When Plush Comes to Shove
When Plush Comes to Shove
by Shivered Timbers
"Honestly, Miss--" Big Mac's voice hitched in his throat. "Uh, I mean, Princess Twilight. I knew I shouldn'ta kept what weren't mine, I just never could find a way to ask if'n you wanted her back. What with the work around the farm an' all the trouble AJ 'n y'all get into..."
Twilight pressed a hoof to his shoulder, smiling, and he trailed off.
"It's all right, Big Macintosh." She lifted the doll in her magic and gave it a soft hug. "Honestly, if you'd given her back right away, Smarty Pants would have been lost in the fire along with the..." Her face grew taut, and she blinked a few times.
The stalk of wheat in his lips switched to the other side. "Apologies for bringin' up a sore memory, Yer Highness."
"It's okay." Twilight drew in a sharp breath. "And please, just 'Twilight' is fine." Forcing a smile helped her relax. "Thanks for taking care of her for me. She'll really help make the castle feel more like home."
Big Mac inclined his head. "Much obliged, Twilight. Anythin' else I can help ya with?"
Twilight flushed, overcome with the sudden realization of just how large, muscular, nearby and a stallion Big Mac was. Yes, there were about thirty-two different "things" he could help her with, and that was precisely why she was going to turn around and trot back to her castle and not abuse her position as princess, take advantage of her friend's sibling, or command said sibling to make up for transgressions for which he'd already needlessly apologized.
"Nope!" she squeaked. "I'll just be coming. Uh, going! Uh, leaving!" Her face grew redder and redder as she backed off the farmhouse porch and nearly fell on her rump. A quick wing flare was the only thing saving her from an ungraceful landing. Big Macintosh eyed her with his usual stoicism.
"Be seein' you then, Twilight."
"Right! Seeing you! Ha ha bye!"
She turned tail, galloping out of the farm with Smarty Pants in tow. Once the farmhouse had vanished from sight, she teleported straight to her bedroom, setting the doll on her endtable and diving beneath the fluffy sheets of her all-too-huge four-poster bed.
I really need to get laid.
The next morning, Twilight awoke early, the hearty clop session having worn her out and sent her to slumbering a few hours before she normally would have. At least she felt relaxed now, if not entirely fulfilled.
Princess duties have got me ignoring basic needs, she thought as she brushed her hair in front of the all-too-huge mirror in her room. Well, it wasn't in her room, per se, but the private boudoir accessible through her bedroom proper. It was yet another castle frivolity that Twilight resented but endured. If nothing else, it made getting to the bathroom more of an ordeal than necessary.
Maybe I should accept Celestia's offer of castle staff. She glanced up to the top of the mirror, where she'd hung her tiara the night previous, and drew it down with her magic. This place is way too big for me to keep properly organized.
Speaking of disorganization, she noticed Smarty Pants sitting on the far end of the vanity, and definitely not where she had been left last night. On closer inspection, Twilight also did not recall having taken Spike's little plush Rarity doll and set her face between Smarty's legs.
Her wings stood straight up as her mind informed her of the significance of the dolls' position.
"Now, now, Twilight," she said, voice trembling, "it's just the lingering aftereffects of last night's unfortunately unsatisfying wankfest. You're just reading perverted things into what is obviously a perfectly innocent scene."
Lifting the little Rarity doll, she held it aloft, turning it this way and that. Nothing seemed amiss. With a shrug, she trotted to her bedroom door and stuck her head out.
"SPIIIIKE! WERE YOU IN MY ROOM LAST NIGHT?"
A sudden flashback to sibling struggles between herself and Shining Armor, after she had been deemed old enough to have her own room, made her giggle.
A solid minute later, the response came back from elsewhere in the castle: "NO! WHY WOULD I GO IN THERE?"
"WELL, I FOUND LITTLE RARITY! I'M GONNA LEAVE HER IN YOUR ROOM, OKAY?"
She didn't wait for a response, trotting down the long, long hallway that separated the royal quarters from the guest quarters, which is what they had decided that wing of the castle was supposed to be. The rooms were smaller than Twilight's, but more ornate than those closer to the kitchen, which were likely meant for staff. As she passed by Spike's room, she floated the little Rarity in through the crack in the door, placing it gently on his basket. Despite having a much larger bed all his own, he still preferred sleeping in something a little cozier, and even she had to admit that Spike being in a basket just felt right.
