattled.

“Good. She should stay there. Our circle is dismissed!” proclaimed the herb doctor Elder.

“But… what do we do?” pleaded Zecora, jumping to her hooves as zebra after zebra stood up, turning to go. “Which of us should be her mate, to best heal her troubled heart?”

The carpenter Elder blinked. “Why, both of you, of course.”

Zecora and Dursaa stared at each other.

“Pegasus mares,” explained the carpenter Elder. “Wow! It is an unusual little herd, and I think its stallion leaves much to be desired. But as long as both mares like him and the zebra mare is able to be stern with the pegasus and get her past her guilt and acting-out, I am sure it will work for you.”

Zecora and Dursaa continued to gaze into each other’s eyes, minds blown.

The herb doctor Elder cleared his throat, taking a more gentle tone. “I understand the suggestion must seem odd, especially coming from us. And I can see the mare is resistant to her new husband, and the stallion is being cowardly and has never even considered having two mares in his herd, rather than just the one pegasus. But maybe she will put some backbone into him? And he can put, er… yes. Into her. And then she will know, as she says, what it’s like.”

The more traditional Elders were milling about, agitated.

“Do it!” came a cry.

Zecora’s head whipped around, as did Dursaa’s. They looked for the source of the shout, vulnerable, as if they’d been caught smooching.

“Consummate!” “Do it!” came the goading, angry calls.

“Er,” said the herb doctor Elder, and the carpenter Elder interposed his body, shielding the two strangers from his unruly companions.

“To what do you refer?” demanded Zecora, scornfully. Even while she defied the crowd of angry zebra stallions, her hind legs trembled. Dursaa noticed this, and frowned. This was not some kinky thrill. She was afraid, and rightly so.

The crowd of zebra Elders milled about in chaos, moderates blocking the aggressive posturing of traditional zebra stallions. Then, at the back, one reared, the stonecutter.

“If they’re a stallion and his herd, they must fuck! Prove it! Take her! This is our land! Our ways must be respected! This is a sick mockery of decent behavior!”

The toolmaker chimed in. “There must be penetration and dominance, or they shall have no leave to depart!”

Zecora and Dursaa stared at each other in horror. The notion of him mounting upon her and shoving it in was already outrageous, and to do it on command from a crowd of angry stallions was unthinkable. Yet there was no consensus granting them freedom to go, and none seemed forthcoming, either. It was all the herb doctor and carpenter could to do keep their angrier Elders in check, and permission to leave would not be agreed upon.

Zebra society was just not made to cope with these moments.

Realizing that, both Dursaa’s and Zecora’s eyes widened, the inspiration striking them simultaneously.

“Very well!” cried Zecora, turning to face the mob. “There will be!”

Sudden silence… slavering.

“Are you ready, Dursaa?” said Zecora, slyly.

He nodded. “I am. Go ahead!”

Zecora’s eyes widened. “Oh! Curse it, I left it at home.”

Murmurs of discontent started in the crowd of Elder stallions. “What, wench?” came an angry voice, sensing a put-on.

Zecora batted her eyelashes in his direction, her legs starting to shake in real terror.

“My big, black, wooden cock, of course!” she cried, defiantly. “Oh, Dursaa! I am sorry.”

“It’s all right, Zecora,” he said. “We will just borrow one from…”

“YOUR MOM!” yelled Zecora and Dursaa at the crowd, and they whirled, and they ran like hell.

Behind them, bellows of rage were mingled with raucous, explosive laughter. They were too bent upon fleeing for their lives, and could not see friendly Elders, cracking up but still tackling their raging brethren, making sure the crazy strangers could escape and return to their perverted, bizarre Ponyville lives.

And so, Zecora and Dursaa departed the Elder Circle, not much wiser… but perhaps, just enough.

Onward they trotted. Dursaa staggered, weary but buoyant. The portal was not more than half an hour’s gallop away, and they would be safe beyond it: even if they’d been pursued, traditional zebras would not enter a portal. They’d gotten away, unquestionably.

He glanced over at his companion, and he had to smile, tired as he was.

Zecora was still on a high. Her hooves pranced, her gait bounced, her bangles jangled. She was absolutely beautiful in her sheer glee and delight… not as beautiful as Fluttershy, of course, but radiant. And she smiled back at him, still delighted with their prank.

“Your MOM!” she giggled, her eyes dancing.

Dursaa nodded. “Come on. Quickly, not much longer…”

“I know,” she said. “Hey! We don’t rhyme? So informal?”

Dursaa chuckled, exhaustedly. “We are a herd, remember? Come along—darling husband of mine.”

Zecora cackled with glee, and gave him a kiss, causing him to blush happily. “Hah!” she said. “And what if I did, hmm? What if I made you my mare?”

“Do you wish to?” he asked.

She blinked. “No. Why? Do you wish it?”

He tossed his head. “Better you than Braeburn! Your cock looked more manageable!”

Zecora cackled again, prancing circles around him… and then stopped, facing him.

“Ack!” grunted the big, tired zebra. “Keep moving!”

“You are so different from them. How did I not see it? It is beyond comprehending!”

Dursaa panted. “That’s what she said,” he joked.

“Do you understand,” said Zecora, “that a gay mare is not simply a fake stallion? I have no great need to become a stallion and mount Fluttershy. If anything, I wish to share tenderness with her in whatever way I can, hoping to teach her more about love.”

“Please do,” said Dursaa tiredly. “I have tried but she will not listen.”

“You may do the pegasus penetrating,” said Zecora. “You seem to enjoy it. I do not picture myself engaged in such acts, and I am not sure I want to see them.”

Dursaa gave her a wry look. “You have not tried it.”

“Certainly not! Whatever they may think, I remain a zebra mare.”

Dursaa rolled his eyes. “I am being generous! I believe Fluttershy wishes you to learn, and again: you have not tried it. Perhaps you should! Our darling melts in bliss at these times. This tenderness you speak of? You can be very, very close to it.”

Zecora gazed at him for a moment. She batted her eyelashes. “I think I am very, very close to tenderness even now. How much of your rude stallion’s ways, Dursaa, were put on for the pleasure of Fluttershy? I am not sure I can feign such maleness, even at her behest.”

Dursaa considered this, stolidly. “Some of it. And some is just natural talent.”

That got another cackle out of Zecora. She pranced, and kissed him on the muzzle. “You are cute! Rude stallion maleness, with a wooden cock up the bottom, that’s you! Perfect for our mad home, Ponyville.”

“They use magic bits, remember?” said Dursaa. “I will burn the wooden one. I fear splinters!”

“Oh,” blinked Zecora. “That’s right. Do those work on zebras?”

“I believe Fluttershy will insist on finding out,” said Dursaa. “Now, please, please, keep moving! I also fear pursuit by the angry zebra Elders.”

With an amused look into his eyes, Zecora turned and began trotting once more toward their destination of the first portal, and Dursaa gratefully ran alongside. Beyond it lay safety, and more traveling… and then, a whole new era of determined zebra team healing and pleasuring of their troubled, adored vampire pegasus.

Zecora started trotting all bouncy again, then reared and hugged Dursaa as he cantered along.

“Ooof!”

“…and their MOM!” giggled Zecora, triumphant.

Fluttershy, Revised

Fluttershy curled up into an uncomfortable little ball under her bed, the wooden planks wedging against the illusory feathers of her wings. She made a face and curled tighter, ignoring the pain. Maybe her wings would break, she thought. It’s not like she couldn’t fix them anyway, no matter how broken they became. Her evilness would make sure of that. She sobbed at the injustice of it all… the unfairest thing was that she couldn’t even be harmless.

Out in the room, Gilda’s terrifying claws scrabbled against the floor, and dug in several inches, splintering the wood.

“Please come out! Please! I love you!”

“No!” said Fluttershy. “I won’t! I can’t!”

Out in the room, Gilda froze. “Why can’tcha?”

Fluttershy winced. “Well… ow! On top of all the other horrible and awful things, I’m stuck…”

Even as she said it, she realized she’d really, really screwed up.

Gilda made a strange noise, like an upset kitten crossed with the trill of a frightened songbird… and then Fluttershy wasn’t alone under the bed. Gilda could not fit, but her long and powerful taloned arm could, and it was reaching in after her, prodding her quivering body and trying to grasp her hoof. Gilda’s feline instincts had kicked in, and she scrabbled to snag Fluttershy and drag her out.

She got hold of Fluttershy’s hind leg, and pulled, and it wedged Shy’s stuck wing against the unyielding planks. She wasn’t moving any further, but the huge massive predator wasn’t letting go. The powerful talons readjusted their grip and Fluttershy felt Gilda latch on right up around her thigh, claws wrapping around so boldly that they threatened to sink into her belly on one side and her tail’s dock on the other.

Fluttershy screamed in pain and alarm, and instantly realized there were many levels of ‘really, really screwed up’ and she was about to experience all of them, for Gilda had no real idea of her strength as a vampire griffin. She had already been a terrifyingly strong predator. She couldn’t see what she was doing underneath the bed as she blindly grasped and pulled. And she’d just heard her pegasus sire, the creature she loved more than anything, apparently being crushed beneath the bed and needing immediate rescue.

Gilda panicked, and with the crude directness of a big birdkitty, yanked Fluttershy out from under the bed with her full strength.

Fluttershy shrieked like all pony hell as time seemed to grind to a halt. Her wings would not allow her to budge, and she didn’t have time to shift them. Instead, her eyes bugged out as horrible claws sank into her crotch and dock, the grip going unbearably tight, dragging on her thigh, a death-grip around the thickest part of her leg… and wrench, dragging her femur from its socket, stretching and tearing her tender body and crunch, the joint between the humerus and scapula shattered and her wing bent back impossibly as everything whooshed and slid by her…

Gilda scrabbled backward and let go the instant her sire was free of her apparent prison.

“I got, I got you o… out…”

Gilda looked down at what she had done.

Fluttershy had passed out. Dead? That was the least of her problems. Her leg was gouged deeply, hoof curled in agony, and the hip looked dreadfully wrong. Worse, her wing bent back in a manner to sicken any flying creature.

Gilda, trembling, looked at her red-tipped claws. She hadn’t pulled that hard… or so it had seemed, in the heat of the moment.

“Fuuuuck…”

Pegasus eyes opened, searched, fixed on her.

“You m…” began Fluttershy, and shuddered in pain from her many places of injury. Gritting her teeth, she pressed on. “You may as well! It’s not like I can hurt you more at this point. Go on, finish it! I deserved that!”

“What?” gaped Gilda.

Fluttershy banged the floor with a forehoof, and winced as it sent searing pain through dislocated hip and shattered wing joint. She glared at Gilda. “Get it out of your system! It’s not really payback for what I did to you, nothing could be, but if it makes you feel better, go on! More, do your worst! I’m not sure how this works, though. If you eat most of me, would I take you over completely and there’d be nothing left of you?”

Gilda just stared, shaking harder and harder.

Fluttershy pouted.

“I always knew this would happen,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t get away with it forever. It’s almost a relief. Finally, I am paying the price! Rip more of my legs off and break my other wing. If… if that’s okay with you.”

Her eyes widened as Gilda leapt, and her pathetically submissive surrender turned into another monstrous shriek of agony as shattered limbs were roughly shifted… but the purpose wasn’t what she’d asked for.

“BWAAAAHHH!” bawled Gilda, tears spraying everywhere, hugging Fluttershy’s ravaged body in a frantic, childish hug, like her broken pegasus mistress was a sort of rag doll. Fluttershy’s mane extension fell off, so heedless was Gilda’s embrace, and the little vampony grew scragglier and longer fanged with no complaint from her hysterical worshipper.

“OW!” wailed Fluttershy. “Rrrg… oww! You’re not even attacking me right, you dumb meanie griffin! You’re only hugging me and it hurts just as bad, what’s the matter with you? Make up your mind!”

“Ahhh! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” squawked Gilda, unable to stop clinging to her sire and racked with violent outbursts of grief and adrenaline, completely hysterical. “The pony hospital, we have to get you to the pony hospital, even if I have to carry you there myself…”

“Ow ow ow! Licorice and ferrets!” cursed Fluttershy. “Ow, stop it! Don’t you know anything, you stupid Gilda?” She twisted around in spite of her injuries, and she hit Gilda with a very determined Stare, her eyes glowing strangely. “Stop! STOP. LET GO.”

Gilda released her and fell back, stunned, her tail and wings twitching with bursts of explosive energy still unreleased.

Fluttershy, without breaking her stare, stuck out her lower lip in a formidable sulky pout. “Fine! Clearly you won’t give me what I deserve, and you’re going to be impossible until I fix this. You settle down at once! And stop talking about the pony hospital. Nice places like that are not for such as us. You might as well learn the ropes, I think that’s what they call it. Watch this.”

As Gilda, frozen in a trance, watched… Fluttershy repaired her injuries.

She got to three hooves, ignoring the pain that sent shudders through her body, and twisted her head back, seizing her bent-backward wing with her teeth. Flinging it grimly over to where it hung limp and shivering in roughly its proper position, she concentrated and movement happened under the butter-yellow pony hide, a strange and subtly gruesome shifting of shattered bone and torn muscle… and as Gilda watched, Fluttershy gingerly lifted the wing, flapped it very delicately, folded it demurely. She’d fixed it herself, while Gilda watched.

She turned, presenting Gilda with her buttery rump, ruined and made awful by the broken hip, no longer symmetrical and harmonious. She frowned, never breaking her stern gaze, and then flicked her tail sharply… once, twice, thrice, and much of the tail fell away in billows of artificial tail extension. Fluttershy’s body grew more shaggy and coarse-furred, her real tail ragged and harsh, but it seemed to be what she’d needed: with further concentration, she drew her dislocated femur toward its proper resting place, and with a disturbing ‘thup’, stuck it back into her hip. More concentration followed, and her lovely flanks regained their symmetry, and Fluttershy tried resting her weight on the repaired leg, and stood.

Lastly, the deep gashes and torn pony flesh began to knit together, visibly sealing themselves up before Gilda’s dumbfounded eyes.

Fluttershy glared petulantly. “I should have bled all over you,” she grumbled, “but it would take forever to replace. Meanie!”

She pirouetted before her thrall, faced her, and demanded, “Now do you understand?”

Gilda gulped. “I dunno. Wow. You can do that?”

“Yes,” said Fluttershy, “so let’s start over. I thought maybe you were free of my influence and giving me what I deserved at last. And so you should. I can arrange that, now that I know. Can’t harm you worse at this point. It was… intense. Give me a moment, okay?”

“I’ll give you anything…” breathed Gilda.

“Well, nopony is coming over this evening so it’s a good time for it,” said Fluttershy. “I’ll make you stop when it’s not convenient for me. I am so very generous that way,” she added, with bitter sarcasm. “But for now I think we can let you have freedom, a little. I’m surprised you were able to do it. I… give me a moment. Okay. I’m going to release you, now.” She licked her lips, trembling. “Go!”

Fluttershy dropped her gaze, and her wings sprang up to stand stiffly erect even though they were batlike things… and she stood, scuffing the floor with a forehoof, waiting.

Gilda stared, dumbstruck by her scruffy vampony beauty, and then stumbled urgently forward as Fluttershy bit her lip with anxiety and a strange, eager acceptance…

“Ooof!” she squeaked. “You’re… hey! Will you… Gilda! What’s wrong with you? What are you doing?”

But Gilda didn’t answer. She just continued to hug Fluttershy, snuggling her scruffy body, bundling her up very carefully in powerful griffin talons and lifting her into the bed, wrapping herself around the little yellow vampony in a quiveringly intense cuddle-fest that was half tender caress and half dizzy and openly carnal fondling.

“I love you so hard core,” explained Gilda. “You’re so soft and tender and vulnerable but then you are so powerful! And so forgiving! I’m so glad you can heal all your hurts and I’m gonna be more careful and will never ever hurt you again, I swear it…”

She broke off. “Did you wince? Oh, shit! I only wanted to fondle that amazing pony ass which you just fixed. Does it still hurt?”

Fluttershy gave her a weary look. “Yes, Gilda. Everything hurts. It’s not real healing, there’s something wrong with it. Don’t look that way at me, you have no idea. This is nothing. Did you know I got stabbed through the heart by an alicorn horn once? It stuck right out the other side. Now you can’t even see the hole, but I can still feel it sometimes.”

Gilda had gone pale, her feathers lying very flat. “What did you say?”

“I said…”

“I’ll fucking kill her,” vowed Gilda. “Which one? Which one did it to you?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, then burned with hypnotic force again. “NO.”

Gilda whimpered. She couldn’t speak. She could only gaze into those eyes, and hear Fluttershy’s words.

“You will never hurt her. Not unicorns, not alicorns, not anypony. You’ll be calm and peaceful. Do you understand?”

Gilda nodded, and Fluttershy dropped her gaze. A tear glistened in her eye.

“But you don’t. You don’t understand. I deserved all of that. You shouldn’t be cuddling me. If there’s any justice you’d just tear me apart again. Maybe one day you’ll be free and will no longer be my slave. But if you were cured, how could you do anything but try to destroy me, and that would just infect you again and not even end this existence, nothing can, everything just hurts and it never goes away!” wailed Fluttershy, beginning to weep.

Gilda squawked. “Baby! Honey! Take it easy, don’t talk crazy! What is your problem, Fluttershy? You talk like you did something terrible!”

“I always knew I would,” sniffled Fluttershy.

“What could you possibly do that’s so terrible?” protested Gilda, but then the words caught in her throat. Fluttershy had fixed her with a tearful gaze and bared teeth, a grimace of pain and self-hatred that froze Gilda’s blood.

“I killed you,” said Fluttershy.

“It didn’t stick,” argued Gilda, but then those eyes silenced her again, and she had to listen.

“I killed you,” repeated Fluttershy. “I flew into a rage, decided you had to be attacked, and I attacked you and kicked your head in and killed you with a bite. After all the time I spent trying to hide what I was, trying to pretend that it was okay, I threw it all away in one moment and I was happy about it. I thought you were dead, lying there all beat up, and I was glad. I checked again and thought you lived and I was disappointed because I wished I had killed you.” Fluttershy sniffled, forlorn. “But I had. You’re dead, Gilda Griffin, just like me.”

Gilda gulped. “Okay, fine, I get it. I’m just trying to figure out what part of that was so bad…”

“It’s all bad!” wailed Fluttershy.

“No no no, wait, stop!” blurted Gilda, in frantic haste. “Hear me out, please, let me talk before you stare at me and force me to be quiet again, please! There’s stuff I’ve just GOT to explain.”

Fluttershy stuck out her lower lip, tearfully, and it smooshed against the cute little fangs, adorably. “You’re right. I’m compelling you over and over. I was even going to make you hurt me again, and that’s wrong of me if you don’t want to do it. Though I think some part of you must want to. Nopony ever ripped my leg out of its socket before.”

“Uh, okay, need to cry again now…”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Fluttershy. “I’ll be quiet. I’m good at that.”

“Thanks,” said Gilda wryly. She studied her adored vampony. “How can I put this? I don’t want to hurt you. I’d do anything rather than hurt you. But, Fluttershy, I used to date Dash. You know? And I just feel like you don’t really get it. You’re acting like kicking my ass was some great sin.”

“No, I know, Rainbow kept talking about that,” grumbled Fluttershy. “She thought you were just in love because I’d beaten you up, and she didn’t even know I’d killed you. On purpose.”

Gilda gazed into those eerie pink eyes. “But I am. I am in love with you. It made total sense to me, babe. That’s what you don’t get.”

“You’re a thrall,” retorted Fluttershy. “I thought I would never make one, and that’s what YOU don’t get.”

“But you’re also a pony… well, vampony,” said Gilda, “who got real physical with me. Like Dash, or another griffin, would do.”

“Well, thank you so much for that,” said Fluttershy bitterly. “I thought being a vampire was quite bad enough but I can see I have an amazing future with you.”

“No, listen!” begged Gilda. She hid her face in her talon for a moment, frustrated. “We’re pretty sturdy. We play rough. You just got my attention, that day. If it wasn’t with the biting part, I might still have ended up here anyway. Have you even seen griffin society? We’re real good at staying aloof and mouthing off at a distance, being pissy and hissy. To touch, to clinch like that? Very big deal. Your body was all over me. All over me!”

Fluttershy pouted. “Yes, punching and kicking. I did think you deserved it. You shouldn’t have jumped on that guard pony, what was I supposed to think?”

“The point I’m making is, that was incredibly hot and if it went a little too far it doesn’t really change anything, it was still hot stuff,” said Gilda. “Maybe not for every griffin but I’m not every griffin. I always did like ponies, from when I was very young. I mean, look at Dash! That little blue pussy, hot damn! Back when we tussled, I totally kneed you in yours. I’ve always wanted to pay better attention to it, ever since. Can I touch you there? I can do amazing things with a claw. Maybe this isn’t a good time. You just don’t seem to understand that you weren’t hurting me. Not in a bad way. You just got my attention, bigtime, and now I can’t forget any of it.”

Fluttershy just stared, miserably. Finally, Gilda dared ask in the softest, gentlest squawk she could manage, “…what’s the matter, babe?”

“I can’t forget, either,” said Fluttershy. “Eventually I’ll need to. Maybe that is the real punishment. I can’t forget.”

“Tell me why that hurts you so much,” said Gilda, earnestly.

Fluttershy sniffled. “I didn’t want to be a monster. I can feel myself going. Everything that I value will die, and I’ll become horrible. I don’t trust that I can stay good. And I’ve created you, now, when I was supposed to stay totally good. I mean, you were bad enough already but now I’ve made you something much more terrifying. You may be a far worse monster than me, because you start out so much fiercer and stronger with beak and claws and a taste for blood. I’ve unleashed you on the world, but I will become terrible in my own way when I turn evil. And now you’ve turned Rainbow Dash’s foal to a vampire…”

“She bit ME!” squawked Gilda. “I did not try to do anything to that crazy kid!”

“I haven’t got that excuse,” muttered Shy, looking away, her expression revealing the deepest self-loathing.

Gilda studied her. Stared, thought, ruminated, racked her aching and oddly seething brain for ideas. And indeed, there was that streak of savagery and hate hidden away in her psyche, a little voice that apparently Fluttershy shared, a tiny inkling of bestial rage and laughing cruelty just waiting to be vicious, wanting only to hurt and maim and destroy…

But to a griffin, that was nothing new, and nothing so alarming.

“Listen, babe,” said Gilda gently. “Listen. I’m not surprised I love you so hard core. You’re the ultimate pony. I mean, except for the horrible long flowing mane and tail, but hey, it looks like your real ones are a lot cooler! They don’t even trigger me or remind me of crap. I like you this way…”

“Don’t judge me,” pouted Fluttershy. “I feel better when I wear the extensions. Zecora made them for me and you can’t tell me what to wear, I’ll compel you.”

“I won’t!” protested Gilda. “I’ll cope! That wasn’t even my point.”

“Please get to the point, then,” moaned Fluttershy. “I thought unlife was bad before, and now I have to cuddle with the monster I made, and wait for us to turn evil together and destroy everything I care about.”

“You seriously believe that?” challenged Gilda. “Check it out: I love you enough to call you on your bullshit. Since when do you turn evil? Fluttershy, I fell for you because you’re the ultimate peaceful sweet grass-eating flower child pony! You couldn’t turn evil if you tried!”

Fluttershy glared at her, cutely. “I have bad thoughts. Don’t mock me. I used to think I could stay good, and then you came along!”

“And I thought I explained that was just griffin sexy times and roughhousing! And I was explaining to Dash how you didn’t even mean to bite me, you just lost your head. Don’t you think if you’d been fighting me in earnest, you would’ve sucked less at it?”

That got a vampony pout. “I did NOT suck at it. I knocked you out, I’ll have you know! And why are you making me act proud of being a roughneck?”

Gilda tickled her scraggly mane. “More like a scruff-neck. You’re a little bit shaggy now. It’s so cute!”

“It is not cute!”

“You had no idea how to fight!” insisted Gilda. “It’s not really like you. It still isn’t! You’re a sweet adorable pony at heart and you’re not going to turn evil! Listen, listen. I’ve seen you taking care of the animals. You go and fill up dishes and stuff with that fucking horrible birdseed… I mean, that wonderful yummy birdseed, can’t get enough of it!”

“I’ll get you more fishes,” pouted Fluttershy. “You and those ferrets! Some creatures, honestly!”

“You see? You see?” declared Gilda. “There you go again, you’re devoting yourself to the care of others! And the birds, and me of course, and probably the ferrets, we just love you for it! Imagine us all romping around as you go back and forth with the birdseed and hay and oat cakes and stuff, how does that feel? For you?”

Fluttershy clung determinedly to her pout, but her wings told the tale: not feathery like the pegasus she longed to be, but leathery and batty, yet still they rose until they stood erect: mute testament to Fluttershy’s inner feelings as she considered her service to others.

“…nice,” she admitted, grudgingly.

“Eeee!” squealed Gilda. “Oh my gosh, I could get off just watching you, you’re so adorable when there’s some happiness in you! You just glow, eeee! I want to lick you to orgasm and feel you wink against my tongue! Think about taking care of your animals some more!”

Fluttershy squeaked and shoved Gilda away. “Stop that! It’s inappropriate! Why do I deserve to have happiness in me anyway? And you’re only making me excited and that would be wrong!”

“But I’ll do anything you want,” pleaded Gilda.

Fluttershy bared her fangs. “But I want you to tear me to bloody shreds with your terrible sharp claws. It wouldn’t kill me, but at least in a sense I would go away. It would take a very long time to put myself back together, and all Equestria would be that much safer. So there! You were saying?”

Gilda stared at her. Her beak, slack in astonishment, quivered. Tears began to flood her eyes.

Fluttershy heaved a deep and exasperated sigh. “Why are you making me feel guilty about that, when I KNOW I am right?”

“No, you’re not,” quavered Gilda. “Y… you want to care for all the little animals, and…”

As she began to cry in earnest, Fluttershy moved in and hugged her, petting her shaking griffin shoulders. “Hmph! There, there. I’m sorry, I guess it’s a lot to ask.”

Then, she blinked. Gilda had twisted around and was gazing desperately into her eyes, and suddenly the talons held her withers in a cautious and delicate grip, as if she was very fragile.

“You’re wrong,” vowed Gilda. “I can feel your heart. I can tell who you really are inside, Fluttershy, and you are a lovely sweet pony, and you’re not evil. You’re scared of it, but you’re still not evil. Look at you, hugging me when I cry! I love you so much…”

Fluttershy blinked. “You’re just a slave, Gilda. I can’t go by that. You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

Gilda wiped a tear. “I do so. Since when are you the expert on vampires? Who taught you, your own vampire master?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. She glanced, in a momentary panic, at Angel’s bowl, where the remnants of a very creative and inspired salad sat half-eaten and ignored. “Um, no, not unless you count learning many wonderful things about salads and keeping vegetables perfectly fresh…”

“Well then!” retorted Gilda. “You need to be nicer to yourself. You’re such a good pony, and I can feel the deepest truth of you. I think you’re just being bitchy because you want to kick ass now and then, and somehow you never figured out it’s about what you do with those feelings. Everybody wants to kick butt or bite somebody’s ear off at times! I realize you’re nicer and sweeter than even the average pony, but there’s a limit, dammit!”

Fluttershy’s ears were back, and not only in fear of them being bitten off. “Iron Will tried to teach me how to deal with my feelings once, and I became awful and mean. How can I trust what you say, Gilda Griffin?”

“Iron who?” blinked Gilda. She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. What did you do then, Fluttershy? You say you became awful and mean. But you’re not awful now! What did you do after that, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy’s eyes were wide and defenseless. “Um, I fixed my behavior and said I was sorry. And I even got my money back, because I wasn’t satisfied! He was making me become something I’m just not!”

And for a second, both pony and griffin just listened to the echo of what Fluttershy had just said.

She dropped her gaze. “I don’t know, Gilda. I just don’t know. How can I take that risk? What if you’re wrong, what if I have the capacity to be a horrible monster?”

Gilda leaned over and kissed her. “And what if you did? You’ll just keep on being an adorable pony anyway. I’ve been wanting to learn how to be like that all my life, and I found my ultimate sweetie-pie in you. You’ll teach me, and we’ll both be super nice.”

Fluttershy gazed uncertainly at her, considering the possibility.

Outside, an approaching whoosh was accompanied by the drumming of hooves.

“Who’s there?” called Fluttershy.

In through the wrecked front door flew Rainbow Dash, up the stairs to hover in front of Shy and her thrall.

“We need Gilda!” she cried. “Stare her if you gotta, Twilight and Trixie need her at their place where they have all their science and magic stuff!”

Behind her, Twilight Sparkle ran in the door and trotted, breathless, up to join them.

Fluttershy blinked. “But I don’t think I need to compel Gilda to do anything. Do I, Gilda? Why are you so excited? What are you going to do to her? You mustn’t hurt her, she’s trying very hard not to be evil!”

“They’re going to find a cure!” insisted Dash.

Gilda and Fluttershy stared at each other, dumbfounded.

“If they cure you,” said Fluttershy, “you’ll hate me for what I did.”

“If they can cure vampires,” said Gilda breathlessly, “they can cure YOU!”

Fluttershy twitched, startled. “Oh! I suppose they could, couldn’t they? Rainbow, is this really a thing they can do?”

Twilight was still panting from her run, but spoke up. “We’re going to try. We need Gilda in case we can’t control Northern Spy. She’s little and gets excited and she wasn’t happy about Gilda dumping her, let me tell you!”

Gilda blanched. “Shit. Right. I remember hearing some kind of tantrum behind me…”

“Yeah you did,” said Rainbow. “Also, Twilight doesn’t want Fluttershy at her place yet.”

“Why not?” said Gilda, defensively.

“I just thought,” said Twilight, “if we could work on you NOT in the presence of your more powerful vampire sire…”

Fluttershy glanced over at her mane and tail extensions, lying disheveled and forgotten on the floor. She raised her head, a hurt and cross look in her eyes, and pouted at Twilight.

“Go with them, Gilda. Let them cure you if they can. Rainbow, she might be angry with me if she is cured. That’s… okay.”

“Never!” vowed Gilda.

“I sure would be,” said Twilight thoughtfully. “Is this you putting her under vampire compulsion?”

“No, it is not,” said Fluttershy haughtily. “She’s a good griffin and she will do as you ask.”

“Do you think you can be nice to Northern Spy?” Rainbow asked Gilda, plainitively. “You don’t have to take her, we’ve settled that, but you broke the poor kid’s heart. She can’t let it go, I can tell. As long as you’re both vampires, a little hug or something might go a long way.”

“She was cruel to little Spy?” gasped Fluttershy. “What did she do?”

Gilda hung her head. “I freaked out and ran away, Fluttershy. I flew straight home to you as fast as I could, but you were hiding under the bed. Why do you think I had to get you out that bad?”

Fluttershy winced. “Yes. Enough about that. I think I can see what happened, judging by how you yourself have been acting. Gilda Griffin, ask yourself: what would Fluttershy do about that?”

Gilda sagged. She turned to Dash. “You got it. I owe the poor kid an apology. And a hug. She’s really into hugs, isn’t she?”

Then, she shivered in bliss, for she felt soft pony forelegs clasp her. Fluttershy was hugging her, and the world was impossibly perfect.

“Good girl,” said Fluttershy. “Pass that one on. Go. Go with the nice ponies and get cured.”

Twilight was studying the tender pegasus-griffin cuddle intently. “Is that a kind of…”

“NO, Twilight Sparkle,” sighed Fluttershy in exasperation. “It’s not a vampire thing! It’s a compassion thing. Perhaps you’ve heard of it!”

Then, her lips were sealed, for Gilda had turned and silenced her with a kiss. The sensation of her beak lovingly pressed to pony muzzle was very odd, but somehow it still made Fluttershy’s dead heart lurch. So much passion, somehow…

“If it works,” said Gilda, “we have to cure you too. And if I do flip out and turn against you, I’ll tell the ponies to keep you safe from me, okay?”

Fluttershy licked her lips, still feeling the intensity of that griffonic kiss.

“Deal,” she said.

And she watched as Rainbow and Twilight led her very own hulking, besotted predator away—and even after they were gone, Fluttershy stood looking after them, and thought and thought.

It was several minutes before Fluttershy turned, and began to put her mane and tail extensions back on.

Pinkie Pie frowned. The itty-bitty black and white pegasus bounced again, beaming up at her.

“Da!” he squeaked.

“You silly!” cried Rock Candy, and tackled him, then tickled him, reducing him to a giggling bit of fluff. “That’s my mom Pinkie, that’s not your Da!”

Little Dursaa bounced up again, and favored Pinkie with another radiant baby smile. “Da!”

“Wait a minute,” said Pinkie. “Is that all he can say? That’s it? That’s everything?”

“He’s awful little,” said Rock defensively. “He doesn’t know much.”

“You got that right, buster!” vowed Pinkie, a gleam in her eye. “Right-a-roonie! I think it’s time your little brother learned a new thing, don’t you?”

“What do you have in mind, Mom?” said Rock.

Pinkie took a deep breath. “Oh, nothing much. Just a little thing called RESPECT!”

Rock squeaked and sat back on his butt, startled. Little Dursaa flapped madly like a frightened sparrow, and then quieted, shying away and staring up at Pinkie with huge, innocent eyes. Rock gulped. “You mad, Mom?”

Pinkie’s grin was not soothing, though she clearly meant it to be. “Of course I’m not mad! Mad, me? Ahahaha! I just have a new word for the cute baby foal. Listen, little one, listen listen! ‘Ma’,” she crooned. “Say it. ‘Ma’!”

Little Dursaa blinked, puzzledly. The adorable tiny smile crept back onto his face. “Da!”

“Oh no,” said Pinkie, “oh no no. I think a certain stripey baby is a little too hung up on Mister Daddy, maybe it’s the matching stripes! Somebody here has forgotten about a certain very sweet and nice yellow pegasus mother, don’t you think? Somepony who never puts herself forward or asks for anything. Somepony who probably hasn’t had a word of complaint about all this, that’s just how kind and loving and DUMB she is. And do you know who that is? Ma!”

“Da!” squeaked little Dursaa, joining in the noise-making game.

“Mom’s not dumb!” protested Rock. “He’s going to learn more words, I promise, you wait and see!”

“If she’s pawning this little cutie off on me,” retorted Pinkie, “in order to fuss over Gilda Griffin… and that’s what they told me when they left him here… then she’s at least silly! But it gives me a golden opportunity to teach baby a new word! Go on, little sweetie, go on candycorn! ‘Ma’! You can do it!”

Little Dursaa hopped up and down. “Da! Da!”

Pinkie was shaking. Rock stared fearfully at her. “He doesn’t wanna…”

“He’s got to! Just because they live in this awful way where he stomps her under his hooves…”

“Does not!” protested Rock. “Mom’s happy where she is! Big Dursaa is always nice to me!”

Pinkie’s mane was becoming frazzled. “And what do you and he have in common? Don’t answer that! Have you ever heard of a word called ‘patriarchy’? How much do you know about zebras? This kid has got to learn to value the pegasus mare that birthed him, it’s not OKAY for him to grow up all twisted and wrong…”

“Da!” chirped little Dursaa, bouncing.

“He’s not! We’re not!” protested Rock.

“Just say it!” insisted Pinkie Pie. “Say it! Ma! Da is a waste! We’re over it! My own Da only smiled at me once, did you know that?”

Rock stared up at her, horrified. That grin was beginning to fall apart, and her eyes glistened. “Mom! It’s okay, mom!”

“No it’s NOT!” wailed Pinkie. “He only smiled at me once, that one time! I couldn’t throw another party that pleased him, no matter how I tried! I got so good at it, and it never helped! Da is bad, don’t you see? Ever since, I’ve tried to recapture the magic! All the world loves Pinkie Parties, I out-partied the best, I brought joy, do you hear me? Joy! And it was no use, everything is going back to how it was! And I’m so t… tired…”

Rock trembled, shocked by the revelations, not sure what to do or where to look.

Little Dursaa understood not a word, but he saw the pretty pink mare’s head drop in despair, saw her beginning to cry, and he jumped up with a mad fluttering of salt-and-pepper wings.

Pinkie sobbed, and little Dursaa clung to her neck in a teeny and fluffy embrace, nuzzling her. Rock held his breath.

“Da,” said little Dursaa reassuringly, in his tiny foalish voice.

Rock winced. “Ya blew it, kid!” he advised, and he joined the pony hug, snuggling for all he was worth as his Mom struggled for composure.

“Deep breaths, Mom!” he urged. “And you, kid stuff, make with the hugs!”

“Da!” agreed little Dursaa.

“Yeah yeah,” sighed Rock. “She’s got a point you know, that doesn’t work for everything…”

There was a loud rapping at the door.

“We have returned! Our Elders eased confusion and brought joy!” came a deep voice. “Our thanks to you, and now we can reclaim my little boy…”

“DA!” squealed little Dursaa, and sprang toward the door even as Zecora began to open it. As the zebras entered, little Dursaa tackled his zebra father with a squee.

“Ooof!” chuckled Dursaa. “Be gentle, little lad! Was my absence quite so bad?”

Zecora caught her breath. “Dursaa, have an eye. Something is awry!”

He looked around, puzzledly, at Pinkie’s apartment, at Fluttershy’s other kid who looked very upset, at the top of Pinkie Pie’s head, and back at Zecora. “What ought I to see? Is the lack, in me?”

“Nothing. Nothing is the matter,” came Pinkie’s voice. She would not look up. “Go ahead! Take your kid. Rock Candy, go with them, okay? I’ll wait here. I enjoy sitting alone in a room! It’s like a party where nobody came!”

Rock looked at Dursaa and Zecora, and frantically shook his head, clinging tighter to his Mom.

Zecora bit her lip. She hesitated, then said, “Pinkie Pie, your generosity has been a boon. Could it be that I and Dursaa have returned too soon? Are we spoiling some expression of your joyful ways? Are you sad the colt must go? Better if he stays?”

Rock nodded frantically.

Zecora and Dursaa boggled at each other, while little Dursaa cooingly cuddled his ‘Da’.

Dursaa cleared his throat. “Little one, I wonder if your patience could extend… to another evening at the home of a sweet friend?”

Zecora set her jaw. “Maybe it had better. We’ve produced a mood. Somehow, this is not a scene on which we should intrude. Pinkie Pie, forgive our rudeness, please don’t feel dismay: we can surely let him visit for another day?”

Dursaa nodded. “Let it be! Fine with me.”

He gently urged his fluttering little colt down, and towards the two cuddling earth ponies. Rock beckoned urgently. Little Dursaa stepped uncertainly toward them, sniffed, flapped, looked back inquisitively…

That was when Pinkie Pie looked up, and she didn’t look at the foal at all. She looked at Zecora, hollow-eyed.

Zecora couldn’t say another rhyme. Not an hour ago she’d been prancing in Dursaa’s company, trying to straighten out the weird upheaval in her personal life and comprehend the mysterious changes in the big stallion, which now seemed to have been there all along. She wanted to encourage these revelations, and wanted to find out how they could apply to the task of healing Fluttershy, the one she’d loved from afar. She hoped she could find a way to personally involve herself in this, even if it meant embracing some distasteful aspects that Fluttershy seemed to get a lot out of. Possibly it wasn’t as distasteful as she’d imagined, if the whole dominance thing was more of a front than a reality.

She had no chance of explaining any of it to Pinkie Pie, and the last thing she wanted to do was stay behind and allow the mad pink one to ravage her marehood and act out a neverending party that always had to be more and more and more, insatiably.

“We’ll talk,” managed Zecora. Dursaa glanced attentively at her, all concern for her sudden failure to rhyme. Pinkie Pie saw the attentive glance. Zecora saw her register it. Pinkie’s face fell, even more…

“Cheer them, my son!” urged Dursaa. “Soothe the pink one!” He was glancing back and forth between Zecora and Pinkie, and then he nudged Zecora, gently but urgently. “Your talking may be better left for a more sunny day… I fear we’ll make her sadder, please let us go away?”

Zecora shook herself. “That is a promise,” she called to Pinkie. “Please continue! Uhh… whatever it was we interrupted? Yes, Dursaa, I think that is best…”

Together, they retreated out Pinkie’s door, down the stairs and out of Sugarcube Corner. Cheered by the visit, little Dursaa flittered over and snuggled up to Pinkie Pie again, who still stared after the departing zebras, long after they’d left.

“Da,” cooed the baby zebrasus.

Rock Candy bopped him on the back of the head with a hoof, lightly. “She’s right. We should continue! Hey, kid stuff!”

“Da?”

“Do what I do,” instructed Rock. He turned to Pinkie. His lip was quivering, but he managed to meet her hollow eyes bravely.

“Ma,” said Rock earnestly… and clung to her, wishing away all her hurts.

Little Dursaa blinked, puzzled.

“Ummuh,” he said, and then he hugged Pinkie as well. His words might not have been well formed, but the hug was every bit as sincere.

Pinkie shuddered. Her head dropped again, face twisting in grief, but she clasped the two kids closely to her and didn’t let go.

“Good boys…”

“Umomm.”

“He’ll get it,” encouraged Rock.

“Yeah he will,” said Pinkie Pie. “Thanks…”

Evening was coming on as they approached Fluttershy’s cottage. From inside, they heard singing: though, oddly, it was a funked-up version of Big Macintosh’s PonyTones singing, transposed up two octaves and muffled.

“Precious one?” called Dursaa. “We have come!”

He opened the door and trotted in, Zecora following. From upstairs came a whinny of delight, and down the stairs flew Fluttershy, radiant in pegasus pony form, with her long mane flowing in the air and a red-stained rag in her teeth.

She set the rag down on a table. “You’re back! Where is little Dursaa?”

Dursaa and Zecora glanced at each other. Dursaa gulped. “In our pursuit of what is right, we’ve had him stay another night. Is his return to be all set? What’s happened to your griffin pet?”

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh! Gilda is well and she’s gone with Rainbow Dash and Twilight. They’re going to try and find a cure for her.”

“Is that their goal? Who found her soul?” asked Zecora, curiously.

“What? They weren’t talking about anything like that, Zecora. Please don’t confuse me, it’s been a very difficult day…”

“Then say no more,” said Dursaa, “your stallion stands prepared with soothing things. I’ll rub your little hooves for you, or maybe I’ll massage your lovely wings?”

“That sounds wonderful,” said Fluttershy. “Please do, and we have lots to talk about, believe me. Zecora, I know you’ve had some problems with my husband, but I hope when you went off to zebra lands or whatever it is you did, you got over it…”

“Fluttershy,” said Zecora impressively.

Fluttershy blinked. “…and? What rhymes with that? I’ll say bye-bye? It made me cry? Please don’t, Gilda was crying enough and I feel terrible about it though it worked out well in the end.”

“No,” said Zecora, and Fluttershy stared. Zecora added, “Dursaa, please: the door.”

“Why are you talking so strangely?” said Fluttershy. “Which is to say not strangely at all, but for you? I wasn’t expecting it…”

Zecora watched Dursaa shut the door, and turned to their vampire pegasus. “There are many things we did not expect. May this be one of them: we are the herd, and this is our circle. In private, we speak calmly and patiently. We do not rhyme the deepest words of the heart.”

“Oh, that,” said Fluttershy. “I didn’t know you did that too. Dursaa and I do that sometimes.”

Zecora’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Well, we do,” retorted Fluttershy. “Is that wrong?”

Zecora turned to regard the big zebra stallion with awe. “You respect a mare this much? Why did you not say so?”

He winced. “Why would I tell any zebra? Let us three carry on the words of respect and trust. This is our circle. No Elders need ever know.”

Fluttershy tsked. “I’ve been telling you, Dursaa, two ponies isn’t a circle. I don’t think three is either, wouldn’t that be a triangle?”

“Sh,” said Zecora. “It is a zebra thing. He continues to impress: this, at least, I’d not have guessed.” She hesitated, looking at Fluttershy’s discarded rag. “What do you have there? What stain do you clean with this cloth?” She sniffed, and her eyes widened. “Fluttershy!”

“It’s all right!” protested Fluttershy. “Yes it is fresh blood, but it’s mine. Don’t worry!”

This advice seemed to not comfort Dursaa very much. He trotted in place with anxiety, rumbling, “What happened? What has injured you? My love!”

“Hush!” scolded Zecora. “She has cut herself, or had some accident. Let our pony explain herself!”

Fluttershy made a face. “Not exactly. I’m afraid Gilda got upset and ripped my leg out of its socket and broke my wing. The blood is from that. She didn’t mean to! She’s very sorry and it’s all better and I won’t have you making fun of her for it, so be kind!”

Dursaa whimpered. Zecora stammered, “…k—kind?”

“Yes. We have to be kind,” insisted Fluttershy. “She almost has me believing I can be kind, I mean kind over the long run.” She made another face. “It also made me excited, it was so forceful. So now I would like my stallion’s attentions… but at the same time we should talk because I’m not sure it’s right for me to do it that way. I mean, the getting-hurt and fixing myself way.” Fluttershy pouted. “If I’m going to be nice, I probably need to be honest and not play mean tricks. Even if they are sexually exciting.”

“Perhaps we should indeed talk,” said Zecora, though she looked a little pale. “Especially if we are talking about your intimate life. I am not sure you heard what I said.”

“Huh?”

“We are the herd,” repeated Zecora. “We are yours. The Elders suggested this: rather than choose one or the other of us to be your mate, they felt you would be happiest with… both.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened.

“Eeeeee! How exciting! I’m sure I stuck that magic bit somewhere. Let’s! Having Gilda nearly rip my leg off and break my wing was very intense. I felt like I was paying consequences for killing her, and I wanted more. But this is a lot better! And a lot more, um, direct, sexy-wise. Please stuff me until I burst, every which way! I promise I’ll use all my vampire healing forces, though I’ll probably be feeling it later. But how thrilling! I… mmph!”

Blanching pale, Zecora had stopped up the stream of eager madness with a shaking hoof. “Fluttershy, please! We do not seek to harm you! Why do you demand these terrible things?”

Dursaa shook his mighty head. “Indeed not! Explain, dear wife. Did the attack by the griffin unsettle your brain? Are the other ponies safe with this dangerous beast?”

Fluttershy batted Zecora’s hoof away. “She didn’t attack me! She sort of dragged me from under the bed where I was hiding. And I was stuck, and then I wasn’t stuck any more but I was almost in chunks. She is very strong, very very strong. But she got upset at my punishment and she didn’t want to do it and she was crying.”

“And so would we be,” said Dursaa weakly. “What is this punishment? You have urged me to efforts that left you crying in pain and damaged. Are we no more than tools you use to harm yourself with?”

That shook Fluttershy. “Gilda was upset with me over something like that. She says I’m a nice pony and shouldn’t seek justice. Even though I killed her. Isn’t that very wrong?”

Zecora was at a loss for words for a moment. Then she suggested, “If she is the corpse, surely her opinion has merit? She does not wish you harmed?”

“She says she’s in love with me,” mumbled Fluttershy. “She wants us to be nice together, and nobody to hurt anybody.”

“With this, at least, we agree,” said Dursaa softly.

“I don’t want a lady griffin lover,” said Fluttershy. She looked between Dursaa and Zecora. “What are you telling me? I love both of you, though I’m not sure it’s in the same way. Zecora has never come on to me… oh, except for turning up with a wooden penis and wanting me to stick it in her. I suppose that counts, though it’s weird.”

“Stranger things have been suggested,” rumbled Dursaa.

“Have they?”

“Braeburn made suggestions to me once,” said Dursaa. “Most shocking. Though a wooden penis was not part of the suggestion.”

“Oh!” squeaked Fluttershy. “Be careful. I mean, have fun, but do be careful? He does like anal sex, but he is very large, take it from me… well, you were there, you saw it. You may have fun with Braeburn but you must tell him to be gentle and not too rough with your bottom! You don’t have the dark regenerating powers I have and I don’t want you hurting yourself on him.”

Dursaa and Zecora exchanged a wordless glance. If words had been involved, they’d have been a zebra commentary on the morals of pegasi. Indeed, the things they found taboo meant nothing to even the gentlest pegasus.

Dursaa turned to Fluttershy again. “Yes, I will be careful. I am not interested in Braeburn tonight. My question is this. If there are two of us… two zebras, as you’d wished… do you think we could make sweet love?” He glanced at Zecora. “Can you persuade her? I am told I am the weak stallion, and though it’s this I wish, we have yet to experience it. She argues and sulks and gets her way.”

Zecora’s ears were splayed in chagrin. “What way is this, Dursaa?”

“Too rough. Or, indeed, the use of pony form, when her true nature suffers less harm.”

That got a glare from their vampony. “Oh? That’s easy for you to say! Just because I have the dark horrible powers doesn’t mean it’s good. I need to be in pony form, so there!” She pouted. “We’ll just use butter to lubricate, as always.” She sighed, tragically.

Zecora studied her, then glanced at Dursaa. “You forget something about this pony form.”

“That it is tight and fragile and frightens me with her vulnerability?” argued Dursaa.

“No!” retorted Zecora, hotly. “First of all, I am surprised these things seem bad to a stallion dickhead! Though I suppose that is consistent with the truth of you, and it is well you don’t glory in these things. Sorry.”

Dursaa didn’t come back with hostility at being called a stallion dickhead… or a failure to be fully a stallion dickhead. He just asked, “What is the other thing? You said first of all. What is second?”

