“Would you like to buy a raffle ticket, sir?”

These were the first words Slate heard upon entering the party room, coming from what would have been an unlikely source, had he been anywhere else in Equestria. Here in the Trainers’ Society, it felt as common as seeing an earth pony pinking vegetables from the dirt.

The questioner was one such earth pony, fur pink in hue and hair the color of fresh grown grass. She was clearly one of the Society’s slaves, as the clothing she wore was nothing more than a black leotard that hugged her body so tightly that her nipples could be seen bumping out through it, along with the cleft of her vaginal passage. Not only that, but it had been customized to only come up to the halfway point of her breasts, leaving everything above those perky nipples bare, with plenty of cleavage on display behind the bit of material that was stretched between the two mammaries. If not for the red bow wrapped around her throat, and a matching one at the base of her tail, the mare might as well had been strutting around naked.

Aside her was a sign stating her purpose, announcing that a drawing would take place later during the party, with a variety of prizes offered to the lucky winners that fit the Society’s general theme. Kits composed of bondage equipment and sex toys, coupons for free slave training courses, expensive wine bottles of the caliber of Canterlot Castle’s own private stock, and a mystery prize presented as the top prize of the night were just a few things being dangled for those who felt like pressing their luck. Slate himself would have been tempted himself by a few of the items listed, had it not been the price of the lots. One hundred bits per ticket, a cost that more than likely exceeded most of the items up for grabs, and was only affordable by those with bottomless pockets. That, coupled with the fact that Slate hadn’t held a bit since he had been abducted, compounded together to put a bad taste in his mouth that he could not participate, even if he wasn’t technically Schorl’s prisoner.

“Mr. Slate…” Schorl said, as if sensing that her name had been uttered in the recesses of the stallion’s mind. She had stayed near the door with Slate as they closed, the other guests wading into the sea of other ponies present without them, “You can’t be so easily distracted by the first thing you see. If you do, then you’ll miss out on most of the other attractions I’ve prepared.”

“Sorry, but when a spectacle is just presented before me, I find it hard not to gawk.” Slate replied, examining the girl further, noticing her flowery cutiemark, and determining by it and the lack of enthusiasm she showed in her task that handing out tickets was not her forte.

“You aren’t gawking.” Schorl said bluntly, “You are inspecting.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I would appreciate it if you were merely stunned by this mare’s attractiveness, but that isn’t what you’re doing.” Schorl said without doubt, assuming she could guess the machinations of Slate’s mind. “What you are doing it dissecting her with your brain scalpels.”

“My… what?” Slate replied, pulled away from his analysis by Schorl’s strange metaphor. “What is that suppose to even mean?”

“Come on… for one as smart as you the interpretation shouldn’t be hard to understand.” As she spoke, the crystalline mare left his side and went to that of the earth pony’s, her elaborate dress contrasting greatly with the simple garb the lesser female specimen was wearing. “But if you really can’t decipher the meaning, I’d be glad to explain… if you’re willing to play a game with me.”

“A… game?” Slate asked, raising a brow, “What kind of game?” This kind of behavior seemed a little strange of Schorl. She usually tried to put on an air of professionalism, and from Slate’s experiences with her, she never was so playful. Certainly she was baiting him into some sort of scenario, but the bait was just too delicious not to bite. “Will I be rewarded for playing along?”

“I suppose I could arrange something for your participation.” Schorl said, putting the fingertips of one of her hands to her lips, giving a small giggle from behind them while looking away from Slate with what could only be described as a look of ‘mischievous innocence’, proving to Slate that the mare was capable of disguising her nature if she really wanted to, at least to the average pony.

“Very well, what is this game of yours?” Slate said, readying himself for anything.

“Nothing difficult,” Schorl said, wrapping an arm around the earth pony from behind, placing her hand right over the mare’s cutie mark, pulling her close enough to make their bodies touch, hip to hip and breast to breast. “All I want you to do is tell me three things about this mare, be they important details, or minor observations.”

After explaining the rules to her little game, Schorl’s hand traveled away from the earth mare’s hip to explore the other curvey bits of her body, slipping between her thighs and up her waist to her breast, never lingering in one spot for too long. The earth mare herself appeared unnerved by this attention, having had a look of dread in her eyes from the moment Schorl made her the center of attention, and an increased breathing pace since the touches had begun. No doubt she believed that she was being put on a pedestal, and that if she failed to please either the crystal mare or her male companion, she would be punished for it. Of all the Society slaves Slate had met thus far, this one seemed the least indoctrinated, or maybe she had just been out of her element. Whatever the reason, Slate was still wondering what all of this was about.