"OKAY! THANKS, TWILIGHT!"
Smiling and chuckling to herself, she closed the door and made for the dining room. It was time for breakfast.
Twilight met with a whole two petitioners in court that day, one of whom had merely taken a wrong turn on the way to City Hall and gotten impressively lost. Before she knew it, the time had come to relax with a good book before bed. Much as she looked askance at the amenities offered by her crazy magic crystal castle, she did appreciate the plushness of that bed.
Plushness...
That thought made her pause. She looked around, noticing a lack of Smarty Pants on her endtable.
Ohhh, but I left her in the boudoir, didn't I?
With a shiver of dread, the sort that only came when she knew something had gone inexplicably wrong, she tip-toed to the boudoir and pushed the door open a crack. Swallowing an impulse to ask if anypony was there, she hesitated, flipped the light on, and craned her neck around the jamb.
There, in front of her mirror, for anyone to see, were Smarty Pants and little Rarity. Smarty was laid out on her back, with Rarity on top, and they had been positioned so that their faces were between each others' legs.
Twilight bit her lip. There was definitely no way to interpret this scene that wasn't dirty.
"It's time for that talk with Spike, isn't it?" she mumbled to herself, feeling the cold clammy hands of Parental Responsibility grasping at her heart. She racked her brain for any spell that could reverse maturity or delay inevitability, but came up dry.
With a resigned sigh, she picked up little Rarity and set off to avoid being responsible for as long as equinely possible.
"Spike?" She prodded his door, pushing it open, and peered inside. Spike was laying on his stomach atop his bed, reading an issue of Power Ponies, and looked up as she called his name.
"What is it, Twilight?"
Twilight stared at him for a solid minute. She should not have been surprised to find herself at a loss for words. Tossing the doll at him, she ran back to her room with a "There you go!"
Yes, she would have to Talk with him. Later.
Twilight kept a weather eye on her boudoir the next day. That nothing was amiss therein only lulled her into a false sense of security. After another uneventful court, a quiet study session, and some of Spike's lovely home-cooked meals, she retired to her room with a mug of tea. That's when she found them.
Smarty Pants was standing on the chest at the end of her bed. She had been dressed in a black outfit: high-heeled boots, a corset, and a domino mask. She raised a tiny whip above little Rarity, who lay beneath Smarty Pants on her back, in a similar black outfit that included a mask over her face.
The mug dropped from Twilight's magic and shattered.
"SPIIIIKE! GET IN HERE!"
Two minutes of staring at the plush dominatrix later, Twilight heard the patter of little dragon feet entering her room.
"You screeched?" Spike huffed, palms on his knees.
"Spike, would you mind explaining to me what's going on here?" She stepped back and motioned to the chest.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Spike studied the two stuffed ponies and scratched his chin. He tilted his head left and right, squinted, and stuck out his tongue. Finally, he shrugged.
"I dunno, Twi. Did you dress them up as evil clowns for Nightmare Night? Even though Nightmare Night's not for, like, five more months?"
Twilight slapped herself in the forehead. "Spike, I don't know where you learned this kind of thing from, but this is simply unacceptable. It's been two days now of seeing scenes like this all over the castle! Or at least all over my bedroom. If there's something you need to talk about, we can talk, but this has to stop!"
"Wha-- I didn't do this!" Spike shouted, incredulous. "I dunno why my doll keeps ending up in your room!"
"Well if you didn't do this, then who did?" Twilight motioned at the wall. "There's nopony else in this castle except you and me!"
The anger faded from Spike's face. "Is... You don't think the castle's... haunted, do you?" The last two words came out in a tiny squeak.
"There's no such thing as ghosts, Spike," Twilight said automatically.
"Well it wasn't me!" Spike balled his fists and puffed his cheeks out. "Why would you even think I'd do something like this?"
There was only one thing she could say in response. The weight of responsibility crushed the anger from her chest. She was suddenly quite aware just how unreasonable she was being. Taking care to keep her voice calm and even, she said, "Spike. I understand that you're growing up and starting to have... certain thoughts about, uh, certain things..."