“Oh!” blinked Zecora. “Simply this.” She nuzzled at Fluttershy’s mane, as Shy flapped disconcertedly at the attention. “She wears these to take this form. Dursaa, her soul lives here. She warms herself before it and feels more of a pony in its presence, even if it will not merge with her again.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” grumbled Fluttershy, a tear in her eye. “Is that what it is? Anyway, it’s true. I don’t ever want to take them off, please don’t ask. Especially in bed! I don’t want to feel like a powerful monster when having sex.”

“But do you want to feel harmed?” asked Zecora.

Fluttershy hesitated. “I want to be honest. But you might not like hearing it.”

“Elders explained to me,” said Zecora, “that a mare may seek an intense and, er, deep experience…”

“It’s not that!” protested Fluttershy. She stopped. “Okay, so it is that. Very very that. I WILL be honest! That part is true. But there’s something else, and Gilda and I talked about it.”

She paused, but the zebras had recently sat in an Elder circle. They didn’t need to rush her, and the silence stretched out, and inevitably the little pegasus pony broke it and revealed more of her secrets.

“I didn’t realize how badly I needed to be hurt until Gilda hurt me,” she said. “I was trying to pretend everything was fine, but I felt I was turning bad. And then Gilda showed up and Twilight showed she was a vampire I’d created, and I knew I’d already become what I feared. It was horrible. Maybe I’d known all along… so I tried to do right by Gilda, but when she yanked me out from under the bed and hurt me so badly, it was like I met justice. And it felt good.”

“But,” began Dursaa, his eyes moist.

“No, listen!” interrupted Fluttershy. “It felt good, but it didn’t make Gilda happy to hurt me. In fact she was terribly upset. Everything I said about justice only hurt her more, as if I didn’t get to decide what justice really was. She should have been satisfied, but she cried and cried and it was awful, just awful!”

“She says she loves you,” suggested Zecora. “This is not so impossible, and indeed such a one would not wish to inflict harm on you.”

“She’s a thrall,” retorted Fluttershy. “She doesn’t have a choice. But doesn’t that just make it even worse? She CAN’T be pleased at seeing justice done to me, seeing me punished for my crimes. It has to hurt her. Unless there’s a cure for her, I can’t seek destruction or her feelings will be terribly hurt.”

“So will ours,” said Dursaa.

“You’re not my thrall!”

“We love you,” said Dursaa.

Zecora sighed. “The Elders were wise. It is indeed a path of guilt! Oh, Fluttershy. What crimes are these?”

“Murder,” insisted Fluttershy. “On purpose, even! I killed Gilda. I just knew I would turn evil eventually! Though she says I lost my head in a fight and didn’t mean it!”

“And as she is the corpse, she was there to observe,” argued Zecora. “Oh, Fluttershy, Fluttershy. I know your heart. Who else did you murder? Be honest.”

Fluttershy blinked, startled. “Why, nopony, of course! Nobody, I mean. Nothing! But I get these urges and I can imagine myself doing it…”

“Sh!” said Zecora firmly. “So, innocence: there is nothing, except this Gilda Griffon. And if they cure her, she lives again and there is no murder. And if they do not, she remains utterly devoted to you and would suffer greatly to see you harmed. Is that not true?”

Fluttershy pouted cutely, lower lip stuck out. In her pony form, you could barely see the fangs. “You make it sound so… sensible!”

“She is a great addition to the herd,” said Dursaa, admiringly.

Fluttershy glared at him. “So I’m stuck? I can’t have justice? What do I get, then?”

Dursaa stared back at her adorable petulance: the wilfulness like a grumpy kitten, the endearing softheartedness, that femininity combined with such strength when it truly mattered. His eyes explored her body, and came to rest on her feathery pegasus wings, gift of the magical mane extensions, and in the presence of her husband and her lively mood, bolt erect.

He began to chuckle. “Heh, heh, heh…”

Zecora rolled her eyes. “You needn’t answer that. Fluttershy, justice may not be yours to invent. We do not know all outcomes. Do not be hasty. Your victim is off being cured and loves you madly, and we wish to soothe your troubled spirit.”

“I’m only trying to do what’s best!” complained Fluttershy.

“For others?” countered Zecora.

Fluttershy blinked. “Well, of course. Who else?”

“Let us be practical, poor Fluttershy. What would leave you in the sweetest mood?” suggested Zecora. “Full of love, eager to care for your animals and birds, friendly to the ponies of Ponyville?”

Fluttershy frowned, uncertainly. “You’re going to say sweet love. But Dursaa wants that in vampony form! That’s not okay, it lowers my inhibitions and it’s scary! I shouldn’t feel like I have less control!”

“Then do not stray too far from your pony soul!” commanded Zecora. “Yes, I do say sweet love. But keep the mane and tail extensions with you, Fluttershy! Of course you are affected when you shed them. Keep them on!”

Fluttershy looked at Dursaa, whose ears were back. “I like that,” she said. “She IS a great addition to the herd. This me? Get used to it.” She turned to Zecora. “Very good. But Zecora, where do you enter into this?” Then, her eyes bugged out, and she blushed. “I’m sorry! That was rude and naughty. I think you’ve already said you don’t want to use a bit for me.”

Zecora couldn’t meet Fluttershy’s gaze. “Not right now… please be kind. The idea doesn’t soothe my mind.”

Unexpectedly, she felt a touch. Dursaa was nuzzling her mane, tenderly. “You are with us. The Elders suggested it. You prove your worth, over and over… Zecora, what would be your wish? If you cannot tell Fluttershy, then tell me.”

She gulped. “Much like you, I wish sweet love…”

“You love her,” reminded Dursaa. “You are of our herd. How would you show this sweet love?”

Zecora was blushing nearly black. “Since you ask… I would show the loving touch. I would touch her body, if she would have me.”

Her eyes were squeezed shut in fretful embarrassment. Then she opened them, a bit, and saw Fluttershy looking at her.

“It’s been a while,” she said. “With a mare, I mean. Okay, sure. Please don’t be cross when Dursaa takes over, though?”

“Must she stop?” said Dursaa plainitively.

Fluttershy blinked. “What? You mean you want a mare, I mean dear wonderful Zecora, all fondling me and maybe licking and all sorts of things, even while you make love to me?”

Dursaa shivered with pleasure. “Oooooh! That is so hot. Yes!”

Fluttershy and Zecora shared a glance. Stallions!

“Do not be in fantasies sunk,” warned Zecora. “I won’t be all over YOUR junk!”

Dursaa looked a little disappointed… but still, very much like a colt on Hearth’s Warming morning.

“It does sound very hot,” said Fluttershy. “And I’m all worked up from what Gilda did, and my husband’s back…”

“And your…” began Dursaa, glanced at Zecora, and trailed off—honestly unable to decide what to call her. Zecora still blushed, and scuffed the floor with a hoof, horribly self-conscious at the prospect of finally getting sensual with the pony she’d crushed on for so long.

Fluttershy glanced back and forth between her zebras. “So, I get to be the pony I want to be. Zecora wants to touch me all over, and Dursaa wants to fuck me, though maybe not as deep as I would like. Except maybe it’ll be better than I think. I feel like maybe I don’t need to be hurt so much, now that I know Gilda is getting help for her condition. And I’m still worked up from how intense that was earlier. Dursaa? Zecora?”

“Yes?” rumbled Dursaa. Zecora could barely meet her eyes.

“Come upstairs to bed,” said the little vampegasus. “We have the house to ourselves tonight, and I want that sweet love.”

She turned, and she flicked her silky tail. She wriggled her hips sensuously, just as if she hadn’t fixed them earlier that day. She winked, half-hidden behind the curtains of soft pink hair… and she padded up to bed with delicate little clops of her hooves on the stairs. On the landing, she gazed demurely back at them, flicked her tail again, and trotted into her bedroom to flump lightly on her bed, awaiting her zebra harem.

Zecora and Dursaa looked at each other.

“She is a happy pony,” said Dursaa.

“Yes,” said Zecora. She gulped. “After you?”

“No,” rumbled Dursaa, inclining his head deferentially, but with a twinkle in his eye. “They say I am a weak stallion. After you.”

They entered the bedroom together, and were startled to discover that they didn’t fit into the room: or rather, their bulky, tall zebra bodies could fit side by side on the stairs by protruding slightly out beyond the railing on Dursaa’s side, but where it led up to the bedroom, the hole in the floor was less forgiving.

“Oof,” said Zecora.

“Umph,” said Dursaa.

Fluttershy gazed from her bed at her new herd, her large powerful zebra mare and still huger and more powerful zebra stallion. “Eeeee!” she squealed excitedly, and her wings sprang up even stiffer than ever.

Zecora made a face. “I insist: after you, sir.”

“No!” squeaked Fluttershy. “I haven’t had Zecora, ever! And she keeps telling me she is gay… well, she told me once and then told me it wouldn’t matter and not to mind, no untoward actions would I find. If she is supposed to also be my lover she should show me the untoward actions she was thinking about! Um… if she doesn’t object?”

Zecora rolled her eyes. “She does not. Oh, Fluttershy! Do you imagine I am to pounce upon you and churn you into some sort of froth?”

Fluttershy’s wings quivered. “Maybe?”

“You are quite sure,” questioned Zecora, “that you wish my sensual attentions? Even if you anticipate inviting Dursaa to involve himself? Perhaps you would like him to begin, and I will do my best to smile upon your pleasures?”

Fluttershy blinked. “No! At least not yet. Zecora, you have been wonderful to me, all this time! Can’t you show me what you would have wanted? Um, I mean, what you do want? If we’re going to be like this with each other?”

Zecora nodded, solemnly. “I can. I must ask you one thing, that is of the greatest importance.”

“Not to bite you,” said Fluttershy, “of course.” She sighed. “But I want you to know that I’m a little hurt. I really do love you as a friend and you should know that, I would never ever do harmful things to you, but you have my promise since you apparently need it.”

“Nay, Fluttershy,” said Zecora. “of that I knew. It is not this I ask from you.”

Fluttershy blinked. “What, then?”

Zecora stepped forward. “Relax.”

She slid onto the bed, joining Fluttershy, who squeaked “Ooooh!” in pleasure as loving zebra forelegs clasped her close.

Shy melted into Zecora’s powerful embrace. So bold! Yet, the zebra mare did not dive for intimate parts, did not provoke with hoof or tongue. As Dursaa watched, Zecora spread Fluttershy over herself like pegasus butter, stretching her pony body with firm, caressing strokes, hoof kneading her withers.

“Oh my!” squeaked Fluttershy breathlessly. Zecora’s hoof had extended to her wing shanks, hesitantly touching their illusory fluffiness.

Zecora drew back. “I thought…” She glanced nervously at Dursaa. “Fluttershy, do you need to tell me something?”

The wide-eyed pegasus panted, clinging to Zecora’s body. “It’s okay. Dursaa knows. Keep going.”

At a questioning glance from Zecora, Dursaa nodded. “She gets earth pony’s friend. From you. We do not rush into more foals for my fragile precious darling.”

Fluttershy’s eyes were sultry as she gazed at Zecora. “We may need to talk about that.” She batted her eyelashes slowly, and then nuzzled against Zecora’s neck. “Touch me there!”

Zecora’s hoof trembled, but she complied, and her hoof returned to knead beyond Fluttershy’s withers and massage directly on those soft, feathery, magical wings… which stood bolt upright immediately, and then bristled out with a dry fluffy sound.

“Nnnggghh!” moaned Fluttershy, her tail shooting straight out behind her and cracking like a whip, accompanied by a little wet noise. Dursaa quietly moved closer, sniffing the air in delight, his nose very near his wife’s flanks.

“Again,” he suggested, leaning in. Zecora used her hoof to splay Fluttershy’s wings even as they quivered, watching Dursaa’s reaction.

“UNNNH!” moaned Fluttershy, her body shuddering, and Dursaa broke into a wide, beaming smile as another wet noise greeted the air.

“What is it?” demanded Zecora, pausing.

“It is beautiful,” answered Dursaa. “Often I feel this wondrous thing upon me, but I cannot see it like this, up close.”

“The pink pony could teach you how to do that!” retorted Zecora. “You do not lick or touch her? It is jump on, jump off, done?”

“No, you do not understand,” protested Dursaa feebly. “I would like to, but…”

“Eeeee!” squealed Fluttershy, as Zecora’s hoof continued to fondle her shivering wings. “Eeee! Fuck me, put it in me, now now now! Right now! Eeeeee!”

Zecora’s jaw dropped. Dursaa rolled his eyes. “Pretty much that.”

Zecora poked Fluttershy’s rump with a hoof. More wet sounds of frantic winking came forth, but the crazed pegasus could only nuzzle drunkenly against Zecora’s neck and chest, too quivery to rise. “If she gets like this, you could surely taste her pussy all night. Our beloved is weak with desire and will hardly put up a fight.”

“Please,” begged Fluttershy, “pleeeease oh please! Oh, right away, sink it into me, just plunge!”

Dursaa blushed embarrassedly. “I have never refused her, Zecora, and she is… strict at times like this.”

“Give me zebra cock NOW!” wailed Fluttershy, beside herself. Zecora was still fondling her wings and stroking her back.

“I do not think you completely understand the mare,” said Zecora. “Do you think she is built for one joyous burst, in the way your body is constructed? Have you never experimented with this?”

Fluttershy sobbed. Dursaa protested, “But it is like she will die if she does not get her desire!”

Zecora smirked. “Hear me: even were she still a mare, I could do this. And she would not die… well… not in a bad way. Watch and learn.”

With strong zebra muscle, she hoisted Fluttershy’s shuddering body and flipped it. The hysterical pegasus came to rest with her wings to either side of Zecora’s chest, and legs lolling limply over Zecora’s own spread legs. Dursaa stared in fascination at the display: wildly aroused pegasus vagina and cute little pony breasts shading Zecora’s darker crotch and shadowed stripes. Fluttershy squirmed and winked madly, and then in the shade, Zecora’s marehood replied with an eager wink of its own, glistening pink suddenly peeking and then veiled in dark black labia..

He glanced nervously up to see Zecora watching him, her eyes narrowed. She flared her nostrils, but then she nodded. “Go ahead if such sights please you. Be honored, no stallion shall see that pink save you… but watch this.”

Zecora’s hoof reached tenderly down between Fluttershy’s legs, and the little pegasus tensed, hyperventilating.

“I’m happy you like touching me,” she panted, “but I seriously need a whole bunch of zebra cock right nnnnAAAHHHH!”

The zebra hoof found its mark. Dursaa’s jaw dropped, and then his cock dropped with great enthusiasm. He’d only just been privileged to gaze upon Fluttershy’s aroused vagina for longer than a moment, and he couldn’t take his eye off it, but that had been nothing compared to what he now witnessed.

Zecora’s hoof, gentle but insistent, began to knead Fluttershy’s pussy as it had her wings… and winking was nothing compared to what she was doing in response to that touch. Her clit poked out again and again, more and more glisteny, as if trying to writhe out from under the kneading hoof. Juices oozed forth, and Shy’s vulva parted as her pussy grew unbearably aroused, swelling up and turning a more rosy pink as her hips squirmed weakly.

“Ngggghh! Eeeehhhh!” squealed Fluttershy. “Aaaahhhh! Please!”

Dursaa couldn’t even breathe.

Shy’s tail began to thrash. Through the pink silk of it, he could see Zecora winking again as she dry-humped Fluttershy’s quivering bottom, a tender growl emerging from her throat as her hoof worked away. Fluttershy let out a shriek, her wriggles becoming less coordinated. Another ooze of mare-juice dribbled out of her, as her body seemed to clench upon nothing, then return to its molten, turgid state. All the while, Zecora continued to masturbate her, slowly but relentlessly.

Dursaa had never seen anything so exciting in all his life, or even imagined it.

The striped mare’s hoof pressed deeper, slowed even more, paused to fondle Fluttershy’s soft belly and stiffly erect nipples, and returned again and again to that outrageously swollen, pouting, dripping marepussy. Fluttershy shrieked more hoarsely, and her clitoris poked out again and again in winks well slathered in marejuice, only to be openly fondled. Finally, Fluttershy let out a long, exhausted scream, her voice ragged, and her whole body stiffened and shuddered while her clitoris winked out and stayed protruding, hot and red as a glazed cherry and stiff against Zecora’s insistent, caressing hoof as the little pegasus shook and vibrated like lightning was striking her.

In the shadows, Zecora’s pussy winked once, twice, thrice in orgasm… and then a gush of straw-colored liquid spurted out of Fluttershy and she sagged, stunned, across Zecora’s body.

Dursaa reeled in his jaw. His erection throbbed. It was so hard, it hurt. “Wow.”

Fluttershy sobbed, incoherently. “B… but, the, it, you…”

“You have taken her all for yourself,” said Dursaa sadly. “I will hoof it. May I stare at your treasures as I do?”

Zecora was panting. “Neigh!”

“I am sorry,” said Dursaa. “I will not.”

Zecora shook her head. “I meant… poor stripey-rear! Come over here!”

His eyes widened. “But she is done! More than I have ever witnessed!”

Zecora’s smirk was one for the ages. “No. She is relaxed enough to take you. And has provided her own butter. Come HERE. Take my place.”

Eyes wide, Dursaa scrambled over. He reclined on Fluttershy’s bed. “Like this? How should she lay?”

Zecora thought quickly. “We will lay her on you as she lay on me. I would wish to touch her again, should she need it.”

Fluttershy was a pegasus wreck, her wings frazzled fluffs of feathers, emitting little dazed cries as her body was lifted off Zecora’s and laid against her husband Dursaa’s. Her head lolled, mane disheveled. But her mouth and eyes opened wide as she felt herself settle down into his embrace… and felt the hardness of his flare against her fevered, molten vagina.

“OH MY!”

“Don’t push hard,” advised Zecora, and she allowed Fluttershy’s weight to settle against Dursaa’s bracing force, and her hoof stole down between pegasus legs again.

Fluttershy jolted. “Oh my! Oh! Oh MY! It uh! I… unnhhh!”

Tenderly, Zecora resumed massaging pegasus pussy, but this time braced against what seemed a wall. A throbbing wall, that oozed slippery pre-come.

Fluttershy felt Dursaa’s forelegs clasping her, but not pushing. Zecora was a warm presence, smelling of mare musk and eager horniness, and between her legs, Fluttershy felt that hoof working its mysterious magic, and felt herself melting away as if her body had turned to jelly, and squealed breathlessly as she winked, winked again, wriggled her hips…

Her body slid down a few inches, as Dursaa’s hard, enlarged flare popped through her soft stretched entrance and came to rest snugly wedged into her sopping marehood.

“YEEEEE!”

Zecora’s kneading hoof kept up its gentle ministrations, though Fluttershy’s clit couldn’t wink out anymore: it just clenched against the huge mass of Dursaa’s cock, peeking like a glistening dot squished between zebra hoof and hardened stallionhood.

Fluttershy just shook, mouth hanging open, an expression of stunned astonishment on her face.

“More,” said Zecora, and Dursaa cautiously curled his hips up. Zecora felt against Fluttershy’s belly, and cried, “There!”

“Gheeeeee!” squealed Fluttershy, her eyes crossing, her husband’s cock sunk in her to the hilt… or to the scabbard, since there was more of him but there wasn’t an inch more of her, even to stretch. Not in pony form.

Zecora turned her head. She was sweating, as was he. “Learn it. That is how deep our mare is. Remember.”

Fluttershy kicked the air, shuddering, impaled upon horsecock, her brain shorting out just as if he’d ravaged her cruelly.

“Now, gently!” urged Zecora. “Let us feel the waves of you!”

Dursaa needed no more encouragement. As if he had always longed for such a consummation, trembling with ecstatic bliss, he began to slowly slide his hardened phallus, flare and all, out of and into his beloved pegasus wife. And all the while, unflinching, Zecora tenderly massaged Fluttershy’s mound: once so soft and puddled, and now stretched taut around a huge bulky shaft that transfixed it. The zebra hoof fondled yellow vulva, rubbing the soft pillowy mound even as stallion meat slid within… and then, with a wicked glint of the eye, Zecora revealed a final trick she had learned about but had never been able to consider, much less try.

The sensitive area along the top wall of a marehood behind the clitoris could not be reached by a hoof, and could only be indirectly rubbed from the outside… but it was a different story when the edge of a hoof pressed it against the anvil of a throbbing, hardened cock.

Fluttershy didn’t even have time to scream. Her eyes bugged out, and then her pussy was gushing with marecome again, and she shook, her heart spasming and stopping as her vagina convulsed. But what might have been a fatal peak for a living pegasus was only the beginning for the zebras’ little vampony.

Dursaa gritted his teeth as she went berserk and gushy upon him… and then, the big stallion unloaded.

Zecora’s eyes widened. Then, they widened more. She made a soft, awed ‘ooooh!’ noise, exploring Fluttershy’s belly with a hoof. “So that is what it is like,” she breathed. There was no mistaking Fluttershy’s utter ecstacy, and Dursaa looked frankly ridiculous, making silly faces of goofy delight. She’d somehow expected the stallion to roar and inflict his seed like a hostile blow, a final conquering. There was none of that, he seemed to melt under her, his body rocked by shudders and heaves.

All the same, his massive balls clenched and his cock throbbed and Fluttershy cried out sweetly and kicked the air, and Zecora could feel, under her hoof, that every throb was a gush of semen pumping deep into her. She imagined that she could feel the spurts against the insides of Fluttershy’s womb. The little pegasus seemed transfixed by the sensation…

“Rmmm!” went Dursaa, his expression turning worried.

“What is it?” blinked Zecora.

He was shifting his hips, and trying to reach down as if further masturbating Fluttershy. Zecora glanced, and gasped. That belly was even rounder than usual! The look in Fluttershy’s eyes was unforgettable… mare-ish surrender, but glazed with pain as if they’d taken her too roughly. When a spurt of white fluid came from Shy’s vagina and didn’t drip so much as spray, Zecora understood. Hoof trembling, she kneaded Fluttershy’s vulva, forcing her to move and twist, helping Dursaa to twist himself in her tautness and allowing the shocking volume of a zebra stallion orgasm to emerge from his little pony lover.

Before they were done, Fluttershy had fainted dead away, but the lines of pain had melted away from her sweet face.

Zecora took a deep breath. “That is what it is like?”

Dursaa was panting. “That is what is like.”

“Oh, my,” said Zecora reverently. “It is not as I believed… but, still, frightening.” She licked her lips, ears back.

Dursaa cuddled Fluttershy to his chest. “We have you to thank, for the gentleness. She is not displeased.”

Zecora nodded, satisfied. “It is well. I know she loves this. She is a good pony, if unwise.”

Dursaa nuzzled Shy’s silky mane. “This may help her learn wisdom. Thank you from both of us.”

Zecora made a wry face. “As if I teach this lesson, and depart! You’ll not be rid of me that easily!”

Dursaa slowly grinned. “Good!”

At this, Fluttershy stirred. “Ooooh…”

“It is well, little pony?” rumbled Dursaa fondly, stroking her mane.

“Oooooh,” crooned Fluttershy, in a daze. “I feel so warm.” She closed her eyes and nestled back against him in perfect ease, calm and content.

Then her eyes flew open in shock.

“I’m a vampony!” she squeaked.

Dursaa and Zecora glanced at each other, startled.

“Must we reassure you,” said Zecora, “that you are still loved?”

“No, you don’t get it,” protested Fluttershy. “I forgot!”

Zecora’s ears laid back. “You forgot yourself, and have just restrained an evil impulse? But your mane! Your tail! Our love!”

Fluttershy’s eyes were very wide.

“No!” she said, awed. “I felt… like I was your mare! I didn’t feel the darkness. I didn’t feel the impulses. I forgot I was a vampire.”

“Is that wrong?” asked Zecora.

Fluttershy’s expression slowly shifted… from immediate guilt, to resentment, to a sad and winsome longing, and finally to a frightened, brave look.

“I really hope it isn’t,” she said. “Because with you two, I feel like I can be… good.”

They lay there, in peace, a long time. Dursaa fell asleep first, just a few minutes after his erection had subsided. Zecora fell asleep with her face snuggled against Fluttershy’s neck, trustingly.

Fluttershy stayed awake for a long time, staring into space, trying to imagine an eternal unlife of unfailingly being good.

It was too much to imagine… but it was some comfort that, snuggled with her sleeping zebra lovers, one night of perfect goodness was completely within her grasp.

It was a start.

Research And Development

Gilda’s birdlike talons wrapped a little closer, protectively. She peered to and fro, uncertain.

Cuddled in those bony, furless arms, Northern Spy nestled against Gilda’s feathery chest. Her wide, fillyish eyes explored everything she could see, and there was a lot to see.

Beakers bubbled. Retorts burbled. Vile foamy liquids went ‘blurp’ ominously.

Twilight Sparkle, clad in a long white lab coat and her mane madly disheveled, beamed toothily at her test subjects. “Welcome to my other secret basement! I promise you probably have nothing to worry about!”

Lightning crashed, sending shafts of light down the stairs. In the distance, there was a hideous scream. Twilight’s grin widened.

“What’s the first secret basement?” demanded Gilda.

“What?” said Twilight, taken aback.

“You said other secret basement! So what’s the first one?”

Twilight shook her mane and it fell back into its normal bangs. “Oh, that’s just Spike’s bedroom. You can see it but it’s a big mess! He should clean up all those empty ice cream cartons.”

Northern Spy blinked cutely, and pouted through her little fangs. “What are ya gonna do to us, Twilight?”

“There are so many scientific possibilities!” squeed the lavender unicorn, prancing in place for a moment. “I must keep detailed records for posterity!”

“You better not hurt Gilda!” threatened Spy. “I’ll beat you up, I’ll wreck you!” She brandished a hoof, and then winced as it flopped over, loosely. She’d not done anything to fix her injury.

“Whoa!” squawked Gilda. “What the fuck happened to your leg, kid?”

Another squeal rang out, this one in chorus, but it wasn’t a cry of delight. Applejack and Rainbow Dash clutched each other in dismay, to see their foal so injured. “Twiiliiight!” wailed Applejack. “Fix it!”

“I thought… ow!” said Northern Spy, “that Gilda was s’posed to fix it!” She turned to Gilda. “So fix it, ‘cos ow!” She hit her griffin vampire mistress with the full force of little filly cuteness, quivering lip and big eyes and all.

Gilda gulped. “I’ll get right on it. Seriously, guys? I don’t fucking know how to do that!”

“Language!” chided Applejack, though she was very pale.

“Yes you do!” argued Dash. “You’re okay again, but I remember Fluttershy beat the crap out of you!”

“Rainbow!” protested Applejack. “We’re trying to be a good influence on Spy, dammit!” She blinked. “Aw, horseapples…”

Rainbow gave her a look. “How about we give that a rest for now? Temporary pause on good language.”

“How come?” asked Applejack, suspiciously.

“So I can say, Gilda, show her how to fix her FUCKING hoof!” cried Rainbow Dash. Applejack hugged her, for Dash had gone teary-eyed and was staring at Gilda as hard as her foal was.

“But I really don’t know what I did!” protested Gilda. “I do know it seemed to hang around for a long time—the aftermath, I mean. And I got pissed off… sorry… I got mad and just started to tell myself, it’s getting better, the bruises and stuff are going away. And it did, but it was like it happened only when I was looking at it? Those injuries just sat there until I paid attention to them. I don’t know what I was doing. I guess it worked.”

“Good!” said Applejack. “Start walkin’ through it with lil’ Spy. Right now.” Hearing her authoritative tone, Rainbow Dash relaxed visibly, confident that the healing would commence.

“Wait!” said Twilight. “We need to monitor. Just a moment while I get over there! Trixie, are you ready?” She trotted over, her horn lighting, and both Gilda and Spy flinched away from her.

“And kin you tell me WHY in tarnation she is doin’ that?” demanded Applejack, in exasperation.

Trixie Lulamoon was lying on the floor, her body pressed flat to the ground. This was because Gilda was sitting on her, holding Spy. She was their chair, or possibly hassock or stool, and her forelegs were demurely crossed with hind legs tucked underneath her. She lifted her head, her horn lighting as well.

“Trixie gets to have fun too,” said Trixie. “And Trixie is going to sense magical emanations! She and Twilight will try to triangulate on their frequencies and arcane resonances. Proximity helps.”

“I don’t see why y’can’t sit in that fancy chair with the dials and lights and things,” accused Applejack. She glowered at Trixie’s hindquarters. “And I’ll tell you right now, my kid sittin’ on your butt should not be certain kinds of excitin’.”

“It’s more the griffin, really,” said Trixie. “Trixie has never been pinned down by a griffin before. Well, sat upon, anyway.”

“I’ll get off!” said Gilda, her feathers bristling in embarassment.

“So will Trixie,” retorted Applejack acidly.

“No, please!” begged Twilight. “Not yet. Behave, Trixie! I’m sorry, Applejack. She won’t without permission, and she needs to be that close by, as I do! We’ll work with the thaumanological equipment next, but in case it misses anything we need to be right there sensing for emanations.”

Applejack snorted. “Git a rag. And once you sense them, YOU wipe them up.”

“Not that kind of emanations!” argued Twilight. “Trixie, do you hear me? Be good! Okay, Gilda, please begin.”

“I told you, I don’t…”

“It’s gettin’ to be past Spy’s bedtime,” added Applejack.

Northern Spy ignored this. She turned to Gilda, and she spoke earnestly. “Mom said Fluttershy could show me how to fix it. Can you show me how to fix it?”

Gilda blinked, helpless against the concentrated adorable. “I don’t know, kiddo. I can try.”

“Please show me?” asked Spy, and lipquivered. “Cos owie.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh gosh. That’s at least a Cat Three or even a Cat Four lower lip. Since when do you say owie, Spy?”

Spy glared at her Mom, and turned back to Gilda. “Pleeeease? I gotta go home to bed. I don’t want to sleep with my hoof broken off, it’ll hurt! Show me.”

Gilda sighed. “You bet. Okay… Look at the hurt hoof, and concentrate.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know! Think about it getting better. Get mad at the way it hurts. That’s what I was doing, mostly.”

Spy glared at her broken foreleg, withering it with an alarming nasty look.

“Hang on, hold it so it’s in the right place!” objected Gilda. “Here.”

Gently, her talon grasped the injured hoof, coaxed it to lie straight. Spy gritted her teeth but didn’t complain. She just laid her little ears back and concentrated with total determination, wriggling with effort.

“Hey!” said Gilda. “Something moved! I think it’s working!”

Twilight and Trixie paid close attention. Applejack and Rainbow Dash leaned forward, expectantly. Northern Spy grimaced and made a little squee from sheer effort, fiercely marshalling her attention…

Gilda hesitantly withdrew her talon, and the filly foreleg stood up unsupported, back in Northern Spy’s control. Gilda beamed, her eyes glowing with pride. “Ya did it, kid!”

“Yay!” squeaked Spy.

She squirmed, and flung herself off Gilda’s lap to a position of maximum radicalness on the floor, clearly shooting for a pose that said ‘I’m going to race off into the distance faster than anything!’.

She sprawled on her face, as her fragile foreleg-mend broke instantly.

Northern Spy’s little shriek of pain was muffled by a storm of wings, but they weren’t griffin wings. She wasn’t the only quick pony in the house. Almost before she’d hit the floor, Rainbow Dash shot forward in a gust of wingpower that sent beakers flying, and had caught up her foal in loving maternal forelegs—and hovered. And for a moment, mother and daughter panted, shaken, and the little filly hoof dangled limply once more.

Applejack cleared her throat.

“Try again!” suggested Twilight. “I think we almost got a reading on what it was.”

“HELL naw,” said Applejack, with total conviction. “Northern Spy, it is your bedtime. Rainbow, come along. We are goin’ HOME.”

“But…”

“No, Twilight,” said Applejack. “We can try again tomorrow. We’ll be more careful.”

“But,” said Spy, “my hoof!”

Applejack walked over, and nuzzled Northern Spy’s little mane. “Tell you what, sugarcube. We’ll put you to bed real gentle-like. Do you remember what ya did? I bet if you do whatever it is, instead of countin’ sheep, why you’ll be as right as rain in the mornin’ and maybe you’ll have it fixed up enough to not hurt by the time you nod off. And in the morning you can get it more sturdy before you go runnin’ around, please. Okay, honey?”

Twilight bridled. “You can’t do that! We need to observe the process! Can she only fix it partway, and when she comes back we can br… b…”

She trailed off, her logical workaround abandoned unsaid. Rainbow Dash’s eyes were wide with horror, and Applejack’s were alarmingly narrow.

“Twilight, upon my life I am glad you had the wits to not finish that sentence,” said Applejack. “I understand you want to learn things, but sweet Celestia, pony!” Her nostrils flared, but she restrained herself from further comment.

Twilight hung her head. After a moment, she said, “That’s a good idea, actually. We should get Princess Celestia in on this. I think she would be a big help, and I think we can probably send for her and have her here tomorrow.”

Applejack’s jaw was tense. “Please do. I reckon there’s some things she won’t stand for, and it would ease my mind, I won’t lie.”

“Oh?” retorted Twilight, stung. “Such as?”

“Such as your marefriend gettin’ all squishy over bein’ a griffin footstool in the presence of MY foal!”

Before the earth pony and unicorn mares could confront each other, each was intercepted by their respective mates. Trixie turned and hissed “Mistress! Not now!” while, at the same time, Rainbow Dash urged, “Applejack! Take it easy!”

Trixie continued, whispering, “Let them go! Trixie has other ideas, trust Trixie!” Still balanced on her pony rump, Gilda watched nervously.

Applejack tried to push past Rainbow, but the cerulean pegasus had other ideas. Without letting go of her dangling foal, Dash leaned in to scold in Applejack’s half-flattened ear, “Stop it! You know it’s not the only time Spy’s been around an excited mare!”

“Oh yeah?” argued Applejack.

Dash just faced her down, nose to nose. Then, more like nuzzle to nose. A smug little smirk crept onto Rainbow’s face, and the ruby eyes twinkled. Gradually, Applejack blushed, as she remembered foalish cries of ‘Mama pee!’ and realized that she herself had sneakily pleasured Rainbow in Spy’s presence, when her pegasus had been too incorrigible.

“Uh… right,” muttered Applejack. “Twilight? Sorry for gettin’ all up in your face there. I think it’s bedtime for all of us.”

Twilight nodded, stiffly. “It’s okay, Applejack. We’re all pretty stressed out. I’ll send for Princess Celestia and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow. Get some rest.”

Spy glanced over from where she dangled in Rainbow’s grip. “Can Gilda come with me?”

Gilda gulped, glancing quickly at Rainbow and Applejack. “I think I need to stay here, kiddo. Okay?”

“Awwww!”

“No, you go,” urged Gilda. “Get some sleep. You did great! Look, fix your hoof enough that you can sleep without it hurting, and we’ll finish it up in the morning. I promise I’ll help. I’m real proud of you. Go on, now. Go with your folks.” She gave a harsh squawk of a laugh. “Or I’ll compel you!”

Immediately, she flinched back. Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash had scowled at her. “Kidding!” she squawked. “I was kidding! Fluttershy says that to me! Though I’m not sure she’s kidding. I was joking, I wouldn’t do that!”

Applejack looked stern, and Dash looked hurt. “Good,” said Applejack. “See that ya don’t. Come on, Rainbow.” She considered this, and added, “Unless our Spy flips out again… but she won’t! Will ya, Spy?”

Northern Spy felt the temptation to look to Gilda for direction, but she wasn’t quite that foalish. She kept her eyes fixed on Orange Mom, hoping she wasn’t offending her new birdkitty deity, and she said “I won’t. I promise.”

The look of relief in Applejack’s eyes made up for a lot.

“Come on, ponies,” said Applejack. “Home we go.”

It was dark outside, the moon hiding behind clouds. As Applejack and Rainbow Dash neared Sweet Apple Acres, Spy began struggling.

“Whoa!” cautioned Dash. “What’s up, short stuff?”

“Let me walk!” pleaded Spy. “I’m a big girl, you don’t have to carry me inside like a baby!”

“Awww,” said Dash. “But you are, Spy, you’re my little pony. Are you sure?” She blinked. “And you’re not gonna run off, are you?”

“No, I promise!” said Spy. “You gotta let me walk into my own house! I’ll hop.”

Applejack stared into her eyes critically, then nodded. “Eyup. That’s as apple-y as the day is long, and this has been a long ‘un. Let her down, Rainbow. She’s got her pride. Careful now!”

Spy stretched her good legs down and held the broken one clear of the ground, and Rainbow settled lower and lower and at last, delicately placed Spy on the grass of Sweet Apple Acres, and flew back a little way, watching.

Spy set her jaw, and took a careful hop forward with her good foreleg.

A ghastly scream cut the air.

Spy shrieked, as Blue Mom snatched her back into the air. “Ow! Cut it out! That wasn’t me, Mom, sheesh!”

“It wasn’t?” squeaked Rainbow Dash.

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “She’s right. It wasn’t. It came from behind the barn.”

They glanced at each other.

“Let’s get it!” cried Spy, excitedly, and they were off, one determined family charging and flying toward the source of the trouble. Spy cheered, for Rainbow was blasting toward the problem without letting go of her. It hurt her dangling leg, but all the same Spy had never felt so much like a daring and bold flying pegasus pony. Her eyes widened in awe, to see that Orange Mom was keeping up and even leading the way slightly. They swerved around the corner of the barn in a flurry of wings and a hail of churning hooves…

Five farm ponies stared back at them, startled. Snowy, Hollyhock, Silver, Knothole, Fern Gully.

Silver was standing on one hoof. A feeble anguished noise came from under the hoof.

Sticking out to either side… were little beige paws.

“We found a monster,” said Snowy. “It screams, and it’s got no head. It’s some kind of monster that can’t die.”

Applejack gulped. “Reckon I’d holler too, if Silver was standin’ on my personals. What the hell do you think y’all doin’?”

“We need to know if we can kill it,” said Hollyhock, tight-lipped and grim-eyed.

Rainbow clasped Spy a little closer. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It is!” squeaked Northern Spy. “It’s one of my zombie bunnies!”

“What?” blurted Fern Gully, laying his ears back in chagrin.

Spy began wriggling like mad, and kicked her way free of Rainbow’s grip. She dropped to the grass, but did a little tumble without using her injured leg, and bounced to her three good hooves, advancing on the farm ponies. “Those are MY zombie bunnies! Let it go!”

“Spy!” shrieked Dash in alarm, but Applejack was right there alongside her daughter, her eyes even grimmer than Hollyhock’s.

“Stand down,” said Applejack directly to Silver, holding Spy back with a foreleg. “By that I mean, stop th’ balancing act and let the poor critter be. I ain’t askin. Now!”

Silver fell back in disarray, leaving a red-stained pancake on the ground. “What do you want, Applejack? What’s the kid after? We kin bury it, I reckon we got it this time!”

He flinched, as the little pile of splat made a dreadful burbling wail of agony.

“I do believe you’re mistaken,” said Applejack levelly. “Thank you very much for givin’ the poor critter even less to be happy about in its miserable-ass existence.”

Silver looked at her as if she’d gone insane. “Why are you mad? Why are you siding with a monster?”

“That there’s a BUNNY, you stinkin’ idiot!” snapped Applejack.

The farm ponies gawked, and then looked at their prey with new eyes.

The pancaked bunny wiggled what were clearly bunny paws, and began pulling itself out of the divot on the ground into which it had been compacted.

Silver sighed. “Right. So, it’s a varmint, but there’s something wrong with it?”

“Eyup,” said Applejack. “Spy’s collectin’ them. They’re from out of the Everfree. If you’da asked me, I could have tole you buckin’ em don’t work. Do you really think I ain’t tried that?”

Silver nodded. “Uh-huh. You say there’s more? What do we do with ‘em?”

“These bunnies don’t eat carrots or nothin’,” said Applejack, to murmurs of approval. “Though it stops up the noise for a while. Listen! They’re zombie bunnies or somethin’ and they cain’t die, so all your stompin’ and squishin’ them is just pointless cruelty that won’t do a bit of good. Them things can’t eat, look at ‘em. Spy is collectin’ em, they come out of the forest. If you see more, bring them around, we’re keepin’ them in a box in the barn. Come to think of it, is that where this ‘un came from?”

Rainbow Dash was making epically dismayed faces, but spoke up. “No, this one’s beige. The other one was white with a brown paw. I think they’re about equally squished though.”

Applejack bent and tugged the thing out of its crater with careful teeth on its tiny beige paw, and it emerged like a beanbag filled with jam. Gently, she deposited it on the ground and stood over it, Northern Spy also guarding it staunchly.

“Go on home!” ordered Applejack. “We got this. It’s your bedtimes too! We got work tomorrow, bright an’ early!”

Disappointed and disgusted, the farm ponies gradually filtered off to their homes. Applejack kept staring at them until they left. Fern Gully skulked off, constantly looking over his shoulder in horror at the tiny sad pulped monster between Applejack’s protective hooves. Snowy Hocks grumbled, “You really think that there’s a zombie bunny?”

“What else staggers around like that after ya buck its head off?” demanded Applejack.

Snowy rolled his eyes, and made himself scarce.

They were gone. Applejack nuzzled Spy’s mane. “Come on. Let’s put this ‘un with the other one.”

When they brought it over to the box, complete with a nest of spare burlap left over from wrapping tree root balls, they found the box empty.

Applejack scratched her head with a hoof. “Are ya sure this ain’t the same one? Poor bugger, I never saw th’ like. First me and then Silver! What’s next, Princess Celestia sittin’ on it?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “No. It’s different. The first one got away.” She flew around the barn, and returned. “No sign of it. How fast do you think it can go? Did it go back to the Everfree Forest?”

Applejack snorted. “I would not blame it for that. Seems us ponies ain’t exactly zombie-friendly.”

Their ears swiveled. In the distance, a scream rang out, but it sounded like a pony squeal.

“Found it,” said Applejack laconically.

She glanced down, and whinnied in alarm. Not at the zombie bunny: it sat unhappily, accepting that motionlessness was less painful than trying to hop around with every bone in its body crunched to gravel. Applejack’s attention was drawn to her filly, who stood with the broken hoof lifted, but who wobbled with fatigue.

“Northern Spy, if you doze off and put that hoof down to steady yourself, you’ll be sorry!” she chided. “Heck with missin’ bunnies. Rainbow, help me get her to bed! I reckon we can lay her sideways and it won’t be too bad.”

Spy yawned, the little fangs showing. “Nooo! I’m a big girl, I myyuuuh… walk into my house…” She wobbled more.

Applejack nuzzled her ears. “Naw, honey. It’s a parade, okay? Blue Mama’s carrying you to celebrate.”

“Celebrate… what?” yawned Spy.

“Why, the way you protected the poor lil’ zombie bunny with me,” soothed Applejack. “An’ now we’re puttin’ it to bed, and I’m sure it’s real grateful with whatever it’s got to be grateful with, and now it’s your turn. To go to bed, I mean, not to git squished or your head bucked off.”

“They could… never,” yawned Spy. “Nuh-uh. ‘M too… awesome…”

“Rainbow…”

“Got it, Boss,” said Rainbow Dash very softly. She hovered just over her hapless foal, and just as Spy nodded off and toppled in the direction of her injured hoof, Rainbow caught her in tender forelegs and lifted her into the air.

“Are you gonna put the bunny to bed?” she asked, quizzically.

Applejack made a face. “Happens I am. Why not? What else can we do with it?” She wrinkled her nose, then lifted the sack of bunny by its little paw and laid it gently in the box, covering it with burlap as if it was a proper blanket. “There. Let’s ask Princess Celestia for some advice on these things, too.”

“Tomorrow,” urged Rainbow Dash. “You’re sleepy too.”

“Couldn’t let th’ boys torment the poor zombie critter,” said Applejack.

Dash smiled. “I know. I love you, Applejack.”

“It’d take hours… days! And they’d all miss work, still tryin’ ta kill the thing,” explained Applejack.

Dash made a face. “Uh, right. I still love you, Applejack, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Well, usually you kin kill weeds and varmints and they don’t jes’ keep walkin’ around going, braaaiinns…”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Boy, did they come to the wrong place! Whatever. Come on, it’s time for bed.”

The two mares walked peacefully out of the barn, headed for the farmhouse. Behind them, the remains of the bunny sulked, and then covered itself with more of the burlap, to keep warm. And eventually, everything slept, at Sweet Apple Acres.

Trixie eyed Gilda, speculatively.

“What?” said Gilda.

“Nothing.”

“No, seriously, what?”

Trixie yawned. “Oh, just a stray thought.”

Twilight had gone off to compose a letter to Princess Celestia, and griffin and blue unicorn sat eyeing each other.

“So cough it up,” demanded Gilda. “Don’t just sit there smirking. What?”

“Trixie likes your scent,” confided Trixie Lulamoon, her tail swishing across the floor.

Gilda gulped. “Uh. Thanks?”

“Oh, don’t thank Trixie yet.”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t started yet.”

“Twilight!” squawked Gilda.

“WHAT?” demanded Twilight Sparkle, from upstairs in the library proper. “Don’t distract me! I want to ask the Princess for help but remain independent, it’s vital that it doesn’t seem like we’re turning over this inquiry to her! We can take care of ourselves! Now, what’s the problem?”

“Nothing!” replied Gilda, hastily.

“Then shut up, I need to think how to phrase this!”

Silence fell again.

“What?” said Gilda, as Trixie continued to study her.

“Do you think Trixie would turn vampire if she simply tasted your blood,” said Trixie, “or would it only happen if you or she actually bit with teeth?”

“TWILIGHT!” wailed Gilda.

“WHAT?”

“Your marefriend’s going crazy! She’s going to attack me!”

Hooves drummed on the stairs and Twilight galloped down, but her reaction was not exactly as Gilda expected. First, she smacked Trixie with the back of her hoof, and the blue unicorn cowered happily on the floor. At least, it’d got a volley of excited vagina-winking out of her, so Gilda had to assume she was as happy as ponies got.

“Girl!” demanded Twilight. “You do understand the situation? Answer!”

“Of course, Mistress! Of course!” grovelled Trixie.

“What did you do?”

“Trixie inquired if she would be infected with vampirism if she only tasted the griffin’s blood! Or, of course, the reverse! That is all, Mistress!”

Twilight glared at the submissive Lulamoon. “Oh, Trixie, Trixie, Trixie. What are we going to do with you?”

Trixie didn’t answer… except with another wink. Her body quivered with eagerness, the scent of it making Gilda’s eyes widen.

“Let me correct that,” said Twilight. “I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do, and not do. Understand?”

“I swear I wasn’t going to do anything to her!” protested Gilda.

She stopped, for Twilight was giving her an odd look. The purple unicorn hmphed. “Gilda, this is for your own good, so don’t interrupt. I know some things about you. I know you’ve fooled around with both Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and you play very rough…”

“I won’t…”

“I’ll tell you what you won’t do, just as I’m telling Trixie what she won’t do,” said Twilight. “I’m pretty sure she can take care of herself with you: we unicorns have a great deal of mental fortitude. What you don’t know is the nature of my Trixie. She likes playing very rough too, and I have to say I saw this coming.”

“I’m sorry! I can leave…” began Gilda, but Twilight’s horn lit, and Gilda felt her beak being held shut by a gentle force.

“I didn’t say that, and let me finish,” said Twilight. “Trixie will be impossible for weeks if I don’t let her play, but she is intelligent enough to understand what’s permissible and what is impermissible. These are your restrictions! You and Trixie may have naughty fun however you wish, but there may be no biting, that sort of thing… I’d better define it as no biting of each other and no clawing of each other. That means neither of you may bite, incise or otherwise draw blood. Got it? That’s by intent or by accident. I don’t care if you don’t intend to have blood-to-blood contact. We know that’s a vector for transfer of vampirism and you will NOT indulge it. I think from the looks of it you get the idea, Gilda. Trixie, I mean it every bit as much for you. Absolutely no biting or anything resembling bloodplay.”

Trixie hung her head. “Yes, Mistress.”

“In fact I’m going to tighten that, knowing you. I’ll allow blunt floggers but you’re forbidden use of whips or rods or anything of the sort, including for use on yourself as we don’t know everything about transmission of vampirism. I’m sorry,” said Twilight, “but you’re just going to have to settle for vanilla. Use your imagination, I can tell her smell is triggering you and that should help.”

Gilda wore an appalled look. “I smell?” she squawked, in dismay.

Twilight gave her a weary glance. “Yeah. You smell like a big, powerful griffin. I guess we should be grateful you don’t smell like a rotting corpse. I’m sure we’re all grateful Fluttershy doesn’t, because it’d stink beyond belief by now: I have no idea how long she’s been undead. From what I know about Trixie, I don’t blame her. Heck, I’d join her… except I have a letter to compose, I’m incredibly tired, and I just won’t ever be that hardcore. You know, to be screwing griffins. I think I said once that all the ponies in this town are crazy? Well, whoof!”

Gilda stared at the lavender unicorn, astonished.

“You’ve accepted my conditions, Trixie. I heard you say yes,” said Twilight. She made a face. “Please don’t ever tell me all your fantasies about this one, I think they’ll be too rich for my blood.” She snorted a wry laugh. “Hah! My blood. Seriously, Trixie, don’t push this time. Okay?”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Trixie humbly.

“You know the risks,” added Twilight. “I know how ingenious you are, but I don’t want you taking chances!”

“No, Mistress,” said Trixie.

Gilda gulped. “Twilight Sparkle, what are you suggesting here? I’m not going to hurt this pony!”

Twilight’s grin silenced her.

“Did I say I was worried about you hurting her?” she said. “I trust my Trixie completely, and she’s as smart as me. This is for your protection too, Gilda.”

“But what do you think I’m gonna do?” wailed Gilda.