Was Schorl testing his abilities yet again? Was she testing the mare, and thus using him as some random variable in a training exercise? With as calculating as Schorl wanted to make herself out to be, Slate didn’t believe this was some spontaneous act constructed on the fly to entice him. Still, there really was no downside to this small diversion. Even if he failed at satisfying the crystal mare, which he heavily doubted would be the case, what would a few moments of his time really hurt?

“Well, for starters…” he said, bringing a hand to his lower jaw, pinching his chin slightly as he rested that arm’s elbow in the palm of his other hand, “While the fact that she is one of your slaves is so evident that I wouldn’t even count it as something noteworthy enough to be credited towards my goal, her gestures towards your advances tell me that she is fresher meat than those you’ve provided me as entertainment in my room. However, seeing as she’s not chained to the floor, or otherwise bound to one spot, you seem confident enough with her that you don’t expect her to run off at a moment’s notice. So with that in mind, while not knowing your taming process, I would say that she must be roughly halfway to three-fourths the way through your conditioning program.”

For a moment, it looked as if he had stunned the crystal mare with how on the nose his assumptions were. Her hand has stopped it’s wandering, and there was no immediate comeback to his theory. Schorl usually was quick with her ‘witty’ retorts. It was a shame to see her crumple before him on the opening act of their game, but what did he expect from a submissive mare pretending to act dominant.

“Am I wrong?” he asked, pressing the point that he knew he wasn’t.

“No, you’re not wrong.” Schorl said, her smile wavering in attempt to bluff that she hadn’t lost ground in this contest. “We plucked this one from a quaint town called Ponyville a few months back, and introduced her to her hidden desire to serve her betters.”

“L-Lady Schorl, please…” The pink mare said weakly, unhappy that the crystal mare so freely gave away the location of her home to one of the Society’s members.

Schorl gave a sigh to that, and then with little warning, clamped down on one of the earth pony’s modest sized breasts with the hand that had until then been gently gliding over her body. The earth mare’s body tensed up, with her clenching her eyes and mouth instantly to stifle the more obvious signs of the pain she felt from the punishing grip.

“As you see though,” Schorl said with a condescending tone, while moving the mound of meat around in a slow, agonizing rotation. “While this one does know her place, we haven’t yet eroded every bit of will from her head. She should know by now that talking out of turn is a no-no, isn’t that right my dear?”

“Yes!” The earth mare announced clearly, her pain giving way to a hint of arousal. Schorl trained her slaves well it seemed.

Relaxing her grip, Schorl got behind the mare. “So first point to you Mr. Slate. What’s next?” she asked way relocating her free hand around her captive’s neck, caressing the bit of ribbon that acted as her collar.

What’s next was easy, since Schorl had just given him enough information to confirm another one of his suspicions. “She’s an agricultural pony by trade, one who grows flowers and other forms of vegetation.” Ponyville was some backwater town with little to offer the rest of Equestria outside of its produce, so if this mare had a cutiemark with flowers on it, little assumption had to be made on what her career was.

“Right again,” Schorl said, seemingly more pleased with this response. She expressed that pleasure by licking at the nape of the earth mare’s neck, practically slurping at the spot between her shoulder blades. The girl reacted to the wet sensation of the other mare tasting her with quivers and heavy panting.

The involuntary nature of it all was in it’s own way delightful, as watching one pony at the mercy of another had many erotic prospects, but Slate put these pleasant thoughts out of mind. They were only attempts to derail him, he was sure. Even when Schorl slid a hand underneath the earth mare’s leotard, entering through one of the holes accommodating the legs of the lovely, youthful pony, he didn’t allow himself to waver.

“You still have one more detail to reveal Mr. Slate. Anything at all will do, of course.” With the fabric of the pink mare’s leotard as tight and thin as it was, there was no mistaking what Schorl was doing with her fingers down below. The way her index and middle finger moved, one going up as the other going down, moving with the rhythmic pattern of a pair of pistons from behind the thin layer of fabric. “Anything will do.”

She said “Anything would do”, but Slate understood what that really meant. “Impress me”. The crystal mare sure had high expectations of her potential, and if he had his way future, master. Why not humor her a bit, since it was a easy task to do so.

“Anything at all?” he said jokingly, “Then could it be something as simple as Daisy here having pink fur?”