She swallowed, putting all her energy into not hyperventilating. This was not going how she'd thought it would. "But these kinds of... displays are not appropriate! It's okay if you want to, uh, act out your fantasies with the dolls -- a-and you shouldn't be ashamed of doing it, either! -- but that should be done in the privacy of your own room, and not out where anypony else, especially me, can see it."
The smile stretching across her face could have popped in a strong breeze. "O-okay?"
Spike blinked at her a few times. "Okay. Now I'm mad and totally creeped out."
Twilight took a half step backward. "I just want you to know that, even if it seems weird, since I'm your caretaker and all, you can always talk to me anytime you need something." She punctuated the statement with a halfhearted laugh and thought about escape until she realized she was in her own room.
Groaning, Spike drew a claw down his face. "Twilight, what I need is for you to believe me about the dolls! I didn't put them there! I'm not acting out... whatever it is you just said that I don't think I want you to explain!" He grunted, frowning. "Why won't you believe me?"
Twilight, wings spread, one leg half raised, let out a little, "Heh heh!" as she might when confronted with a particularly docile snake. After a moment, though, she sighed and hung her head.
"Because I'm not being totally rational right now." Lifting her eyes, she added, "But can you blame me? I mean, how else would they have gotten into a position like..." She glanced at the dolls, then thought better of drawing any more attention to them.
"I dunno," Spike said, shrugging. "I never really thought about it. Little Rarity keeps disappearing from my room, though... Maybe they did it themselves?"
Twilight's laugh was brief, but immediate. "Spike, you know dolls can't move on their own!"
"What if they did, though?" Spike began pacing, one claw tapping on his chin. "I mean, it's not like we haven't seen weird magic stuff like that before."
He surged toward Twilight, gripping her shoulders and shaking as hard as he could, which was not enough to move her. "What if it's true? We could do a stakeout, Twi, and then you'll see that it's not me doing it!" His eyes got huge. "Please, Twilight? Pleeeeease?"
Twilight stared at him. "I dunno, Spike..."
This time he was able to throttle her, with strength that only came from the earnest desire to get out of trouble. "Please, Twilight! I came up with a hypothesis, and now we need to gather testable data, no matter how outlandish it is! Just like you taught me-e-e!" He slid down her front, tears forming in the corner of his eyes.
"Well, when you put it that way..." She lifted him in her magic and set him gently back on his feet. "All right. But if we're going to pull an all-nighter, you need to go straight to bed for a nap, young dragon!"
Spike sniffed, wiped his eyes, then snapped to a salute. "Aye-aye, Princess!" And he was gone in a puff of smoke.
Twilight frowned and rubbed her chin. On the one hoof, Spike's idea was completely ridiculous. Dolls didn't move on their own, so the rational explanation was that somepony was moving them. Somepony who had to sneak into the castle at night for the sole purpose of putting two dolls in lewd poses, and had yet to leave any evidence of their passing.
On the other hoof, she had to admit that he wasn't a very good liar, and his denial had held none of his usual tells. It just came down to there being no logical reason for what was happening.
That said, a nighttime stakeout would be the best way to determine the culprit, if it wasn't Spike. And she couldn't deny his grasp of the scientific method. Resolving to get a little preparatory shuteye herself, she climbed into bed, eying the dolls sidelong. With a shudder, she lifted Smarty Pants and put her atop the dresser. At least that would keep the two of them out of trouble. She would discover the truth tonight!
Smarty Pants and little Rarity were still where Twilight had left them when she awoke a few hours later, feeling no closer to an answer. She roused Spike and had him make some popcorn, while she went out shopping for snacks. If they were going to stay up all night, why not make it a little party, too? Thankfully nopony at Barnyard Bargains asked why exactly she needed all the junk food she was buying, because she wasn't sure she could have explained if she wanted to.
Safely ensconced in her room once again, Twilight and Spike took up positions on her bed and waited. Smarty Pants was on the dresser; little Rarity was on the chest. They just needed to wait until something happened.
Popcorn was popped. Snacks were consumed. Bathroom breaks were staggered. Books were read and board games were played. By one in the morning, both their heads were hanging.
"This seemed a lot more fun in my head," Spike moaned.
"This is science," Twilight said for the twenty-seventh time that night. "We just have to wait it out."