The grin widened.

“Judging from your tastes in lovers, and the attitude of my very special marefriend,” said Twilight nonchalantly, “I think you’re about to fuck a pony. You’ve got my permission, within the boundaries I’ve set. If she ruins you for pegasi and earth ponies, I guess that’s just your tough luck. Remember what I said, Trixie!” She smirked at delighted unicorn and dismayed griffin alike. “Have fun! Now let me write my letter, and then I shall retire. Oh… this door is soundproof. Enjoy!”

As Gilda stared in shock, Twilight Sparkle flirted her tail, winked with one sensuously half-lidded eye, and trotted back up the stairs. Gilda’s predator’s senses told her that Twilight was, somehow, moderately aroused by this mad notion of her marefriend getting frisky with a griffin. Upstairs, the door closed. Slowly, Gilda turned to look at Trixie.

She’d never seen such a smug look in all her life… or after it.

“What the FUCK was that about?” she demanded.

Trixie yawned and stretched, wriggling on the floor where she lay. “Mistress knows her Trixie. Trixie loves Mistress, who lets her have very special presents.”

“No, I mean,” blurted Gilda, scratching her head with extended talons and disheveling her feathers, “pony fucking I get. She’s right, I’m really into it. I totally understand her telling me not to bite or claw. Please understand that’s a given, okay? The last thing I want to do is hurt any pony, especially now.”

Trixie pouted. “If we can reverse the vampirism and cure it, Trixie would really like to try it for a mad weekend. The possibilities are simply amazing!”

“What?”

The blue unicorn licked her lips. “Just imagine the intensity of punishment one could absorb if one could not die. Is it very difficult to repair? You know, bone breaks? Impalement? Would dismemberment pose a problem if limbs were actually removed from the body, or can you put them back?”

Gilda whimpered. “What?”

“Trixie is only thinking of possible,” said Trixie and waggled her eyebrows suggestively, “researches.”

“TWILIIIGHT!” howled Gilda.

The door banged open. “Trixie, take it down a notch!” yelled Twilight Sparkle, from upstairs.

The door banged closed.

Gilda gulped, staring into the calm violet eyes of her tormentor.

“Trixie apologizes,” said Trixie politely. “Perhaps you have led a sheltered life, with the earth pony and pegasus and all. It seems hard to believe, knowing that pegasus, but still. Trixie is at your disposal. What would you like, lovely griffin? We have Mistress’s permission, within limits.”

Gilda sniffed the air. “L… lovely griffin, huh?”

“Oh, yes. Trixie is very fortunate,” said Trixie, still laying on the ground where she’d served as Gilda’s footstool. “The weight of you pinning Trixie down was most arousing. Would you do it some more? You can lay across me.”

“Tell me one thing first,” said Gilda.

“Of course, lovely griffin! Ask Trixie anything.”

“Exactly why was Twilight Sparkle making you promise not to claw ME? I can see no bitey, ponies can do that. But you have hooves not claws… and a horn that doesn’t really look that sharp.”

Trixie smiled. “Twilight is responsible for that, Gilda. Are you unfamiliar with unicorns? I should warn you that if you are very pleasing, I may spurt magic from my horn. Consider it a high compliment to your prowess, if so.”

“You squirt magic?” asked Gilda.

“Trixie squirts all over the place when suitably gratified!” boasted Trixie. “And Twilight is powerful enough that sometimes she can horngasm into Trixie, too! That is why our horns are blunt, lovely griffin. It is a beautiful part of unicorn sex that you may enjoy, when you get used to it.”

“Right,” said Gilda. “But Twilight made you promise, too. So with a blunt horn and blunt hooves, how’re you going to draw blood without biting?”

Trixie beamed proudly. From behind her, a gleaming blade rose into the air, held by her magic.

“TWILIIIIIIGHT!”

This time, there was just a bang on the ceiling from Twilight’s exasperated hoof. Trixie’s face fell, and the knife quickly returned to its hiding place.

Trixie studied the curled-up ball of quaking griffin. “But… when you get used to it?”

A sob was the only reply.

Gilda curled miserably for a moment, but then she felt a touch on her shoulder. Trixie’s hoof prodded her with unexpected gentleness, and the blue unicorn’s voice was soft and unthreatening.

“Trixie is very sorry, Gilda. We don’t have to do anything. Trixie just thought since you liked ponies so much, we could play. It is all right, Gilda. Please don’t be sad.”

Gilda sniffled, then revealed her face, and glared at Trixie. “What the serious fuck, okay? Just what the fuck?”

“Why, yes,” said Trixie, placatingly. “Very serious fuck. It’s okay, Trixie didn’t know you were such a lightweight.”

“I am NOT a l…”

Gilda trailed off. Those violet eyes were so calm, but there was an amusement there, even a smugness.

Gilda tightened her beak, and glared. That got her a coo of pleasure, a widening of the smile, and the sound and scent of a wink from pony mare pussy.

“Any particular reason why you want to carve me up with a knife or flog me?” challenged Gilda. “What did I ever do to you?”

“Oh, Trixie is willing to match injury for injury, to be fair,” replied Trixie happily. The sound of another wink greeted the air, and the blue unicorn wriggled. “In fact, Trixie insists!”

“Crap,” said Gilda, and face-taloned. “Can you not do that? The smell gets me excited.”

“Sadly, Trixie cannot but help show her enthusiasm,” said Trixie. “The scent of YOU gets Trixie very excited! If you are excited, and Trixie is excited, what sorts of pleasures suit our lovely griffin? Please tell Trixie. Trixie wishes only to bring you joy!” She blinked. “Though we are skipping things. Rarity would beat me senseless! Miss Gilda, we must agree on a safeword this instant.”

“A what?”

Trixie tsked. “Exactly! Lovely griffin, what we do with each other is voluntary. Even if it should go to unthinkable, darkly erotic places of terrifying intensity! A safeword is what you say when you want to say no, when it is time for the games to stop. Before we proceed, just in case Trixie can persuade you into deeper waters, you must provide Trixie a safeword! Think carefully, now. What words will you say, if you need to tell Trixie to stop?”

Gilda considered this. “Uhh… ‘no, stop’?”

Trixie just stared at her for a minute.

“WHAT?”

Trixie sighed, and rolled her eyes. “Nothing. ‘No stop’ it is: or, rather, any combination of those words.” She snorted. “Lightweight! But a lovely sexy lightweight, so don’t fret. But do please attend: Trixie’s safeword shall be ‘Ursa Major’. Repeat it, please. ‘Ursa Major’.”

“Ursa Major,” said Gilda. “That’s a constellation, right? Also a really ridiculously big bear thing nobody would ever try to take on. Trust me on this, we griffins have seen them.”

A little smile played around Trixie’s muzzle. “Oh, you have? Intimidating, are they?”

“Don’t worry, they wouldn’t come out here,” reassured Gilda. “So, if you’re getting hurt you call Ursa Major?”

Trixie snickered. “Trixie never calls Ursa Major! Or almost never. It is for emergencies. Getting hurt is half the fun, Gilda!”

At this, Gilda shook her head admiringly. “You ought to visit a griffin colony. You’d last about ten minutes, but you’d have a lot of kinky fun while you lasted! Except they don’t really do ‘no, stop’. Or ‘Ursa Major’.”

“And there is the difference!” said Trixie. “Between us, safewords are a thing. We are agreed on this? I’ve promised Twilight to play responsibly, plus Rarity would never forgive me if I didn’t honor her good example while subbing.” She was beginning to pant with excitement, and her eyes shone.

“Sure,” said Gilda. “It won’t matter, I’m not going to hurt you. But I’ve been spending a lot of time around Fluttershy and it’s making me really horny. I don’t know if this sounds weird to you, and you might not be used to it from a griffin but… would it be okay if we put all this stuff aside for now and just got into some serious pony pussy eating?” She licked her beak. “It’s been a long time… and ever since flight school, that’s been one of my faves.”

“Lovely griffin yearns to perform oral sex on lucky mares?” teased Trixie.

“Yeah!” squawked Gilda. “Lead me to ‘em! Oh, wait, here’s one. How’s about it?”

“How do you want me?” purred Trixie.

“Lady’s choice,” said Gilda, fidgeting from paw to paw. “You could lay back, that works. Do we have a bed here? I see some sacks in the corner.”

Trixie was fidgeting as well, grinning widely. She winked, a shiver running through her body. “Those are sandbags, from a difficult time Twilight and Trixie shared. Trixie has a better idea,” she said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Take me from behind,” moaned Trixie. “Like the fierce beast you are!”

Gilda blinked. “Uh… pussy eating isn’t always fierce, sweet cheeks. It’s a special treat. It’s also a calling. You don’t want me to work up to it? Even Dash needs a minute to…”

Trixie whirled, and flicked her tail to the side, standing before Gilda with her ass up and her head down. She winked, glistening pony pinkness splaying out before her griffin lover. “Take me!” she moaned, wantonly.

“Wow!” came Gilda’s awed voice. “Oh, baby…”

Trixie’s head spun. She could smell the musky jungle-cat scent of Gilda all around her, could feel the big griffin shifting from paw to paw behind her, and as she helplessly winked again, her flanks quivering with excitement, she could feel Gilda’s hot breath on her private parts. Trixie’s heart slammed in her chest as she waited for the slathering lick of affectionate tongue, waited poised already on the brink of orgasm from anticipation alone.

What she got was far more shocking.

She felt the press of a hard and flat surface against her vagina… Gilda’s beak, nuzzling her, careful not to scratch. Trixie gave an abandoned little cry of lust and felt her body judder, a gush of mare-juices surging forth. She heard Gilda suddenly draw a deep breath, as if suddenly intoxicated by her nectar oozing forth…

…and harsh, searing stimulation rasped across her vagina, thrusting into her.

Trixie’s eyes flew open in shock. She had only time to draw a deep, panicky breath of her own, her body shocked by the abrasiveness…

Gilda made a little mewling noise, and then sharp deadly talons clamped onto Trixie’s ass, as if trying to seize all of her rump in one bite, and with a snarl the wild griffin shoved her scratchy tongue deep into Trixie’s pussy.

Trixie’s eyes bugged out, her mouth opening wide, and in a single mighty throb she cut loose: vagina clenching in frenzied climax, while gouts of magic gushed from her horn. For a horrible moment she felt like she was ripped asunder and devoured and was completely helpless to do anything but gush juices and magic in orgasm, her breath locked within uncooperative lungs, her heart seizing up in its final grinding thumps. Then, Trixie shrieked out like a madpony, two clear words in a last desperate effort.

“URSA! MAJOR!”

The voracious griffin tensed, and Trixie felt that devouring grip almost tighten… and then, Gilda released her bottom and yanked herself backward, suddenly not there.

Trixie staggered, shaking and winking and still gushing magic and marecome… and collapsed.

“Oh shit!” wailed the griffin. “What happened? Trixie! I knew I should have worked you up to it! Are you okay?”

The blue unicorn wasn’t okay. However, her exact state was unclear. She squirmed weakly on her side, flopping about like a post-coital griffin, still dribbling horngasm and shuddering from the aftershocks… but her expression was dismayed. She fought to speak. “I pro… I promised! It was too… too far…”

“What’s the matter? Talk to me, baby! Too rough, the tongue?”

Trixie shook her head, her eyes tearful. “The claws!”

“The what? OH! Oh, shit, I’m sorry…”

“I’m… a vampire pony…”

Gilda was shaking her, seizing her shoulders in those talons. “No! No, listen, please listen. Uhhh… no stop! safeword! Agh! Please stop freaking out and listen!”

That got Trixie’s attention. “That’s not what a safeword is! It’s not grab me with the claws more and shake me! Ohhhh, Trixie fucked up, bigtime…”

“You did not! Look at your butt, will you?”

Trixie blinked. She looked at her lovely blue rump. There was no sign of any damage, not the slightest scratch.

“Now look closely at these claws,” insisted Gilda. She held her talons right up in front of Trixie’s eyes. Trixie studied them, and it was plain to see the tip of every claw was smoothed, rounded. She stared a stunned question into Gilda’s fierce predatory eyes.

“We know exactly what condition our talons are in,” vowed Gilda. “Griffins hunt with them! Usually they’re real sharp, but you know where I’ve been? I’ve been with Fluttershy. For weeks I knew I was going to seek out Fluttershy. I didn’t want to have sharp claws when I saw her. We can still hunt anyway, you know? Talons can clamp down tighter than anything, there’s still stuff you can do, mercy killing… I don’t want to talk about it, I tried to avoid it. Trixie, these are totally blunt by griffin standards!”

Trixie stared, still dumbfounded by her experience.

“I’m not saying I couldn’ta fucked you up,” admitted Gilda. “But I know exactly how much force it would take and I just… I knew it wasn’t gonna scratch ya, and that glorious ass was right there, and I just had to GRAB it… Aw, Trixie, I’m so sorry.”

Trixie twitched. Her ears were laid back. She licked her lips. “Whoof!”

“I even know what happened to you,” admitted Gilda. “Happened to Dash once… no, twice, once in flight school and then once more recently. Damn it, stupid stupid griffin! You can’t do that to a pony, they flip. If they feel talons grabbing their butt, you’re gonna get kicked in the face, that’s just how it is. And I latched on and just went after your pussy, deep as I could get! I can’t believe I forgot that. I was so fucking excited to get my tongue in a pony again. Dammit!”

Trixie licked her lips again, her ear twitching.

“Uhhhh…” said Gilda, “you weren’t actually kicking me in the face, though. You were doing… something else.”

A wobbly smile began creeping onto Trixie’s face as she realized she’d gotten away with the experience, unharmed.

“You okay, Trixie?” asked Gilda.

The response wasn’t in words. Trixie reached up with her forelegs, grabbed the solicitous griffin, and delivered a big smooch, pony muzzle to beak.

“Awk!”

“Trixie has never got off so hard!” exulted Trixie. “Ever! And Trixie has not got a scratch on her, she has complied with Mistress’s demands! Yay!”

“Uh… yay?” said Gilda.

“Was it as good for you as it was for Trixie? Was it, was it?”

Gilda licked her beak, looking flustered. “Uh. Kind of… ponyus interruptus? Which is okay! I’m so glad I stopped and that it turned out okay! We’re good! Best time ever!”

Trixie gasped. She wriggled around determinedly, and got to her wobbly hooves. “What? WHAT? You thrust your tongue into the Great And Powerful Trixie, and you did not climax instantly? You are not DONE?”

Gilda whimpered, cringing backwards. “I… ow! it’s okay, really…”

Trixie blinked. “Ow what? What ow? What did you do, sprain a claw on Trixie’s magnificent rump?”

Gilda boggled. “Wow. And I thought Dash was full of herself. Which is good, though, nothing so sexy as a pony who loves her own body… but it’s not my claw, Trixie, my back tensed up. I’m fine…”

Trixie’s eyes widened, then narrowed in determination.

She marched up the stairs and banged on the door twice. There was a brief pause, and then the door opened and a small metal object was flung through it, narrowly missing Trixie and bouncing down the stairs.

“I’m expecting an explanation for that Ursa!” cried Twilight Sparkle. “If that had kept up…”

“Of course, Mistress! Everything is fine, Mistress!” called Trixie. “Thank you Mistress! Everything is as wonderful as the most wonderful thing ever!”

“Errrrrhhh!” growled Twilight, and the door closed again. Trixie trotted unsteadily down the stairs, smiling.

“She is such a worrier. No matter,” said Trixie. “You shall have this!” She bent, and picked up the object in her teeth, and a thick horsecock dropped from between her legs. Trixie grinned a wicked grin, around the little metal cylinder.

Gilda’s jaw dropped. “No way. But yeah, that’s where they get them, isn’t it? You guys make these!”

“You kn’w of our little toys?” demanded Trixie, haughtily.

“That’s… not so little…”

“Get on the s’ndbags!” commanded Trixie. “Payb’ck t’me!”

Gilda’s eyes were comically huge. She kept staring at Trixie’s marecock, and she gulped. “I, I…”

Trixie lifted her head with stallion imperiousness, and stamped the floor with a forehoof.

Gilda squawked, and scrabbled along the floor to straddle the pile of sandbags. So extreme was her sexual agitation, that her gait looked like she was slithering along the ground. “Oh, fuck, oh fuck!” she wailed. “Just do it! Fuuuuck!”

“For you,” said Trixie, and trotted over in a staggering of dizzy, sated hooves.

Gilda screwed her eyes shut, her body feeling like a soon-to-be-violated knot of tension. She wrapped fore and hind legs around the heavy sandbags, nuzzling her face against another, expecting her pony lover to pounce at any moment.

Then, she cried out lewdly. She remained unpenetrated… but little blue hooves were kneading her back and shoulders.

“OHFUCK! Ahhhh! There! Oh shit! Unnnhh!”

“R’lax,” urged Trixie.

“Ohmygosh! Fuck! Best aahhh! pony ever ahhh!”

“R’lax more…”

Gilda’s eyes flew wide. Artificial stallionhood was braced against her furry mound.

“Oh, YES,” moaned the shuddering griffin.

Even as she kneaded Gilda’s body, Trixie coaxed her hips slowly forward and her thick flare began to tuck into seething griffin nook.

The first one was very gentle. Gilda groaned obscenely, as Trixie penetrated her. It was tight, hot, and sloppy, the griffin vagina a molten ooze-pot that squelched when the horsecock tucked in and kept sliding.

The second one was very slow. Trixie was working on Gilda’s back, kneading with her hooves. She felt that strange, furry, short-haired tail thrash against her crotch as she steadily sank deeper into Gilda, savoring every little tremor.

The third one was very deep, and that was when Gilda Griffin jolted like she’d been struck by lightning… and Trixie grinned a wicked grin around the bit held in her teeth. “Mmmmmm…”

“Ohfuck,” panted Gilda. “Be careful. I…”

The fourth one was even deeper.

Gilda’s whole body shuddered. She heaved a panicky breath…

Trixie lowered herself, and wrapped her forelegs around Gilda’s body as best she could, her backrubbing put aside for the time being.

“H’ld on,” she murmured into Gilda’s ear. “S’feword means I st’p doing this.”

Gilda was panting, her eyes wide and wild. “But… Trixie, if you do that I’m gonna…”

“Use the s’ndbags,” murmured Trixie. “Y’r energy goes into the s’ndbags. L’ke M’stress. Safew’rd if it’s time to stop.”

Her hips drew back, and then swung forward, and horsecock slurped deeply into Gilda’s sandbag-clinging body. All the hairs on the tuft of Gilda’s leonine tail bristled out at once.

“Gyaaaggg!” croaked Gilda, her eyes crossing. “But, but, but, if I bite…”

“B’te the sandbags!” ordered Trixie. “Here c’mes Trixie!”

Her hips drew back even more, and pistoned forward, and Gilda squalled, her insides thumped solidly by equine erection.

Trixie sweated, gritting her teeth on the bit. “Now t’ke the ride! Or s’feword!” she demanded. No safeword was heard. Instead, Trixie felt Gilda’s rump and her squishy, strangely yielding feline pussy grip onto her, squeezing the sides of her shaft as if in a challenge.

Trixie never, ever passed up a challenge.

For a while, the secret basement was oddly quiet. There was just faint keening noises from the big, trembling griffin, clinging to a pile of sandbags with desperate strength, so hard the canvas of the bags creaked under the strain. Her tail vibrated, held twanging to the right, and every muscle on her feline body stood out.

And over her, the blue unicorn mare bore down on her magic bit, swelling the magic stallionhood, and her back doubled again and again as she drove hard horsecock deeply into her lover. Her tempo was not rapid: indeed, it was ostentatiously languid, never even developing into a rhythm.

She would withdraw, flick her blue-and-white tail, wriggle her pretty blue hips, and then with a gritting of teeth, Trixie Lulamoon sank horsecock into her tame griffin again: thrusting as deep as she could shove, and then pushing harder. Each time, she seemed to hesitate longer, to plunge more sedately, yet always finishing by hunching over, body doubled up, Gilda’s writhing rump pressed up against her crotch. She could feel what she was doing, and the raw danger of it thrilled her. But she also knew three things.

Firstly, that she was not the undead vampire with mysterious recuperative powers. Gilda was. It was a pity, in a way, but Trixie had some generosity of spirit and had had her fun.

Secondly, the hideously powerful, completely hysterical creature her cock was sunk to the hilt inside, was clutching a row of sandbags. She also bit them as needed, though Trixie noticed she was trying to bite where rope tied up the sacks, because she’d already bitten a hole in one sack and got a beakful of sand for her trouble.

Thirdly… no safeword.

Trixie felt Gilda tense up as though she was penetrating a creature made only of bones and sinews. Tears were pouring from Gilda’s eyes, but there was no cry to halt, not a peep. She tugged the throbbing stallionhood partway out, against the resistance of frantic tightnesses and cramps inside the griffin, and Trixie growled around the bit, feeling her climax irresistibly approach.

At last, she allowed her tempo to build, working the horsecock in and out even as it went achingly stiff and unyielding. Gilda’s pussy began to clench with terrifying force against it. Gilda screamed into her mouthful of sackcloth, screamed again, and her body ripped at the sandbags she clung to, convulsive strength tearing the canvas like it was wet paper.

Trixie bucked into Gilda and cut loose, and a gush of stallion come squirted through the cramped-tight confines of Trixie’s clenched-on cock and sprayed into Gilda’s feline womb in copious, sticky gushers.

Gilda squalled horribly into the sandbags, reeling, her body thrashing uncoordinatedly… and then the peak had passed, and pony and griffin gradually eased their spasms, relaxed, softened, quieted. The aftershocks hit each in turn, as if knocking them back and forth between each other: Trixie jolting, setting Gilda off, and back again.

Finally, Trixie sagged across Gilda’s body, and let her magic bit fall from her mouth. The horsecock shrank away, and a flood of feline goo and magical horsecome splashed out, half of it evaporating even as it poured from Gilda’s stricken vagina.

Gilda’s eyes were rolled back in her head, but she was still breathing harsh rasping breaths. Of course, she didn’t really need to, thought Trixie, but all the same it was considerate.

Gilda coughed, cleared her throat, unable to lift her head from the sandbags.

“Sweet Celestia,” she cursed, awed and rather appalled.

Trixie, mane drenched with sweat, blinked. “Trixie didn’t know you were a fan of Big Snobby. Would you like her to have a go? It might take some arranging.”

“That’s not what… I meant,” managed Gilda. “Fuuuuck. Griffins should know better. Ponies. Are dangerous. Ohhhfuck.”

“Did Trixie please you?” asked Trixie, panting slightly with her efforts. “Trixie thought you were responding to deep penetration. And since it can’t injure you as a vampire…”

“Do you know what I liked?” asked Gilda, trying again to lift her head, again failing.

“What?”

“You rubbed my back, with your hooves,” said Gilda. Trixie saw the gleam of her eye, dazed but still trying to connect. “I already knew ponies could blow me beyond the clouds. You liked me enough to rub my back.” The visible eye glinted. “I liked that. But it seems like the part you liked was screwing me senseless until I was kinda dead all over again?”

Trixie leaned over, inquisitively. “Did it work? Was it the hardest you’ve ever come, ever?”

Gilda didn’t respond at first.

“Well? Trixie’s pride is at stake!” protested the blue unicorn.

“Trixie,” said Gilda, lifting her head with a heroic effort.

“Yes?”

“Understand that I’m only saying this to vent my feelings, and that I still intend to deal with things the way Fluttershy wants me to. Okay? Got that?”

Trixie bounced, though she was tired. “Yes, yes?”

“If I do get cured of being a vampire,” grumbled Gilda, “I ought to fucking SHRED you for what you just did. And you call yourself a pony!”

Trixie responded with a squee of pony delight, and another bounce.

“You’re welcome!” she replied, as Gilda stared in total disbelief.

As Trixie scampered happily up the stairs to tell Twilight how well she’d done, Gilda laid her head down again.

“Fluttershy…” sniffled the exhausted griffin, and with that, she slept.

Meanwhile Back At Canterlot

That same evening, the halls of Canterlot had echoed with high-pitched squealing.

“Eeeeeeeeeeee!”

It reverberated everywhere, ignored by stuffy and proper unicorn nobility who rolled their eyes as if they’d heard such sounds before.

And they had, too.

“Weeeeeeeeee!”

The sound was accompanied by a confounding clatter of hooves that seemed to come from everywhere and be all sizes. Gradually, another sound became apparent.

“Will you… get back… here! Loonies! You’re ALL loonies!”

Princess Celestia paused on her way to her chambers, her elegant alabaster ears quirking this way and that. She stopped, and waited, for she knew the pattern. Three… two… one…

Around a corner came a sort of parade of mischief.

First, a tiny green earth pony filly. Princess Luna’s foal was named Precious Gift, or Presh for short. Nothing betrayed her illustrious parentage as foal of an alicorn Princess, unless it was her exquisite beauty or bright, huge, lustrous eyes of absurdly innocent blue that seemed too magical to belong to a mere mortal pony.

The vivid, luminous green of her coat wasn’t nearly so unusual, for she’d got that from Princess Luna’s mate when she was conceived.

Next came a larger and clumsier filly without the miraculous grace of the tiny green apparition, but with every bit as much determination and attitude. Jackie was the foal of Princess Luna’s mate Lyra. Where Presh had got Lyra’s spring-green coat color, Jackie had got the color of Big Macintosh, stud-pony to royalty, and a hint of his stocky build, for all that she was a filly unicorn.

That wasn’t all: Jackie had also got a horn that was dauntingly well-formed even at birth, and had posed serious problems for her frantic mother as she tried to deliver her baby. Jackie’s horn had continued to grow until palace gossip suggested that she inherited the horn directly from Princess Luna herself. And there was no reason to doubt this, as Jackie’s conception was indeed directly from Princess Luna’s mighty horngasm… and an assist from the pride of the Apples.

Lyra had got a serviceable revenge for the pain and anguish the birth had put her through: Jackie’s real name was Earthpony Applejack. Applejack because that was who had held Lyra in her labor and suffering, and Earthpony because Lyra was irrepressibly odd and was feeling grateful to Applejack’s simple, honest strength when she was called upon to name the filly.

And third around the corner, hooves thundering in foalish glee, was… not the odd and mercurial Lyra, counter to expectation. Not even after her strange and reckless courtship of the Princess, or her history of iconoclasm in Ponyville and the trail of upset ponies she’d left in her path toward being consort to the throne.

Third around the corner galloped Princess Luna herself, eyes dancing and mouth open in a soundless squee of delight.

“Stop it, stop stop!” wailed Lyra Heartstrings, futilely running after the rest of her family, her hooves slipping on a trail of soapy water.

Celestia’s magic shone out, forming a sort of net. It blocked the hallway, and the giggling fillies plowed right into it and bounced. In a flash, Lyra was upon them, her own horn lighting up, and two tiny fillies swung by the scruffs of their manes, tails curled up beneath them as their mother prepared to give a good scolding.

Lyra couldn’t be expected to do likewise to Princess Luna, a full-grown alicorn, of course. And so, Princess Celestia obliged, desperately trying to fight off her own fit of the giggles.

Lyra took a deep breath. “BACK to the BATH for you two little terrors! And as for you,” said Lyra sternly, “y…”

Princess Luna batted her eyelashes, her legs and tail curled up under her as she dangled just off the ground. If anypony noticed that Celestia was tactfully supporting her weight by a broader-based telekinetic support than just the mane, nopony saw fit to mention it.

Lyra tried to stay strict, and then let out her own squee. “Stop being so adorable! We’re trying to set a good example for the foals!”

“Oh, is that what we are doing?” blinked Princess Luna. “Ah! Woe! We have derped it again, forsooth!”

Celestia shook her head slowly. “Luna…” she chuckled, trying not to smile. “You are creating more work for the maidponies and butlers of the palace.”

At that, Luna snorted, her mock dismay forgotten. “So? What else are they for?”

Celestia’s eyes widened, and she dropped Princess Luna on her moon-bedecked butt.

“Ow! Sister, hmph!”

Celestia still bore a smile, but it had an edge to it. “We can take them for many things, dear sister, but surely not for granted.”

Luna’s ears wilted. “Oh. We suppose that is true… yes, of course. Hmph! You’re right, as usual.”

“Now, don’t sulk,” chided Celestia gently. “I quite understand. And I am deeply grateful to see your spirits lifted by the blessing of our little Canterlot family. It is just that…” and she groped for tact, “some manner of decorum might be considered royal?”

Princess Luna favored her with a fond little smirk. “Oh, sister. There is nothing more royal than the freedom to enjoy one’s life heedlessly, with utter panache. We have never quite taught you this. Perhaps it is your love of order that invariably restrains you.”

“Indeed!” said Celestia. “Then, perhaps it would be meet for my beloved sister to mop up our floors heedlessly, with utter panache, while her maid watches.”

Luna’s eyes bugged out. “Hmph! Could be amusing. Bring it on!” she decreed, boldly. “In bygone days I have done yet more unseemly things with servants! She will enjoy telling all her friends and they’ll have such fun, so let us commence mopping with a song in our hearts!”

“And,” added Celestia, “while Miss Lyra returns the foals to the tub, to conclude their bath properly. Without you!”

The smirk dropped away from Princess Luna’s face instantly.

“B… but…” she said, in a little voice. “But we could all mop… together?”

Celestia stepped forward, and gave her chastened sister a little kiss on the muzzle. “I did not mean it. I will send for the maid, this time, but please be considerate in future, Luna. Go on… accompany Lyra back to the tub. Perhaps you can bathe your silly rump, for I’ve rubbed it in the dirt to teach you a lesson!”

Princess Luna snorted again, in amusement. “There’s no dirt here, sister! You don’t allow it. I believe you’re going to mop up the spilled bath-water yourself.” She stuck out her tongue at Princess Celestia, and smirked happily.

“Nay,” said Celestia. “I have other plans. Unless it behooves me to keep my dear, giddy sister in line!”

Luna laughed happily. “Nay, nay! I shall be good. I will think of some kindness to do for our dear maid. She likes flowers, does she not?”

“The dandelions are especially tasty, I would say.”

Luna nodded her head. “I shall surprise her with some!” she said, then glanced at her consort. “Ah… and, if needs be, some for my long-suffering, so-patient beloved precious little unicorn pony?”

Lyra gave her a stern look, and Luna stuck out her lower lip in a pout of comic dismay. At that, Lyra smirked.

“I’m good,” she said brightly. Then, she faced Luna and stamped a forehoof, the sound echoing down the pristine halls of Canterlot. “IF you help me bathe these troublemakers and put them to bed! No excuses, Looney!”

Luna laughed happily. “Is that all? Of course! Farewell, dear sister. Duty calls!”

Celestia smiled as she watched the Princess and her consort trot back down the hall, foals in tow. She hadn’t for a moment planned to sentence Luna to solitary mopping. The Princess was doing better than ever, her spirits high and her heart full of love, but it was thanks to her devotion to her consort and the two foals… and all of them were mortal ponies, so Celestia knew better than to deprive her sister of their company. Luna had adjusted to the idea of outliving her beloveds, but she’d done it through a clear-eyed determination to not waste one minute of their treasured presence, and would not do a thing to seriously risk that.

In turn, Celestia hesitated even to jest about it: but having reached her accomodation, Princess Luna was resilient and not too upset by the subject.

Celestia turned, for she had made accomodations of her own.

She entered her chambers, stretching and then folding her massive wings. “Chaos, dear?”

“Just a minute!” came a little voice from the study. “I’m learning about the oddest thing!”

Celestia’s ears laid back. “Oh, dear. Something… for us?”

“I think so!” called Chaos. “I’m not sure it’s quite real. But it fills me with unaccountable delight!”

“Well, that’s good,” said Celestia dubiously. “Does it involve Twilight Sparkle in any way?”

Chaos trotted into view, a tiny alicorn mare with a scintillating mane made up of patterns that were never quite the same twice. “Oh, Celly! I promised! No, of course not. I’m sorry for that time I persuaded you that three Twilights would be okay because none of them could seem that counterfeit in the presence of the others. Though I must say, you were terribly enthusiastic!”

Celestia hung her head. “Shame on me. Pray don’t tempt.”

Chaos trotted forward, reared, reached up and hugged her consort. “I’m sorry! Anyway I’ve got quite another thing in mind. Or we could have tea, or dinner, or breakfast for that matter. Hmm?”

Celestia twitched. “Darling, it’s dinner time. Breakfast does not enter into it.”

Chaos shrugged. “Chocolate milk serves for either! Oh… maybe not for tea. I should think it would ruin either the tea or the milk. Have you ever heard of chocolate tea?”

Princess Celestia made a face. “Not, I think, a special treat.”

“Oh!” squeaked Chaos. “Special treats! I think I came up with one for you. One that is definitely not Twilight Sparkle. Poor darling! It looks like it’s been a long, hard day. I could rub your back, or make your dinner. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions that you’d like a long, hard… not-day.”

At that, Celestia smirked. “Heh. And what, dear Chaos, would lead you to such provocative conclusions?”

Chaos blinked. “Possibly knowing that five of the last seven days you’ve wished hot dicking upon getting off work, two of them even before you’ve had supper.” She smiled. “I like that, by the way. It’s just a bit random.”

The Princess frowned. “Indeed! So I have, now that you mention it. Whatever would my little ponies think? I thank you for bringing it to my attention, dear one, but you alarm me. Am I becoming the complete hedonist under your influence?”

Chaos’s eyes widened. “You say that like it’s a bad thing!”

That got her a royal pout. “You say that like it’s not! Dearest, even back when you were Starswirl I had responsibilities, surely you remember? If I am nothing more than a pleasure horse, woe to Equestria! I must collect myself. Ah! Which entertainments did you favor me with, over these five days? Do you realize I am not entirely sure anymore? Swirlie, this cannot be proper!”

Chaos blinked, uncertainly. “I liked it. And yes, Swirlie was Tuesday, trusty old Starswirl from before my Discord days. I was a Diamond Dog for you on Monday, which is why my latest idea interests me: you’ll see. Wednesday you were content to snuggle, and fell asleep right away, poor dear. Thursday I took a snake form and played inside you, and you were very cross though you came until you couldn’t stand up, and Friday I was rather in the doghouse and we did nothing. Saturday you forgave me and made love to me in this form, and Sunday you asked for Starswirl again, which I was happy to provide, though I may say it seems like you’re holding something back. I’d hoped to cheer you up with my new discoveries. How is it improper?”

Celestia bit her lip gently in vexation. “I suppose not. My sister would remind me that we have license, and what’s more you are my lover even if you develop startling notions. Perhaps it is my distraction I find insupportable.”

Chaos trotted over, and reared to hug her larger amour. “Tell me! What is so distracting? I adore distractions, perhaps I’d enjoy hearing about it!”

Princess Celestia sighed. “Nay, I think not. It shames me, Chaos. Better I should let you writhe and frolic as five snakes in my nethers, than be distracted from my love by these sad obsessions.”

Chaos narrowed her eyes and fixed Celestia with a hard stare. “Five snakes can be arranged, though they’d have to be smaller, you know. The one was quite penis-like in girth and certainly did not all fit. Forgive me for asking, but which obsessions do you refer to?”

Celestia pouted.

“I think you’ll be happier if you say it,” suggested Chaos. “But if you don’t, I imagine I can guess.”

“Oh, very well!” exclaimed Celestia. “Of course you can! I am sure I grow more tiresome with each successive day of pining and moping! Twilight Sparkle, Twilight Sparkle! Why, oh why, must you haunt my poor thoughts so?”

Before Chaos could say a word of reply, a small burst of green fire appeared, and from it dropped a letter. It was addressed “Princess Celestia’s Eyes Only”, and it so startled the Princess that it fluttered to the floor, untouched, landing face down.

Chaos cleared her throat politely. “If that is her reply to your question, I’m quite impressed. Do you suppose she’ll tell us how she did it?”

Celestia looked a trifle wild-eyed, her mane flying like a storm of luminous magic. She lunged forward, but quick as a wink little Chaos had darted over and pinned the letter to the floor with one small hoof.

“Celly! Stop. Listen to me, please.”

The Princess bridled, whinnied, her wings flapping in agitation… but then, with an obvious effort of willpower, she hung her head and listened.

“It’s all right, Celly,” urged Chaos earnestly. “I’m not in the least offended, but I believe I can answer your question. It’s rather a perfect storm of romantic infatuation, if I may be so bold. You raised her from a tiny filly, right through what was surely a bookish and repressed adolescence, denying yourself the attraction. And then we thought she’d joined us and become another alicorn, and wasn’t that an extraordinary time? Such passion! Though really she’d gone mad as a hatter, you know. Thank goodness the only corpse left from dear Twilight’s rampage was Fluttershy, who was used to it and is still the most adorable dead body I’ve ever known. Which is not to say I’ve known her, at least not that way, we’re just dear friends…”

“Would you get to the point?” groaned Celestia, her wings rattling against her sides in chagrin.

Chaos hugged her again, which she bore with fretful dignity.

“The point is,” said the little ice-blue alicorn, “she haunts you because we thought we would be knowing her over the long haul! We’d never lost an alicorn before. When Twilight reverted to a unicorn form, your feelings did not go back again. Mind you, they were already more complicated than you’d given them credit for.”

Celestia’s ears were back. “No thanks to you, Swirlie!”

“Oh, call me Chaos,” said the little alicorn dismissively. “At that time, it was most certainly my sense of Chaos guiding me! And yes, I accept some of the blame. I’m not surprised dear little Twilight orgasmed when you spanked her at long last, and I’m sure it did her a world of good.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes. “Some of the blame?”

“It’s not my fault you liked it. You probably came yourself,” said Chaos blithely.

The Princess panted, her nostrils flared, but her anger wasn’t entirely at her exasperating and disorderly mate. “In fact I did not, Chaos. I have been nothing if not civilized through all of it, possibly excepting that occasion: and if I could dismiss it all from my mind, I would do so. Do you wish my apology for stirring up that trouble? None know better than I, that your whims are mercurial in the extreme, and I accept responsibility for acting upon those mad notions. I would ask only one thing, though.”

“Oh, Celly!” cried Chaos. “Don’t take on so! I’m not a bit offended, I told you that already. How can you call it trouble, when to me it’s merely more delicious chaos and kinky unicorn-spanking? Please don’t be so harsh upon yourself!”

“It is not that I ask,” grumbled Princess Celestia.

“Then, what?”

“Pray relinquish the letter from Twilight, so I can read it,” huffed Celestia. “You are standing upon it still, and it is addressed to me.”

Chaos’s eyes widened. “Oh! Sorry. Here you are!”

Her horn lit, and she proffered the lightly trampled note, which Celestia’s magic petulantly snatched from her.

“I am a Princess, you know,” scolded Celestia. “Honestly!”

“Yes, dear,” soothed Chaos. “I could say ‘me too’ but we’ve centuries to hash that one out. I shall behave. What does it say?”

As Celestia read, her eyes widened in turn.

“Ooooh!” squeaked Chaos. “Let me see! What’s she done now?”

“I… I’m not sure,” managed Celestia, looking distraught, and Chaos took the letter and read.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” it said. “I’m not sure how to put this, because I don’t wish to give the impression that I’m asking you to swoop in and bail us Ponyvilleans out. However, if you’ve got time in the next day or two, you can help Trixie and I work on solving our vampire problem. We’ve been able to observe some things already and if you stay out of the way, we might be able to handle this ourselves. Meet us in my second secret basement, the one that’s not full of empty ice cream containers (don’t ask) and here’s hoping it doesn’t end up equally untidy (seriously don’t ask). You might want to give me time to clean up. Best wishes, Twilight Sparkle.”

Chaos blinked. “Untidy? I’ll fly there this instant!”

“She’s not asking for you to come at all!” protested Princess Celestia.

“Well,” retorted Chaos, “she’s not really asking you to come either! Certainly not to swoop in. Have you made a habit of swooping upon dear Twilight? She seems rather defensive.”

Celestia hung her head. “There was one occasion where she’d enchanted a doll. You’d probably have loved it, it was awful. What has she done now?” Her wings furled and unfurled in anxiety. “I should fly there tonight! Perhaps Ponyville won’t be there in the morning!”

“But she’s said ‘the next day or two’. And ‘stay out of the way’,” suggested Chaos. “Not to mention ‘you might want to give me time to clean up’. I don’t think she wants you there tonight.”

Celestia trembled. “What if she doesn’t want me there at all? What if she merely feels obligated and expects me to be her tyrant, swooping down to judge her and find her wanting?”

“And spank her?” added Chaos, helpfully.

“Nay!” wailed Celestia. “Not more of that! I cannot bear it!”

Chaos set her jaw. “Celestia! Please settle down. I realize this is all very distressing.”

“But what shall I do?” implored the Princess.

Chaos thought. “Talk it out, I think. I’ve just the right pony in mind to do it with, too.”

“Swirlie, she doesn’t want me there!”

Chaos shook her head, firmly. “No, Celly. I think it is time we visit Luna’s chambers. Come with me, please.”

Luna leapt to her hooves. “Sister! What has happened? Let me aid you! Some calamity has struck!”

As Chaos pressed close to her, Princess Celestia hastened to reassure the younger alicorn. “Not as such! Not, perhaps, a calamity. I… curse it! It is complicated. Chaos, would you help to explain? I am at a disadvantage.”

Luna turned anxiously to the still younger and smaller alicorn, and Chaos chimed in happily.

“Celestia wants to ball dear little Twilight until candy comes out!”

Luna gawked at Chaos, her ears laid back, as Lyra trotted in crying “What did I miss?”

“Swirlie!” gasped Princess Celestia, affronted to the core of her being.

Chaos pouted. “Well, she does! Sorry.”

“It’s much more complicated than that!” protested Celestia, tearing up, but Luna had reared and was already hugging her sister, even enfolding her in deep blue wings, and ignored the others completely.

“Of course it is, dear sister, of course it is. Or so it seems,” said Luna. “Ah, my poor sister! How well I remember my own agonies over poor Trixie Lulamoon. Be gentle with yourself, dear sister! You are among friends, three alicorns and a consort, we understand these things! We understand the passions of eternity for the ephemeral! You must be beside yourself—take deep breaths, has something provoked you?”

“She’s not beside herself,” said Chaos, “though if you like I could simulate it. Is it all right if I don’t? I prefer not to take Celly’s form or have others take it. There is only one Celestia, for me.”

Lyra poked her with a hoof. “What were you saying? I think you were saying something naughty about candy and Twilight! I hope you’re not being mean. She’s a little round, but she’s not any fatter than she needs to be! I don’t want you teasing Twilight Sparkle, okay? Even if she is eating a lot of candy. Why’s she eating candy, Chaos?”

“No, no!” said Chaos. “I didn’t mean that, Lyra.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Er…” said Chaos. “I suppose the phrase ‘ball someone until candy comes out’ might be interpreted several ways. Leaving aside more unusual interpretations, such as Twilight being literally a pinata full of candy which would come out, I suppose the implication’s that Celly wishes to lick Twilight, or perhaps penetrate her, until she climaxes. I’ve not specified what sort of candy, mind you. Celly’s spoken of the beauty of Twilight’s horngasm but I fear I’m being more crass and implying mare-ly secretions.”

Celestia’s face was a study in appalled. “You fear, do you?” She gritted her teeth. “No matter how you change, somehow the old stud-horse Starswirl continues to win the day when I least expect it…”

Luna was fighting back a smile. “Methinks you had best get used to it, sister dear. Sometimes you delight in just such improprieties… and I hasten to remind you, we are rather select company! Nopony here but Princesses and consorts.”

At this, Lyra’s eyes lit with enthusiasm and she whirled to face Celestia and put in her own helpful advice. “And heck, if you like Twilight as far as I’m concerned you should go for it! Unicorn-alicorn relationships are a very beautiful thing! I’m pretty sure Twilight Sparkle’s always been kinda sweet on you anyway, she used to fight with Trixie about your wonderfulness! Trixie’s a weird pony and that’s not the only way that she’s screwed up, take it from me.”

“Lyra,” grumbled Celestia, “that will do.”

“No, really!” protested Lyra. “I think it would do her a lot of good to date you. Trixie’s kind of a wack job! And Twilight is a wonderful unicorn, so strong and smart and pretty: what, do you think she wouldn’t be any good? You should ask Looney, she’ll tell you that unicorns can be very desirable for an alicorn.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “There are times we question that! Lyra, beloved, we are talking seriously!”

Lyra gasped. “Looney, how could you! I have to stick up for Twilight, you’re being unfair!” She turned to Princess Celestia, mental gears whirring manically. “Okay, I guess you’re a hard case, but listen, you! What Chaos says about candy? Believe it! It’s totally worth your while and you shouldn’t delay ‘cos, you know, mortality. You might not have known it, but I KNOW how wonderful Twilight Sparkle is. I’ve had group pony sex with her and Trixie and Rarity, and I totally licked her to orgasm. I licked her until she squirted, and candy does come out! At least if you’re into mares, nopony is as delicious and sweet as Twilight Sparkle!”

“Lyra!” scolded Luna, and bopped her with a hoof.

“Eep!” squeaked Lyra. “Though of course Princess Luna is beautiful and powerful and everything that I love forever, my number one, no question! I just meant that it’s different, first of all Twilight’s body and by that I mean her butt and her vulva and belly, they’re so soft, and she makes the sweetest noises when she’s about to come and she just melts away under your tongue, you’ve got to try it sometime…”

She trailed off. Celestia’s eyes were squeezed shut, and leaking tears, and her teeth were gritted painfully tight.

“We… shall maim all of you…” she growled.

At that, Lyra cowered away, but both Princess Luna and Chaos leapt to hug and comfort the stately white alicorn.

“Poor Celly!” wailed Chaos. “This is not what I meant. For once, I would embrace complete order and predictability, if only it would spare you these tears!”

“Lyra dear,” ordered Luna, “do not speak further of Miss Sparkle’s vagina! We decree it.”

Lyra pawed the floor with a forehoof. “Uh, technically I wasn’t! Not exactly. Maybe indirectly? The melty thing, okay, and I suppose talking about the juices…”

“Cease, minx!”

“Fine!” said Lyra, and flounced over to a divan to sprawl upon it and sulk. “It’s not that good anyway! Looney’s is better.”

“Ah, poor sister!” sighed Luna. “Indeed you’ve, as they say, ‘got it bad’. But what has spurred this renewed distress? When last I saw you, just scant minutes ago in the hall, you showed none of this angst! What HAPPENED, sister?”

Celestia hung her head again, and her horn glowed faintly. A scrap of paper emerged from where it had been tucked into her crown.

“She’s sent me a letter,” said Celestia, and choked up. “And she doesn’t want to see me!”

“Let me read it,” said Luna. “Give! Hoof it over, please.”

Lyra perked up, and scampered over, irrepressibly. “Can I see?”

They read, as Celestia waited, biting her lip in anxiety. Princess Luna finished, and gazed off into space for a while, thoughtfully.

“Well?” demanded Celestia, her wings folding and unfolding, clearly on the verge of trotting in place.

Luna lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“What do I DO?” pleaded her elder sister.

Luna gave a little halfsmile. “Firstly: do not fly out there tonight,” she said, and Celestia deflated, drooping in dismay.

“Thank you so much,” she muttered. “Thine wisdom exceeds my wildest expectations.” She glowered crankily at Chaos.

Lyra was puzzling over the wording. “But Twilight does want… this is an invitation! Sort of?”

“Yes, it is,” said Luna. “Something is going on. Sister? I think I may understand. Try to remember that Twilight Sparkle is a very powerful unicorn. Vampire problem? Are they having trouble with Fluttershy? We have seen so little of vampire ponies, or of any species turned vampire. I am trying to remember. Do they not tend to quarrel and destroy each other in fights for dominance?”

Celestia nodded. “Between that and the mob, vampires have not troubled Equestria as a rule. I now wish I had attended more closely to the few occasions where they came forth. Perhaps the fault is mine for not being more intimate with my little ponies. It always seemed like just one more sort of disease, honestly. Rumor of a vampire appearing, making thralls and consuming them, then being destroyed. Magical fire is surely as thorough as any other form, and the earth ponies could always reduce an enemy to tiny bits. A vampire in fang-sized pieces cannot prey upon anything, poor creature.”

“Wait,” said Lyra, “you’re sorry for the vampires?”

Celestia made a face. “I suppose I should be, shouldn’t I? My allegiances are to my little ponies. My feelings of vampires have been like sympathies for a rotted plank: the whole thing seems rather sad and unclean. There is a reason Equestria is not flooded with the things. Feather flu among the pegasi is considerably harder to stamp out! With the vampires, one only hears of it at second hoof: some pony’s managed to bite a vampire fruitbat, already the most unlikely event imaginable. That pony gives in to evil, thinking themselves uniquely powerful due to their vampire nature. If they attack other ponies immediately, the mob runs them down, for they cannot resist their hungers. If they are clever, making thralls and consuming them, they may last longer but can be unmasked when the thralls fight each other in jealous rage. It is all so fragile and sordid.”

“But then, there’s Fluttershy,” suggested Chaos. “There couldn’t be a more unlikely vampire pony… and she’s not acting one bit like that, is she?”

Celestia winced. “You’re right. I suppose I’ve been waiting for her to turn. It seems ungrateful, after she saved your life and mine.”

Chaos gasped. “Celly! Don’t say such things! I’d thought we would be enjoying her company for simply eons!”

Celestia swished her tail, glowering at Chaos. “You have not observed Equestria for centuries upon centuries. As a unicorn, you weren’t interested in vampires, as Discord you were preoccupied, and as a statue you’d be no use to a vampire at all. Vampires last about as long as any outbreak of plague, and are about as popular. I suppose it is well that I do involve myself in Twilight’s researches, in case she ends up burning Fluttershy to ash or chopping her to scattered bits, which are some of the ways ponies of old removed the threat.”