What the stallion said caused the earth mare’s entire body the tense up even worse than before, and an expression of fear to form on her face. “Lady Tourmaline told you-?!” There was more to her outburst than those four words, but the rest were lost in a sudden cry of climax as the mare dropped to her knees, the crystal pony having used the burst of emotions to initiate an orgasm, setting it off buy driving her fingers deeply as she could into the other mare, pressing her fingers against the inner walls of the fleshy tunnel along the way.

With the mare now grounded, Schorl stood alone on her side of the small area she and Slate had made for one another at the entrance, her fingers coated in the lewd juices of her victim. Yet, despite her having given the earth mare an unwanted surge of pleasure, Schorl didn’t appear to be very pleased. Surely she had noticed what had happened in the exchange, and just how thoroughly Slate had won their contest. Giving the fluids on her hand a look of disdain, avoiding all eye contact with Slate, she uttered a sound of disappointment.

“What’s the matter?” Slate asked, grinning with glee at his victory. “Didn’t expect me to be able to fish out the girl’s name by just looking at her?” It was a fairly easy trick, actually, seeing that the girl’s cutie mark had been made bare for the world to see. Many ponies in the world had marks that coincided with their names, and the flower on her rear end was a daisy. He didn’t know for sure if she had a single word name, or if it were something like ‘Daisy Dew’ or ‘Whoopsie Daisy”, but calling a pony by a single word name wasn’t too abnormal. There was always the possibility that he could have been wrong though, so he did say it in a way that made it appear like he was just being playful. If questioned about the odd name, then he could have easily backpedalled and said that he felt the name suited her, but that he wasn’t really serious.

Being spot on as he was, there was no need to do any of that, but it was always good to have a backup plan in place. “So… do you intend to stand there forlorn all day, or are you ready to give me the reward you promised?”

Schorl’s eyes rolled, and from her lips she uttered, “Rewards only belong to winners.”

“What?” Slate said confused, the crystal mare implying that he had not completed the objects he was given.

“For somepony as observant as you declare you are, you don’t seem to notice when you’re being tricked.”

“Being tricked… Are you trying to tell me that none of my observations were correct?” All he could think was that he had failed, but Schorl had confirmed his assumptions were correct. Could she have lead him astray from the start in order to set him up to fail. If so, then was it her intent for him notice that she was falsely confirming his answers.

A scowl started to form on Slate’s face at the thought that Schorl would outright lie to him, especially since it flew against the all the rules established for the game. Felt less like he lost, so much as her having challenged him to something only to lead him astray for a “gotcha” moment. It was entirely aggravating, once more sending Slate into a poor opinion of the purple mare.

“Mr. Slate…” Schorl said, bending over to grab the earth mare, who was still recovering from her climax. “I’m sure you realized what I have done. You might have gotten every answer correct, but in doing that, and looking for the most difficult bits of information you could find, you failed my test.”

Slate was really confused by now. It seemed he was wrong about what Schorl was doing, as she declared that he was completely right. She still claimed that she tricked him in some way though, but not in a way that he could easily deduce, leaving him to bewildered as to how exactly she had done so.

“Ok… I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. What did you do?” Slate asked, knowing that he would never get answers unless he did so.

“Oh. So your perception does have its limits. I have to say, that’s actually refreshing.” said Schorl with a smile as she brought the slave mare back to her shaking hooves.

“Enough playing coy. What was this all about?”

“Fine, you deserve answers. This was all to see just how much time you were willing to waste.”

“How much time I was…?”

“I’ve set up an entire party for you and the others, with so many delightful things to participate in.” Schorl said, pointing off to the entirety of the rest of the party, where all the other ponies were off enjoying the amenities the Society had to offer, none of them paying any mind to the hijinks happening at the room’s entrance. “Yet you got so easily distracted by the door girl that you’ve spent over fifteen minutes here staring at her. It’s rather insulting, if I must say.”

“Are you expecting some sort of apology, or something?”

”No, but you should have realized quickly that my challenge had no merit behind it. The goal was so devoid of meaning that there couldn’t have been any reason behind it. Still, you dove right into it, and went so far to give the most complex details one could only derive from looking at a pony, when all you needed was something as simple as her eye color to end the game. Unless you have intentions with this mare, and I really don’t think you do, then that’s far more information you would ever need about some random pony.”