The next thing she knew, it was daylight, she had fallen asleep and Spike was still snoring. Dismayed, Twilight looked up to see Smarty Pants, still in the black outfit, with little Rarity on all fours in front of her, rump pressed up against her front. Smarty Pants had both forelegs on little Rarity's back.
With a groan, Twilight rubbed at her eyes. Beside her, Spike stirred.
"Aw, it happened again!" he said, blearily.
"Are you sure you didn't move them?" Twilight mumbled more than demanded.
"Sure I'm sure I'm... sure... blugh." Spike collapsed onto his back. "We fell asleep and killed the science, Twi."
Twilight blinked hard a few times, hoping to wash the scene away. "We sure did, Spike."
Spike groaned again, curling into a ball. "Augh, and this means I'm not off the hook."
"Nope." Twilight stood, stretched, and scratched at her neck with a hind hoof. Royal title be hanged, no one else was there right now. "And nooooow we have to go do Princess stuff."
Improbably, on that day, the castle saw a record ten petitioners during court hours. Those ten lucky ponies had the good fortune to witness Princess Twilight Sparkle up close, in all her royal glory: hair like a stickerbush, eyes rimmed in crust, and drool just dangling everywhere. She snored through most of her appointments, and though some looked to her assistant to wake her, he seemed no more alert. Ponies left the castle feeling as though they had been a part of something singular, precious and horrible. Few of them would ever return.
That suited Twilight just fine.
Collapsing into bed at noon, she slept the afternoon away, Spike doing likewise. Her dreams were haunted by a giant Smarty Pants, dressed all in black, whipping her and calling her names while she screamed. Somewhere a voice, regal and frightened, seemed to say, "Sorry, I am not touching this one."
When Twilight woke, she was covered in sweat, and someone was pounding on the door to her room.
"Twilight, wake up! Twilight!"
She unlocked the door without getting out of bed. "What is it, Spike?"
"Twilight, we have to do another stakeout!"
She knew that word. It did not sound like a fun word. She rolled onto her back, pouting at Spike upside-down. "But whyyyyy?"
He paced in front of her bed, pantomiming as he spoke. "I've seen this book before! At night, the toys get up and live their own lives, but if anyone's watching, they have to stop moving. So last night, we were watching the whole time, and they knew it, and..." He stopped, glancing left and right, before kneeling down next to her and whispering in her ear. "And this time, if we hide ourselves, they'll be able to move! And I can prove I'm innocent!"
Twilight smacked her lips. "Y'know, what Spike? That just sounds crazy enough to work!"
Their crazy plan was simple. Twilight divested both dolls of their clothing. Spike took little Rarity back to his room. Twilight gathered every pillow she could find and built a fort in the entrance of her boudoir. If shenanigans were going to happen that night, those dolls would have to work for it. A thin sheet over the pillow fort would keep them safe from prying button eyes. And that just left...
"Ludovequine's Long-Lasting Lid Lifter!"
Spike gaped at her. "Whodawhatnow?"
Twilight squealed and clapped her hooves together. "I used to use it while pulling all-nighters at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns! I don't know why I didn't think of using it last night!" She cast the spell, two rims of magic stretching her eyelids open. Small droplets of water dripped from the top portion of the spell across her eyes, keeping them moist. "With this on our side, there's no way we'll fall asleep this time!"
"Keep your voice down!" Spike hissed. "They'll hear! And also that's really creepy and I think you've maybe gone a little crazy."
Twilight gave a high-pitched titter to show that she was, in fact, still in full capacity of her faculties. Then she cast the spell on Spike.
"Gaah!" He recoiled, clapping his hands over his eyes before immediately un-clapping them and shouting again. "Agh! Warn me first!"
"Hee hee! And now the final element!" Twilight cast one more spell, and they watched from behind their sheet as a second Twilight, this one slightly more transparent than the real one, entered the room and got into bed.
"Gee!" Twilight called as loudly as she could. "It sure has been a rough day! I'd better go to sleep now in my nice, comfy bed!" She made mock sleeping noises until Spike jammed his hand over her mouth and shook his head.
"Seriously, Twi, acting," he whispered.
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
After the first hour of nothing happening, Twilight started nibbling her hooves. After the second, Spike lay on his back, blowing a feather that had fallen from one of the pillows up and watching it drift back down. By the third hour, Twilight's resolve was about as stable as her hairdo, which had been replaced by something of a purple broom.