Chaos’s eyes were wide. “But… from the way Fluttershy talks, and the things I’ve seen her endure, I thought vampires could never die?”

Celestia gave her a weary look. “If ash was alive, could you tell? How threatening is a pulverized fang? The creatures believe themselves to be all-powerful, but it is a mere feeling, rather a mockery. I’m not sure exactly how it goes wrong for them, Chaos. I’m almost sure I’ve heard stories of multiple thralls of the same vampire, destroying each other even before the vampire could devour them. They don’t get far and we have not had much opportunity to study the phenomenon.”

“Twilight is studying Fluttershy,” said Luna. “She speaks of her researches, and wants to make her own progress without you, as she says, swooping in.”

At that, Celestia’s eyes teared up. “If only I could! But not to take over her discoveries. I would swoop in and carry her away to my bedchamber. And I must behave myself and let her live her own life. YES, Lyra?”

She’d glared at Lyra, who had the decency to look abashed—Lyra had brightened and begun to speak, and been stopped by the Princess’s pique. She gulped, and when she spoke it was softer, but still heartfelt. “I was just gonna say… she will be very happy when you finally do. ‘Cos I’m so happy to be with Princess Luna. My life is all full of magic now.”

“Awww!” crooned Luna, and hugged her little unicorn consort. “As is our life, precious darling!”

Princess Celestia’s jaw was set. “That may be, but Twilight does not wish to be swept off her hooves, and I respect that. In fact, I see in this letter of hers that she wishes to run her own risks and make her own discoveries: that is the Twilight I know and love, and I respect that as well. Anyhow, the vampires she is dealing with are only Fluttershy, and Gilda the griffin who is in thrall to Fluttershy, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s foal Northern Spy who is in thrall to the griffin. And somehow, the influence of Fluttershy persists even beyond direct thrall: I saw Northern Spy answer to Applejack.”

Luna looked horrified. “The foal? This is terrible! If you can help them, you must. If there are now three vampires and all are peaceful and cooperative, perhaps we can learn better ways of dealing with them.” She shuddered. “To lose the foal… awful!”

Chaos looked at Celestia, then Luna. “Perhaps I’ve not fully understood the situation. Is Ponyville safe? Is Twilight in danger, trying to work with all these vampires? What can she do to defend herself if they attack her? I suppose the idea of Fluttershy attacking anypony was so absurd that it never occurred to me there was a risk.”

Celestia snorted. “They have unicorns. Even if a vampire does not dry out through prolonged undeath, many healthy unicorns can produce magical fire when assaulted. A vampire must bite to enthrall or feed, and must make sustained eye contact to hypnotize, and no vampire can stare at more than one pony at a time.” She blinked. “Possibly excepting dear Derpy Hooves. We must tell Twilight, on no account allow Derpy to be attacked.”

“You’re being facetious, dear,” said Chaos. “Vampy Hooves? Really?”

“My point is that I’m almost more worried for the vampires,” said Princess Celestia. “I really am not worried for Twilight, though it is alarming to learn that Northern Spy is involved. I understand that she bit the griffin, who is desperate to please Fluttershy. We’ve never needed to find a cure for vampirism as much as we do now.”

Lyra opened her mouth, hesitated, and then spoke. “Maybe you did… but you didn’t realize it.”

Celestia blinked. “Why would you say that, my little pony?”

Lyra returned a level gaze, not judging but unexpectedly knowing. “Because I’m Luna’s little pony… and Applejack is your friend and mine… and you want to sleep with Twilight… and Fluttershy and Gilda and Northern Spy got vampirism and could be hunted down by mobs or burned up by angry unicorns. If you didn’t know us, somepony might still have become a vampire, and be hurting others and suffering and finally destroyed… and their life would be ruined… but you wouldn’t know them.”

Celestia was speechless.

“You know us,” said Lyra, “so please help?”

Her spring-green visage blurred, as Princess Celestia fought back tears. “I shall! I promise you, I shall help.”

“But not tonight!” cautioned Luna. “Have we not agreed that Twilight Sparkle has the situation under control? She is asking you to come and help, but she wishes time to pursue her researches. Do not ‘swoop in’! Give her a day or two, and then peacefully go and see what she has learned. You can gather all the reports we have on the subject, though they are sparse and hearsay by their very nature. One day should not change things too much.”

“I don’t know,” said Chaos reflectively. “Give me one day and I’ll change everything you can imagine.”

Luna hmphed. “Chaos, stay here in Canterlot!” she decreed. “Let Twilight work without changing any vampires into chocolate!”

“I’d change them back,” protested Chaos. She blinked. “If somepony ate some of the chocolate, would they turn into a vampire, or would they turn into other chocolate?”

“Chaos, stay here in Canterlot,” urged Princess Celestia. “Please? I’m not sure Twilight could deal with vampire chocolate. In some ways this is quite serious.”

“Oh, very well,” said Chaos. “Anyway there was something I wanted to show you…”

“Yes!” said Princess Luna. “Show her. I am sure she could use the distraction, I remember my own sufferings over Miss Lulamoon. And it will keep her here. Sister, you must honor Twilight’s request. Especially if you wish to develop a deeper relationship with her!”

“I bet you could do even better than I did!” said Lyra. “Or that wack-job Trixie! You totally should make a relationship with Twilight. What worked for me was MPH!”

Luna’s hoof promptly covered Lyra’s muzzle. “Of course, that is irrelevant. Tsk, Lyra! Naughty unicorn! My point being, sister, that you must make your OWN relationship with Twilight. Not Lyra’s, not Trixie’s. Your own.”

Celestia hung her head. “It is so daunting. So frustrating.”

“She is even telling you how to do it,” countered Luna. “How can you not listen? Do you agree? Will you allow Twilight to tell you what steps to take?”

Celestia sighed. “Yes. I shall.”

Luna squeed, and hugged her, as did Lyra and Chaos. Luna beamed. “I am so proud of you! It is not easy for an alicorn to kindle a relationship with a unicorn that is fair to both parties. And there’s a kind of order through forming an intention to do the right thing, isn’t there? You just have to do your best.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Sister, where did you get that? In all our years I have not heard of you speaking that way, or speaking of being fair to mortal unicorn lovers. Why the sudden change in attitude?”

There was no verbal answer. Only Princess Luna’s blush, and abashed look… and Lyra’s joy and pride. Neither said a word.

“Hmmm…” said Princess Celestia, studying the pair with interest.

“Why,” whispered Chaos into her ear, “do you think I’m so eager to bring you together with Miss Sparkle? I’ve seen these two operate. It’s done both of them a world of good.”

“Hmmmm,” repeated Celestia, entertaining grand visions, a smile returning to her face.

“Oh, stop ogling us, sister!” protested Luna, still blushing. “Go forth and be distracted. Give our love to Twilight, but not this instant! Have we soothed you, eased your mind?”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed you have: and given hope.”

“We can ask no better,” said Luna. “Isn’t that right, Lyra?”

“Can she bring Twilight over to play when they do hook up?” asked Lyra. “I wasn’t fooling about her pussy being extra yummy.”

Celestia stiffened, her eyes widening. Chaos giggled. Luna cuffed her insouciant little unicorn with a hoof.

“Eep! Hey!” squeaked Lyra.

“Go forth, I tell you!” cried Luna. “Lest my consort take still more lecherous liberties!”

And, giggling, Princess Celestia and Chaos rushed from Luna’s chambers, and trotted back to their own.

“Lecherous liberties!” giggled Chaos. “Sounds like a marvellous plan, doesn’t it?”

Celestia pranced in place. “My! Their provocative nature has me quite worked up, Swirlie dear. I don’t suppose you’ve got a plan for soothing your Princess?”

That got a stunned look from the little blue alicorn. “Egad!”

“No, you’re supposed to say, yes Celly dear, I have! We can try it again if you like.”

Chaos blinked, staring at nothingness with an expression of wonder. “Sorry, I’d almost forgotten. I have a new thing to try! I’ve great hopes for the form, though as I’ve said I’m not quite sure it’s real. But it’s spectacular! And pink.”

“Pink?” queried Princess Celestia. “As in, Pinkie Pie pink?”

“No no. Sort of off pink. With a sallow tinge, as if Pinkie Pie had been very sick or, erm, dead for a long time?”

Celestia’s ears laid back. “Chaos! That doesn’t sound very nice at all! Is it a fine figure of a pony other than the unfortunate color?”

“No,” admitted Chaos. “It’s sort of a gross figure of a thing, not a pony at all. It’s a bit like a deformed Diamond Dog?”

Celestia backed off a step. “This word ‘deformed’ does not sound appealing. Has it got lovely lustrous eyes, then, or a beautiful silky mane?”

“Errrr…” said Chaos. “No, they’re uncommonly tiny eyes and the mane leaves much to be desired. That’s not the point, Celly! I have certain suspicions about the nature of this beast…”

Celestia stamped a hoof. “Oh, Swirlie! Show me, then. I warn you, if you’re joking…”

Chaos disappeared in a flash of chaotic magic. What appeared was easily twice her height, towering just a bit over even the tip of Princess Celestia’s mighty horn, and nearly bumping its head on even the lofty Canterlot ceiling. And indeed, it was pink.

Celestia stared in disbelief. “Ah, I see. You are joking.”

“I’m not!” protested the creature. “Here, let me find the magic bit and show you the rest. Where’ve you put it? I haven’t got a horn in this form.”

“Why’s it got saggy bits all over it?” demanded Celestia. “The proportions aren’t like a Diamond Dog at all! Those hips reach up to my neck! Well, my withers, anyway!”

“Well, look on the bright side,” said Chaos, in the ungainly body of the new creature. “I could suck on the tip of your horn while you’re standing up.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” said Princess Celestia, her ears laid back. “Good heavens. Are those testicles? They’re like fruit in a sack! How does it gallop without curling up into a weeping pile of monster?”

“Wait,” said the creature, turning to rummage through their shelves. “Here we are.”

“It has no tail, Swirlie!” protested Celestia. Then, as the creature turned back to face her, she added, “Why is its mane so greasy?! Why does it have fur on its NECK?!”

“I don’t know,” said Chaos. “Look, this is the part I wanted to show you.”

“And where its forelegs meet its body!” added Celestia, ears well back. “And I’m sure I saw canine teeth like a griffin’s, but smaller! Swirlie, where did you find this thing?”

“I don’t know,” said Chaos. “I told you, I’m not completely sure it’s real. But all the same, I think it likes being here—or would, I suppose. Is it really so bad? I haven’t even shown you the best part yet.”

Celestia licked her lips. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious. Is the door closed?”

“Hooray! You’re still horny, even now!”

“Well, of course I am!” snorted Celestia. “And it’s still you in there… and there is nothing, nothing in Equestria that could ever LESS resemble Twilight Sparkle, so in one sense I am in the clear. I see you’ve got the magic bit in one of those paws, or whatever they are. What does it do, sprout penises all over itself?”

“They’re not quite like Diamond Dog paws. I have high hopes for these,” admitted Chaos.

“They’re strangely slender, like little tentacles,” said Celestia, and then her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

The creature pouted, though it was hard to tell behind the fur. “Well, not only that. Confound it, Celestia, can’t I at least try to be creative here? I thought I was supposed to be distracting!”

“You’re all of that,” grumbled Celestia. “Fine! Show me its special trick, then.”

Chaos lifted the comparatively petite magic bit to the creature’s hairy maw, and clamped it between those disturbingly half-predatory teeth. The paw reached right back down, and seized its new toy with great ease and familiarity.

Celestia blinked. “Why’s it wearing a sweater?” she said, and then her eyes widened.

“See?” said Chaos proudly, as the slim-fingered paw slid a sheath of skin back and forth effortlessly.

Celestia’s eyes were bugged out in astonishment. She licked her lips again, gulped, and finally tilted her head up—in a way she’d hardly ever had to do before—to address the creature.

“WHY?”

“I’m not sure,” replied Chaos in the deep tones the creature employed. “I have my suspicions! I think perhaps these things don’t fit inside their mares very well, or the mares don’t lubricate properly or something. If I’m not mistaken, this will allow thrusting without chafing, and I’m really not sure what other purpose it could have. See, it covers up the flare completely!”

“It’s not a bad flare,” said Celestia grudgingly. “Odd shape. Sort of cone-shaped?”

“M’re evidence their mares are tight and awkw’rd!” proclaimed Chaos. “All the better to enter you, my dear!”

Celestia narrowed her eyes. She studied the creature’s ungainly body, the odd paws now manipulating the thing’s stiffened cock, the girth and length of the cock. A little halfsmile quirked the corner of her mouth. “Is that a suggestion?”

“Let us pretend,” said Chaos around the magic bit, “th’t for this creature it is the m’st glorious consummation ever to be imagined…”

Celestia’s little smile grew wickeder. “And what if it was? I can see it shan’t harm me. It’s about as girthy as a stallion but doesn’t reach.”

“It might,” said Chaos. “We stallions don’t spend much time at full shove. And you c’n see th’ckness isn’t bad.”

“And what do you expect me to do about that?” teased Celestia. “And keep that door closed!”

“T’rn around,” rumbled the creature, grinning past the magic bit, and its cock stiffened just a little more, the flare swelling.

Celestia licked her lips, staring at the little ridge hidden under the fold of skin. “Never tell anypony about this.”

“Our little s’cret,” said Chaos. “Please?”

Celestia deliberately rotated herself, and gazed back at him with a look of mocking, amused pride, her chin and her tail held high. She swayed her hips, and presented the new form of her lover with the firm contours of an alicorn rump that was large to little pony stallions, but distinctly pert and tight compared to the creature’s towering bulk. And she winked, elegant vulva parting…

“Uhhhh!”

Celestia’s eyes widened. The creature moved in, but not cock-first, and not even attempting to mount her. Instead, those weird paws reached, fingers extending with dexterity and intent.

“Sw… irlie! What are you dnnnhhh! Oooh!”

“Is that g’d?” questioned Chaos, as the fondling fingers caressed the Princess’s crotch. “Feels g’d?”

Celestia staggered, wobbling on her hooves. These were no Diamond Dog paws! Chaos had already tried Dog form, but this was something else. Her eyes twitched and unfocussed as soft-tipped, talented fingers caressed her vagina, wandered forward to tickle her nipples and then pinch one gently, then slip back to trace up the inside of her leg and brush her labia.

“Ahhhh!” Celestia gasped, as a fingertip tucked inside her, seemingly just to feel her wink and then close upon it.

“How’s th’t?” suggested Chaos, as a second finger insinuated itself into Celestia’s eager wetness.

“Unnnh! Swirlie, ohhhh!” Celestia moaned, swishing her tail. “Stop playing and give me its cock, damn it!”

“But I’m n’t d’ne playing…” crooned Chaos. And, inside Celestia’s vagina, the fingers thrust a little deeper, and began to scissor and fondle the tender softness along the bottom wall of the Princess’s pussy.

“GGNNNHHH!” squealed Celestia, and both pony and monster froze, shocked.

Celestia’s ears were laid back, hard. She turned her head, and looked up at her alien lover with an expression of awe and alarm.

“I think you need to do that again,” she managed. “I am not quite sure I believe what I just felt.”

“Did it scratch you?” asked Chaos. “They h’ve sort of claws, wide ones.”

Celestia licked her lips, trembling.

“If you did,” she said, “do it again. I command you!”

Dutifully, Chaos began those motions again, the motions nothing in Equestria could mimic, as nothing in Equestria had paws like the new creature had. Celestia jolted, her jaw tensing, and bared her teeth at the empty air. “RRRRRHH!”

“Th’re’s my Celly!”

“Uhnnnnnnh… UHH! RRRH!”

“Ow!”

Celestia, wobbling even harder, glanced back in alarm. “Honey?”

“It’s okay! J’st… almost br’ke these! Wow! Celly, I have never felt your strength inside th’t much! They’re fr’gile!”

Celestia shook her head. “Then quickly, quickly! Give me that strange penis, all you can!”

“Yes, m’lady… oof… can’t reach…”

Celestia trotted in place, almost crying with frustration. “Swirliieee!”

“I have to… there!” said Chaos. The creature was too tall, and had to bend its knees in a crouch to reach Celestia’s pussy. Using a trembling paw to aim its erection and pull the sheath well back, it touched its flare to Celestia’s winking treasure.

“AHHH!”

“UHHHH!”

Celestia shook, reeling with pleasure as the strange bulk pressed into her, and then heard the whimpering. “S… swirlie?”

“So int’nse!” moaned Chaos. “Sweet CELESTIA!”

Celestia moaned, bit her lip, wriggled her rump. “Yes! It is I! Now, give your Princess the thrusting!”

“Wait…”

Celestia’s eyes bugged out again. The creature had swung its hips forward, moving its paws out of the way, and scrunched its crotch right up against her ass in a way no stallion ever could… and the sack of testicles swung forward to gently thump her vulva.

“Ahhhhh…” moaned Chaos.

And with that, Princess Celestia stared stunned into space, and gave way to tremors and shivers that would not stop and just kept building, for the creature bent over her trembling rump and reached back between her legs and… even while penetrating her to her depths… began fondling everywhere with those dexterous paws, as if possessed by a sudden passion to touch every part of her. It caressed her breasts and kneaded stiffened nipples. When Celestia squealed and clenched and winked, those fingers flicked out to fondle her protruding clitoris, hitting her with jolts of stimulation like lightning.

Its thrusting, indeed, was fluid and frictionless, but the insane overstimulation of those voracious paws made it impossible for Princess Celestia to relax: plus, she could feel the thing’s small cone-shaped flare moving inside her, very deep. And the fingers kept sneaking back to fondle her clit as it protruded in wink after wink…

“NNNGGGYYAAAAH!” squealed Celestia, her body hammering her with climaxes. “When? doesitstop? GNNNH!”

Chaos was panting, the sound curiously deep in the creature’s broad chest. “Getting th’re… oh, this feels amazing…”

Celestia’s eyes crossed. This thing had gone five times as long as a stallion… ten! It wouldn’t let up! It was an evil mare-wrecker monster of exhaustingly unrelenting orgasms! It…

She squealed again, clenching in a fusillade of punishingly fierce orgasms, and felt the alien cock throb inside her, and the strange paws clutched her rump, and Chaos pressed deep as spurt after spurt of…

Celestia, reeling in sexual hysteria, found time to be astonished. That was it? That was all the come it had?

Chaos panted, sagging over her. “Oh my… oh my love… exquisite…”

Celestia shook her head to clear it. “Is there more?”

Chaos whimpered. “But I came. Didn’t you feel it? Ow… kind of sore…”

Celestia experimentally tensed her pussy, and Chaos yelped. “Oh my gosh! So much sensation right now, yipe!”

“Very well,” panted the Princess. “Exemplary. You may withdraw.”

Chaos, as the creature, wrinkled her brow. “Odd. It persists but is so damned sore and sensitive!”

The creature shifted back, and the erection withdrew, leaking small amounts of come, and still retaining a surprising amount of bulk and stiffness.

“Cuddles?” suggested Celestia, wobbling.

“Mm-hm,” said the creature, and they staggered over to a nearby couch and embraced, the creature curling awkwardly around Celestia’s lovely curves. “You know, I believe I could have stayed in you for some time, though it would be rather uncomfortable on the old flare.”

Celestia stared in disbelief. “You’re joking. You went… I can’t even comprehend how much longer you went than a stallion. How can that be?”

“Maybe if I stayed in you,” suggested Chaos, “I could keep going and going endlessly.”

“Maybe if you did,” retorted Princess Celestia, “you’d drench me so I could feel it. What does that thing put out? A spoonful?”

“It can’t help it!” protested Chaos. “These testicles are not very large compared to a pony! And besides, I can do this.”

“NNNNggg!” went Celestia, as the fingers went between her legs again.

“Do you realize,” said Chaos, “that your wings were fully erect that whole time? All that, and not once did I get a firm grasp on those lovely wing shanks. These paws would wrap right around. And squeeze…”

Celestia’s eyes widened. “Swirlie, listen to me, our world is at stake. Do one thing for me, right now.”

“Yes?”

“Change back.”

Chaos blinked. The strange paws scratched the neck-fur. And then, with a flash of chaos, it was the little blue alicorn snuggling Princess Celestia.

Celestia drew a deep sigh of relief. “Whew.”

“What was the problem?” asked Chaos, her voice once again feminine.

“Think about it,” suggested the Princess. “I had an exhausting time with this beast of yours, and you’ve just told me a shocking new exploit it could pursue. Can you imagine what would happen to our pegasi if these things came here?”

Chaos’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Celestia nodded solemnly. “They would ruin my little ponies. The pegasi would think of nothing else. The unicorns would wear their horns out on the end of those thick, unflagging, untiring cocks, squirting horngasm until they expired, with wicked cunning furless paws twiddling their clitorises. Maybe the earth ponies could survive it, but then they’d all starve because they would abandon the growing of crops. Even the stallions cannot be trusted with this. Do you think those paws could grab a horse cock and fondle it just as well?”

Chaos gulped. “Um. Now that you mention it…”

“It is resolved,” said Celestia bravely. “We will not speak of this. And these creatures must never, ever, ever come to Equestria. Agreed?”

Chaos was wide-eyed, with a look of dismay that was becoming tragic, as she considered that their one terrible experiment had been unleashed solely upon the person of Princess Celestia. Who had survived admirably, Chaos admitted… but had not been able to turn around and conduct the experiment upon HER, in turn.

She gulped.

“Yes, Celly. I promise. We will never speak of this, even to Luna, and I’ll never use my chaos powers to bring these terrifying things, whatever they are, to Equestria.”

She sniffled, and nestled into Princess Celestia’s embrace, enfolded in long elegant alicorn forelegs and wrapped in soft wings… and then her eyes shot wide at what Princess Celestia, very quietly, whispered to her.

“…maybe just one.”

Circus

Gilda peered fretfully at the ominous device. “So… what the heck is that?”

Twilight smiled brightly, perhaps too brightly for such an early morning hour. “Measurements. I’ve adapted it from an earlier experiment. Trixie says she got a feel for what was happening, last night.”

The griffin’s expression was nervous. “Oh, she got a feel all right,” she said, and then as Twilight approached her, she squawked “Not so fast!”

Twilight, rebuffed, blinked. “Why would it matter if I do this fast or slow?”

“Well,” said Gilda grudgingly, “okay. You can’t say I don’t cooperate. Just… can you at least tell me where you’re going to insert it?”

“Insert it?” squeaked Twilight. “You don’t! You wear it like a hat. Why did you think I was going to poke it in you somewhere?”

Gilda, at a loss for words, shrugged. She gave a little sigh. “Ponies. Or should I say, I’ve been learning so much about unicorns lately?”

“Errrrh!” grumbled Twilight. “Trixie, clearly I let you get away with far too much around here. Just look at you!”

“Thank you, Mistress!” called Trixie Lulamoon, in her accustomed position as Gilda’s divan.

“I should get her a real chair!” protested Twilight.

“Does she need one?” yawned Trixie, lazily. “Trixie’s glorious rump is quite soft compared to the dreadful piece of furniture you’re thinking of, Trixie has seen it. Perhaps you are thinking of a pillow? Does she need one? Is darling Gilda,” said Trixie and smirked dreadfully, “sore?”

Gilda made a face. “No thanks to you!”

“I should never have let her be alone with you,” vowed Twilight.

“No, it’s okay,” said Gilda awkwardly. “Mostly. Uh… though I am a little sore. I like sitting on unicorn butts, we’re great, carry on!”

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Twilight dubiously. “As I said, this device will help measure things.”

“Like what?” said Gilda.

“Harmonic overtones of thaumic resonance,” replied Twilight.

“Sorry I asked…”

“It’s very interesting!” protested the lavender unicorn. “Or at least it will be if we find anything. And I happen to think it’s even interesting if we don’t. It’s not science if we know the answer ahead of time! Don’t you even feel any thrill of discovery? We might make great strides of science before breakfast!”

“Trixie has no intention of striding anywhere before breakfast,” said Trixie. “Trixie will prepare a delicious breakfast for her Mistress and her new special friend, once Mistress is settled in and has got her early morning nerdiness out of her system.”

At that, Twilight blinked. “Are you hungry? I’m sorry, I rushed right down here first thing, because there’s so much to discover…”

Trixie yawned. “You did indeed, and once you are preoccupied with scientific equipment you will not think of breakfast, even if you are hungry. Trixie intended to remind you within an hour, because you would most certainly not have remembered by then.”

Gilda was looking around. “You sure do have a lot of junk down here. What’s that?” She pointed with a talon.

“That’s a distilling apparatus. I had to make Granny Smith promise not to try and take it back and use it. Also, to not tell Rainbow Dash I’d bought it from the Apples: that pony is mad for cider, and I think she’d react badly if she knew the Apples’ shortages were partly my fault.”

“And that?” asked Gilda nervously.

“Experimental multi-headed broom slash whisk,” said Twilight. “For sweeping the floor and also three levels of bookshelves in one convenient motion. It works almost perfectly!”

Trixie gave her a cranky look. “Mistress will test it on her own bookshelves next time. Period!”

“It only ate one book!” protested Twilight.

“Exactly.”

“I replaced the book, Trixie!” pleaded Twilight. “When are you going to forgive me, huh?”

Trixie’s glower softened. “Trixie forgave you immediately, Mistress.”

“Well then!”

“But you did not replace Trixie’s book,” said the blue unicorn levelly.

Twilight blinked. “I did! I went out and got you another. It cost seventy-three bits and I was happy to do it! And yours wasn’t in nearly as good condition and didn’t have gilt edges.”

Trixie sighed. “Trixie is grateful, truly. Don’t mistake her! Trixie enjoys the new shiny book. But the original book had been targeted by your device because it was heavily torn and soiled and resembled detritus one would find in a ditch.”

“Oh yeah?” said Gilda absently, still looking around the sciencey basement in trepidation. “Why was it so dirty, then?”

Trixie lowered her eyes in a moment of reverence. “Because it was one of the first books Trixie carried from town to town, before she had a cart, before she kept her books in a secret cave guarded from intruders. Trixie read THAT book until it fell apart, and still kept reading even then. It is nice to have the words on clean paper, and turn pages without them falling off. But Mistress did not replace that book.”

Twilight teared up. “Oh, Trixie!”

“Don’t cry,” added Trixie hastily. “Mistress did replace Trixie’s whole life. One book is not too high a cost.” She thought about that for a moment, with a startled look, then nodded.

Twilight’s lip quivered, but before she could respond, the griffin sitting on her marefriend’s rump had extended a birdlike arm and pointed a trembling talon. Not at her, but at a large object lurking in the shadows that seemed to extend talons of its own.

“And what is THAT?” Gilda squawked, in alarm.

Twilight sighed. “THAT is a trebuchet.”

“A what?”

“It is a catapult and you know it,” snorted Trixie.

“No! It’s a trebuchet, see? The end bit swings as it goes. I realize it’s not a rope and sling but all the same since it’s a swinging arm the classification has to be trebuchet! It’s a traction trebuchet with magic-tensioned springs.”

“Trixie thinks you shouldn’t leave it tensioned.”

“It’s not loaded! The basket’s empty.”

Gilda gulped. She repeated herself. “A what?”

“It’s a device for flinging objects, weapons or projectiles at a target,” said Twilight. “This particular one is designed for flinging a projectile that is also a weapon, at a variety of targets such as doors, walls, or standing changeling drones alone or in groups. That is the intended target, and the projectile is Spike.”

“Say what?” blinked Gilda.

“That,” repeated Twilight, “is a trebuchet for flinging Spike.”

Gilda boggled at her for a while. She knew of the unicorns’ baby dragon. Finally, she found words, or at least ‘word’.

“WHY?”

“Don’t judge,” said Twilight defensively. “Anyway, he really enjoyed it! Parts of it. Maybe not the wall. Why am I answering this? We’re here to ask YOU the questions! Please put the thing with the lights on your head and don’t insert it anywhere, and put your paws in these shackles on the thing with the button and the knob and the screen and the two wires. I will do the inserting, and all I’m going to do is insert the green wire where the red wire and the blue wire go.”

“Why do I have the feeling ‘put your paws in these shackles’ is something you’ve said before?” moaned Gilda.

“No no,” said Twilight. “Those shackles are upstairs. These are different other shackles, more like clamps. Come on, come on! Oh, right, use your claws instead, paws are your hind feet. Hooked up to this we ought to be able to meter practically everything about you!”

Gilda rolled her eyes and complied, frowning worriedly as lavender magic fastened the shackles tightly with a click.

“Did you hear something upstairs?” she said.

“No,” said Twilight. “Maybe it’s somepony returning a book? No stalling, now. Use your dark powers on something!”

Gilda gawked at her. “Are you joking?”

“Not in the least. Go on! Heal something. Are any of your claws or talons broken?”

“No!”

“Could you hold one out for me, please? It’s for science!”

Gilda cowered, for a cheerfully mad light glowed in Twilight’s eyes. Before any more unreasonable suggestions could be made, Trixie spoke up. “What about healing something else? Trixie remembers! Miss Gilda, you did say you were… sore.” She smirked, horribly.

Gilda turned to stare at her pony divan. “Yeah. You pounded me so hard I couldn’t believe it. You’re crazy, doing that to a live griffin.”

“Dead griffin,” corrected Twilight.

Gilda winced. “All right, all right. I’m still getting used to that, okay?”

“Trixie thinks you will have a great deal of time to get used to it,” suggested Trixie. “One cannot die twice, can one?”

“I don’t know much about this,” muttered Gilda.

“Neither do we!” said Twilight. “That’s why you’re helping us to learn. Trixie, did you really fuck her so hard you did her an injury?”

Trixie’s ears were back. “She had a safeword!”

“Oh? Really? And what was this safeword of hers?” demanded Twilight.

Trixie batted her eyelashes. “It was ‘no, stop’. That was Miss Gilda’s safeword. Is, rather.”

Twilight boggled at Trixie, then shrugged. “Lightweight! But still, she’s damaged up in there? Even now?”

Trixie smirked. “Not such a lightweight after all. Our little birdkitty took it outrageously hard, Mistress. Shows great promise. If she has not repaired this damage, it is with her still.”

Twilight turned to Gilda. “Well then! That saves time. All our circuits are powered and ready! Trixie, focus your energies in case stuff happens on a bandwidth we’re not recording. Gilda? You taught Northern Spy to heal herself, though not very well. Please do that again, on whatever part of your vagina Trixie Lulamoon battered into submission.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “With pleasure. I hope you both visit a griffin outpost someday. In a strange way you guys would fit right in. I thought Dash was the most obnoxious pony ever, but I hadn’t met any unicorns. Can you fly?”

“Not very well,” said Twilight. She winced, and added, “Not anymore!”

“Can you run?” teased Gilda.

“We can fire bolts of magical fire from our horns,” said Twilight. “How’s that?”

“You’ll have to,” said Gilda. “It’s actually kind of disturbing how griffinlike your obnoxiousness is…”

“I’m about to,” retorted Twilight. “Unless you get busy healing that kitty vagina so we can measure it! Should I send Trixie in there to wreck the joint even more?”

Gilda’s tail-tuft bristled out, as did her longer patches of fur and the feathers on the back of her neck. “Uhhh, no need! Here I go, I’ll be good, I’m not sure how I do it, but it goes something like this…”

She concentrated. Twilight whickered with excitement, reading her dials. Stray lights on Gilda’s peculiar hat blinked.

“Did you get anything, Mistress?” said Trixie. “And what IS that upstairs?”

“Probably the Apples coming back,” said Twilight dismissively. “Sh!”

Gilda continued to concentrate, even wriggling a bit with effort, which caused Trixie to flick her tail in pleasure. Then, the big griffin took a breath. “All done. That was it, everything torn or bruised is like new again.”

“Round two?” suggested Trixie, and Gilda choked, speechless for a moment.

“No, stop!”

“Trixie hadn’t started yet,” said the blue unicorn divan, pouting.

“Settle down, both of you!” ordered Twilight, smiling. “I have a result!”

“Ooooh!” squealed Trixie. “Mistress! What did you find?”

“It’s not so much what I found,” said Twilight smugly. “It’s what I didn’t find. Gilda, you have an area of total blankness, a big huge gap up around the second thaumic spectrum. On a pony that would be a magical frequency common to all species of pony, be they unicorn or pegasus or earth pony: in fact the earth ponies tend to have very strong resonances up in this bandwidth. I say resonances, but that’s actually not true because they’re characterized by an unusually broad signature, the opposite of what you get with a pony like say Lyra, who does her crazy things with horngasms through a strikingly narrow thaumic resonance that develops a cascade effect…”

“Mistress,” said Trixie, “you are losing Trixie and our griffin is probably totally confused.”

“Well, so am I!” said Twilight. “I don’t think anypony has ever measured a gap like that before! We have no idea why Gilda is magically dead at those frequencies, no living thing in the history of thaumic spectral analysis has returned such a result!”

“She isn’t a living thing,” pointed out Trixie. “She’s a vampire griffin.”

Twilight blinked. “Oh. Right. Pardon.”

“No problem,” said Gilda. She looked like she wanted to face-claw, but her talons were firmly held in the shackles. “So there’s, like, part of me missing now? How does that work? I feel the same as ever. Apart from I gotta go devote myself to Fluttershy forever ‘cos I’m hollow nothing and all cold inside.” She blinked. “So yeah, maybe not quite the same…”

“Trixie hears something upstairs too,” said Trixie.

“They can let themselves in,” said Twilight, “they know the way. I think that’s them getting the door. The important thing is, we’ve isolated something different about vampire magic. We don’t know if vampirism suppresses those thaumic bands or if something’s been stripped away by death. Maybe Gilda is just a corpse that doesn’t know she’s dead and the vampirism is animating those remaining thaumic regions, and if it stops she’ll drop right down dead, splat!”

Gilda whimpered. After a moment, she waved a claw like twirling a tiny flag. “Awesome,” she managed, rolling her eyes.

So was Trixie. “She makes an exceedingly lively corpse,” suggested Trixie Lulamoon. “Trixie thinks if it was all vampirism, she would not have such rewarding animal urges. Something else is going on, and most of Gilda Griffin is with us. Some part is removed, somehow.”

Twilight was just settling into debate mode when there was a squelch on the stairs.

The ponies, and the griffin, stared as something white with a brown paw came into view. It staggered forth, tumbled, and seemed to pour down the stairs like a sack full of jelly, leaving red splotches as it went.

“What the fuck is that?” cried Twilight Sparkle. Trixie gasped.

Gilda just stared, wide-eyed, her pupils pinpoints of horror like she was being haunted from beyond the grave.

There was no point denying it: she was.

“Is that a BUNNY?” wailed Twilight. “A headless BUNNY?”

Gilda gulped. “Oh, crap…”

“What is it doing?” blinked Trixie.

“Let me OUT!” squawked Gilda. “Let me go, it’s gonna get me!”

Trixie watched the thing advance upon herself and Gilda, who remained shackled to the machine. A light bulb on Gilda’s hat blew out from the force of her panic. “What do you think it can possibly do to you? It is tiny and you’re huge! Do you think it will bite you? It has no head with which to do so! Whatever does it want?”

Gilda stared in horror, as the bunny with the brown paw squelched bonelessly over to confront her. It began hopping up and down as well as it could, which was not very well at all, and gesticulating, all the while making horrible noises out of its neck.

“What’s it SAYING?” gawked Twilight. “What’s it pointing at? It’s pointing at… its OWN neck?”

Trixie glanced rapidly back and forth between the remnants of bunny, and the stricken, shame-faced griffin. Her pupils constricted to dots and a spark of magic popped off her horn as a tremendous idea burst upon her.

“Gilda, tell Trixie. Did you eat this bunny?”

Tears were coming to Gilda’s eyes. She couldn’t look away. “I kept making myself stop it… I almost starved, until Fluttershy got me the fishes…”

Trixie reeled in her dangling jaw. She stared at the tiny, irate, vampiric griffin-snack.

“Trixie thinks it wants you to finish your leftovers,” she said.

“Mornin’, Apple Bloom!” said Applejack, trotting through the farmyard.

“Oh, hi, Applejack,” said the diminutive Apple Boss Mare, without turning her eyes from the line of farm ponies awaiting orders.

“Fine mornin’, ain’t it?” continued Applejack, her ears laying back. Her little sister seemed even more preoccupied with her duties than usual… and there didn’t seem to be enough farm ponies, not nearly enough. Applejack counted Dursaa, Fern Gully, Knothole and Big Macintosh, but old Snowy Hocks was missing, as were the herders Silver and Hollyhock.

Apple Bloom glanced at her, looking harried… and then broke into a wry halfsmile. “Call this mornin’? Ah’ve been up since four, big sister. What have you been doin’ besides layin’ in bed?”

Applejack blushed. “Dashie din’t want to git up. Specific-like, Dashie din’t want ME to get up and she was kinda layin’ on me comfortable-like and, wull…” She rallied. “If you’re so busy so dang early, where’s the rest of your ponies?”

The halfsmile dropped. “We’ll get to that,” said Apple Bloom. “Run along now.”

“Beg pardon?” said Applejack. “Are you really tellin’ me to clear out?”

“Naw,” said Apple Bloom. “Ah’m askin’. If you want tellin’, stick around. I got a situation and I have no time for big sisters… or lil’ nieces.” She gave Northern Spy a hard look. “I am given to understand you’re goin’ over to see Twilight Sparkle, like you done yesterday. Ah would say, go there now, and don’t let nothin’ stop you.”

Applejack bridled. “Oh yeah?”

Then, a friendly blue form interposed itself. “Applejack, easy!” said Rainbow Dash. “We were going anyway. It’s important! Come on. For Spy? Take it easy, Apple Bloom’s just cranky because some of her pony workers are late.”

“An’ whose fault is that?” protested Applejack. “It ain’t right, them dallyin’ this way…”

“Ah could answer that,” said Apple Bloom, “but it ain’t the first thing on my mind. Thank you, Rainbow Dash.” She turned back to the farm ponies. “The first thing is this! I don’t know what some ponies been tellin’ y’all, but I am not on any side! The only side here is the side of a plow, and you’re gonna see the side of my HOOF if you defy me. And no more talk of treachery to ponies! I will not have it, not from you and not from them! Your companions are gonna be a while a-comin’ but understand this, it ain’t strength they showin’. It is weakness and fearfulness and I swear to you I will sack ‘em if it becomes a habit. I am being mighty tolerant on account of some ponies is just nervous nellies. Cowardly! You’d think livin’ in Ponyville would put a spine in ‘em but apparently no…”

Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Northern Spy continued on, their little Boss Mare’s vituperation fading in the distance.

“What the… heck, was that about?” marvelled Rainbow Dash. “Treachery to ponies? They think Apple Bloom’s a traitor to ponies?”

Applejack snorted. “Excuse for shirkin’ if you ask me,” she said. “I know them ponies. Snowy’s a damn schemer and them herders, they’re headstrong. Lil’ sister better watch it or they’ll stomp all over her. Boss Mare! Pfah!” She trotted with aggressive, bouncy steps, flicking her tail.

Beside her, Northern Spy snorted as well, in miniature. “Yeah! You should kick her out, Mom, you should be the Boss! Or me, I bet I’m way stronger than any of them now because I’m…” She hesitated. “…well, anyway, I prob’ly am stronger than all of them!”

“Sh,” said Applejack. “We’re tryin’ to fix what you may call the down side of all that!” Her tone softened. “Anyways, I don’t want to be Boss Mare no more. Not really.”

“How come?” challenged Spy, her little fangs glinting.

Applejack glanced sidelong at her. “Got me a foal now. First of all, you’re as tough to wrangle as a whole herd o’ farm ponies. An’ second… Ah would rather be with you, sugarcube. Let’s get you fixed up, then we’ll go back home and bake apple pies. Okay?”

Spy’s eyes were wide… then glistening. “Awww, Mom!”

Dash’s eyes had been tender, for she’d known right away what angle Applejack was taking, and she agreed with every particular.

Then they narrowed, gazing past the Ponyville houses and shops, into the distance.

“Is that smoke?” said Rainbow Dash.

Distantly, a scream oozed into the unwilling air. It wasn’t a scream of terror. It was something more horrible, with a distinct wrongness to it, like it wasn’t even from a pony throat at all.

Dash tensed. So did Northern Spy.

“Settle down, Gilda!” urged Twilight.

“Let her claws loose!” suggested Trixie. “Here, let me. Trixie would be upset too if she were shackled to a machine with a dead bunny yelling at her!”

“It wasn’t yelling!” retorted Twilight. “It sort of hopped up and down and gestured. Do you think it really does want to be eaten?”

“Trixie cannot begin to guess,” said Trixie. “Hold still, Gilda! One claw… now the other… there! There’s a little griffy-poo, all better?”

Gilda stared at her in horror. “I am NOT a little griffy-poo!”

“Where’d it GO?” cried Twilight. “Where’d the bunny go?”

Gilda squawked and curled up, covering her head with her talons. After a moment, one eye peeked out, to meet Trixie’s. “Okay, maybe just a touch…”

Trixie trotted over and hugged her. “It’s okay. You’re a big, strong vampire griffin! Who apparently is making thralls out of griffin chow. Trixie did not know that was even possible. Why do they have no heads? Do you eat them head first? Kinky!”

Gilda was shaking her head, while looking frantically all over the basement for signs of the avenging bunny. “No! It’s, it’s, it’s mercy killing. I tried not to! I was getting so hungry. They’re food for griffins! It wasn’t any local ones! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this…”

“There it is!” called Twilight, trotting to the stairs. “It went upstairs! It’s coming back down now. Gilda, did you lash out at it somehow? It’s fucking covered in blood, I’m totally going to make you clean it up.”

“I had my claws shackled to a thing!” wailed Gilda, quaking in horror as Trixie cuddled her and smirked.

“Then what…” began Twilight, and sniffed the air. She stared at the bunny in disbelief as it struggled to get back down the stairs. “It got into the ketchup! For root vegetables and sandwiches! It’s covered itself in ketchup!”

Trixie’s jaw dropped. “That proves Trixie’s theory: it DOES want to be eaten! To end its suffering, Trixie supposes? Gilda, is it particularly awful being a vampire?”

Gilda shook her head, but not in reply so much as in sheer dismay.

Twilight studied the shambling sack of bunny-bits critically. “It looks like it got bucked in the head—sorry, there’s no head, I mean bucked in the whole body. Possibly by Applejack. I think I hear bones scraping in there. This is the grossest thing ever—thanks a lot, Gilda. Why would you even do that? Eat their heads and throw the rest away, I mean?”

“I didn’t!” wailed Gilda, hysterically. “I swear! I was trying to get to Fluttershy. And I knew she wouldn’t want me to eat animals and birds and stuff. But I was starving! And sometimes my instincts would just take over. There’d be prey, I mean a bunny, and my stomach would go GRR and then I would just pounce…”

“And eat its head?” accused Twilight, making a face.

“No! We have really strong talons, really really strong,” pleaded Gilda. “If you don’t want prey to suffer there’s stuff you can do. Important thing, break its neck instantly, it doesn’t feel the attack, so I would just RIP…” She gulped, scrunching her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”

Twilight stared at her. “You ripped the head off a bunny? Is that what you’re telling me? In order to eat its body?”

Gilda waved a claw helplessly. “Just a bite. Then I’d remember about Fluttershy, and I’d fling it away and swear never to do it again…”

Trixie and Twilight exchanged a glance. “That would do it,” said Trixie. “Trixie wonders, if you ate them, would they end up vampire poo?”

Twilight winced. “Okay, that is the grossest thing ever,” she said. “I thought I knew what the grossest thing ever was, but clearly I was thinking too small.” As Trixie’s eyes glinted, Twilight added, “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone in for fits of vegetarianism, Gilda! Or if you did, you shouldn’t have been ripping off bunny heads. Do you think the heads are vampire too?”

Trixie blinked. “Perhaps not, if she’s described this accurately. Hey! You! Shoo!” She kicked out at the ketchup-covered vampire bunny body, which was trying to crawl across her and get to Gilda’s beak. It squelched against the wall, leaving a huge gory stain of tomato sauce.

“Well, there’s that, anyway,” said Twilight. She blinked, and her pupils shrank to dots as she had a thought. “Gilda. When you say you’d fling it away and swear never to do it again… how LONG is never again, exactly?”

There was a gruesome screaming noise from the stairs, and a tan and brown bunny with no head tumbled down to splat at the bottom in a heap. It dragged itself to its feet, and proceeded to stagger in Gilda’s direction… gesticulating wildly and pointing to its neck.

It had, however, found the ketchup that the previous bunny had used.

Trixie kicked the new vampire bunny away. It got up and began staggering once more toward Gilda, as Trixie narrowed her eyes and readied her hoof.

Gilda was curled up in a fetal position, whimpering. “Fluttershy’s gonna kill me…”

Twilight twitched. “If she manages that, can we measure what happens?”

“Shh, Mistress,” urged Trixie. “Can you trap that one? It’s frightening our griffy-poo. Where’d the first one go? How many of them are there, anyway?”

Twilight opened her mouth, but before she could even compose a nasty enough remark, another headless bunny tumbled down the stairs.

“Trixie is sorry she asked,” said Trixie hastily.

There was a large sproing. From the basket of the trebuchet, the first bunny soared through the air, to bounce off Gilda and Trixie with a great splattering of tomato sauce.

Twilight squealed in disgust, trotting in place. “EEEEggghh! This is not only the grossest thing ever, all of this is officially the grossest thing that could ever possibly be!”

“Trixie doesn’t know about that,” said Trixie smugly. “Do you have a blender?”

“EEEEEEEEEE!”

The smoke was coming from behind a house. As Applejack galloped around it, Dash took to the air and checked the windows, finding nothing, swooping back down onto the source of the blaze…

A bonfire.

A bonfire with a screaming, headless bunny directly in it.

A bonfire with stern-faced farm ponies standing around it.

Applejack thundered up, and screeched to a halt, horrified. Dash flapped madly, trying to make sense of the sight. Northern Spy zoomed around the side of the house, but then approached more slowly, wide-eyed, her mouth tightly shut: sensing danger and something horribly wrong in Ponyville.

As the three Apples hesitated, the headless bunny flared up for good and turned into a little pyre and then a collapsing bunny of soot and ash.

It was Hollyhock, Silver and Snowy Hocks. With them were Carrot Top and Roseluck. Hollyhock looked grim as ever. Silver bared his teeth, and raised a forehoof…

“The HELL you think you’re doin’, sonny boy?” demanded Applejack, appalled.

“Learnin’,” said Snowy. “Go on!”

Silver stamped down into the flames, and embers and ash scattered on the wind.

“That worked,” said Snowy. Hollyhock looked pale, and nodded.

Applejack snarled, “Ah tole you NOT to hurt them zombie bunnies!”

“They ain’t,” said Snowy Hocks, with quiet authority.

“What?”

“They ain’t zombie bunnies,” said Snowy. “Ain’t no such thing.” He took a breath. “Them’s VAMPIRE bunnies.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. Dash gasped.

“Why do you say that?” said Applejack carefully. She felt Northern Spy, moving in a little closer behind her as if taking cover, saying nothing. Good, thought Applejack. Don’t you show them fangs right now, little one.

“We don’t jes’ say, we know,” said Snowy. “This proves it. The oldest ponies remember, even older’n me. You kill vampires in different ways, but it’s good to burn ‘em. They dry up or somethin’.”

“Listen here,” said Applejack. “I said not to hurt ‘em, whatever they are. You can’t tell me that din’t hurt the poor helpless critter.”

“It would be nice if folks was more loyal to ponies,” said Snowy.

“And not vampires and monsters!” added Silver. His ears were back, and he breathed in panicky gasps, even after the vampire bunny was dead.

“We need to kill the monsters!” squealed Roseluck. “Before they eat us all!”

Northern Spy drew even closer to Applejack. Her eyes got wider and wider, and she still didn’t speak. Dash stepped across, to stand in front of her as well.

“What’d you mean, learnin’?” demanded Applejack.

Carrot Top spoke. “My Grandma said, when vampires attack, there’s still hope. You can make them fight each other, you can trap them, you can burn them or cut them to tiny bits.” She nodded. She looked a little pale as well, but determined.

Snowy added, “That’s why folks say they burn up in the sun.” He glanced at Hollyhock, and Silver and Roseluck. “It ain’t true as you kin see, but now we know. Folks thought that ‘cos them vampires do burn. What was it your Grandma said, Carrot Top? The older they get, the easier it is to do? S’pose they could go around splashin’ themselves with water, or swimmin’. We kin try and burn one on water, see if it works.”

Hollyhock nodded, seriously. Silver hissed, “Yes! We should find out!”

“Zombies or vampires, what difference does it make to you?” protested Applejack. “There’s timber wolves in the Everfree Forest and you ain’t rushin’ off with all saws in your mouths. How dare you persecute innocent critters that ain’t like you?”

She stepped back, at the glare she got from every other pony on the other side of the bonfire.

“Let me explain somethin’ to you,” said Snowy Hocks. “Just ‘cos we kin fight vampires doesn’t mean they’re safe. Vampires is powerful critters that don’t ever die, an’ prey on the living. A powerful an’ smart vampire could rule all of Ponyville and make us all its slaves. We’re dependin’ on the vampires bein’ dernfools and gettin’ caught the way they always did of old, like the old ponies remember in stories from their grandparents, but it don’t have to go that way. We could have new powerful vampires that don’t make no mistakes. We could have new powerful vampires with powerful friends.”