Slate’s scowl faded slightly, a little more satisfied by what she had to say. Or more, he was more satisfied with his interpretation of Schorl’s little lecture. To be honest, Schorl could never admit that she lost in front of a subordinate like the slave in her arms, thus she had to make up a reason that he failed. She even admitted that he would have succeeded if not for this scenario, so in the end he was victorious. Just like he had with the mare’s name, Schorl had left open a backdoor to step out of if she got cornered. If Slate couldn’t name three details, then she would have said he failed for more legitimate reasons, but since he did, she had to resort to this cheap tactic. What could he do but play along?

“Ok then ‘Lady Tourmaline’, you got me. I do have to ask though. If your intent was to show me that I‘m wasting time, then why did you create a test that wasted my time even more? Wouldn’t we both be better off if you had told me these were your feelings instead?”

“What purpose would simply telling you have served? It would have came off as if I was nagging at best, and showing by example is always the best. Besides, this method of education is much more amusing for all parties involved.”

Slate could hardly agree with Schorl, seeing how he got the short end of the stick in this situation, but in order to bring this to a close, he would allow the crystal pony to believe she had won. It was her club, for now at least, and thus she needed to be the one who came out on top.

“Ok, Ok, I get it.” replied Slate, a smirk returning to his muzzle, “I need to use my time in more productive ways. I’m sure there are dozens of other activities that will be more satisfying than ogling this mare all night. So if teacher would excuse me, I think…”

“Not so fast,” Schorl cut in, “While you may not have figured out what I wanted you to on your own, I will admit the number of important details about this mare you deciphered was impressive, and you did technically win the game, by the rules I had been given. Such ability should be rewarded.”

“Oh? Then what reward shall I receive?” asked Slate, as if this gesture wasn’t admittance that Schorl was just feigning her motivations.

The mare looked to her bodyguard, who had been standing blocking the door since the moment it closed, and gave him a slight nod. In return, the minotaur reached to his side to grab a small pouch hanging off his belt. Sartek handed it to the earth pony, who in turn hastened on shaky legs to the table that held a deposit box for the ticket payment, and a roll of red tickets.

After dropping the bag inside the box and closing the lid, the sound of coins hitting a much larger pile of metal tokens echoing from within, Daisy tore a ticket from the roll, and presented it to Slate. “G-Good luck sir.”

Slate took the ticket in hand, and looked from the earth mare to Schorl. “Well, if you think this is fair to all the others who paid for their tickets.”

“It’s fine. It’s just one little ticket. What harm could it do?”

“Of course.” Slate replied, feeling this was all too convenient. With the minotaur having a bag of gold at the ready, and Schorl having consented to him receiving his free chance at the prizes on display, the crystal mare had to have plotted this scenario in advance. If not for him, then for somepony else who would have spent too much time at the front door. No matter. It just meant that Slate was right all along to ‘waste his time’, as now he could earn something for doing absolutely nothing, and there was nothing he liked better than being rewarded for the labors of somepony else.

“Now that that’s settled, I think you have places to be.” Schorl said, giving Sartek a glance, and gesturing him to follow her as she herself headed into the party. “Please, enjoy yourself to the fullest.”

“I believe I will,” said Slate, not sticking around to watch them vanish into the crowd. Instead, he walked into the opposite direction, looking at the number on his ticket. “#07051986, huh?” Surely that was not the number of tickets sold that night. If it were, then the Society would have made almost three-fourths of a billion bits in a single night, and that was preposterous. More likely that they were holdovers from previous events like this, or simply numbered at ran-

Slate stopped his line of thought, and then chuckles at what he was doing. “I hate to say it, but Schorl may be right after all. I am being a bit too analytical about everything, aren’t I?” He shoved the ticket into his pocket, removing any more temptation to ‘dissect it’, as Schorl called it. “Very well, take two. Let’s have some fun… and mingle.”

Author's Note

Hello, hello. Today I have a bit of an... underwhelming chapter, if you are to ask me. Sorry, but I just felt I needed t get something out of the way before I could proceed to the actual party. You see, I started writing this chapter out, trying hard to focus on the things Slate would see in a society party, but then I started realizing that I was making a great deal of over analyzing every little thing. It was aggravating, yet still within Slate's character to do so. I couldn't quite remove it, but I didn't want to dwell on it for the rest of the story (of which I just realized I've been "working on" for two years. Sheesh). So I decided it might be best to work that little quirk out of Slate, at least partially, so that we could get to some more enjoyable parts easier without me droning on and on about how many buttons everyone is wearing on their shirts. Gonna have some real sexiness next time, so please forgive this little non-adventure. At the very least it grants a little more insight on Slate's character, and perhaps more on the relationship between him and Schorl. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed it, even if I thought it was dull, and that you all have a wonderful day.