Trixieverse 8/Precious

by Applejinx

Rating: mature
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Pie Sisters, Romance, Changelings, Sex, Bon-Bon, Big Macintosh, Adventure, Main 6
Length: 173997

Trixieverse Book 8! A Kirin comes to Ponyville, to play with stallions and fight evil. But who is evil, and who is good, in the Trixieverse world?

Over 22,000 readers have read some of the Trixie's Magic Bit saga and jumped into those very deep waters. Of all those readers, only 706 have read all seven books, a million words of provocative ponies, and come out the other side, all caught up.

This is for you. To celebrate the 700-follower milestone, a whole new book, more wild and devious and naughty than ever. If you've got to this point in the series, congratulations! Now, hang on tightly for a ride full of surprises and secrets. The clues are everywhere, right from the start, but the ending of Precious may still blow your mind! For now: meet Hina, the Kirin from Neighpon. She's come to Ponyville, to play with ponies. Specifically, male earth ponies…

Published 2015-11-02 13:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-05-09 12:44:26 UTC

The Beyond

“You think we oughta go check up on Pinkie a lil’?” said Applejack, worriedly. “Ah think she’s gittin’ a little outta sorts.”

“Out of her mind, more like!” scoffed Rainbow Dash. “I’ve known her for years. When she gets stubborn like that, you don’t want to get in her way. I’ll go and check on her later.”

“Uhh… you sure?” said Applejack. “She proper run off in a huff. That pony’s really upset.”

“Right,” said Dash. “That’s exactly why I’m going to let her calm down. Don’t you remember what Pinkie’s like sometimes? If she thinks something’s wrong, look out!”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh. “Seen her run off like that before. On that night when Fluttershy slept with all th’ farm ponies.”

Hina turned curiously to him, and behind her, Applejack, Dash, and Rarity waved frantically for him to stop talking.

“Who is Fluttershy?” asked the Kirin. Big Macintosh gulped.

“A friend,” he said, and he shut his mouth.

“Oh, that’s good,” said Hina. “Ponies should have friends! Ponies should have friends, and cozy evenings by the fire. And delicious snacks. And singing and dancing and all the fine things in life!”

The ponies looked at each other. “Uhh…” said Applejack. “Singin’? I got to say, if it’s singin’ you want we ought to bring Pinkie Pie back and settle her down a bit…”

“Not a good idea,” said Dash. “Do you remember when she thought you broke…” and her voice dropped to a whisper… “a Pinkie Promise?”

Thud!

Applejack awkwardly got up, brushing herself off with her hat and then brushing the dirt off the hat. She’d hit the dirt instantly, as a pure reflex action. “Don’t SAY such things, Rainbow!”

Hina was looking on, in dismay. “You’re afraid of the cranky pink pony mare! Is she the evil that threatens this fine town? Did I miss a chance to smite her for justice?”

“Smite PINKIE?” squeaked Rainbow Dash. “No way! Uh-huh, don’t even think it, no smiting!”

“So, no singin’ cause no Pinkie,” said Applejack hastily. “We kin have a cozy evening by the fire, at least when it’s evening! We Apples would be happy to make you some delicious snacks. And, uh, uh, you want dancing? We’ll dance for ya, no trouble! Ah am mostly used to dancin’ with Rainbow, I admit, but I would dance with you. Or we’ll get you Braeburn, he can dance up a storm!”

Dash took up the thread, so long as it led away from smiting Pinkie Pie. “I can dance too! I can dance in the air, heck I can dance ON a storm! Top that!”

Hina smiled at her. “I’m a Kirin, little mare. I can dance on a rainbow.”

Applejack rolled her eyes in advance. Dash didn’t let her down.

“Ooooh,” she said. “I’ve never heard it called that. Why wait?”

“That ain’t what she meant, sugarcube,” chided Applejack. “I think she means the real thing.”

“I’m the realest thing around!” boasted Dash. She waggled her eyebrows at Hina. “How do you want me?”

“Rainbow!” giggled Rarity. “I’m almost sure she’s confining herself to stallions. At least, she’s not going to play our magic-bit games, she doesn’t like those toys. Obviously our Kirin means her extensive control over atmosphere magic. She’s not talking about you, naughty thing!”

Hina blinked. “You know about us? Yes, I am here for stallions. Atmosphere magic? How did you know that?”

The white unicorn pouted. “I was merely trying to find a better way to put it: you’ll remember Twilight, who rather rudely classified you as a mist demon. Doesn’t atmosphere magic sound more nice than mist demon? I’m sure she meant no harm.” Rarity considered this. “Not much, anyhow. Might I ask why you didn’t act hostile toward Pinkie, or Twilight? I think it matters, if you’re speaking of smiting evil. I’m with Applejack: please don’t do any such thing around here.”

“Yeah!” said Applejack. “That there’s a good question. If you’re an evil-sensin’ mist demon out for smitin’ evilness, firstly we tole you there ain’t no evil here, and secondly how come we can get obstreperous around you and not git our asses smote? Answer me that, missy.”

Hina’s eyes were wide, and she backed off a pace, unaccustomed to such authoritativeness. “Rarity explained it well. We don’t talk about that among the common ponies! It would frighten them!”

Applejack lifted her chin. “Frighten us? Well, now you GOT to tell. What’s atmosphere magic?”

Hina’s lip quivered. “Our sense of evil is not directional! A Kirin’s duty is to defend all that’s living. It is no beacon! A place develops a sort of atmosphere. Ponyville hints at the foulest stink of evilness. But we see this in actions!” She hung her head. “Pray do not tell the ponies. Not those from Neighpon. They depend on us so much…”

“Huh,” said Applejack, tilting her head to the side. “You don’t say! So, you got a lot of responsibility, but you’re fretful because you don’t feel equal to it? This is a vacation away from all that?”

Hina nodded… and then, squeaked in surprise, for the orange earth pony mare had pounced and was giving her a fervent, earnest hug.

“Ah know just how you feel,” said Applejack. “You may not believe it, but I been there. Don’t you worry. You’re safe here and you don’t have to do a thing. Ain’t that right, Rarity?”

The fashionable unicorn nodded, her eyes glistening with emotion. “Poor darling! Consider us a refuge. So, I was right, then? Your magic has to do with sensing the moral atmosphere of a location, rather than pointing like a compass at evildoers?” She made a face. “I am not sure whether I should bring you home, in that case. At best it would be atmospherically confusing, at worst it might make you ill…”

Hina was hugging Applejack right back. “Sweet little pony! Surely you’re the soul of good. Preserve my secret!”

“Course I will!” vowed Applejack. “So… I guess since it’s all about vibes an’ feelings, when you said you dance on rainbows it must be a metterforical thing, huh?”

Hina blinked. “Not at all. They have to be wet. Which is easy to arrange.”

“Woohoo!” cheered Rainbow Dash. “I’ll say. Coming right up in ten s…”

“Dashie!” snapped Applejack, without even looking. “Put that hoof back this instant!”

“How’d you know where my hoof was, without looking?”

“MOMMM!” whined Northern Spy, pouting fiercely. “Not again!”

“Was I wrong?” said Applejack.

Hina boggled. “Please do not quarrel! I’ll make one for you. It will be just a moment.”

Stepping away from Applejack, she concentrated, and that mysterious bent-back horn lit up from inside, scintillating with luminous magic. Unlike unicorn and alicorn magic, it glowed in all colors, and not a pony could tear their eyes away from the spectacle: a reaction clearly expected by the Kirin, if her smug little smirk meant anything.

A big, bright rainbow arched up from the ground and leapt skyward, radiant with color. The sun was setting, but it didn’t seem to matter: the rainbow cast light that blended into a pearly white radiance that seemed to come from everywhere.

Hina reared, kicking her delicate cloven hooves, and jumped up onto the rainbow, trotting upwards at a steep angle. Applejack’s eyes widened in awe. Rarity squeed faintly at the lovely colors and the elegance of the magical creature lashing her curious tail and parading her beauty across the arch of light.

“Oh yeah?” said Rainbow Dash. “Two can play at that game!”

She soared up into the glorious sunset, and kicked down a tuft of cloud, aiming it to the side of the Kirin’s rainbow. Having done this, Rainbow pranced atop the cloud. “Aw yeah! That’s right! Uh-huh! Shaking my dance thing!”

Hina scampered higher, twirling upon her rainbow. Rainbow punted her cloud higher still. “I can dance on clouds!”

Hearing that, Hina made a great leap, and she landed on Rainbow’s cloud and gave her a hug. “I can dance on your cloud, too!”

She jumped back, smirking madly, batting her amazing eyelashes in challenge. Rainbow rose to the challenge, for values of ‘rose’ rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.

“Yeah, well I can WAAUGH!”

She’d jumped onto the rainbow the Kirin was standing smugly on, meaning to use her pegasus magic to do likewise, and she’d fallen right through instantly. It was only ten feet or so before she’d caught herself with her powerful wings, and she hovered, forelegs crossed and an expression fit to sour milk on her little blue face.

Far below, Northern Spy and Applejack rolled on the grass with laughter. “She got you!” called Applejack merrily.

“This mist is far too delicate for you to stand on,” said Hina. “Nice try, though!”

Rainbow glared up at her, though all the same she was smiling a wicked little Dashie-smile. “Oh, so you think you’re better at AIR than me?”

“Not everypony can command the weather this way,” replied Hina-rin, crossing her forehooves and looking down at Rainbow tolerantly.

For a moment, Rainbow’s smile just grew naughtier.

“EEE!”

In a flicker of blue motion, Rainbow Dash had burst from her position sculling wind in mid-air. She’d blasted through her own cloud quicker than the eye could see, then down again, across, and lastly straight up the path of the rainbow the Kirin had made. Being a construction of mist and light, it exploded in the turbulence of shattered air, and instantly went out, as Hina screamed and kicked at the sudden nothingness under her hooves.

Her horn lit up frantically, but before she’d dropped three feet Rainbow was back, in pony rather than misty form. Hina-rin lay curled up on her back like a foal, in Rainbow Dash's rescuing forelegs. Powerful pegasus wings sculled the air once more, and the mischievous smirk was on Dash’s face and not the Kirin’s.

“Nice try,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Rarity. “Stop that roughhousing and bring our guest down this instant!”

“Aw!” said Dash, but she obediently flew back to ground. “Hey, you’re light! Like, incredibly light, even lighter than a pegasus! How come?”

She plunked Hina onto the grass, and the ruffled Kirin sprang to her hooves, pouting. “We’re creatures of mist and air,” replied Hina.

“Sooooo,” teased Dash, “would that make you… a lightweight?”

For a moment, Hina’s pout grew poutier.

“Yeep!”

A dark cloud surged into existence above the Kirin’s head, though it seemed just the shell of a cloud unfolding like a ripple in a pond, and it expanded crackling with energy and then vanished in a tiny bolt of lightning that zapped Rainbow Dash’s naughty rump.

“Now are we even?” asked Hina, smirking. “Pegasi aren’t the only ones with weather control.”

Dash’s eyes were huge and adorable as she stared at the smirking Kirin. For a moment, she couldn’t even react, she was so startled. Then…

“BAAAAhahaha!”

“And on that note,” suggested Applejack, “it’s time we headed home for dinner like good lil’ ponies. I’m not real sure how we’re gonna stretch Granny’s apple turnip cakes to account for a visitor, but…”

“Awww, man!” protested Dash. “Are we really having that again?”

Applejack gave her mate a stern look. “Granny tries hard! She was just experimentin’, or maybe she forgot what she was makin’ yesterday and got all muddled. It ain’t goin’ to waste, and if y’all had eaten your dinner properly yesterday there wouldn’t BE no leftovers, so come along, there’s salted oat clusters for dessert to encourage you.”

Dash rolled her eyes and began to trot obediently after Applejack, as did Northern Spy, but the remaining Apple had other ideas.

“Eenope,” said Big Macintosh solemnly.

“What?” said Applejack, glancing around in surprise.

“You go on,” rumbled Big Macintosh, as Hina’s ear turned his way again. “Ah reckon I will take Miss Hina out to dinner. That’s good manners for such a fancy visitor.”

Applejack’s ears were back in disbelief. “That’s how you treat a visitor? Skippin’ out on Granny’s apple turnip cakes?”

“Wull…” muttered Big Macintosh, “visitors.”

Beside him, Marble Pie couldn’t look up to meet anypony’s eyes, and she was blushing a cheerful red. Big Macintosh shyly avoided looking at her, in turn. Hina, the Kirin, studied them both in apparent delight. Applejack’s ear flicked, fretfully. Mac and Marble hadn’t said a word to each other, not a word, but for all that she had a sneaky feeling even a lasso wouldn’t drag them apart.

“Dang,” she said. “All right, Big Macintosh. You have fun, you hear?” She snorted, but without real anger. “Proper ambassador, you are. Master of entertainments. You’re excused, though Celestia help you if our Apple Bloom don’t approve of this ‘un.”

Hina smiled. “Don’t be sad, dear earth pony. I will eat your apple turnip cakes another day.”

“Gosh, I hope not,” said Applejack earnestly. “Granny tries hard, and next time we’ll hide the turnips when she’s in th’ kitchen and we won’t have no, what you say, recurrences.”

“Can I go to dinner with…” began Dash.

“No!” snapped Applejack. “So help me, Rainbow Dash, if you don’t help me and Spy and Granny eat them repulsive mistakes of things, I will whup you with the end of a lasso rope. Ah was kinda hoping Big Macintosh would do his share, but he musta eaten twice what the rest of us ate yesterday, and I can’t fault him for weaseling out this time. Come on.”

Hina waved an elegant hoof. “Would that I were two Kirin! Oh, to accompany all of you at once! But my guidance may be needed later on. Kirin have many duties. Some are most happy.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Applejack. “Guidance, you say?”

Hina nodded, with a gentle, secret smile. “Of… the inexperienced.”

Applejack glanced at Big Macintosh, who blushed and couldn’t meet her increasingly amused eye.

“You jes’ go on believing that,” she said. “And don’t you turn your back a-winkin or the experience will be all yours!”

Rainbow Dash snickered. Hina lifted her chin. “Honestly? That seems unlikely. I have a sense of innocent pony hearts.”

“You might find other organs git involved too,” said Applejack wryly. “Well… you have fun now! Ah warned you.” Then, she blinked.

“What is it, babe?” said Rainbow Dash.

“Oh!” said Applejack. “Uh… warnin’! I warned you, miss Hina-rin, so you go on and have a nice dinner and so forth. We’ll be on our way. Straight home, uh-huh, not like we got any other warnings to deliver or things to take care of.”

Rarity’s pupils shrank to pinpoints, and she said, “Ah hah! Indeed, my dear Applejack. It’s time for us to head to our respective homes, not that those will need much preparing to welcome the jewel upon the pillow of hospitality that is a visiting Kirin, wise in the ways of atmosphere!”

“That’s right,” said Applejack, her ears laid back. “Why, she probably never even heard of sharpened pointy spurs or them crazy harness thingys!”

Rarity grimaced dreadfully, wrenching it into a pretty smile by sheer willpower. “Ah hah hah hah! Who has ever heard of such entertainments?”

Rainbow Dash was grinning. “Funny you should ask…”

Suddenly, both Rarity and Applejack were staring at her, their eyes pleading. “Sugarcube,” said Applejack, “of course we haven’t. And it’s not like you have any old friends to visit who’d be interested in all this?” Seeing the signs of inconvenient Dash-headedness in Rainbow’s puzzled stare, Applejack gulped. “I’ll just BAT you’ll come straight home for Granny’s apple turnip cakes…”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, as if Planet Rainbow had been clonked on the back of the head by Planet Obvious. She gulped. “Yeah! I’ll get right on it. Which is to say I’ll head right home. I just gotta run an errand first.”

“PIE now!” said Applejack, waving and grinning. “Run all them errands!”

“I pink you’ll enjoy Granny’s apple turnip cakes, darling!” added Rarity, her eyes wild and jittery.

Dash stared for a moment. Then, she gave a twitch.

“Bleah!” she said with great conviction, grinned, and zipped off in the general direction of the Everfree Forest—or at least the outskirts of it.

“What’s the matter with you ponies?” complained Northern Spy. “You’re talking crazy!”

“Nothin’ crazy about Granny’s apple turnip cakes that eatin’ won’t fix!” said Applejack loyally. “Which is to say yeah, she really spit her bit on that one, but it’s grub. Big Macintosh, you enjoy yourself with our visitors! Don’t feel like you gotta rush home or nothin’, give us some… Ah mean, take your time!”

Big Macintosh nodded. “Eyup.” Extending a gentle hoof, he coaxed Marble Pie to turn and head down the road. “This way, ma’am.”

“Mm-hm,” said Marble, and off they went, Marble at first hesitant, and then pressing to his side as she walked.

Hina watched them go, while the remaining ponies held their breaths, and then the Kirin reared and kicked the air ebulliently.

“I guarantee pony joy!” she said. “Look at them! They will find their happiness. It’s so beautiful!”

She trotted off, magic fetlocks twirling like banners decorating her bouncy progress, and soon she was nestling up against Big Macintosh’s other side as the little group headed for Ponyville’s finest restaraunt.

Rarity winced. “I’ve some cleaning to do. To be perfectly honest, Derpy’s been wanting the place tidied up for months, but I selfishly cling to certain valuables.”

“Valuables?” said Applejack, lifting an eyebrow.

“It’s so hard to find a whip with really perfect balance and flick…” whispered Rarity quietly.

“Can I have it?” said Northern Spy.

Applejack choked. “Aw hell no! Jes’ for that you get an extra turnip. Come on!”

They trotted busily off in their respective directions, both Applejack and Rarity looking back at the little contrail that was Rainbow’s path to Fluttershy’s cottage.

Fluttershy could tell things weren’t too serious: her zebras were still rhyming.

When Zecora and Dursaa were really upset, the rhyming stopped and they fell back on what they called their Elder speech, solemnly talking out their troubles with great patience and at a very slow pace. Fluttershy considered herself to be patient, but it was nothing to the glacial pace of a troubled zebra. Things hadn’t become that serious.

On the other hand, the polyamorous lover of multiple zebras could encounter other challenges that might go unnoticed elsewhere. There was rhyming and then there was rhyming. Once, Fluttershy had been blithely innocent of the subtleties of zebra protocol. She’d recognized that the strange Everfree Forest herb-doctor mare, Zecora, rhymed her words—but not much more than that.

Now, Fluttershy looked on unhappily as Zecora, who loved her, got elegaic.

It was all Dursaa’s influence, of course. Before Dursaa had professed his love for her, Zecora’s relationship with her had been far less formal, even though it had contained unrequited desire on Zecora’s part. And then they’d all shacked up together in Fluttershy’s cottage by the Everfree, and her zebras got competitive about who took the job of being lover to a sometimes-fretful vampony most seriously, and things got elegaic to the point that Fluttershy had to administer wing spankings more than once.

Elegaic meter had never troubled her life before Dursaa. It was defined as a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of dactylic pentameter, sometimes enjambed, which meant running it all together into a big lump of yadada yadada yadada yadada. Zecora had always rhymed more loosely and easily, but when Dursaa got serious and romantic he tended to get elegaic unless Fluttershy quickly sat on him, preferably on his face. And when Zecora was confronted with a zebra stallion—one she and Fluttershy shared, to be sure, but still—who spouted love poetry in so serious a form, she was first taken aback and then gradually began to up her game until she, too, got elegaic.

Twilight Sparkle had been fascinated, and informed Fluttershy that most of the yadada could be swapped out for a blah blah, at least before the fifth rhythmic foot. The technical words were swapping dactyls out for spondees, but Fluttershy tended to think of it as yadada, rather crankily. The trouble was, when the zebras got elegaic at her it was a sign of great seriousness, nearly to the stage of Elder Speech. They didn’t seem to go for the spondees, possibly because the yadada-nature of their rhyme connoted the seriousness of their intent. It was the nearest thing to keeping up the dactylic hexameter throughout, which was called epic poetry and reserved, in Zebra lands, only for speeches by the Elders of a town to the entire community.

And Zecora was getting elegaic, the next thing to Elder Speech, and Fluttershy was afraid she knew already what the topic was going to be. Lines of doggerel were easily rebuffed. The more formal iambic pentameters carried more weight but could still be brushed off. Zecora seemed unwilling to be brushed off, and the implications of her rhyming kept getting more and more serious, to the point that her pleas started to resemble epic poetry.

Admittedly, her subject was epic, but that was the whole problem.

“Fluttershy, long I have pleaded to share with you touches erotic. Yet you deny me the gift of a loving exotic…”

Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed. “Zecora, if you’re going where I think you’re going with this…”

Zecora’s eyes flashed. “Dursaa and I go to everywhere in your sweet vampony body! It’s where you’re going or NOT going that seems so naughty!”

“Me, naughty?” squeaked Fluttershy, offended. “You know what I like, and what I don’t like! How dare you say I’m naughty?”

Dursaa chuckled. Fluttershy glared at him, and he subsided. Unlike most zebra stallions, he was content to serve his mares and devote himself to their care. He also had a pretty good idea of what Zecora was up to.

Zecora drew a breath. “If you’re not naughty, then what are you doing with double the zebra? How can you revel in us, yet my joy’s anathema?”

Fluttershy tightened her lips. “It’s pronounced uh-neth-um-uh, Zecora, and cut it out…”

Zecora stamped a petulant hoof. “I have been practicing, Fluttershy! Both with our Dursaa and even, with cunning carvings preparing my pussy for Heaven…”

“Oh no!” squeaked Fluttershy. “Stop it, stop right now, no more yadada yadada! You WHAT? You’re preparing with WHAT?”

Zecora turned red-and-black, as Dursaa snickered gently at her. She took another breath, staring into space and composing her thoughts.

“No,” said Fluttershy. “I’ll Stare you if you won’t tell the truth. Sex is not that important and you’re being greedy and selfish and positively stallion-headed, in a peculiar way. Take it down a notch and I’ll give you a kiss and we’ll talk more reasonably, okay?”

Zecora heaved a sigh. “Oh, Fluttershy, forgive my pleadings, do! I only want to have some fun with you!”

Fluttershy trotted over and gave her a kiss, as promised. Then, she narrowed her eyes. “Show me.”

“Show you what, Flutter-butt?” replied Zecora, with hasty informality.

“I know what you’re up to,” accused Fluttershy. “Cunning carvings? Show me it! Show me the dildo you’re using. You could be doing yourself injury, trying to chase your insane dream!”

“By no means is her hope an insane dream,” said Dursaa in his deep, soothing voice. “Lest you forget, that thing we both have seen.”

“And I still regret it!” cried Fluttershy. “I should never have shown you what happens when I use one of those awful magic bits! It’s gross and awful and I can’t see what you see in it!”

Dursaa chuckled. Zecora rolled her eyes.

“We both have deemed your penis huge and fair,” retorted Zecora. “If you don’t like it… hide it in a mare!” She stuck out her tongue, rebelliously.

“It would hurt you,” insisted Fluttershy.

“Oh, yeah? Woo-hoo!” countered Zecora.

As Fluttershy glared at her devoted zebra mare lover, Dursaa lifted his chin, a thoughtful look on his face. When he spoke again, he’d gone elegaic.

“Fluttershy, how much of this is you thinking your penis is icky… and how much is knowing you using it would upset Pinkie?”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped, in shock.

Dursaa studied her. “Though you surround yourself daily with stallions both real and untrue, I think you relish the way Pinkie Pie looks at you.”

He quit being elegaic, but the damage was done. Zecora read the defensiveness in Fluttershy’s eyes. “It’s true! The gift that you’re depriving me, is what poor Pinkie cannot bear to see!”

“Don’t say that!” pleaded Fluttershy. “I’m doing everything I can! Don’t you understand that Pinkie’s my ex? I still love her but it just doesn’t work, and we have two foals to raise together! Okay, it’s Rock Candy that has most of Pinkie in him, but little Dursaa junior, her spirit is part of him as well!”

“It’s my sorrow, and her shame,” said Dursaa darkly, “she can’t love them both the same.”

Fluttershy drooped. “No, she kind of doesn’t. But she tries! I think she tries? She tried ever so hard to stop him from just saying ‘da’, even though that was his only word! I still remember how mad she was when his second word was ‘daddy’ and she wanted it to be ‘ma’. Um. That didn’t help, huh?”

Dursaa frowned, sadly, but didn’t say anything. He’d been so happy that day, and had always been sweet and nurturing to little Dursaa, the only baby zebra ever to be born with stripey pegasus wings. He’d earned his ‘daddy’ and hadn’t deserved the fit Pinkie’d thrown, as if it’d been a personal insult to Fluttershy.

Zecora trotted over, and hugged Fluttershy close. “We all love Pinkie Pie, that much is true. But she cannot define the truth of you!”

“But she just wants me to be her perfect straight mare,” said Fluttershy forlornly. “She doesn’t ask anything of me, not anything at all.”

Dursaa twitched, but didn’t speak. Zecora spotted it, and stuck out her lower lip. “That’s a matter for debate. Not out loud, at any rate!”

Fluttershy sniffled. “But… I’m a mare to her. It’s like, to her, I’m not even a vampegasus at all. She’s crazy for straight mares, and she hates dicks. It’s like… a sacrilege or something. Never mind that I’m a horrible undead thing really. I’ll always be the perfect straight pegasus mare to Pinkie! How can I describe what that feels like?”

Zecora frowned… and got elegaic.

“Fluttershy, you have a family loving your genuine nature. While your flirtations with Pinkie were no misadventure: we love you from your bat wings to your magical camouflage tail…”

Zecora drew a breath, her eyes worried. “She loves a fantasy. Which of those dreams shall prevail?”

They sat there for a moment. Not fretting, or starting a fight, because Fluttershy’s zebra lovers knew her inside and out. They knew the troubled feelings that haunted their darling, they knew the family history that’d produced a foal who (in theory) had to be shared between zebra and Sugarcube Corner households, and moreover they had patience to put mere ponies to shame. Zebras knew how to sit with bad feelings and problems and not freak out, letting the situation develop and getting a full sense of things before acting.

It was a great source of strength for Fluttershy, who balanced apparent frailty with dreadful vampiric power and spent most of her time fearful, if not of others then of herself. Her zebras were like rocks, so very stable and calm, except that Zecora wanted Fluttershy to take a magic bit and be like a rock in quite a different way. She seemed very sure of herself as she studied Fluttershy. There would be no hurrying, but something in the set of her jaw betrayed her very zebralike determination: one way or another, she was going to end up with a Fluttershy dicking. Any normal pony would be wrecked on the end of such a horrific unnatural appendage, but Zecora was a zebra mare, large and roomy compared to a pony. Fluttershy had been present when Zecora and Dursaa made love, and knew the truth of that. Still, she hesitated. Leaving aside the way it’d horrify Pinkie Pie, could it really be safe for Zecora?

The silent meditation was broken with a bang and a whoosh. The bang was Fluttershy’s door, and the whoosh was Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow wasn’t good at patience at all.

“Oh, hi! Listen, I need to talk to Fluttershy for a moment, it’s super important, okay?”

Dursaa blinked. “Talk away, horse blue-jay.”

“Hey!” squawked Dash, her voice going even harsher with outrage. “You saying I’m like a noisy bird?”

“Don’t answer that,” said Fluttershy hastily, for both zebras had smirked. “What’s the matter, Rainbow?”

“Oh, nothing! At least it should be nothing. But I needed to come here as fast as I possibly could, and warn you. We’ve got like a demon hunter in town!”

Two zebras and one vampegasus blinked in surprise.

“I’m not a demon,” said Fluttershy. “I’m a vampire. That’s not a demon, is it?”

“No, I mean it’s a Kirin!” said Dash. “It’s trying to destroy evil!”

Dursaa and Zecora looked alarmed, but Fluttershy clung to her personal truths and stuck out her lower lip stubbornly. “I’m not evil. Princess Celestia told me so.”

Rainbow’s eyes were wide and earnest. “I know you’re not evil! We love you, Fluttershy! Just… don’t go out, okay? I don’t think she can spot you from a distance. She doesn’t have a sense of direction, I mean evil-direction…”

“I’m NOT EVIL!” squealed Fluttershy.

“No, I mean, the Kirin says she can sense something in Ponyville that’s evil and scary!”

Both Dursaa and Zecora began to move toward Fluttershy, to hug and comfort her. Both simultaneously whinnied and cowered back at what happened next.

Pinkie’s eyes were wide and a bit crazy. Her smile was huge and glittering, as was the mirror she was in. Not appearing as an image in the mirror, no… Pinkie Pie had stuck her head through the mirror without breaking it, hooves against the frame, as if it was one big open window for her to use.

“I know Fluttiesluttiebuttie isn’t evil!” she cried. “Cos I’m keeping an eye on her!”

Dash had shrieked and zipped around behind the zebras at the sudden pink onslaught. Fluttershy cringed back for a moment, and then rallied.

“PINKIE PIE! Don’t do scary things with my mirrors!” she demanded.

Pinkie drooped a bit, still framed in the mirror.

“Awwww…” she said, and then she ducked down out of sight. Two pegasi and two zebras stampeded the mirror to see where she’d gone. They saw only their own panicky visages. Pinkie Pie was gone.

While Zecora and Dursaa hugged each other in alarm at the uncanny creepiness, Rainbow Dash took to the air. “Pinkie! I gotta talk to you too, this isn’t the way to chill out the Kirin! Pinkieeee! Where’d she go?” And before Fluttershy could say anything, Rainbow Dash had flown off as fast as she could, hunting down her spooky and weird earth pony friend.

Fluttershy glared at the mirror. It was simply too much. Yes, dear Pinkie was part of the family always and forever… but still!

She glanced at Dursaa and Zecora, and saw how Zecora interposed her body between Dursaa and the mirror, still glaring fretfully at it though she tried to appear unconcerned. It was so typical: her massive zebra stallion, masculine yet with that secret tenderness and sensitivity, and her lesbian zebra mare, as always prepared to take a bit or take control and command the situation. It was Zecora who sheltered Dursaa from the danger, but either of them would’ve done the same for her, in a zebra heartbeat. Ironic, when her vampiric heart didn’t need to beat, and when her vampiric form could withstand abuse that would obliterate both faithful zebras instantly.

Of course, they were quick to remind her that her heart didn’t need to beat in order to love. Pinkie’d reminded her of that too, and even Princess Celestia insisted on it. Though things hadn’t worked out well with Pinkie, Fluttershy did know that she could love. She chose to, daily, the better to resist her vampire nature.

And Pinkie didn’t mean any harm… Fluttershy was nearly sure of that. On the other hand, it rankled that Pinkie was keeping an eye on her. It was hard to love somebody when they didn’t trust you. Worse, Fluttershy was alone with her zebra harem for a reason. It was Pinkie’s night to have Rock Candy and little Dursaa stay over. Fluttershy trusted Pinkie with them, because the alternative was unthinkable, but didn’t expect Pinkie to be randomly appearing in mirrors while she was supposed to be looking after the colts. And that smile—if only she didn’t have to smile in that disturbing way! Fluttershy felt she, the unwilling vampire, ought to at least have a monopoly on disturbing smiles, but even she wanted to hide sometimes when Pinkie got too intense.

She squeaked. Zecora’d walked over to nuzzle her neck. “These visitors distress your head. Shall all of us retreat to bed?”

“Will Pinkie appear out of something else unnatural?” said Dursaa, and his voice trembled a little. It always shook him up whenever Pinkie violated laws of nature and physics.

Fluttershy glanced sharply over. Her husband (the natural stallion one, not the magic-bit one) was so upset he’d lost his rhyming. Things had gone far enough.

“I’ll fix that,” she vowed.

Zecora, too, regarded him lovingly. Ever since he’d revealed his inner horsewife, she’d warmed to him, and had rather taken a role as his husband as well—for all that she enjoyed being tenderly screwed by his massive zebra cock. She nodded. “Dearest, we’ll take care of you. But Fluttershy, what shall you do?”

A little, wry smile quirked Fluttershy’s dainty lips. “Something that Pinkie Pie will never, ever watch. That’s what. Upstairs!”

Zecora stared for a moment, uncomprehending, and then her eyes widened in amazement and she made a little squee.

“Go on,” urged Fluttershy. “But I insist on seeing that dildo you’ve been using!”

Zecora was already clattering upstairs in a storm of stripey hooves. Dursaa followed, and Fluttershy trotted after them, feeling an odd combination of fretful and excited. She had no wish to do the stallioning, never had: but Zecora’s delight was irresistible. It’d always been a fantasy of hers to get topped by Fluttershy, and finally it was happening—if, that is, the act was truly practical. Zecora was brave, and larger than a typical pony mare, but she was no vampire and boasted no undead regenerative powers.

By the time Fluttershy got to the bedroom, Zecora had already dug out her special toy, one Fluttershy had never seen. Shy’s eyes widened in dismay. It was a monstrous object. Zecora couldn’t even hold it in her teeth and had to wrestle it along with her forelegs: it was a massive, ebon, wooden cone.

“Zecora!” scolded Fluttershy. “That’s not good for you! That’s scary!”

“You don’t like this that you see?” challenged Zecora. “Then substitute the Flutter-D!” She stuck out her tongue playfully.

Dursaa was smirking. Fluttershy turned to him. “She actually uses this?”

He nodded solemnly. “It’s a cinch. Every inch.”

Zecora turned to him, her ears laid back. “A what? A cinch? Dursaa, have you gone mad? Do you not remember…”

“Shh,” cautioned Dursaa, and Zecora realised what he’d been doing. When she looked back at Fluttershy, she understood why.

Their vampire pegasus bridled, her adorably sulky look on full display, and ‘oh hell no’ written in every sign of expression and posture. Zecora gulped.

“Darling mare, please forgive my selfish importune cravings for dicking. I never meant it to be something you found so sickening…”

“Don’t yadada at me!” squeaked Fluttershy. “It’s just… are you sure? How could you do that, it’s not even shiny! What if you got splinters? It’s like that wooden thing you wanted me to strap on, but even bigger!”

The zebras glanced at each other, and both dropped into Elder Speech immediately.

“There are no splinters,” soothed Zecora. “Yes, this too is carved, like a mask or tool…”

“She really wants this,” rumbled Dursaa. “Yes, she struggled, but I swear she forced the full width into herself, and was not harmed.”

“It is like exercise,” said Zecora. “It is worth it, it is like practice…”

“She loves you, Fluttershy,” urged Dursaa, and Zecora blushed red-and-black. He continued, “Our Zecora has always wished this consummation.”

Fluttershy pouted. “I’m NOT a stallion. It’s silly.”