“The hell you insinuatin’, Snowy Hocks?” snarled Applejack.

“You say zombies and vampires,” said Snowy coldly. “Seems that’s easy for you to say! You wanted us to believe it was zombies. Well, there ain’t no such thing as zombies. But somethin’s makin’ vampires, Miss Applejack. Somethin’ might be makin’ a vampire army to control. And what could that somethin’ be? A vampire, Miss Applejack. Am I goin’ too fast for you?”

“So?” retorted Applejack. “Big deal!” She couldn’t tell if it was Spy behind her trembling, or if her own hocks were shaking.

“Happens it is,” said Snowy placidly. “It is a big deal. Because as you kin see, there is a vampire. Makin’ other vampires.”

“And living in Ponyville!” cried Roseluck, trotting in place anxiously.

“And we’ve all seen her,” said Snowy Hocks.

Applejack stared into his cold eyes. She glanced at the ebbing bonfire. She stared again into the old horse’s eyes, suddenly terrified.

Beside her, Rainbow Dash leaned over, and whispered, “I think he means Fluttershy!”

“Don’t say that name!” whinnied Silver, jumping back in a panic. He kicked the fire up, and Roseluck and Hollyhock also jumped back in alarm.

“Hoo boy,” breathed Applejack. Behind her, Spy pressed against her leg. She was almost sure it was the kid shaking, yet Spy still made not a peep.

“You know what else I’ve seen?” said Rainbow Dash, casually.

“What?” said Silver, rolling his eyes in alarm.

Dash stared right at him. “I saw the Apple Boss Mare. And was she pissed!”

At that, the three farm ponies flinched. The two mares looked puzzled, and Carrot Top rolled her eyes, but Hollyhock, Silver and Snowy suddenly looked worried.

“Yeah?” said Snowy.

“Something about farm ponies being cowardly and thinking of excuses to blow off work,” added Rainbow Dash. “I told her I never heard of that happening. Right, Applejack?”

“Oh!” said Applejack. “Yeah, lil’… ah mean, my fearsome and roughnecked sister Apple Bloom, she was about fit to kick a hole in the barn if ya ask me. She don’t like bein’ mocked. I thought folks generally took their, what do you say, RECREATIONS on their own time, but maybe it’s different these days.”

“It didn’t look different,” said Rainbow Dash. “It looked like she was ready to kick some ass. That’s if she was being nice. Or she might just fire some ponies. Hey, they could all get a job with Carrot Top! You know, if they have a lot in common?”

“What are you talking about, Rainbow Dash?” demanded Carrot Top. “I don’t hire any laborers for my little farm! I’m certainly not going to go and hire a bunch of ponies the Apple farm fires! What do you say to that?”

Rainbow Dash heaved a big, theatrical sigh.

“I’d say, maybe some ponies have some kissing up to the boss to do. And some catching up on their farm work!”

Three sets of farm pony eyes widened. Three farm pony stallions turned without a word, and began to trot, then canter toward Sweet Apple Acres. Carrot Top boggled at them, stamped the dying bonfire once more for good measure, and trotted back to her own farm. Roseluck, her eyes still haunted with fear, drifted off with nervous hoofsteps as if walking in an unsettling dream.

“…are they gone?” whispered Northern Spy, trying to hold her mouth closed while talking.

“Yeah,” confirmed Rainbow Dash.

Spy whirled, and was off, with Applejack galloping close behind her and Rainbow Dash flying air support, watching in every direction for signs of angry townsponies with fire.

They streaked down the streets, around corners, and straight for Twilight Sparkle’s library treehouse. The door was open, but the Apples might have charged straight through it even if it had been closed. Applejack had more difficulty managing the interior of the library at a gallop, and Rainbow Dash knocked over a bookcase, but Northern Spy seemed to not even slow down, zipping ahead.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash, together, descended the secret stairs to the second basement… and gawked at what they found.

Twilight and Trixie were putting the finishing touches on a makeshift corral. In it were no less than five headless vampire bunnies milling about.

And in the center of the room, Gilda Griffin tenderly embraced a hysterical, weeping Northern Spy. But it wasn’t terror for herself that had so upset the vampire filly.

“They burned it up and it was just a monster bunny and they want to burn up vampires and they might try to burn YOU up and please don’t, never, don’t ever let them hurt you, they’re mean horrible and they’re the monsters and we have to keep you safe and protect you and how can I protect you, I’ll do anything, I’ll do anything…”

“Dang,” said Applejack, scratching her head with her hoof.

Rainbow Dash gave her a hug. “That’s our kid all over. Only worried about Gilda, not herself!”

“But is it jes’ some thrall thing?”

Gilda looked up at them. There were tears in her eyes. “I don’t want this,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Dash, “we might have some bad news there.” She gulped, her eyes troubled. “Or you might think it’s good, but Spy’s gonna hate it.”

Twilight trotted over. “Well, we’ve got news too! These are actually vampire bunny bodies. Gilda’s been eating bits of bunny and throwing the rest away, and here they are. We have no idea how many of them are out there. They’re doing ridiculous things to try and get eaten by Gilda, but they’re definitely vampire thralls.”

Applejack gulped. “Yeah. We eventually figured that part out too.”

“There’s more!” said Twilight. “A part of Gilda’s thaumic bandwidth is missing. We’ve done some quick tests and can tentatively say a similar thing about the bunnies, except that the flat absent area is much less noticeable. And now that you’ve rejoined us… just a moment!”

She trotted over. Gilda’s arms tightened protectively around Northern Spy, but she did nothing else as Twilight bent her head, and lavender unicorn horn parted Spy’s cerulean blue mane and glowed slightly, pressing against her filly head.

“Aha!” said Twilight. “Same thing! There’s a piece of Northern Spy missing. It’s in the higher thaumic bandwidth, an area science knows little about. We’re not even sure what it’s for, but these two are missing big chunks of pony magic! Or griffin magic.”

Applejack watched the way Gilda was holding her foal, and gulped. “Ah think maybe Gilda has a little pony magic after all. Aw, Northern Spy!” She trotted forward, and wrapped both foal and griffin in a determined hug. “I’mma hug both of you, ‘cos for now I guess the lovin’s got to go through Gilda, dern it.”

“We already tried that experiment,” said Trixie helpfully. “Gilda did very well at it!”

Applejack and Twilight shared a glance.

“Don’t ask,” said Twilight.

“Don’t need to,” said Applejack.

“This, I could ask,” said Twilight. “A part of Northern Spy’s not there, and her thaumic aura is incomplete. Would you say that she is experiencing changes in thinking or mood?”

“Huh?”

Twilight frowned. “Well, we know so little about it. What I’m driving at is this. Do you feel that Northern Spy’s new behavior is consistent with what she would be as a pony, or are we looking at a serious personality change rendering her unrecognizable?”

“GILDA GRIFFIN!” came a new, tyrannical voice.

Every head turned, and Gilda let out a little squawk of dismay.

Down the stairs hovered Fluttershy, glowering in a rather adorable rage. Behind her walked Zecora, watching the proceedings thoughtfully. And in Fluttershy’s forelegs, cradled like a baby foal, rested another headless vampire bunny.

“Explain,” gritted Fluttershy.

Northern Spy hissed defiantly at her, sensing the anger. Gilda began to weep, unable to even reply.

“Wait, let me hook up these wires!” squeaked Twilight, but Trixie pounced her and sat on her.

Applejack lifted her head, and stared directly at Fluttershy, unflinchingly. “Just a moment, Fluttershy, please.”

“She made these! I’ve seen her rip the head off a bunny!” raged Fluttershy.

“Even so!” insisted Applejack. “There’s more goin’ on around here than you realize. I’m glad you made it here safely.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Why wouldn’t I have?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. But first, promise me you’ll keep calm!”

“Truly an admirable suggestion, dear Applejack!” came a new, distinctly regal voice.

All the ponies brightened, mortal and vampire alike.

Gilda hid her face in her claws. “Oh, nooooo…”

Down the stairs came Princess Celestia herself, with careful little steps. “My! You’ve certainly gathered all the affected beings, Twilight. What are those? Are those bunnies?”

Gilda sobbed, or perhaps laughed. Northern Spy hugged her again, in frantic protectiveness.

“What was that?” prompted Celestia.

This time it was a laugh, unmistakably. “Yeah! There’s some left over,” said Gilda, “help yourself. Hi! Remember me?”

Princess Celestia froze. She studied Gilda, sniffed the air. Her eyes widened, and the feathers on her wings bristled out for a moment, and her tail thrashed.

“I do,” she said. “I remember.”

Gilda smiled up at her, tearfully. “I’m sorry. Guess I fucked up again. Now what?” She seemed calmer, even happy, for as far as she knew her doom had come upon her, and there was nowhere to run, and at least the ponies would be protected. She knew that all too well.

Celestia gazed upon that beatific expression, and took a deep breath.

“I am sorry too.” She shook herself. “Come, Miss Griffin. You have changed your relationship to my little ponies in a miraculous way, when I would have thought you lost to bitterness. Let us honor that by restoring you to life and health… if we can.”

Do It

“Aren’t you listening?” accused Fluttershy. “She hurts bunnies!”

She trailed off, seeing the look in Princess Celestia’s eyes.

“I slew her mother, for devouring ponykind,” said Celestia. “She has forgiven me, somehow. I charge you to forgive her in turn, and for myself I will do all in my power to aid her and you.”

At this revelation, Fluttershy gasped. She looked back and forth between the Princess, the griffin, the headless bunnies, her friends, in a flurry of uncertainty.

Applejack took off her hat, bowing her head. “It’s true,” she said. “She tole me once. Hard times.”

“She never told me!” squeaked Rainbow Dash.

“She din’t want to tell,” said Applejack. “I can see why.”

Fluttershy looked again at the incongruous figure of Gilda Griffin: sitting in a strange equipment-cluttered basement, surrounded by the undead results of her known carnivorous appetites, cuddling an earth pony filly who snuggled back with enthralled fervency, and looking up at the imposing form of the alicorn Princess who had just apologized to her.

“I don’t know what to think about this at all,” said Fluttershy helplessly.

Applejack shook herself, and tamped her hat back down onto her head. “You know, Fluttershy? I ‘spect that’s okay. We got stuff to do here and we are all lookin’ at a mighty different world than we got up this mornin’ expectin’ to see. If we’re done with the apologizing I do believe it is time to cure some vamp.”

“Yeah!” cheered Rainbow Dash, doing a loop-de-loop and knocking over the hapless trebuchet.

“Who put a catapult down here?” blinked Applejack. “What’s it even supposed to hit? Anyways, thank goodness we got you here, Fluttershy! It was lookin’ like we were gonna have to send out somepony to get you!”

Fluttershy was still trying to get her bearings. “But why do you need me? I’m not that important. You should try to cure Gilda. And these poor bunnies she ate!” She glowered at Gilda, who cringed away from her.

“You might cure ‘em,” suggested Applejack, “but it may not help all that much, considering.”

“True,” said Fluttershy, pouting. “We have to do something, they’re not happy bunnies at all. I certainly can’t cure them, and I’m very cross with Gilda right now, so why don’t I go back home? You can send for me if you work out how to do it.”

“No!” cried all the Apples, in chorus… even Northern Spy.

Fluttershy cowered back. “I’m sorry! Was I rude? I didn’t mean to be!”

“It ain’t that,” said Applejack. “It’s the townsponies! It’s what they’re doing!”

Princess Celestia’s eyes widened. “Oh, my. Am I reading too much into that? Applejack, what are my little ponies doing now?”

“Only burning up vampires in a fire!” replied Applejack. “Fluttershy, don’t you leave this basement until it’s safe!”

Twilight shook off Trixie and sprang to her hooves. “What is this? What vampires? There’s more?”

Her glance followed Applejack’s, to the little corral of unhappy, annoyed vampire bunnies.

“Oh.”

Celestia was just as quick on the uptake. “Oh, my. Gilda Griffin presumably bit these? Did you say the townsponies found some, and knew what they were? They must be resorting to old stories passed on through generations! And of course, sometimes those stories are true.”

Fluttershy’s eyes were huge. “Ponyville is burning up bunnies? VAMPIRE bunnies?”

“And they might not stop there!” insisted Applejack. “So we got to gather all the vamps up an’… HEY! WHOA!”

“Fluttershy! No!” wailed Rainbow Dash, but she was too late. Fluttershy had whirled and fled the basement.

“Go get her, Rainbow!” cried Applejack.

Dash blasted up the stairs and out of the library, but in seconds she was back. “I can’t even see her, she’s gone! She’s really going for it. Do you think she’s rescuing more headless bunnies? One thing about it, there’s no way townsponies can catch her in that mood.”

“We don’t know that,” worried Applejack. “Spy, stay with Gilda! Gilda, you stay as well! Rainbow, can you fly a quick search pattern? She might be searching the Everfree…”

She trailed off. Back down the stairs flew Fluttershy, looking haggard and exhausted, panting with effort.

In her forelegs was cradled a small white form: Angel Bunny.

“Uhhh… All righty then,” said Applejack. She scratched her head. “Good thinkin’.”

“Please tell me everything about all of this,” said Fluttershy. “Do we have to hide down here from now on? I’m good at being very quiet. Will Twilight and Princess Celestia protect us? Who will feed my animals and birds?”

Twilight perked up a little, noticing the order of protecting that had occurred to Fluttershy. “Absolutely! And we’re going to do experiments, and find out how to cure vampirism. Or die trying!”

Fluttershy whinnied in alarm. “Please don’t! There are enough dead things walking around already. Let’s all be nice and gentle and maybe the angry townsponies won’t hate us?”

Gilda nodded. “You said it.”

That got her a hurt glare from Fluttershy. “You’re one to talk! How many more of those poor bunnies did you attack?”

Gilda cringed. “Uhh…”

All stopped, as Angel Bunny hopped out of Fluttershy’s embrace. He’d spotted the corral, and hopped over to see what it was.

“Oh gosh!” said Twilight breathlessly. “Brace yourselves, everypony! I think he may be preparing to command them all. Trixie, get ready to form up with me in case we need to meld and put up a protective force field!”

Celestia blinked. “But, we had not been aware the influence extended to thralls of thralls of thralls. Are you sure?”

Twilight waved a hoof frantically. Angel was climbing onto a box, to see into the corral better.

His ears went back in alarm, and his little eyes widened. One, then another of the headless vampire bunnies turned as if sensing his presence.

The ponies watched in silence as the nearest headless bunny flipped Angel off, and returned to trying to climb the walls of its prison.

Angel stuck out his tongue, and hopped back to snuggle with Fluttershy.

“I don’t think he counts as their boss,” said Applejack. “Leastways, if he is they jes’ fired his ass. Do you think we can get more of ‘em before the townsponies burn ‘em?”

“Mayhap it is time,” said Princess Celestia, “to gather as many of them as we can find. Fluttershy, I would rather you stay here where it’s safe…”

“Yes please,” said Fluttershy quickly.

“But I can certainly take to the air and search,” said Princess Celestia, “and perhaps it will have a desirable effect on the mood of the town to witness their Princess doing that.” She glanced at Twilight, uncertain how her suggestion would be taken.

“I came through the Everfree Forest,” volunteered Gilda. “And it seems like they’re trying to find me, so they might be coming from there. But I don’t know whether they get lost more easily without a head.”

“Trixie?” said Twilight. “We might not be able to fly, but unicorn magic can carry a dead bunny and we can run. We’ll join you, Princess!”

“Woohoo!” cheered Rainbow Dash. “Count me in! We’ll find all the bunnies, Fluttershy, guaranteed!”

“Me too!” insisted Northern Spy, and the other ponies fell silent.

“Spy, honey?” said Applejack. “You’re a vampire. Shouldn’t you stay here with Gilda?”

Northern Spy’s expression was serious. Her ears were laid back in concern, and her little tail flicked. “Nuh-uh. Mom? I watched them burn up one of our monster bunnies. I watched it burn up into ashes.” She gulped. “I know Gilda is safe now. I jes’ have to help you. We gotta get all the bunnies in here where we can protect them.”

Rainbow’s eyes glistened. “Aw, kiddo.” She thought hard for a moment. “I know you’re fast, but that might not be enough. What if you get trapped somehow?”

“I won’t!” vowed Northern Spy.

“Wait, wait, hear me out. Will you agree to cover the plains out between Ponyville and Fillydelphia?” demanded Rainbow Dash.

Spy blinked. “Why?”

“Because that’s a big area that will take both of us to cover,” explained Dash, “and because it’s open. That way, even if angry pony mobs do get you and they have fire, I’ll have line of sight. And you’ll have room to run away very fast.” She gave a dangerous grin. “And if I see anypony trying to hurt you, they’re not going to have anything for long.”

Slowly, Northern Spy’s grin matched Rainbow Dash’s. “You got a deal!”

“I will search the Everfree Forest!” declaimed Princess Celestia. “And do a fly-over of Ponyville, so they can see me. Twilight Sparkle, are we ready?”

Twilight stamped a hoof. “Applejack, you cover Sweet Apple Acres, you know it better than anypony. Trixie, head up by Whitetail Woods. I’ll cover the northwest out by Froggy Bottom Bog. Uh… are you able to carry these safely, Applejack? The Princess and I can use magic but you can’t, and if they originate in the Everfree we might see more of them.”

Applejack blinked. “Oh. Right. They ain’t zombies, after all. Are they?”

“Well, how were you carrying them?” said Twilight.

Applejack’s ears were back. “Uhh… by the paw? Real gentle-like?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “In your MOUTH?”

“How else?” retorted Applejack. “All right. Dashie, how about we just locate the buggers if we can? Trixie, you mind swappin’ places? I will hunt the Whitetail Woods. You go and look around Sweet Apple Acres, and y’all unicorns and such kin carry the vampbunnies without risk of bitin’ em. In retrospect that there is surely a thing, ain’t it?” She looked a little sick.

“We’ll give you a magical checkup when we get back,” promised Twilight.

“Yep,” said Applejack. “You do that. All right, ponies… move out!”

The little corral was nearly overflowing with bunnies… at least, when they climbed on top of each other in efforts to clear the makeshift fence.

The bunny pyramids were probably the most effective, but Trixie would just boop the top bunny in the chest with her hoof and smirk as the tower fell over in a bloody, fluffy pile.

“You’re enjoying that!” accused Twilight.

“Trixie is sorry,” said Trixie hastily. “Do you need help testing the ponies?”

Twilight shook her head. “Nope. Applejack, first you, then we check out Fluttershy for that thaumic absence. I can handle it, Trixie, so go ahead and play with the bunnies. I guess it keeps them occupied.”

Applejack’s ears flattened as Twilight’s horn nestled against her mane, pressing gently against her forehead. “Why am I gettin’ flashbacks of amorous unicorns?”

“Sh,” said Twilight. “It’s just proximity. I’ve had some training. Just relax…”

“You were pretty dern snuggly even without training!” protested Applejack. Behind her, Rainbow Dash cracked up, and Princess Celestia blushed.

“Sh! All done,” said Twilight. “Congratulations! You’re not a vampire.”

“I din’t feel like no vampire,” said Applejack.

“Well, now we know. Fluttershy! Science awaits,” said Twilight. “I don’t think you need to take off the fake mane for this.”

Fluttershy’s face went pink to match her mane extensions. “Hmph! Very thoughtful, Twilight. Does it tickle, or hurt?”

“Felt like a big nothin’ to me,” suggested Applejack. “You go ahead now.”

Twilight bent her head, and Fluttershy’s eyes nervously tracked the lavender horn as it pressed her forehead. Her nervousness didn’t improve much from then on. Twilight began to frown and make faces.

“Eep!” squeaked Fluttershy. A faint scintillation of magic coated Twilight’s horn. It did, apparently, tickle.

“Okay, what did you do?” demanded Twilight, looking up.

“What?”

“You’re a vampire,” accused Twilight. “You’ve got the same area of thaumic blank as the other vampires. But those wavelengths are coming in as interference! How is that even possible? And it’s a more complicated pattern than just what’s missing from your own magic!”

“Steady, Twi,” urged Applejack, but neither she nor any other pony had an explanation.

However, Zecora was smiling.

“You speak of interference as if it would make her ill. I’m pleased to see my gift to her supports our darling still!”

Twilight turned. “You know what this is, Zecora? What’s happening here?”

“I cannot cure her vampire-ness, nor can I make her whole,” admitted Zecora. “But, all the same, our zebra ways can yet preserve her soul.”

“Her what?” demanded Twilight.

“It seems your goal’s to find her soul,” said Zecora. “Not hard to do: look before you!”

Twilight stared at Fluttershy again, who backed away skittishly.

“Listen,” said Twilight. “Fluttershy, and the other vampires, are missing a part of their pony magic. It’s a fairly high thaumic bandwidth sometimes associated with compassion and generosity, and it’s all perfectly scientific. I’m not sure it’s useful to get into… woo-woo spooky zebra theology. Didn’t you say once you kept ancestors in masks, even though they’re clearly just cultural studies and house decorations?”

Zecora’s nostrils flared in outrage. “I helped our vampire more than you—pretty purple pony-poo!”

As Rainbow Dash cracked up again and fell over with a flutter of wings, Princess Celestia cleared her throat. “Please do not argue! Twilight Sparkle, do I understand you correctly? Fluttershy too lacks these thaumic energies, but you sense them nearby?”

“But they’re not attached!” explained Twilight. “It’s like there’s a fracture, an absence. But they’re around here somewhere!”

Zecora snorted, but subsided at a glance from Fluttershy who said, “I’ll explain it to them, Zecora. And thank you, all over again.”

“Please do!” said Twilight. “This is news to me.”

“Zecora says she’s caught my soul, just like in those masks they make,” said Fluttershy. “She put it in, um, you know. My mane. That’s why I can look like a pony mare again when I wear it and the tail. It is so very comforting! I feel better, and I don’t even look like a vampire so long as I keep the mane and tail on. Maybe I don’t deserve to feel like a pony, but it really does help me a lot.”

Twilight’s mind was clearly whirring. “So, these areas of thaumic absence: they’re not simply the burning out of the energies. They actually separate from the pony and go somewhere…”

“Or the bunny!” suggested Applejack, her ears perked up with interest.

“And Zecora caught yours!” finished Twilight. “And stuck it in a wig and gave it back to you!”

Fluttershy blushed and scowled at the same time. “They’re extensions! I still have a mane. It’s not as nice as my real one, it’s scruffier and won’t flow properly but it does still exist!”

“Same difference,” said Twilight dismissively. “Wow! So we can go looking for the energies, and… what if we can graft them back into the pony again? Maybe that’s the cure we’ve been looking for! We can cure all the vampires with unicorn magic!”

“Woo!” cheered Rainbow Dash. “I knew you could figure it out, Twi!”

Twilight turned to confront Fluttershy again. “Why are your energies distorted? Do they get changed when they get stuck in a wig, or did they start to wear out and not fit as well? There’s a sort of echo interference effect that’s not part of the missing pattern at all, what’s that?”

Fluttershy cowered away with an eep. “I don’t know! I promise I really don’t know, don’t be angry? It just makes me feel better, I don’t know anything about it!”

Twilight whirled. “Well then. Zecora! How do you do this? How do you catch their energies and stick them in masks and things? You may be able to save the lives of vampires and vampire victims everywhere if we can do this on a large scale.”

Zecora regarded her with faint scorn and great patience, clearly considering her answer but not volunteering it.

“I said…” began Twilight impatiently.

“If you wish to shelter souls, you will need some useful goals,” said Zecora. “Do not rush and fret and squeal. Learn to wait, to breathe, to feel.”

Twilight blinked. “Well, that’s a start. To translate from zebronic a little, I think we’re talking about calming the psychic and thaumic energies, though what breathing has to do with thinking is anypony’s guess.”

Zecora’s eyes widened, and then she visibly forced herself to be calm and placid once more. “When mind and heart are calm and still, that is when you turn your will to what lures your spirit friend: a candle of a special blend. Melt wax that no taint perturbs, infuse with the secret herbs… light it, while you calmly do your incantation firm and true…”

As she spoke, her voice grew more portentuous and mystical with each word.

Twilight Sparkle’s did not follow suit. “Can we dispense with the voodoo spooky business?” she objected. “I’m sure it’s a lot of fun but we’re wasting valuable time.”

Zecora twitched. “Valued what, sparkle butt?” she retorted, frostily.

“Well, we have a pegasus, an earth pony foal, a griffin and a pile of dead bunnies. It’s a big pile of dead bunnies. Can you recite calm incantations real quick?”

Zecora’s ears were laid back hard in outrage, and her nostrils were flared, yet still she contained any outburst. Fluttershy’s sympathetic look probably helped. After a moment, Zecora did speak, as calm as ever.

“My business is, indeed, my own. The evidence of it is shown in Fluttershy’s fine tail and mane. Compared to that, what use your brain?”

Twilight bridled. “It’s lots of use, you’ll see! If you could do this with mumbo jumbo I can certainly do it with unicorn magic, probably quicker and better, and for your information we ARE all trying to do essentially the same thing…”

She trailed off. A gentle hoof was restraining her, before she could advance on Zecora whilst arguing every step of the way. It was well thought of, for she could see Zecora smirking at her discomfiture. It was also Princess Celestia’s hoof, and that fact was unavoidably distracting, for it seemed an awfully tender and personal touch as if the Princess was trying to gather her into an embrace.

“Twilight,” urged the Princess, “why don’t we do it her way and you study that? We might learn something. If it works, we can worry about making the process more efficient later.”

Twilight took a moment to catch her breath, for being touched by Celestia had left her wide-eyed and quivery. She blushed, looked down at her hooves in embarrassment: behind her, Rainbow Dash snickered merrily, having witnessed a telltale mare-ly reaction that had nothing to do with vampires or incantations.

“Fine,” said Twilight truculently. “How do we know if it works? What happens? By that I mean, what testable thing can we observe if we get a soul, or whatever it really is in scientific terms? Do they cast a chill, or blow out candles or something?”

Zecora was smiling, which irritated Twilight. The zebra mare said, “It’s spirit form, but all the same you’ll see it stir the candle flame. Don’t sulk, dear Twilight, come with me and we’ll go to my hut and see about infusing candle glow with things you’d neither guess nor know…”

Her indulgent smile dimmed, as Twilight shook off Celestia’s gentle hoof and confronted her.

“Wormwood,” declared Twilight Sparkle, challengingly. “And not just wormwood. Essence of wormwood sap gathered during the full moon.”

Zecora’s eyes widened, and her ears went back. “How do you know this?”

“Aha!” grinned Twilight. “Got you! You didn’t even rhyme that time!”

Zecora shook herself. “Forgive that blight: I meant no slight. This is a shock. Please, Twilight, talk!”

Twilight’s smile was all delightful mischief. “I bet you think I’ve been spying on you, huh? To know something like that? Wait, wait, let me try again. Goldenrod. And you’d better not tell me you need lots of it, because it’s bad for you and will make you feel terrible.”

Zecora gulped. “Nay, just the tiniest little bit: to use a large amount of it is dangerous, that much is true. Who told these secret things to you?”

“Am I wrong?” demanded Twilight. She stopped, staring into space. “Wait, wait… also, you have to hit the cider, don’t you? I bet part of it is getting drunk. Not seriously drunk, but tipsy.”

Zecora stared at her, jaw dangling. She reeled it in, and gulped, seemingly not daring to blink. She glanced at Fluttershy, and she spoke.

“Please tell me how you know these things, Twilight Sparkle. Such power is dangerous in those not prepared for the responsibility.”

On either side, a trusted pony moved closer: for Twilight, Princess Celestia made her presence known. For Zecora, it was Fluttershy who drew near, sensing the seriousness of the moment in the intimacy of non-rhymed speech from the zebra mare.

Rainbow Dash loomed, too, but mostly because of the ‘hit the cider’ part.

Twilight looked into Zecora’s alarmed, concerned eyes, and came clean. “I don’t know all of it, Zecora. I’m guessing. I’m doing well, huh? I don’t mean to frighten you. It seems you must be upset to not be rhyming: you seem so serious.”

“I am,” said Zecora. “I am afraid you will steal pony souls and not know how to care for them.”

“How about I tell you my train of thought?” said Twilight. “Princess, you can tell me if I’m way off base. Zecora, let me know how close I am to the truth.”

The shaken zebra mare nodded. “Our thoughts, perhaps, we can exchange. Your power’s marvellous and strange.” She kept staring at Twilight as if expecting her to do a trick.

“Okay,” said Twilight, taking a breath. “I’m guessing wormwood because it contains antagonists for brain receptors. That sounds bad, but it means you might have neurons firing more easily, and I’m guessing you go into sort of an altered state so I was trying to think of herbs and compounds that would mess with your mind. Ethanol as found in cider might condition that somewhat and help prevent you from getting a dangerous dose. Actually, that was the easy one, goldenrod was more of a long shot. It occurred to me that the benzofuran ketones in goldenrod damage a pony by causing small foci of skeletal muscle degeneration and necrosis. And call me crazy, but what if you guys were cranking up your zebra magic and needed to produce tiny bits of necrosis actually in the spellcaster to catch a stray magic emanation that is actually let loose by what is, pardon me for saying it, a dead body?”

A roomful of ponies stared at her, dumbfounded.

“Does that mean we get to drink some cider now?” asked Rainbow Dash.

She squeaked, as Applejack pounced her and sat on her.

“Your words seem to be clever ones,” said Zecora carefully. “Is this a thing that you have done?”

“Oh, no!” said Twilight. “I was just running my brain! Because, um… you didn’t seem very respectful.”

Zecora tactfully didn’t point out that this disrespect had been mutual. “Your brain runs quick and wild and free! This is miraculous to me. You’ll never see this zebra scorn the genius of a unicorn!”

Twilight smiled and blushed, and blushed worse when Princess Celestia cuddled her briefly with one mighty alabaster wing. “Aw! But the thing is, Zecora, I just guessed some of your material components. Am I right that it takes a toll on the caster? That you have to recover afterward?”

Zecora nodded. “Indeed it does, Miss Sparkle. It’s far from feeling nice.” She nuzzled Fluttershy. “The benefit, however, is worth the highest price.”

“Well, maybe I can help with that!” offered Twilight. “My hunch is that you’re probably still using more goldenrod than you need. If you need loci of death and necrosis within the caster, it almost certainly is no more than a catalyst. You could have almost arbitrarily little damage. I strongly recommend we try this with only the slightest traces of goldenrod. Among other things, we’ve got a foal present.”

“Hey!” objected Northern Spy.

“Sorry, a filly,” corrected Twilight.

Applejack blinked. “Jes’ a moment. You’re about to try a thing for curing Spy and returning her to life?”

“Yes we are,” said Twilight, “and the last thing we want to do is give her loci of death and necrosis in her body, she’s still just a kid!”

Twilight blinked. Everypony was staring at her again.

“Uh, Twi?” said Rainbow Dash. “What the heck are you talking about? She’s already a dead kid. If you can bring her to life again I think we can put up with whatever you think is gonna happen!”

“Dang straight,” said Applejack. “Do it!”

“Can I…” began Rainbow.

“Nope,” replied Applejack firmly.

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“Wanna bet?” quipped Applejack wryly, and Rainbow subsided with a flutter of cerulean wings.

Zecora lifted her head. “We shall work mighty magics, Twilight, between me and you! Accompany me to my hut and we will soon begin to brew!” She began to trot up the stairs and out of the basement.

“Nope!” said Twilight.

Zecora froze. “Why do you say nope? Surely there is hope?”

Twilight had the ‘I’m an amazing unicorn and this is my lab’ smile going again. “I mean, don’t bother going to your hut. Have you even looked around this place? I could hook you up to an electrothaumigram in two minutes. I have every single material component you’ll need, right here.”

Zecora stared. “Moon-harvested wormwood? Goldenrod extract? Cider?”

“Yep!” said Twilight.

“YOU have extra…”

“Shush, Dashie,” said Applejack warningly. “First things first!”

Zecora shook herself. “Left and right hoofed clover? Beeswax? Wick of woven splinters from the north side of a willow tree felled by thunderbolt?”

“Did she say Wonderbolt?” said Rainbow Dash.

“Nope,” said Applejack.

“Oh,” said Dash. “Cos you know if they were flying at top speed and went into a tree, it would TOTALLY fell that…”

“Shush, Dashie,” said Applejack.

Twilight was thinking. “Yes, yes, yes in spite of Rainbow Dash, yes and yes, yes… Zecora, I’m willing to bet I can take a piece of willow and weave it into splinters and it’ll work. Yes.”

Zecora blinked. “Twilight, we must use a wick that’s taken quite a jolt. Has your willow had at least one wonder of a bolt?”

“Okay, NOW she’s just messing with me…” objected Rainbow Dash.

“Sh!” said Applejack, and gave her a little kiss.

“I’ll hit it with a magic discharge and ground it to something,” said Twilight. “It might not be a lightning bolt but it’ll break down barriers to thaumic energy and that’s got to be the reason for that condition. How about it?”

Zecora considered the idea. “That, I’ll buy. Worth a try!”

The two went off together to rummage through Twilight’s piles of stuff.

Zecora turned to address the onlookers. “If we wish the souls for sure, we must also use a lure! Please consider, before we start, what attracts the pony’s heart.” She directed a loving glance to Fluttershy, and then resumed rummaging through Twilight’s boxes of junk.

Applejack scratched her head. “Huh. Come again?”

Zecora turned. “Souls don’t die with mortal form. Flung into the thankless storm of nothingness, they seek a home. Finding none, they sadly roam far and wide for comfort’s sake: lost and unable to shake the scent of doom that hunts them down, the ocean in which they will drown.” She shuddered, and turned to hunting through boxes with even more determination.

Rainbow gasped. “Spy’s soul’s gonna DROWN?”

“We gotta find it, I guess!” said Applejack. “Or we gotta lure it?”

“What about mine?” squawked Gilda. “Shit! We have to go find it before it drowns? Where the fuck is it supposed to be anyway?”

Applejack thought hard. “She said, what attracts that pony’s heart. I reckon it’s the same for griffins. You’re super bent outta shape over Fluttershy. You figure your soul’s hangin’ around Fluttershy?”

Zecora turned. “That for which she’d strive, were she still alive!”

“Aha!” cried Twilight. “Here goes…”

A bright flash of light burst forth, leaving a smell of charred willow and the scent of melting beeswax, odd odors wafting forth from where the zebra and unicorn frantically worked.

“While she was alive,” said Applejack. “While she was alive…” Her eyes widened. “Uhhh… I know one thing Gilda sure did like while she was alive.”

“Twilight, do you have your magic bit handy?” called Dash.

“Are you crazy?” yelled Twilight. “Shut up and let us work!”

Applejack had gone pale. “Rainbow, not in front of Spy!”

“Yeah, well, do you want results or don’t you?” retorted Dash. “This part is serious, in case you didn’t notice!”

Gilda’s eyes were wide. “It’s not a bad idea. I remember the old days, Dash. Maybe you don’t even need a bit.” She winced, shaking her head. “I’m trying to get past the feelings about Fluttershy. Those are all vampire stuff… well, mostly? You know, Dash, if Fluttershy’s soul ran to Zecora, that’s not such a crazy idea. My soul might be hangin’ out between your legs.”

“Watch it!” scolded Applejack.

“Or yours!” added Gilda, hastily.

“It would,” sniffed Fluttershy. “Try to avoid setting Rainbow Dash’s vagina on fire with the candle, okay?”

Dash’s eyes were wide. “Do you think I ought to try clopping… WITH the candle?”

“Oh, for pony’s sake!” snorted Applejack. She led Spy away. “C’mon, we’re gonna hang out here for a while and think of what your soul might go to. Don’t pay them no mind, please.”

Zecora had turned her head again, while Twilight worked on the candle. “Though the idea is clever and sly, probably sensible, well worth a try, PLEASE don’t mix soul-candle with her marehood. The soul might get stuck to her pussy for good!”

“You mean like in flight school?” said Gilda.

Dash grinned. “Exactly! I always thought it was weird you could totally forget about me and be all into Fluttershy just like that. Now we know the truth! Griffin bait, coming right up!” Her hoof darted back between her legs and began to fiddle.

“Dang it, you wacked out pleasure horse!” cursed Applejack.

“You got it!” chirped Dash cheerfully. “It’s a calling!” A faint wet noise met the air as the pegasus’s body began to respond to her eager will.

Spy blinked. “Why do I smell wrestling?”

“Never you mind,” gruffed Applejack. “Talk to me about the kinda stuff you wanted th’ most. And don’t pay no attention to the mare behind the curtain.” She lifted her head. “Put up a dang curtain, will ya?”

Twilight’s horn lit. A curtain floated over, tactfully concealing Rainbow Dash. if not her happy moaning.

“And now she sounds like bedtime!” objected Spy. Princess Celestia desperately tried to suppress giggles.

“Shush!” said Applejack, blushing. “All right, Spy, what kin we use? Never mind them. We’re talkin’ about you. Favorite snacks or somethin’? Cozy snuggles for a cute lil’ Apple filly?”

“We have the candle!” called Twilight. “Lighting it, now!”

A strange smell filled the air, and the corners of the room seemed to go darker. Uncanny energies seemed to throng and pervade the basement space.

Zecora cried out, “Praise the Elders, we succeed! This will answer to our need! Now, which vampire suffers worst? Who shall be the one that’s first?”

The candle blew out.

“Damn it!” cursed Twilight. “I was sure that was gonna stay lit! Just a moment.” Her horn glowed, and the candle flickered to life again.

Applejack turned to Spy, ignoring the Dashian sounds from behind the curtain. “Come on, honey. We gotta find the thing you can’t resist. Maybe my special Apple Brown Betty? Or… I’m not sure I can bring ‘winning a race’ in here, but if I gave Dashie a smack and got her to run a few laps with us? Prob’ly be an improvement over what she is doin’ ta be honest…”

“Mom?” said Northern Spy. “I feel funny.”

“Aw, dear Celestia,” moaned Applejack.

“Yes?” said Princess Celestia.

“No, I meant…”

The fumes thickened.

“Now we’ve got this candle lit!” exulted Twilight. “Okay! Trixie, with me, let’s magemeld! We’re going to try to graft stray thaumic energy back into a vampire and cure it. So which one do we do first?”

The candle blew out again.

“Argh!”

“Mom?” said Northern Spy. “It’s even worse! Except…” she frowned, wrinkling her forehead. “It feels good? Warm?”

As Twilight re-lit the candle, Trixie’s eyes widened. “Could it be?” she breathed.

“Okay, we’d better get a move on,” called Twilight, but then Trixie shushed her.

“Trixie wonders how certain spirits would feel,” said Trixie Lulamoon, “if we do the griffin FIRST!”

The candle not only blew out, but got knocked across the room and fell into the corral of dead bunnies.

All eyes widened.

“GOT her!” cried Trixie. “Miss Rainbow Dash, continue your own efforts. We have lured the soul of the mad little earth pony filly!”

“Eeee!” cried Applejack, hugging Spy. “Git ready!”

Twilight’s horn lit, and she grabbed the candle with it, and lit the wick one more time. “Okay! No more blowing the candle out! Because Northern Spy, Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s foal…”

“Filly!” yelled Spy, and the candle blew out for a fourth time.

“Quit it!” ordered Twilight, wild-eyed. “Crazy kid! You’re gonna be the first ever cured, happy now? Leave the candle ON in case we need it. I don’t know how this works. Trixie, with me!”

The two unicorns concentrated. Zecora frowned.

“You’ve done so well,” she scolded, “why don’t you know? These energies must gently flow!”

Twilight bared her teeth, making a little whinny of effort. Trixie squeezed her eyes shut, straining. Their horns’ glow merged and surrounded Northern Spy, who lifted into the air, wide-eyed.

“You cannot force this, stupid horses!” raged Zecora. “Fool! Dunce! Relax at once!”

Then, she backed away, for Princess Celestia had loomed before her, bending over the straining unicorns.

“Let me help,” she said: and her voice held the peace of eternity, beyond the concerns of mortal ponies.

Princess Celestia leaned over, and cuddled both Twilight and Trixie to her in her large, majestic wings. She shut her eyes, and her own horn lit, with a softer glow that merged with that of the frantic unicorns.

Everything seemed to go quiet and gentle.

Northern Spy’s whole body flashed in the color of the merged magic, and she gasped. Her eyes were wide, staring out at the world in shock.

“Mom!” she squeaked.

Celestia lowered her head, and the magic aura died away, though Twilight continued to support Spy. She wobbled. “Did it work?” she said. She concentrated, and her eyes widened. “Oh, wow!”

Trixie squeed. “Mistress! You did it! We did it! We cured her!”

A huge smile spread across Spy’s face. “I’m alive! I’m, like, a real live pony! YAHOO! Put me down!”

She began to kick in midair, and hastily Twilight dropped the levitation spell, and dropped the excited filly.

“Yaaah!” squealed Spy sharply, hitting the floor with a wham. “Ow! Ow ow ow!” She raised a hoof. It dangled, bent in the wrong place.

“Aw, horseapples!” cursed Applejack, but she couldn’t stop grinning. “Well, Northern Spy! I guess this time you best get fixed up the earth pony way, huh?”

Rainbow Dash had dropped her soul-luring efforts and burst through the curtain the instant she’d heard what was happening. She couldn’t stop grinning either. “My baby!”

Spy gave her a stern look. “No wrestling right now! My hoof is f… messed up.”

“I won’t, I promise,” said Dash. She was wobbling with relief, but also from her determined efforts to clop herself senseless for Science and Griffin.

“Hooray!” cheered Fluttershy. “The unicorns and the Princess will save everypony!”

“What about me over here?!” yelled Gilda.

Twilight and Trixie stared at each other.

“Do you think Rainbow Dash’s vagina attracted Gilda’s soul yet?” said Twilight.

“Just look at it!” replied Trixie.

They didn’t have to look for long. Dash was facing her mate and kid, but her hindquarters were facing the unicorns and griffin, and Dash’s vagina was a disaster in a lube factory with a dose of heat-induced swelling. And Gilda wore the same haunted, charmed look that Spy’d worn when she felt her soul near her.

“Link up, Trixie!” ordered Twilight. “That soul’s gotta be right around here! In fact it’s gonna be right there!”

“Relax your cares, you silly mares!” pleaded Zecora. “Is not your goal to soothe a soul?”

Princess Celestia turned to regard her. “I’m sorry. It is their nature to strive. Perhaps it’s easier for me to understand your ways: I have had to seek calm about many things, even in the face of strong feeling. Until my little ponies can summon up the meditative calm of a zebra shaman, I will help them make the connection.”

She turned to enfold Twilight and Trixie in her wings again, and bowed her head in concentration. The magic glow enveloped Gilda.

The result was not quite what anyone had expected.

Gilda screamed. She flung her talons up to cover her face. She writhed, trying to evade some kind of attack, but there was nothing near her, nothing at all. The ponies scrambled away, Spy hopping on three legs, pressing up against the walls in attempts to get clear of the freaked-out griffin.

And all the while, Gilda squalled, and something invisible pummeled her… but instead of invisible blows punishing her, it seemed like damage just came into existence for no reason. She cried, her face all beaten up, feathers disheveled, shoulders bruised.

And as she curled up trying to ward off the damage… a bite mark clearly and visibly came into existence on her hind paw.

Gilda sagged, breathing hard, but alive: no longer a vampire griffin.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t stop staring at Gilda’s hind leg. “Hey, kid. Does that look familiar to you?”

Northern Spy, holding her foreleg in the air, gaped at the wrecked griffin. “Whoa! That’s right where I bit her, back when all this started. It came back! But I didn’t do all that other stuff, Mom, I swear I didn’t!”

Fluttershy whimpered, “Twilight, something went wrong! You hurt her!” She began to rush forward to comfort the stricken Gilda, but then Gilda lifted her head and looked right at Fluttershy, and Applejack, and Rainbow Dash.

There was no mistaking it. She bore exactly, exactly the same injuries she’d long since vampirically healed, back when she’d jumped a pegasus guard and Fluttershy had beaten the living crap out of her: beaten the life out of her, to be accurate.

They could even see the bite mark Fluttershy had left on her shoulder, that nopony had thought to remark upon at the time.

Gilda’s expression was unreadable, thanks to her pain and her injuries. She just panted, hanging in there, tough like any griffin and not letting a severe beating get her down.

They heard a sob. They turned again. Twilight Sparkle had eyes only for Fluttershy.

Trixie and Princess Celestia stared at Twilight in horror as Twilight began to weep and then crumpled to the floor in despair.

Gilda was going to need medical help, but Fluttershy was not going to be cured of vampirism at all, ever. She had endured unimaginable punishment in her vampiric form, everything from repeated and desired damage by Dursaa to aggressive farm pony gangbanging to the fight with Gilda, a fullgrown griffin, right up to being impaled through the heart by a mad alicorn Princess’s last act as an alicorn.

Those who knew all of vampire Fluttershy’s secrets knew that, if she were to re-take every act of violence that had marked her, there wouldn’t even be enough left for a decent burial.

Fluttershy’s lip quivered. Just as Twilight had stared at her, she now regarded Twilight Sparkle: her horn, in particular. Perhaps not the innocent little unicorn horn, but rather what once had been there. All could see Fluttershy remembering what had happened to her, how it had felt, what it would mean to be restored to her mortal form.

She went very pale.

“I thought this day might come,” said Fluttershy in a small voice. She gulped, and looked around. “I love you all. Thank you for so much… Take care of Angel. Zecora, take care of Angel for me.”

As ponies, zebra and Princess looked on in horror, Fluttershy stepped forward. Twilight looked up, racked with guilt, and Fluttershy’s nose nuzzled hers. The gentle vampegasus spoke.

“It’s for the best. You’ve known the risks all along, I could tell. I didn’t fool you for a moment, and now here we are. Please understand I would rather this be from you than an angry, burny mob. It’s okay, Twilight. I forgive you. And what’s done is done…”

Twilight shook her head desperately. Gilda, nearby, watched through narrowed, bludgeoned eyes. Fluttershy glanced at her too, then seemed to grow more certain.

“It’s time, Twilight,” she said. “Do it.”

Her eyes widened at a flicker of motion, and then Gilda was on her.

Accept The Magic

“Eee!” squeaked Fluttershy, flapping as best she could, but it was useless.

Gilda had her in a very determined and very strong hug.

“Shh,” she urged. “Nuu. Uh-uh. Nuh baby…”

“What are you doing?” wailed Fluttershy, her voice shaking. “It’s time for me to go! Get out of the way before my nerve fails, I’m not a brave pony!”

Gilda turned her head, and that beat-up visage glared at Twilight’s submissive form. “If you do it, I swear I’ll fucking take you apart.”

“I’m not!” cried Twilight.

“She won’t,” confirmed Princess Celestia, shaken. “Calm yourself. Nopony is going to do anything until we understand what’s happened here.”

“Yeah well I understand enough,” said Gilda, “be quiet!”

Shocked, Princess Celestia did as she was asked, glancing around to check that her ponies weren’t freaking out. But the only one freaking out was Twilight, and she just lay on the floor crying, Trixie coming to her aid with cuddles and soft words.

“What’s that noise upstairs?” said Dash, ears perking.

“Probably more bunnies,” said Applejack.

Gilda ignored them all.

“Shhh,” she said to Fluttershy, “we’re not gonna talk that way, okay? We’re just gonna be gentle and nice, like you taught me…”

Fluttershy struggled weakly. Her eyes were terrible to look into, glistening with pain and repressed tears, too wide, staring into some awful fate without the acceptance she’d hoped to find for herself. “Stop it!” she sobbed. “How dare you interfere! What gives you the right to protect me?”

“Name one thing in this room with a better right to,” retorted Gilda.

“I’m not safe to exist!” wailed Fluttershy. “Is this some kind of thrall thing you still have?”

The back of Gilda’s talon smacked Fluttershy across the face. Not savagely… but the sound bounced off the walls. Zecora, nostrils flaring, lunged forward, but Applejack grabbed her. “Hey! Vampire, remember? Gilda cain’t hurt her. Let ‘em work it out.”

“I’m back,” said Gilda to the startled pegasus. “This is the real me in case you hadn’t noticed. There is no vampire Gilda anymore, and don’t you dare insult me by saying this is me as some puppet. That’s done. I have some things to say to you. And sorry about that… but you’re not good at listening.”

Fluttershy gulped. Her wings flexed in Gilda’s grip. “Am so. I try to listen to everypony. To everything.”

“Everything but the truth,” said Gilda.

That shut Fluttershy up again, and Gilda continued.

“I came through the Everfree Forest. Through jungle, through danger, leaving everything I knew behind, to be with you. I thought I was in love, more than I’d ever felt before. I didn’t know I was just a vampire thrall, and it seemed to make sense at the time, and I came and found you. And you weren’t exactly thrilled about it. I was out of control, frantic, trying to do anything to please you but getting it all wrong. I fucked everything up. And what did you do about it?”

She regarded Fluttershy, who didn’t answer.

“Good girl, it was a rhetorical question. I’ll tell you. You loved me anyway. I couldn’t help myself, I would’ve done anything you said, I put myself completely in your hooves, and you were so freaking pony that you did the best you could by me even though you despised me.”

The gentle vampegasus promptly pouted. “What else could I do?”

“You’re supposed to say, oh no, I don’t despise you,” suggested Gilda. “It would be polite. I’m a little surprised, I thought you were gonna correct me there. I was being dramatic to get the point across.”

“I watched you pull the head off a bunny,” retorted Fluttershy. “I’m not going to lie, I do despise you. Or… well… I despise you doing that! You need to stop doing it!”