"I can't take this anymore, Twilight!" Spike hissed. "I don't care if I get in trouble anymore, I just want to go to sleep!"
"Only a few more hours, Spike!" Twilight giggled as quietly as possible. "Only a few! More--"
The bedroom door opened.
Both of them turned unblinking eyes toward the front of the pillow fort. After a few seconds, they saw little Rarity, moving entirely on her own, climb onto the chest with some difficulty. She waved up at the top of Twilight's dresser, then spun around, leaned over, and waggled her rear end. A few seconds later, there was a loud squeak from the floor. Smarty Pants toddled over toward the chest and scaled it, also with some difficulty. When she had at least reached the summit, she grabbed onto little Rarity, pulling her into her lap, where they mashed their faces together to little apparent effect.
"It's true," Twilight whispered. "It was all true."
"That proves it, right Twilight?" Spike tugged on her shoulder. "I didn't do it, see?"
She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Yes, Spike! I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. I forgive you entirely!"
He gagged, pushing against the hug. "Can I close my eyes now?"
"Oh." Twilight killed the spell, and was herself relieved to be able to blink once again. "Sorry."
"It's all right," Spike whispered, rubbing at his eyes. "I forgive you too." He craned his head up, trying to see around Twilight as her bedroom filled with rapid squeaking. "What are they doing now?"
Twilight turned around. Spike let out a cry as her wings extended fully, collapsing a large portion of the pillow fort onto him.
"Wow," she breathed, "they're really going at it."
"Let me see!"
"Uh, no!" Sweat beaded on Twilight's brow, and it was all she could do not to shout. "You need to, uh, go get my notebook! So I can take notes! Yes, the hard-to-find notebook I left on the other side of the castle, go go go!"
His objection was cut short as she teleported him across the castle and locked the door with her magic.
The dolls paused, but after a long moment of nothing happening, they went right back to what they'd been doing. They were doing it pretty hard, too.
Twilight bit her lip.
"You should not be turned on by dolls having sex, Twilight Sparkle," she whispered to herself, as her hoof snaked between her rear legs. Already wet, she went straight to work, grinding her hoof into her most sensitive spot.
She shut her eyes and mouth tight, doing her best not to give herself away as she thought about stallions. Hot, hunky stallions with big stallion... things. Stallions just like Big Macintosh. Yes, AJ would kill her if she knew Twilight was thinking dirty thoughts about her brother, but thoughts never hurt anypony! And surely if he was called "Big", that meant he was big everywhere, right?
She concentrated on the image of him laying atop her, the way the dolls had positioned themselves. Yes! She could feel his warmth, his weight pressing down on her back, and something hot and hard pushing between her legs. He'd smell like sweat and dirt from a hard day spent working on the farm. She would be eager and ready to rut him in the barn, behind a hay bale.
Cracking an eye open, she noticed the dolls had switched positions. She liked the look of that one. Falling back into the pillows, she added her other hoof to the first and was soon clopping like a madmare.
Big Macintosh would know how to treat a mare. Laying on her back, she would open her world to him, and he would mount her and show her what he was made of. She would reach up and caress his face as he plowed her like a furrow, just really rocked her like a boat on stormy seas. And it would smell like the earth and feel like heaven, and he would probably say "Eeyup!" when he came, but that would be okay, because when it was over, he would cuddle with her, hold her just the way she wanted, and whisper in her ear and call her "Princess" and she wouldn't correct him.
Instead, she would sigh and call him "Miss Cheerilee" and suddenly she was riding the schoolteacher, which didn't make a whole lot of sense because hadn't she just been in the barn? Did she like mares? Well, Cheerilee had, uh...
Well, she was super-smart and they could talk about the exact angle necessary to achieve maximum pleasure, while enacting the experiment in real-time! She would smell like chalk dust, which was comforting. Twilight would be wearing a slutty plaid skirt, and Cheerilee would reprimand her for not doing well in class and...
No, no, that one wasn't working. Twilight would be more likely to accidentally call her "Celestia" if she continued down that road, and she was not interested in exploring the ramifications of that thought right now. She needed something better.
Was Cheerilee attractive? Yes, Cheerilee was attractive. She was very confident, being an older mare, and that was sexy, right? Plus, flanks! She had those! And they were round and had cutie marks and probably felt great when you rubbed them.