Dursaa regarded her levelly. “We know that. Were you a mare, strapping on a wooden object to enter Zecora with the tender marely touch for which she longs, her loins would yet burn for you…”

“YOU have the tender marely touch,” accused Fluttershy.

Dursaa didn’t deny this, or become offended—even though the charge was stark heresy to traditional Zebra culture. Instead, he merely became gentler. “I’m there for both of you, and of this tenderness we’ve learned. We ask just this: give it a try, it’s time you took a turn.”

“Or you can wait around for Pinkie Pie to stick her head into our window without opening it,” said Zecora in Elder speech, not looking up. Then, she met Fluttershy’s eyes. “Please. It would be such an honor.”

Fluttershy still pouted, but her eyes had softened. “I do love you, Zecora. And you, Dursaa. It’s just… phoo! Promise you’ll never tell anypony?”

“We promise!” said Zecora, her face lighting up.

“Especially not Rainbow Dash? She’d take it as some kind of challenge. And she isn’t as big as you,” said Fluttershy, “but that’s not even the point!”

“We won’t tell Rainbow Dash,” promised the two zebras, in chorus.

“Or Rarity?” demanded Fluttershy. “I might tell her when we’re alone at the spa. I might not even tell her. It’s not like it’s my big fetish myself, so she can’t worm it out of me, and if I’m not too guilty or sad about it she won’t figure it out that way. Promise?”

“We won’t tell Rarity!” promised the expectant zebras.

“Or Pinkie Pie?” said Fluttershy, and both stripy ears laid back, and they looked at each other in chagrin.

Dursaa gulped. “We will not tell. We wish her well. But though we both want peace…”

Zecora continued, “She keeps an eye and lurks and spies and we can’t make her cease!”

Fluttershy’s eyes went very wide, seeing the unhappy, defensive faces of her beloved zebra lovers. They told a story in embattled, stripey frowns, in laid-back ears, in the very unwillingness the zebras had to even raise the issue.

It had never occurred to Fluttershy that Pinkie might have been appearing, in her creepy Pinkie Powers way, to the zebras when she herself wasn’t there to see it. She’d certainly popped up in the mirror and given them a fright. Zebras didn’t like the uncanny, and Pinkie had said in passing that it bugged them, as if it was funny to her.

Fluttershy lifted her head, and bared her cute little vampire fangs in outrage. “When does she do this?”

“Not often…” protested Zecora. “We should not complain.”

“When Rock Candy is our guest,” said Dursaa placatingly, “that’s the time that she finds best…”

Fluttershy shut her eyes, shaking her head sadly. Pinkie! So jealous of the male that took her perfect straight mare away. Further distressed by Zecora’s joining the little herd… but Zecora had always loved her, always, even back when Pinkie thought the zebra herb doctor an Evil Enchantress. Pinkie’d had a chance with Zecora and seemed to have blown it, tried too hard. She still had Cloud Chaser, who’d been special to Pinkie from long ago. She had Rainbow Dash, though it was hard to tell how much of that was Dash just bodysexing anything not nailed down. And yet, Pinkie seemed to want everything. And now, she was spying on the defenseless zebras and freaking them out with her weird spookiness, on purpose?

“Fluttershy?” said Zecora worriedly.

Fluttershy set her jaw. “Give me that magic bit. Do it now.”

“I’m back!” called Rainbow Dash.

“Wee-hoo!” cheered Applejack. “Come on in and have an apple turnip!”

Dash cringed. “Really? I thought it was those horrible cakes. And I hoped you ponies had finished them off already.”

“We’ve decided they ain’t properly apple anything at all,” said Applejack, “so they’re a new kind of turnip, an apple turnip. Turple apnip.”

“You okay, Applejack?” said Dash. “You’re wobbly, and not in the good way.”

“A lot you know,” sniggered Applejack. “Thank Granny for that.”

“Huh?”

“When Northern Spy ate th’ apple bits out of all the cakes and run upstairs to bed, me an’ Granny had to finish ‘em off. So Granny, she poured a buncha cider on ‘em, and also some salt. Kind of a lot of salt. Sot of lalt,” Applejack said, and giggled.

“Cider, huh?” said Dash. Snowy Hocks, passing by, quirked an ear.

“Sore the malt, really,” suggested Applejack.

Dash grinned. “Need some help with that, babe?”

“Oh gosh yes,” said Applejack blearily. “Dang.”

Dash began to trot into Sweet Apple Acres licking her lips, but Applejack suddenly grabbed her.

“Didja… did ya warn, warn Shutterf, Fluttershy? About the Kirin, dist… dist memein’… MIST demon! The thing what’s gonna bust up all us naughty ponies, that thing!”

“Whoa, easy, Applejack!” said Dash, glancing at Snowy, who’d sidled closer to hear the dirt. “Nopony’s gonna bust up anypony around here.”

“It’s EEVIL!” blurted Applejack, wobbling in Rainbow’s embrace. “Ah mean, it’s SMITIN’ evil! Come around here to smite our poor Fluttershy and all us wicked horsies…”

“No no!” corrected Dash. “It’s not, she’s nice! She’s probably watching Big Macintosh fuck right now. If she takes him on too, she’ll be out of commission for the night, guaranteed. I warned Fluttershy. Don’t talk about Fluttershy that way, you know the farm ponies don’t like talking about her since that big night.” She glared at Snowy Hocks, who had the decency to look abashed, or at least sullen. “Come on, Applejack, let’s get you inside.”

“Oh, gosh,” said Applejack, “a real live Kirin come all the way out here to smite evil…”

“That true?” shot Snowy Hocks. “Or is she jes’ drunk off her hooves?”

Rainbow Dash glowered at Snowy. The night the farm ponies had banged Fluttershy, he’d been way too into her efforts to be abused and degraded, and Dash had seen it with her own eyes and had never quite looked at him the same way again. “More like, a Kirin came all the way out here to fuck farm pony stallions!”

Snowy cowered back a little. Dash liked that.

“No shit? Like, from Neighpon, one of them?” he said, warily.

Dash smirked. “Pro tip: don’t gangbang this one, or she’ll fuckin’ destroy you. And it’d serve you right! You should probably get some training from Braeburn about pleasing a mare before you try. Or leave it to the nice stallions, jerkface!”

Dash swept by him haughtily, and went into Sweet Apple Acres with Applejack. The door closed.

Snowy Hocks glared worriedly at the door, and trotted off toward the farm pony cabins.

Fluttershy’s teeth clamped down on the magic bit, and the mammoth horsecock thrust forth, drawing mass from some arcane plane in an abundance beyond what mortal mare could handle.

Mortal pony mare, that is. Zecora stared, her heart pounding. She’d remembered it correctly, she’d prepared, she trembled and winked as her body kicked into high gear preparing itself for mating, but still she felt not a little panic, for it was not a little mammoth horsecock.

The magic bits showed some correlations with their wielders. Fluttershy, a roomy mare who happily mated with zebra lovers, had always manifested a huge one. She’d foaled, and the changes in her body had corresponded to an expansion of the magical appendage, though she barely knew it as she’d avoided contact with the magic bits. Then she’d foaled again…

Fluttershy frowned. “I d’nt want to do it th’t way. C’nt reach.”

She wasn’t kidding. Though Zecora peered back at her, stripy butt ready to be mounted on, pussy winking anxiously and eagerly, Fluttershy couldn’t manage that. The artifical penis jutted out too far in front of her, and the base was about the size of her thigh, and the whole situation was completely impractical.

Dursaa stared, awed. “You could fly? And swoop down onto her?”

Zecora moaned, and wobbled just thinking about it. Fluttershy glowered, and stamped a forehoof.

“No! N’t l’ke th’t! M’ve over.”

Dursaa lifted an eyebrow, and coaxed Zecora to the side. Fluttershy stepped awkwardly up, hopping into the air with a quick flapping of wings, and twisted in midair. She dropped onto the lower part of the bed with a light flumph, and then let out an oof, as her absurd horsecock had not only clubbed her in the belly, but also the chest and her forehead just through force of gravity alone.

Fluttershy made a face, and rolled her eyes. “S’rry. You h’ve to m’ke do this w’y.”

Zecora and Dursaa glanced at each other.

“Gladly,” rumbled Dursaa.

Zecora let out a fillyish squee, and scampered forward, to straddle Fluttershy. And then more forward, and more forward still… she hovered over Fluttershy’s head as the gentle vampegasus pouted in exasperation, for it took that much merely to reach the head of the monstrosity stretching down to between Shy’s legs.

Dursaa’s eyebrows were questioning as he reached out with a forehoof, toward the epic horsecock. Fluttershy pouted worse, and nodded.

He reached up, first, to stroke Zecora’s trembling flank, and then his hoof reached down to tenderly lift the shocking weight of the huge phallus, and guide it toward its goal.

Zecora was panting heavily and gazing off into space, readying herself mentally, but when Dursaa swung Fluttershy’s strange new appendage up to thump her belly, Zecora squealed and nearly fell over. So huge, so heavy, so thick and wide! She knew from Dursaa that the flare could expand, so before things got out of control she leaned forward to get clear… and then, unhesitatingly, back, until the huge flat end of Fluttershy’s flare pressed her winking vagina directly.

Zecora gritted her teeth. Fluttershy, in turn, relaxed her jaw just a little… and, just like that, the cute little vampegasus was shoved fiercely downward and nearly off the bed by the pressure of an enamored, lusty zebra mare who knew she wouldn’t have much time.

Dursaa hastily shot a hind leg out, interposing himself before Fluttershy could be pushed right off the bed. His leg pressed up against Fluttershy’s cute rump, which flattened against his muscle as Zecora continued to shove…

SPLK

“GHHHH!”

…and, through the combined efforts of two zebras and a vampegasus, Zecora took the end of the monstrous Fluttershy cock, and it wedged tightly into her.

“Mmmmh!” said Fluttershy, her eyes shocked as she watched. Because of the geometry of the situation, she had a perfect close-up view. Zecora’s body was very pretty indeed, the beloved mare was in fine shape, but that shape happened to be ‘bulge’ rather than ‘athletic, healthy and fit’ as she usually was.

Zecora whinnied wildly, stamped a hind leg, tried to clamp down though it was futile.

“It’s h’rting h’r!” protested Fluttershy.

“Nudge,” suggested Dursaa solemnly. He was stroking Zecora’s quivering rump in a reassuring way, as if he’d seen all this before. Fluttershy reminded herself that her dear Zecora was terribly fierce at times, and perhaps this was such a time. She tentatively tried to shift her hips.

Zecora squealed, tossing her mane. Her nostrils were flared, her eyes wild, but she managed a “YES!” through bared teeth and a savage grin of mingled delight and torment.

“You see? I told you,” said Dursaa. “Nudge.”

“You mean p’sh?” asked Fluttershy.

Dursaa shook his head. “Nudge, pretty mare. And hold on to your hair!”

Fluttershy tried it. There wasn’t any room inside Zecora to thrust. The monstrous stallionhood was wedged in her pelvis like a cork in a bottle. And yet, even as she nudged, Zecora jolted and ran slippery with mare-juice, her powerful hips writhing, and it got Fluttershy unstuck inside her and there still wasn’t room to move but there was room to nudge and maddened zebra mare twisted sensuously around the rigid flare that occupied her, shuddering obscenely as the titanic bulk shoved a pitiful few inches deeper, all that was possible to do, and Zecora began working her hips and the fevered mareflesh slid hotly across a sea of nerve endings that were Fluttershy’s cock-tip, and the little vampegasus under the ridiculous huge appendage jolted as if she was struck by erotic lightning and nudged again, going still harder, and Zecora let out a shriek of unearthly pleasure as she felt her body veritably creak under the strain as Fluttershy shook and shuddered with her reaction going wild and that monstrous flare visibly swelling inside Zecora until…

“mm! m! ngh!”

Zecora, caught exhaling, flung her head back and stared at the ceiling in wide-eyed shock. The cute little vampegasus noises were accompanied by a mass of horsecome that surged through the absurdly huge erection, squirted through the end where Zecora clamped it almost shut, and blasted out the head and flare to spray her womb with a shockingly voluminous drenching of semen, filling her up in just a few spasms.

“nNNGARRRHHH!” howled Zecora, her body shuddering all over as she was flung into numbingly intense orgasm, her belly filling with warm spunk as the horsecock throbbed and gushed.

Dursaa, his expression solemn and his eyes glowing, stroked the shaft of the mammoth horsecock as it pulsed with the intensity of its release.

Fluttershy’s eyes kept getting wider and wider. Zecora’s belly was visibly expanding inches from her face. She couldn’t see the bulge of her flare anymore. She’d experienced things like that on the end of Dursaa, but they hadn’t been exactly good: they’d done her great harm, but she wasn’t alive and could fix herself. Zecora couldn’t do that, at all. Zecora shrieked as her belly went taut under the pressure of all that come flooding her, visibly inflating her beyond the shape of mortal mare…

Dursaa’s hoof was prodding Fluttershy’s mouth urgently. She opened it right away, releasing the bit.

The enormous false horsecock shrank away and disappeared. Zecora emptied like a balloon filled with tapioca, a solid blast of horse-goo erupting from her pussy only to disappear almost as soon as it flooded the floor. Zecora collapsed with a wail on top of Fluttershy, who was too alarmed to complain at how she’d been abruptly squished.

“Is she okay?” squealed Fluttershy, trying to get out from under Zecora’s still-spasming body, but Dursaa put a hoof gently to her lips.

“Zebra magic,” he intoned. “Stallions flood. Mares… receive. For those moments, there is almost no limit. Not for long, mind you. Then he dismounts, and she empties. It is our way.”

Fluttershy wriggled, for Zecora wasn’t getting up. “But is she okay? Is there anything I can do?”

Dursaa’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “For now? Hold still.”

“What do you mph!” said Fluttershy, as Zecora returned to awareness and proceeded to kiss her madly, weeping with joy and pleasure, embracing her little vampegasus with weakened, trembling limbs.

“Told you,” rumbled Dursaa softly, and there was nothing more he needed to say that evening.

He moved closer, and snuggled both his mares in warm contentment. Fluttershy didn’t resist the rather limp zebra mare frenzy of snuggling, because she just snuggled right back, feeling loved. Zecora couldn’t even lift her head for two hours, so deeply was she liquefied, but it didn’t matter. Dursaa had swept them both into his strong, protective forelegs, and there was nothing more to do that evening.

Eventually they slept, and no worry troubled them, and all around Fluttershy’s cottage the atmosphere was saturated with the aura of deep devotion and bold, lusty pleasure, untainted by the shadow of evil intent.

…that evening.

The moon was almost gone. The hill was quiet, except for the two farm pony voices. And one of them barely counted as a voice, because voices used words.

“Do you understand what I’m tellin’ you, Hollyhock?” said Snowy.

Hollyhock glared angrily at him, tight-lipped. He still refused to speak.

“That’s a Kirin they’re talkin’ about,” said Snowy. “Do you know what a Kirin is?”

“Mm-mm,” said Hollyhock, shaking his head.

“It’s just us up here,” scolded Snowy. “Nopony’s watching. Say ‘no, Snowy, I don’t know what this thing is that’s gonna hunt me down and wreck my sorry ass’. Go on, you kin do it.”

No response. This didn’t sit well with Snowy Hocks.

“Ah told you,” said Snowy. “It’s a Kirin. Them things sense evil. You’re fucked, sonny, less’n you get right with the ol’ plan. You need me, dammit. What are you, too much of a faggot to admit it? You afraid?”

Even this didn’t get a reaction. Hollyhock glowered, his mouth tightly shut in a line of pure disapproval. He glared at his geriatric companion as if he longed to chase him away, but somehow didn’t dare anger the old horse.

“Knew it would come to this,” vowed Snowy persistently. “You’re in danger, Hollyhock, jes’ like I said. An’ there’s but one answer, ain’t there? You know what you gotta do to be safe. Don’t you understand what you mus’ do, Hollyhock?”

“An’ that is?” muttered Hollyhock, tight-lipped.

“Make me be like you. Please. We’ll fight ‘em together!” begged Snowy Hocks, piteously. But Hollyhock shook his head in anger, and before he’d caught himself, even curled his lip in distaste… revealing the long, gleaming vampire fangs.

One Perfect Moment

Big Macintosh gulped, well and truly on the spot.

Everything had been going so well. The dinner was delightful, his companions gratified and relaxed, even the special dish he’d ordered them—simple grass but with fresh morning dew just catching the first rays of sun—had been available that evening. It’d been a gamble, because the stuff wasn’t always available: it was a specialty of the chef’s.

And then the snooty blue-maned waiter, so fancy in his little white spats and little mustache and little red bow tie, had presented a bill that made Big Macintosh’s eyes pop out—and just stood there, not even twitching an ear… waiting to be paid.

Unless Big Macintosh missed his guess, the finely dressed cream-colored waiterpony would have to wait for a long time, because he hadn’t brought any money.

“Thankee,” repeated Big Macintosh weakly, making feeble waving-away motions with a hoof.

“Your BILL, m’sieur,” repeated the waiter. He narrowed his eyes.

Big Macintosh abandoned the waving-away gestures, and in desperation resorted to a beckoning-closer gesture. The waiter’s eyebrow lifted until it was nearly above his head, but leaned in.

“Ain’t got no money ’til the end of th’ week,” whispered Big Macintosh furtively. “Kin I catch up with you then?”

The waiter’s eyes widened. “Catch… up with you?”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh, indicating him with a gentle red-fetlocked hoof.

“Moi?

“Naw,” said Big Macintosh, “jes’ to give you the money. Ya don’t gotta kiss me.”

“M’sieur!” objected the waiter.

“Wull,” said Big Macintosh, flustered, “you kin if you want. I kiss Braeburn a lot. That mustache might tickle, though.”

The waiter’s eyebrows were heading for a low orbit of Equestria. Marble giggled. Hina frowned, and cleared her throat.

“Though you may expect happy hedonism,” she said, “I fear this is a conflict. Say that we apologize. We will make things right.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am?” said Big Macintosh.

“This stallion will not kiss you,” advised Hina. “We have offended.”

Big Macintosh blinked at her. “Ain’t you ever been in Ponyville before?” he said, but he got no further.

“M’sieur!” interrupted the waiter. “It is outrageous, the idea! That I should with you be kissing, neglecting my work!”

“Uhhh… sorry?” said Big Macintosh. “I really ain’t got no money. An’ I got to go take care of some things, but I will be back…”

“Kisseng the cowpony Braeburn!” hissed the waiter, his ears folded in dismay. “It is for you to have, the cowpony dicking!”

“Now jes’ a minute,” objected Big Macintosh, blushing.

“Certainly, here you come, our food you eat and then it’s gone you are, to the dicking of the horse formidable!” protested the waiter, sounding more Fancy by the second.

“We apologize,” said Hina firmly. “I promise we will come settle this debt of honor…”

“We better go,” mumbled Big Macintosh. “I done messed this all up, Ah’m real sorry.”

“Non!”

Big Macintosh blinked. The waiter had pressed the back of his hoof to his forehead in dramatic dismay, his teeth bared in eloquent anguish. They waited for him to explain.

The waiter sighed. “Go! To the cowpony! To the kissing, and later with the paying. Go, m’sieur!”

“Thankee,” said Big Macintosh, but suddenly the waiter’s hoof was barring his path.

“There is the condition!”

“Where?” blinked Big Macintosh.

The waiter took a deep breath, and tried again. “It is the condition.”

“What condition do you mean?” asked Hina, very politely.

A tragic look crossed the waiter’s face. “M’sieur. When you go, to the embracing of the cowpony Braeburn, it is to remember the kindness extended by me, and even after or before the paying of the bill, to take mercy upon the one who, in a spirit of loving pony kindness, sent you freely and with liberty on your way.”

Three pony jaws dropped.

Big Macintosh shook himself. “Uhh… kin you say that, not in fancy?”

The waiter concentrated. “Ummm… I say this! Go, to the kissing and the dicking, yes. This alone I ask. When next you go behind the barn with Braeburn…” and his lip quivered. “Introduce me to him?”

Suddenly, it all became clear to Big Macintosh. Ol’ Braeburn always did work all the sides of as many fences as he could jump. This fancy waiter had obviously seen him at it but was afraid to say hello, possibly because he knew he’d say it in an overly convoluted fancy way and Braeburn wouldn’t understand him. Marble and Hina, on the other hoof, just looked puzzled.

Big Macintosh rose, reached out, and gave the fellow a hug, trying not to dishevel his snazzy collar and bowtie.

“Eyup. Ah will, and I’ll tell him you was nice to me and my friends, too.”

The waiter’s eyes widened. “You will?”

“Sure. I reckon he’ll like you, mister…?”

“Savoir Faire,” breathed the waiter, entranced.

“Sure,” said Big Macintosh. “Ah advise the kissin’ first. On account of, if you let him get on that perty cream colored rump first, he prob’ly ain’t waitin’ for kissin’.”

“Eee!” squeed Savoir Faire, bouncing off all four hooves unexpectedly. Big Macintosh jumped back, and heads turned at tables all around, but by the time they were pointing the right direction, the elegant waiter was back in command and betraying no signs of glee, except for a sparkle in the eye. Big Macintosh, Hina and Marble had seen it, however.

“I’m good for th’ money,” reassured Big Macintosh. “Gettin’ paid at the end of the week.”

Savoir Faire lifted an elegant eyebrow. “You are the brothair of Boss Mare of Sweet Apple Acres. And of the bearer of the Element of Honesty.” He shrugged, knowingly. “You’ll pay.”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh. He hesitated. “Is that all?”

“Non!” said Savoir Faire. “Pat my bottom. For the luck!”

“Huh?”

“Do eet!” begged the waiter winsomely. He pivoted, presenting his creamy rump and flicking his tail.

Big Macintosh solemnly gave his pony posterior a pat-pat, with a big gentle hoof.

“Ee!” squealed Savoir Faire, but this time it was an even briefer squee, finished well before ears at neighboring tables could swivel.

Elegance and refinement reacquired, the waiter bowed to them, and headed back to the kitchen like a sailboat unhurriedly slinking across the water, making no noise and rippling no waves, bound for its home port. He skirted tables effortlessly, invisible like a fine waiter, his eyes automatically making a scan of his tables and finding no trouble to concern him.

He disappeared into the kitchen.

“Eee! ee! ee!”

Ears all across the restaraunt turned, but there was nothing to see. Just the sound of giddy squeeing, and the distinct noise of a pony repeatedly pronking into the air off all four hooves and bouncing all over the kitchen, and the cook amiably yelling, “Settle down, whistle-britches!”

Hina quirked an ear. “There’s certainly no evil or bad feelings in here. On the contrary. What is this good you have done?”

“Sharing,” said Big Macintosh. “Ah reckon we can go now?”

Marble didn’t object, she just got up and began following his lead again. The Kirin, casting benevolent smiles all around her, did likewise—and the three departed the restaurant in the same tight formation they’d entered with. Big Macintosh leading the way, and two different sorts of mares pressing to his sides affectionately.

His ears quirked in thought. It was rather nice. It was a bit scary, though, in an expected, familiar way. For years, ponies had been seeking his attentions, whether that be Fluttershy or Braeburn or even Princess Luna, and they’d all been following his lead. Not since his first love, Rarity, had anypony been arrogant enough to…

“Whut?” said Big Macintosh, feeling a little cloven hoof poking his withers.

“Take us home, silly!” laughed the Kirin. “You are spacing out! It’s time to make love to this earth pony mare!”

Marble blushed. “Mmm…”

Big Macintosh blinked. “Ma’am? That’s nice of you to say, but… what if she ain’t ready?”

“Yes she is,” said Hina confidently.

Big Macintosh felt Marble nodding her head, beside him. “Mm-hm,” she said.

“Eyup,” he found himself saying, and homeward he walked. Not too fast, because the mares were having too much fun nuzzling against him. His ears quirked again.

“Ma’am?” he said. “You jumpin’ my bones tonight? Scuse my fancy.”

Hina laughed a happy little laugh. “Oh no no! I am far too distractingly beautiful. My job is to guide you two! Your joys are my only wish.”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh. He frowned a little, and glanced down to check the Kirin out again. She was still strange and beautiful, mighty small and slender like a fashionable Canterlot unicorn, and absolutely scintillating with confidence and personality.

On his other side, Marble Pie nuzzled him tentatively, as if she could sense his distraction. He glanced over that way, ready to apologize if he’d hurt her feelings, but he got nothing more than a serene and rather awestruck gaze.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” asked Big Macintosh.

“It’s actually good that she’s going to be, um, sort of intense,” said Marble apologetically. “I’m glad you won’t mind too much.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve never had a stallion before,” explained Marble. “Please don’t mind how intrusive she’s going to be, I’ll need all of the foreplay. It won’t seem like I need that much, but you’re so huge that it turns out to make all the difference.”

Big Macintosh knit his brow. “How’d you know that, ma’am? It’s true enough, but you’re sayin’ it all funny.”

“Mm…” said Marble, and fell silent.

“I am in a barn!” exclaimed Hina, enthralled.

“Uh… eyup,” said Big Macintosh. “This is my room. Used to be in th’ house, but things happened and I got more room to move out here. It’s private.”

“You move in a way that would knock down a house?” gasped Hina, glancing worriedly at Marble.

“Nope! I jes’ might not want my sisters to be here right now,” said Big Macintosh.

“Oh, I see,” said Hina. “You don’t want the other ponies to be watching you.”

“Not with such a nice, shy lil’ mare ta be with,” said Big Macintosh. “Says she come all the way from the rock farm jes’ to make love to me? Well then, I reckon I’m gonna give her an extra nice, sweet, PRIVATE special time.”

The Kirin beamed, completely failing to get the implication. “I will help!”

“Yeah?” said Big Macintosh, scuffing a hoof on the dirt floor.

“Why, of course!” said Hina. She bounced merrily on all four hooves, and then trotted around behind Marble, who eeped. Marble eeped again, with a little whinny of alarm, as Hina slapped her bottom with a cloven hoof, studying the ripple of tender pony buttock, and then nosed in to investigate Marble’s vagina with a determined, businesslike look.

“See here, Miss Hina,” said Big Macintosh sternly.

Hina turned, smiling. “I think it will work. She is a healthy young mare! I would like to gauge your size.”

“Wull,” objected Big Macintosh, “you’re thumpin’ her behind like she’s a farm animal!”

“But you are,” explained Hina soothingly. “Step this way?”

Big Macintosh bridled, for he didn’t like the faintly panicked look in Marble’s eye. She seemed not quite ‘flower pony’ grade in her alarm, but still more skittish than he liked.

Hina, the Kirin, had other ideas for how to fix that. She patted Marble’s rump soothingly, scritched her dock until she lifted her tail, and ran a cloven hoof up and down the inside of Marble’s thigh, all while Big Macintosh watched. It would have seemed like lesbian pony foreplay, except that Hina somehow didn’t seem personally interested. It was just as Big Macintosh said: the Kirin was attending upon Marble as if seeing to the breeding of a farm animal.

Big Macintosh was about to object again, for Marble’s tail was flicking about in agitation when…

“There it is!” cooed Hina. Marble’d winked, good and hard.

Big Macintosh’s eyes widened, and he wrinkled his nose appreciatively at the scent of delicious marepussy. He still backed off a step, but he felt his body reacting.

Hina ducked down and darted a quick look under him. “Ah, she will like that! But yes, she needs more warm-up.” She turned to Marble, fondling her green-gray rump affectionately. “Yes you do! You will have such a good time! But not until you’re ready!”

“Miss Hina!” protested Big Macintosh. “We’re ponies, not… cows or somethin’!”

Then he quieted. It wasn’t because Hina had favored him with just as condescending a gaze, prepared to soothe him in turn before coaxing him into the inexperienced mare. No, it was the unexpected clarity of Marble’s glance. She’d turned her head to face him, though he was still staring up her hind end, and she spoke to him firmly.

“Please!” said Marble. “This is how this goes. I warned you she’d be like this. I… I like it.”

“Ya do?” blinked Big Macintosh. “Hey! Hey, you!”

He hopped to the side, awkwardly. Hina had trotted happily over, and was trying to fondle his erection. On seeing his reaction, she rolled her eyes indulgently and returned to Marble, stroking her body and murmuring soothing, wordless noises.

“I did warn you,” said Marble. “Please don’t let it put you off? It doesn’t stop us. Once we lie down she pays more attention to me, and once I get going she mostly just watches.”

Big Macintosh’s ears splayed in confusion. “She does? I mean, she will?”

“You want to lie down?” blinked Hina. She looked around, and spotted Big Macintosh’s bed. “Oh, I see!” She glanced back under Big Macintosh. “Do you think it will keep him from going too deeply?”

“No,” said Marble, “he does that anyway but it’s okay, I promise. I even walk home, it doesn’t do me too much harm.”

Hina in turn quirked her ears at the odd way Marble Pie put things. Then she blinked. “You, walk home? You should stay and cuddle him! And be cuddled, too!”

“It would be sort of anti-climactic,” said Marble apologetically. “Oooh! Pet me there!”

Hina stroked Marble’s breasts again, the dainty hoof reaching between Marble’s trembling legs. “Do you like it there? Do you dream of pretty foals? Suckling your milk? This fine stallion seeding you?”

Marble shook her head. “That doesn’t happen. It’s okay. It just feels good, like you think I’m a pretty mare.”

Hina smiled, continuing to fondle Marble’s pony breasts. “But you are. You are a lovely pony.”

Marble’s legs quivered. She winked, a dribble of mare-juice dripping out of her increasingly worked-up pussy. “Mm-hm,” she said, letting her eyes go half-lidded.

“Ain’t sure how AH fit in here,” grumbled Big Macintosh.

“Lie down on the bed!” said both Hina, and Marble, in chorus.

Big Macintosh’s jaw dropped, and then he reeled it in. “Dang,” he said. “Rarity, much?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Hina, grasping the tone if not the meaning of his remark.

“Nothin’,” said Big Macintosh. “Reminded me of somepony for a moment there.” He walked over, and lay down on his bed, his swelling cock flopping weightily onto the mattress.

“A good somepony?” asked Hina, her ears quizzical.

“Depends,” said Big Macintosh. “Maybe a bit much. It’s okay. If y’all want me to play them games for an evenin’ I don’t mind it.”

Hina’s eyes widened. She stuck out her lower lip, and gave him a stern look.

“We do not play games,” she decreed. “It is my honor to preside over this mating: tonight this sweet filly will become a mare. The joys of sexuality will open to her. In turn, her tender vagina will open to you.”

Big Macintosh stared at the Kirin, then at Marble Pie. Marble wobbled where she stood, another dribble of marejuice hitting the dirt, and returned his gaze for a moment. She blushed madly, her eyes dropping.

Big Macintosh’s cock quit flopping in a terrible hurry. With Marble staring spellbound at it, that famous phallus swelled up hard and strong, jutting forth heroically.

“Mm!” said Marble, and began to hyperventilate, instinctively setting her hind hooves farther apart and squirting a little more mare-ooze.

Hina was staring, too. She mumbled, “Provided she is ready…” with some concern, and caressed Marble’s butt reassuringly. “Are you ready, dear?”

Marble gulped. She stepped forward, feeling light-headed, a whole world of history, destiny and event flowing through her. She nodded, a crazy little smile flickering over her face. “It’s time.”

“It won’t hurt,” reassured Hina.

Marble blinked, and gave her a look. “What? Yes it will. But now I understand more about why that matters so little to me. And why I like it. Which I will…”

Both Hina and Big Macintosh looked at the quivering, painfully aroused young mare in puzzlement. She kept making no sense, in such a gentle, quiet way. Then, Big Macintosh abandoned his efforts to figure it out, and he just reached out his big strong forelegs, that massive cock throbbingly waiting, and his eyes so tender and soft.

Her heart pounding, Marble Pie lay down on the bed and rolled against him, her back against his barrel chest, enclosed trustingly in his mighty embrace.

“Mm!” said Marble, and bit her lip, waiting.

The next thing she felt wasn’t a mare-splitting phallic thrust. Hina and Big Macintosh were staring each other down with matching faintly cranky looks, and the sensation flooding Marble’s body was that of Big Macintosh stroking her in proudly gentle motions, from chest to belly and then lower where he appreciatively petted her breasts, the nipples going even stiffer under his touch.

Hina opened her mouth, prepared to add suggestions.

That was when Big Macintosh unleashed the mare-splitting phallic thrust… at least in theory.

Instead, what happened was this: he gave a mighty bold shove directly against Marble’s pony mound and shoved her a foot up the bed rather than penetrate her.

“MM! m! m!”

“Um…”

Big Macintosh furrowed his brow. He drew his hips back again, and Marble settled back into position. She’d gone limp and quivering, staring a thousand yards away, her jaw dangling in astonishment at what she’d felt… and not felt.

Hina favored them with a sly smile. “It’s not so easy? How fortunate your Kirin is here to help.”

Big Macintosh’s leg kicked uncertainly as Hina reached for their personals, but it wasn’t his cock she proposed to handle. Instead, she reached in there with two delicate cloven hooves, pressed Marble’s vulva to either side of his swollen flare, and stretched. Marble emitted a squeal and wriggled, her eyes rolling back in her head, for now she felt Big Macintosh’s cock tucking right into her, firmly nuzzling the slickened pink of her secret flesh.

“Try it now,” said Hina, calmly.

He’d tried his big dominant-stallion routine and flubbed it, causing Big Macintosh to wonder if he’d chosen wisely. “Um… think she’s up for it?”

Hina’s smile was radiant. “I would be! You are just a mighty horse. Go ahead.”

Big Macintosh mulled that one over, and then he called upon his experience and on advice he’d gotten from Braeburn: advice more relevant to himself, for Brae didn’t flare as hard and his girth was carried in the middle of his shaft. Big Macintosh was mighty throughout, but knew his flare got unmanageable in a hurry. He felt Marble squirming and rubbing against the blunt end of his flare, and he knew he wouldn’t stand much of that without flaring worse.

And so, with Hina spreading his quivering mare for him, Big Macintosh gave one short, controlled jab of his hips, and with a filthy squelch…

“mYEEP!”

Marble Pie lost her virginity, exactly as she had always envisioned.

For a moment, she couldn’t even breathe. It felt like the top of her head was coming off, like the hot throbbing mass would burst her asunder, and her vision was lost in starbursts and white-outs. She felt, around her, Big Macintosh’s comforting foreleg tighten, and she melted in surrender against his affectionate warmth and inhaled deeply.

“m! mmmm! m!”

“Now don’t…” began Hina.

“…rush, Ah know,” interrupted Big Macintosh testily. “Ladies cain’t fit ya all at once. When you’re like me, anyhoof?”