Both looked at the corral of headless vampiric bunny bodies.

“I guess you could call it littering,” admitted Gilda. “Maybe you’re right. But you brought me fishes when I was starving.”

“You and those ferrets,” grumbled Fluttershy. “It’s probably not fair. Just because fish aren’t cuddly and don’t have much of a thought in their heads…”

“They’re delicious,” said Gilda. “The point is, I’m not going to stand for you sitting there saying it’s time to freaking die, just because you made me a vampire and beat the shit out of me. You have a lot going for you, Fluttershy.”

“I’m a vampire,” said Fluttershy. “I’ve even made a thrall, which I swore I’d never do.”

“You’re a pony,” insisted Gilda. “I admire you guys. Who ever heard of a vampire taking care of its thrall? Usually they just fly around trying to eat everybody until ya gang up on ‘em.”

“And set fire to them?” accused Northern Spy, holding her injured leg in the air, but paying close attention.

Gilda blinked. “Nah. What you do is, you pick up rocks, big ones. I guess you ponies can’t do that without talons? You whip rocks at the vampire until you break its wing. Then you keep throwing until it’s buried under a big pile of rocks. Then you just keep adding rocks.”

Rainbow Dash paled. “Whoa. You do realize that might not kill a vampire griffin?”

“So?” said Gilda. “It’s a vampire. If it can’t get out, so much the better. You can lose a whole glory of griffins to vampirism, they just devour each other. Bloodlust, y’know.”

Princess Celestia appeared shaken, but nodded. “Among ponies, too, there is no record of cooperative vampires. Rocks, do you say? I might investigate. Clean death by magical fire could be… preferable to lying trapped, crushed under rocks, unable to die for eternity.” She shuddered.

Applejack nodded. “Eyup. An’ I thought our farm ponies was cruel! You say griffins get nasty when they go vampire, Gilda? How come you didn’t? And Northern Spy, what about you?”

Spy frowned. “I feel better now. I kept wanting to do stuff I didn’t understand. It seemed… wrong.”

Gilda nodded. “Yeah! I’m amazed I didn’t figure it out. I kept trying to eat these bunnies, and there’d be this huge desire to suck its blood and devour its very soul, and I’d remember I was trying to reach Fluttershy and I’d just freak out and throw the bunny away. It really hurt, denying that urge. I guess I know how the vampire griffins felt, but I had to get to Fluttershy. And I knew she wouldn’t accept that stuff.”

Fluttershy nodded, slowly. “For such a long time, I just felt a dreadful hunger. Zecora’s mane extensions helped, I can’t tell you how much that helped. When I fought Gilda, something inside me said I’d done wrong. But devour her soul? I remember a moment, looking down at her, when I wanted to. But I turned her over to pony justice, and I was very proud of myself, too. Maybe I was extra proud because I’d had this impulse. I don’t even know what it would be like to do that.”

“Perhaps that is what saved you all,” said Princess Celestia. “Not one of you killed a thrall by eating their soul. Not even this sad collection of vampiric bunny bodies has been so assaulted.”

Dash squinted. “I think one of them’s been a-ketchuped. Whose idea was that?”

Gilda cringed. “The bunny did that! It wants to be eaten. By me.”

“Dang!” blinked Applejack. “Hardcore. But I s’pose it ain’t got much left goin’ for it, huh?”

Zecora spoke up. “Though vampire thralls have energies, another name will have to serve. I would not call what’s left a soul. The soul’s the part I can preserve!”

Celestia’s ears were laid back as she tried to sort out the tricky web of moral obligations regarding vampires and their prey. “A valid point, Miss Zecora. We are accustomed to saying the vampire devours the soul of its thrall, killing it, and that this leads the vampire on a search for more and more of such prey and its eventual demise. I see among griffins the experience is similar. But here we have a lineage of vampires, now mostly cured, distinct through never having fed upon these energies, and now we learn that the pony soul… pardon, the pony and griffin soul, or whatever these separated energies are, can be stored in a wig and indeed restored to the pony or griffin…”

“Mane extensions!” protested Fluttershy, blushing.

“HEY!” cried a voice from up the stairs.

Rainbow Dash’s face fell. Fluttershy’s eyes went wide. Zecora sighed.

“Oh, nooooo…” moaned Dash.

Down the stairs trotted Pinkie Pie, a big brittle smile on her face… and she froze, staring dumbly at the proceedings.

“Uhhh…” said Applejack, “it ain’t what you think!”

“It kind of is,” blurted Rainbow Dash.

“Sh!”

Pinkie Pie didn’t listen. Her huge, innocent, blue eyes scanned the basement, taking in ponies, Princess, pummeled griffin, the tense atmosphere… and lastly, the corral of bunnies. Struggling, horribly squealing bunnies. Headless, bloody bunnies.

Her eyes turned slowly to Gilda, sitting in the middle of the group.

“Did you do that?” said Pinkie Pie, her chirpy little voice strangely loud in the silence.

Gilda gulped.

“Well, yeah, but…”

Fluttershy screamed. Applejack and Princess Celestia whinnied. Rainbow Dash sprang.

Even then, she might not have intercepted Pinkie’s hysterical and violent attack upon Gilda if it hadn’t been for her own foal, Northern Spy, who flung herself into the fray and bounced off Pinkie, slowing her.

Dash wrestled Pinkie, grimacing. “Stop it! Argh!”

“Ow ow ow worth it ow,” moaned Northern Spy, backing out of the way. Applejack leapt forward and joined Dash, wrestling the enraged Pinkie away from cowering Gilda.

“Cut it out!” raged Applejack. “We’re tryin’ to fix up all this! Gilda’s proper sorry for all them bunnies!”

“SORRY DOESN’T FROST THE CUPCAKES!” screeched Pinkie Pie, thrashing and trying to get at her quarry.

Gilda looked frantically around for a place to hide. One presented itself… except that it was the single scariest, most insane notion she had ever known in all her life, and she flinched, nearly ready to brave Pinkie Pie instead.

Princess Celestia had lifted a wing, and was staring right at her, that griffin-vaporizing horn glimmering faintly. “Quick! Under here!”

“Mommy…” whimpered Gilda. Celestia winced.

Pinkie Pie let out another shriek, kicking out indiscriminately.

“Ahhh!” cried Applejack. “Ow! Dunno if I can hold her!”

With a kittenish flicker of movement, Gilda darted under the wing of what had been her life’s worst enemy, and cowered, trembling… and the great alabaster wing came down and covered her, shielding her from harm.

Celestia bowed her head. “A sort of redemption,” she mumbled, and looked up. “Release her! Let Pinkie go before she’s the ruin of you, prithee!”

Dash fell one way, Applejack the other. Pinkie burst from their confines like a fluffy explosion, and charged.

She got right up to Celestia’s face, and stopped. Even a maddened Pinkie Pie had to respect the look in the Princess’s eyes.

Celestia bared her teeth, and growled, “Cease. This griffin has transcended some of her nature. She is under my protection and I am proud of it, and you will not harm her. Cease your attacks!”

Pinkie was hyperventilating. “Murdering! Bunnies! Blood! Monster!”

“I said cease,” hissed Celestia, cuddling trembling Gilda closer.

Pinkie blinked. “Why do I smell cat pee?” she said, in an incongrously normal tone of voice.

Princess Celestia winced. “Because this griffin has also transcended her litter box training, or whatever it is they do. Please be so good as to not mention it again, she has had a very difficult day.”

Pinkie looked around frantically, unable to make sense of her surroundings, and seeing this, Fluttershy stepped forward.

“Twilight,” she said, “help me explain! Pinkie Pie, dearest, maybe this isn’t the best place for you to be right now?”

Twilight’s expression was still racked with guilt, but she couldn’t deny Fluttershy’s request. She got up, face streaked with tears, and approached the quiet vampegasus and hysterical earth pony. “Yeah, you could say that. Pinkie Pie, we have a lot of work to do. I’m not even sure exactly what we’re going to do. We cured some vampires but Fluttershy is… is…”

Twilight began to cry again. Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “Doomed to an eternal unlife of vampiric evilness?” she suggested.

“Pretty much that,” admitted Twilight. “Or there’s death. But we’d rather not do that, okay?”

“Your actions do not connote evilness,” chided Celestia. “To all appearances you remain a good pony, Fluttershy.”

“You ARE!” came Gilda’s muffled voice. “You ARE good!”

Pinkie’s lip quivered. She turned, and she looked at the great love of her life, Fluttershy, and then she turned to Twilight.

“You better not be saying mean things to Fluttershy,” she said. “Are you not helping her?”

Celestia instinctively lifted her other wing, but Twilight waved her off with a forehoof.

“It’s not like that. We can’t help her. She’s been too hurt,” admitted Twilight.

That got through. Some of the psychotic gleam faded from Pinkie Pie’s eyes. She blinked, and her ear twitched. Her lip quivered again, and her eyes glistened, and she turned to Fluttershy and took a deep breath.

“Please let me take you away from all this!” said Pinkie Pie. “I can’t bear to see you hurt!”

Fluttershy’s eyes flashed.

“No,” she said, scuffing the ground bashfully with a hoof.

“This is not fair,” said Pinkie. “You are the sweetest most sensitive pony ever with very delicate feelings and how dare all these ponies put you in a room with bloody bunnies and violent griffins, it’s like the worst place for Fluttershy ever, and you must feel so awful and please please PLEASE let me take you away from here and cuddle you and make you feel safe…”

“I said no, Pinkie Pie,” insisted Fluttershy. She stamped a forehoof. “I mean it! We have things still to do here!”

“You’re so cute when you’re like that!” cried Pinkie. “I’m just going to drag you out of here because you’re being adorably sulky, okay? It’s super cute but staying here will give you nightmares so let’s go off and have a big hot fudge sundae on top of two big chunks of fudge in a bowl made for two out of fudge…”

“Twilight, don’t let her drag me!” protested Fluttershy.

At that, Twilight Sparkle blinked, and some of her normal manner came back. “Good luck with that! You’re still a vampire, remember? You’re probably ten times as strong as she is. Please don’t bite her, I can’t imagine anything so terrifying.”

“Oh,” said Fluttershy. “That’s right.” She regarded Pinkie. “You’re going to sit quietly while we sort out these things, or I’ll Stare at you. I hate to do it, but I will if it’s the only way I can keep you from disrupting things. We have very serious business on our hooves.”

Pinkie gulped, getting the message. She hesitated, and then said, “I’m only trying to bring you back to niceness, Fluttershy. This is too horrible. It’s important to make things be nice. Niceness is serious.”

Fluttershy made a face. “Niceness is complicated.”

“No, it isn’t!” wailed Pinkie. “There’s nothing complicated about it! All this blood and mean griffins and stuff, that must be complicated, but niceness is easy if you only try!”

“Shush,” commanded Fluttershy. “That’s what I AM doing. So is Gilda. So is Twilight if I’m any judge. Will you be quiet and let us work things out? Even if it’s complicated? Because maybe that’s important.”

Pinkie hesitated.

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. “Pinkie Pie…”

“Okay!” squeaked Pinkie. “Go ahead! Since you want to so much!”

“Rainbow Dash?” called Fluttershy. “Applejack? Perhaps Pinkie can sit with you while we settle a few things.”

Celestia nodded. “If you would be so kind. I would fain release Miss Gilda, who cannot be enjoying her experience.”

“What’s not to enjoy about hiding under Princess Celestia’s wing?” objected Pinkie, being led away by her friends.

Fluttershy ignored her, turning to the Princess, as Trixie crept up behind her with a towel and a smirk. “Yes, please release her. We hadn’t finished our conversation and now I have a clearer idea of what I must say to Gilda Griffin.”

The vast white wing lifted. Gilda slunk forward, wide-eyed. Trixie, horn glowing cheerfully, dove in with the towel and mopped up Gilda’s indiscretions. She nuzzled Celestia’s side and demanded, “Now me!”

As alicorn wing settled down over delighted unicorn, Fluttershy and Gilda faced each other.

“First of all,” said Fluttershy, “I’m not sure if I’ve ever said I’m sorry for attacking you. I’ve learned a lot, Gilda. You’ve tried very hard to please me, and though you are hard to understand, I was so very wrong about you. I’m sorry I hurt you, and if I can help tend your wounds I think that would be appropriate.”

Gilda, still jittery, made a face. “That’s not the first word that comes to mind. Usually the griffin who kicks your ass doesn’t stick around to bandage it.”

“I’m not a griffin,” said Fluttershy. “I’m a pony. Well, a vampire. But a vampire pony, and if I want to tend your wounds I’d like to see anypony stop me.” She directed a cranky glance at Pinkie Pie, who sat between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, both of whom hugged her in a position conveniently ready for pony-wrangling… just in case.

Celestia cleared her throat. “And I, in turn, am sorry for our sad past. I do not know if killing your mother in magic fire held any hope of saving the pony she and you had been devouring…”

“Nah,” said Gilda, looking haunted. “You were too late. I watched her die. She was looking right at me. Somehow I knew. I could feel it. Crouching there with my mouth full, looking in her eyes like ‘hi, you’re tasty’ and seeing her die.” She shuddered, and she glanced at Twilight. “Do you think I could have passed the test of your magic glowy thing, if I’d spit instead of swallowed?”

Princess Celestia winced. “We will never know, Gilda Griffin. Just as I will never know what might have happened had I not struck your mother down in what was no more than vengeance. I had hoped to rescue that pony, and I’d told myself she lived, but you tell me all was already lost?”

“Yah. I don’t know how I knew,” said Gilda. “I never forgot. That kind of thing sticks with you.”

Celestia bowed her head. “I hope in some way I have honored your mother’s memory by protecting you in your time of danger.”

Twilight Sparkle had stepped forward. “Well, at least you guys were protecting something. Fluttershy… I don’t even know how to say this. Um… I’m sorry for going nuts and stabbing you through the heart with my alicorn horn?”

“That’s okay,” said Fluttershy placatingly. She thought for a moment, and added, “Well, not really. Because it curses me to unlife forever, and that’s awful. But look on the bright side, I’m sorry for killing Gilda and turning her into a vampire. And you fixed that for me, didn’t you? So thank you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“No problem,” mumbled Twilight.

Fluttershy hesitated. “You are very powerful. And Trixie is here, and Princess Celestia is here… do you think maybe if you put my soul back, all of you could maybe heal me very quick and I wouldn’t die? I’m just asking.”

Twilight boggled at her. “Shyeah, right! I’m not taking responsibility for that. First of all, my horn came right out your back, I ran you right through and you say I got your heart because you felt it there.”

Fluttershy nodded. “It took ages to repair it, sometimes I almost decided not to bother. It hurts very much and feels stranger than I can even explain, to have your heart not able to beat because a stupid alicorn’s horn is stuck right through it. Um, no offense.”

Between Applejack and Rainbow Dash, Pinkie’s eye twitched.

“That’s not even the whole story,” argued Twilight, “you took a full-on alicorn death-bolt. Nothing of the sort has ever existed. You know, like when a dying unicorn vents their whole life-force into a magical attack that kills the caster? You took an ALICORN deathbolt. Nothing could survive that. No way am I trying to return you to mortality and heal you from that before you’re gone! I’m not even sure what would happen!” She hung her head. “And yeah, talk about stupid. I’m so ashamed. I was completely crazy to attempt such things.”

“Death bolt?” said Fluttershy, frowning. “You seem proud of it, even though it was horrible to do.”

Twilight blushed. “Nobody’s ever unleashed such a powerful magical attack in the history of ever. I’m the only one.”

“Kills the caster?” sniffed Fluttershy. “It must not have been very good then. You’re still alive.”

“It kinda bounced, cause you’re already dead,” admitted Twilight, blushing brightly.

Fluttershy shook herself. “Wait. What am I doing? You’re being nice… at least, nice for Twilight Sparkle. I can’t blame you for being interested in super-powered magic things, even mean things like death bolts, because that’s also so very Twilight Sparkle. Why am I badgering you about this? I accept your apology, Twilight. I only wish you could cure my vampirism and heal me, but I’ll take your word for it that you can’t.”

“I really feel the damage is too great,” said Twilight. “What with the impaling through the heart, and the magical attack stronger than any in all of history, and all that. Plus you’ll probably also get every other bit of damage you ever underwent, all at once. You can’t return to life under those conditions.”

“Like the bunnies,” said Fluttershy sadly.

“Huh?”

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes and gave Twilight a weary look. “I’m not sure how you can ignore them. Every second, I can feel their suffering. And also I can feel whatever’s in them that I’m supposed to eat as a vampire, but we won’t be doing any of that, okay? I won’t, I just won’t! Don’t even ask.”

Twilight glanced hastily at the corral of headless bunny bodies, still trying to get out. This time, Northern Spy was booping them in the chest when they got stacked up high enough to escape. She’d tuned out the noise of their feeble screaming entirely. They’d quieted down somewhat when piled together, as if drawing some cold comfort from each others’ lifeless corpses.

“Oh gosh,” said Twilight. “That is horrible, you’re absolutely right. Do you think we can feed them to Gilda?”

Gilda squawked, and cringed away. “Are you nuts?” she said. She hesitated, and added, “I don’t care if they want to be eaten. They’re not fresh! Eurghh!”

Trixie thought. “Do you have the thaumic energy for a vampire cure, for them?” she said.

“Trixie, form up,” ordered Twilight. “Meld. Let’s look.”

The two unicorns’ horns glowed for a moment. Twilight brightened. “I think we have them! Either they haven’t got anywhere better to go, or the wavelengths tended to go to other bunnies that also became griffin chow. Or they fixated on Gilda? Or bunny souls are interchangeable?”

Princess Celestia said, “Perhaps the lesser sophistication of these animals means their spirits don’t travel far.”

“Whatever the reason,” said Twilight, “I’m sure we can do this. I can put their souls back, or whatever it is.”

“What will happen?” asked Fluttershy, quickly.

In the back of the room, Applejack and Rainbow Dash struggled with an increasingly distraught Pinkie Pie. Twilight considered the question. “First of all, they’ll die. They have no heads. The spirit will go back into the bunny, probably suffer physical agony for a moment, the heart stops and no more bunny. I’m sorry, there isn’t anything else that can happen. It ought to be pretty quick, I think? Do you have any suggestions on making it less horrible?”

Fluttershy looked pale. She thought very hard, frowning, her eyes glistening with sympathetic tears. She set her jaw, and she nodded.

“Yes, I have,” she said. “Let me cuddle them while they expire. We owe them that much, after what they’ve been through.”

There was a wail from the back of the room, and a cry of dismay from Dash, and then Pinkie Pie had rushed forward and was clinging to Fluttershy, weeping. “That is NOT less horrible! That is more horrible! You can’t do it, Fluttershy! Shame on you, Twilight, are you actually going to have Fluttershy cuddle bunnies while you kill them? Oh my gosh! Noooo!”

Twilight’s ears were plastered back against her head in alarm. “It was HER idea!” she wailed, but before she could say anything else, her arguments were no longer necessary.

“SIT DOWN,” commanded Fluttershy, her eyes burning and staring into Pinkie’s.

Pinkie sat.

Fluttershy stopped Staring. “First of all, don’t make me do that again! It’s not good for me and probably not good for you! Second, don’t you understand? These innocent creatures are hurting! Listen to them! Do they sound happy? Not that you can tell very easily when they don’t have necks! Don’t you understand these bunnies are trapped in a horrible unlife and they want their suffering to end? Look, that one has ketchup on it!”

Pinkie trembled. “But…”

“No! No, Pinkie Pie. I can tell what you’re doing. You think that doing this will upset me. And so it shall. And so what? Sometimes, Pinkie Pie, a pony has to do what is right, even if it hurts!”

“But…”

“But what?” demanded Fluttershy.

Pinkie blinked away tears. “But you’re so sensitive. And your feelings are easily hurt. And you need me to keep your world safe and nice. D–don’t you?”

Fluttershy looked her right in the eye. “There must be twenty or thirty innocent bunnies here. They’re suffering, and there’s no hope for them. And they need me to comfort them while they die. And that’s going to happen sooner or later. And the longer I wait, the more they will hurt!”

“But…” said Pinkie, even more weakly.

“Do you know what it feels like to sustain a terrible injury like that?” demanded Fluttershy. “I do. These don’t seem to have the knack for healing themselves. Of course, how could they, when they’re missing their whole heads! How are they supposed to fix that? What do you suggest they do, Pinkie Pie?”

“B…”

Fluttershy’s nostrils flared. Her fangs were showing, but not out of any desire to bite anything: more a testament to the ferocity of her mood.

“You don’t tell me who I am,” she hissed. “You don’t tell me what I can be. Stand aside!”

Pinkie, shattered, fell back: led away by a solicitous and troubled Apple family, with Applejack and Rainbow Dash and even little Northern Spy coaxing her to return to the back of the room.

“Come on, sugarcube, that’s the way, best not git involved in this ‘un…”

Fluttershy, her heart pounding as if it had never been skewered, turned to the others.

“Gilda, lie here with me, and don’t fuss. They’re trying to go to you, I can see it. Twilight, get ready to cast the spell. Trixie, please remove the wall of that corral thing, if you would be so good.”

It was a strange, gruesome, touching sight. Headless bunnies staggered or crawled or squelched towards Gilda and Fluttershy as if on some pilgrimage, converging on the determined vampire pegasus and dismayed griffin.

“Twilight, wait until I’ve comforted the bunny and it’s quiet and calm. Then… do it, please.”

There was a pause, filled with yearning headless noises and quiet shuffling. Fluttershy cuddled an undead bunny, comforting it until it ceased to struggle and relaxed, accepting her nurturing embrace. Then…

“EEE!”

In the back of the room, a struggle broke out, Pinkie weeping and trying to rush back to Fluttershy… but the cry hadn’t been hers.

Fluttershy, pale, cradled a limp form in her forelegs. It had cried out in its death agony, but she’d held it tighter and soon it had been over.

“Trixie, I think you can put this back in that corral for now. There are all these others for us to do.”

Desperately, Applejack and Rainbow Dash wrestled with Pinkie.

“Is she tryin’ to get out of here? Might be a kindness ta let her.”

“Nope,” said Dash grimly. “She’s gonna try to stop Fluttershy. How sure are you that Shy is right, to do this?”

“You saw them bunnies,” replied Applejack. “Short of makin’ a big bonfire I don’t see no other way around it. They’re gonna yipe, so would you if somethin’ ripped off your head. I reckon they’re suddenly feelin’ it, and then they ain’t feelin’ nothin’.”

Dash winced. “Right. I guess there’s no good way to do this?”

Applejack glanced over, and saw Fluttershy snuggling another headless bunny, crooning softly to it as the others climbed onto her and Gilda. “Rainbow, this is the good way. It’s that or the bad way, hear what I’m sayin’?”

Another anguished and brief squeal rang out. Pinkie writhed, sobbing.

“Right,” said Dash. She bent over, still clinging tightly to Pinkie’s body, and said “Not much longer, okay? That’s two out of uh… thirty?”

“Jes’ hang on. Spy, kin you cover her ears?”

“With what hooves?” protested Spy. “My forehoof’s busted, remember?”

“Dang. Okay…”

The pile of limp fur in the corral was much taller.

“There, there,” soothed Fluttershy. She was very pale, and her mane was disheveled, but as Gilda watched admiringly, she snuggled the last undead headless bunny in her forelegs, petting it. It kicked, wriggling in pain, but as she enfolded it in a loving embrace it gradually relaxed, Twilight watching and gauging its readiness and the position of its paws. Two bunnies had clawed Fluttershy severely in their death agonies, before she’d worked out a safer way to hold them.

In the back of the room, Applejack and Rainbow Dash sang, tears in their eyes.

“Hush now, quiet now, it’s time to lay your sleepy head…”

They sang right up against Pinkie’s ears, but she still jerked and shuddered as another cry of bunny death rang out. They’d had to tackle her once, for she’d got loose and tried to rush Fluttershy. At no time did she try to leave the basement. Her one thought seemed to be protecting Fluttershy from what she’d chosen to do. The lullaby was to try and distract Pinkie from the terrible sounds going on, as Fluttershy and Twilight did what they did.

Sounds that had stopped, at last.

Fluttershy drew a deep breath, though she didn’t need it. “All done,” she said.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other. Pinkie hadn’t been struggling so hard, and they’d assumed it was because the lullaby was helping. They released her, and she just sagged, appearing stunned.

Pinkie Pie turned her head and looked at Fluttershy, who bore bloody markings from a host of dead bunnies, and who looked back with an expression of frustration. Pinkie stared like she’d never seen the pegasus before, and wasn’t sure she wanted to. Her haunted gaze accused and protested, wordlessly.

“All done,” repeated Fluttershy. “They are at peace. There are no more undead bunnies left in here.”

Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat. “Technically, that’s not quite true,” she said. “There’s one more. But this one, Pinkie can probably watch, and it’ll be okay.”

They followed her gaze to see Angel Bunny, peeking terrified out of a cupboard, and very much unalive.

“Oh, my!” said Princess Celestia. “I’d almost forgotten him! This is Fluttershy’s pet?”

“Not only that,” said Twilight, “I’m nearly certain his bunny-soul is hanging out in Fluttershy’s wig…”

“MANE extensions!” protested Fluttershy.

“…and can be restored much like we did Spy and Gilda,” finished Twilight. “That’s assuming he hasn’t been impaled, blown up or otherwise killed during his undeath. Fluttershy, has Angel Bunny been physically damaged that you know of?”

“Never!” gasped Fluttershy. “That must never happen! Ever ever! Nothing must touch my dear sweet Angel Bunny, no matter how many salads he hurls in my face or throws out the door! It’s not that much trouble to go collect the bowls!”

“Uh-huh,” said Twilight. “Princess?”

“Yes, Twilight?”

“Do you think Fluttershy is the way she is because she’s guided by bunny thrall?” said Twilight. “I mean, are we gonna see a totally different Fluttershy if we take her sire?”

“I knew Fluttershy as a filly,” offered Dash. “She was pretty much the same. I think you’re in the clear.”

Twilight turned to Fluttershy. “Maybe we can set you free, Fluttershy. We’ve not tried to cure a vampire sire before, we were going thrall-first. Are you sure Angel Bunny has never been injured?”

“He ate a bad lettuce once and kicked me out of the house until I begged his forgiveness,” said Fluttershy fretfully. “But maybe it wasn’t really as bad as he thought?”

“Right,” said Twilight. She glanced at Celestia again.

The Princess gave her a sympathetic look in return. “It’s up to you, Twilight,” she said. “I really don’t know what will happen. It might make her unlife easier.”

Twilight nodded, slowly. “We can set her free. Trixie? Meld with me. Let’s do this extra carefully. You’ll find the bunny soul in Fluttershy’s wig.”

“Mane… oh, horseapples,” sighed Fluttershy.

Unicorn horns glowed.

Angel Bunny’s ears shot straight up in high alertness, and his nose quivered.

Fluttershy’s eyes went very wide, and her jaw dropped. She just stared, stunned.

With a squeak of delight, Angel jumped down from the cupboard he’d been hiding in, and scampered over to hug Fluttershy around the neck. She continued to stare at nothing, her eyes making little movements as if recollecting memories or dreams.

“Uh, Fluttershy?” said Twilight nervously. “You okay?”

Fluttershy shook herself. Then, her motions were quick and assured. It was a flurry of motion, flapping, bunny squeaking, and then everything became clear: she was spanking Angel with her wing, fluffy thwacks and alarmed squees from the hapless lapine.

The next moment, he was on the floor and she’d pinned his ear with one careful hoof, leaning in, speaking sternly…

“Most of those salads were FINE, young man. We’ll have no more of those tantrums!”

Angel nodded frantically.

“Do you promise?”

Angel nodded. Fluttershy released his ear. He threw his little arms around her neck again.

Fluttershy petted him with a once more gentle hoof. “There’s a good bunny.”

“Sooooo…” said Twilight. “I guess you’re feeling better, huh?”

Fluttershy turned and looked around, with an oddly betrayed look eerily like the one Pinkie had shown her.

“I don’t know. I don’t have to do anything now. What am I going to do with the rest of my unlife?”

“What do you want to do?” suggested Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy glanced immediately at Zecora, then dropped her gaze, blushing.

Dash smirked. “Heh. Same old Fluttershy.”

Northern Spy frowned. “Huh? What does she wanna do, Mom?”

“Tell you later,” said Applejack. “Or never!”

“Awwww…”

Fluttershy hesitated, then said, “Is there more you can do?”

“Like what?” said Twilight. “We can’t return you to life. Is setting you free not good, somehow?”

“It’s not that,” said Fluttershy. “It’s… well, you said it. ‘Good’. How can I know I’ll be good? Especially if I’m not a slave to dear spoiled silly little Angel? I don’t even know what it’s like to be free. How can I trust myself when I know I could turn evil?”

The ponies all looked at each other… except for Pinkie Pie, who stared at nothing, one ear twitching.

Princess Celestia cleared her throat.

“Here is how,” she said.

Her horn lit, and produced a scintillating cascade of twinkling stars that poured down to enfold Fluttershy in glimmering light. It contracted until it coated her with magic glow… and then, it contracted more, and Fluttershy gasped. The glimmer had soaked into her skin, her feathers, and kept going until it was lost to sight.

Celestia bowed her head. “It is done.”

“What did you do?” cried Dash.

“That’s…” began Twilight, but she stopped at a glance from the Princess.

“You wished to know goodness,” said Celestia. “Very well: so it shall be. I have given you the power of choice, Fluttershy. Whatever impulse you have, from this day forth you will always be able to choose. The goodness within you shall guide you. It may not always be easy but it will always be simple, and it will go with you wherever you go. So, in a sense, from today onward you may walk in goodness forever.”

Fluttershy just stared at her, open-mouthed. She reeled her jaw in. Her lip quivered. She gulped, her eyes glistening, barely able to speak coherently, and at last words came.

“Thank you… oh, thank you, thank you… Princess… thank you…”

Celestia smiled. “Remember.”

“I will!” said Fluttershy. Her wings sprang up, and the smile grew and grew on her face.

“Of all the faces of our Fluttershy, this one is best,” said Zecora approvingly. “You’ve had a grueling day, so may your zebras bring you rest?”

“Oh yes,” said Fluttershy demurely. “Or even… Come along, Zecora. Run quickly! I’m going to fly Angel Bunny straight home. I can’t wait to tell everypony that he’s a natural bunny again!”

A noise came from upstairs. “PINKIEEE?”

“Ya know, this secret second basement ain’t the most secretest thing in Ponyville,” observed Applejack.

“It is if you don’t leave all the doors hanging open! Were you raised in a barn?” protested Twilight.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. Twilight blinked. “Oh. Right. I guess technically you…”

Down the stairs flew Cloud Chaser, looking fretful and harried. “There you are! Pinkie Pie, where have you been? You didn’t tell little Rock Candy! He was worried! You okay?”

As Fluttershy and Zecora headed up the stairs, Pinkie shook herself. She looked at Cloud Chaser as if trying to ascertain whether she was real.

“Come on, honey,” said Applejack. “She’s had a rough time, Miss Chaser, and that’s a fact. Best get her home.”

“Is that a pile of dead bunnies?” said Cloud Chaser in disbelief.

“Don’t ask…”

“I’m gonna tell Rock I came back to life!” squeaked Northern Spy, hobbling cheerfully on three legs.

“You’re gonna get to the pony hospital and we’re gonna put a cast on that leg!” insisted Rainbow Dash.

“Awwwww!”

“No arguments! That’s how live ponies do it! No vampire healing factor here!” said Dash.

They began slowly leading Pinkie away, Cloud Chaser fussing over her and enfolding Pinkie in her wing. As they went, Pinkie roused herself enough to ask, “Are you still superheroes?”

“Sure we are!” vowed Northern Spy. “Rock Lobster and the Green Streak! Better than ever!”

“Can we… all be superheroes?” said Pinkie Pie. “And protect ponies from bad things?”

“Yeah!” said Spy proudly. “We can all be superheroes together!”

“Promise?” said Pinkie Pie.

“Sure!”

“Pinkie Promise?” said Pinkie.

“Uhhh…” said Applejack, but Northern Spy was already answering.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly…”

Up the stairs they went, leaving only Princess Celestia, Twilight, and Trixie.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “What was that for?”

“What was what for?” asked Celestia, innocently.

Twilight Sparkle looked around. She peered up the stairs, trotted over to listen at them, trotted back and fixed her Princess with a hard look.

“Why did you cast a very ordinary visual glitter effect spell and tell Fluttershy it was goodness soaking into her?” demanded Twilight.

“Oh,” said Princess Celestia. “That.”

“Mistress,” said Trixie, “don’t be hasty. We have learned new things about pony thamaturgy even today. As much fun as it is to tease Princesses, perhaps you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions?”

Celestia scraped a hoof on the floor. “I am pleased that you enjoy teasing Princesses. We have all had a very trying day. I’d wondered if I could invite you both back to Canterlot, to relax in the pool?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Princess… actually, that sounds wonderful. I think we might just take you up on that one. But first! Answer the question, please. Fluttershy’s my friend. Well, apart from the impaling part. Even then… well, half the ponies in this town spend their time impaling each other in friendlier ways, and as for the other half, ask Rarity sometime. My point stands. Fluttershy’s my friend and why did you con her?”

“But I didn’t,” said Princess Celestia.

Twilight glanced at Trixie. “So Trixie guessed right? When can you show me this new magic that’s undetectable to the normal unicorn?”

Celestia sighed. “Oh, all right. Please don’t tell Fluttershy. Yes, it was the glitter spell, but the truth is she already had that power to choose the path of good. We all do. The spell was merely a ruse, to get her attention and make her remember. Goodness is a fact, but awareness of it is an article of faith. You can disbelieve in it, with terrible consequences, but believing in it always works.”

“Hmmm…” mused Twilight Sparkle.

“So in a sense, it was a real spell after all,” explained Celestia. “It is a kind of magic. And if she believes it, then it will be true. She can be whatever she wishes to be, and the power is there for her. I’m only reminding her of what exists already, in hopes she is ready to accept the magic.”

“Hmmmm.”

Princess Celestia hesitated. “So… is that magic really undetectable to the normal unicorn? Fluttershy is not the only one who can be whatever she wishes to be… and many things can be true.”

Twilight lifted an eyebrow. “What are you saying, Princess?”

Celestia gulped.

“Can… YOU accept the magic?”

She held her breath.

Slowly, Twilight Sparkle began to smile.

Hornucopia

The shiny magic bit sat mockingly on the floor.

Fluttershy and Zecora sat on either side of it, each pouting more than the other.

Dursaa gulped. “Why must we suffer coldness when the mood is meant for heat?” he said plaintively. “To sink into vagina is a fate surpassing sweet. I do not need this little toy: I’m proud to bring my own. But must we scorn the generosity Miss Twilight’s shown?”

Fluttershy pouted worse. “But she meant it as a joke. She knows what I get from such toys and she thinks it’s funny. If Zecora won’t use it for me, there’s no point even having it.”

“But we don’t know the fleshy gift this magic bit brings you,” said Dursaa. “She thinks it looks amusing? How can such things be true?”

Zecora snorted. “I will grant that absolution. Penises are goofy bludgeons.”

At this, Fluttershy glared. “Oh, really? Then why are you panting for me to produce one, Zecora dear?”

The zebra mare shifted from hoof to hoof, flicking her tail. She blushed slightly. “I did not imply it’s bad. ‘Tis a touch I have not had.”

Dursaa bit his lip, and opened his mouth to rhyme… but Zecora froze him with another look.

“It is with mares I have affairs!” she said, angrily. “No call for males, for that entails their awful biting bullying ways. Just to inject their hollandaise!”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened. “Zecora! First of all, it’s nothing like hollandaise sauce, and since when have you even been to Prance? Second, you are already having an affair with this mare right here, and I thought we’d agreed that you and Dursaa were going to give me double zebra, and now you’re backing out of it? I can’t turn around and do you, it doesn’t suit me anyhow and what would we do with poor Durs…”

She’d glanced over, to see Dursaa’s mighty lower lip quivering like Big Macintosh being scolded by his Granny. Zecora saw it too, and fell silent.

Dursaa quavered, “If males are deemed unwelcome in the heart of our small herd, this zebra can wait downstairs—you need only say the, say, s…” at which point he choked up.

Fluttershy gasped. “You’re making my stallion cry, Zecora! Don’t you know how sensitive they are? You have to treat them gently! So they can treat you not at all gently!”

Zecora’s eyes widened. She bit her lip, and then stamped a hoof. “Elder speech! Herd meeting, please.”

“This is the stupidest way to arrange a gang pegasus fucking I’ve ever seen…” objected Fluttershy.

“Sh!” said Zecora. She turned to Dursaa. “You are not unwelcome. Do not think that! My concerns are twofold, and I will have them heard. Firstly, I wish our mare to use the bit on me. Fluttershy, why do you refuse me?”

“Because it’s awful!”

“How awful?” pressed Zecora. “I share the distaste, but must admit a certain itch in my lady parts. Can you not put aside your dismay and try it? Or there is the wooden one I made. It is rather large.” Her ears laid back. “Not so large as our Dursaa, but all the same I could not enter myself with it. Not without help: my hooves cannot grasp it tightly enough and… I suppose I ‘chickened out’.”

Fluttershy’s chin lifted in triumph. “Oh, really? Well then! That only proves I can’t do you. Mine is much bigger.”

“Bigger than Dursaa’s?” challenged Zecora.

“Much! So you can see it’s entirely hopeless. Now please, please give me double zebra? I’ve wanted that so badly!” said Fluttershy.

Zecora’s eyes narrowed, and her smile was wicked. “Prove it.”

“What?” squeaked Fluttershy, flapping illusory feathery wings in alarm.

“Show me,” said Zecora. “Prove it.”

Fluttershy’s eyes were huge and wide. She blinked, and then had a happy thought. “Oooh! I can’t. Didn’t I just tell you? We can’t show you my magic bit dick, or my husband will be upset if it’s bigger than his. So obviously he has to be the stallion in the relationship and that means I can’t possibly threaten his masculinity by…”

Dursaa cleared his throat. “Me too?”

Fluttershy boggled. “What?”

“Please show me, too,” said Dursaa politely. “I wish to see your huge stallion cock, Fluttershy.”

The gentle pegasus stared back and forth between her zebras, outmaneuvered. “You have to be putting me on.”

“No, I really wish to see it,” urged Dursaa. “If it is bigger than mine, I shall never ask you to mount me and assuage my curiosity about gay stallions, but I do still wish to see it. Please?”

Fluttershy gave him a stricken look, and then huffed, “Fine!” She flounced over to the bit. “Look, and don’t you dare laugh!”

Fluttershy bent, and took the bit in her teeth. Dursaa and Zecora could see it tucking under her cute little fangs. Then, they had no eyes for fangs or bits anymore, because something bigger had come up.

Quietly, the pegasus thunder thrust forth. The quietness was an affront: the emergence should have been heralded by kettledrums, or possibly earthquakes. Fluttershy’s penis stiffened and stood erect, jutting forward between her front legs. Not merely hind legs, no… the massive shaft stuck right out in front of her, impossibly girthy, with a flare the size of a tiny mare’s entire hips. It had expanded even more: she had borne two foals since she’d used the very first version of the magic bit on the unfortunate Trixie.

The zebras could only stare. Fluttershy was hung to fuck dragons, not ponies. Her cock was nearly bigger than she was, nearly fatter than any part of her legs, so long that mounting upon a lover would be extremely difficult—she’d be wrecking their insides before she could even get her forelegs up onto her partner’s rump. It was, indeed, outrageous.

Dursaa gulped. “Thank you. Please never try to shove that up my butt.”

Fluttershy spat the bit out. The horsecock went limp before shrinking away, and landed on the floor with a crockery-rattling thud, and then diminished to nothing. “I never wanted you even to see it! How can you look at me the same again? And I would never do that to you or want to!”

Dursaa’s eye twitched, and he appeared lost in dismaying thought… though whatever it was, it’d caused his own cock to furtively drop and dangle.

Fluttershy turned on Zecora. “Well? Are you satisfied that it’s impossible? And please don’t ever tell anypony what you’ve seen! I have been trying to forget ever since that first terrible day. I’m tempted to get very assertive and make both of you double zebra me, for putting me through that. Though I shouldn’t force you to do things when I can beg and plead and cajole you into them instead…”

“Just a moment,” said Zecora.

“Oh, very well,” sniffed Fluttershy. “Let’s just stand around talking about difficult things instead of fucking, it seems to be what this herd does. Dursaa, so help me, if the sight of my horrible penis has turned you gay I will cry and cry and then throw a tantrum and then cry some more!”

“No!” protested Dursaa hastily. “No no! Truly I love pegasus vagina more than anything in Equestria, and I hope my herd does not hold it against me if I have dreadful un-zebra fantasies no stallion should entertain…”

Zecora snorted. “Pah! Forget that. You are with us and other opinions do not matter. If we are to conceal our knowledge of Fluttershy’s titanic penis, so too can we conceal your desires to be fucked by it. But you have brought up my other objection.”

Fluttershy flounced away to lie sulking on the bed, presenting her lovers with her petulant rump. “Other objection? How can you have so many objections to pegasus fucking? Don’t you understand that I have needs?”

Dursaa and Zecora shared a glance that conveyed many unspoken words about frustrated, horny vampegasi and the keeping thereof.

“It is not that I object to that,” said Zecora gently. Only that I, too, love pegasus vagina. You permitted me to touch it, Fluttershy, and this was wonderful. I do not know what it is like to have a penis, and I have never tried your magic bit.” She winced. “I do know that, as precious as your whole lovely body is, it hurt my feelings that you would have me as a sort of auxiliary zebra, making myself become something unnatural to me in order to fuck you up your little pegasus butt.”

Fluttershy looked around, wide-eyed, to see Zecora just as sulky and frustrated as she was, zebra ears laid back in distaste.

“Is that what it’s about?” squeaked the startled pegasus. “You want my vagina for your first time? Awwww!”

Zecora was blushing hard. “I do not wish to insist our Dursaa do things he doesn’t like…”

“Huh?” said Fluttershy. “Bodysex can be all sorts of things! He won’t mind. Dursaa! You go in under the tail, after we get started. Yay! It wasn’t a problem after all!”

“Just a moment!” repeated Zecora, alarmed. “Dursaa, is she correct? You may need to be cautious, for you are still large and she is but a little pony. And is the proposal distasteful to you? It is not proper to dive into this adventure without seeking your opinion. We can wait while you form your thoughts.”

“We can WHAT?” objected Fluttershy, her wings erect. “Zecora! I can’t wait! I need my double zebraaaa!” She managed to wink her vagina petulantly, quite a feat.

Zecora waited, anyhow, and both mares watched as Dursaa’s dangling cock hesitated… then continued to drop.

His eyes shone with passion and love. “All parts, all details of my beloved wife are exquisite to me. Yes! I will do it. Surely we will both need to be cautious, Zecora? I do not even know the size of your appendage.”

“Nor do I,” breathed Zecora. “I have longed to touch and kiss and devote myself to Fluttershy’s lovely marehood for so many years, but never thought I would touch it from the inside…”

Fluttershy squealed. “Eeeeee!”

“Shh!” reproved Zecora.

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Fluttershy, blushing. Her pussy winked again.

Zecora lifted her chin. “We shall be cautious. I have shown you how. I do not know how deep into her bottom you can fit, Dursaa, so be mindful. I will call upon the gentleness of the mare, and I will be utterly cautious and tender, not a harsh movement or a bullying word…”

“Hey!” objected Fluttershy.

“Sh!” said Zecora firmly. “It is for your own good and spares you vampiric self-repair. Plus, one of Dursaa’s better qualities is that he does not wish to harm you. Do you agree to enjoy your double zebras nicely, without violence or savagery?”

Fluttershy pouted. “Okay…”

Zecora smiled. “Then we shall begin. We have much to learn…”

Trixie sat mockingly on the floor.

Twilight Sparkle and Celestia sat on either side of her, both blushing, neither meeting the other’s eyes.

“Well?” said Trixie. “I only said I wanted to watch Mistress come.”

Celestia coughed, turning away.

Chaos pursed her lips. “And?”

“And, chew on Princess Celestia’s wing shanks,” admitted Trixie.

There was a little pause.

“While?” added Chaos, trying to fight off a smirk.

“While you chewed on the other side. Of the wings, I mean,” clarified Trixie.

“As?” continued Chaos, her eyes dancing with mischief.

Trixie blinked. “As Twilight gushed buckets of horsecome into her very royal womb,” she explained. She rallied. “Now listen! It wouldn’t make her pregnant, Twilight’s not an earth pony and the bit penises are just for sport! I know alicorn biology better than that! I was only helping them get in the mood!”

Twilight and the Princess blushed scarlet. Chaos tsked.

“You’re a very odd pony, Trixie Lulamoon. Have you no respect for royalty at all?”

“Not really,” said Trixie. “Oooh! That’s a good idea! Spankings! Teach Trixie respect with spankings!”

She bounced, cutely. Chaos rolled her eyes.

“Well,” she said, “your lack of respect has made them all worked up and uncomfortable, even with each other. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, but then I was making it a point of honor to not interfere with their courtship through acts of chaos. Little did I know that my efforts, if I’d made them, would be superfluous!”

“What were you going to do?” asked Trixie. “Naughty things?”

Chaos fought back her smirk, again. “Immaterial, my dear Lulamoon. I tell you now, that my beloved Celestia does not feel ready to bear foals, and perhaps she never will, for duty hangs heavily upon her. We have Princess Luna exploring that for all of us, and it is inadvisable for many alicorns to risk this at once. Our path is clear.”

“It’s dangerous?” said Trixie, skeptically.

“Not in the way you’d think,” said Chaos gently. “Some of us must maintain the long view. Celestia is trying to do that, at least to a point. Trixie, your suggestions weren’t kind.”

Trixie hmphed. “They were supposed to be HOT, not ‘kind’! I can smell how worked up they both are. Don’t you understand how we play? Twilight and I have explored deeper waters than this! Are you a lightweight?”

Chaos’s eyes widened… and suddenly, she wasn’t the only one smirking. A certain alicorn Princess, still bashfully looking away, had developed a dreadful smirk, and her eyes crinkled at the corners with merry mischief.

“Swirlie?” said Princess Celestia.

“Yes, my love?”

“Show her number seventeen,” decreed Celestia.

Chaos blinked. “Seventeen A? Or B? You won’t let me do B.”

Celestia’s smile grew wickeder. “No, I won’t, silly darling.”

“So, A then?”

“Nay,” corrected Celestia. “C. And in your chambers, not mine!”

Chaos stared, astonished. “But… the maids!”

“Lock your doors,” ordered Celestia. “I’ll double their pay and you must use your chaos powers to mop up the worst of it, in the morning. Agreed?”

“It’s a tempting proposal,” said Chaos, looking shaken. “Are you quite sure? Perhaps you are being unreasonably vindictive? I mean, C? Really?”

Celestia smirked, glancing around to meet Chaos’s eye. “Let us say I know Miss Lulamoon. No, I don’t think I’m being vindictive. Not here, and no permanent damage, please! You’ll see. Have fun!”

Now, it was Chaos and Trixie who gazed sidelong, shyly, at each other. Trixie’s eyes were very big. Teasing forgotten, she gulped and dared to ask, “So… what is Seventeen C?”

Chaos’s horn flared brightly, and a mass of thick tentacles dripping green slime burst out of the slim blue alicorn’s body at every point. The hideous, fell monstrosity lunged, seizing hapless Trixie even as she cowered back in shock, and it stretched high into the air, tentacles grasping Trixie’s every limb and splaying her obscenely. Even as a tentacle bent towards the helpless mare’s private parts, the monster that had been Chaos began hurrying toward the door, Trixie flailing in its grip. As she vanished into the corridor, captive to a hideous perverted tentacle monster, Trixie heaved in a deep breath and cried out, loudly.

“WHEEEEEEEEE!!!”

The door slammed. The squelches and happy, anticipatory squeals headed rapidly down the hallway.

Twilight and Celestia stared at each other.

“Is there a Seventeen D?” asked Twilight, warily.

Celestia sighed. “If there is, I doubt there’s a pony in Equestria that’s equal to it…”

Zecora frowned, bit in her teeth. “Hrrm.”

She lay on her back, and a fine healthy zebra cock jutted skyward from between her legs. Her ears laid back as well, as she contemplated the projecting, throbbing maleness before her.

Fluttershy contemplated it as well, but with much more enthusiasm. “Eeeee!”

“I b’lieve,” said Zecora, “you sh’d climb up now. I am r’dy.”

Fluttershy took a step toward her, legs wobbling and wings stiffly erect, and squealed again. “You have to pick me up and put me on it! I’m too excited to walk! Eeee!”

Zecora’s eyes bugged out. “And h’w am I s’pposed to…”

Fluttershy squeaked shrilly, and dashed forward onto Zecora. Dursaa had smacked her bottom with a hoof. She turned to deliver a withering glare to her original stallion, who grinned back at her and turned to Zecora, under her.

“You are welcome,” he said gravely. “This will probably be easier if you enter her first. Let me know when you are comfortable.”

Zecora’s ears were still back, her expression fretful as she experienced having that rude male thing, a penis, stuck on her crotch. She set her jaw, and flinched as the pressure from her teeth made the thing palpably stiffen. “Fl’ttershy? Grace this strange thing w’th the touch of y’r body. It is coarse. G’ve it the kiss of y’r nether lips.”