Congratulations, Twi, you're now the lamest bisexual in Equestria. Mom would be proud.
Cheerilee would know her way around Twilight's body because she was also a mare. She would be able to play Twilight like a violin, lightly plucking each string until she sang. Yes, Twilight would definitely sing for Cheerilee, laid out on the teacher's desk and moaning like a Siren. She would cry out math problems as Cheerilee stroked her inside and out, bringing her to the point of release and...
The point of release!
Twilight was there. Her wings quivered. Her thighs squeezed her front hooves together as she clopped herself into a frenzy. Every muscle fiber in her body tensed, ready to spring loose if she could just... a little... more...
"Ah... Ah! Ahh! AHH! D-DARING DOOOOO!"
Had Twilight not already been laying atop a huge pile of pillows, she would have felt as though she were floating on clouds. She let out a tiny gasp and relaxed more fully than she had in months, drool trickling down her cheek.
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, was satisfied at last.
Slowly, she became aware of distant laughter. It confused her at first. Then her mind reminded itself of the situation she had started pleasuring herself in. She craned her head up, just a little, to see Smarty Pants laying atop little Rarity.
"Go ahead and laugh, jerks," she mumbled. "I bet your o-face is real attractive."
Puffing her cheeks out, she snuggled down into the pillows and pouted herself to sleep.
"...So, it turns out I hadn't had an orgasm since I came to Ponyville! Certainly not since getting my wings!"
Twilight's friends regarded with various levels of shock, disgust and obliviousness. She waved a hoof in the air, paying them no heed.
"The closest I can figure is all that sexual repression, plus alicorn physiology, plus totems of intimate emotional attachment equals tiny magic dolls having all the sex that I wanted to! They haven't moved since, so I guess the problem's solved!" She reclined across the arms of the chair that bore her cutie mark, smiling at the others like she'd just come back from a night at the salt lick.
Applejack was the first to speak. "Yup. We need to get you laid."
"I really wish I knew how we'd gotten onto this topic," Rarity said, facehoofing.
"I wish you'd left out at least a few of the details," Fluttershy said from behind her mane.
"I did though!" Twilight said. "I mean, I'm not going to share everything, right? That'd be silly! Right?" Especially the parts with Big Macintosh.
Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. Like a moth to a flame, Pinkie Pie zipped over to her and starting talking a mile a minute.
"Oh my gosh, you're laughing! What is it, Dashie, tell me! Did Twilight tell a joke I missed? I kinda zoned out when she started talking about gooshy grownup stuff, but if I missed a joke, you have to tell me! I don't miss jokes!"
"I was just remembering..." Rainbow waved Pinkie off, shaking her head and trying desperately to catch her breath. "I thought I was the only one who shouted 'Daring Do' when she came!" She tried to hold her laughter in, but it filled her cheeks until it burst out through her lips. This time, Pinkie joined her, laying on her back and waving all four hooves in the air as she giggled.
Twilight's easy calm faded. "Wait, what? I thought I left that part out!"
"Oh, you did," Fluttershy said, smiling.
Eye twitching, Twilight rounded on Dash. "Rainbow Daaaaash!"
"Pfft!" Rainbow once again had to struggle to contain her laughter. "What? It's not like I regularly hide in your bedroom and watch you sleep or anything!"
Twilight's face turned bright red. Steam shot out her ears. She was in the air in a heartbeat, and Rainbow Dash barely avoided getting tackled only by virtue of her own reflexes.
"Rainbow Dash, you get back here!" Twilight shouted, chasing her out of the castle. Rainbow laughed all the way.
It was about that time that Spike came into the map room, holding a large tray of nachos that scattered in the combined wind of Rainbow and Twilight's escape.
"Whoa," he said, blinking as Pinkie began vacuuming nachos off the floor with her lips. "What'd I miss?"
Fluttershy sank into her chair and said nothing.
Applejack and Rarity gave each other a look.
"Well'p, time to go find me some new friends."
"Take me with you."
Author's Note
Hope ye enjoyed this, ye pervy landlubbers! If'n ye wanna see Rainbow callin' Daring Do's name, feast yer beady eyes on this o'er 'ere! Arr!
A lot o' thanks go out t' all 'n sundry what's 'elped wi' this 'ere fic. Ye know who ye be!