Hina glared at him for a moment: it seemed outside of her experience to not say every syllable of her utterance. But then, a forgiving expression washed over her face, and also the hint of a flush, the merest intimation of panting and staring. The Kirin was thoroughly committed to her role of animal husbandry, but all the same, though she remained dedicated to her goal of helping the ponies through their tricky mating, she also liked what she saw… a lot.

Big Macintosh had seen that expression before.

“You kin clop off if you want. Y’know… as you watch?” he suggested. Marble thrilled to the deep rumble of his voice, and kicked a hind leg in feeble flailing, unable to relax while he split her so potently.

Hina’s nostrils flared. “I think I should mind this mare!” she said. “See how her leg kicks? She was right, you are hurting!”

Big Macintosh, chastened, promptly ignored Hina. “Awww…” he rumbled. “It’s okay, honey, relax, sugar…”

Marble panted. The tough part was over… well, the first tough part and the only one that worried her. It wasn’t his entry, either: it was that moment when he’d turn, start sassing the Kirin, swell up a little inside her with outrage and stop moving even as she began to cramp up. It had been just as bad as she’d… not feared, precisely, so much as dreaded. Sweat stood out on her little forehead, testament to the physical challenges she’d taken on.

Now, Marble squirmed, heart pounding as the next thing happened. Big Macintosh, feeling ungentleponylike as he’d been caught ignoring the needs of his lover, curled around her and fondled up a storm. He stroked her body with powerful limbs, and as his hind legs curled up under her, that massive horsecock pressed deeper, beginning a motion he would not be fool enough to stop until the time came.

Marble threw her head back, nuzzling against him abandonedly, and surrendered anew to the experience. In her mind, she sensed other realities flickering in and out of existence, her prospects should she panic, or tense up against the pain of his firm thrusting, or get another cramp. Layers of drama, possibilities unfolding inside the muse that created her, word by word.

Marble Pie seized the one that was hers, the one that was beautiful and a bit sad and full of amazement and joy. With all the bravery she could summon, she flung herself into the experience in complete trust, and writhed wantonly against Big Macintosh’s belly—her tail flicking spastically, head nuzzling up under his chin—an exhibition of mare lust that should surely get him pounding her green-grey butt far too hard and lead to her grave injury, but all the same Marble knew it was right.

“Hey… hey!” rumbled Big Macintosh as she squeaked and bucked against him. His foreleg drew her tight and close. “Easy now! Lil’ filly might hurt herself! Like this…”

Marble’s heart pounded, but now she was held tight. One hind leg still kicked, but soon it was in a dreamy, spaced-out way.

Big Macintosh, very carefully, began fucking Marble the way he knew he could fuck.

At first it was tentative little thrusts. He could feel the limits of her, feel the lack of room, but he also knew that with patient effort he could soften her up, and soften he did.

“Mm…”

Big Macintosh’s cock surged steadily within Marble’s cramped confines. He kept himself relaxed, though for a moment there he tensed his pelvis and went stiffer inside her, unthinkingly…

“m! M! mm!”

…only to take the hint and make a conscious effort to melt, to flow around her and present no shocking outbursts of stallion-ness. Hina watched, forgotten. Big Macintosh fell easily into the mode he’d learned with Braeburn and his gay exploits: with no consideration for dominance or biting or any such displays of authority, he devoted himself to tender exploratory motions inside his mare, attentive to each quiver and gasp, watching with his ears perked in full alertness to ensure she found pleasure.

Glancing down, he noticed with surprise that Hina, the Kirin, was suckling on Marble’s nipple and teasing it with her tongue.

“m!”

He couldn’t complain about the results, though. Marble’s whole body shuddered as she withstood his deep thrusts, but he could feel the way she melted around him. There was no cramp left: that had been massaged away by the steady, powerful thrusting of his massive horsecock, the repetitive stretching combining with Marble’s mind-blown surrender to leave her awe-struck and quivering, not even understanding how the erection transfixing her could keep on getting bulkier by the second, and yet no pain, just the mighty waves…

Big Macintosh realized in surprise that he was going an awful long time for an earth pony stallion. Perhaps it was the incongruity of the Kirin getting involved? For whatever reason, he’d been thrusting a farm pony erection deep into Marble Pie for at least half again as long as usual. It was like he’d gotten sucked into somepony else’s story, and was spending second after second in a coital trance, just pleasuring an incoherent virgin mare for what would be the highlight of her whole life. As if his performance was somehow tied in with that fate, and the pleasure cruise seemed to go on forever…

Marble Pie smiled, not at him.

Then, her eyes dilated sharply, and she gritted her teeth.

“m!”

Because fucking wasn’t a pleasure cruise, so much as a pleasure peak… and the peak could not be put off forever… and it was going to be one for the ages, not soon forgotten.

Hina watched the shocking display of Big Macintosh’s huge cock thrusting so politely into Marble, glistening as it slid through her tight-stretched vulva. He’d melted her so well, he was nearly penetrating her to the medial ring. The Kirin nuzzled Marble’s breasts helpfully, suckling the other nipple, wondering and then being certain that the farm pony cock before her was swelling once more. The thrusting wasn’t getting worse, however. If anything it was getting gentler without even any prompting from her.

“m! MM!”

Big Macintosh’s eyes widened. He knew things were going well, but maybe they were going a little too well? He felt his release approaching, his cock wedged into the excited green-grey mare, but there was a problem. It seemed there was a point past which Marble could not melt. It wasn’t that she was so tiny in frame, but still she felt tighter on him. A lot tighter, because he was hitting his full hardness, and he reckoned he was swelling a lot bigger. He slowed, worried, his attention fully on Marble, and he hugged her close and watched for signs of what to do.

Marble reeled in the sensory storm, her legs kicking helplessly as the stallionhood that impaled her began its last terrifying trick… well, second to last. It was going to get too big, too big to move anymore. It got too big. Deep deep inside her, the end of the thing, the flare, began prying her where there was no room, inflating alarmingly.

For a moment, Marble Pie tottered on the brink of a hundred futures, her terrified mental eye seeing them all. Would he resume moving, those mighty hips wrecking her insides with agonizing tugs and thrusts? Would he just keep expanding until she tore and burst? Would she inflate on the end of his orgasm until come squirted out her nose? Would he panic and yank it out, turning her inside out and killing her?

Big Macintosh, however, HAD gone behind the barn with Braeburn, just the other day. And been drained mighty thoroughly, too.

He stopped moving, because he felt her clench down in alarm. There was no putting off his response, his final celebration of her wonderful, delectable body. And so, Big Macintosh drew Marble still closer, and then wrapped her tightly in a hug, curled around her, felt his climax get nearer and nearer and nearer…

“M!!!”

Marble felt her fate become part of her as it chose. Her eyes no longer saw the barn walls. The only thing she was aware of was that titanic horsecock, no longer moving, just expanding and hardening inside her, reaching a searing peak of intensity that set her vagina afire, every inch strained as tears came to her eyes and…

“Ghh! Nnngh! Unnngh! Huhh!” grunted Big Macintosh.

…nirvana.

Marble Pie’s mind disintegrated with pleasure as she felt her stallion come inside her. It gushed, so palpably, into her womb: flooded her, distended her with mocking abundance where the hard-on couldn’t reach and didn’t throb, and then as the spasms passed, each final teeth-gritting burst of cock-hardness endured, everything softened just a little. The drama of his orgasm set her up, the gushing of virile pony sperm set her off, and the slight release of intensity set her free, for she knew she’d withstood every challenge.

Marble Pie, who’d been aroused more and more at each stage, who had gushed with mare-juices yet remained untriggered, came like the end of the world.

Pumped cozily full of ponycome by Big Macintosh’s somewhat pre-drained testicles, stretched around one of the biggest horsecocks in Ponyville but feeling it ease inside her, brought to the highest peak of her fey and mysterious life, Marble went off the end of that peak with her mind exploding into fireworks, and wrapped tight in Big Macintosh’s solicitous embrace, Marble came and came and came.

Her whole body shuddered and spasmed, completely beyond her control. Had she been standing, she’d have collapsed: but that wasn’t her story. Instead, Big Macintosh held her in his forelegs, his eyes wide and awe-struck as his young mare lover seemed to have a seizure, unable even to ‘m!’, and he stroked her thoughtfully as she rode it out.

It took her a very long time, but then he’d learned a few things. As she melted and began to come down, he made teasing little motions inside her, sloshing the tide of horsecome, keeping her on the boil exhaustingly. It was so beautiful (and flattering: exceeding any reaction he’d ever seen) that he wanted to keep it going forever, but stallionhoods weren’t meant for that. They were designed for hop-on, hop-off and even with the most heroic tensings of his hindquarters the mighty flagpole gradually sagged, in turn melting and softening inside her even as she sagged into a quivering puddle of molten mare, unable to lift her head, drooling cutely on his pillow.

For a moment, he just nuzzled her feverish body.

“Beautiful,” said Hina, appreciatively.

Big Macintosh’s ears quirked in alarm. “Uh!” He looked around to see her smiling and observing the aftermath.

“Did I startle you?” she said in a gentle voice. “You’ve done well.”

Big Macintosh stuck out his lower lip. “Do y’ mind? Lady would like some privacy.”

Deep within the waves of sensual pleasure, rapt in meditation on the tingling, piquant pleasure-pain of her sex-wracked vagina, Marble Pie came one last time to hear him say that. She knew his story would move on, but just as she’d expected, there was that one perfect moment. She lay, his mare, seeded and screwed and sated, and Big Macintosh drew her a little closer and sought to chase the other mare away and have her all to himself.

And he did… for one perfect moment, never to be forgotten.

Hina beamed. “Why, of course!” she cooed. “You are both so beautiful. Be happy!”

The Kirin bowed her head solemnly and proudly, for she considered herself a catalyst and was well satisfied with her work.

She trotted off.

“m…” managed Marble Pie.

“Mmmm,” rumbled Big Macintosh.

“It’s okay,” said Marble. “I got a whole scene break. That’s a little like forever? You know, since it’s not any specific time?” She gazed, half-lidded, at him. “It felt like forever.”

Big Macintosh furrowed his brow. “But, honey! Ah promise, you kin stay longer! I would love to part yore sweet folds again, why you goin’ home?”

“Oh, I can’t,” said Marble. “That’s not how this goes. I’m not nearly brave enough to stay.”

“Even to go again?” pleaded Big Macintosh, but Marble fixed him with a stubborn, gentle gaze.

“You’ll be all right,” she said. “You can learn from me, in fact you do. A good thing, too, she’s nice, I like her. Be sure to be as gentle with her, she’s littler even though she has a lot of sex.”

“Huh?” said Big Macintosh in dismay.

Marble thought about telling him more about the delights of Kirin sex, but one thing about perfect moments was: they lingered. The poor big oaf really had loved her at that moment, and it didn’t pass easily, even though events made that fact bittersweet. She shook her head.

“Mm.”

Then, she squeaked, “Ahh!” for Big Macintosh had grabbed her in a big red hug, trying to keep her through plain old farmpony love and cuddles.

“But, Marble, you were really somethin’ special! So sweet an’ tight an’ eager…”

She gritted her teeth, for this was one of those inflection moments. If he’d not grabbed her… but of course he was always going to, and it made it easier for her to flit through the next steps of the dance laid out for her.

“Let go, it hurts!”

Big Macintosh did so, his face falling. “It do?”

“We don’t really fit,” explained Marble. “I promise I’ll be okay. I even walk home, remember? But we can’t do that again. You mustn’t! And by the time I heal up, you’re busy.” She lowered her gaze. “It’s all right, really. You end up with something amazing, and so do I though it’s rather hard to explain. I need to go.”

“But,” said Big Macintosh helplessly, “Marble Pie, I think I love you or somethin’.”

“You do,” said Marble gently. “I will always treasure that.”

Big Macintosh’s eyes cast about his barn home, unable to find comfort, looking for anything that might help him persuade the lovely green-gray mare to remain.

“Would ya like a cup of tea?” he said. “Ah know it ain’t no mug, you might wonder why Ah would drink from a lil’ cup like that. Braeburn’s happy when I drink m’ tea cutely, he made it for me in that kettle there, see?”

Marble considered the cup, warily. “It’s very nice. You can drink from a little cup if you like. I hope Pinkie doesn’t upset you too much when she uses it.”

“Huh? Ah mean, you kin drink from it too. Please stay. Please? An’ what do you mean, Pinkie uses it?”

An eye poked out of the cup, peering around. Big Macintosh whinnied in terror. Marble… didn’t.

“Pinkie Pie!” she insisted. “Come out of there!”

With a reality-defying splort, Pinkie Pie squirted out of the cup and faced the two lovers, favoring them with a grumpy look.

“He might be a big dumb male and not always as nice as you’d think,” accused Pinkie, “but he’s still a Ponyville pony. Are you being mean to him?”

“I have to go,” said Marble.

“WHY does he look so sad, Marble? Are you leaving? Love ‘em and leave ‘em, says Marble Pie? That’s not very nice.”

“Mm!” squeaked Marble Pie, going silent again upon being confronted by her irate sister.

“You did fuck him, just like you always said you would,” insisted Pinkie. “Did you do it just to mess with his silly head? I’m warning you, Marble! I’ll find out the truth, I’ll Sense it out of you!”

Marble backed up a step. “No! He was fine, good! It’s the way everything else is happening.”

“What do you mean, happening?” demanded Pinkie.

Marble gulped. “I have to be in the same chapter as the evil. Twice! I’m so sorry, I have to get out of here. I wish you didn’t screw everything up, and end up k… k…”

“Cookies?” shrieked Pinkie, losing what cool she had. “CUPCAKES? What?”

Marble shook her head, frantically. She tried to figure out how she could politely represent a feeling that Pinkie would be forever changed and would kill, but on the one hoof it seemed like the single most unwise thing she could say, and on the other hoof she couldn’t comprehend how it was part of the happy ending. The timid, innocent mare cringed away from the grim implications of her Sense and what it told her, and she fell back on simpler assertions.

“I really have to go,” she said.

Pinkie pouted. “Fine! You’re an idiot. This guy has sex with lots of mares, some of them much fancier than you! Princesses, even! He’ll forget you, so beat it, Marble! This is my turf and I don’t want you coming around with your spooky weirdness. Mom and Dad keep you at home for a reason!”

Marble sagged. “Mm-hm.”

“Mm-hm, you’ll go?”

“All those things,” said Marble. She gave Big Macintosh a sad smile: he seemed beside himself with dismay and uncertainty, and Pinkie’s stunt with the teacup had him cowering against the wall. “He’ll find love. Do that, Big Macintosh, find love. With my blessing. I’ll be fine. I have the bronies.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Pinkie, baring her teeth, her Sense telling her to be alert, but not why. “That wasn’t even a word!”

Marble pouted. “Not for you, maybe. Your loss. I’ll never have to be lonely and frustrated again. I live in the fantasies of bronies. They’ll care for me… in all of the ways.”

With a soft and shy smile, like a pony meeting someone she would come to love, she turned her head and looked at you.

Pinkie Pie twitched, grimacing. “What the buck was that?”

“What was what?” said Marble, looking away bashfully.

“Oh no. Oh no no! What did you DO?” demanded Pinkie, trembling. “That was so weird! Something happened that I couldn’t see…”

“I’m sorry,” said Marble, glancing apologetically at you. “I think I’d better go…”

“Gah!” squawked Pinkie Pie. “You did it AGAIN! Stop it, stop it stop it!”

“Mm!” squeaked Marble Pie. She backed away from Pinkie in a panic, and staggered off determinedly toward the still-open door.

“Miss Marble!” called Big Macintosh. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Mm-hm!” she said. “Just one more line and I’m safe!”

“One more what?”

“This is my last line of the book!” said Marble Pie earnestly, and with that, she broke into a wobbly but triumphant trot out the barn door and homewards, which in turn was her last action of the book.

“Let her go!” begged Pinkie. “Why’s she gotta be so creepy, and do impossible things?”

“You mean, like you do?” said Big Macintosh, his ears laid back in dismay.

Pinkie stared at nothing for a moment. One ear twitched violently. Her mane seemed to re-fluff itself.

“Right! Thanks. I needed that!”

“Uh… you’re welcome?” said Big Macintosh, and then cringed back. Pinkie Pie had jumped up into the air, doubled over, and dived headlong back into the teacup. She was gone. The teacup wobbled, and fell over. Big Macintosh stared at it huntedly for three seconds, and then heaved a great sigh, whereupon it shattered and fell to bits mockingly.

“Reckon I’m safer with the dang Kirin!” moaned Big Macintosh, to the empty barn.

Apple Bloom groaned, not sure whether it was the cider, the salt, or the turnips that had done her in. Beside her, Diamond Tiara’s narrowed eye twitched, the pink filly ears splayed back in discomfort, the classy striped mane a touch disheveled. She, in turn, had shown solidarity with her special marefriend by consuming just as many apple turnip cakes drenched in cider and salt. She glared at the farmponies, daring them to give Apple Bloom any trouble, her lovely nostrils flaring in anticipated outrage.

“ALL righty then,” said Applejack, and both Bloom and Tiara winced and gave her a dirty look.

Applejack looked ragged too, but she persisted. “I guess y’all heard th’ news: we got us a special visitor in town. Thing called a Kirin. And you kin prob’ly guess what she’s here lookin’ to do!”

“Kill ponies,” muttered Snowy Hocks, and every farmpony ear turned.

“What?” squawked Applejack, and Bloom and Tiara winced again, even worse. “Naw! In fact we’re takin’ every precaution that she don’t mess with anypony in these parts, no matter how strange, or how, uh, naughty?”

Snowy Hocks raised an eyebrow, as if getting an idea. He made a face, and scuffed the dirt with a forehoof, restless.

“Now the reason I’m talking to you,” said Applejack, “is that I know y’all had a lot of collective fun with a certain pegasus who lives here…”

Snowy bridled and opened his mouth, pony teeth showing in a snarl of hostility.

Applejack was too quick for him. “PEGasus, Ah said!” she snapped, to another wince from Apple Bloom.

“Naughty, you said,” countered Snowy. “You jes’ wait. She’s gonna come and smite you to death for pony wickedness.” He turned to glower at all the farm ponies. “Think you kin jump on each other, behind the barn? That Kirin’s gonna know. She’s gonna see you’re a sinful fagpony and she’s gonna kill you. Do you touch yourself o’ nights?”

The farm ponies glanced back and forth, unsettled. Applejack glared at Snowy.

“How you know that?”

“Everypony knows that,” sniffed Snowy, contemptuously. “Them things, they’re all about punishin’ the wicked.”

“Snowy Hocks, that’ll do,” muttered Apple Bloom. The farm ponies drew back a step, for Boss Mare had issued a warning, as yet a gentle one.

Snowy hesitated… and doubled down. “Ma’am, this is for your protection too!”

“Ah BEG yore pardon?” snarled Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara wincing beside her, both hung-over fillies fidgeting in sheer discomfort. Diamond shifted from hoof to hoof, as if her hindquarters bothered her.

Snowy spotted it.

“Dang right,” he growled. “Don’t even try ta hide it. Your lil’ business manager fillyfriend hinted once about what she has ya do, and it seems you’re at it again, look at her. That Kirin’s gonna zap you to death for growin’ a dick and fuckin’ her up the ass!”

The farm ponies gasped. “Hey now!” yelled Applejack. Bloom cringed at the sudden yelling, and Diamond Tiara had gone bright red and was looking around her in a panic.

“It’s true!” insisted Snowy. “Them things is dangerous! Why, that Kirin, she might even kill Hollyhock here, who’s a good steady herder pony and ain’t never done nothin’ wrong at all, but you wait, she might jes’ kill him for NOOO damn reason, that’s how bad them Kirins get!”

Hollyhock, tight-lipped and with his eyes revealing utter panic, cowered back even while Snowy turned with a victorious air and said, “Now if that terrible thing would kill a fine innocent fellow like our Hollyhock that we’ve known for years, when he ain’t done NOTHIN’ wrong, what the hell chance have you got?”

“Dammit, Snowy!” yelled Applejack.

“We can’t trust that thing!” accused Snowy. “She’s gonna kill you if you touch yourselves, she’s crazy!”

“She ain’t!” yelled Applejack. “Ah saw her! We jes’ gotta be careful so’s she don’t go off tryin’ to hurt Fluttershy, dammit! There ain’t no other evil around here, an’ besides Fluttershy ain’t evil atall, the only thing I want from you dumb horses is to fuck th’ Kirin nicely so she don’t get the wrong idea!”

“What kinda fool idea is that?” demanded Snowy. “Eventually we’re gonna need a real leader around th’ farm strong enough to protect you against th’ maraudin’ Kirin! You hear me?”

“She ain’t neither maraudin’, least I din’t see it if she was, and—agh!” Applejack stopped, with a gasp. Something had bit her rump, and it wasn’t a love-bite. She whirled.

Apple Bloom spat, looking psychotically enraged… but Applejack wasn’t her real target.

She stalked, step by step, toward the farm ponies. Mist swirled dramatically behind her, pouring over the farmhouse as Apple Bloom bore down on her worker ponies. Hollyhock clamped his lips together and cringed down behind Snowy Hocks, then Silver.

Apple Bloom ignored him. She only had eyes for Snowy Hocks, and those eyes were slits of fire. She didn’t stop until she was nose to nose with him.

“Did you say ‘real leader’?” said Apple Bloom, between gritted teeth, very very quietly.

Snowy’s eyes rolled frantically, taking in his compatriots. He gulped. “Ah…”

“Shut up,” said Apple Bloom, trembling in rage. “Don’t you ever say such a thing again, or Ah’ll kill you myself. You’re so dang old, you wouldn’t miss much.”

Just for an instant, her rage was mirrored in his old, rheumy eyes. Then, the fear washed over it, combining into a hateful old glare. He didn’t dare speak.

“You’re a coward,” said Apple Bloom, “and you don’t run this farm. I don’t know much about Kirin but Applejack says she ain’t dangerous, so as far as I’m concerned she ain’t. She ain’t gonna hurt me or I will kick her flank, she sure as hell ain’t gonna hurt Diamond or there ain’t no describin’ what’s going to happen to her, she ain’t gonna hurt you or Hollyhock or anypony else no matter how much you clop off at night, and I do not expect…”

“Hello, hello, hello!” chimed a new voice. Over the swirling mists, from behind the farmhouse, came the radiant figure of Hina, the Kirin, making a dramatic entrance.

Every single male farm pony whinnied in terror, whirled, and fled as if an entire herd of vengeful mist demons were after them.

Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara and Applejack cringed back for a moment as well: partly in alarm, and partly because the combined shriek of terror had walloped their hangovers something fierce.

Hina blinked, and made a face. “Phew! Ponyville stinks of evil. Are you well?”

“Uh,” said Applejack, “dunno if you call it evil. We call it apple turnip cakes drenched in salt an’ cider. Ah guess it amounts to the same thing, huh?”

Hina’s laugh chimed out unconcernedly. “Oh, poor dear! Would you like to breathe my mane?”

“Will that help?” asked Applejack. “Hell, worth a try!” She trotted forward and stuck her face in the Kirin’s shimmering mane, taking deep breaths.

“This is her?” said Apple Bloom, suspiciously.

Applejack raised her head, her eyes shut in bliss. “Aw yeah!”

“Well then,” said Apple Bloom, “welcome to Sweet Apple Acres, Miss Kirin. Don’t zap or ma-raude nothin’ or I’ll whop you! Okay?”

Applejack turned, facing her fierce little sister. “She ain’t gonna do any of them things!” Then, her eyes widened, for she felt the tingle of the Kirin sniffing at her rump, scintillating mane sparking slightly as it caressed the fresh discipline-bite courtesy of Apple Bloom. She looked back, fretfully.

Hina’s expression was stern. “Applejack? What bit you?”

Applejack gulped. “Nothin’…”

“You need to tell me the real truth, Applejack,” scolded Hina. As all three ponies’ eyes widened, she added, “Right now, please!”

A new voice greeted their ears, preternaturally calm. “Truth? I’m good at truth. Are you confronted with a puzzle that needs solving?”

Hina turned her head, and smiled. “Why, it’s a winged unicorn!”

Into the circle walked a tall, pale green alicorn… or so it appeared. Her eyes were a deep forest green, her bearing almost regal… but her horn was neither as long, nor her wings as vast, as a real alicorn. Numeric Essence, who’d been on track to interact with magic itself and become Alicorn of Logic (or perhaps Rationality or Reason: her theories weren’t clear on that point) had watched Twilight’s dreadfully awkward alicornolescence and had declined her fate. She’d retired to Ponyville, and took pains to confine her efforts to the mind and not the horn, and had never managed to fly, nor wished to. She was fond of chess, though only Spike would play her anymore: his rationale being that eventually he’d beat her, even if he had to grow up first. Also, she always gave him an emerald as a snack for trying.

Numeric Essence looked at Apple Bloom, Applejack, Diamond Tiara and the newcomer, and asked, “Were you upset? Both Apple mares are hyperventilating slightly, and Diamond Tiara seems to be pressing very close to her mate, but is not smiling.”

Applejack wrinkled her brow. Essie always tended to confuzzle her. “Nopony’s upset! Nothin’s wrong. Got that, Hina? Nothin’ wrong here.”

Hina frowned. “Somepony, or something, has bitten you.”

“HA!” retorted Applejack. “I’m fit as a fiddle, I… aw shit, sorry hon…”

Her enthusiastic reply had been so loud, that both Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara had nearly fallen over in agony. Applejack realized she’d been cured of her hangover with Hina’s magic mane, but her little sister and their business manager still suffered.

“Jes’ one minute,” said Applejack determinedly. “So you want good, do you? Over here, Boss… an’ you…” She trotted around, and firmly herded Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara, and Hina together into a little knot, despite the younger mares’ balkiness and Hina’s confusion.

The Kirin’s mane flared up in sparks, but they were sporadic. As Applejack pushed the motley group together, Bloom and Tiara’s faces came into contact with that scintillating magic mane. “Breathe!” ordered Applejack.

As their eyes widened and their headaches lifted, Hina whinnied in surprise. “Oh… they are in pain! Pain most terrible!”

“Not anymore,” said Applejack smugly. “Breathe, ya scapers! There you go.”

Apple Bloom scratched her head. “Dang! Thankee, miss.”

Diamond Tiara’s eyes were wide in amazement. “Bloomie! That mane cured our hangovers instantly… I mean, instantly!”

“Damn if it didn’t,” agreed Apple Bloom.

Tiara’s eyes narrowed in thought. “How quickly does it grow back? If we sold it at, say, five thousand bits an inch… YEEP!”

Apple Bloom had whirled around and nipped her rump. “Rude, Precious!” she scolded.

“We’d pay her handsomely for it!” objected Diamond Tiara. “Oh, very well. We’ll find some other use for her.” She glanced up at Applejack’s horrified expression. “What?”

She looked up at the Kirin. “Oh.”

Hina’s head was raised high and haughty, and she stared back and forth between Applejack, Tiara, and Apple Bloom… finally just at Apple Bloom, who stared back, undaunted but increasingly defensive.

“…you sure she ain’t dangerous, big sister?” said the Boss Mare, glancing to the side without turning away from the scrutiny.

Hina pinned her with a thoroughly authoritative gaze. “Was that bite necessary?”

At that, Apple Bloom began to walk forward, not blinking. Beside her, Diamond Tiara squeaked in alarm, but began to do likewise, though her legs began to shake more and more the nearer she got to those penetrating eyes and that creepy, alien horn that lit up and seethed with magic. It didn’t stop her. Just as Apple Bloom went nose-to-nose with the Kirin, so Diamond Tiara stayed right by her side, defiantly.

Applejack kept almost as close, on Apple Bloom’s other side. Numeric Essence’s jaw dangled as she watched the inexplicable behavior, making no sense of it whatsoever.

“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom. “Yeah, it was. I’m the Boss of this farm. I ain’t that big, but I’m fierce an’ nopony crosses me. And my kin and my love, they’re all hard cases and don’t take suggestions easy.”

Hina studied her. “Put your face in my mane, please.”

Apple Bloom snorted, and promptly did just that. She took several deep breaths.

“There is some truth to your tale,” said Hina, grudgingly. “So little dishonesty. Only the slightest exaggeration there.”

“It’s ALL true,” retorted Apple Bloom. “Don’t you mind Applejack, she’s notional. This was her job once and I took it away from her for her own good. She ain’t no slouch, so Ah got to stay sharp. Hah! Sharp in the tooth!”

Applejack made a choking noise, and then fought to look nonchalant. “Y’ don’t say?”

“It’s true,” said Numeric Essence. “This young mare is Boss of this farm. And all the Apple ponies are fierce and brave. I enjoy having them as neighbors. Why were you questioning them? Did they say Hina was your name? You are a Kirin, if I am not mistaken.”

Hina raised her chin. “Yes, I am. There’s evil in Ponyville. Still I search for it.”

Essie blinked. “Really? That's odd.”

“What seems odd to you?”

“Kirin travel Neighpon, seeking out evil and destroying it,” said Essence. “Legend says they are unerring in their quest and ruthless in battle. If you have to search and seek in this manner, not finding the evil and questioning obviously good little ponies with suspicion, there is an incongruity. It’s like you aren’t directed to the source of evil at all! How is that, unerring?”

This had an unexpected effect. Hina blushed, and looked away, which only made Essence more curious.

“Please do not tell the others,” said the Kirin. “We do sense evil, but only as a miasma. It is disturbing. My heart weeps to feel it here, among new friends.” Her mane continued to glitter, restlessly, and her eyes were vulnerable. A wave of heightened sparkle seemed to pass through the mane, from the direction where Hollyhock had been standing… or, indeed, Snowy Hocks.

Numeric Essence smiled happily. “You need help! It’ll be a wonderful fresh puzzle, so fun. I’ll help you find your evil!”

“You will?” gasped Hina, shocked.

“Certainly I will!” said Essence. “First: what is evil, to you?”

Hina pulled herself together, and gave Essence a worried look. “How can you promise me this?”

“It sounds like you need some sort of tracking device,” explained Essence. “Either a sort of evil-compass, or perhaps some sort of beacon. You know? A thing that can trigger and fixate on outbursts of evil, perhaps send up some kind of beacon. I don’t practice unicorn magic much these days, but indicator signals such as that aren’t very difficult. We only need to identify which evil you’d like to hunt, or perhaps I can make it configurable?”

Hina was staring in disbelief. “Configurable?”

“Yes, perhaps it could also target naughtiness. Or indigestion?”

“Now hold on!” interrupted Applejack. “We don’t need to go huntin’ nothing around here, understand? We don’t need your compass, Essie.”

“Or beacon,” corrected Numeric Essence, unperturbed.

“Whatever. We’re gonna be okay.”

Diamond Tiara was whispering in Apple Bloom’s ear. Apple Bloom listened, nodded, and said, “Configurable, huh? Kin you make one that only, and I mean only, points you to terrible evil monsters fixin’ to murder everypony an’ eat them all up?” She listened to another whisper, and added, “Call it ‘actively’ lookin’ to murder ponies. And devour them.”

“That does seem evil, yes,” said Essence. “So, a spell to target anything that’s intending murder? Defined as… intention to kill ponies and devour either their flesh, or perhaps some other aspect of their living ponyness. Does that seem right? Hmmm, but also you want it very proof against false positive triggering, which does seem prudent…”

“Do that ‘un!” ordered Apple Bloom. She paused to glare at Applejack, who was gesticulating frantically outside of Hina’s field of view. “If you do that, it’ll be sure-nuff evil and it certainly won’t be leadin’ you to nothin nor nopony who AIN’T no terrible evil monster. Got it?”

The Kirin wasn’t reassured. “Such a goal makes sense. But… from this winged unicorn? How can she need a definition of evilness? Can she not feel it? What’s the matter with her that she can be so detached?”

“Never you mind that!” said Apple Bloom. “Promise you’ll sit tight until we find you a proper murderin’ scary-monster, all righty? And jes’ in case we never do turn up anything that awful… enjoy your stay, Miss Hina, y’ hear?”

“Oh, Apple Bloom,” breathed Applejack, hushedly. “You’re so sure such things don’t happen to nice ponies…”

“Don’t worry,” said Numeric Essence. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Tumblin' Rose

For a while, Hina didn’t notice the little ponies following her. One rouge and blonde-maned, one pink and lime-maned, one cream and red-maned, all bore flowers for cutie marks and all trailed hesitantly behind the Kirin, torn between wanting her attention yet not wanting to be noticed by so fearsome a creature. Caught by some shared temptation, the three flower ponies crept furtively in Hina’s wake, their eyes huge and wide, the three making not a sound.

Or at least not until Hina glanced behind her, to be greeted by three matching little pony shrieks of terror. “Eee!” “Eee!” “Eee!”

“Oh, hello!” called the Kirin. “I’m sorry, did I scare you? What’s your name? I am Hina-rin.”

“Lily,” said the blonde flower pony. “Oh, my! Oh gosh, oh dear!”

Hina’s eyes widened in dismay. “I have somehow hurt you three! What is the matter? I meant no harm, I promise!”

“You better not!” accused the cream-colored pony with the red mane and tail.

“Roseluck!” protested the pink and lime pony. “She’s so pretty and nice, how could she hurt you?”

Roseluck pouted fiercely. “Well, she better not hex us, Daisy! This was Lily’s idea. I think she might hex us!”

“Behave, Rose!” scolded Lily. “We’re here to help you!”

At this, Hina quirked an eyebrow. “Here to help with what? I would like to help you all. What idea is this?”

Lily blinked. “Why are you speaking Neighponnese haiku at us?”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Hina, puzzled.

“What is that?” squealed Roseluck. “Is it a hex? She’s hexing us! Eee!”

As Hina watched in horror, the pretty cream-colored mare reared, kicking her hooves in a panic, and then… over she went, in a faint, the ruddy mane tumbling across the grass.

Jaw dangling, the Kirin looked to Roseluck’s friends and protested, “I made no such hex!”

Lily rolled her eyes. “I know. Or at least as far as I could see, you didn’t. Roseluck just… that’s kind of the problem we hoped you could help us with.”

“Not making a hex?” said Hina, at a loss. “I’d love to help all of you… but I am confused.”

“No, I mean…” said Lily, and rolled her eyes again. “It’s a long story. Daisy, will you wake Rose?”

The pink pony with the lime mane bounced forward helpfully, everything about her reminding Hina of an eager puppy. She nudged the comatose Roseluck tenderly, calling “Rosie? It’s okay, we’re safe, wake up please!” As Hina studied her, she realized that all three mares seemed united by a ceaseless nervous energy. She bent down, studying the cream-colored pony, Roseluck, as she stirred and opened her eyes.