Fluttershy, wild-eyed, looked about to protest, but then thought twice. As much as she wanted to go passive and be forcibly mated by both natural and artificial stallions, there was no mistaking Zecora’s inexperience. Though she didn’t want to, Fluttershy had to take a more active role or see the whole thing fizzle in a fumble of virgin zebra awkwardness.

She pouted. “Oh, all right,” she said, and then saw the distressed, rudderless look in Zecora’s eyes and relented. “You really haven’t got any idea what to do, have you?”

Zecora shook her head.

A sweet little halfsmile flickered around Fluttershy’s soft muzzle… and she bent, and kissed her lover.

“It feels like this,” said Fluttershy, and shifted her rounded hips deftly, as if she’d always had the capacity to do that and the whole submissive thing had been a pose.

Dursaa’s eyes widened in appreciation. Shy had always been so wilfully helpless, but now?

Now, she nuzzled Zecora’s nose, her eyes half-lidded, and those buttery hindquarters moved with perfect assurance, not helpless at all. She positioned herself easily, scooting forward with demure grace, and then Fluttershy made her move.

“Nnnnh!” grunted Zecora, her eyes widening.

Silky pegasus pussy spread itself lovingly over the end of her cock, winking to receive that zebra gift, her glistening slickened flesh pressing down upon Zecora’s alien hardness.

Zecora’s eyes went wide as her teeth gritted upon the bit… then visibly rolled back in her head. “Nrrrrrhh!”

“Like… this…” crooned Fluttershy, pressing herself back serenely, and inch after inch of hard black zebrahood slid so smoothly into the blissful pegasus, like it was the most natural thing in Equestria.

Zecora shuddered. Her eyes weren’t focussed any longer. Her body shivered in little pleasure jolts. “Rrrnnnhh!”

Fluttershy gently bit her lip. “Mmmmhhh!” she moaned, and Dursaa watched her lovely rump tense as she squeezed upon Zecora, who responded only by pounding the bed with a forehoof, her rear hooves curling in the air.

“Dursaa?” panted Fluttershy, rapt. “Now. Now… oh quickly… before she…”

Dursaa nodded solemnly. “I am oozey, merely from witnessing it. I will go fetch the butter.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “No!”

“But dearest!” protested Dursaa. “Me, in that hole? We must lubricate, or I cannot thrust!”

“There’s no time!” gasped Fluttershy. “I oooooh… she’s throbbing, about to blow! Oh, Dursaa, get on me, right now!”

Dursaa trotted in place, shaking the house. “I would! But… Fluttershy, be reasonable?”

“I’ll fix it!” begged Fluttershy. “Don’t screw this up! Pleeeeease, now now now!”

Dursaa stared at the pert little pegasus rump squirming before him, tail flicked to the side, medium-size zebra cock plunged up her pussy. He gulped… but he was not a husband to resist the pleadings of his pony wife. Dursaa promptly moved forward and mounted both of them in turn, probing cautiously with his hips, his massive cock dripping pre-come and thumping Fluttershy’s bottom.

“Eeeee!” squealed Fluttershy. She began to pant rapidly, staring into space, every fiber of her being ready to fully experience all of what she’d contrived for herself.

Dursaa’s hips shifted forward, and his flare tucked under Shy’s tail with a juicy sglitch, so copious was his ooze.

Fluttershy’s mouth opened in a soundless cry of lawless ecstacy.

Dursaa’s body slowly bent over her, as he squeezed his massive erection into Fluttershy’s other hole.

She didn’t scream, but her expression shifted from shameless delight to delicious terror and shock. It kept going, inch after inch… and then, it didn’t, as the meager lubrication was used up. Shy clamped down on his throbbing bulk, her anus searing as if it was on fire, and locked him in place. There wouldn’t be any moving, and he wasn’t going to come out, for his flare swelled up inside her until her pelvis creaked under the strain, her butt corked tight by her zebra stallion.

“Oh… my… GOSH!” gasped Fluttershy.

“Rrrnnnhh!” moaned Zecora.

As Fluttershy tried to withstand the titanic pressure of Dursaa’s cock plugging her ass, she wriggled and squeezed down instinctively as hard as she could. There was no resisting the impulse: everything in her psyche screamed to clamp down on the agonizingly huge thing lest it burst her completely. As she did, she delivered fierce clenches onto Zecora’s sensitive, never-experienced horsecock.

Zecora shook roughly. “Rrrrrhhh!”

“Oh my… Oh! OH!” squeaked Fluttershy.

The more she clenched, the harder it drove her dick-sporting zebra mare. Zecora was panting harshly through the magic bit, her teeth showing. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and her hips first squirmed, then began to heave. She was pinned under a pegasus sandwich composed of Fluttershy and Dursaa, and though they did not move, the result of their passionate coupling began to drive Zecora insane.

“GHHH!”

“OH! UHHH! OHGOSH! AAAHHH!”

Dursaa could only hold still, could only cling to Fluttershy, poor Fluttershy… or, perhaps, lucky Fluttershy. She was not one to bounce hectically upon a stallion, but it would not be required of her this time. Dursaa, eyes wide, glanced under himself and saw the truth. He wasn’t thrusting, and his body was holding Fluttershy in place, but under her Zecora was steadily losing control, and the zebra mare’s hips were delivering involuntary thrusts, plunging juicily into Fluttershy even as she squealed and clenched.

He tried to scoot forward, so Zecora wouldn’t plunge so deep, for he could feel Fluttershy’s body jolting in his embrace. She was taking it rougher and rougher, and he was inadvertently pinning her down, the anvil upon which Zecora hammered her. Dursaa began to feel the thrusts thumping up at him through Fluttershy.

“RGH! NGH!”

“EEEEEEE!”

“Zecora!” gasped Dursaa, clutching Fluttershy’s fevered shaking body to him, trying to coax her forward and make space.

Suddenly, Zecora threw her forelegs around them in just as fierce a clutch.

“NGAHH!”

With an abandoned cry, Zecora doubled up and shoved as deeply into Fluttershy as she could, and let loose a stallion’s load in a single brutal spasm… impaling her squealing, shuddering lover on horsecock and gushing hotly into her womb.

Fluttershy shrieked, and she thrashed in mind-mangling orgasm, her wings frizzing out into featherduster states that kept on fuzzily jittering for second after second as she came and came and came.

Dursaa grunted, and filled Fluttershy’s tail end with stallion-cream, his thickness throbbing cruelly within her. He couldn’t help it any more than he could help breathing. He’d wanted to hold off and spare her the extra trial, but confronted with the sheer intensity of erotic excess under him, there was no chance of repressing it even for a second.

Fluttershy’s shriek escalated seemingly beyond the range of equine hearing as she felt zebra come swelling her body and pumping ruthlessly into her… and with a final flutter of disheveled wings, she passed out.

Zecora sagged; dazed, stunned.

“Zecora!” moaned Dursaa. “How could you? We have done great harm, surely!”

The zebra mare’s ear twitched. “Mrrrh? Oh… th’s, let me lose th’s…”

She spat the bit out onto the bed beside her. The magical marecock shrank away and disappeared, followed by an equally disappearing flood of horsecome, and then a weaker trickle that was part straw-colored ooze and part scarlet, spilling onto Zecora’s inner thighs.

Dursaa was craning his neck around and trying to see the damage. “Uhhh!” he cried, spying red, and tried to jump aside. The trouble was, his cock remained locked in Fluttershy’s ass, and he simply yanked her about, frail yellow pegasus flopping around like a rag doll of a pony.

“Be still!” demanded Zecora, shaking her head to clear it, the dazed look leaving her eyes.

Dursaa complied. Fluttershy dangled foolishly from his erection, for he’d frozen in place and his flare was still locked in her butt, though he’d gone more limp in the few seconds since his orgasm. She sprawled across the bed, face against the soft sheets.

The look in her unfocussed eyes would have said ‘pleasured into a quivering puddle of mare’ even if her tongue hadn’t been lolling out of her foolishly smiling mouth.

As Dursaa looked down upon her, Fluttershy delivered her opinion of the proceedings.

“…aggggggg…”

Dursaa’s flare popped out of her butt as she sagged into a state of complete limpness, drooling on the bedspread. Her pretty rump thudded onto the mattress, squirting more horsecome. The goofy smile on her face only broadened.

Zecora’s ears were back, but she was fighting off a smirk. “My goodness. She had better rest! Seems double zebra passed her test.”

“She’s bleeding!” moaned Dursaa. “We’ve done wrong! Why did you get so rough?”

Zecora blinked. “I do not know. Dursaa, don’t fear! It’s no sad pony we have here.”

“We hurt her!” protested Dursaa. He turned to Fluttershy. Her eyes focussed on him, or near him.

“Aggg…” she drooled, peering up benevolently at one of her stallions, not quite sure which but loving both of them without reservation.

“Tell us you will be all right!” begged Dursaa.

At this, Zecora shook her head again. Instead of arguing with him, she staggered over, and she prodded Fluttershy with a hoof, causing a sort of ripple effect and a wave of marely pheromones to waft forth. “Tell him! I know you are a vampire, but our stallion seems to have forgotten in his excitement!”

Fluttershy blinked. “Mrrr. Huh? I’m ever so all right. Oooooooh…”

Zecora tried to fight off a smirk. “Oh, Fluttershy. What are we going to do with you?”

That made the obliterated vampegasus knit her brow, and summon her efforts, adorably, for coherent speech. They watched her gather her strength and take a deep breath.

“Do THAT,” replied Fluttershy. “Again!” She sagged, her message delivered, tongue lolling out of her mouth as her eyes went unfocussed once more.

Zecora smiled. “Heal your hurts, sweet Fluttershy. We’ll revisit… by and by.”

Trixie writhed in the grip of the hideous tentacle monster, which cried, “Oh, I say! Must you?”

She spat out the tip of a tentacle and gave it a horrible grin. “You’ll never penetrate the Great And Powerful Trixie!”

The monster boggled politely at her. “Perhaps I’ve misunderstood? ‘Whee’ seemed fairly clear, you know.”

Trixie blinked, suspended in the air by tentacles grasping all her limbs. “Trixie means, you’ll never ram tentacles into Trixie’s every orifice as she squeals and struggles!” She winked, flicking her tail around excitedly.

“On the contrary,” purred the monster, “I just might! But whatever gives you the impression that I wouldn’t? You’re making less and less sense, my dear. Charming as it is, I confess I’m puzzled.”

Trixie heaved a deep breath, and glared at the nearest eyeball, which was on a stalk. “Very well, then. Trixie defies you! Trixie wishes to fight you with all her strength and ingenuity, defending the honor of her glorious unicorn vagina! And of course her bottom, and mouth, and possibly ears if you’re so inclined though Trixie imagines that would be more of a distraction than a perversion. You’ll not plunge wickedly into the Great And Powerful Trixie despite her fiercest efforts, so there!”

The eyeball blinked.

“What’s the magic word?” said the tentacle monster, and waited.

Trixie gave a huge, theatrical sigh, tears of frustration in her eyes, and gave in.

“PLEASE!”

“Yay!” cried the monster, and Trixie squealed in delighted alarm as a horde of slithering tentacles all came at her at once. They splayed her legs with effortless strength, yanked on her tail in playful glee… another tentacle went to slither down her throat but she snapped at it savagely.

“Oh, no, Miss Lulamoon! Can’t catch me twice that way!” said the monster. “Brace yourself…”

Thick writhing tentacles plunged up Trixie’s vagina and ass, and she let out a desecrated shriek and was flung into orgasm, her body shuddering all over and her vision dimming with the force of her climax. She felt herself whirling, wasn’t sure whether she was facing up or down and didn’t care, felt the tentacles slithering all over her body even as they ravaged her openings, another tentacle shoving up her to join the one already frolicing in her pussy…

“Ha!” remarked the monster. “That should do it!”

Trixie croaked. The thing had her by the neck, cutting off her air for a moment, then repositioning. It clutched her head, and she couldn’t twist and bite.

“Now, it’s time for little unicorns to get messy…”

The tentacles began to exude a glistening green goo, and Trixie felt the same substance working its way down their length. Globs of it squeezed through the tentacles thrust deeply inside her, and no matter how she clenched and tried to block them, the tentacle monster was too strong. The goo pumped, glob by glob, into her body. As her head was held back, a dripping tentacle lovingly stroked her throat.

“Muscle relaxant,” the monster informed her cordially. “Brief but effective. It might have been invented just for you!”

Trixie whimpered, trying to hold her mouth closed, a wild look in her eyes. More and more of the stuff pumped into her vagina and anus, and she felt her body going bonelessly limp in the tentacles’ grip. Her neck was weakening, and the thing slithered around her tightly shut mouth.

“Mm, rrmmmm…” moaned Trixie, shuddering. She could no longer move her head. She felt a tentacle begin to wrap itself around her horn, fondling it obscenely, spreading the vile goo drippingly across her unicorn’s pride.

“There’s a good girl. Open…”

The tentacles up her pussy had quieted, as if to let her focus on what was happening to her increasingly helpless head and horn.

A tentacle tip teasingly tickled her muzzle. Her lips weren’t responding to her panicky directions any more.

The monster quivered, and gave a little sigh. “Now… ALL the way.”

A tentacle parted her lips, wriggled past her teeth.

Her eyes swiveled wildly—it was the last voluntary action she could do.

And, as a thick tentacle plunged down Trixie Lulamoon’s throat, she felt the tentacle up her ass surge deeper, following a twisty oozy path, and the ones up her pussy seized that same moment to squirm through her cervix and into her womb, where they wriggled cheerfully if rather cautiously.

And, to top it all off, the tentacle clutching her lovely blue horn began to grasp and stroke her there, with casual greediness.

Trixie, tentacles wriggling in every imaginable orifice, made a muffled squall and began spurting thick gouts of glowing horncome, tirelessly. The monster cooed with delight and masturbated her horn harder and harder, though it was all the other tentacles that stimulated Trixie to distraction and drove her to orgasm until she was exhausted. It seemed the creature enjoyed the tingle as her horn gushed magic. It certainly enjoyed fondling Trixie all over, suspending her in the air and playing with her limp body with every sign of glee.

She made muffled, incoherent, orgiastic cries as her horn spurted luminous horncome all over the room. A curtain caught fire. Neither unicorn nor tentacle monster noticed. Chaos, in her grotesque writhing form, devoted tentacle after tentacle to the erotic devouring of Trixie Lulamoon, who’d defied the desecration until the slithering green muscle relaxant had rendered her completely helpless, a quivering mare whose every orifice was being boldly cavorted within.

Trixie croaked feebly, her body shuddering in sensual anguish, and as green goo dripped down her face, her horn gave a final piteous squirt and gave out. Upon it, goo steamed and bubbled. The monster had driven her so hard that her horn was smoking, its end visibly charred.

Gently, the tentacles released her, depositing her lovingly upon the bed, and then they all began slapping each other squelchingly in applause, green goo flying everywhere.

“Oh, I say, bravo!”

“Gggglllll…” burbled Trixie, and coughed. “…h—how long?”

“As long as I wish them to be, silly pony!” cooed the monster. “Weren’t they long enough? I do believe I tickled the horns of your uterus. Was it too uncomfortable? I felt almost obliged, simply because I could. Pray don’t tell me you regretted it! Shall I turn back?”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “Noooo! H—how long does—the muscle thing—last?”

“But I told you. It’s already wearing off. If I’m not mistaken, I can also lay glowing gelatinous eggs in you. Rather large lumps passing slowly through the relevant tentacles. But I think creating more of these creatures would be rather unpopular in Equestria as a rule…”

Trixie, wobbling, staggered over and hugged the mass of wriggling hideousness. “Eeeee! Do it again!”

The monster coughed in surprise. Trixie, slathered in a fresh coat of green goo, fell over with all her limbs giving way again. Chaos spotted the flaming curtain, and aimed a tentacle, firing a glob of goo. The curtain sizzled and went out.

“My,” said Chaos. “It seems popular with a discerning few. Perhaps you could put in a word with Celly?”

Trixie shook herself, struggling to her hooves, her eyes glowing with inspiration. “You have to do this for Mistress! For Twilight!”

Chaos cleared her throat and extended a quizzical eyestalk. “I think Twilight is taken care of, dear.”

Trixie thought, then brightened.

“Then you have to do this for Rarity! Please?”

The mass of gooey, slimy, disgusting tentacles seemed to smile.

“By Jove, you have the most ingenious ideas, Miss Lulamoon…”

Twilight lay across Celestia’s body, enfolded by alicorn forelegs and swaddled in alabaster coverts. Her head moved gently, her eyelids nearly closed—but though her pose was foalishly trusting, though she felt herself cherished and protected, she did not feel innocent.

And though Celestia nestled Twilight’s mare body in her wings with motherly awe and tenderness, yet she did not feel protective.

Two little pink tongues extended, to reach and caress their long-desired goals.

Two lovely marehoods shivered at the touch, winking outward to present the protruding clitoris for more loving attentions.

Twilight moaned happily, rubbing her cheek against Celestia’s soft breasts, and stretched forward in stubbornness and wilful determination, her tongue outstretched as far as it could go. She wanted another taste. Celestia’s nectars dripped downward across her dock and radiant tail’s base, for she was on the bottom, but by stretching her neck and tongue out Twilight could just barely touch her tongue to her Princess’s silky pink opening, and be rewarded by the slippery juices of a beautiful, elegant alicorn.

She squeaked, adorably, as she was dragged back for the fifth time. Her Princess hungered also.

Twilight’s squee of kittenish frustration turned into a deep moan. Even her hind legs braced against Celestia’s wing shanks weren’t enough to resist Celestia’s strong forelegs dragging her lavender body back, wriggling unicorn rump presented for royal attentions. The attentions were tongue-related. Celestia, her eyes closed as she wallowed in her experience, worshipped Twilight’s little vagina with her ample tongue, licking up eager unicorn juices and then pointing her tongue and pressing it against the fevered, confining nook. Twilight felt so alive there, her pussy quivering and tensing against the sensual touch, little shivers coursing through her body with each lick, with each soft and insistent half-entry.

“Eeee!” squeaked Twilight again. “Stoppit!” She resumed struggling forward, straining to reach. Sixty-nining was a frustrating thing when your partner was physically larger than you. If she was eager enough, it became either sixing or nineing: being eaten out until you came, with a lovely vagina tempting you from a few inches away, unreachable.

Celestia chuckled, the vibrations deliciously permeating Twilight’s body. “Truly? My exquisite unicorn does not wish this boon?”

“Not fair!” panted Twilight. “Can’t I do you?”

“But you do so much,” teased Celestia. “You hardly needed me at all with the vampires. How you have grown! What a lovely young mare you’ve become.” She licked her lips, eyes twinkling.

Twilight glanced back in mock annoyance. “Since when are unicorns for drinking? You’ll have me dehydrated, because apparently I don’t get to drink YOU back!”

“All your fluids are magical, darling,” purred Celestia. She blinked, and an ear twitched. “Er… you know what I mean. I fear I am a little old-fashioned. For me, the fluids of love come from vaginal walls and testicles and the horn, of course. I know some of your friends cast a wider net than that.”

Twilight’s ears laid back. “Yeah, they do. Um. Do you know the first thing that came to mind was blood? Probably from knowing Trixie and Rarity. I’m with you, Princess, let’s not get too experimental here. I know what I like, too.”

“And what do you like, exquisite one?” said Celestia. “What do you like best? Perhaps I can let you scoot forward, just a bit, to reach your sought-after goal. If you are good. But tread upon my wing shanks much more with those cute little hooves, and I cannot answer for the consequences…”

Twilight didn’t whirl, though, didn’t resume struggling to reach Celestia’s marehood with squees of delight. She continued meeting Celestia’s eyes, and her expression was thoughtful.

“Princess? I think I do know what I like best. We’ve never done it, but I think if we’re good it’ll work. Do you mean that?”

“Of course I do!” declared Celestia. “Name it.”

“I won’t need to,” said Twilight smugly. “You’ll see. Is Trixie using… no, I saw her leave with Chaos as a tentacle monster. I’m pretty sure it’s free. Just a moment.”

She concentrated, and her horn lit—and between them, a small metal object materialized. Twilight smiled, her eyes wickedly narrowed, at Celestia’s startled expression.

“Oh, my,” said the Princess. “Look at you! Beloved, I would be honored. You’ve grown so much that you propose to mount alicorns and inseminate them? How forceful, how masterful! And your wing work has turned me to jelly, darling. You have indeed come a long way from the insecure filly frightened of magic kindergarten. Before you ask, I’m sure Swirlie won’t mind. You may need me to crouch, because of our size difference…”

She trailed off.

Twilight’s expression was still pure unicorn naughtiness, but the floating bit was insistently moving towards Celestia’s mouth.

The Princess’s eyes flew wide at the thought, and a distinct wet sound met the air. Both alicorn and unicorn had winked hard, at the same moment.

“Yes,” said Twilight Sparkle. “Like I said, if we’re good I think it’ll work. I want you inside me. Give me… the royal D.”

Celestia gulped. “Oh, Twilight.”

“It’s not like you weren’t nearly fucking me with your tongue alone,” scolded Twilight playfully. She wriggled her hips in front of Celestia’s face. “You like this purple pussy that much, huh? Come on. Take ALL of it. Conquer my body, it’s all yours. Fill me with dickprincess loving!”

“Oh, Twilight! Oh, my.”

Twilight hesitated. “Or… okay, it’s gonna break my heart, but are you telling me you’re too big? As you might imagine I’ve never seen you with a dick. I just assumed I’d probably be able to… aw, crap! In that case…”

Celestia was shaking her head. “Nay, do not panic. It is just daring, but then so are you. Pray climb off of me, beloved.” Her lips curled in a wry smile. “Lest I poke thine eye out.”

With another kittenish squeak, Twilight scrambled and rolled off Celestia’s mighty barrel, sprawling on the bed in a tangle of unicorn limbs. In moments, she was on her hooves again, watching Celestia’s crotch avidly.

Celestia’s teeth clamped down upon the bit, and a majestic horsecock sprang forth in its full glory, jutting boldly into the air.

“Oooooh!” gasped Twilight, her eyes wide. Trepidation mixed with sheer lust, in her intelligent gaze.

Celestia bowed her head slightly. “Although it is unc’vil to draw comparisons at s’ch times, and indeed my thoughts are bent upon you and you alone, I may say th’t my mate Chaos h’s asked for me to use this upon her. In her natural form, I mean. And NOT using Chaos magic. We’ll speak no m’re of that, I only mention it because her form as Chaos is even smaller th’n you, or at least her rump appears smaller than yours…”

Twilight snorted with amusement. “Are you saying my butt is too big, Princess?”

Celestia’s eyes widened further in alarm. “N’y! N’y! I only m’nt to s’ggest that it might fit into you, my l’ve!”

“Oh no no no,” teased Twilight, wriggling her hips as if to pounce, pawing the bed with a forehoof.

Celestia gulped. “No?”

“Not might,” corrected Twilight. “It WILL fit into me. It’s about to. Oh, gosh! So fucking exciting. How should we… wait, I know! We’ll do it like this.”

She dove forward and rolled onto her back, curling her legs up. Celestia, cock throbbing, stared dumbfounded at the sight of Twilight, belly up, pert unicorn vagina glistening enticingly with lube and awaiting its impending stallioning.

“Gimme the Royal D,” said Twilight confidently. “Er… nice and slow. It’s big, but I can take it. Not that much bigger than Rarity, really, and you don’t have to go to the hilt. In fact you can’t, at that length.”

Celestia straddled her. She gazed down. “R’rity? R’lly?”

Twilight reached up, and thumped Celestia on the sides with her forehooves. “Storytime’s over! Love me.”

“Oh,” breathed Celestia, “I do.”

She gazed deeply into Twilight’s eyes, and with eager cautiousness, guided the royal horsecock to its expectant home.

Twilight gasped as it touched her. So blunt and thick! She’d half expected a show of force, a slow and ruthless pressure. Celestia wasn’t in that sort of mood. Instead, she’d nudged against Twilight’s slickness, positioning and tucking into her slippery nook at the surface, and then giving further nudges. They pushed against her unicorn vagina’s tightness, trying her out for fit, discovering as expected that she was a bit of a challenge, a cramped little marepussy eager but not quite up to the task of relaxing and letting a mighty alicorn penis in.

Celestia tensed her jaw, and then remembered. As Twilight wriggled and gasped, feeling the flare expand against her labia, Celestia intentionally released pressure on the metal cylinder, holding it as loosely as she dared. Her eyebrows knit in concentration as she balanced this against the positioning of her hips, gauged angles and pressures…

With a juicy pop, the Princess’s flare poked into Twilight’s pussy, right past the band of tightness, to fill her shallowly with stallion’s flesh.

“Ahhhh!” squealed Twilight, eyes very wide.

Celestia smiled, still keeping her jaw as slack as she could. It only helped somewhat, but it was so worth it. She watched enamoured as Twilight’s expression changed. Those violet eyes stayed wide, but at first Twilight’s face showed delicious alarm and vulnerability—not pain, but obvious fright mingled with the arousal. Then, she began to wriggle and squeeze at the hot bulk penetrating her… and that expression gradually melted, a look of awe supplanting the fear, and then what could only be described as exaltation.

Twilight’s heart pounded, she trembled, but she felt she’d never been so aroused in all her life. She reached up, and thumped Celestia’s sides with her hooves again, dreamily. “Move…”

Twilight hastily redefined the concept of ‘more aroused than she’d ever been in all her life’. Celestia’s first motion wasn’t even her hips. It was her jaw.

The statuesque alicorn princess, wings stiffly erect, held quite still but bared her teeth before Twilight’s wide, shocked eyes. Her gaze held Twilight’s, watching her expression as strong equine teeth began to clamp down upon the magic toy they held, in waves of pressure and relaxation, more and more insistently.

Inside Twilight’s pussy, the stallionhood surged. It swelled hungrily, taking her breath away, easing off for a moment and then coming back with even more fierce throbbing intensity.

Twilight wriggled, panting wildly, hyperventilating. “Oh my gosh!”

“Hrrrrr…” crooned Celestia. Her eyes gleamed, and she grinned with bared teeth around the magic bit.

She began to tug the hardening horsecock slightly, and coax it deeper as it surged.

“Oh my!” gasped Twilight. “Oh m… aahhhh!”

“I l’ve you,” crooned Celestia, as she straddled the pretty unicorn mare who was once her charge, once her equal, and was now her lover with all the passion of her little mortal pony heart. Celestia’s nostrils flared as she gently tugged the oversized horsecock and thrust it a little deeper into Twilight. “I l’ve you, and I am going to c’me inside you.”

“Uhhh!” moaned Twilight abandonedly. She curled her legs up, trying to wrap them around Celestia’s sedately moving body. She shook, feeling the hungry stallionflesh slide a little deeper with each worshipful thrust, her pussy melting down and barely keeping ahead of the twinges of overstrain, each wave of deeper surrender yielding a softness that was immediately met by renewed male hardness.

Celestia was becoming outrageously stiff, like rock. Even her grin began to look hard, triumphant. “And I w’nt to, how I w’nt to,” she hissed between her teeth.

Twilight’s jaw dangled in an expression that mingled the deepest desire with growing alarm. She gave way to a fierce shudder as if her body’d been seized by a little earthquake, then another. Her eyes went unfocussed, and then she fought back, forcing herself to speak coherently.

“Not in… the horn!” begged Twilight.

Celestia blinked, and some of the voraciousness ebbed away. “Wh’t?”

“I’m gonna… gonna come!” panted Twilight.

“I kn’w,” said her Princess, proudly.

“No, I mean… I’m gonna squirt! And I mustn’t! Look at you, you’d take me out!”

Celestia’s eyes widened. “We are n’t here to end you, beloved! Fear not!”

Twilight was panting, writhing in erotic overload, though Celestia had gone still and calm. “I know I know I know! I know not to come, I mean not that way! I thought… I thought…”

Celestia gazed into her eyes. “Oh, l’ve. What did you think?”

Twilight’s lip quivered. Her eyes glistened. “I… I need you to come in me. Oh, Celestia!”

“And so I sh’ll,” said the Princess, and bore down slightly on the magic bit. Her cock swelled inside Twilight’s wildly aroused vagina, taking the little unicorn’s breath away.

“Aahhh! But, but but… you mustn’t squirt! How can we control this? I’m gonna die if I arc with you!”

Celestia’s eyes challenged… but then she bowed her head, and spoke gently. “The Pr’ncess of Order is v’ry controlled. I thought you w’ld know this, my l’ve.”

Twilight panted, frantic. “But I wasn’t going to squirt! And I don’t think I can help it if you keep doing that! And I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want to go, what would Trixie think, you’d be so sad, I need to not let you arc…”

“Twil’ght,” soothed Celestia, holding still.

“But I promised myself I wouldn’t, I know how dangerous, I… ahhh!”

Celestia had tensed her jaw again. “The Pr’ncess of Order is v’ry controlled! D’nt you underst’nd? Do you trust me?”

Twilight’s eyes were wild, seeking explanations and excuses. Then, as the Princess nudged her equine erection a little deeper, Twilight shuddered all over and a tragic look entered her eyes.

“T’ll the truth!” demanded her Princess and her stallion and her entire world, right then.

“I don’t want to control myself!” sobbed Twilight, shivering all over. “I love you! I want you to LIGHT ME THE FUCK UP!”

Celestia took a deep breath.

“I kn’w.”

“You do?” squeaked Twilight.

“I kn’w. You c’n trust me to do what is r’ght, in spite of you.”

“But, but, but…”

“Do you tr’st me?”

“But…”

“Do you tr’st me?” repeated Celestia.

Twilight’s mind was reeling. The horsecock wedged into her was throbbing in gleeful maleness, aching to take her all the way. She’d wanted to keep control, to show her Princess how fully equal she was even as a simple unicorn mare, that her willpower and brilliant mind could rise to every occasion. That she’d never do foolish things or be out of control, needing rescuing, helpless…

Her eyes were huge and vulnerable. Celestia’s burned with passion and confidence… and, perhaps, just a hint of tragedy, of past mistakes learned from, determination to be worthy of any trust.

“I trust you,” said Twilight in a tiny voice.

Celestia bowed her head. She nuzzled Twilight’s sweet face… then, her horn gently rubbed Twilight’s, and it felt like an electrical jolt and every bit of resistance in Twilight Sparkle melted away in a flood of irresistible desire.

“L’t go, my love,” said Princess Celestia, and set her jaw.

Twilight gasped, as the horsecock surged inside her again. It couldn’t get much larger, for it was already a monumental throbbing presence inside her, and only her jelly-like yieldingness allowed her to take its bulk.

It slid against her walls, tugging until the flare was all that wedged it into her… and then thrust forward, plunging to her quivering depths.

“GHHHH!”

“L’t go…” urged Celestia gravely.

Twilight writhed, her vision whiting out. The sensation was mind-manglingly intense, all the more since some part of her still struggled to stay in control. She felt like an unexploded bomb of sexual unicorn magic, floating in the heart of a Sun, protected by her shred of willpower alone.

Celestia tugged again. The stallion flare hardened inside Twilight, as she shuddered and made a strangled noise… and juicy slurpings began to emanate from between them. Celestia had begun a gentle, insistent thrusting, and Twilight’s insides were churned by the steady motion and her eyes grew wild…

“You sh’ll let go,” said Celestia, her nostrils flaring… not with aggression, or not that much, but laying down the law for her recalcitrant mare lover all the same. She looked off into the distance for a moment as if fixing her mind upon an unshakeable intent, and then she gazed lovingly into Twilight’s eyes, and Princess Celestia smiled.

Twilight clutched at Celestia’s body… both with her frantically excited vagina, and by trying to wrap her legs around her alicorn lover’s gently thrusting form. She stared back in desperation, hysterical and shaking all over, and her eyes widened and widened and then a yearning, tragic look entered them, and still she hung on, with force of will alone…

Celestia firmly gritted her teeth on the bit. Her hips swung unhurriedly. The huge, hard stallionhood kept thrusting into Twilight’s juicy, molten vagina, which clenched and winked around it faster and faster, Twilight’s tail thrashing under it as the noises grew still more obscene from the oozing of Celestia’s precome, turning the physical strain of the tight coupling into a sensuous, greased ecstacy of ever-intensifying fucking…

“GHHHH!”

Twilight’s eyes screwed shut in a final effort of control, and then when they opened they were focussed a million miles away.

“GHEEEEEE! Eeeeehhh! Aaahhhh!”

From Twilight’s horn erupted a glorious, thick gout of unicorn magic, the most beautiful thing Princess Celestia had ever seen. Even while she continued to thrust and grit her teeth upon the magic bit, her lover let go. Twilight surrendered utterly, her body shuddering in violent orgasm, clenching upon the thrusting stallionhood while she gushed copious magic and her eyes begged to arc and complete the circuit, to be saturated in Celestia’s magic and impregnated as if it were a true unicorn stallion within her.

Celestia kept it going for five seconds, still thrusting, her nostrils flaring harder and harder as Twilight writhed and shrieked under her contorting body… and then, she made good on her promises, every last one.

Her body stiffened over Twilight, and with a series of fierce throbs and spurts, Celestia came inside Twilight Sparkle, magic-induced horsecock going fully stiff and pumping hot come into Twilight’s quivering womb, drenching her in spooge.

Twilight squealed wildly, and the gush of magic from her horn became a torrent, splashing all across the magic-proof bedstead. Wincing with overstimulation, Celestia kept her motions going, churning a sea of lube and spooge inside Twilight, and the little pony writhed and screamed her lusty joy and, in turn, drenched the bedstead in magic, magic begging for its counterpart to merge with, begging to form a channel through which Twilight could take it all, take in the uncontrolled magic of her stallion at any cost.

Twilight’s voice began to give out, the clenching of her pussy becoming exhausted and weak, and still her horn squirted, and still Celestia watched, rapt, entranced, and gently thrust within her mad, exploding unicorn lover.

And at last, with a sweet, stricken cry, Twilight collapsed onto the bed, and her horn went dark.

Celestia sagged, panting. She released the magic bit, and the stallionhood withdrew into nothing, and Princess Celestia gathered limp Twilight to her and curled around her precious unicorn, straining her close and tight, snuggling her in a tightly furled ball of alicorn limbs and wings, tears in her eyes.

“…because I couldn’t be so lucky twice,” she managed.

Twilight stirred. Celestia gave her some air, and the lavender unicorn’s eyes opened. They bore a sultry, sated look such as Celestia had never seen.

“Wow,” breathed Twilight.

A nervous smile flickered around Celestia’s muzzle, as if the scope of the risk she’d taken was weighing on her. “Wow?” she said.

Twilight nodded. “Oooooh.” She nestled trustingly against Celestia, whose heart melted.

“Prithee, are those the most coherent remarks you have for your Princess?” said Celestia.

The sultry gaze fixed upon her again.

“Mmmmm,” added Twilight Sparkle. Then, she giggled.

Celestia felt herself smiling harder and harder. “My fault, entirely.”

Twilight nodded, smug. Then her face grew more serious. “I don’t see any holes in the wall. Do you have to let go? You held it back the whole time.” She kissed Celestia’s muzzle, shamelessly. “My hero.”

Celestia wore a wry halfsmile. On close inspection, little sparks were scintillating all up and down her horn. “I am enjoying the pent up feeling,” she explained. “It is, after all, for you and not for blowing a hole in some wall or mountain. The romance of this pleases me, and thus I contain the energies still. Doubtless I’ll eventually have to discharge. I’ll light up Chaos later.”

Twilight blinked. “Um. Is that safe? Your horn…”

Celestia kissed her. “I imagine she will insist on being herself, just as you are so very yourself. Trust me, this won’t harm another alicorn. And I am in no hurry to rush off: there is some headache but you might say it is a delicious, magical soreness that I can enjoy for what it is…”

She gasped, for Twilight had bent her head, and touched her horn to Celestia’s.

“Twilight!”

“Just imagining,” teased her little unicorn. “So, you’re going to make love to Chaos later, and take care of that blue-horn with your blue-horn?”

Celestia gulped. “I am going to WRECK Chaos later. Thanks to you, you minx.”

Twilight smirked cheerfully at her. “Yeah. Do that.” Her expression softened. “Tell her it’s… with my blessing.”

They kissed. There was no hurry.

“Trot outside and see the sunshine,” sang Fluttershy happily, heading out to feed her chickens. She’d told Dursaa and Zecora that she meant to do that and then go shopping in Ponyville.

Trot, however, she did not. Fluttershy still couldn’t walk after her double zebra. “It’s okay,” she reassured Dursaa. “Give me a day or two and I’ll be fine. Nopony will guess except other pegasi, maybe, and they’ll be ever so jealous. It’s fine! Everything is wonderful.”

“If you are sure?” said Dursaa fretfully.

“I am!” called Fluttershy. “Goodbye! I’m shopping now! I won’t be back for a couple of hours, and certainly won’t be anywhere near here!”

Then, she was gone, and Dursaa and Zecora looked at each other.

“Our vampire pony’s had her fun,” said Zecora. “Between us, then, a job well done?”

Dursaa frowned. “You were too rough. What use such stuff? Don’t cruelly thump her little rump. The cost you’ve seen. It’s kind of m…”

He stopped, for Zecora had put a hoof to his muzzle, and she had her Elder look going on again.

“Dursaa, please,” scolded Zecora. “Perhaps it is just the aftereffects of my experience, but I feel you are not understanding mares as well as you might. Specifically, I do not think you understand straight mares, and that is what our Fluttershy essentially is. Perhaps it goes deeper, perhaps there is an essence of femaleness at play here!”

“I do not argue that,” said Dursaa. “Fluttershy is the most wonderfully submissive wife. My concern is that your rough lovemaking hurt her. What got into you, Zecora?”

She shook her head. “That is a separate thing. I am dismayed, Dursaa: I believed myself free of male dick-headedness, and as soon as I wore one of my own, there I was, pounding sweet Fluttershy’s pussy. It is not what I wanted, or planned.”

“Nor I!” protested Dursaa. “Will you promise to forswear such attitudes?”

Zecora was frowning. “It is not as simple as that. I took joy in it, Dursaa. I must be honest, or what good am I? It left me strangely unfulfilled, but Fluttershy thrives. I wore a mask of penis, and I was a gleeful dick, Dursaa, but I will tell you this: Fluttershy enjoyed every moment of it. I have seen her in many situations over the years. I have seen her with you, and I have seen her after making love with you, but for all that I have never seen her so happy. Our pony needs me to be as I was, and she wishes you were more like that.”

Dursaa’s lip quivered. His eyes were tragic.

Zecora hmphed. “Oh, come on, Dursaa! Be brave! You must face these things. Honestly, for all your size and strength, the tribal Elders were right about you. It’s as if you were the m…”

Zecora froze, staring at nothing. Her eyes flicked about as if thoughts were flying through her head.

“Zecora?” said Dursaa, softly. “I am sorry.”

Zecora blinked.

“I am not,” she said brusquely, and marched off.

“Zecora?” called Dursaa. She’d gone to Fluttershy’s bathroom, and was rummaging through the medicine cabinet, sniffing at hamster cures and assorted veterinary powders. “Zecora, what are you doing?”

She turned up a packet of leaves, with an air of satisfaction. “What I wish, Dursaa. I am doing what I wish—what I have long wished.”

“But that’s the Earth Pony’s…”

Zecora dug out a few leaves, and chewed them up, making a face, swallowing. “Yes.”

Dursaa’s ears were back. “Zecora, what do you ask of me?”

He backed up, shy of her certainty as she marched boldly up to him, as if he expected a scolding. What he got was a kiss on the nose.

“To be just as you are, Dursaa. Fluttershy is a foolish mare. I will help you manage her, and we will teach her how to appreciate your ways.”

Dursaa knit his brow. “Oh?”

“Yes,” said Zecora. “Now come up to bed, or I will drag you by your ear.”

He gulped, and followed obediently, sniffing the air. As he did, his ears perked up.

Zecora circled the bed. “How do you… no. No, I will not ask you. Let me think. My posture was uncomfortable, but I still do not wish to mimick the straight mares and how they go about it. Dursaa! Onto the bed.”

He jumped heavily into bed, shaking the room, blushing because his penis had begun to drop and he had no idea whatsoever how it would be greeted. It seemed likely that Zecora wanted that to happen, but he wasn’t sure of anything.

Zecora climbed into bed with him. “Let us see…”

“What is at the window?” cried Dursaa fretfully.

They looked. There was nothing there.

“Calm yourself,” ordered Zecora. “This may be the truest expression of your lovemaking abilities.”

“I, I’m not sure…” began Dursaa.

Zecora turned to him and silenced him with a passionate kiss that half-bowled him over. Her eyes were closed, and her forelegs hugged his neck. Helpless and nearly on his back, Dursaa’s legs kicked feebly in the air as the kiss went on and on.

Quietly, his cock thrust out from between his legs, and swelled until it stood erect, poking jauntily at the shadow across the window.

Zecora broke for air. “Did you say ‘eeeee’?” she demanded.

Dursaa looked stunned. “No,” he said, “but it sounds like a good idea!”

Zecora laughed out loud. “You are ready! I think I am nearly ready, as well. Just a moment.” She rolled over, her back to him, and scooched up cozily. “There! I do not mount you, you do not mount me. We are comfortable and safe. If you would?”

Her shoulder began to move, her foreleg hidden. Dursaa blinked. “Zecora? I do not know when or if you wish me to penetrate you. You are not like other mares.”

She turned her head. “I am clopping, Dursaa.”

His ears went back. “Rather than be loved by me?”

“Oh, come on!” scolded Zecora. “Yes, mares are not supposed to do this, especially while they are with a stallion. But you are no more like other stallions than I am like other mares! Do not pout! Join me.”

“And clop?” questioned Dursaa, ears quizzically splayed.

She panted, breathing heavily. “Now you are putting me on,” she accused.

Dursaa’s eyes twinkled.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I am. You got me.”

“Not yet, I haven’t!”

“Well then,” rumbled Dursaa softly. “Say when…”

With a curious grace, Dursaa’s massive zebra hips shifted back, then forward. For a moment, he just stroked her body, admiring her as she pleasured herself, and then, with great care, Dursaa joined her.

“Uhhh!”

“It will go easier,” said Dursaa, “once the head has entered…”

Zecora twisted, reaching out a foreleg, and slapped his rump as well as she could. She got the promontory of his hip, but the effect was the same: he grunted and shoved forward, and with a juicy squelch, Dursaa entered Zecora, his cock plunging eagerly into her taut and expectant pussy.

“Grrrr!” went Zecora, baring her teeth in pleasure. “Hrrrrr!”

Dursaa panted, his eyes a bit wild. “Are you a tigress, now? Will you bite me?”

She grinned, scrunching up her eyes in bliss, and tensed her pelvis. Dursaa yiped. She’d used her mare-ly muscles to nip at him vaginally, as nervousness had made him slightly soft and malleable.

Rapidly, the softness was remedied. Even as Zecora grasped at him, Dursaa’s erection swelled and burgeoned, coming to full mast.

“Thrust!” decreed Zecora. “But not like I did! I do not wish to be… aahhhh!”

He’d slid his cock deeper, and the power of speech left Zecora, her legs kicking on the bedspread as thick zebra cock sank into her.

“Is it too much?” said Dursaa. “Did I harm you, should I stop?”

She turned, and her eyes gleamed, and her teeth also gleamed in an exultant grin.

“Dursaa,” she said, “you are a miracle. That is just where I would wish you to reach, and you did stop without being asked. This feels amazing.”

“Oh,” said Dursaa. “Um. Good?”

“Nay,” said Zecora.

His ears went back. “I am sorry! Where did I fail?”

Her eyes danced. “Did I say you could stop? Oh mighty Dursaa… begin thrusting, just to there, while I clop myself. And do not stop until we have both exploded with pleasure!”

Solemnly, Dursaa nodded, and Zecora turned immediately to do as she’d said, her hoof working away between her legs.

At first it was quiet. Dursaa moved gently, his bulky form wrapping around Zecora in loving affection and his bulky shaft thrusting quietly into her stripey body, gleaming with slickness as it withdrew.

Then, the bold zebra mare began to moan in sweet abandon, her hooves kicking. Dursaa did not change his tempo, but he drew her closer, and he breathed heavier.

Zecora’s tail began to thrash. Her head thumped against the mattress as she tried to shake her mane. Her hooves kicked, and Dursaa clung to her and pressed a little deeper, his ears laying back.

Zecora’s motions became jerky, uncontrolled. Dursaa clung tighter… and then, the hoof that she’d been clopping with was out from between her legs, and she was clinging fiercely to Dursaa’s embracing forelegs, and trying to shove her rump against his crotch, zebra clitoris winking out against the intruding shaft.

Dursaa heaved great deep breaths. Zecora squealed, her ears laid back hard… and Dursaa firmly thrust his massive zebra cock into Zecora, and held it there at the spot she liked, and his body visibly spasmed, the stallionhood throbbing where it entered her.

Zecora let out a whoop, a sort of guttural shriek. She did it again. And then, both she and Dursaa were shuddering, clutching at each other, Zecora’s foreleg reaching back to try and hold Dursaa to her even though her back was turned. Her neck arched beautifully. Dursaa caressed it with a hoof, stroked her body in apparent rapture, shuddered as he added another gout of zebra semen to the flood he’d drenched her with.

They sagged against the bed, exhausted. Zecora’s belly was faintly distended.

“Uhhhh…” sighed Dursaa. “Oh! Does the volume of my issue hurt you? Sweet one?”

Zecora turned to regard him with pleasure-dazed eyes. “Should it? I feel so full, in there.”

“Perhaps a zebra mare can tolerate it more easily,” suggested Dursaa. His ears laid back in sudden alarm. “Was it you that said ‘yay’?”

Zecora blinked. “No, I did not. But I think I should say that!”

“Very well,” said Dursaa. “We’ll say it together! One, two…”

“Yay,” crooned Dursaa and Zecora, nestling stickily together with foolish grins.

Zecora turned back and snuggled against Dursaa’s chest, well satisfied with all her choices.

“Not bad… my lad,” she said.

-FIN-

(The story continues in the sequel Precious, and a Kindle version of Adorable Monsters can be downloaded here)

Adorable Monsters

Colors warmed toward dusk, and it was a delightful fall day.

So, that’s just what Northern Spy did.

Inside the cozy farmhouse, a pony shouted in dismay, too late. Just an instant later, the window exploded in a rain of glass, burst through by a small pale-green projectile. Northern Spy, spawn of Rainbow Dash, scorned words like ‘grounded’ and ‘punishment’—and even words like ‘gravity’ and ‘second floor window’. She flew out the window and fell, in a fine and glorious arc, toward the grass below.

Her small earth pony frame, unlike that of her Blue Mom’s, bore no wings. She scorned that too, scorned that the best of all.

From an adjacent window, Rainbow Dash burst like a bolt of vengeance. Her mission might have been rescue, might have been the heroic saving of her plummeting filly while Applejack wailed from the shattered window. She might have sought to clasp her foal in protective hooves and spare her the dreadful impact with the ground. She might have wept with relief, weak with gratitude she’d saved the adorable little horror from a gruesome fate.

It wasn’t, she didn’t, she wouldn’t. Dash knew her foal far too well for that.

Below her, she saw the powder-blue tail flip as Spy hit. It described a rapid twirl as the tiny green filly executed a tumble and roll, taking the impact on her shoulder and bouncing off the soft grass like she was some sort of hoofball.

Dash swooped down at top speed. It had been months since she could count on the drop even slowing Spy down, and the back yard was dangerously full of foliage, greenery and cover.

“Gotcha!” cried Dash, tackling Northern Spy just as she began to seriously accelerate in the general direction of away.

Applejack cheered from the window. “Yeeha! You hold on, I’mma get down there and have a word with Miss…”

She trailed off, for she wasn’t being heard. Two little shrieks in succession had drowned her right out. The first was Northern Spy, squealing in outrage, unable to kick her way free of Blue Mom’s fiercely determined grip. Rainbow Dash knew all too well that she didn’t have the luxury of being gentle with her little hellion.

The second was Rainbow Dash, as her filly nemesis writhed and bit down on her ear like some tiny timberwolf.

“AHHH! Crap! Spy! Shit!” squealed Dash, and made the fatal mistake of trying to swipe Spy off her head with one foreleg. In an instant, Spy had kicked herself free of Blue Mom, and become a diminishing pale green spot before Rainbow’s eyes. Heavier hooves thundered over as Dash tried to leap to her feet.

“Aw hell, Rainbow, what’s she done to your ear?”

“Not right now!” squealed Dash, turning to glare at Orange Mom, her marefriend…

They glanced back, and the yard was peaceful and quiet. Spy was out of sight.

“She done it again!” cursed Applejack. “Ah will tan her little tail for her! Kin ya do an air check, sugarcube, real quick?”

Dash shook her head, rubbing her ear with a hoof. “That hasn’t worked the last three times, Applejack!”

“She went into one of them tunnels,” snarled Applejack. “Ya can’t let her do that! You know it ruins the drainage of th’ soil! We’ll get Big Macintosh…”

“Yeah and where do you think she learned it from?” countered Dash, in frustration. “If you’d just let her hide in that hole that one time, maybe she wouldn’t have seen Big Macintosh dig, and my life would be simpler!”

“Well, don’t jes’ stand there, Rainbow Dash, fly up an’…”

“She got away,” stated Dash flatly, making a face.

Applejack bridled, pawing the ground with a hoof. “We gotta…”

Dash spat. In the tussle, she’d got some dirt in her mouth. “No. She got away. Let her cool off. Ow, my ear!”