“EEE!”

Roseluck fainted again. So did Daisy, startled by Roseluck’s abrupt shriek. Hina stepped back a pace, dismayed. These ponies seemed as good as could be, but they were so high-strung!

“Maybe you should stand back a little further,” suggested Lily, wryly. “She thinks you’re magic and it scared her to see you suddenly like that.”

“But I am,” protested Hina. “I am magic to the core. Perhaps to the horn? Why does this frighten her so?”

“It’s not that,” said Lily. “Well, not only that. I told you it was a long story. Will you help? Rosie, calm down! You scared Daisy, now she’s out!”

Roseluck was stirring again. With a suspicious look at Hina, she nudged Daisy very carefully, and the pink and lime pony fluttered her pretty eyelashes and woke.

“Very well, I will stay back,” said Hina. She skulked ostentatiously around behind Lily, who shied away from the curious behavior. Hina pretended to study the distant horizon, and spoke. “I will give them space and speak only to…” and she turned suddenly to favor Lily with a brilliant and benevolent smile, close up. “You!”

“Eee!”

Lily sprawled onto the grass in a dead faint.

Hina, stricken, stared at Daisy and Roseluck, who gave her embarrassed and exasperated looks in turn.

“She can’t have very dangerous magic if she’s this dumb,” said Roseluck, to accompany her exasperated look.

“Oh, no! She’s okay, and I’m sure she’s nice,” said Daisy. “She just doesn’t understand about us.”

“About you?” said Hina, in a tiny, nervous voice.

Roseluck nodded. “Lily!” she called, and the rouge and blonde pony stirred. Rose didn’t wait for her to wake. “About us! We need some help. Lily thinks you can help. You helped that strange mare with Big Macintosh, didn’tcha? She thinks you can help us too. She’s kind of our leader. You better not hex us!”

“Rose!” protested Daisy. She turned to Hina. “She didn’t mean it! Don’t be mad. You didn’t work magic on that mare, did you? Lily says you didn’t.”

“I did not hex Marble Pie,” protested Hina. “What is a hex, anyway?”

“It’s just Rose, she doesn’t trust magic or unicorns or even alicorns. We’re all earth ponies,” explained Daisy, “please don’t scare us?”

Hina’s ears were laid back in dismay. “Are all you ponies fearful? The farm ponies fled from my presence just now!”

Three flowerpony jaws dropped.

“You’re kidding,” said Roseluck. “Applejack? The APPLES ran away from you? You’re THAT scary?” She began to trot in place, panicking.

“Rose!” called Lily. “Steady! It can’t have been the Apple clan. Who fled? Uh, Heenarin, I think you said you were?”

“Hina-rin,” said the Kirin, pouting. “And call me Hina. And all the good stallions ran away from me. Except for Big Macintosh.”

The flower ponies exchanged glances.

“I think we might have the same problem,” suggested Lily.

Hina gawked. “Surely you three do not terrify stallions?”

“Not exactly…”

The cozy little house was painted in charming spring colors, and decorated with a riot of beautiful flowers, especially the lilies that shared a name with the house’s owner.

Hina listened, entranced, to the story of the flower ponies.

“So we got Caramel,” said Daisy, “because he said he was always up for more mare pussy. Also, Rose likes him.”

Roseluck nodded eagerly. “I got the closest, like, of any of us!”

“Don’t skip ahead!” said Lily. “I tried first, you know!”

“She’s kind of our leader,” explained Daisy. “Lily is so smart!”

“I am not!” protested Lily. “That’s Daisy. Daisy’s like our party girl, she’s everywhere and always wants to help!”

“And what would that make your Rose?” asked Hina.

Lily and Daisy looked at each other.

“Roseluck is like our super-hero,” said Daisy loyally. “She’s beautiful and brave and strong and the sexiest of all of us, and she’s secretly in love with Caramel which is why we got Caramel: Rose likes him.”

Hina, puzzled, looked at the three flower pony mares. They still looked near-identical except for color and mane and tail, typical Equestrian types, but she supposed that to each other they seemed very distinct.

“That is nice,” she said, guardedly.

Daisy nodded with enthusiasm, and went on. “So we told Caramel we wanted to have sex with him and get his pony dick inside us! And he looked really confused and he said, all at once? and we said no, no, we were going to take turns. And Lily was first because I was too scared and Rose was blushing so much and wouldn’t talk to him…”

Roseluck blushed again, scuffing the floor with a forehoof.

“Somepony has to go first, you know,” said Lily.

Daisy nodded. “And Lily turned around and let Caramel look at her vagina, and me and Rose hugged each other because it was so scary and exciting, and the next thing you know Caramel’s penis was sticking out and it went all big and hard…”

“It’s not that big,” objected Rose, her ears back. “It wasn’t too big.”

“Don’t skip ahead!” protested Daisy.

“And don’t brag,” grumbled Lily.

Roseluck pouted, and Daisy carried on with her story. “And all of a sudden, his cock was sticking out so stiff and hard, and he reared up and he pounced and he was right on top of Lily and his cock swung up…”

“And then he had sex with her?” guessed Hina.

All three flower ponies gave her a look.

“I was telling the story!” protested Daisy. “And then his cock swung up and it thumped Lily on the inside of the leg!”

“And then, sex?” suggested Hina. “As you wished?”

“And then Lily screamed, fainted, and fell over,” explained Daisy helpfully.

“Oh, poor dear…” said Hina.

“He was ever so cross!” said Daisy, wide-eyed. “It was very exciting, he was so stallion-y. He reared and kicked his forelegs and he said, rar, the potent pony thunder! I’m huge!”

“He really isn’t,” said Roseluck, blushing. “We love him anyway, though.”

Daisy pressed on, excitedly. “And he said, I want mare pussy for my giant erection, if that’s all right with you! It was so forceful and yet polite and nice at the same time. And my heart was pounding so hard, I was so excited, and I just turned around and my pussy winked at him! He was going to have sex with me, right then!”

“And did he?” asked Hina.

“Almost!” replied Daisy. “He reared up and he got on me and it was the most amazing thing ever! And he got ready and he was more careful, I could feel him adjusting himself, and then you know what? I winked again and the next thing you know, he pushed and I felt his penis prod RIGHT AGAINST my vagina!”

“And then what happened?”

Daisy pouted, and dropped her gaze. “Um… I screamed, fainted, and fell over.”

“I see a pattern emerge,” mused Hina thoughtfully.

“Lily was awake again and she helped me wake up. Caramel was all red in the face and his cock was so hard, it was scary, and he kept shifting from one hind leg to the other…”

“A very frustrated stallion might do this,” suggested Hina. “Their cock cries out to be plunged into a mare. Yet he had failed twice?”

“That’s when Rosie stepped forward,” explained Daisy. “She’s, like, our superhero.”

“She could barely look at him,” said Lily, “she was so in love and so worked up. I saw her hindquarters and she was winking constantly and she dripped on the floor and she didn’t clean it up, either! Did she, Daisy?”

“Don’t skip ahead!” said Roseluck, blushing scarlet. “Go on, Daisy. Tell her.”

“Sure!” said Daisy brightly. “So me and Lily hugged each other and we watched. Caramel’s eyes were so big and bright and wild, it was amazing! He asked Rosie if she was gonna be okay, and she said, what did she say?”

“She said, be my stud horse, I’ve never wanted anything more than this ever,” said Lily, misty eyed.

Daisy nodded. “Yeah, that! And she turned around. And he was scared even to touch her, but he reared up and he got on her…”

“And we were watching, me in front and naughty Daisy behind, and we both held our breath and didn’t even move…” said Lily.

“And he positioned himself,” said Daisy, “and I saw his cock bobbling around and then he was pushing it right against Rosie’s pussy…”

“And I saw the look in her eyes, so amazing,” said Lily, “and she bit her lip and she couldn’t even breathe and then…”

“And then I saw him give a push,” said Daisy, “and there was this splurp and he pushed his cock head into Rosie, right into her vagina, and he rested, and I could see her squinching down on it, it was so big and it was IN her, he’d pushed the head part right into her and she was shaking and it was all wet-looking around there…”

“And she just stared at nothing,” said Lily in awe, “she didn’t even see me anymore and she was having SEX right there in front of us, our hero Rosie, actually doing it just like we always wanted to…”

They trailed off. Roseluck was trembling, her eyes yearning desperately, and the other two mares cast their eyes down embarrassedly.

“And then what?” prompted Hina.

Roseluck sighed, and gave her a tragic look.

“And then he gave this little sigh, like he was sooooo happy and loved her too,” said Lily.

“And he sort of tossed his mane, real gentle-like,” said Daisy, “and made this little grunt. And then he pushed his cock ALL THE WAY INTO ROSIE…”

“And she screamed, fell over, and fainted,” admitted Lily.

“It yanked right out when she fell down!” squeaked Daisy. “And it was so big and hard, oh my gosh! And it was all glisteny from Rosie, but she was so shocked she didn’t wake up for like minutes and minutes! And there he was, he was prancing around wildly, yelling, you gotta be kidding me!”

“We tried to hide by hugging each other,” said Lily, “and just staring at him waiting to see what he’d do. We couldn’t even think, or talk, we almost fainted too because he was so excited.”

“He looked down at Rosie with this crazy hungry yearning upset look,” said Daisy, “and he looked at us but we couldn’t answer and he looked back at her and she wasn’t going to wake up soon, and there he was, all like throbbing in front of us and five times more exciting than when we tried to do it.”

“So he gives this big sigh again,” said Lily…

“And he clopped off onto her cutie mark, snorted at us, and trotted off home,” said Daisy.

“Oh, poor things,” said Hina, helplessly. “How terrible for you all!”

All three flower ponies blinked at her.

“Huh?” said Daisy.

“It’s not that bad,” said Roseluck.

“No, that was the day we discovered knitting circle!” said Lily. “It’s very special. We just still wonder if we could have more. Especially for Rosie. We’re happy with each other, but Rosie wants to have Caramel’s foal.”

Roseluck nodded, and fixed Hina with a strange, wary, pleading look. “But no magic to help! But it would almost be worth it. But still, no, please, not with magic! No hexes!”

“Oooo, you got it bad, Rosie,” said Daisy. “Almost worth it, huh? Almost worth THAT?”

Rose pouted. She was trembling, still rebellious and unwilling to approach the Kirin, but her yearning was apparent.

Hina gazed at them. “Oh, my dears! To help in your troubles would be my solemnest goal. I can think of no kind of goodness I’d rather spread. And yes, I have helped Marble, the virgin mare! Please let me help you. Your goodness calls me!”

“Oh, yay!” cried Daisy, causing her companions to flinch, but not to pass out.

Hina blinked. “Wait… what is knitting circle?”

All three perked up immediately.

“Oh, it’s the best thing ever!” said Daisy. “We might be the only ones to do it.”

“We invented it,” said Lily, “so we aren’t virgin mares, exactly. Or maybe not? We kind of are and aren’t, if that makes any sense?”

“I’m not,” said Roseluck with quiet pride and the hint of a smug yet tragic smile.

Daisy hugged her delicately. “Of course you’re not! I saw it, Rosie. I don’t know if you fainted before it all fit, but it’s true: Caramel thrust all his penis inside you, pretty much.”

“Some mares have all the luck,” grumbled Lily.

“Oh hush,” chided Daisy. “Neither of us could get nearly that far. This is about Rosie, about helping her go all the way.” She turned to Hina. “He didn’t come, you see. Caramel didn’t come inside her and she didn’t get a foal, and he won’t come back, he doesn’t trust us not to fall over. He’s super nice but he says we’re just too sensitive!”

Roseluck’s eyes yearned, and her smile had stolen away. Her hind legs trembled.

Daisy hugged her again. “Poor Rosie! You got it so bad, sweet Rosie.”

“You’re sad again, mares,” protested Hina. “Don’t be sad, tell me about knitting circle! That cheered you all up.”

All three flower ponies blinked.

“We could tell her,” said Lily.

“We should SHOW her!” said Daisy.

“Make her stay over there!” pleaded Roseluck.

Lily and Daisy hugged Rose. “Oh, Rosie!” said Daisy.

“Of course,” soothed Lily. “We didn’t mean for her to join. Hina-rin, please stay back, okay? You don’t know how to do this. You haven’t got the training. And poor Rosie, you need it, don’t you? We’re sorry we had to talk about Caramel’s penis so much.”

Roseluck whimpered. Her pussy dripped a bit of mare-juice onto the floor.

“I will give you mares some space,” said Hina. “Except maybe I could wipe up Rosie’s… mess? With my… wait, not in that way…”

Her horn had just begun to light, but Lily stopped her with an assertive look. “First things first,” she said. “We didn’t finish our story. That’s when we discovered knitting circle.”

“Yes!” said Daisy. “Rose was lying there, with spooge all over her flank, and me and Lily just sort of looked at her for a while. We were in awe. Rose is our hero! She’d really for sure done it. Also her flank is the most sensuous and beautiful of all flower pony bottoms, so creamy and supple. I mean, the color, not with cream on it. But it did, I mean it had Caramel cream on it…”

Lily interrupted her companion before she could get more confused. “Rosie had cum all over her bum. So we admired her for a while, and we cheered real quietly, and then we both decided at the same time we should clean her up…”

“She means, lick her off!” giggled Daisy. “We’d never tasted horse-come before. I liked it! In fact now I give stallions blow jobs whenever I can because I liked the taste so much!”

Roseluck gave her a skeptical look. “You scream, faint, and fall over if they come in your mouth, Daisy. Or if they come on your face and it’s too big of a load. Or if they flare up too big while you’re doing it!”

“Shush,” chided Lily. “We’re all very careful she doesn’t choke on it. And she does get to taste it afterwards! Maybe not all of it at once. Don’t tease Daisy, the stallions really like when she does that. You’d do it yourself if you weren’t pining over Caramel all the time!”

“You’d do it yourself,” retorted Roseluck, “if you didn’t faint the instant a stallion got his erect dick in your face!”

“The knitting circle,” reminded Hina.

“Oh!” squeaked Daisy. “Right. That’s the thing! We really liked licking Rosie off. She’s our hero and she’s so sexy and nice and she had come all over her, like her flank and her legs and her vagina and everything!”

“We saved the best for last,” said Lily, and licked her lips reminiscently.

“I wasn’t sure whether we should stop, when Rosie started to wake up and we were still doing it,” admitted Daisy. She began to blush.

“I didn’t stop,” smirked Lily, “even when she did wake up and asked us what we were doing. I said, it’s an honor, and we’re cleaning you up. And I moved right over to her pretty, pretty, beautiful vagina with come all over it, and I kept right on cleaning her up. Didn’t I, Rosie?”

Roseluck, blushing, smirked. “I screamed. And fainted. But not before I discovered something special.”

“I did too!” said Daisy eagerly. “It’s called a clitoris.”

“You did,” said Roseluck. “And I’ve discovered yours. Mm-hm.”

Lily was grinning. “She discovered Rosie’s clitoris so hard that she kept on discovering it for at least half an hour. By the time we made her stop, Rose had fainted twelve more times and was crying and begging for mercy.” She tossed her mane. “We hadn’t worked all the kinks out of the system yet. Daisy gets really excited when she gets to lick horsecome or eat pussy. I couldn’t even drag her away by pulling gently on her tail. I was, however, close to an answer.”

Daisy was blushing, her face wreathed in smiles. “Who knew receiving was as good as giving? Yeah, that worked.”

“And that was the day we discovered something very magical,” concluded Lily.

“NOT magical!” squeaked Roseluck. She glanced embarrassedly at Hina. “I’m sorry, it just frightens me. Not magical. But wonderful?”

“Yes wonderful!” agreed Daisy.

“And if you’ll stay back at a distance—because you haven’t got the training to do this, miss Hina-rin—we’ll do it again, and you can watch,” said Lily. “Here’s how we do it: we’ll lie down on that mat there. I usually get Daisy, because she pushes Rosie so hard when she gets a turn, it works better this way. Daisy gets Rosie. And Rosie… gets me.” She licked her lips.

“Lily’s, like, our fearless leader,” said Roseluck. “She can control it better when Daisy gets licky or starts to suckle, so we all get to go for longer. When we circle up in different ways, it’s so much quicker and that isn’t as fulfilling.” She shivered in anticipation. “Knitting circle is AWESOME when we do it well.”

Hina-rin lay down, crossing her forelegs cozily, her eyes gleaming with glee. “Please show me. Sounds like sexual goodness of a most special kind.”

“It is!” squeaked Daisy, bouncing.

Hina hesitated. “…may I masturbate?”

Rose’s eyes widened, and she blushed, hard. Daisy was wide-eyed too.

Lily smirked. “Oh yeah. Stay back… don’t join, I’m warning you… and don’t be distracting, okay? But masturbate? Yes. We insist. And keep a good view of Rosie! She’s our hero and the most sensuous beautiful flower pony ever and we’re super proud of her. And we’re going to get her pregnant by Caramel, too. Isn’t that right, Rosie?”

Roseluck whimpered. And trembled. And dripped.

“Come on over,” said Lily. “Knitting circle!”

Hina skulked back into the corner of the room. It wasn’t the shadows, because everywhere in Lily’s house was full of light and flowers and happy goodness. The shadows were elsewhere, out of sight, though the Kirin could feel them looming and building.

She twitched, casting the thought aside fretfully, and realized she was staring at Roseluck, who gazed back in obvious alarm. Hina lifted a dainty cloven forehoof in a courtly gesture, tried to come up with some words to soothe that aroused but fearful mare, but even as she opened her mouth to speak, the problem was solved.

Lily, taking in the situation at a glance, coaxed Roseluck to lay down with her back to the watching Kirin. Daisy happily lay down with her pretty tail at Rose’s muzzle, and Lily favored Hina with a smirk and a ‘keep back!’ gesture from her own forehoof, before lying decorously down in turn, completing the circle.

Hina’s eyes were wide. The very idea, of a lower pony telling a Kirin how to behave! It was a mercy they were just earth ponies and not Neighponnese ponies, thought Hina, or she’d never hear the end of i…

Hina twitched so hard her hooves made a noise against the floor, and Lily scowled at her warningly. She barely noticed, for she’d had a shocking realization not common to Kirin.

She’d left her Neighponnese home for that very reason, hadn’t she?

Hina frowned in thought. Indeed she had: the burden of her duties weighed heavily upon her, but it wasn’t only that. She’d hoped to find fields frolicking with foreign ponies, innocent and free (except for the looming Ponyville evil, of course). Find them she had, but part of her hopes for the journey had been to discover foreign pony stallions: good, strong, proud and not one bit deferential. Except, thought Hina, that of course they would be respectful—that was only natural—but she’d longed for something more earthy where she too could frolic, on the end of stout pony dicks, and not be troubled by her obligations, and enjoy some extremely uncourtly behavior free from judgement.

It occurred to Hina that Lily’s absurd authority was what this picture looked like, when it became real. Marble had seemed perfectly normal in her willingness to defer to her Kirin, even though she did it in a perplexing way. Big Macintosh had hinted entrancingly at this vision of lower ponies acting bold, while still civilized: he hadn’t crossed her in any serious way, yet he still seemed to have an exciting will all his own. He was as respectful as any Kirin could wish, good as could be, yet he looked at her in the oddest way, as if she was a pony like him. He wanted Marble, but he’d acted like she was a rival, as if her slumming with ponies mattered and counted for something.

Sexy, unexpectedly. She hadn’t noticed at the time, but thinking back on it… yes, sexy.

And now, Lily commanded her to stay across the room and watch without joining or directing things, and Hina found herself complying and being oddly aroused by it. She truly was not in Neighpon anymore, and her obligations—apart from the evil, of course, which was fearsome—were meaningless here. She was in Lily’s house, as a guest, in a way she could never experience in Neighpon. These ponies exuded goodness (and other enticing things, if you were into mares) and there was nothing wrong with Lily directing or even commanding her. In a way, she was not even superior to these ponies at all. They treated her as a slightly frightening equal… no, as a friend.

It occurred to Hina that casting them into the roles of importunate Neighponese ponies wasn’t friendly. She was so quick to assume the role of solicitous Kirin, fixing their little problems for them, yet their whole language of friendship seemed to use different grammar. Perhaps they learned this because they only had alicorns?

Roseluck gasped. Hina, startled, realized she’d been zoning out and that the knitting circle had started already.

The three flower ponies nuzzled each others’ vaginas, so gently and delicately that Hina hadn’t noticed when they started. She could see glimpses of Roseluck’s glistening pinkness as she winked, and not a lot else. Lily’d forgotten the watching Kirin, her full attention occupied by the charming marehood of her pony friend.

Behind Lily, Daisy’s head moved. Lily’s hind leg kicked the air dreamily, and the motions quieted. It seemed like the three mares were trying their hardest NOT to perform fervent cunnilingus upon each other: that they were seeking some kind of meditative state, that Lily in particular was holding back and refusing to provoke. Hina saw only the barest nuzzlings against Roseluck’s quivering mound, only a near-hypnotic stillness.

Another shade of pink appeared. Lily’s tongue. As Hina watched, transfixed and silent, the cute little pink tongue extended and caressed, not the pink of Roseluck’s aroused vagina, but the cream-colored hide alongside those glistening labia.

Roseluck shuddered as if she’d been plunged into by a pack of creaming Caramels, and she whinnied breathlessly. Her own muzzle was buried between Daisy’s legs, and Daisy in turn gave a little shriek and thrashed on her side, jostling Lily. Lily responded by shutting her mouth, her tongue ceasing its work… and Hina heard the panting of pony breath through flared nostrils, perhaps also through gritted teeth… and Lily held on, delivering just that much stimulation and no more, no matter what the excited Daisy did to her.

Hina’s eyes widened. It all was starting to make sense.

Her dainty cloven hoof stole down between her legs. If they wished her to masturbate, they were certainly going about it the right way!

Lily’s neck was tense. She leaned in again, and nuzzled between Roseluck’s legs, greeted by a fusillade of frantic winking. Rose’s nipples were stiffly erect, and Lily craned her neck in order to firmly, reverently lick Rose’s pony breasts. It got Roseluck moaning abandonedly, squirming around, yet still Lily didn’t go for the glistening prize right in front of her eyes. Lily, instead, devoted herself to kissing and nuzzling and licking everywhere else, particularly those pert little swellings and their ever-stiffer nipples, which were colored a blushing cream that was mirrored on Roseluck’s frantic mound, swelling and growing more and more rosy with sheer erotic agitation.

Hina, kneading her own increasingly squidgey kirinhood, watched rapt as the erotic agitation built.

It was true: there was something special about Roseluck. She had an almost Kirin-like appreciation of her own beauty, but this wasn’t expressed only in vanity. It also showed in her comfort with intimacies, both receiving and giving: Rose openly wallowed in Lily’s tantalizing attentions, moaning wantonly as she winked, her body begging for the thrust of a stallion or at least a good hard licking, right there. But her attention wasn’t only on her own pleasure: without hesitation, she buried her muzzle in Daisy’s eager crotch, and Roseluck ate out Daisy in just the way she wasn’t getting for herself. Whimpering and moaning, she hotly nuzzled and licked Daisy’s pussy, barely turning her attentions to the pink pony’s breasts, fixating on the nectars Daisy dripped in her own amplifying frenzy.

If Rose was passionate, excitable Daisy was hysterical. She squealed and writhed on the end of Roseluck’s sensual tongue, emanating waves of giddy excitement, her tail thrashing about hectically. Rose barely noticed, on the boil from Lily’s careful attentions. Daisy’s building hysteria was directed the only way it could go: into Lily. And so, as Lily carefully aroused Rose to squirming, writhing abandon, her energies were amplified through Rose into Daisy and then amplified more and returned to her.

Lily began to keen and tremble, grimly sticking to her task, physically shaking, because Daisy’d latched onto her vagina like a remora and was suckling her winking clitoris and trying to stick her little pink tongue right up Lily. Her head twisted and shoved, as she unleashed stallionish ravenousness upon Lily’s hapless body, driven beyond all reason by the shameless, sensuous lovemaking of Roseluck.

Silently, Hina came in a demure squirt of Kirin fluids, just watching the ponies pleasuring each other so fervently. She continued to knead between her legs with her slickened cloven hoof, for she could tell a crisis was impending. A nice sort of crisis… though, perhaps, destined for the same outcome all flower pony crises inevitably produced.

Lily was sweating, shaking. Her ears were back as she fought to stay in control. Her suppressed cries could barely be heard over Roseluck’s abandoned moaning and Daisy’s happy squeals. Hina’s eyes widened, and she clopped herself more fiercely, as she saw Lily’s tongue extend, saw Lily’s neck stretch, figured out Lily’s target…

Even then, Lily had it all figured out.

She closed her mouth over Roseluck’s eager mound, and Hina saw her head firmly moving, and the Kirin couldn’t quite see what was going on, but she could see the result just fine.

Roseluck jolted as if struck by a thousand hexes, when she felt Lily’s firm tongue parting her vulva and steadily massaging the inner walls of her pussy. She shrieked, shrieked again, and Daisy writhed as the sound tingled her privates, and then Roseluck began to writhe and eat out Daisy like a mare possessed.

Daisy gave a high-pitched scream, and reacted exactly the same way, diving between Lily’s legs and trying to stick her whole face, or at least her whole tongue, up Lily’s vagina. She squirmed and shoved and thrashed her head and then began loudly suckling on Lily’s clit as it winked out in feverish mare-gasm.

Lily flung caution to the winds and began suckling on Rose’s clitoris. Roseluck, half-mad with erotic frenzy, nibbled Daisy’s and then turned to sucking on it as if trying to swallow it.

“EEEE!”

“Hhh!” gasped Hina, panting, trying to refocus her eyes after her own orgasm. She’d tried to be silent, but just couldn’t control herself, so fierce was her climax.

All three flower ponies lay stricken and unconscious. They’d all screamed, squirted on each others’ faces, and fainted in the same moment.

Knitting circle was complete… and, judging by the quivers and heaving chests and mare-goo everywhere, it had been hugely successful.

Hina gazed on Lily in something like awe. She’d sensed the tremendous waves of erotic goodness pouring out of Knitting Circle, but she hadn’t expected the degree of intelligence and benevolent control Lily’d shown. It wasn’t just being bossy, either. Lily had withstood intense sexual pleasuring, specifically in order to slow all their reactions so they could wallow in their circle for a while. Hina had never heard of regular ponies doing this. She wondered if perhaps there were other things she’d not bothered to notice. The result was indisputable. The flower ponies lay, just about steaming from the intensity of their erotic excesses, bonelessly limp and sated beyond anything Hina could have done to them.

The Kirin’s ears quirked. A challenge?

Then, Lily’s ear quirked, as well, and Hina froze. Was she unwelcome, had she distracted, would she frighten them and spoil their fun?

“Mmmmh…” groaned Lily.

Hina held perfectly still.

Lily looked around, though she was only able to turn her head about halfway, peering back at Hina with lustrous, dazed eyes.

“C… c’mere honey.”

“Are you quite sure, miss Lily?” asked Hina, as quietly as she could.

“Mmmm… yeah. Knittingcircle… ’s good. Keep being quiet, ’s good. Everything’s good. Come here and cuddle with us.”

Hina’s jaw dropped. “Really?” she gasped, caught off guard.

“Don’t put your head next to Rose’s, your butt is cute, she can nuzzle that. Come here,” insisted Lily. “You should cuddle with us. You were part of this!”

Wonderingly, Hina rose to her little hooves and crept over, to lie down in the middle of the circle, and felt all three mares snuggle up against her trustingly.

“Aw, don’t cry,” said Lily gently. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Hina sniffled tearfully, moved beyond expectation. “Thank you all so much…” she said, then eeped. Roseluck, waking, was nuzzling curiously between her legs.

Lily chuckled warmly. “Heh, ’s okay. She hasn’t got energy. Watch out for Daisy. Sometimes she keeps going…”

“I might wish for that,” suggested Hina.

“We can try to take care of you,” said Lily, “but you have to go carefully. Not right now. This is knitting circle too. It’s nice to have somepony else in it.”

Hina squeaked. Roseluck had licked her pussy, languidly, then nuzzled her rump.

“She… can’t be too scarymagic… if she tastes that good…” managed Rose, and then she laid her head against Daisy’s breasts, smiling.

Hina’s eyes brimmed. “Oh, you sweet ponies! I’ll protect you from all harms. And find you some dick!”

“Shh,” urged Lily. “No harms. Only snuggles. Soon enough we’ll shake it off and get back to our day. This is our chance to feel really warm and safe.”

Hina’s ears quirked. “Warm and safe?”

“Mm-hm,” said Lily drowsily. “Knitting… circle. Mmmm.”

As the flower ponies nuzzled her body, Hina-rin had just one question for them.

“However do you knit with those solid hooves?”

“Who has time to knit?” murmured Roseluck.

Hina relaxed, too… but her soul cried out to protect the sweet flower ponies, and her pussy throbbed insistently demanding more nuzzling from Roseluck, and she was far too excited to really join them… and then, she caught a whiff of something that wasn’t a scent in the air. More of a… miasma.

And though she was steeped in a miasma of mares and merrily molten marehoods, this was on another level.

“Excuse me,” said Hina very quietly. She stirred, and tried to extricate herself from her adorable predicament without disturbing the flower ponies.

“Aww,” said Daisy.

“You gotta go?” said Lily, in disappointment.

“Duty calls,” said Hina. “Please don’t look this way.”

Roseluck stirred. “Huh? You’re… you’re going to hex us!” She squirmed, still too relaxed to panic properly, but she was working at it.

“No, I promise you!” said Hina. “But I must attend to the evil in here.”

“Where?” squeaked Lily and Daisy.

Hina bit her lip, not wanting to admit to the general nature of her evil-sensing ways. She glanced worriedly at them, and then saw a flicker of movement outside the window.

“Perhaps it is this!” she cried, and in a flicker of movement she’d dashed outside, mane and fetlocks an iridescent cloud of twinkling light and her back turning to scales, to confront what she’d found.

It was a pony. He was a yellowish-beige color, with a brown mane styled rather more decoratively than typical Ponyville stallions, and he shied away from the charging Kirin, turning to reveal three blue horseshoes on his flank.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m sorry!” he whinnied, his eyes big and wide.

Hina gritted her teeth. “Are you the evil that troubles Ponyville?” she demanded. “Do you mean to harm these adorable pony mares?”

“I, I, no Ma’am! Gosh dern what the heck are you? I would never! I just saw ‘em go in and they weren’t alone! Wondered if they were gonna… with… dang, lookit your hoof!”

“What’s wrong with my hoof?” demanded Hina-rin.

The pony blinked, at a loss. “Well, it’s funny and kinda split but I din’t mean that. Is that there pussy juice? Um, I, I could… lick it off fer ya?”

Behind Hina, the flower ponies had managed to rise, and they filled the doorway, afraid to leave the house but wanting to see what Hina had caught.

They saw.

“CARAMEL!” cried Roseluck. “You were peeking in our window, watching us lick each other!”

Caramel blushed, and shied away more. “Sorry! I’m sorry! Pow’ful sorry!”

“Hold still,” commanded Hina, the scales still flickering down her back and coming in and out of existence, her mane flying in the wind even though there was only the lightest breeze.

“Don’t you hex him!” squealed Roseluck, and fainted.

Hina ignored her, allowing her fellow flower ponies to deal with it. Instead, the Kirin strode forward, reared, and grabbed the hapless stallion in a hug, a grim look upon her face.

Caramel’s eyes were wide, though he twisted his head to try and sniff her dampened hoof. Hina ignored this, and her mane swirled and tossed around him, though it didn’t sparkle much.

She released him, and gave him a glare.

“Your peeping through windows is slightly wicked,” she accused. “But for all that, you’re not an evil stallion.”

Caramel boggled at her. “Uhhh… should I be?”

Hina tossed her head, glaring around at the seemingly innocent environment. “No, you should not, sir!” she said. Then she blinked. “Just a moment, did she say your name was Caramel?”

“Don’t you be cross with Rosie!” said Caramel, bravely. “I won’t have it. Our flower ponies are real delicate, don’t you scare them!”

Roseluck had woken up again. “Oh, Caramel! I was just thinking of you!”

“She sure was,” said Lily and licked her lips appreciatively.

“Aw,” said Caramel. “You go right ahead, honey. Never will forget our special time.” He waggled his eyebrows at Roseluck, and she swooned happily, only to be caught by cheerful Daisy.

Hina’s jaw dangled, a foolish smile on her little face. “Why, he is! This is the horse for which you’re yearning, sweet Rose!”

Caramel frowned. “Be kind, ma’am. It ain’t right for you to tease her like that. I swear I’d top her in a hot minute, exceptin’ it just don’t work that way…”

“Yes it will!” cried Hina. “She is hot and juicy and ready for your mating!”

“Been there, done that, ain’t so easy,” snapped Caramel. “Come on, don’t tease her, don’t you think we’ve tried?”

“You are the stallion of her ponyish dreams!” insisted Hina. “If you desire her as well, it is time to fuck her! Give the foals for which she yearns!”

Roseluck swooned again, and Caramel reared, stamping the turf. Even the suggestion was beginning to give him a boner—though possibly it was just the scents of mare and Kirin vaginas, so eager and slippery, all around.

“You stop mockin’ my Rosie, dammit!” he protested. “You can’t fix this problem!”

“Yes, I can,” said Hina, staring with big, wild eyes at where Lily and Daisy were helping Roseluck up again. Something about the way they flanked and supported her, seemed to fascinate the Kirin.

They stared back at her, their ears back in fear. “You promised Rosie, no hexing!” said Lily.

Hina didn’t flinch.

“This is Ponyville,” she said. “I propose we use the magic of friendship…”

“Like this?” said Caramel, his ears quirked back in perplexity.

“But don’t enter her!” urged Hina. “Not quite yet!”

They stood in Lily’s house, all three flower ponies quivering with excitement… none more than Roseluck, who’d fainted twice before making it through the door once she understood what Hina was telling her. Lily and Daisy’s eyes rolled as they kept checking out the sights. They had a stallion hard-on in the house, for the first time in a long time, and Caramel patiently allowed Hina to direct him.

“But,” he said, “I gotta hop on? Jes’ gettin’ it clear. We tried that before!”

“I think it will work,” said Hina. “Do not prod or poke!”

Obediently, Caramel reared as cautiously as he could, and came down upon Roseluck’s shivering rump, rewarded by a wild whinny from his would-be lover.

“Aw, are you sure?” he said. “I’m a lot of stallion for m’ little darling here!”

Hina wasn’t listening to him. “Lily! Daisy! Come!” she said. “Or rather, please do NOT come… but brace your dear companion! Stand to either side!”

Lily’s eyes widened. “Ooooh! Isn’t she clever? Come on, Daisy! I understand what she wants, now!”

She trotted around, though she was unsteady on her hooves to stand so near a masculine, erect stallion. Wide-eyed, Daisy took up a position on Roseluck’s other side.

“Lean up against her!” called Hina, trotting in place with excitement. “Press right in!”

Lily and Daisy shook, but it was nothing to the hysteria of Roseluck. She’d begun to sway and totter, but then her friends pressed in to either side, loyally.

Hina bit her lower lip, her eyes shining. “Mister Caramel.”

“Um… yes?”

“Make love to your mare.”

“Y’mean…”

Hina nodded. “Press right in.” She hesitated, and added, “But slowly!”

Caramel bit his lip too, concentrating. He remembered… but he also remembered other things, things that had captured his imagination even as he’d gone around hopping other ponies and having his Ponyville fun. There was a reason he was drawn to peek in windows hoping to see the flower ponies in coitus.

Tenderly, his hips shifted forward, and it was as good as he remembered.

That snug, feverish little marehood, the quivers, the little breathless cries… this time, he took pains not to shove. This time, he wasn’t about to spoil anything. Slowly and tantalizingly, his hardened stallionhood nuzzled deeper and deeper into Roseluck, inch by hesitant inch.

Lily’s and Daisy’s eyes were wide as saucers. They winked their pussies madly, feeling Rose tremble against them. They leaned against her, bracing her. Both flower ponies peered back, craning their necks though there was nothing to see. They could see only Rose’s trembling body, and the wildly exciting sight of Caramel straddling her, pressed right up against them, and they could see his hips shifting ever so carefully forward.

And they knew, how they knew, what that meant. They couldn’t see his cock, weren’t about to turn around just so they could ogle. They held their position, but so intense was their arousal that it was like Caramel penetrated them as well. But every flower pony was united in one wish: to be there as Roseluck was mated, to experience it with her as Caramel gave her a foal.

Of course, Rosie’s moaning and swaying bore blunt testament to another, simpler thing: as much as she yearned for a foal from the stallion she adored, in the immediate moment she craved nothing so much as being fucked. Years of knitting circle and her own fantasies had kept the dream alive, and now she reeled with sensation as Caramel’s cock explored her body.

“Nhhhhh! hhh! uhhh!”

Caramel gritted his teeth, controlling himself. He’d bottomed out in Roseluck, and the whole team of flower ponies swayed and tottered at the impact, even though it was gentle.

“Be careful!” called Hina, behind them.

“Yes’m!” replied Caramel.

Roseluck’s head wobbled around drunkenly, jolts ravaging her body. Her cries grew bolder.

Caramel felt himself swelling up, though he was already rock-hard. Ears laid back in concentration, he began a tender smooth wave-like motion of his hips, careful not to prod too hard or move too quick.

“Aaaahhhh! Ohhhhh!” wailed Roseluck.

He felt her body clutching at him with such beautiful excitement, the quiver and flutter turning to sharp clenches like a volley of giddy kisses. Lily was nuzzling him from the right, Daisy licking his neck from the left. Caramel sweated, keeping up his fluid motions, steady little thrusts buried deep inside Roseluck, his lover, the one that got away, the one too precious to screw.

And yet, there she was… under him, losing her pony mind, wailing and shuddering and sweating just as he was, and the more he moved the more she jolted and clenched. The motion was so easy now. She’d turned to jelly, her legs seemed barely able to support her, and yet her loyal friends (and very sexy and cute in their own right) stood right there, also making love to him in their own way. He couldn’t ever get on Lily, for she passed out. He didn’t take blow-jobs from Daisy, because she found him slightly too exciting and fainted, plus it made Rose sad and none of them wanted that. But, now, they were all together, united in this one act: balling Roseluck, and already he’d gone ten times longer than he’d ever done.

And Rose shuddered and shook all over, melting away around him, and he felt her trying to press back upon him, even in her daze of mind-mangling sexual excess. He’d done it! He, Caramel, was about to come inside Roseluck, just as she’d always wished. She wanted to go all the way, and they were seconds from finishing, the whole little crowd of lusty ponies, and he’d even managed to include Lily and Daisy without it ruining anything. In fact, they owed it all to Lily, and Daisy, and that strange Hina-rin creature.

Caramel tilted his head back, shutting his eyes, letting his pace accelerate as he hardened for the final blow-off.

Roseluck howled a cry of sheer lusty appreciation.

Caramel, feeling the moment rocket toward him, yanked his forelegs from between the cluster of ponies, and grabbed all three flower ponies in a passionate hug, thrusting his cock to Roseluck’s depths.

“EEE!” “EEE!” “EEE!”

…and danced back, eyes bugging out, as all three flower ponies hit the floor in a dead faint.

“OH COME ON!”

He glanced back, wild-eyed and panting, to see Hina staring, appalled, her mouth in a comical downturn of horror.

Then, she bowed her head.

“Some beauty is too fragile…” she said.

“But,” said Caramel, “but, but…” He sobbed.

“No! Do not judge them,” scolded the Kirin. “They did all they could.”

“I’m gonna paint all of them!”

“Nay, do not!” protested Hina. “They wished so much more. Respect that.”

Caramel’s ears were back. “But… MY DICK.” And, indeed, it fairly creaked from the strain.

Hina glanced at the flower ponies, but they were out cold.

And she was neither out, nor cold.

“I wish too…” she said, and she pivoted, and flicked her curious tail, presenting him with Kirin pussy.

Caramel stared, alarmed and fascinated. It seemed terribly small. His gaze clung to her tight little butt, the alarmingly dainty nook jutting eagerly forth and glistening with lubrication, and he stared and stared waiting to see the Kirin vagina wink.

“Fuck me!” begged Hina. “Now!”

Well, that was clear enough.

Up he reared, seizing the weird little cutie in firm pony forelegs. He furrowed his brow, trying to work out where to aim. He touched warm silky fur, was rewarded by a Kirin squeal, and then he felt something hot and wet, electric with carnal excitement, right there against his cock-head.

“Okay, ma’am,” said Caramel. “But if you fall over… I’m damn well paintin’ you more white, dern it!”

A maddened bleat of lust was all he got for an answer. Her mane was blowing around like there was a storm in the room, though there was no wind.

Caramel, out of patience, swung his hips forward, and he penetrated the strange Kirin pussy, prying it wide and wedging into Hina with tender forcefulness to give her all she’d asked for. His ears were back in wariness, because part of him wondered if he was being wise, and the sensation of cramming into the Kirin gave him pause. It was hot as anything, amazing, but Caramel knew to be a gentlepony and had concerns about her tightness.

“GHHH! YES! Yes, yes, RRRHH! YESS!”

His concerns were assuaged very quickly by Hina’s guttural brays of delight.

“MORE! DEEPER! AHHH! FUCK ME!”

Caramel smiled. That’d work.

With a sigh of relief, he snuggled the frantic Kirin to him, nuzzling his face into her scintillating mane, and Caramel proceeded to bang his Kirin with Ponyville enthusiasm. The air filled with taut squelching as his hips begin to thrust, rock-hard stallion cock thrusting happily into the strange pussy it’d discovered. He prided himself on being a good pony, and though he was surprised and even shocked as to how much cock fit inside the little charmer, he didn’t try to force it. Didn’t need to. There was plenty of room to work up a good head of steam.

“AHH! OHFUCK! YES! MMMH!”

And as she stiffened and bore down on him in a withering series of lusty clenches, Caramel let loose and came inside his weird lover, gushing pony semen into whatever she had for a womb, snuggling her close and enjoying every shudder and jolt.

“GHHHHH! YES! UNNHH! HHH! HH!”

Hina panted, nuzzling back against Caramel’s affectionate embraces.

“Ma’am?” he said, also panting. “That was gol-dern amazing.”

“Ohhhh… thank you, thank you, sweet pony,” managed the Kirin.

He dismounted, pulling free, and a small waterfall of ponycome hit the floor. Seeing it, Caramel frowned.

“Rose…”

“Don’t be sad,” urged Hina gently. “They had a wonderful time…”

He frowned. “There’s that,” he said. “Dang! Poor Roseluck. So close! I was proper poundin’ her pussy.”

“Help me arrange them,” suggested Hina. “They enjoy a cuddle pile.”

“Yep,” said Caramel. “That they do.”

The stallion and Kirin shifted flower ponies until they deemed the cuddle pile comfortable. Roseluck was smiling in her sleep, and Caramel privately reckoned she’d be feeling it in the morning. Perhaps that was why she was smiling.

As they left Lily’s house, Caramel looked curiously at Hina. He’d never seen anything remotely like her. Not only was her body strange and exotic, trim like a Canterlot unicorn with that strange nonwinking vagina and tight little haunches, plus the mane and fetlocks that waved where there was no wind blowing them, he also noticed that the mane glittered restlessly, and down the Kirin’s back, an appearance of scales faded in and out.

“How’d you do that?” he asked, gesturing to her back with a hoof. Hina glanced, startled, and saw her defensive reactions kicking in even though she was leaving a cuddly pile of ponies and walking with a friendly and sexy stallion who clearly meant her no harm. He was good and pure, plus being a dynamite lay. The problem had to lay elsewhere, surely not far, given how intense her signals were. Her ears folded back, hard, as she instinctively reached out with her sense for evil and then flinched at the perception of a huge and foreboding wave of the stuff, unseen but hanging over her head and menacing every single pony she was caring for… and herself. Hina-rin, the wilful Kirin, began to feel genuinely frightened.

“That,” said Hina-rin, “is not half as good a question as ‘why’…”

Ride 'Em Batpony

Peering out her front door, Fluttershy scanned the landscape for vengeful mist demons. It was difficult, because Shy was peeking out the door from around floor level, most of her body hidden behind the door jamb. She expected a visitor, but all the same she hid from the dreaded Kirin.

Realizing this was a silly thing for a fearfully powerful vampony, one who’d survived a direct attack from a deranged and self-destructive alicorn Princess, to do… she stood up a bit.

Everything was quiet. The animals were fed, Dursaa had gone off to work on the Apple farm (apparently most of the farm ponies were shirking work for some reason and his assistance was needed more than ever) and Zecora was brewing some potions in her house and letting young Dursaa Jr. watch… so Fluttershy’s house was quiet and peaceful, and that was exactly right for her expected visitor.

Tree Hugger was coming over, and that made everything more okay.

The cowering vampony took a minute to calm herself, and then peered around the door jamb again—and shrieked, jumping back.

“You should try to maintain more of, you know, a meditative state,” chided Tree Hugger affectionately. “I’m feeling your tension and it’s not good for your aura to get so imbalanced.”

“Treesie!” cried Fluttershy. “It’s you! I thought you were somepony else.”

“Would you like a hug, Fluttershy?” said Tree Hugger. “I’m always happy to comfort you. You’re one of the specialest rare creatures I’ve ever seen, like ever. And I have good news which should calm your vibrations immeasurably!”

Fluttershy had to smile, even as she accepted the hug from her friend. Treesie was always so unflappable and serene. Some of it even came naturally and not from her herbal remedies. It was a whole different flavor of steadiness than she enjoyed from her zebra lovers: they were staunch and determined, protective, but Tree Hugger behaved as if nothing could ever harm her, even when she was exposed to terrible danger.

Fluttershy loved her very much, though they were both essentially straight mares… well, straight female creatures, anyhow.

“I’m happy to hear about it,” said Fluttershy, and gave Treesie a little kiss. One of the wonderful things about Tree Hugger was her demonstrative nature and her knack for delivering a hug, a kiss, an affectionate touch at the right moment. Fluttershy felt extremely safe around her, as if she too was exempted from terrible social gaffes through Treesie’s serene presence.

“And I’m happy to tell you about it,” declared Tree Hugger. “We’ve been graced by the presence of a guru, Fluttershy! All Ponyville is talking about her. I think we should go out and find her and introduce you to her, and maybe she can help relieve your tensions.”

Fluttershy’s feelings of safety evaporated, very suddenly.

“Um, that’s okay,” she said, and cowered back behind the door-frame again.

Tree Hugger blinked, in her slow and dreamy way. “I don’t understand your failure of enthusiasm, Fluttershy. How can you not avail yourself of the essential groundedness of a guru? You say even when you were a little pegasus filly you were, like, totally into groundedness quite literally. Why the change?”

“Can you hug me again?” said Fluttershy, in a timid little voice.

“I can hug you for as many times as you need to be hugged, sweetie,” said Tree Hugger, and did so. “But I feel something’s wrong and as your friend I hope you can share that with me in an atmosphere free of judgement. Do you need for us to go somewhere that will help you communicate from a place of authenticity?”

Fluttershy thought about this, knowing Treesie meant it. “Can we just close and lock the door? Then I’ll tell you.”

“Locking is a restriction on your flows of energy,” chided Tree Hugger. “You’re only locking your own mind away from enlightenment just so it can relate to its own negative thinking better.” She promptly turned, closed and locked the door, and smiled at Fluttershy. “Which is its own kind of authenticity. You have to, like, truly be where you are before you can be anywhere else. Where do you want me? On the sofa, in your bed under the covers? Tell Treesie.”

“The sofa is fine,” said Fluttershy demurely. “Thank you.”

They trotted over and got comfortable, and Fluttershy continued, “I need to ask you something.”

“Feel that you can ask me,” encouraged Tree Hugger. “If I can make it happen righteously, you know I’ll do whatever for you, Fluttershy.”

“Is the guru you’re telling me about… a Kirin from Neighpon?” said Fluttershy, and looked around huntedly.

“Yes, she is.”

“Then I need you to swear that you won’t reveal me to the Kirin,” said Fluttershy. “Promise!”

For a while, Tree Hugger just looked at her, drinking in the pouty lip, the terrified eyes, the stubborn tilt to the head. Fluttershy didn’t flinch, for she knew Treesie would honor her feelings even if the dreadlocked mare didn’t share them.

“I guess you’re being bothered by the old messages a lot, huh?” said Tree Hugger.

Fluttershy pouted harder, and didn’t answer.

“Oh, Fluttershy,” said Tree Hugger. “I’m not looking to guilt you out but seeing you entrapped in bad self talk will always be a bummer to me. I love you, your zebra family loves you, even Princess Celestia loves you from what you’ve told me which is a pretty awesome and intense story though it’s not one I can personally attest to…”

“I know,” said Fluttershy.

Tree Hugger scooched closer and gave her another reassuring hug. “I feel it would be a centering force if I did recount a personal story that is from my experience. You might remember it, Fluttershy, and I bet you know the one I’m thinking of. You were there.”

Fluttershy nodded. It didn’t matter that she knew the story. Part of the magic was listening to Tree Hugger re-tell it, held close in a companionable snuggle while one of her best friends in the whole world talked so gently to her. Treesie was so very good at gentle.

“It was around the time of the Breezie migration,” said Tree Hugger. “Thing is, they were done migrating because they didn’t want to travel at night. You’d followed them and you were heading home, and it was very dark but you can see in the dark, I think? Are those some of your powers?”

Fluttershy nodded. “When my eyes are pink they can. I was scared of going back through the Everfree forest by myself, so I’d put my mane and tail extensions in my saddlebag until I got nearer home.”

Tree Hugger smiled. “I like the Everfree. The rarest creatures live in the Everfree, or travel through it, as I was about to discover. But I wasn’t exploring that night. You remember? I was doing a special dance to the moon. Y’know, because as we all learned, Princess Luna went through some tough times and maybe it was because she didn’t, like, feel supported? Ponies like to praise the Sun and it helps us grow crops and keeps us warm and is a bountiful source of energy, but the Moon is also, like, very beautiful, like yin to the yang of the power of the Sun and the harmonious balance is a beautiful thing, so I thought it behooved me to do a dance to appreciate the Moon, in a clearing in the Everfree, or mostly in a clearing I guess…”

“It wasn’t in a clearing,” objected Fluttershy, “you went staggering through some tall ferns and boom!”

“I was getting into my dancing,” said Tree Hugger, unperturbed. “You have to dance a lot for your vibrations to make it to the Moon. So I was getting really spiritual, and then suddenly, bump, vampony!”

“I was like, yaaaaa!” reminisced Fluttershy. “I was so scared! I didn’t know what you were at first.”

“I knew what you were right away,” teased Tree Hugger. “Remember? If you didn’t want me to know that, screaming and showing your fangs was bad form.”

“You rolled your eyes,” said Fluttershy. “I’ll never forget your reaction.”

“I totally, like, forgave you,” asserted Tree Hugger proudly.

Fluttershy gave a little frown. “Not exactly, Treesie. You rolled your eyes and you said 'okay, it’s your karma, you might not want to drink all my blood at once'.”

“Oh,” said Tree Hugger, “yeah, that too.”

“I stared at you like you were crazy,” said Fluttershy, ”cause you weren’t scared at all. You just looked back and told me 'I’m just saying, you might find it sort of disorienting man'.”

“You cried,” said Tree Hugger softly.

Fluttershy’s eyes were tearing up once more. “You didn’t even know me, but you saw me crying and in three seconds you were already hugging me and telling me I was okay. Three seconds, no more. I can’t even imagine being so loving, so forgiving. It didn’t matter that I was a vampire, you dropped everything and tried to comfort me.”

“You wouldn’t have hurt me,” said Tree Hugger. “It was written all over you, Fluttershy. Didn’t I say the rarest creatures are found in the Everfree? I found a loving, kind, good vampony. I’m given to understand most of them are, like, tragically unbalanced to the point of being real toxic and hurtful, but you’re a complete pacifist.”

“Your gentleness always makes me feel better, Treesie,” said Fluttershy.

“You totally deserve to feel better!” insisted Tree Hugger. “I need to share with you that your pacifism is, like, a beautiful struggle, like truly enlightened in a way I don’t have to be. It’s like some heavy meditation shit, and I’m privileged to be part of your existence. I say it like that because I know there are times you get hung up over the life and unlife thing. That doesn’t matter nearly as much as your loving heart.”

“I do feel better,” said Fluttershy. “And before you say anything, is it okay if you still don’t tell the Kirin about me? It’s just that I never saw one, and my friends like Rainbow Dash are so worried, and I think Zecora and Dursaa are worried though they don’t want to show it…”

“Just a moment, sweetie,” said Tree Hugger. “Rainbow Dash is worried? Rainbow Dash is a nice pony if you’re into the whole competitiveness thing, and we’ve talked about her before. She does know about you, right? Or has she forgot? Wait, why would she be worried if she’s forgot about your like essential vampire nature?”

“She has not either forgot!” protested Fluttershy. “She’s trying to help, or something! She flew over here as fast as she possibly could to warn me!”

“Is she occupying some space where she thinks the guru is going to hurt you? I don’t mean to be like all judgemental, Fluttershy, but that isn’t what I’d like to call a reality space.”

Fluttershy pouted. “I don’t know. I love her, she’s a really good friend, and she was too worried. So there!”

Tree Hugger blinked slowly, as she did. “Is it possible Rainbow Dash rushed over to warn you because she, like, knows you so well she thought you would get into a negative head trip when you heard about the guru being here?”

Fluttershy boggled at her friend, and thought about it for a moment, because it was important to honor Treesie’s ideas rather than dismissing them. “No,” she concluded. “That’s not possible at all because Rainbow Dash doesn’t pay any attention to how I think. Rainbow was terrified because she thought the Kirin was going to hurt me. There’s no other way I could possibly interpret it.” She winced, and added, “I guess the bonds of friendship are stronger than evilness, huh?”

Tree Hugger poked her, and said, “We’ve been over this, Fluttershy. Everypony agrees. You’re not even slightly evil, you’re one of the sweetest things of any kind I’ve ever known. Even Princess Celestia says so!”

Fluttershy pouted. Princess Celestia could say it all she wanted, but the Sweet Apple Acres farm stallions still avoided her like a dose of plague. Not everypony in Ponyville was comfortable living around a tame vampony.

Tree Hugger studied her. “You’re vibing me out, Fluttershy. Please accept that most of the ponies you know understand you as a loving and positively motivated individual?”

“Oh, I know,” grumbled Fluttershy, “blah blah, choose good, magic sparkles from the Princess giving me the choice, we know all that. Tree Hugger, you’re thinking only about ponies that know and love me. Isn’t it obvious that Rainbow was terrified for me, because she knows the Kirin doesn’t know and love me? She wanted me to hide inside where it’s safe, and that’s just what I’m going to do. I just don’t want to take the risk!”

“Okay, Fluttershy, I need you to be coming from an accepting place of centeredness,” ordered Tree Hugger, “because I wouldn’t be a loving friend unless I reminded you of some things you consider distasteful…”

“Oh, I know,” said Fluttershy miserably, “I’m a terrible coward and it’s preventing me from experiencing life. But this is not the time…”

She stopped, for Tree Hugger had put a gentle hoof to her lips.

“No, honey,” said Tree Hugger. “I need to ask you for some honesty with me and with yourself. What do you think one Kirin is going to do to you?”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Um. Smite me? Get all righteous and destroy me? Burn me up with magic fire?”

“Oh, right,” said Tree Hugger, blinking. “That.”

“You see?” wailed Fluttershy. “You see? I told you it’s a big scary problem, and even Rainbow Dash is terrified, and…”

“No, wait, give me a moment!” said Tree Hugger. “I admit I wasn’t thinking of the magic fire thing so much, but hear me out! You told me you protected Princess Celestia, that when Twilight Sparkle was an alicorn she went like totally insane and tried to destroy Celestia and Discord. It was a pretty amazing story, considering how well they get along these days.”

Fluttershy pouted. “I know it sounds impossible, but I did. You’ll just have to trust me. I punched Twilight in the face for being such a big meanie, and she’s much better now that she’s back to being a mortal unicorn again. Maybe that’s why Princess Celestia accepts her. Twilight went from being one of the alicorns, like Celestia and Luna, to being just a unicorn who’s going to die. Celestia’s going to have to say goodbye to her someday, like I’ll have to say goodbye to you.”

Tree Hugger frowned. “My point was this, Fluttershy. If you could have an alicorn Princess charging you, blasting you with a death bolt and impaling you through the heart, and you’re still here and as cute as ever, how can you be so frightened of a Neighponnese Kirin? Even if she wanted to hurt you, what’s she going to do, kill you again? You’re already dead and can hardly die twice, or, like, three times. It just seems to me your amazing experiences getting, like, grievously injured protecting others, suggest that the Kirin would be hard pressed to do you any harm even if she was very unspiritual and tried to.”

Fluttershy pouted worse. “Magical fire?” she suggested, sulkily.

“And that’s another thing!” argued Tree Hugger. “How many times do I have to tell you, the Kirin are travelling gurus! You’re giving her no credit for spiritual development. So on the one hoof you’re acting like a little frail thing that the Kirin could just blow away unthinkingly, and on the other hoof you insist the Kirin would not be thinking! What do you think a guru is, Fluttershy? I admit Kirin are supposed to be very powerful magic users, but you’re acting like she’s crazy like Twilight Sparkle! Which,” she corrected herself, “is an unkind and judgemental thing to say, and I hope she is feeling much better now. It’s just that if she zapped you and stabbed you through the heart with her horn, she WAS crazy… or very, very mean. At the time.”

“She was,” muttered Fluttershy, her fangs glinting slightly. “We all knew it. Treesie, that’s why I can’t trust the Kirin. I know powerful magic ponies can go crazy and become big meanies. Sometimes I even have to fight the big meanies. I don’t like that one bit, Treesie.”

“Okay, let’s try it from another angle,” suggested Tree Hugger. “Supposing she’s having a really bad day, or she doesn’t give you a chance, and she’s trying to attack you. What special vampire powers can you use to protect yourself like nonviolently from her acting out? Which she won’t, I promise, but even if she does?”

Fluttershy frowned. “I don’t think it would work. I’ve learned to go away from my vampire instincts, Treesie, not toward them. It’s not good.”

“I don’t have those instincts so I can’t authentically comment on them,” said Tree Hugger. “Do you have a sense of what you could do if you did use them?”

Fluttershy frowned worse, her little fangs glinting again. “Once I fought a fullgrown griffin and beat her. Actually I beat her up… and worse. You remember, we’ve talked about it. I really hated her at that moment, and it opened up something, it gave me power. I don’t ever want to feel like that again. When she was down, I didn’t even realize I’d bitten her, but I had all these feelings… I wanted to eat her, Treesie. But not exactly? There was something I could have eaten, sort of, but it was a horrible feeling and I sort of behaved like that feeling was part of her, not part of me. I acted like the badness was her fault and even the way I felt was her fault, and I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. And so I didn’t eat—her soul, I suppose it was. And I’m glad of that. But all the same, I remember the hunger, and such a clear sense of what I ought to do.”

Tree Hugger was silent, listening.

“I think it would’ve made me stronger,” said Fluttershy. “That’s how it felt. But I don’t ever want to be that way. Once I was a little helpless shy pegasus filly. It seems like so long ago… a lifetime ago, I suppose. If only I could be like that again!”

“Oh, Fluttershy!” sighed Tree Hugger, and wrapped the forlorn vampony in an embrace. Fluttershy didn’t resist. She trembled, and there were some tears, but she’d accepted her fate and was more concerned with the possible, not the impossible.

When Tree Hugger released Fluttershy from the hug, she gave her a very earnest kiss, and a little shake. “Listen, sweetie.”

“I’m listening,” said Fluttershy resignedly.

“I bet you could even fight a Kirin and win, but believe me when I say you won’t have to. Do what you gotta, in case things get messy, but just show your loving heart and no Kirin in the world would keep on hurting you. Didn’t I tell you, she’s a guru? You can trust a guru to look past surface hangups and unspiritual confusingness to the heart of the situation.”

“Maybe if I show my loving heart she’ll stab me through it, like Twilight Sparkle,” retorted Fluttershy. “Then I can see how much that hurts before I get it properly healed. Which it never does, not really. Do they have even longer and pointier horns than alicorns? Maybe it’d hurt less if it was really sharp?”

Tree Hugger blinked. “No, no! Haven’t you ever seen one? They have like weird bent-back horns that look like they’re made of luminous ice. All glowing with the magic they need.”

“To make magical fire and burn me up?”

Tree Hugger gave her friend a stern look. “I’m concerned that this stopped being properly fear, and is turning into more of a bitchy mood, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy sagged. “Guilty. I’m sorry, Treesie. I’m so worried, and maybe I really am so powerful that I could fight a Kirin. But I’m not supposed to be fighting anything, and I don’t want to! How could it ever be right for me to fight things, especially if I have dark vampiric powers? I just want to stay home with Dursaa and Zecora and to heck with dark vampiric powers, the mean wicked things!”

“Use them for light,” said Tree Hugger, and kissed her on the nose. “And I keep telling you, the Kirin isn’t going to fight you. You’re not evil.”

A sharp rapping resounded through the house, from the front door. Fluttershy shrieked and tried to hide under her friend, then the sofa.

“I’ll get it!” proclaimed Tree Hugger, and she trotted to the door, unlocked and opened it. “Oh, hi! We were just talking about you!”

Hearing this, Fluttershy scrabbled all the more determinedly, but it’d been a poor choice: she could barely fit under the bed, and the sofa was a dead loss. Her head fit, and one of her wings, but her hindlegs kicked fruitlessly and her butt stuck out.

“She’s right in here!” called Tree Hugger merrily.

Fluttershy, panting, realized she wasn’t going to be able to hide, or get upstairs and under the bed safely. Already, she heard the mighty tread, as if Kirins were built on Big Macintosh scale. She wondered if you got a kinky thrill from being impaled to death from that angle. At least there was no unborn foal to endanger this time!

She heard a gasp, and it was like that of a bull, impossibly powerful and potent. She stuck out her lower lip, and swished her tail defiantly.

“Do your worst,” she said. “I’m ready.”

A clearing of the throat… and a voice, such a voice.

“The invitation’s something oft rehearsed—though this position, I would not have guessed. Dear wife, you’re asking me to do my worst. Perhaps you’d rather that I do my best?”

Dursaa, of course.

Fluttershy’s legs churned in reverse, and she scrabbled out from under the sofa and tackled Dursaa with a squee, almost budging him. But whether pegasus or vampegasus, Fluttershy’s fluffy frame didn’t so much as sway her stout zebra lover, who promptly grabbed her in an eager embrace.

“Fluttershy, my darling mare! What has given you this scare?” he said, snuggling her tenderly in his mighty forelegs.

“It’s better now that I can spend time with you,” said Fluttershy, nuzzling his chest. “Let’s stay home and have fun, okay?”

Hearing this, Dursaa gently pushed her back until he could see her face. “You show your rump and beckon with your tail, when we two into fornication fly. But hiding ‘neath the bed and turning pale tells me I see a frightened Fluttershy!”

She pouted. Tree Hugger said, “Do you need me to give you a little time alone? I’d like to encourage you to be genuine, though, Fluttershy, as I’m concerned it’s too easy for you to gloss over things that are troubling you.”

Dursaa turned, his eyes wide—and then glowered. “What disturbs my precious horse? It will face my fiercest force!”

At that, Fluttershy and Tree Hugger glanced at each other, wide-eyed.

“That’s okay, honey,” said Fluttershy.

“A thing that steals my darling’s joy?” retorted Dursaa, stamping the floor with a forehoof and snorting. “Why, such a thing I should destroy!”

Fluttershy squealed and hugged him, crying out “Please don’t!”

Tree Hugger had gone a paler shade of green, but her voice was still calm. “We need to talk to you about that, Dursaa, okay? I, like, respect the way you like to be all masculine and stuff for Fluttershy and I know that’s a thing you guys do with each other, but there’s a reason you should dial it back, like even just to talk about, okay? For now.”

Dursaa looked astonished. “What the fuck could come here, that gives you both such fear?” he said, weakly.

“It’s not fear for me!” protested Fluttershy. “Not really. We just both realised it’s bad for you to get all stalliony and hostile about protecting me, right now…”

Tree Hugger nodded. “I don’t think you’re in any real danger. It’s just that there’s a guru in town. We don’t want you to go out and try to beat her up, or it could be not so good, okay?”

Dursaa’s perplexity only grew worse. “What is a guru? This word is too new!”

“It’s about the Kirin,” said Fluttershy.

Dursaa’s gaze darkened. He cleared his throat, and began to speak, and Fluttershy gawped in amazement. She’d never heard him speak quite so seriously before. He spoke as if addressing a whole town.

“Hear me, Fluttershy, Tree Hugger, ponies of our humble cottage:

Even in Zebra lands, sometimes that creature, a Kirin, is spotted.

Please be thoughtful, deliberate, do not engage with it lightly:

Warriors attacking them tend to be turned to carnage unsightly.

This we Zebras have learned through our dealings with enemy Kirin—

If you attack them, it’s soon for your own precious lives you’ll be fearing,

Yet if Zebra are threatened by enemies, with Kirin nearby,

Kirin will intercede, and then you’ll know there is no better ally.

This is our wisdom, from Zebras across all the tribe’s generations:

Speak not to Kirin, lest you become prey to their fickle attentions!”

Fluttershy stared at him. “What was that, honey? It sounds like you know all about them!”

Dursaa blushed, a little. “It is the Song Of Kirin. ’Twas time we heard it herein. Did I recite it properly? For that was my desire. I’ve never spoken as an Elder, but the need was dire.”

Tree Hugger clapped her hooves excitedly. “That was amazing! I’ve never been present for a Zebra Elder addressing his townsponies before. Does that mean me and Fluttershy are honorary Zebras?”

“Before we speak of such ideas, tell me this at once,” insisted Dursaa. “Why does this Kirin come out here? Is it my love it hunts?”

“No, no!” said Tree Hugger. “I’m not sure you guys quite understand the whole guru thing. It might help if you tried to let go of the idea that they’re fickle, and opened yourself to the idea that they’re arbiters between good and evil. They travel Neighpon seeking and punishing evil. Of course they’d rescue Zebras in danger. As far as the other thing, did it ever occur to you that being peaceful and serene would seem more like ‘good’ to the Kirin, than attacking it?”

Dursaa furrowed his brow. “Defending of the tribe is good. How could that be misunderstood? The aftermath we’d sadly see, seems evilness enough to me!”

Tree Hugger sighed. “Oh, wow. I guess we should be grateful it didn’t escalate into a total war, huh? Yeah, I can relate to the zebra feelings about it, but all the same it’s not really about fickleness. I guess you guys worked it out in the long run? If you have a special song just to tell Zebras not to hurt Kirin, that’s probably enough to keep you safe from them…”

“The worry’s not for I,” interrupted Dursaa. “How safe is Fluttershy?”

“Aww!” cried Tree Hugger, and reared to give him a hug. “You’re so sweet! Please believe me when I tell you she’s perfectly safe. She’s, like, the most good thing I know in all of Equestria. Don’t even think about her being in danger from the guru. ‘Cos that’s what she is, a guru. It’s a gift for Ponyville, having her here.”

Fluttershy bit her lip. “Um… and also, Dursaa, can you be extra super sure to not think anything mean about the Kirin? Not a single unkind thought, especially not of them wiping out zebra warriors, or burning me up with magic fire. It’s important!”

Dursaa’s look was pitiful. “Darling wife, I’ll do my best, and promise not to fail. Now I know what not to think, in all-too-great detail.”

“Nice one, Fluttershy,” said Tree Hugger wryly.

“I’m sorry!”

“Don’t make him live in your head space,” warned Tree Hugger, “especially not now. Let’s change the subject! So, um, how’s things going with you and Dursaa and Zecora?”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” moaned Fluttershy, glancing at Dursaa. He stared, stricken, into space, clearly contemplating the upsetting ideas she’d just fed him. She added, “I mean, it’s wonderful, but now you have me thinking the Kirin wouldn’t like me enjoying double zebra. Would she think that was perverted? Or greedy?”

Tree Hugger’s eyes bugged out. “Are you kidding? Fluttershy, didn’t you know Kirin invented the whole Pona Sutra? All Kirin sex is recreational because they breed through, like, epic spirituality or something. They fuck for sport and they’re very good at it. She would LOVE you enjoying double zebra. Really? You never told me you were doing that! Tell Treesie!”

Fluttershy pouted. “I suppose it is greedy. Did I shock you?”

“Shyeah right!” said Tree Hugger, smirking. “I should’ve told you what I do with my herder boyfriends. If you’re greedy, I’m, like, double greedy with nuts. Four nuts is better than two. There are times when I think I ought to get an extra dose of earth pony’s friend in case I come down with butt-babies.”

“Oh my,” said Fluttershy, her wings rising.