Applejack’s lip quivered, and her eyes glistened. Her flanks trembled as if barely resisting the urge to gallop in all directions. “But…”

“No, Applejack,” insisted Rainbow Dash. “Go back inside. Uh… take a deep breath and then go back inside? She got away. She’s too good.”

Applejack trembled, and burst out, “Ain’t good when she kin sass her Granny and act like some dern outlaw pony! What does she think this is, Appleloosa? Bustin’ outta windows! She can’t fly, dammit!”

“I used to believe that,” grumbled Rainbow Dash.

“We jes’ got to smack some sense into that filly! How am I supposed to tell Granny her great-grandfoal’s impossible?”

Rainbow Dash set her jaw, glowering into the fading light of dusk. Gradually, a wry grin crept over her face, suppressed by the sight of her mate’s obvious distress, but impossible to completely conceal.

“I think,” said Rainbow Dash, “she noticed.”

The hollowed-out tree had been there for decades. It had seen many things, endured many seasons, sheltered many creatures since its hold on life had slipped and its last green leaf had fluttered peacefully to rest.

This, however, was a new one.

“Didja think of a name?” demanded Spy, crawling determinedly through the big crack in the side of the hollow tree.

Rock Candy, colt of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie with a timely assist by Big Macintosh, nodded solemnly. “I think so. Hey, what happened, are you okay?”

Northern Spy shook herself, wiping away huge gouts of blood—well, dirt, anyhow. “Th’ Green Streak is always okay!”

“Did the monsters attack you?” asked Rock, wide-eyed.

“Worse! Mom,” said Northern Spy with scorn. “So what’s your power-pony name?”

Rock opened his mouth, looked nervous, hesitated.

“Way too quiet,” decreed the Green Streak.

“No!” squeaked Rock hastily. “I didn’t say it yet!”

“So what’s…”

Rock gulped. “Rock Lobster.”

Spy stared levelly at him for a long, long moment. Just when he was about to burst into a foalish flurry of squeaky explanation, she cut him off. “Is that some kinda Pinkie Sense thing?”

“I think so,” admitted Rock.

“Your Pinkie Sense things are dumb, Rock. What’s a lobster? Why would you say that?”

Rock gulped again. “Because it’s…”

“Funny,” grumbled the Green Streak. She sighed. “Fine! You can be Rock Lobster, okay?”

She had to smile at his predictable response. Rock’s beaming smile shone out, brighter and brighter, and he began to bounce off all four hooves at once, and then just as predictably she had to tackle him and sit on him until he settled down, for the integrity of the hollow tree was at stake. It was never meant to handle a Rock Candy bounce-fest and he just couldn’t handle himself sometimes. Well, most of the time.

“Thanks, Green Streak,” panted the still-twitching colt.

“No problem… Rock Lobster,” replied Northern Spy, with a devastatingly cool and awesome halfsmirk.

“Eeee!”

She bumped up and down for a moment as Rock took a moment to renew his bouncy hyperness through sheer delight at the new name and her approval of it. This, too, was predictable, and wouldn’t take long—when he quieted, Spy hopped off him and began peppering him with questions. “Didja check in all the closets for monsters? Didja go look in the Everfree Forest like I told you? Didja hear any new scary noises? Didja see any extra monsters other than your Mom and the Enemy?”

Rock Candy boggled, trying to keep up. Feebly, he protested, “My Mom isn’t a monster!”

“Yeah she is, sometimes she’s a vampire with all fangs and stuff and sometimes she isn’t! I even saw it once!”

Rock pressed on, unable to counter that objection. Everyone in Ponyville knew of Fluttershy’s vampirism, but Zecora’s enchanted mane and tail extensions continued to mask her condition. He had another concern that his innocent foalish heart needed to voice. “My little brother isn’t an enemy!”

“Half-brother,” retorted Northern Spy.

“He’s my little brother! He’s even littler than me. Fluttershy’s his Mom same as me, and that zebra Dursaa is his dad, and so is he named Dursaa, and he’s very special and real cute…”

Northern Spy glowered. “He’s too special.”

“Mom… that is, Pinkie Mom… says I need to let Fluttershy Mom be with him more ‘cos he’s so little, and ‘cos his Dad can’t help him with his w…”

He froze, at a glare from Northern Spy.

“Earth ponies can’t have wings! He’s a monster too. And our enemy!”

Rock Candy gulped. “But his Mom’s a peg…”

He trailed off, unable to meet Northern Spy’s glare. Just as Rock’s Mom and the new little brother’s Mom was Fluttershy, Spy’s Mom was Rainbow Dash. Both Fluttershy and Dash were pegasi, but pegasi with earth ponies didn’t breed more pegasi, and both Rock and Spy were solidly earthbound—and Northern Spy had not responded well to the arrival of a still littler foal, also out of a pegasus mating with an earth pony, but this one with zebra-striped wings. Other ponies saw that as adorable and a stroke of unaccountable good fortune. To Northern Spy, it was personal. She’d wanted to be like Blue Mom from the moment she saw Rainbow Dash streak across the sky.

“Maybe it’s from Mom having the vampire thing?” guessed Rock.

Spy glowered. “I just said that! He’s a monster, Rock.”

“But I should love him just the same, Pinkie Mom said so,” protested Rock. “And I should be patient that Fluttershy Mom and little Dursaa stay in their house even if it makes us sad…”

“Vampire Mom, more like,” grumbled Northern Spy. “And no you shouldn’t! Patient is bad. It means waiting!”

Rock’s face fell. “I don’t wanna go where I’m not wanted…”

“This is dumb stupid talking again,” Northern Spy informed him.

Rock didn’t respond. Spy heaved a big sigh.

“Listen,” she said. “It’s okay that your mom Fluttershy is some kind of monster but she still has to love you ‘cos that’s what Moms are made to do. So if you and Pinkie Pie can’t see her, it’s because there’s worser monsters making her not see you enough, ‘cos it’s super obvious that Fluttershy loves you, just look at her! She’s super lovey, maybe even when she looks like a monster.”

Rock nodded weakly. It was true, Fluttershy had soothed his fears of her underlying vampony form and when he did see her, she was always motherly and sweet. That hadn’t changed. It was just that he could sense a reserve, some place in her where he wasn’t welcome, and it’d only gotten worse with the arrival of little Dursaa. And big Dursaa claimed to love him too, but that only made Pinkie Mom sad and strange. And that, in turn, made big Dursaa more reserved…

Spy continued. “So we gotta find the worser monsters, Spy! Are you still hearing the scary noises at night? Feeling the creepy feelings?”

“Pinkie Mom says those noises are called rumpypumpy and they’re none of my business,” objected Rock.

“Not those noises!” retorted Northern Spy. “Rainbow Dash makes those noises too, and Applejack! I mean the BAD noises. Out in the forest! The ones that sound like hurting and sad. And you keep telling me you got a Pinkie Sense from your Mom and it’s starting to tell you stuff! You said something was all creepy and awful and I told you yeah it’s your little brother and you said no it’s something else going on!”

Rock nodded, eyes wide. “But maybe I’m just making it up and there’s no such thing as a Sense?”

Northern Spy fixed him with a sharp filly eye. “And you got all dreamy and you told me it was the most convoluted plotline yet and with great power came great irresponsibility and I had to go ask Granny Smith what those words were and she din’t know either and said I was feverish and I had to take yucky medicine! And you don’t even know what you said!”

Rock Candy, Pinkie Pie’s colt, bowed his head. “Uh-huh. That’s what Mom does sometimes. She talks crazy and doesn’t remember what she said, and it’s about chapters and things, and it’s her Sense. Everybody knows about Pinkie Sense.”

“So,” concluded Northern Spy, “we gotta make up superhero names like Power Ponies and go hunt down the bad monsters that are making our Moms sad, starting with your little brother!”

“Leave out the last part,” said Rock seriously. “I’m sure little Dursaa is nice. It’s so cute when he smiles. He hugged me!”

“Okay,” conceded Spy, “we hunt the other monsters first. Did you look in the Everfree Forest like I told you? There’s always monsters there! Everybody tells me not to go there so I just know that’s where we’ll find the monsters!”

Rock was still grappling with Spy’s Rainbow Dash-ian logic. “Not yet, it’s scary. Northern Spy? I can see how we need to go and fight the monsters, but… why did we need to make up superhero names?”

Spy gave him an exasperated look.

“Cause we’re superheroes! Duh!”

Rock Candy gulped. “Um… okay?”

“Totally okay,” Green Streak informed him.

Nervously, Rock Lobster nodded. Something was telling him the Everfree Forest wouldn’t be as easy as she thought.

Gimme A Dun Dun Dunn

“Applejaaack!” wailed Rainbow Dash.

“What?”

“It’s… huurrk!”

“Make up yer damn mind,” snorted Applejack. “It was your idea, sugarcube! As far as I’m concerned, it’s still a lettuce-stealin’ varmint. Do you want to feed it or not?”

She frowned at her experiment. Below her, the remnants of a bunny rabbit sat befuddled, a carrot sticking out of the hole in its neck. There was no sign that it was particularly soothed by this treatment, but it did cork up the horrible noises the thing made.

“It can’t breathe! Make it stop!” protested Rainbow Dash.

“Good,” retorted Applejack. “It also can’t eat my vegetables. As we kin see! Fine, I’ll quit tryin’ to feed it. What do you propose I do, missy? We can’t turn it loose!”

Dash whimpered. She peeked sideways at the spectacle. Reluctantly, she mumbled, “Kill it. It’s too bad hurt.”

“Y’ think?” snorted Applejack, as the bunny fumbled with one-and-a-half paws, trying to dislodge the carrot stuck down its neck. “Maybe this is a bunny upgrade! Look how good it is at not eatin’ up all my crops.”

“Kill it!” squealed Rainbow Dash, covering her eyes with her hooves, then her wings.

“Oh, fine!” said Applejack. “You jes’ keep on not lookin’. Soon be over.”

She flexed a hind hoof, considered removing the carrot, and then decided the critter was entitled to a last round of garden-looting and left the orange prong in place. Decorously, Applejack rotated, aiming her potent hindquarters square at the mostly-bunny, which sat confusedly and pawed at the carrot, oblivious. She turned and looked back at it.

“This is gonna hurt you one heck of a lot more than it’s gonna hurt me,” said Applejack truthfully.

“Just kill it already!” wailed Dash, from behind tight-furled wings.

“All righty,” sighed Applejack. “Here goes.”

One orange hoof drew back, and then flicked out with unthinkable speed and power—her country-mare muscles rippling in a destructive spasm that could knock all the apples off a tree or kick a hole in a wall. It connected with the bunny, flattening it and firing it at high velocity against the cupboard, so hard that the door flew open and a china bowl inside shattered. The results bounced messily off two more walls and landed in a heap in the corner. Even the carrot was in three pieces.

Applejack turned and regarded her hoofiwork sadly, but with a certain satisfaction. “All right, Dashie. It’s over, you can l…”

The bloody heap stirred, and moved.

Applejack stared, her eyes wide, as the thing pulled itself together. Its limbs no longer bent in normal places, but that didn’t seem to stop it. Her jaw dropped as it heaved itself over to take its place in front of her again, facing her with no face to face with, and standing up as tall and proud as it could with no intact bones left in what remained of its body. A bunny arm rose defiantly…

Applejack’s jaw dropped, as the ‘zombie bunny’ flipped her off. She gawked, as it rotated and proceeded to hop, much more slowly and painfully than before, toward the same wall it had aimed at the first time.

“Well, Ah will be damned…” marvelled Applejack, and she took off her hat again, this time in respect.

“Did you kill the zombie bunny?” asked Rainbow, peeking from between her feathers. Her jaw dropped too, as she watched the monstrosity squelch determinedly along.

“I reckon zombie bunnies is tough lil’ bastards,” said Applejack.

“Did it attack you?” said Dash. “I mean, when you kicked it? Oh my gosh! This is outrageous. Spy says there are more of these things?”

“We kin herd ‘em,” said Applejack. “Not like ya got to be gentle! And no, that there bunny din’t attack me or nothin’. It did make a rude gesture, but believe me I don’t blame it for that nor would anypony else. Bunnies don’t attack ponies, Rainbow. This here pile of bunny bits wants somethin’ else.” She blinked, shaking her mane. “Ah do not think monster bunnies will harm our Northern Spy. Wonder if they’re bad to eat? I mean, for th’ critters that eat bunnies and such?”

“If it’s a zombie,” quavered Rainbow Dash, “wouldn’t that mean it was, you know, spoiled?”

Applejack scratched her head with a hoof. “Well, it was mighty pissed off, but I can’t blame it for that. Seems to have got over it already. I reckon it’s a friendly enough zombie bunny, or whatever the buck it is, and it don’t seem to expect too much outta life. Naw, it’s fine.”

“Is it a vampire?” quavered Rainbow Dash again. “Does it have fangs for teeth?”

“It don’t have a HEAD, Dashie,” explained Applejack. “See? How’s it gonna have fangs if it ain’t got no head to have ‘em on?”

“Is it dangerous?” said Dash. She crept up, trembling, nose extending toward the little horror, and then flinched when it made another awful noise out of the hole in its neck.

“I kin stop that up if you like,” offered Applejack. “Worked before.”

“It’s hurting!” wailed Dash. “It sounds horrible!”

Applejack made a face. “No shit it is. If you din’t want that, you mighta said so when you asked me to buck it into next week. Mind you, somethin’ did a number on the lil’ bugger before I ever got to it. Think we kin drown it?”

Rainbow Dash whimpered, and Applejack took pity on her. “Actually, let’s not. I can see that troubles you, besides which it might not work and that’s gotta be a distressin’ way to not die. I’ll tell you what. You grab up them pieces of carrot, and I think I kin pick this thing up like it was a lil’ old furry sack. We’ll put it out in the barn, where it’s warm.”

“What are we gonna DOOOO?” moaned Rainbow, struggling to cope with the gruesome scenario.

Applejack scratched her head again. “If I don’t miss my guess, we’re gonna collect the lil’ buggers. Spy is on a tear, and she’s bringin’ em to us. You ever heard of a zombie bunny farm? Like, out Cloudsdale way, or them crazy ponies in Fillydelphia?”

Rainbow pulled herself together, somewhat. “No! Nopony ever had to deal with things like this!”

“Like what, youngster?” came the crotchety voice of Granny Smith, investigating the commotion. “All you young colts and fillies think you invented every consarned thing. I tell you… whut in tarnation is that?”

She squinted at the headless, wrecked bunny as it kept trying to hop through the wall.

Dash took a deep breath. “Things like this, Granny.”

“Well I kin see that,” snapped the old mare. “What’s it doing?”

“Not much, Granny,” replied Applejack.

“That there’s a bunny,” declared Granny, squinting hard. “Why’s it all squished up?”

“Cos I bucked it into the cupboard,” said Applejack.

Granny nodded sagely. “Yep, that’d do it. Who brought it in here?”

“Spy,” said Rainbow Dash.

“No kiddin’?” said Granny. “What fer?”

“We tried to stop her!” protested Dash. “She’s trying to hunt the monsters of the Everfree Forest!” She cringed, expecting a scolding.

Granny Smith snorted. “Heh. Good!”

Dash’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“You heard me!” snapped Granny. “You think I ain’t noticed th’ attitude of our newest Apple? Dern fool horses tryin’ to hide things from me! I’ve seen that lil’ scaper jump right out a window without a by-your-leave. She’s a-hunting in the Everfree Forest, eh? I got words to say about THAT sorta carryin’ on, young lady!”

“I told you, we tried to stop…” began Dash, but Applejack waved a hoof to hush her.

“Granny? What do y’mean, Granny?”

The old mare’s eyes glistened.

“Why, Applejack, I would say that I done lived to see another generation carry on the tradition of th’ Earth Ponies. That’s the sort of carryin’ on I mean.” She sighed, tremulously. “Dern it! Makes me all soppy to see it. I don’t know what you expect of me, youngsters, an’ I don’t know what you expect of this lil’ fireball neither. Seems like you are frettin’ and tryin’ ta hide her cantankerousness from ol’ Granny?”

Applejack shifted from hoof to hoof. “Maybe. We don’t like seein’ her disrespect her elders, you included, and that’s a fact. And it’s a bigger and bigger problem, let me tell you. Ah don’t like to admit it but we can’t rightly control her no more and she’s still a mighty small stack o’ apples.”

Granny snorted fondly. “Pah. Good luck to you. Now you know how I felt, raisin’ your own dear mother! The grief she caused me, practically from birth and right along to her sad an’ untimely end. I did my best, too, an’ I always wondered if I done wrong or failed her somehow. And now blood will tell, and our family has a new lil’ terror and I do believe I see the tradition of the Apple Boss Mares unfoldin’. I do not know whether lil’ Northern Spy will end up tearing up this farm, or fight our Apple Bloom to be Boss Mare, or jes’ strike out and homestead her own farm which is another way it kin go. But, Applejack, I know one thing for certain, and you best listen sharp because I am not going to tell you this twice, missy…”

Applejack gulped. “What is it, Granny?”

“Ah’m proud of you,” said Granny Smith. “You raised your foal to be a proper Apple pony. Y’done good, Applejack.”

Applejack’s lip quivered, and then she’d rushed forward and the two mares embraced, sniffling and sentimental.

“HEY!” squeaked Rainbow Dash. “Aren’t you leaving out somepony?”

“An’ how kin we leave you out,” said Granny Smith, “when you’re bein’ such a noisy lil’ chickadee?”

Dash’s expression went fretful, but then Granny was holding out a foreleg and inviting her to join the hug. With a flutter of blue wings, Rainbow Dash did.

“Ow!” she squawked. Granny had clonked her on the head with a hoof, playfully, and then ruffled her mane.

“Thought you knew where you stood, y’crazy varmint! I wouldn’ta believed it, but I reckon at least half of Spy’s earth pony spirit comes from a pegasus, and that pegasus is you!” said Granny. “We already know you’re amazin’. You tell us that every other Tuesday!”

Dash made a face. “Uh… it’s good to be sure.” She stuck out her tongue at Granny, then nuzzled her white mane affectionately.

“Yah! Git off you daft featherbrain!” protested Granny. “Dern crazy hotblooded pegasuses, I ain’t yer fancy-pony!” Surreptitiously, she cuddled Dash to her for a moment, even while vituperating up a cranky storm.

“I don’t suppose you could be at your age!” retorted Dash with spirit, and gave Granny’s ear a little kiss.

“Help, help! Overamorous pegasus! Hide th’ mares!” yelped Granny, and scrabbled away from the cuddly ponies, panting.

Dash stuck out her tongue at Granny again. “Spoilsport!” she teased, secure that the scary over-earnest phase had safely passed. She flicked her tail happily, face wreathed in smiles.

“Uhhh…” said Applejack.

“Yeah?”

“Did we have to stop that cuddly business?” said Applejack plainitively. “Ah liked it.”

Rheumy eyes met ruby eyes, with the same amused and tolerant expression… and then, both Granny and Rainbow Dash re-hugged Applejack. “For you, babe,” murmured Dash, “all the cuddles ever.”

Applejack smiled, snuggling against Rainbow, and then squawked “Ow!” for Granny had clonked her gently with a hoof too. “Whut was that for?”

“You soppy soft thing, Applejack,” said Granny, not angrily. “Thank goodness for Apple Bloom, is all I kin say.”

“Oh yeah?” protested Applejack. “Why?”

“Cos if you was still Boss, dearie, your own foal would be overthrowin’ you before she was prop’ly weaned! How Applesauce had enough sweetness in her to make up you, Ah’ll never know,” said Granny. “Strong as an ox an’ sweet as candy apples, jes’ like your brother. It’s a mercy you kin deal with varmints an’ pick weeds. You ain’t got a mean bone in your body, you soppy thing!”

Rainbow Dash smirked. Rainbow Dash opened her mouth. Rainbow Dash got a geriatric hoof to the ear, and shut her mouth, smirking, her remark about mean bones in Applejack’s lovely body left loudly unsaid.

Applejack looked stricken. “Ah was a good Boss! For a while! I… shucks. Maybe you’re right. That there’s a mercy, I guess. Bad enough losin’ your Boss to your lil’ sister, imagine losin’ to your little foal!”

Granny Smith smirked at her. “Don’t have to, child. I been there. Land sakes, how mad I was when young Applesauce kicked my poor teeth in and took th’ farm! You go on bein’ the sweetheart, dear Applejack. Somepony around here ought to be!” She mock-glowered at Rainbow Dash.

Dash smirked back at her, then turned to Applejack.

“Don’t ever change,” she said, and kissed her mare.

“Dern tootin’,” agreed Granny Smith. “Maybe you kin put a heart in our new tiny but ty-rannical crab-Apple.”

“Oh!” said Applejack. “That reminds me. I got to go talk to Fluttershy! I feel things ain’t right with Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy ought to know about it. I ain’t sure she’s any too happy about Fluttershy’s zebra. Even though she’s picked up one of her own, Ah mean.”

“Tomorrow,” said Granny firmly. “It’s gettin’ late. What are you gonna do with that thing?”

She gestured, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash cringed. The semi-bunny was still feebly trying to hop through the wall.

“We’re puttin’ it in the barn where it’s warm,” said Applejack. “Northern Spy might be gettin’ more. It’s harmless!”

Granny regarded it critically. “Eyup. You know, for all I was claimin’, I will admit you’re good with varmints. Apart from keepin’ em as pets, anyways. What do you feed it?”

“Not carrots,” said Applejack. “Don’t ask…”

Rainbow Dash made a gagging noise, gave her a kiss, and trotted upstairs to bed. Carefully, Applejack picked up the twitching monstrosity by a scrap of spare fur, and headed out to the barn.

“An’ don’t you put it in the saddlebags, nor the baskets!” called Granny after her. “You got to fetch groceries tomorrow and we don’t want no gore-ceries in this house!”

Applejack set the gruesome thing down, gently. “Yes’m!” she called, picked it back up, and then continued on her way.

“Fluttershy! I was jes’ thinkin’ about you, how glad I am to see you!” called Applejack.

“Oh! Hello,” replied Fluttershy, setting down her little shopping basket. “What’s the matter? You look worried. Is something wrong?”

“Kinda! Maybe. Fluttershy, kin I talk with you for a minute?”

“Of course! Oh, dear. Something is wrong. Is it dangerous? I’m not very brave…”

“That’s an interestin’ question,” replied Applejack, thinking of Pinkie Pie’s past escapades, “and I ain’t prop’ly sure of the answer but all the same we need your help, Fluttershy. At least, I think we might.”

Fluttershy gulped. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s about Pinkie Pie,” said Applejack.

Fluttershy’s expression changed, immediately. The fear went away, but her countenance became grave.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve been expecting this. Will you walk with me, Applejack? I was heading home, have you finished shopping?”

“Sure! Wait, is that a fish?”

Fluttershy bent to pick up her basket, then looked apologetically at Applejack. “May I put my basket in your saddlebag? I can’t talk while holding it in my mouth.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever stuck a fish in this saddlebag before…”

“It’s not an alive fish,” said Fluttershy, “but I don’t think it will smell. I’m sorry.”

“Feedin’ animals, are you?”

“Something like that. It’s all right if you don’t wish to. Er, except that you needed to talk to me and I am just a teensy bit sure that I will need to talk back. I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient. I could leave the f… but no, I don’t think I should.”

Applejack gave her a hard look, bent to lift her basket, and placed it securely in one saddlebag. “There you are. What do you mean, you’ve been expecting this?”

Fluttershy pouted, peering from under her huge eyelashes. “Will you promise not to repeat these things to anypony? And we should walk alone. Not that I see anypony coming with us. I fear ponies may still be uncomfortable around me, which I’m sure I don’t blame them for.”

“Nonsense,” said Applejack staunchly. “What with them nice mane extensions Zecora made for you, you’re just like everypony else. Er… dependin’ on what you got to say, I might be talkin’ to Dashie. If you know anything important about Pinkie Pie, that is. We’re pow’ful tight with Pinkie, and I hope that’s okay.”

Fluttershy considered this. “I think so. It might help. Yes. Is it okay if we head out of town now?”

“Sure,” said Applejack, and watched Fluttershy closely as they cantered away from the market stalls, away from other ponies, on the road to Sweet Apple Acres and Fluttershy’s cottage. Once they were well out of earshot from other ponies, she spoke again. “What have you been expecting, Fluttershy?”

The gentle pegasus winced. “How is dear Pinkie? Is she well? I haven’t had much time to talk to her lately.”

“I was wonderin’ that myself,” said Applejack. “Seems you might have answered some of that question already. You’re not speakin’ to Pinkie Pie?”

“I didn’t say that!” objected Fluttershy. “I said that I haven’t had much time. I’m making a point to try and talk to her, which is not always easy.”

“You spit your bit or somethin’?” gawked Applejack. “You’ll never find a friendlier, happier pony than our Pinkie Pie!”

“Friendly, is she?” said Fluttershy. “And I suppose now you’ll tell me she’s thoughtful, and compassionate, and kind. Just the sort of pony you could take all your problems to.”

“Well, I…” began Applejack, and thought. “Hmmm. I ain’t sure thoughtful is exactly the word for our Pinkie. You sound mighty cranky, Fluttershy, you okay there? Why would you be sayin’ Pinkie is compassionate, in such a way that it sounds like she ain’t?”

Fluttershy glowered unhappily at the ground, as she cantered slowly along. “Everypony behaves like Pinkie is so compassionate. It’s not really true. I mean, it is and it isn’t. She needs things to go a certain way and she won’t listen. You run into these cliffs in the clouds, with her. If what you need fits with the way she sees things, she’ll do anything for you. If it doesn’t fit, there’s a problem, and it’s impossible to talk about the problem.”

Applejack’s ears were laid back. “Maybe you just aren’t tryin’ hard enough? I don’t usually see you insist, Fluttershy. Are you sure you’ve tried to work out your problem? What is this problem, anyway? Maybe you just din’t tell her.”

Fluttershy frowned. “She just fires party cannons at you and insists everything is happy. I get very worried when I think that she isn’t happy, because I don’t think she listens to herself either.”

“Now see here!” objected Applejack, trotting with high, bouncy steps as she got more caught up in the argument. “This is Pinkie we’re talkin’ about! How can she not be happy? That’s, like, her whole thing!”

“That’s what frightens me,” said Fluttershy. “That’s why it’s become so hard to talk to her.”

“Well, ponies need to talk out their problems! First of all, there ain’t nothin’ you can’t talk yourself through, and secondly how can you be acting so nervous of our sweet bouncy Pinkie Pie? Have you flipped?”

Fluttershy shot her a sudden, sharp look. “Have you broken a Pinkie Promise lately?”

Applejack hit the deck with a whinny of alarm. She stared all around her, ears flattened back against her head, hat pulled down by her own forehooves until she nearly disappeared under it.

Fluttershy stopped, and regarded her with a weary look, waiting until the blind panic receded. She said nothing, but her expression said it all without a word. Applejack, still scanning the horizon for screaming pink vengeance, got up.

“Guess maybe you might have a bit of a point…”

“I don’t have a b… oh. Actually I may need to pick up one of those, it’s complicated. But I most certainly have a point. You know it’s true, if you’re honest with yourself. It’s a big scary problem and it’s getting worse,” said Fluttershy resignedly.

“Did you make a Pinkie Promise?” demanded Applejack worriedly, and scanned the horizon again as she said the words. “Is that it? Maybe we’ll, I dunno, try ta negotiate it or something…”

“No,” said Fluttershy. A tear came to her eye. “She never demanded anything like that. No, she’s promised me.”

“Promised what?”

“Everything,” said Fluttershy simply.

They began to walk again. Applejack watched Fluttershy, giving her time, not rushing her. Eventually, the demure pegasus continued.

“I wish I had never become a vampire, Applejack. Even though I love dear sweet Angel, and surely it must all be for the best because Angel didn’t mean it, but all the same, if only I had remained a pony! If only Pinkie Pie had found me before that. Maybe if I’d known her early enough, she might have turned me lesbian too. I’ll never know,” said Fluttershy, in a kind of quiet despair. “I can’t return her feelings the way she has them. It doesn’t stop her, or even slow her down.”

“Yeah,” sighed Applejack. “Yeah, that’s our Pinkie all over.”

“She is my heart,” said Fluttershy bitterly. “Quite literally. She is at the center of me and is supposed to be my everything. We even have a foal together, who is wonderful and whom we both love like life itself. But I don’t have life itself, Applejack. Pinkie is my heart, but she is my heart that doesn’t beat… and about as relevant.”

“She loves you,” said Applejack earnestly.

Fluttershy’s glance in return seemed sad, even angry. “What does that mean, Applejack? What exactly does ‘she loves you’ mean?”

“Wull, uh…” said Applejack, and fell silent.

“Yes. She needs things to go a certain way, and has never really been at ease with me being a vampire. She indulges me, and that can be very bad. She can’t accept how I really am inside. Not that I can, either, but that only makes it more awkward.” Fluttershy pouted. “There are things I need that she simply cannot accept. I’m beginning to ask for them. I’m beginning to grow, Applejack, because I have to: I can’t just go around being what ponies would like to see, anymore. It’s important that I do better, even when it’s confusing. Pinkie Pie just stops all of that completely.”

“Hmmm…” said Applejack.

“She’s not good with me finding fault with myself,” said Fluttershy. “And there’s a lot of fault I need to work on, and I don’t really know how. I’m trying everything I can, to find my way.”

Applejack set her jaw. “Sugarcube, don’t you worry. One way or another, we’re gonna work all of this out. Maybe what’s frightening you is just that Pinkie has more than her share of good old earth pony power? There’s a lot of that around these parts. My foal, Northern Spy, whoof! But the great thing about earth ponies is that connection to pure pony love. We carry that on across the generations. We’re not gonna let you fall.”

Fluttershy winced. “I wish I had that. I’m a vampire, Applejack. I connect to something else, and it draws me. I’m trying to fight it with all I have, but I’m scared. What if I give in? What if I let that power tell me what to do, instead of listening to pony love? How can I be sure I’ll do the right things, when I get,” and she shuddered to the tips of her wings, “temptations?”

Applejack shivered too. There had been something in the way Fluttershy said ‘temptations’ that didn’t bode well.

“We’re gonna take care of you, Fluttershy,” she said bravely. “Don’t you underestimate that earth pony power. There’s a lot we can do. Speakin’ of which, I need to ask you about some new critters we’ve discovered in the Everfree. Sturdy buggers, but there’s some things about ‘em…”

“Not right now,” said Fluttershy. “Please don’t distract me now, I’m almost home. It’s just a teensy bit complicated and difficult and I must be careful, there are several things I must do.”

“Y’ don’t say?”

“Shhh,” said Fluttershy.

Applejack’s eyes widened. She’d never seen the gentle pegasus… well, vampegasus… so firm and resolute. She watched, curious, as Fluttershy approached her door, winced, then pulled it ajar with her teeth.

There was a harsh squee of delight from inside, and the door was burst open entirely by a pouncing griffin: Gilda.

“EEEEE! It’s so good to see y…”

“GILDA!” declaimed Fluttershy, in a voice like doom.

She squawked. “I’m sorry! Aaaa! Did I, did I not greet you nice enough? I just can’t help it, I…”

“Gilda! Down!” demanded Fluttershy.

Startled, Applejack regarded her vampegasus friend. There was no sign of Fluttershy doing anything spooky. It was just Fluttershy, but being commanding and dominant like when she’d taken assertiveness lessons, or had turned grey thanks to Discord. But there wasn’t the vindictiveness so present in her attitude the last time, or the bullying nature Iron Will had taught her. She was just laying down the adorable law to a full-grown, very excited griffin.

Gilda lay right down and grovelled on the ground, before Applejack’s amazed eyes. “Mmmmf!” she went, and fell silent, quivering.

Politely, Applejack trotted around behind her, and peeked. “Dang! Dunno if you knew it, Fluttershy, but Gilda’s about cross-eyed with horny. Wow! Need some help with that, honey? Me and Dash know how ta help you out!”

“F… fluttershy…” sobbed Gilda.

Applejack blinked. “Dang,” she said, helplessly. Glancing up, she saw Dursaa, who didn’t seem happy. It wasn’t that he was angry with the state of affairs: a traditional zebra stallion might have taken offense at not being in control of the situation, but Dursaa seemed to have no objection to Fluttershy dominating a horny griffin on the lawn. He did look scared, though.

“Applejack,” ordered Fluttershy, “get my basket out of your saddlebag.”

Applejack did so, trying to keep an eye on all three creatures… no, four. Little Dursaa peeked out of the door, and fluttered up to stand on his father’s broad back.

Fluttershy turned to Gilda. “Eat this fish. It’s dead and won’t mind. Do it now.”

“I don’t want to!” protested Gilda. “You’re going to think it’s horrible! Give me some more seeds, they’re terrific, the best!”

“Gilda Griffin!” insisted Fluttershy. “You’re acting more and more twitchy and unpredictable. You’ve eaten nothing but birdseed since you arrived here, and you are staggering and irrational! Some animals like ferrets need to eat fishes or they get sick and nasty. You are clearly something like that, now eat the fish!”

Applejack felt a presence behind her, a breath across her tail, and whirled in her tracks to see… Zecora, looking back at her and wearing an expression of dismay.

“Oh, Zecora!” said Fluttershy. “I’m so glad you came. We need to talk. I have to confess I’ve been thinking about that toy you brought me ever since I saw it. Gilda! Don’t make me wait, eat the fish this instant! Applejack, you can help me tell her. Zecora, I mean, not Gilda… Zecora brought a big wooden horse thingy for me. I’d been sort of hoping she might feel that way about me…”

“Ya don’t say,” managed Applejack. She couldn’t take her eyes off Dursaa and Zecora, even with Gilda, fluffed out in humiliation, devouring a fish right in front of her. The zebras were on the verge of fleeing in all directions, from sheer awkwardness and fretfulness.

“Oh yes,” said Fluttershy, all the while watching Gilda critically. “I’ve been trying to explain to my Dursaa that I would like more stimulating personal times and I am more, well, durable than he thinks, as I’m sure we all know. Zecora must have heard, perhaps Rarity dropped a gentle hint! She’s brought a toy for me, but Zecora, this is Ponyville. The clever unicorns invented something that’s very popular. I would very much enjoy being intimate with my stallion while also being intimate with Zecora as another stallion.”

“Dang,” said Applejack. “Am I readin’ too much into that?”

Fluttershy pouted. “Well, it is possible. I remember how very exciting it was when I’d angered Big Macintosh, and also Braeburn helped. Do you think when you discover new exciting things, it makes the regular things seem less interesting?”

Applejack kept eyeing the zebras. “Good thing you’re… how you are, is all I kin say. Me and Rainbow were keepin’ an eye on you that time, and I swear it ought to have kilt you and turnt you inside out. You’re wantin’ more, huh?”

Fluttershy turned to her, with another sharp glance at Gilda. “Well, yes, Applejack. I think it’s my vampire nature? I’m always wanting more and more. I’m so excited to see how Zecora responds to a magic bit, it could be very impressive, you know. But there’s something else. I’ve talked to Discord…”

“Sweet Celestia,” said Applejack in horror, and took off her hat.

“What? No!” protested Fluttershy. “Discord is my dear friend in a different way, we don’t do naughty things with each other! He gave me advice! I was going to say that Discord persuaded me to try things the way Dursaa likes them, sometimes. I’m worried that it is too seductive and dangerous. I’m pretty certain that making love with both Dursaa and Zecora as a stallion, at the same time, would hurt so amazingly that I wouldn’t lose track of who I really am, especially if I do it in pony form where I feel things more acutely.”

Applejack saw the pain in Dursaa’s face. “Uhh… maybe you want to dial back this talk a mite, sugarcube? Stallions bein’ stallions and all? This conversation can’t be easy for him.”

Fluttershy blinked. “What? But we need to talk about my needs. And not only my needs, Dursaa’s matter very much too.”

Zecora cleared her throat. “Stallions need this from a mare: to give, to serve, but not to share.” She glared at Dursaa.

“We learn to live,” said Dursaa, “from such wide-varied schools. I see that Ponyville has its own rules. I know my rival is a mare who’s gay… It is not that which worries me today.”

At that, Zecora’s jaw dropped. Her eyes bugged out. “A rival to you? No, not I! I wish the best for Fluttershy. How can you be with her, and yet, prepared to see us intimate?”

Dursaa’s chin lifted. “My dearest beloved has fires that no single stallion could possibly quench! Is this not Ponyville? I must expect this—from even some zebra mare wench.”

“Do not assume from what you see,” said Zecora sternly, and then dropped her gaze. “I’d hoped she’d use the toy on me.”

“Sweet an’ sour apples!” blurted Applejack, in amazement. Both zebras glared at her, and she blushed and was quiet.

“Goodness, no!” said Fluttershy. “I don’t want to wear a wooden dildo, or the magic bits for that matter. I am a mare through and through and only want to be treated as one, which is to say very fiercely and aggressively. And anyway, if I do take one of those bits in my teeth, my thingy is far too b…” She trailed off, looking at Zecora’s large and powerful zebra body.

Zecora bit her lip. “A gentle marely touch… from that… would mean so much.”

Fluttershy narrowed her gaze. “Zecora, haven’t you gone off to be lesbian with Pinkie Pie? Is that not going well? Tell me, or we won’t be continuing this conversation any farther.”

Zecora made a face. “Indeed, her attitude can chafe. It’s true the cheery, bouncy waif has passion and technique enough… but, Fluttershy, she plays too rough!”

“This, then, is the desired result of your romantic coup?” asked Dursaa. “To have my wife a wife to me, but a husband to you?”

Zecora just looked at the ground. “It’s not worth such a feud. I shall not thus intrude. No Zebra stallion males could stand what that entails.”

“Dude, if Fluttershy turned into some huge-cocked stallion stud that would be amazingly awesome!” squawked Gilda unexpectedly, springing forward. “I’ve had that kind of thing from ponies. Wow! If she agrees to do it can I have some?”

“Gilda!” snapped Fluttershy, furiously. Both the zebras and Applejack had cringed away from Gilda’s enthusiasm, instinctively flinching from the big predator. Fluttershy didn’t even hesitate. “Stop! Sit! Go sit in the corner!”

“Awk! B…but we’re outside, there isn’t a corner!”

“Go inside and find a corner and sit in it,” ordered Fluttershy. “I gave you a basket. Go sit in that and be quiet! You frighten my friends with your rude jumping around!”

Gilda wailed, turned, and fled back into Fluttershy’s cottage with a storm of wings, and the collected ponies tried to pull themselves together. It did something to the pony psyche to have such a large predator moving so impulsively in their presence: even the zebras looked alarmed. Zecora glanced at little Dursaa, atop his father’s sturdy back. The tiny colt had gone very quiet, his wings folded, and seemed to be trying to look as small as possible. She glanced back at Fluttershy’s cottage, sobs coming from inside it.

“You gave this fierce beast not just a fish feast,” she accused, “but a place as your pet? I’ve no fit epithet!”

Fluttershy faced her. “She says she’s fallen in love and wants to live as a pony and learn to be like me!” she said. “I can control her. I really think she doesn’t mean any harm, and anyway I can make her behave if anything goes wrong!”

Applejack blinked. “That ain’t new. I mean, Gilda’s wanted pony tail for a long time, and I reckon what she sees in us, Fluttershy’s got a lot of. I did not see this comin’, though. Rainbow says griffins go all romantic when you beat ‘em up. You’re gonna try to reform her, Fluttershy? You’re givin’ her a home? YOUR home?”

“She’s not a bad griffin,” said Fluttershy. “I think I was wrong about her. She’s just made some bad choices. Yes! I can teach her to be a good griffin, and what’s more I’m going to do it. Though I admit I’ll probably end up wanting some major zebra special times to get the taste out of my mouth.” She made a face. “I really don’t like her. She’s a big meanie. But she does want to learn better. How can I say no to that?”

Zebras and pony looked at each other, then at the pouting, stubborn vampegasus.

“Lemme get this straight,” said Applejack. “You got Dursaa here. You’d like to tack on some Zecora for added hole-fillin’ power even though she’d like things to swing the other way, and even though you know zebra stallions ain’t down with such crazy things as a rule, plus you’re keeping a starving griffin who’s lost her damn mind as a PET?”

Fluttershy pouted. “You make it sound bad!” She scuffed the dirt with a hoof.

“Uhh,” said Applejack, daunted by the scope of the explanation. “Far be it from me to suggest we’re settin’ new heights of Ponyville crazy, no ma’am. Please yourself, Celestia knows I’ve got up to some shenanigans in my day.” Her voice grew softer, placating. “Ah am sure we’ll all work everything out just fine in the long run. However, I think I kin speak for not only myself and Dashie, but also your honey Dursaa there and prob’ly Princess Celestia while we’re at it, when I say that we got to have one little concession, sugarcube. If you want this.”

“Yes?” blinked Fluttershy, still frowning slightly as she continued to try and calculate how to make all the things line up properly and add up to a peaceful and pleasant life. Then she gasped, for Applejack had suddenly fixed her with a hard stare, burning out from under the brim of her hat.

“Yer little foal’s got to stay with his brother while you do it,” demanded Applejack. “At Pinkie’s, not here. I ain’t askin’. You will not keep your baby under the same roof as a hungry griffon, even if it’s Gilda. Dursaa might not be fixin’ to give you orders, but I ain’t afraid to.”

Fluttershy couldn’t speak. She gazed into Applejack’s uncompromising eyes. She glanced at Zecora, and found the same expression. Then, she glanced at Dursaa, at those loving eyes that she’d become so sure would back her up in all things, those eyes that would never betray her or judge her, that gave her all the confidence in the world to set about reinventing her life or unlife and making something new of it, something that was hers to decide.

Dursaa looked very sad, and had a sulky look that eerily reflected her own. He wasn’t going to defend her. He wasn’t telling her what to do, or how to decide, or any of that, but it seemed that Applejack spoke for him.

She realized he’d turned to face her, so that little Dursaa on his back was hidden. Then she saw that Zecora had moved to stand between the foal, and her cottage door. They were all instinctively sheltering the colt from the threat of Gilda, who was still sobbing, out of sight, in her basket.

Fluttershy’s lip quivered. “She WOULDN’T hurt him!”

“Din’t say that,” said Applejack staunchly. “You heard what I said. Just to be sure, Fluttershy. There’s some things you just don’t do.”

“I’m not going to turn against Gilda! She says she wants to be good!”

“Fluttershy, she was wobbly with hunger,” explained Applejack. “I saw her tear into that fish you got. She’s actin’ real funny, ain’t like herself at all. Look at me. You KNOW what Gilda did to me once. I’m a big pony with amazin’ friends and I was lucky. Do you really expect to make your foal run that kinda risk, jes’ because you believe in goodness and light?”

There was a long silence.

“Maybe it will make Pinkie feel more like part of the family,” said Fluttershy, reluctantly.

Applejack released the breath she’d been holding. “That’s a good girl. You go on and try to teach Gilda our grass-eatin’ ways. One thing about it, I am reasonably sure she can’t hurt you, on account of nothin’ can kill you ‘cos it already did, right? And I can see you got her eatin’ out of your hoof. And I do hope ol’ Gilda feels better. You okay in there?” she called, to be answered by a loud sob.

Fluttershy pouted. “Dursaa can bring Little Dursaa over to Pinkie Pie’s. Rock simply adores him, you know, and so does Pinkie. I had better get in there. I want you to know that Gilda cries at night unless I cuddle her. Does that sound dangerous to you? I will need to give her some hugs and cuddles before she stops crying, and you’ve probably upset her stomach with your mean judging ways, and she’s already struggling to adapt to the birdseed she insists on eating for me. Shame on you.”

“Nevertheless,” said Applejack. “You go on and be mad at me, then. Nevertheless, missy. But thank you… for puttin’ up with what you’re danged well gonna put up with anyhoof! Good girl for not fightin’ me.”

“Nopony fights in MY home,” muttered Fluttershy darkly. “Nopony and no griffin. Dursaa, go bring little Dursaa to Pinkie’s and then come back. I’d like a little soothing, my way, if you would be so good. I feel like I’ve had my nose rubbed in misbehavior when I’m NOT, I’m really not!”

There was an awkward silence.

“Dursaa?”

He was staring, not at Fluttershy, not at Applejack, but at Zecora. She was staring back at him. They seemed lost in thought, in some private zebra-only communication.

“Elders?” said Zecora, resignedly.

Dursaa nodded. “Elders. Please. If you would?”

“Hey, they ain’t rhyming!” said Applejack.

“Yes,” said Zecora to Dursaa. “I will. It is so difficult. I am lost.”

Dursaa nodded gravely. “We will leave young Dursaa with the mad pink one. We will go. There is far to travel.”

“What th’ heck are you two talkin’ about?” said Applejack. “Where ya goin’?”

Zecora turned to her. “When life is all tumult, our Elders we consult. The silence we refine, and wait for light to shine. Their wisdom you will see. Please do wait patiently.”

Dursaa nodded, his jaw firmly set. He couldn’t quite meet Fluttershy’s eye… or perhaps he dared not risk the chance that she’d compel him to stay. “In times like this, it is our protocol: we shall return with truths that work for all.”

Zecora nodded. “It may take days, or hours, or weeks. But when it’s peace a Zebra seeks, if she is sure and brave and smart, the Elder speech will heal her heart.”

Applejack blinked. “Oh. So… you’re going off so’s your Zebra Elders can tell you what to do, on account of they’re so wise?”

Both Zecora and Dursaa looked offended.

“I fear you do not know our ways. Of course they will do no such thing!” declared Zecora. “Since when would that take timeless days? And yet, their wisdom we shall bring.”

Dursaa nodded. He hesitated, and rumbled, “My love? Trust me.”

Fluttershy’s lip quivered, and then she whirled and rushed into her cottage and slammed the door. Vaguely, Applejack and the zebras heard the sounds of confused and fretful mutual comforting, as she clung to the big twitchy predator that she refused to break faith with, once she’d extended it. Applejack looked helplessly at Dursaa and Zecora.

They were looking at each other again.

“Elders,” suggested Zecora, soothingly. There was pain in her eyes, and not a lot of trust for the big zebra stallion, but she seemed sure of herself.

A tear came to Dursaa’s eye. He nodded. “We will go. Tonight?”

“Tonight,” said Zecora. “I will not rest. We will go.”

“Thank you,” said Dursaa. He turned, like one in great pain, and began lumbering down the road toward Pinkie’s place, Zecora staying by his side.

Applejack glanced at Fluttershy’s door, and trotted fretfully after the zebras. “Uh, anything I kin do? If ya need to talk it over, on account of this is one heck of an awkward situation, though by Ponyville standards it’s kinda tame, shucks if you remember the last time Gilda came to town, they all…”

Zecora turned, fixing Applejack with a disapproving look. “Shhh!”

“Oh come on,” argued Applejack. “You got to admit we managed all right so far! We’re bringin’ little Dursaa to where he’ll be safe. I promise, all this will work itself out. Don’t judge Fluttershy too harshly, if she starts takin’ care of some wild beast you jes’ can’t shake her and that’s a fact…”

“Shhh,” repeated Zecora.

“No, listen,” continued Applejack. “Don’t you worry. I kin see you’re upset and it must seem like your family’s all mixed up, but let me tell you, be brave! It’s gonna be okay. Why, you wouldn’t believe the things my own family has gone through, and look at us now, we’re strong and we’re goin’ on to the next generation, just like you’re doin’ with little Dursaa there and of course Rock, and though even now we got us some minor struggles, good old earth pony love will see us through and we’re proud as anything…”

Dursaa could bear it no longer, and cried out in anguish.

“Let us PASS, Apple ass!”

Applejack eeped, and fell back, readjusting her hat. “Um! All righty then. I, uh… hmph! Good day to you. Hang in there!” Making a face, she turned and began trotting quickly back home.

Zecora’s face was stern, impassive, but somehow, sympathy could be read in her eyes.

“Shhh,” she said. “Elders. Elders.”

Dursaa took a deep breath, and continued onward. Pinkie Pie’s place lay ahead, and then… the journey.

Rock Candy peered into the interior of the old hollow tree, their superhero base.

“Spy? I mean, Streak?” he said, nervously. His tail twitched violently, and an ear flipped.

“Go forward,” ordered Northern Spy. He couldn’t see her. She sounded almost impossibly thrilled.

“But you haven’t turned the light on,” protested Rock.

Spy, unseen, sighed. “Duh! I’m standing by the light. Go in! You know where the floor is.”

“So turn it on, already!”

“Not yet,” insisted Spy.

“It’s dark!”

“Exactly!” said Spy. “It only works at night, so far. Come on, come on. Go inside!”

“Are you sure?” quavered Rock.

He could hear Spy’s exasperation. “Here I am, trying to show you the most awesome thing ever, and my own superhero partner won’t even walk across a stupid floor. I ought to fire you and replace you with Mom. Go inside, already! And then turn around and face my voice. You’re gonna love this.”

Every instinct in Rock’s body said no, he wasn’t. But all the same, he walked with small, awkward, stumbling steps into the dark emptiness of the tree, past Spy, past the lantern they used at night. He made his way to the center of the tree, and he turned.

“This had better be good,” he said.

“Gimme a dun dun dunn,” said Spy.

“No!”

“Aw, come on!”

“Do it yourself!” replied Rock. His legs were shaking.

In the darkness, Northern Spy sighed. “Fine! Welcome to your new awesome partner, Rock. Dun dun DUNN!”

The light went on, blinding him, and he rubbed his eyes with his hooves, and then he looked, and saw.

Northern Spy beamed at him.

“How cool is THIS?” she said, the light gleaming off her cute little fangs.