“Oh yeah,” said Tree Hugger. She frowned. “It does make problems, though. I’m not sure Ponyville farm ponies are really enlightened enough to properly do Pona Sutra the way it’s intended. Like, back in the day I’d have Hollyhock and Silver pounding me all night, and it’d hurt in the morning… I mean, not just a case of sore pussy but they’d bite me so hard and it’s really not respectful, you know? I’m an enlightened, independent mare plus I know lots of exotic stuff, and it wasn’t really fair the way they’d both just chomp away at my butt and force me into a submissive posture, you know? I mean, wow, big turn-on in a certain way but that’s not the only way a mare can be and especially when you eat a lot of special haycakes it gets so intense, I can’t even tell you how helpless I felt just getting pounded over and over, I wanted like way more agency from them…”

“I understand,” said Fluttershy. She pouted. “It sounds wonderful to me, though. I had them once but it didn’t go well.”

“Exactly!” said Tree Hugger. “That’s the thing, it’s so limiting. You mentioned double zebra, well, I wanted to do the double penetration Pona Sutra position, and it was so hard to get them to cooperate! One day, they finally did. Hollyhock was in a funny mood and Silver was all twitchy. I think that was after they’d tried you, Fluttershy! Well, I finally got through, I’m proud to say. Hollyhock hasn’t nipped my butt once starting that same night, though Silver still does. I sort of did a combination thing?”

“What’s that?” said Fluttershy.

“I wanted them to embrace a more spiritually merged sensuality,” explained Tree Hugger, “where both of them penetrate me but with more of a feminine sensibility, y’know? Lose the conquering-male thing and let me take a more active role and do positions I can’t do when they make me submit and get mounted. Well, guess what? I had Hollyhock get on the bottom. It was amazing, he’s lying there looking uncomfortable but with this incredible sullen glowering look, his mouth all tightly shut like he was furious, but he had a humongous horseboner… and he totally, like, let me straddle him and slide back onto it. And then while we were doing it, Silver bit my ass, and I went all passive and Hollyhock starts pounding me from underneath while Silver gets on and goes straight up my butt, no lube or anything…”

Fluttershy whimpered. Her wings were quivering, bolt upright. Dursaa had quietly begun snuggling her, and was petting her wings with a tender hoof.

Tree Hugger hesitated. “I wish we could try that again and do it better. I mean, I flipped out, it was insane, but it was NOT the meditative sensual experience I’d been hoping for. And now they’re mad.”

Fluttershy blinked. “They are?”

“Well, Silver’s all fucked up and weird about something, maybe some work thing?” said Tree Hugger. “It’s like he doesn’t know what’s upsetting him, but every day it’s worse. And Hollyhock is totally mad at me now. He won’t even kiss me anymore and he won’t talk. I’ve fucked him a couple times and it’s exciting with all the glowering stalliony ‘tude but in some ways it’s worse than when he was all nippy and male-headed. It’s like he won’t forgive me for making him change?”

“He is very masculine,” said Fluttershy. “Maybe you should let him change back? You admit it’s exciting having both of them dominating you.”

Tree Hugger sighed. “I tried that. I didn’t try very hard, and he must have known I didn’t really mean it. It’s, like, a major breakthrough that he’s listening and changing his ways, I didn’t even think he was smart enough. I thought Silver would be the one, and he’d help convince Hollyhock. Silver’s a lot smarter. Maybe that’s what’s messing with him?”

“Are you still making love to Silver?” asked Fluttershy.

“Yeah, but it’s like the opposite,” admitted Tree Hugger. “Now I have one stallion who’s trying new things but pissy about it, and the other one’s extra nippy and mean, just rams it in like he’s trying to break me.”

“Ooooh…”

Tree Hugger smirked. “Oh, you! I wasn’t trying to excite you, Fluttershy. I know that’s, like, your fetish.” She cast an appreciative glance over Dursaa, who continued to surreptitiously fondle Fluttershy. “Maybe this is a good time for me to head back to my place. I think you and your honey are about to get into some extreme goodness.”

“That would bring me great delight,” said Dursaa. “Would it, maybe, help our plight?”

Tree Hugger boggled at him. “What plight are you talking ab… oh! The Kirin!” She smiled. “I’ll tell you something. If you screw Fluttershy until she can’t think bad thoughts coherently, I just bet that will keep her safe as anything. And I know how you feel about that, big and stripey. When you get her like that you’ll be so full of love everything will be safe for miles around, okay? I am for sure not shittin’ you about this, the way Kirin work there’s no way she’ll be mean to you if you’re full of love. If you start fretting, fuck harder!”

Fluttershy was blushing, her wings bolt upright. “Can I help? I mean, I know dear Dursaa can make me incoherent, but what can I do to make it better for him so he’ll be safe too?”

Dursaa began to smirk. Tree Hugger lifted an eyebrow.

“You know what?” she said. “I don’t have to answer that. What I’m going to do is head back home, and you can ask Dursaa what he wants, ‘cos he’s clearly got ideas.”

“He does?” blinked Fluttershy.

“Just look at him,” teased Tree Hugger. “Okay, I’m going to go now! In case what he wants is to pin you down and pound YOU as harshly as Silver pounds ME! Which is not to say that’s a bad thing,” she added hastily. “Just using it as, like, an illustrative analogy. Bye bye!”

She blew a kiss at the happy couple, and trotted out the door, closing it behind her.

Fluttershy peered at Dursaa, sidelong, with an eager shyness. “Is it…”

“Nay,” admitted her husband, in his private unrhymed intimate mode. “Though you love that, it’s not the fantasy that haunts me.”

“Then what does?” said Fluttershy. “Oh, Dursaa! I’m all quivery. Whatever you want, it’s yours, right now. But quickly!”

Dursaa took a deep breath. “Your friend’s story.”

Fluttershy blinked. “But that was all about Treesie’s story! Or, wait… do you mean Hollyhock? You want to be pissy and mad? You don’t look mad.”

“Nay,” rumbled Dursaa. “And yet, I picture myself in his place… and you, in your friend’s… and I crave that vision of beauty.”

“I don’t understand,” said Fluttershy, pouting, for she thought perhaps she did, and she had reservations about where this was heading.

Dursaa gave her a look. “You did ask. Will you not grant my fondest wishes?”

Fluttershy pouted harder. “Spell ‘em out,” she said. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like some intense anal sex, with me in pony form? I could use a good pounding to distract me. That’s very good at distracting me.”

Dursaa ignored her snarkiness. “Straddle me,” he said. “Let me gaze up at you, as you please yourself on me. Let yourself come a thousand times, before your loving Zebra husband explodes up into you… and let me snuggle you close afterwards, still close and warm within you.”

Fluttershy wriggled. “Mmm. Not my favorite position, but it doesn’t sound so bad. I think I can…”

“In your true form,” added Dursaa.

Fluttershy’s eyes popped. “Dursaa! You know I’d rather have sex in my pony form. Vampony form is creepy, even if it does have superior muscle control. I’ll have you know that control is really for a mean and bad purpose. It’s for weakening lovers so I can bite them and turn them into other vampires, or maybe kill them and suck out their souls. I’m almost sure that’s the reason it feels so good for you!”

“You won’t do that,” said Dursaa. “You won’t harm me. It feels good for you too, I know. Allow me this, for both our sakes.”

Fluttershy gave him a glare like an irate kitten. “Oh yeah? What do you mean, for both our sakes? How is it going to help, for me to turn into a scary monster even if you do find it exciting, just so I can give you a special ride? What makes you think I’m going to do that and why would it help?”

“Because you love me,” rumbled Dursaa softly, and gazed into her eyes.

Fluttershy’s lips parted, but no words came out. For a moment, her cute little fangs twinkled as brightly as the glistening tears in her eyes.

Dursaa met those lips with an impassioned kiss, and suddenly Fluttershy was kissing back, sobbing, and squirming like a madpony where she sat.

“Oh! oh! I do, Dursaa, I love you so much! Yes, I will,” said Fluttershy. “Oh pooh! It’s just not a marelike position at all! Which is not to say I’ve never used it…”

“Love me,” said Dursaa, sneaking a hoof under Fluttershy and clopping her squishy mound. “Let me look up at you. Let me gaze into your eyes, let me look upon your adorable little fangs which would never be turned upon me, let me fondle the supple skin of your true wings…”

“Hmph!” said Fluttershy, wriggling and lifting herself up to allow Dursaa to touch her more boldly. “You have a vampony fetish, it’s perverted!”

“I have a vampony,” reminded Dursaa, face wreathed in smiles. “I made a vampony my wife. I also have a growing erection, if my beloved wife would care to attend to it.”

“Upstairs!” squeaked Fluttershy. She sprang up, and made as if to bolt upstairs on her dainty and illusory wings, but quick as a wink Dursaa had turned and snapped down with his teeth on the one part of Fluttershy he could bite with impunity—her artificial tail extensions. She gave a little shriek, and turned in shock, half-naked, her body’s fur already coarsening and her tail scraggly by comparison to her usual gracefulness.

Dursaa smirked at her, the tail extension dangling from his mouth.

Fluttershy snickered, and zipped over, and with a flick of her head, she’d deposited the mane extensions over him like a rather silly pink wig.

Dursaa grinned wider, taking in his beloved in her full vampony form, the tufted ears and batty wings and pink eyes and everything, and adoring every bit of it.

Then, she’d whisked about and flitted upstairs in a leathery flutter of wings, and Dursaa thundered after her, stallionhood flopping about under him and very nearly getting entangled in the banister.

Fluttershy was crouching on the bed facing away from him, winking like a madpony, but Dursaa didn’t jump onto her: he dove to the side of her, and twisted so he landed on his back.

“You promised this, oh pretty-puss!” he called gleefully.

Her eyes widened, and then she stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, phoo!”

“Don’t be recalcitrant,” scolded Dursaa. “Love me. Give me the works!”

Fluttershy’s legs trembled, and she dripped a bit of vampony-ooze onto the bed even where she stood… and then, without further argument, she demurely stepped onto him and straddled him, and dripped vampony-ooze onto his belly… and then, rubbed it onto his belly, and the head of his increasingly throbbing cock.

“I do love you,” she said, fervently. “And I’m going to give you everything you love. Can you give me something, too?”

“Name it,” said Dursaa, breathing hard.

“She said he was pounding her from underneath,” said Fluttershy, and licked her lips. “Roughly. I know you like to relax and be gentle… but can you give me a little of that?”

For a moment, they just stared into each other’s eyes… as both zebra and vampony started to grin harder and harder at each other.

“Ohhhh, yesss…” sighed Fluttershy, delighting in the wicked promise of that zebra grin.

“Love me,” said Dursaa. “You will find it has its rewards…”

Fluttershy needed no more words. She closed her eyes, and nuzzled her Zebra husband’s chest, her hips swaying dreamily over him, poised, expectant.

Dursaa reached up, and he fondled her leathery wings, making her gasp. His eyes shone, and she knew why: he really did have a thing for the vampony form. It was very much like he saw that form as a more powerful, capable lover, one who could take on an excited zebra without fear and fling herself into the experience with abandon.

That was accurate. Fluttershy craved being weak, harmless and helpless, and had a terrible weakness for zebra ravaging in her illusory pony form, but even she had to admit that Dursaa had more freedom with her when she held vampony form. His power was at least matched, if not exceeded: she didn’t wish to feel herself a hideously powerful monster, but she knew very well that he felt differently.

And so, Fluttershy reached forward with the creepy bat wings and fondled him back, rewarded with a little whimper of pure delight. She knew she’d been given the gift of choice: that she would not lose herself to the point of attacking her beloved. The dark gift of her vampirism surged and filled her, her power saturating her, the cute little fangs seeming to grow longer and her pink eyes glowing with a more uncanny light, but even then Fluttershy didn’t panic.

Instead, she allowed her husband to fondle her creepy bat wings, and she enjoyed his sensual touch. Playfully, she wrapped his face with them, and then revealed herself. “Peek-a-boo!”

“What else can you hide?” he rumbled, grinning up at her.

She wriggled her hips, positioning herself, and then Fluttershy eased back until he touched her right there, and made her vagina yielding and soft in an instinctive vampony move that felt like willingly turning her pelvis to jelly, and she drifted back and Dursaa’s zebra cock also surged and filled her.

“Nnnnh!” he moaned, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Her body felt obscenely, disturbingly soft upon him, spreading wetness down him like she was no more than a pony-shaped wad of half-melted butter… and then, she lifted herself effortlessly and bared her cute little fangs and pressed back onto him again.

“NNNH!”

He could feel her trembling, but more than that, he could feel what she’d done: she’d lubed him in a state of uncanny limpness and looseness such as her pegasus form could never possibly do, and now she pressed herself back onto him with steady force, and her vagina had become fevered and foalishly taut. Fluttershy was holding nothing back. She drew on every instinctive trick her vampony mare body knew, and his second penetration of her was a sensory overload that delivered a death-grip to his throbbing erection.

He looked up in wonder. Fluttershy’s eyes were closed in ecstacy, and she sank deeper and deeper onto his lengthy zebra cock, in that mysterious way only her vampire form could manage. He and Zecora were both well aware of her dimensions as a pegasus, all the more since she liked to push those boundaries to her own detriment. This time, those dimensions seemed meaningless. Fluttershy pressed lower, shivering with bliss, as Dursaa’s medial ring slid into her as well, and she pushed further and further, riding him, her quivering rump sinking right down onto his crotch and nearly rubbing his massive testicles, something no mortal mare could possibly encompass…

Dursaa never stopped being amazed at how deep his vampony wife was, in her true form. However, he could be amazed and still remember… and he had surprises of his own to give.

“NCH!” grunted Dursaa, through gritted teeth, his body bucking unexpectedly underneath her.

Fluttershy was caught exhaling, and made no cry, but her heart stopped instantly in pure shock. Just as the massive zebra cock was nuzzling up to her deepest depths, he’d suddenly given her a mind-wrenching jolt, pounding her insides with a single fierce thump. She hadn’t expected it in the least.

She looked down at him and his face was wreathed in smiles. He knew exactly what he’d done. Usually she needed to turn to Zecora for the rougher rumpy-pumpy, but on this occasion Dursaa proposed to give as well as he got.

If she’d been in pegasus form, her wings would have bristled out so hard from that jolt that she’d have lost some feathers to it.

Fluttershy’s heart lurched to activity again with a huge, grinding thump. She heaved a deep breath.

“OH MY LOVE!” she wailed.

“Want another?” rumbled her adoring husband.

“YES!”

“Earn it,” he suggested, and his grin lit up the room.

Fluttershy needed no more provocation. Her batty wings fondled his face, and without a single thought for what was mare-ish and feminine, she writhed and bobbed atop him. Wet noises kissed the air as she squirmed and rocked to and fro, stiff zebra cock plunged unreasonably deep into her trembling, eerily innocent-looking body. It was an incongruity that might have only belonged to the vampiric: the same dark energies that powered her and stoked her sexual fevers to a clenching, supple frenzy, also served to give her body a radiance, a disturbing purity tailored to suck the darkest carnal lusts out of a male horse. She became all things for him, the better to own his very soul through her devastatingly seductive lovemaking.

Dursaa counted his soul willingly given, long ago, with no reservations and no regrets. He saw her for all she was, he gazed upon her eerie fillyish glow and felt the unearthly intensity of her frantic vagina and the iron grip of her, part virginal youthfulness and part demonic clutching tautness in double exposure, and he knew that this special monster loved him as deeply as he loved her. He’d have surrendered to any evil intention she had, without resistance… but he loved her even more, knowing there would be no evil intentions.

Well… not in a bad way, anyhow.

Fluttershy was reeling, writhing above him as if possessed with the essence of savage devouring female lust, when he unleashed another jounce of his hips. It wasn’t possible to calculate it so finely, for she was going berserk on top of him. The zebra cock jabbed brutally into her when she didn’t expect it, and she let out a shriek, her eyes flying wide…and her frantic bouncing ceased, but she shuddered all over.

Dursaa gazed up at her, adoring her in her erotic plight but with just a touch of something more: something she’d always wanted, something he’d learned from Zecora’s forcefulness, something he was sharing. Fluttershy could feel it, and it turned her to jelly. Even though she straddled him, even though she’d been fucking him so aggressively, with that extra jounce she knew that he was in control. It didn’t matter that she’d been pounding him into the bed, didn’t even matter that she was many times stronger than he was. Dursaa, grinning up at her, suddenly had the power.

“Keep going,” he suggested, with that scoundrel’s grin. He knew he’d just kicked her into complete submissiveness, yet he teased.

Fluttershy trembled, her wings groping the air, and tried to regain the boldness he’d been enjoying. It made her obscenely excited that she couldn’t. The vampiric powers still surged within her, but it was like a storm that churned her insides, knotted her upon herself, cramped herself down onto his cockbase in clenches she couldn’t even control anymore. She whimpered sweetly, trying to bob and ride on him, shuddering and spasming and nearly toppling right off him and held up only by that flagpole that seemed to transfix her to the breastbone and swell more hungrily by the second…

As she slid tremblingly back down toward his crotch, that titanic erection rammed into her once more, and Dursaa’s balls squeezed up against her buttery rump. He’d let her have it, one more time, watching so eagerly to see what she’d do as he gave her one last unexpected pound from below.

Fluttershy’s heart stopped, again. She gave a cry like a bird in flight being slain, if archers’ bows fired erect horsecocks and killed with pleasure… and Fluttershy collapsed over her husband, quivering all over, unable to rise, her heart lurching irregularly as her psyche and body melted down.

Dursaa wrapped her in his strong zebra forelegs, and that was when he started to pump with his hips.

The little vampony had gone completely incoherent, reeling and babbling, her scraggly tail thrashing like a cheerleader’s pom-pom just over what it celebrated: a throbbing zebra cock, expertly thrusting up vampony vagina as if it would never tire. It was all too much, and everything Fluttershy wished for, and in turn the spectacle of Fluttershy was everything Dursaa cherished. There’d been a time when he didn’t trust her, wouldn’t push her too hard, worshipped her a little too much to sate himself ravenously in her: a part of him had still been pledged to the fragile, shy pegasus she’d resembled.

He’d learned.

Dursaa’s embrace tightened, cruelly. It had to. He knew his lover well. It wasn’t even to keep her mouth away from his neck as she climaxed: he trusted her completely. It was to hang on, and it was necessary, even as it tightened into a crushing bear-hug.

As Dursaa’s rock-hard erection churned insistently inside Fluttershy, the little vampony’s brain exploded in orgasm, and her wings thrashed violently, her dainty form suddenly like trying to wrestle five griffins, and she split the air with guttural shrieking and her pussy went from spasming feverishly to full-on milking machine.

Dursaa, gritting his teeth, muscles standing out all over his body, stood it as long as he could, still hunching under his screeching lover even as she unleashed forces he could barely contain within his stern zebra grip… knowing that by dragging it out, he was stretching out her beautiful frenzy, that it would not end until he let go, that Fluttershy had turned into a wild beast in his arms and she was HIS wild beast and he was penetrating her to the hilt, to her unnatural and impossible delight, her brightest and darkest fantasies coming true with every intense ramming of his…

Dursaa came, like a zebra explosion.

Fluttershy squalled and passed out, as it hit her. Dursaa wrapped her even tighter in his forelegs, shuddering, feeling the spurts of zebra-come seem to squirt through her frantic tightness, feeling her body still writhe even while unconscious, feeling her little womb fill up with hot spunk. He didn’t let go. He knew his wife so well.

As she sagged and went limp, Dursaa stroked Fluttershy’s scraggly mane, damp with sweat. He shifted his hips back a bit. Just a tiny bit, not too much.

Fluttershy’s eyes fluttered. They opened, but unseeingly. She made a croaking noise, drooling on his chest. He contined to stroke her neck, firmly, gently.

Eventually, he cleared his throat.

“May I release the pressure?” Dursaa asked. “I am holding myself erect, which is increasingly difficult even with your vampire magic forcing me to be.”

Fluttershy blinked. Her eyes focussed on him, then widened and glanced down at his neck and chest, where there was no mark on him save the stripes that were his Zebra pride.

She glanced back up, into his loving, defiant gaze. Without a word, her husband seemed to say: of course you didn’t, you silly darling.

Fluttershy’s eyes glistened with grateful tears, and she melted against him, nuzzling his unharmed chest, nodding.

Dursaa’s hips relaxed, and he softened and tugged his flagging flagpole out of her exhausted pussy, and a flood of zebra semen followed it. The wild, sharp sensation of being inflated by excessive come on the end of a horny zebra also subsided, and as that final erotic goad drained away, Fluttershy melted even further, and couldn’t so much as lift a batty wing.

Dursaa smiled, and reached out a hoof, playfully lifting her wing for her and letting it sprawl bonelessly again. She nuzzled his chest. “Mmmm,” she crooned.

“Being a good vampony,” suggested Dursaa, “isn’t so bad!”

At that, Fluttershy’s eyes widened. She didn’t lift her head, but she wasn’t looking at Dursaa anymore. She’d had a twinge… a vampony twinge.

Not the kind she dreaded, though. The magic of choice and freedom still held. She’d had no desire to bite Dursaa. And yet, something had touched her, reached to her… it was a feeling, a vampire feeling, unmistakably.

A sense of… rivalry? Connection? Rebellion?

There was something in Ponyville, and it wasn't good.

Dursaa’s hoof continued to stroke her sweaty mane. His peace was palpable, the solidity of him reassuring, his love soothing.

Fluttershy continued to stare at nothing, as she contemplated that nagging, uncanny feeling.

The hillside seemed even darker. Two figures blighted it.

“No, dammit,” said one, “I tole you. It’s BECAUSE you’re so powerful and amazing, and smart as well…”

“Keep your voice down,” grumbled the other.

“Oh, you’re scared?”

Hollyhock, hidden in shadow, glared at Snowy Hocks. “Yeah. Dummy.”

“An’ I tole you,” said Snowy, “you need to turn me to another vampire because you’re so powerful an’ amazing that we should do it together. I just wanna serve you, how is that so dang hard to understand?”

Hollyhock snorted, sunk in gloom. “You jes’ don’t want to die.”

“So?” retorted Snowy Hocks, with spirit.

Hollyhock turned to him, and the eyes burned. “You wouldn’t like it. It IS dyin’, you stupid old piece o’ shit. Tellin’ me all this stuff, and no help at all…”

“Let me help you with it,” urged Snowy, his rheumy old eyes bright. “Let me be your right-hoof pony. I’ll be better’n ever, my hip won’t bother me, an’ I’ll be yours to command. How’s that?”

“You’re up to somethin’, you old fucker,” accused Hollyhock. “It’s a trick.”

“Trick?” said Snowy Hocks. “You want a trick? That Kirin’s gonna play a trick. It’s called killing your ass stone dead. You need me. Yes I wanna live forever, what’s the problem with that? But I’m gonna serve you. Don’t you realize you’re meant to rule Ponyville? Ah jes’ want to be next in line… I mean, your humble servant! No line!”

Snowy cowered back, hoping like hell that Hollyhock was as dumb as ever. Bad phrase! He vowed never to say ‘next in line’ again. Nothing, nothing whatsoever to reveal the truth.

He’d worked far too hard to set it all up, and it was all so close, so nearly within reach. It was dangerous, of course, but what wasn’t? Snowy felt the cold breath of mortality wafting ever closer. He proposed to spit in its eye, and have his revenge on all of Life while he was at it.

Hollyhock was an idiot, and vulnerable. There were ways to kill a vampire, and weaknesses of the vampire. The only reason Hollyhock was available to manipulate, was that he’d avoided all sight of Fluttershy ever since he’d bitten her wing in a gangbang so hard it drew blood. Hollyhock was dangerous, but also an opportunity. He could follow the usual hungers of the vampire and get himself caught and destroyed, but until that time, there was something he could give.

Eternal undeath… and the chance to be a thrall and slave to a sullen idiot who could barely come out of the rain without supervision. A thug, basically, good at farm labor but with nothing else to commend him, his mean streak contributing to his knack for herding. Eager to rape Fluttershy on that fateful day, mean and spiteful enough to viciously bite her wing knowing how serious it was for pegasi, doomed to undeath for his crimes and barely understanding what that meant. A pony so dumb it’d taken all Snowy’s arguing to keep him from running to the Apples and begging for help.

Snowy had bigger plans for him. It was a gamble, but now that a Kirin was visiting Ponyville, Snowy’s luck had finally turned. His patient terrorizing of the big dumb oaf had broken Hollyhock’s trust of the Apples, and all other Ponyville ponies, much less the Princesses. The second most important thing was the most certain, Snowy thought. The second most important thing was wearing Hollyhock down, putting so much fear into him that he’d agree to make Snowy his thrall. Hollyhock didn’t actually give a shit about Snowy, and didn’t really care whether he hurt ponies: that was useful, it meant that he didn’t care whether he hurt Snowy, or condemned him to undeath and slavery as a thrall.

The most important thing was this: if Snowy was thrall to Hollyhock who was thrall to Fluttershy, and Hollyhock got his dumb ass killed by the Kirin, then Snowy would be free with full vampiric powers and an unfettered mind… forever.

It all depended, thought Snowy, on whether he could resist the urge to protect his master once he was a vampire. If he didn’t get Hollyhock killed, he wouldn’t be free, and it might be an eternity of serving a thug and a fool. Snowy considered that bad, but tolerable: in eternity, there were many chances to see Hollyhock destroyed by his own folly. If Hollyhock got both himself and Snowy killed, that sucked but Snowy knew he didn’t have that long left anyhow. His body hurt, his brain seethed resentfully, and it was a chance worth taking. But ideally, he considered that he could con both Hollyhock and himself and come out of it a free vampire with the world at his hooves.

…just as soon as he took care of a few little details.

“Rulin’ Ponyville’s just the start,” suggested Snowy. “With me servin’ you, why, we could go off somewhere and rule a whole country. Would you like that? But you need to get me in on the whole vamp thing. How kin I think up ways to protect you from the Kirin if I’m still going around without vampire powers? But remember, you got to be careful, Hollyhock! From my researchin’ I know you can git more powerful by kinda consumin’ the souls of victims. You’d be good at that, I bet. But not mine! Keep me alive, I mean undead. Eat th’ souls of other, useless ponies. If you want. What with bein’ so smart an’ powerful an’ all.”

Even Snowy wondered for a moment if he’d spread it too thick. The very grass and flowers seemed to cringe away from the old pony and his suggestions… suggestions he’d been patiently working up to for some time. His companion stared sullenly at the ground for a while. When he looked at Snowy, it was with anger.

“This is all wrong,” said Hollyhock. “Dammit, Snowy. I was a farm pony! I had friends. I worked for the Apples, and that meant somethin’. It ain’t right. I AM scared. We’re lucky they ain’t figured it out. It’s just a matter of time before they turn on me, set me on fire an’ shit. Maybe you’re right and I got to start gittin’ them before they gittin’ me. It ain’t right. They was my friends, and now what am I? I’m a fuckin’ monster, I got no friends anymore, and you’re an asshole, you’re just mockin’ me.”

“Seems to me that’s just what you do need,” said Snowy. “A real friend. Somethin’ like you.”

“It ain’t right,” muttered Hollyhock. “It won’t work.” He couldn’t look away.

Snowy Hocks held his gaze… and his breath. He was so close. So, so close.

Road Trip

Twilight pouted, refusing to be soothed.

Her companion cleared a regal throat. “Please, Twilight, be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable!” objected her cranky Sparkle. “This is Ponyville, can’t we have some respect for our ways?”

“Not by default!” said Princess Celestia. “Respect is earned, and in this case dearly bought. I would love to see the Kirin appreciate you and Trixie, honestly I would. But you’ve only managed to insult her!”

“Good,” retorted Twilight. “Maybe it’s just the shock she needs. I didn’t forget what you told me. They stamp out unicorns that magemeld, in Neighpon, and you don’t even see a problem with it.”

Celestia bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Twilight. Must I remind you of the history? It seems their unicorns didn’t seek that power for good. Since those days, they have not sought to reclaim the knowledge: far from it, they celebrate their Kirin as deliverers, their shield against all manner of threat. Both from without… and within.” She gave Twilight a stern look.

“How threatening could magemelds be?”

Celestia frowned. “I don’t wish to bring up unpleasant memories, but… perhaps you remember a sad occasion where you charged, horn-first, only to encounter an unexpected Fluttershy and an abrupt return to mortality?”

Twilight met her gaze. “Gee, that’s a tough one. I get so many abrupt returns to mortality! Every other Wednesday, it’s ascension, casting down, ascension, casting down… How tiresome for us all!”

Celestia winced. “Sorry. But you see my point? No, ah, pun intended?”

“I don’t…” said Twilight, and then blinked. “Oh. Really? Neighponnese unicorns did magemelds to cast more powerful deathbolts? You’re kidding.”

“No!” protested Celestia. “Not exactly. I wouldn’t put it past them, though. Twilight, the Neighponnese unicorns, particularly stallions, would have their horns sharpened. They did battle that way, in the old days. I was there. It’s true.”

Twilight’s face had gone violet-green. “Eurgh. Really? But how… I mean, if it went wrong, it could SNAP… ugh!”

“Oh, yes,” said Celestia. “I saw that too. Tragic, and best consigned to the past.”

“I take it you straightened them out?” said Twilight.

“Indeed, no,” said Celestia. “Their Kirin led them away from those dark times. Sometimes harshly, sometimes kindly. Aggressive Neighponnese unicorn stallions can be stubborn and fierce. My point being, it’s this aggressive nature that came into play when they learned to magemeld. It’s possible there would have been scholars eventually, but the Neighponnese revere warriors… and their Kirin, and the elderly. If I understand correctly, it was a band of elderly warriors who first mastered the magemeld. You must believe me that they were a threat, and that the Kirin weren’t wrong in seeing them as one. Those days are long past, but still Kirin mistrust use of the magemeld by anyone but themselves.”

Twilight was silent, gazing into space.

“Princess?” she said at last. “How can you be sure? I’d like to believe you…”

“I’d like you to believe me too,” teased Celestia. “Sadly, I can’t take you thousands of years into the past to show you. Nopony has that power… not even Swirlie managed it, and he tried terribly hard.”

“I’d like to believe you,” insisted Twilight with a toss of her mane, “but here’s the problem: how can you talk of goodness like it’s a tangible thing? I didn’t know these Neighponnese unicorns. It sounds like they were the villains and the Kirin were the good ones, but it’s the Kirin telling us that, and also telling us they have like magical powers to be good and sense evil. You’ve got to admit that’s a little too convenient. How do you know?”

“Remember, I was there,” said Celestia. “I’ll tell you how I knew. I think you’d like it. It seems very much your style.”

“Oh?” said Twilight.

“Study,” said Princess Celestia, and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Oooh,” said Twilight, smirking. “You know me well. Bring it on! Though… you’re teasing me, Princess, because you know my weaknesses. Maybe you’re even trying to weasel out of the explanation by making me excited?”

“I do have you alone,” suggested Celestia. “Your Trixie’s gone off with Chaos to do things I’m sure we’d rather not hear about. Making you excited is not an unfitting state for a beloved unicorn consort.”

Twilight smirked again, but narrowed her eyes. “Agreed. I do wonder something, though. You studied these unicorns and Kirin. You’ve also told me the warrior unicorns could be fierce, sharpening their horns, attacking other ponies. If you studied them… do you mean to say you did nothing, while they acted with cruelty, all while the Kirin hunted them down? ‘Cause I think I can believe that, but it’s still a side of you I don’t often see.”

Celestia’s eyes had widened. “Oh, dear. How do you want me to answer, Twilight Sparkle? You cut to the heart of things, even without the use of alicorn deathbolts.”

“With the truth,” said Twilight, giving Celestia a little kiss on the muzzle. “I want to know how it was. Did you just let them suffer? And die?”

Celestia looked uncomfortable. “I must needs remind you I was but a guest. I’ve not returned to Neighpon since that time. We conduct diplomatic relations, and of course Neighponnese ponies can even come here to live, and I’m sure you’ve met Vinyl Scratch: she’s performed at quite a few castle functions and I’ve seen you dancing to her, ah, ‘beats’. I think she relishes the freedom of Equestria, and of course the great friendship she has with Octavia…”

“When you studied Neighpon,” pressed Twilight, “did you just watch them and do nothing?”

“Yes, Twilight,” said Celestia. “At the request of the Kirin. They are, to a Kirin, very convinced of their rightness, and they didn’t want interference. One explained to me the importance of tending their ponies, directing their fierceness and aggression in helpful ways. He used, as an example, those little tiny trees they grow: bound with stiff wires, to take on forms of beauty, in which they can grow throughout long and pampered lives without further direction. He seemed so certain that I wouldn’t understand the Neighponnese unicorn. I’m not sure the Kirin would have fought me had I insisted upon meddling. We never tested that, for I did nothing. I studied, and the Kirin continued to be Kirin.”

“And?” said Twilight, quirking an ear.

“That’s how I know,” said Celestia, simply. “They might have fooled me for a while, but I gave them ample opportunity to reveal their true selves, and so they did. They’re good creatures. Indeed, I learned much from them… perhaps too much. I am not a Kirin, Twilight. I spent century after century, tending my ponies with love and what we might consider artistic intentions: I’d lost Starswirl, and a part of me wished to behave like a magical creature that would find no mate other than those like myself. But there aren’t male alicorns… so I became chaste. Aloof, benevolent, untouchable… I fear I was foolish for thousands of years, but we’ve been over that.”

Twilight nodded. “You studied Kirin for pony lifetimes, that’s how you know them?”

“Exactly.”

“But this one’s come to Ponyville as a sex tourist,” pointed out Twilight. “How could they have taught you to be so sexless when they can be so randy?”

Celestia sagged. “I think the operative words there, Twilight, are ‘come to Ponyville’. Might I suggest that she could hardly have picked a randier place to visit? I’m sure we wouldn’t have it any other way. I believe Vinyl Scratch also migrated here for similar reasons. The Kirin are fairly tolerant of wanton behavior, but perhaps a little dismissive. They don’t exactly embrace their animal natures, and when they do, I’m not surprised they leave home to do it.”

Twilight mulled this over. “So… in Neighpon, do they get up to crazy repressed sex stuff? Like Ponyville did, when you were more uptight?”

Celestia gave her a narrowed-eyed glance. “If they do, it’s on sufferance of their Kirin. I didn’t see any, but I may say I wasn’t looking, at the time. Why are you making a face, Twilight?”

“I am?” squeaked Twilight. “Sorry! I just… something about it seems wrong to me. What do you mean, if they do? I’ve seen Vinyl Scratch. They say she’s really wild! I’m just trying to square the Kirin being as good as you say, with this… repressive regime thing you’re telling me about.”

“Repressive? Nay!” protested Celestia. “I tell you, they are staunch and trustworthy beyond belief! How can I convey the influence they… listen, Twilight. Though in some ways I have moved on, still my life was for thousands of years influenced by the Kirin.” She gulped. “And, though I say it, you loved me just the same. Please understand that I, in a way, loved the Kirin just as well…”

Twilight gazed into her eyes. “Hey.”

“Twilight?”

“I LOVE you just the same,” corrected Twilight, with easy authority. “None of this past tense business.”

Celestia’s eyes brimmed with sentimental tears. “Oh, Twilight Sparkle!”

“Even when you’re bad,” added Twilight, smirking.

That broke the sentiment. Celestia gasped. “Twilight! I am not bad, prithee! What on earth do you mean?”

Instead of answering, Twilight smirked again… then lazily rolled on her back, splaying her legs and flicking her tail coquettishly. She twisted around and grinned at her Princess, upside-down, as Celestia stared at the manifold lavender delights there for the savoring.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “Even when you’re silly.” She wriggled, and her dainty unicorn pussy winked at her royal lover.

Celestia gulped again, unable to look away. Her heart pounded, as it hadn’t in previous centuries, and her mind was a whirl of present, past and future. The years of raising the exceptional little filly, the responsibility, the refusal to admit things to herself even as Twilight grew into a devastatingly enticing, self-possessed young unicorn mare… the unwitting lessons she’d taught her charge, the emotions as Twilight found a marefriend, the impressive chaos and barely-averted carnage as her own pent-up feelings and Twilight’s came into conflict… and, eventually, as true ponies would always do, the finding a path through the unhappiness to acceptance and friendship. More-than-friendship… as was lurking, all along.

“Silly, yes,” admitted Princess Celestia. “You forgive me?”

Twilight smirked, upside-down. “Mmmmmaybe? How about you show me how much you’ve learned?”

Princess Celestia’s smile began to grow wider and wider. “Beloved consort! Darling baby unicorn sweetie pie! Indeed I have learned some important things. You just lay back,” she suggested while her horn lit and a small metal cylinder flashed through the air toward her, “and I would be immeasurably delighted to…”

She stopped. Twilight’s horn had lit, also, and had grabbed for the bit. Though Celestia could easily wrest it from Twilight’s grasp, though Twilight was still smiling cutely, Celestia hesitated.

“This is not what you wish?” she asked, with the hint of a royal pout.

“Maybe not like that,” said Twilight. “Right now, I don’t want to be your cute little unicorn pet, okay? We’re using a tool me and Trixie invented—at least this version. We’ve been talking about the Kirin, and they keep their ponies like they’re pets or children, and they had you acting like them for centuries. Yes, fuck me, nothing would make me happier, but not so much with the little sweetie stuff? I might not be an alicorn anymore, but let me feel my power. We both know I’m not your filly anymore.”

Celestia gazed at her. “That is so true. It applies to your Trixie, as well. I might even say it applies to all the Ponyville ponies. I’ve learned to respect your strengths, once I started paying attention. I’ve learned. Haven’t I?”

Twilight nodded. “I love you, Princess. I’m ready.”

“Are you?” purred Celestia, with a tilt of her head and a glint of the eye.

“Oh my gosh are you gonna plow me real hard?” squeaked Twilight. “Wow! Hold on a moment…” She began clopping herself with a hoof, hastily.

“If you wish,” said Princess Celestia, taken aback. “You need only ask. But… well…”

“Well what?” blinked Twilight.

Instead of answering, Celestia relinquished the magic bit, laying it gently on the bedspread. Then she rolled over, her massive elegant form rotating until she’d taken a pose just like Twilight’s. Her head was more laid on its side, as her mighty horn limited her posture, but her long, supple hind legs splayed wantonly just as Twilight’s lavender limbs had.

Twilight gawked at the display, as the huge powerful alicorn who’d so often taken a bit and reduced her to mare jelly, wriggled decorously in turn, the play of muscle beneath her silky coat sheer poetry in motion.

Celestia’s elegant pussy winked, and Twilight’s jaw dangled.

Celestia pouted, after a moment. “You need not, if you do not wish. I only thought you would enjoy feeling your power…”

Twilight reeled in her jaw. “Um… I know what you like, Princess. Unless we’re going to bring Chaos in and transform me, I have to say I’m just not going to be able to make a dick that would impress you. I mean… you’ve seen it! Haven’t you?”

Celestia’s expression darkened, and she snorted. “Of course I have! I know exactly what my beloved is packing.”

“Then…”

“I don’t care. Touch me, beloved,” said Celestia, and wriggled again, winking.

The smile that grew on Twilight’s face was worth the effort. For a moment, she resembled a filly on Hearth’s Warming morning, veritably squeeing with excitement. Then, her expression composed itself, and though the smile remained it grew more and more confident, powerful, proud.

“You know,” said Twilight Sparkle, “I think I will.”

Unhurriedly, Twilight rolled over and got to her hooves. She slunk across the royal-sized bed, hooves sinking into the softness of the mattress, and lowered her head, Celestia watching her closely—then moaning, as Twilight’s nose nuzzled her alabaster mound.

The cute little pink unicorn tongue emerged, to lick teasingly at the thrusting emergence of Celestia’s mighty clit. The Princess held her breath. Naughty Twilight had once suckled so hard on that prong that pony teeth had got involved, and ended up dangling by her mane and being scolded: Celestia tolerated much, but certain things counted as lese majeste, at least to the point of a scolding. Not a spanking, for both Twilight and Trixie treated that as foreplay.

This time, there was no sucking, no nibbling much less biting. Celestia winked once, twice, answered only by affectionate licks. And then Twilight was back across the bed, her horn lighting, the magic bit hovering and then clamped between her teeth.

She turned, and awkwardly reared in spite of the unsteady footing. She kicked the air with forehooves in mocking ferocity, but her grin around the metal bit suggested she saw the humor in that posturing. Far from putting the fear of cock in the hapless Princess and shocking her system, Twilight had to wonder if Celestia would properly feel her at all. Yet, she advanced, the lovely slender violet ponycock jutting bravely from between her legs, the curiously narrow flare already stiffening.

She was upon Celestia, who curled her legs back invitingly. Twilight grinned down upon her royal lover with her chin held high, and without a pretense of warming the mighty alicorn pussy up, Twilight thrust.

Celestia moaned, again, and Twilight’s grin widened as she drank in the Princess’s pleasure. Soon, her tactics were obvious.

Though Twilight’s hips swayed and plunged in a dreamy tempo, she barely made any attempt to plunge deep into her lover. Once, to see what it was like, she thrust to the hilt and pressed her crotch against Celestia’s mound good and hard, feeling the alabaster pussy clamp down urgently upon her… but as expected, Twilight’s cock was adrift in a sea of Princess-pussy and she didn’t bother trying to impress with her length or girth again. Even with Trixie, Twilight found herself the dainty one, and inside Celestia the size mismatch was considerable… and yet, Twilight’s grin didn’t flag, for she had something else in mind.

Earnestly, Twilight began fondling Celestia’s vagina from the inside, thrusting and twisting and angling herself to savor every inch she could touch.

Celestia’s eyes widened, then grew luminous and quivery as she took in Twilight’s exultant gaze… and she melted, giving in to the obvious sensuality of that erotic touching. Not since Chaos had turned into a strange pink creature with fingers had a slender prong caressed and fondled Celestia’s insides so intently. Twilight’s magic-induced erection didn’t bend or curl up, but all the same it reached into Celestia and touched, stroked, explored.

Twilight’s teeth were bared slightly as her hips complained. She ignored them. It was more important to manipulate her angle, to feel Celestia’s body shudder as she rubbed her flare against the top wall of Celestia’s fevered pussy, so juicy and wet, with rude and wonderful noises emerging from between them like stirring a pot of particularly squishy jam.

Celestia was trying to clamp down, trying to be tight for Twilight and more closely resemble a mortal mare. Twilight noticed, and gently cuffed her barrel with the back of a hoof, giving just the suggestion of a headshake, and the Princess relented and allowed herself to relax. Twilight went on stirring the glorious royal vagina, glorying in each little shudder and spasm she produced.

It seemed that when she angled herself a certain way, erection stiff and the end of her cock flaring out ebulliently with arousal, she could massage the upper wall of Celestia’s vagina just a little way inside her. It seemed that when she did this, her Princess lover jolted and gasped. It seemed a fine idea to do it again and again and again.

And then, with Celestia moaning sweetly and squirming under her smaller body, Twilight took a moment to thrust to the hilt a second time, nuzzling Celestia’s mighty chest, prodding with her hips, savoring the feel of her lavender pony breasts against her alicorn lover’s breasts, her hard-on like some thermometer taking the temperature of the breathless alicorn. That temperature was hot, beautifully hot.

She returned to her intent fondling, to scrubbing the edge of her flare against that quivery pillow of flesh, so very soft and tender, and she watched Celestia’s lovely eyes and grinned around the magic bit.

Celestia’s O-face had appeared. The massive, elegant Princess gazed down at Twilight’s loving and determined attentions and her expression had gone past bliss, through a sort of muted amazement, into a peculiar sort of awe. It wasn’t that Twilight was pounding her and shocking her body, far from it; rather, the enamoured unicorn was able to project a kind of sensuality that Celestia couldn’t help but respond to. She never let up, and the power within her was expressed purely through sheer selfless appreciation, and the slender magic wand between Twilight’s legs probed and explored joyously, returning again and again to that sensitive pillowy softness that made Celestia shudder and bare her own teeth in a snarl of passionate ecstacy…

Twilight was shivering all over, feeling the electricity between them, wallowing in it. Her cock tingled with a fire of sensation, drenched in the tender juicy wetness of Celestia’s vagina, flaring stiffer and stiffer as she devoted herself to her joyous task, feeling a building tension beneath her…

Princess Celestia’s eyes filled with wonder. She drew a deep, shivery breath.

“Unh!” moaned the Princess. Her body jolted. Twilight grinned harder, her face flushed purplish-red with excitement, and kept her motions up.

“Nnnnh! UNNH!”

Celestia allowed herself to gaze off into space, for that was where she was headed: inside her, coaxed by her lover’s impassioned fondlings, a mighty wave began to build. At first, it was just a few fireworks, spasms of pleasure in answer to the lovemaking. Then, they didn’t stop, they kept going as Twilight grinned up at her and kept touching her there…

“Hh… Hhh! Uhhh! Nnnh! Nnn, NNGH!”

Twilight rejoiced… and gritted her teeth on the bit, hanging in there as hard as she could. Princess Celestia wasn’t focussed on her anymore. Instead, her eyes were wide and wondrous and staring at nothing, her mane disheveled, and Celestia began to come in earnest, and the glorious Princess-pussy began first clenching at Twilight’s slim wand, and then going berserk upon her. The sensations were beyond belief: the vast juicy space that had enfolded her so yieldingly, began jerking her off with royal ferocity.

Twilight came inside her alicorn lover in an eager jet of unicorn spunk, and bore down on the bit for all she was worth, hanging in there just to savor every little moment.

“Unhh! Eeeeh! Mmmh, uhh! hh!”

Celestia squealed prettily, panted, her face flushed as she came and came, riding that wave of gentle stimulation, quivering with pleasure as the orgasms washed lovingly over her, beaming down at Twilight even as the lavender unicorn smiled back. They’d not often ridden such a wave. Both alicorn and unicorn enjoyed a taste for the fierce, liked to be erotically overwhelmed, and yet this different approach had become a new experience: always under control, yet blessed all the same and saturated with a strange and heady benevolence.

Twilight nuzzled against Celestia’s chest, sweating down her nose with her mane sticking to her forehead, and nudged the slender phallus to the hilt inside Celestia to feel every last little quiver and gasp.

Celestia bit her lower lip in sheer delight, gave a last shudder, and let out the breath she was holding. Idly, she petted Twilight’s mane even as the little unicorn pony nuzzled her belly and chest.

“Mmm,” purred Celestia. “Come up. Come UP!”

Her horn lit, and Twilight wriggled as she felt the bit being gently prised from her mouth. Celestia was reaching down for her. She allowed the magic bit to be removed, her stylish unicorn erection vanished away—so vast was Celestia, that the ponycome Twilight had squirted inside her didn’t even pour out before disappearing—and Twilight crawled up over Celestia’s quivering belly and into her embracing forelegs.

And was hidden, all but her cute little head, for Princess Celestia wrapped all four legs and her wings around her beloved in a hug that threatened to squish the little unicorn flat.

“UHMmmmmm!” crooned Twilight, exulting in every bit of it.

“Oh, my love!” moaned Princess Celestia, giddy with emotion.

“We’re good at this!” giggled Twilight. “Is that your cup of tea, Princess, over there? Maybe I’d better feed you some tea, to get your strength back.”

“You are miraculous!” insisted Celestia.

“It took you this long to figure that out?” came the wry, arrogant little voice.

Twilight’s and Celestia’s eyes flew wide. They looked toward the door. Inside the room and unnoticed until this moment, Trixie Lulamoon and Chaos the ice-blue alicorn waif burst into cheerful equine applause, smirking like they’d pulled off a truly wonderful trick.

Twilight and Celestia blushed cherry-red, each smiling more than the other.

Then, Trixie galloped over and flung herself onto the gently steaming pair. “Yay! You clearly had almost as good a time as the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Celestia oofed. Twilight boggled at her marefriend. “Almost? Almost as good a time? Are you crazy? What could you possibly have done with Chaos, or Discord if that’s how you played it, that was anything like as good as this?”

Chaos blinked. “In fact, it was Discord… well, mostly. May I ask how you knew?”

“I didn’t,” said Twilight. “I was just guessing. What the heck is ‘discord, mostly’?”

Trixie turned, her eyes dancing. “Show her! Show my Twilight the special thing you made!”

At this, the little alicorn demurred, turning and lifting a forehoof as if to ward off the idea. “Oh, I don’t think so. It’s not a good idea, Trixie, please don’t suggest it again…”

Princess Celestia’s expression was memorable. “Chaos? Swirlie-discord-chaos-pie? What in Equestria has she had you make, that YOU of all creatures are afraid to show us?”

Chaos looked apologetic. “I’ve been trying to learn the dictates of reality, Celly. Honestly I have. Just because I needn’t bother with them doesn’t mean other ponies don’t enjoy a more reality-based environment.”

Trixie snorted contemptuously, grinning. “More fools they!”

“Twilight wouldn’t like it,” countered Chaos.

Trixie pouted. “Maybe not. She’s pretty hardcore, though!”

“It’s not the same,” insisted Chaos, with a wary glance at Celestia. Twilight ignored them and her horn lit, as she brought the cup of tea over for her Princess.

“What are you doing with her?” asked Celestia. “Answer!” She sipped her tea, watching her immortal counterpart closely.

Chaos drooped. “Please, Celly. Just as you’ve found love, I’ve found a simply marvellous outlet for my most chaotic impulses. I’ve never meant for those to upset you, but somehow when a pony flings herself so heedlessly into them, at last I can understand what you find so disconcerting.”

“Well,” said Celestia, her ears splayed in perplexity, “Twilight’s good at flinging herself heedlessly too. Is this something you’re depriving her of?”

Chaos glanced at Twilight, who was also taken aback by the tone of the discussion. “Twilight tends to treat reality as an obligation. Trixie treats reality as a challenge…”

“Yes!” declared Trixie. “Trixie treats reality as an insult! Conquer the impossible, always!”

“Oh, stop hinting!” Twilight burst out. “What did you DO to her? It totally made her day, whatever it was.” She took a sip of the tea, herself.

Chaos blushed brightly… and then she morphed, and Discord was standing there.

“Big deal,” said Twilight. “As if a little snakey draconequus action would horrify me. I might…”

One of Discord’s horns, the lumpy pointy one, transformed into a long, writhing tentacle. Trixie’s mouth opened in a silent squee of delight.

Twilight gulped. “Ah. But you know, that’s still not THAT out there compared to…”

The end of the tentacle transformed into a gleaming, metallic eggbeater. It glinted in the light for a moment, and then began to spin with a metallic whirring sound and the occasional ‘ting’ as the eggbeater blades smacked into each other.

The glints of light from the whirring metallic thing reflected in the wide, horrified eyes of Twilight and Celestia, speechless with dismay, both wearing cartoony frown-faces.

In a splurge of chaotic magic, Discord-tentacle-eggbeater turned back into little Chaos the alicorn, who scampered forward crying, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Don’t look that way about it, you insisted I tell you when I knew I should not!”

“Nooo!” wailed Trixie, stamping her hoof petulantly. “Turn Trixie’s lower regions to whipped cream again! And then drink her out!”

Twilight gulped, her ear twitching. “You mean ‘eat her out’, surely?” she said, and sipped her tea again, shaken.

“No, Trixie means…”

“Please!” begged Chaos. “My courageous darling! One of the things I’ve learned from Celestia’s good little ponies is caring. Some things should be private, if they’d upset those we love.”

Celestia pulled herself together. “I… see. All very consensual, at least. How… novel. It certainly gives the phrase ‘unicorn juices’ a whole new, ah, spin!” She twitched. “So… we can at least assure ourselves of this, that you might drink Trixie in an unorthodox manner… but at least there’s no eating Trixie?”

“I was cake!” chirped Trixie happily.

“PFFFT!” Twilight spat out her tea, in shock.

“Trixie, please!” pleaded Chaos. “I love all you ponies, and my beloved Princess, and I love you too! You’re just very… special. Don’t upset them!”

Trixie glanced at where Twilight and Celestia were clinging to each other, with matching stunned looks. “Hmph. Very well. Trixie cannot expect everypony to be truly imaginative.” She wriggled, reminiscently.

Twilight reeled in her dangling jaw. “You were… ALL of you, was cake? How does that even work? Does it even FEEL…”

“Ahnnn,” crooned Trixie. Chaos was blushing a fierce cherry red, and couldn’t meet Celestia’s or Twilight’s eyes.

Twilight gulped. “You turned to… to PONY cake. With sensation. And you had him EAT you… all of you? Seriously?”

“All but one eyeball!” boasted Trixie. “We played with it! Well, he did. You’d be surprised what you can do with the right kind of eyeball!”

“Uh-huh…” managed Twilight.

“He did a triple-cushion bank shot into the corner pocket!” said Trixie, proudly. “The long stick poked Trixie right in the cornea!”

Chaos pounced, and hugged her demented blue unicorn tight. “Trixie, please! Be fair. Twilight and Celly are very very jaded themselves, they’re not lightweights as you put it. Honestly, they’re not, and I don’t want you teasing them this way. You’re just… special, in your willingness to experience things.”

“I’ll say,” mumbled Twilight. “How do you even eat a cake of pony?”

“Slowly!” said Trixie. “With much tearing off the tasty pieces, one by one. Big teeth! Except when they were dominoes, for some reason.” She glanced suspiciously at Chaos. “What was that about? They still worked, though. Blunter.”

“Chaos is sometimes very strong with me,” said the little ice-blue alicorn, still blushing brightly. “Celly, Twilight! Erm… here she is. As good as ever, I promise you. We had fun. I think dear Trixie had even more fun with me, than I with her, though. Trixie, please! We should explore more of my fantasies. You know, the rather silly and fun things? Not so much yours, though I applaud the clarity and scope of your artistic vision.”

“Can’t we do both?” said Trixie winsomely. “We did do both! Trixie was quite at your disposal for your most chaotic impulses, and had excellent suggestions you really liked.”

Chaos’s ear twitched. “That is true,” she said bravely, “but all the same, some of the details about sensation and, ah, ripping were far more about your pleasure than mine. I confess I don’t entirely understand what’s so delightful about that, though you seemed to enjoy it.”

“Trixie came buckets!” boasted Trixie.

“Yes, that was a good suggestion too,” said Chaos, “but they didn’t need to be so uncomfortably large, you know.”

“Yes they did,” said Trixie dismissively. She glanced at her Twilight, and her face fell. “Awww… Mistress!”

With that, she’d rushed over and was hugging Twilight fervently. “Don’t look that way, Mistress! Trixie will always love you best! Trixie was just playing with a new playmate, and wants to share the things she’s discovered! Chaos, come over here, do the pool table thing, Mistress would make a lovely ponyball! It’s fun!”

Chaos wasn’t responding, however. Her gaze was locked with Celestia’s, and then she shook her head and said “No thank you, Trixie. I too easily forget the art of compromise, in your presence. As much as I enjoy playing, there are some kinds of play best kept with those who can truly enjoy them. My beloved Celly, and your beloved Twilight, don’t thrive on chaos the way you so wonderfully do.”

Trixie pouted. “No freaking out the Princess? No freaking out Mistress?”

“No, Trixie,” said Chaos gently. “Humor me?”

“Oh,” said Trixie. She brightened. “Then let’s go freak out the Kirin! She’s uptight about all kinds of stuff, even unicorn magemelding!”

Chaos’s pretty lip curled in a wry smile. “Heh. Now you’re talking.”

Twilight visibly brightened as well. “Yes! A lot of nerve she has, objecting to us unicorns showing skills. Offensive,” she snorted.

“She is the color of a cue ball already!” said Trixie. “Let’s go play with her!”

Twilight smirked. “Perhaps a little eggbeater work would do her some good.”

Trixie beamed, then wrinkled her brow. “Trixie thinks her vagina looked very small, compared to a pony.” She brightened. “Of course! A little crowbar and eggbeater work would do the trick!” She bounced on all four hooves, with an adorable squee.

“That would be fun to watch,” said Twilight, her smirk growing still more wicked.

Chaos gulped. “If she’s small even for a pony, Crowbar is the last horse we’d want to pair her with…”

“Stop!” said Princess Celestia, sternly. They looked at her, but her eyes were on her unicorn consort, Twilight Sparkle. “Stop it, Twilight,” she said. “This is exactly why I carried you off by the scruff of your mane, to get you away from her.”

Twilight glared, offended. “It wasn’t even my idea! Trixie’s the one who wants to widen her with a crowbar. And if she’s not safe to have around Ponyville unicorns, why am I the one who has to get a time-out?”

Celestia met her gaze. “Because you’re so cross with her, that’s why. Trixie doesn’t really understand there’s anything wrong with the suggestion: indeed, as it’s chaos magic and not properly real, in a sense there is nothing wrong with it. As such, Kirin in general would hardly target her, and might even appreciate her strange but positive intentions.”

“Yay!” said Trixie.

“But,” added Celestia hastily, “Chaos sees the problem. This particular Kirin would not understand. They’re orderly creatures, responsible, and the connotations of doing a thing in unreality that would be the cruelest behavior possible in reality…”

“Trixie doesn’t know. Can Discord become a blender?”

“Shush!” scolded Celestia, and turned again to Twilight Sparkle. “My point being, you don’t like this Hina-rin, Twilight. I noticed that. Since you don’t like her, you’re taking too much pleasure in the idea of provoking her. I really must object. You’re being unfair, and no, you may not widen the Kirin with a crowbar and then masturbate her with a working eggbeater on the end of a tentacle. It would be…” said Celestia, and groped for a suitable word, “…rude.”

“Rude?!” demanded Twilight. “What about the way she treats us, and our magemelds? And the natural process of unicorn mating!”

“Impolite?” suggested Celestia, in a kind of despair. She’d thought Luna had picked an awkward unicorn consort in Lyra, but ever since she and Chaos had begun a complicated relationship with Twilight and Trixie, she’d had to redefine the word ‘awkward’.

“Enough,” said Chaos, her little soprano voice firm. “Celly’s right. I’ve never seen this creature, maybe there’s no way I ever will if she has that big a problem with Chaos (which I am), but I will not take action to upset her. Learning about the feelings of others is good! It’s good for me, and you shan’t entice me into old ways, when I gleefully violated the reality of ponies and Ponyville just to enjoy their reactions.”

“Right,” said Celestia. “Thank you, dear.”

“Now I can violate Trixie, and she likes it,” added Chaos brightly.

“Trixie loves it!” confirmed Trixie.

“Indeed,” said Celestia, trying not to lose track of the conversation. “Twilight, please: I thought returning you to Canterlot would keep you out of trouble with the Kirin. How can I persuade you? They’re good creatures, truly they are. There was a time when you’d have adored them, and perhaps that’s the problem. You’ve become so rebellious. I suppose Trixie has as well, though it seems nearly impossible to tell the difference.”

Twilight pouted. “We only have one life to live, Princess. It makes both me and Trixie happy to spend it with you, here in Canterlot, but I once thought I’d teach Ponyville independence and pride. I taught YOU to respect mortal ponies. Now you’re telling me there’s this thing visiting Ponyville, and she looks down on ponies like they’re not even people, but it’s all right because she’s protecting them? Princess, I consider that a bad influence.”

Celestia frowned. “She does not look down on ponies. Kirin treasure even the blades of grass upon which they walk. She’s squeamish about magemelds because that’s how they have sex, and snippy about horngasms because that’s not how they have sex, but as you can see she aches for the touch of a good stallion so I think you’re over-reacting. Can’t she have some tiresome attitudes if they do no harm? And Kirin categorically refuse to do, or allow, pointless harm.”

“So they take those warlike unicorn stallions from old Neighpon,” countered Twilight, “and file their horns blunt, maybe alter their minds so that they just smile and eat grass? That’s disgusting!”

Celestia’s nostrils flared. “No, Twilight! They did no such thing. The Kirin of that age explained to me their duty of moderating and guiding those impulses. They set up a sort of dueling society, and took pains to make sure all the unicorns understood the risks, and the limitations of being victorious. They allowed the fighting, Twilight. But, no Neighponnese warrior would turn his sharpened horn on innocents, or foals, or a rival who’d surrendered. They internalized their lessons, and they learned honor. Perhaps they also helped to teach their Kirin about honor. It is something of a symbiotic relationship, really.”

Twilight’s righteousness had drained away. “Oh. That does sound pretty wise, I guess.”

“As wise as they could be,” said Celestia. “Not perfect, but ever growing. Twilight, this custom continues even now. From what little I know about it, serious injuries are less common, because the duellists treat it as a matter of skill and quickly recognize the limitations of injury. Retired Neighponnese warriors are honored in their society, and they turn to the role of teachers very often. Direct intervention by Kirin is rarely needed. You could go to Neighpon and see this for yourself. The cherry blossoms might be in bloom.”

Twilight pondered this. “Hmmm. It might be fun. We’d be leaving Ponyville for a while, though.”

Celestia smirked, very slightly. “Now who’s being overprotective?”

Twilight stuck out her tongue at her. “Hmph!”

“There could hardly be a better time to do it,” suggested Celestia. “Setting aside the fact that between you, Trixie, and Chaos, most of the Ponyville trouble is sitting in this room… there’s the Kirin. If you’re at all worried about leaving Ponyville unattended, rest assured that with a visiting Kirin enjoying the stallions, no harm could possibly befall it. Firstly, Ponyville itself is strikingly free of mischief, present company excluded, and secondly if trouble arose, the Kirin would make every effort to protect all the good creatures of the town. And I say good creatures advisedly: yes, there’s a vampony, but I’ve seen Kirin befriend wild and savage beasts as often as they’ve struck down other sorts of predators. They go by evilness, not by prejudice, and respond to goodness, not surface appearances. And I ask you, honestly! What in all Ponyville could possibly improve the moral position of Fluttershy?”

“An eggbeater?” suggested Twilight.

Princess Celestia face-hoofed.

“A tentacle!” cried Chaos. “I really ought to look into broadening my relationship with Fluttershy. Nothing would delight me more than to bring her pleasure, though she’s a little uptight about it and only wants her big zebras. Understandable, I suppose.”

Princess Celestia glanced over at Trixie in weary expectation of more ribald byplay.

And froze, because tears glistened in Trixie’s eyes, and her face wore a shockingly vulnerable, yearning look.

“Trixie! Trixie, dear, whatever is the matter?” asked Celestia, as the other two turned and saw her.

Trixie gulped.

“The cherry blossoms… in bloom, along the river…”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Trixie? Are you okay?”

Trixie’s lip quivered, and then Twilight was hugging her.

“Oh, no!” cried Chaos. “I broke Trixie. I’m so sorry! I might have left some whipped cream in her brain. Give me a moment, I’ll fix her right up!”

She, too, pounced, but then both she and Twilight were knocked aside by a fierce shove. Trixie burst forth, her ears back and her tears still leaking but forgotten. She charged right up to Princess Celestia.

“Will you take us? Will you take Trixie? You’d better not be joking! Please, don’t be joking?”

Celestia studied her. “I can only assume you mean Neighpon, Trixie. Why this terrible urgency? Have you never seen it?”

For a moment, Trixie’s face twisted in grief, and she was unable to speak. Then, she managed to.

“No. Trixie has…”

“Tell us,” urged Twilight, walking up and hugging her marefriend. “I’ve never seen this side of you.”

That got her a sidelong glance. “No, Mistress. You have. Trixie didn’t explain everything.”

“How about you start?” suggested Twilight. “I could spank you until you explain…”

“Twilight!” objected Princess Celestia.

“…but,” continued Twilight with a sharp look at her Princess, “I can tell this is one of those times where it’s too serious and you aren’t playing. That freaks me out, Trixie. Please tell us.”

“Trixie will,” said Trixie, and took a deep breath. “If Princess Celestia promises she wasn’t joking…”

“I’d like to hear your story,” said Princess Celestia gravely. “Indeed, I need to hear more before I answer. Why does Neighpon upset you so?”

“Lost hope,” said Trixie. “Give Trixie a moment…”

As she explained, her companions’ eyes widened.

“Mistress, do you remember a book? A very old book that your cleaning spell ate, and Trixie threw a terrible tantrum and was disciplined? A book you said you replaced, with a lovely gilt-edged edition, but Trixie reminded you that the original book was one of the first in Trixie’s library, with her throughout her travels?”

Twilight nodded. “I do remember. I guess it’s sentimental value? I said I was sorry. I always wondered what it was about that book. Your other favorites were more advanced magic. Comparative Thamaturgy A To Z is so much more general, though it’s got lovely pictures…” At that, Twilight fell silent, thinking.

Trixie nodded. “The book was worn out for a reason. It wasn’t because of the spells and cantrips outlined within its pages. Trixie learned far better magic long ago,” she boasted. “Neigh, it was special because of those lovely pictures.”

“You’re right!” said Twilight. “I do remember pictures of Neighpon. I’m afraid in the original book they were tattered almost beyond recognition. I’d hoped you’d like the new copy. I’ve never understood your attitude toward it. It’s like you’re reverent, but you don’t want to look at it. Or am I reading too much into your reaction?”

Trixie trembled. “Mistress is observant. There is a reason for the condition of my special book.”

“If it upsets you, Trixie,” said Celestia gently, “you don’t have to tell us. Or we could give you space, and let you tell just only Twilight…”

“Trixie wants to tell!” insisted Trixie. “Mistress will just have to cope. Trixie doesn’t mean to be ungrateful…”

“I remember,” said Twilight somberly. “Princess, I destroyed a special book of Trixie’s, one she carried around when she had no friends and was under a curse. I can’t truly replace it with a new copy because it was that particular book that she had all those years.”

“No,” said Trixie. “You can’t replace it because, when Trixie was chased out of town and hid in a hole or some cave or shivered in the wilderness far from any friendly pony face, she had that book. And Trixie would open it to those pages she knew so well, and read about the beauty and peace of Neighpon, and the cherry blossoms along the river. “

Her friends were silent.

“And Trixie would imagine herself there, imagine with all her heart, and Trixie would cuddle up to the book, lying against the pages with her face against the picture, pretending to be lying underneath the gentle boughs with the cherry blossoms sprinkling sedately down upon her, and Trixie would sleep. And that is why the book was such a wreck, and why it couldn’t really be replaced by a new copy.”

Princess Celestia said softly, “There are boats, ferries, bound for Neighpon. Did you never seek to journey there?”

Trixie gazed up at her, and the tearful eyes burned.

“I went there,” she said.

“What happened, Trixie?”

“Trixie went there before she came to Ponyville, before she met Twilight Sparkle. It was in the last days of Trixie’s magic bit curse. She reached the shore, and two old Kirin were there, much older than the one in Ponyville. They looked so sad…”

Her face screwed up in anguish. For a moment, she couldn’t continue.

“Trixie turned around and came back,” she said, finally. “Not home: Trixie had no home, nothing but her gifts and her curse. It had already killed a pony. Trixie knew the Kirin weren’t wrong when they advised her to go away. They could not stand by once Trixie’s curse awoke and began harming ponies, but as long as Trixie was far from Neighpon they would not pursue her…”

Her three companions were speechless.

“Trixie never saw a cherry blossom,” concluded Trixie. “And if Trixie had not found Twilight Sparkle, Trixie doesn’t know what would have happened.”

Celestia cleared her throat. “I see. But when I mentioned the cherry blossoms, it brought up this old pain?”

Then, she oofed. The Great and Powerful Trixie had charged right over and tackled her in a frantic, fervent hug.

“YOU can bring Trixie!” she cried, and burst into tears.

Celestia snuggled the fretful blue unicorn with a vast, feathery wing. Her eyes were wide in startlement, and she looked to Twilight and Chaos for reactions.

Chaos said, “Do you think they banished her for good, or only while the curse afflicted her? I take it they couldn’t have cured it.”

Twilight said, “I don’t see what difference that could possibly make. I say we go there, Princess! For Trixie!”

“But,” said Chaos, “well… I don’t pretend to be an expert on these things, but as Celly describes it those Kirin respond to evilness. If she was suffering from a curse with evil effects, they might have felt duty-bound to destroy her.” She pouted. “They should have asked me. I’d have turned the curse to something amusing. Though as I understand it, they hate chaos too, don’t they?”

“We’re taking her to Neighpon and that’s final!” insisted Twilight.

“That Kirin visiting us didn’t complain of Trixie's presence,” mused Celestia. “She spoke of evil, but she’s not been hunting any. She’s apparently had sex with three of the flower ponies and Caramel, which seems a far cry from seeking evil.”

Twilight boggled at her Princess. “How the heck do you know that?”

Celestia gulped. “Rumor?”

“Rumor mongering’s supposed to be wicked,” said Chaos. “Though it produces the most delicious chaos!”

Hastily, Celestia cleared her throat. “We SHALL visit Neighpon! Immediately! The Kirin can mind Ponyville while we’re away. Luna can mind their dreams, if she is not too preoccupied with Lyra and the foals.”

“Yay!” cheered Twilight and Chaos, and Trixie sobbed and hugged the Princess harder.

“If,” added Celestia, “you lot can be on your best behavior. That means no attitude or mischief, Twilight, nothing too kinky, Trixie, and as for you, Chaos… I think you’ll have to go on a sort of diet.”

“I’m already so thin!” protested Chaos. “Apart from the tentacles, of course.”

“Exactly,” said Celestia firmly. “We’ll go and enjoy the beauty of Neighpon. We’ll be kind and peaceful and orderly, and no Kirin will have a word of objection.”

“Is that a challenge?” said Twilight.

“No tentacles? Even for Neighpon?” said Chaos.

“No chaos,” insisted Celestia. “And you unicorns will have to be on your best behavior! I don’t intend to use my power to get you out of jams, and Chaos mustn’t use hers. We’re depending on you, Twilight, as Trixie often follows your lead.” She tactfully refrained from adding the word ‘literally’.

“Good,” said Twilight. “I can behave if Chaos can!” She stuck out her tongue at her once-rival, now combination bonus lover and prank-target.

“No chaos?” said Chaos plainitively. “How will I ever manage? Those cherry blossoms had better be spectacular.” She sighed.

“I’m not so sure of that,” suggested Twilight. “I’ve seen a DJ Pon-3 party. For that matter, there’s a certain shelf in my libary that has a lot of interesting illustrations… Let’s just say Neighponnese unicorns can be spectacular too.”

“They can?” blinked Celestia.

“Repression can produce wonderful things,” smirked Twilight. “I think the Neighponnese must have a special arrangement with the Kirin. That, or the Kirin have a strangely imaginative definition of ‘good’. We WILL go and enjoy the heck out of Neighpon, in a variety of ways. You’ll see. And of course we’ll be sure to make time for cherry blossoms. That sounds good, right?”

“Umm…” said Princess Celestia, wondering how to get out of her committment, but then she glanced under her wing where she cuddled Trixie, and Trixie gazed back, more at peace than Celestia had ever seen her.

Her smile was worthy of the little, innocent filly Trixie had once been, so very long ago, and Celestia’s reservations melted away, and she just nodded.

Hunted

“Soooo…” crooned Pinkie, “I spy, with my inner eye, something… frosted!”

“Unless I miss my guess,” said Rock Candy, her colt, “that would be the cupcakes you promised to give us if we played this game with you.”

“Played this game?” squeaked Pinkie, affronted. “Game? This is no game, Rock! We don’t need a Marble Pie to give us creepy dire warnings about scary things in Ponyville! We can make creepy dire warnings ourselves! Now focus. I know you have Pinkie Sense too. Northern Spy, you can concentrate too, in case it helps or something.”

“Everything you do’s like a game,” protested Rock Candy, his ears laid back. “Even when you come up with creepy dire warnings it’s like a game to you! Please don’t be mad, Mom? I didn’t mean anything wrong.”

“Rock!” cried Pinkie. “For your information, buster, sometimes things are serious! Haven’t you ever seen me look serious? You can’t miss it, my mane goes all straight and everything about life is way less bouncy and fun!”

“But Mom!” wailed Rock. “Why are you playing a game, and having me play it too, in order to get serious and not-fun? How’s that supposed to help, or even make sense?”

“BECAUSE…” yelled Pinkie, and then she froze in place, not finishing her sentence, and her mane floofed out a little extra in pure shock.

He was right, of course. He didn’t understand all of it, though as an inheritor of Pinkie Sense he’d better learn… but as usual, little Rock had seen through to an important truth. Sometimes things got very serious and scary and un-fun in Ponyville, and all her floof left her, and her mane hung straight and lank.

And at those times, she either raved pure Pinkie Sense without knowing what she was saying, or she struggled through like any other pony, all her bounce seemingly lost forever, and completely unable to do anything funny and playful and reality-defying.

At all costs, she couldn’t let that happen to her. She had to get to the bottom of what in Ponyville was turning evil, because she’d been picking up hints as well. The foundation of things felt unstable. Some terrible change was going to happen, and she was involved somehow, and there was no time.

But, she had to make it fun, or at least funny, lest she lose her strangest abilities just when they were needed most.

So, Pinkie smiled.

“That’s exactly right!” she told Rock. “Thank you for reminding me. So, here we are, the amazing Rock Lobster, the Green Streak, and your faithful Ponka Poe…”

“You said Pooka Pong!” accused Northern Spy.

Pinkie gave her a look. “It has to be different every time, Green Streak, that’s the gag! Okay?”

“I can’t think up different ways to say Poogy Pom every time I have to say Poggle Poo,” complained Northern Spy.

“Do the best you can,” encouraged Pinkie, “you’re doing great. Rock! Focus. It’s your turn. I spy with my inner eye, something…”

Rock grimaced, concentrating. “Something like… a granny goat?”

Pinkie blinked. “A granny goat?”

“Yeah,” said Rock, his little ears showing perplexity. “Good feelings and a scraggly little old yellow goat. Looks like one, sort of bony and angular, what I could even see of it. It’s… nice? That’s all I could get.”

“You mean that’s all you could GOAT!” teased Pinkie.

“Will you get on with it!” wailed Northern Spy. “I already got a Granny. Technic’ly a great-granny. Go ahead and find out something useful!”

Pinkie felt her Sense stir within her, a great quietness lurking ready to burst forth into fey understanding. She stuck her tongue out at Northern Spy, who pouted.

“I would be happy to, Green Streak,” she said. “By all means. Ready? I spy, with my inner eye, someth…”

Pinkie froze.

“What? What?” cried Rock Candy, eagerly. “You got one!”

“No, she just spaced out!” accused Northern Spy. “Look, she’s just staring! That or you farted, she’s making a yucky face!”

“I did not!”

“Did too! That or she’s just being cranky at me when it’s her who said I have to be here even though I can’t do your dumb spooky stuff!”

“It’s important superhero business, Green Streak!”

“Yeah well it’s important superhero business I can’t DO so what’s the stupid point?”

“It is not either a stupid point! It’s a very special thing that can only be done by our fellow superhero Poinka Pee!”

“That’s a stupid name, AND it’s a stupid point and this is a stupid meeting!” accused Northern Spy.

While the kids argued, Pinkie Pie stared, fighting for control, most of all fighting to keep hold of that vital touch of laughter that kept receding, mockingly… for the Sense didn’t lie to her, but it also didn’t explain.

And she hadn’t, she really hadn’t expected a horribly clear glimpse of Fluttershy, her beloved and be-lost Fluttershy snarling in hideous rage, fully in vampire form, her eerie pink eyes glowing from under savagely glaring brows.

And most of all, she hadn’t expected the vision of her Fluttershy unleashing some kind of vampire attack fueled by an amount of rage that seemed impossible for one creature to produce… and, with this beam of hate, burning alive some hapless victim, burning them until they screamed and died. It didn’t look that much like a pony, blackened in flames, though the basic form was right. It screamed like a pony, though, like a pony subject to unthinkable agony, as if the vampire attack was burning from the inside out.

And it did stop, when there was nothing left to burn.

Fluttershy was going to kill. She would fly into a rage, and murder some hapless victim with force that seemed beyond even what a scary vampire could produce… in a way that horrified Pinkie Pie to the core of her being. There was no question about it. It would happen.

She twitched, still staring, as another wisp of Sense reached out to communicate to her one last detail, and it was about her relation to that event.

A part of her would be destroyed forever. She would see it all. She would never be the same.

Well… no shit!

Pinkie gulped.

“Mom?” said Rock Candy, abandoning the argument with Spy. “Are you okay, Mom? Tell me what you saw.”

Pinkie stared, in a kind of frozen horror, at… Fluttershy’s own foal, as well as hers.

“Mom?”

“That’ll do, Snowy Hocks!” insisted Apple Bloom, stamping a hoof.

“Oh?” retorted Snowy. “Easy for you to say! I’m tellin’ you, that thing could end up turning on us. Ah don’t trust them magical things that ain’t properly a pony at all.”

“Applejack says she won’t! That ain’t what we’re discussin’, dammit.”

“That’s right, she won’t,” said Applejack. “Now we might try to keep Ponyville from gettin’ out of control when the Kirin’s around, maybe we want to be careful around her so’s not to confuse her, but all the same there’s no call for such crazy talk.”

She shied away, as Apple Bloom had turned on her, fillyish face sour. Bloom had picked up circles under the eyes as she drove herself and the farm to new heights of productivity and efficiency. Those daunting eyes now took Applejack in.

“Crazy talk, y’say?” said Apple Bloom. “I feel the same, but to me, it’s this Kirin talkin’ about evil. We don’t allow evil in these parts. Just ponies, which I grant you, them’s sometimes obstreperous. And given to slackin’ and shirking!”

Applejack chuckled, but her little sister wasn’t letting her off the hook that easily, and kept going.

“Big sister, she’s screwing up the damn farm! My farm ponies are all distracted. This is not helping farm business!”

“But, Apple Bloom,” suggested Applejack, “she’s huntin’ down a problem of some kind! She’s also huntin’ down a pony dicking, but I guess our boys are too nervous…”

“She’s evil!” swore Snowy Hocks. “Mark my words, she’s gonna start killin’ ponies, and here we sit like lumps, jawing about it!”

“She ain’t!” insisted Applejack. “She ain’t even gonna hurt our more what you may call unusual ponies, at least if I got anything to say about it…”

“Stop,” ordered Apple Bloom, and the two desisted. Apple Bloom glowered at them. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. It don’t matter a damn to me if Miss Hina is a wicked bad creature, or huntin’ of wicked bad creatures. That’s no concern of ours. What we’re gonna do is like when the timberwolves git extra fierce, wantin’ to drag off pony folk an’ put the bodies around their trees as fertilizer? You remember those times? We’ll do that. Buddy system. No magic, nothin’ spooky, pure earth pony discipline. Got it?”

Applejack scuffed the dirt with a forehoof. “Sure we do.”

Apple Bloom relaxed, and even smiled. “Of course y’do, Applejack. The first time I saw the earth pony buddy system, it was you leadin’ us. Remember that? And it worked, too, and it’ll work for us now.”

Applejack’s eye glinted. “Sure I remember. I ain’t quite out to pasture yet, little sister.”

Apple Bloom’s smile hardened. “I might ‘a said it’ll work for me, big sister. I was bein’ nice. Just in case you’re wondering who’s making the arrangements.”

At that, Applejack sighed. “Sure. Dang it, Apple Bloom… all right. You know I did arrange all that? Ain’t you ever heard of a straw boss? Must you keep me so outta the loop?”

“My straw boss is Oakback,” said Apple Bloom. “You know that. And you’re a lil’ too interested in this Kirin’s fancies. I tole you, it ain’t no concern of ours. Farm business needs doing.”

“You don’t have me doing it,” suggested Applejack. “Northern Spy’s so big now, ain’t like I got so much mommy duties, I kin spare some time to help with the ponies.”

“Nope,” said Apple Bloom. “I’m assigning you Rainbow Dash as a buddy.”

Applejack blinked in astonishment. “You think I need to go around protectin’ Rainbow Dash? Really?”

Apple Bloom’s eye glinted in amusement, and the corner of her mouth turned up. “I ain’t completely heartless, nor yet unobservant. Protect each other as y’please, even if it’s in mighty personal ways. You can protect each others’ hoo-has, when you’re not endangering them, that is. The rest of you will be teamed up with each other to protect in less pers’nal ways!”

Snowy Hocks glanced around at silent Hollyhock, at Silver, at Fern Gully and the other farm ponies. Even Dursaa was present, studying the proceedings solemnly.

“The Kirin comes, and apprehension climbs,” he said. “I have some verses that would suit these times…”

“Nope!” said Apple Bloom decidedly. “Your rhymin’ ain’t gonna be required of you this evening. We’re assigning you all to buddies and you’re getting back to work, hear me? I’ll let you go off tonight, it’s getting dark, but tomorrow morning you all show up bright and early with your buddies and we’ll have no more of this shirkin’ crap!”

Applejack made a face. “All righty then. And you don’t need me for this work? Nor as a straw boss? Dang it, Apple Bloom. Me an’ Rainbow Dash, we’re nothin’ like as busy with Northern Spy as we used to be, but you’re not bringing me back onto farm duties!”

“You can help Granny Smith take care of the house?” suggested Apple Bloom. “You can learn fancy mathematics from Diamond Tiara? I’m sure she’d like help with them books and things.”

Applejack shuddered. “Aw hell no. Listen here, kin I take on a special assignment? Ain’t exactly farm related, but all the same it might be something me and Rainbow can do for ya.”

“What’s that?”

Applejack drew a breath. “Let us go and help that Kirin find her lurkin’ evil. That way, if she’s thinkin’ of a certain pony who’s a little special in certain ways, why we can be there and talk to her and stop her from doin’ something rash. And, if she really has found some kinda evil in our town we don’t know about, well… sucks to be that evil, is all I can say! Between me, Dashie and Hina, we’ll give it a real whippin’! How about it?”

Apple Bloom studied her big sister. Behind her, Fern Gully gawked in amazement, and Snowy Hocks and Hollyhock both stared at her with big, wide, shocked eyes.

“You, Rainbow, and th’ Kirin?” said Apple Bloom. “Hunting the evil, makin’ sure it ain’t our Fluttershy she’s after, and stayin’ out of our way as we do the dang farm work?”

“Yeah,” said Applejack. “How’s that sound?”

“Do it,” said Apple Bloom, and turned away to address the farm ponies and assign them buddies.

“I got my buddy right here!” squeaked Snowy Hocks, and grabbed Hollyhock. “Quick, we got to get to buddy practice!”

Hollyhock’s ears were back, and he was trembling all over… but before he could even react, Snowy was dragging him off. They disappeared behind the barn, and were lost to sight.

“Whatever,” said Apple Bloom. “Dursaa, you’re buddies with Knothole. Silver, you’re with Fern Gully. No, don’t argue! I don’t care if he fell off a ladder and landed on you. You should’ve been paying attention.”

“He knocked a bucket off a ladder!” complained Silver. “That’s what landed on me!”

“Don’t make no difference,” maintained Apple Bloom.

“It was a paint bucket!”

“At least it got you to bathe,” said Apple Bloom. “Dammit, Silver…”

As Apple Bloom scolded her recalcitrant farmponies, and Dursaa led off Knothole to receive an epic rhyme about Kirin and the need to avoid them, Applejack headed out, figuring to locate either Rainbow Dash, or the Kirin. Neither presented themselves.

At least with the Kirin on hand, thought Applejack, any real evil would turn and run just as fast as it could!

“Mom!” yelled Rock Candy. “Snap out of it!” He shook Pinkie, and turned to Northern Spy. “Help me with her!”

“With what?” said Spy, her eyes wide. “Rock, she’s just being weird. Pinkie Pie is always weird. What’s different about this time?”

“It’s different!” protested Rock. “If you can help me drag her to, I don’t know, some other grown-up…”

With a resounding crash, Rainbow Dash burst through the window without opening it. She bounced off the floor, and jumped to her hooves, staring at Pinkie even as Pinkie stared at nothing. “Pinkie Pie! I hoped I’d find you!”

Northern Spy hadn’t even flinched. “Here you go, Rock. My Mom’s here. Now what?”

Rock turned to Dash. “Help! Help us with Mom, Rainbow Dash!”

“Oh my gosh,” said Dash. “What’s she doing, Rock?”

“Being really weird, and something’s the matter with her!”

“Oh, great,” moaned Dash, “just what we need…”

“Big deal!” snorted Northern Spy. “What else is new? What’s the problem, Mom? Whatever it is we’ll solve it, or fix it, or kick its ass, okay?”

Dash turned to her unimpressed filly. “No, you don’t understand. There’s something in town called a Kirin, and it’s searching for wrong stuff, and when Pinkie gets too crazy I’m worried she might come off as wrong…”

“It wants to HURT Mom?” squeaked Rock Candy, dismayed.

“We don’t know!” cried Dash. “We’ve got to get Pinkie acting more normal before the Kirin runs into her!” She began to pace rapidly in a little whirling circle, and then… “Eep!”

Northern Spy had seized her tail, with all the authority her other Mom Applejack could’ve used. Her eyes met Rainbow’s. When Mom had stopped whirling in a panic, Spy spat out the prismatic tail and spoke. “Hey, stop it. First of all, we’re not going to let anything hurt Pinkie. She’s one of us superheroes! Right, Rock?”

“Uh, right,” said Rock, still fretful.

“And besides that,” insisted Spy, “Pinkie has weird super powers of her own! She was just using them. She has these two modes, right Rock? If her mane is straight and just dangles, she raves creepy stuff and doesn’t know what she’s saying. And if her mane is foofy, then nothing in Equestria can hurt her!”

Dash glanced at Pinkie. Pinkie stared at nothing, trembling, her mane seeming to quiver with the desire to give up its floofiness and hang straight. Dash gulped. “Um…”

“And look!” said Spy. “I don’t know what she’s seeing, but her mane’s still floofy!”

Rainbow Dash looked over her old friend, her heart wrung by Pinkie’s obvious agony. “It’s not gonna last. She needs a hug! Pinkie, we’re here for ya! What’s wrong?”

“Oh,” said Northern Spy dismissively. “Well in that case it’s easy. Wait until she snaps. Then you can hug her, and her mane will hang all straight, and she’ll start telling us everything and won’t even know what she’s saying!”

The words fell on Pinkie Pie’s ears.

Her body convulsed, churned through several crazy and unnatural forms, and seemed to burst outward, inflating like a balloon while her mane foofed so hard it took up three times as much space as usual. Dash and Rock and Spy cringed back in alarm…

Pinkie Pie was standing there, foofy mane and all, smiling at them as if they were the happiest sight she could ever possibly see. There was nothing alarming about her other than the terrifying gleam in her eyes, far too wide and starey, and the smile that was more of a rictus grin.

“Are you okay, Pinkie Pie?” asked Rainbow.

“I am absolutely splenderrific!” vowed Pinkie. “Thank you so much for asking!”

“Are you sure?” pressed Rainbow. “There anything you want to talk about? What was bothering you, just then?”

“Nothing!” beamed Pinkie, her teeth grinding slightly.

Rock and Spy had picked up on the tone of things, and were studying Pinkie with some concern.

“Guys?” said Dash. “Give us some space. Let me talk to her.”

Without a word of argument, the two kids bolted upstairs, their little hoofbeats convincingly seeming to recede out of hearing range. Dash nodded, satisfied, and turned to her old friend.

“Look, I know you have your moments, Pinkie Pie,” she said. “Remember? I’ve been there for you when it was pretty bad. That surprise birthday party we had for you? And then there are other times, and I know you try your best, but you know what you’re getting wrong? You’re not talking to ponies. When you get this upset, you’re not talking to ponies…”

“I’m not upset!” declared Pinkie. It would’ve been more convincing, if not declared through gritted teeth and that horrible grin.

“Shyeah right,” snorted Rainbow. She hugged Pinkie, who didn’t respond. She sighed, and continued arguing. “Listen, Pinkie, I have been through some shit because I wouldn’t talk to ponies, at times when I should have. Okay? It got really bad sometimes. It hurt so bad, and I hurt others because I did stuff rather than try to say what seemed impossible to say, but we got through it, and I learned. Now I don’t have to lose Applejack because even when stuff is real difficult, I talk about it. I’m raising Northern Spy to talk about stuff too…”

Pinkie twitched, at the mention of Spy, and the raising of foals. She grinned harder, her mind creaking under the strain. She couldn’t possibly tell Rock about what Fluttershy would do, much less that she herself would be ruined by the events. He’d have nothing, he’d be lost, she refused adamantly to give in to the reality. Dumb reality! Stupid Sense!

“Pinkie?” prodded Rainbow Dash. “Do you hear me?”

…and if she gave in to the horror of it, thought Pinkie, she’d lose her bounce and wouldn’t be able to pop out of teacups or appear in mirrors AND she’d be blurting out the whole horrible truth to everypony, including Rock. She remembered the time she and Fluttershy thought Applejack had been murdered. She’d wandered into town raving the whole way, her mane hanging straight, unable to do anything but issue dire warnings. This time, it was so much worse, if she let herself go there…

“Pinkie!” yelled Dash, shaking her. “Snap out of it!”

Pinkie Pie blinked cutely, and looked straight at Rainbow.

“I’m good!” she chirped.

Rainbow gazed back, knowing she wasn’t, she so very wasn’t…

…and then Pinkie Pie was bouncing away out the door, off all four hooves, with odd little poingy sounds coming from nowhere in particular. Dash could only stare after her. At such times, Pinkie could bounce faster than Rainbow could fly. Pinkie could appear places without travelling to them. Pinkie could appear in things and scare other ponies senseless, and never once explain what she wanted… apart from the rages over things like breaking a Pinkie Promise, which had brave ponies like Applejack taking cover at the mere suggestion of such a Pinkie scenario. And then she was gone.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t begin to guess what a Kirin would make of such shenanigans, but doubted it would go over well.

The kids thundered down the stairs. “Did you talk to her?” pleaded Rock.

“Yeah, I kind of did,” said Rainbow. She wore a comically big frown, and her ear twitched.

“What do we do?” begged Rock.

Rainbow Dash set her jaw. “I’ll tell you what, Rock Candy. It’s getting late. You stay home, stay here, and you, Spy, you’re coming home with me, and I’m going to go find Pinkie and tell her to go home and sleep on it. Okay? I don’t know what’s bothering her, but I want her safe at home. That means you should help, Rock! Once I get her back, have her read you a story or play a game or something…”

“Not I-spy-with-my-inner-eye!” protested Rock. “That’s what started all the trouble!”

“Then something else,” insisted Dash. “Understand? I’m going to send her right home and she’ll feel better in the morning. You’ll feel better too! And if you can get her to talk, so much the better, but she might have to sleep it off first. Me and Spy are going to go fetch her, because she’s not doing awesome. Come on, Spy! I mean Green Streak!”

Rock Candy was an obedient little pony, playful but well-meaning. He also trusted his extended family, including Spy’s moms, so he nodded and sat down to wait, watching Dash and Spy head off on their mission.

Northern Spy wasn’t, so even before they’d got out the door, she was arguing.

“She is too! She’s part of our superhero team, Mom, and she’s clearly using her creepy powers!”

“That’s just what I’m afraid of, Spy,” said Dash.

“What’s to be afraid of?” objected Spy. “Maybe you need to appreciate the Pingle Pong more.”

“The what now?”

Pinkie Pie wandered over toward Sweet Apple Acres. Something told her it was important. She told herself it’d be a good idea to warn the Apples about Fluttershy somehow. In a nice way, maybe? Perhaps there wouldn’t be so much murder and death if she had Applejack lasso the vampony and tie her to something? She had to come up with a way to suggest it that was fun and cheery. Everything had to be fun, or else the creepy raving would come and her hair would hang lank and she’d lose her best powers, the ones she didn’t really understand…

Pinkie stumbled. She looked down.

She screamed.

She gave a horrible twitch, mastering herself by desperate force of will.

“Yeah,” she said, staring into the dead, shocked eyes, “that’s not very fun at all…”

A tearing noise split the night. In no more than a second, Pinkie Pie was joined by Rainbow Dash from the air, and Northern Spy over the ground. They’d blasted straight through trees and bushes to reach her, hearing her scream. They, too, stared.

The corpse of Fern Gully, farm pony, stared back at them. A little trickle of blood dripped down his neck.

“Oh, fuck,” breathed Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie twitched. She twitched again. “…la la laaa…” she sang to herself, weakly.

“Did you see what did this, Pinkie?” asked Rainbow Dash. Then, she cringed back, for that grin kept getting more disturbing.

“Maybe!” said Pinkie Pie brightly, and she began to bounce off in her carefree way.

Rainbow whimpered. She felt Spy cowering against her. As much as Northern Spy liked how freaky her fellow superhero was, she still was only a small filly and her nerves could only take so much.

“Pinkie!” yelled Rainbow, watching her recede. “Go home to Rock!”

“Nope!” called Pinkie, and continued to bounce away cheerfully. Rainbow watched her go, then heard hoofbeats approaching from behind. She whirled.

Apple Bloom, Applejack, and Hina the Kirin galloped up, looking grim. “Who screamed?” demanded Applejack.

“Is it too late for me to scream?” responded Dash. She tried to smile, but it didn’t hold together, and then Applejack was hugging her… and then, Applejack gave a little shriek and tried to jump back while still hugging Rainbow. She’d seen Fern Gully.

“Oh no way,” breathed Apple Bloom, her eyes pits of horror. “No fucking way…”

Dash summoned all her willpower, and spoke up, in hopes of soothing the filly. “It’s okay, Apple Bloom, don’t look, we’ll keep you safe from the…”

“ROLL CALL!” screamed Apple Bloom, at the top of her lungs. “RIGHT now! All farm ponies, here, NOW! Roll call!”

Dash fell back, startled, and hugged Applejack. It seemed the Apple Boss Mare thing ran deep. She glanced at Hina, the Kirin. Her delicate ears were back, her slender hocks trembled.

Apple Bloom wouldn’t shut up. She ran in circles, yelling. “ROLL call! Every damn pony within earshot, come to me! Ah am not jokin’ nor jestin’! NOW!”

As if like magic, ponies began to materialize out of the darkness. Oakback. Dursaa. Knothole. Snowy Hocks appeared, took one look at the scene, and cringed back in horror, seeming to understand right away what had happened.

“SNOWY HOCKS!” screamed Apple Bloom. “HERE, NOW!”

Snowy stepped forward on trembling legs, eyes wide and fixed on Hina, not daring to disobey Apple Bloom’s direct order. His ears were laid back so hard they were plastered against his skull. He stayed absolutely silent, just stared and stared like the Kirin was a demon about to eat him.

“ALL y’all line up here right now! Count off! Who’s here?” demanded Apple Bloom.

Oakback gulped. “Me, you, Applejack… Rainbow Dash, lil’ Spy, Snowy, Dursaa, Knothole. Silver ain’t here, nor Hollyhock. That there’s Fern Gully. Daid.”

“Damn right he is,” retorted Apple Bloom. “Ah am concerned about the well being of them as is living. We gotta find Silver, this is his buddy. Who’s seen Silver?”

Nopony responded. Apple Bloom bared her teeth in a snarl of pain. “Dammit! All right. All right. Applejack, you ain’t gonna like this, but… who’s seen Fluttershy?”

“Can’t be Fluttershy,” said Applejack weakly.

“Who is Fluttershy?” cried Hina. She swayed, as if feeling very dizzy and sick.

“It AIN’T Fluttershy!” yelled Applejack. “It ain’t! It’s some other vampire. Who else could be a vampire? Hina, kin you check for vampires?”

Snowy Hocks keened, quietly, behind Dursaa. The Kirin didn’t respond, seemed not to hear. Her face was dreadful, and her body seemed all scales and luminescent waves of mane and fetlock.

Northern Spy was very pale. She clung to Rainbow’s leg, but her little voice chimed in bravely: “Gilda’s not a vampire anymore. I’m not a vampire anymore. Fluttershy’s nice, she’s a good vampire, like we were good vampires, we didn’t hurt anypony, we were good vampires…”

“Somepony else,” said Rainbow. “Who else? Shy bit Gilda, but she didn’t mean it. My kid bit Gilda. Maybe if somepony bit Fluttershy?” She glanced quickly at Dursaa, but he stood impassive and solemn.

“Another… good vampire? Who made some bad choices?” squeaked Northern Spy. Dash felt her trembling.

“No,” said Rainbow Dash, looking into Fern Gully’s lifeless eyes. “No, Spy. It was a bad vampire.”

Northern Spy had never been daunted by anything. But, Northern Spy had never looked on death before. She kept staring at Fern Gully, and then she slunk around, up against Rainbow’s side, and without prompting Rainbow Dash knew what to do. A cerulean blue wing came down gently over her trembling foal, and Dash protected her Northern Spy for the time being, until she was again able to cope.

Applejack nodded, approvingly. She was very pale as well. “Shit,” she said. “Can’t be Fluttershy, I swear it can’t. An’ Gilda’s better. Somepony else that bit Fluttershy, you think?”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash distractedly. “If sh… gahh!”

Her wings sprang up bolt erect. Her eyes flew wide. Beside her, Northern Spy whimpered, and Rainbow quickly lowered her wings to shelter her foal again, but she stared at Applejack like a mare possessed.

“We watched him do it,” she said. “Applejack. We know who it is. We watched him do it.”

“Ah don’t…” began Applejack, and blinked. “Whoa. That night! That awful night. The gangbang, that stinkin’ pegasus gangbang! All cause Fluttershy wanted to be jes’ wrecked by a passel of stallions! Apple Bloom, I tole you, they shouldn’ta done it…”

“Never mind that,” ordered Apple Bloom. “Are you tellin’ me you ponies know who it is? Ain’t nothin’ but farm ponies on that colorful occasion! If it was one of us, then who?”

Applejack thought. “Hell of a night. Dursaa! Show your mouth!” she demanded. “I saw you nip her! Prove you ain’t sportin’ bloody fangs!”

Dursaa blinked, and opened his mouth. He bared his teeth, and they were normal zebra teeth, with no fangs at all. Behind him, Snowy Hocks cowered.

“Well, it ain’t him,” said Applejack. “I know he bit Fluttershy’s butt, guess he got a gentle touch.”

“That dreadful fate will not on me befall,” said Dursaa. “We’re gentler still with bites… or not at all.”

Applejack nodded. “That’s good, you be dang careful, got it? I guess you’ve figured out you can’t bite Fluttershy nohow, even if she wants it. Well, if it ain’t him, and we saw him bite her rump, then who was it? Rainbow, you sounded so sure.”

“Look around,” rasped Rainbow Dash. “If you were a pegasus, you’d know. I’ll never forget it.”

“Spit it out, dang it,” demanded Apple Bloom.

“Gladly,” said Dash. “Hollyhock. Fuckin’ Hollyhock. I’ll never forget the way he went after her wing. You’re not a pegasus, and we all forgot right afterwards, but still! He knew better. That was ugly. He seriously did her wing as hard as he could. I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never seen anything so kinky and sick as the way he went after that wing, and him not really caring about her at all.” She shuddered.

“Ohhhh…” said Applejack, remembering.

“Oh yeah,” said Dash darkly. “He was always kinda mean, him and Silver, the two herders. The whole thing was exciting at the time even when it got out of control, but I didn’t know what it meant, just that it was so out there. And then we all got so distracted when she turned into the vampire, and nopony was thinking about what would happen if you bit a vampire. I still remember the way he bit her wing, really bore down, worried it. It was crazy. At the time I could only watch Fluttershy flipping out. We didn’t know, then. And look around! Where is he now? It’s him! It has to be fuckin’ Hollyhock!”

Apple Bloom’s jaw dangled. She reeled it in. “You mean, all this time… I thought he was pissy about taking orders from a young mare! All glowering and keeping his mouth tight shut, like we ain’t worth a friendly word. You mean…”

“Yeah!” said Dash.

“Who else has bitten Shy’s wing?” demanded Applejack. “You’d notice more than most, you bein’ a pegasus and all!”

Dash flinched. She stared off into the darkness, where Pinkie had gone. Fluttershy had foaled at least once with Pinkie doing her wings. Pinkie was acting really strange, even for Pinkie. Pinkie seemed to have normal teeth, but then Pinkie could seem like anything she wanted. Dash gulped. “Pretty sure it’s Hollyhock.”

“But if…” began Applejack, and then she, too, flinched. She was looking at where Spy’s tail poked out from under Dash’s wing, and put two and two together, remembering Rock Candy. “Uh. Lordy, do I hope it’s just Hollyhock…”

“I gotta talk to her,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “GOT to talk to her now.”

As the two older mares fretted, Apple Bloom stamped the ground loudly with a forehoof. “All right! First things first. Look around you! We’re gonna protect our farm ponies, and we’re gonna stick with the buddy system, and y’all keep a sharp eye out for Hollyhock! If you can, take him alive, we’ll have the Kirin breathe on him or somethin’ to check if he’s an evil monster or not. Or of course if he tries to suck out all your blood, that’s a bad fuckin’ sign right there. So capturing the bugger might take some doing.”

Applejack nodded. Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth and growled “Right!”

“Don’t let our farm ponies go into the shadows alone!” continued Apple Bloom. “Careful going under them trees, in case a vampire jumps on ya from concealment! Keep an eye out, this time it’s an extra bad one! Rainbow Dash, Applejack, now we seriously have a job for you. You kin search Ponyville for the vampire. Go carefully! Hey, short stuff, Spy! Are you part of this? I’m thinkin’ my sister might want you staying home, but you’re fast and you may understand vampires better on account of you WERE one.”

Northern Spy peeked out from under Rainbow’s wing. Her lower lip was sticking out, and trembling, but she met Apple Bloom’s sharp eye, thought to herself, and nodded. “Can I search too?”

“Stay well back,” ordered Apple Bloom. “You’re fast enough that he ain’t nohow catchin’ you, but I do not want you snuck up on. Stay safe!”

Spy nodded. Applejack’s and Rainbow’s eyes were troubled, but they didn’t argue. They knew how true that was. As long as Northern Spy was alert, no vampire would catch her.

Apple Bloom took a deep breath. “Right!” she said, and turned. “Now, it’s our lucky day. We got us a real live Kirin evil-hunter right here in town, an’ here she is. Miss Hina-rin, good to have ya!”

Hina seemed nearly lost in a storm of protective scales flickering across her body, lost amidst the flurrying iridescent magic mane. She swayed, staring back at Apple Bloom in what seemed like disbelief.

Apple Bloom advanced on her. “First of all, we’re gonna use you to sense out the monster, on account of you must be sensing a whole mess o’ evil in these parts. Poor Fern Gully! Now you can help us avenge him! You are sensin’ the evil, right?”

“So much…” breathed Hina-rin, wobbling on her cloven hooves. "It's surrounding me…"

“Good!” said Apple Bloom. “You gotta go around with Applejack and Rainbow Dash, they’ll be your scouts. When they find him, it’s your judgement call: if you think we kin capture him, we kin go for a cure. We do that, here in Ponyville. My lil’ niece caught a dose of vampires and from what I’m told, our unicorns fixed her up good with some help from Zecora. If it is ol’ Hollyhock, we might be able to get him back, though I don’t know if he’ll thank us. Somethin’ went wrong with that boy if he turned on his own friends. That’s Fern Gully there. Hollyhock knew him.”

Hina-rin’s nostrils flared. She bared her teeth, as if in pain. “The miasma of evil… so strong, so nearby… it has fed, it devoured this pony’s soul. It is much stronger…”

“Maybe it’s too late to talk about cures, then,” said Apple Bloom. “All right! Again, use your judgement. We’re countin’ on you, Miss Kirin. All my farm ponies is at your disposal, and you got Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and lil’ Spy as scouts. I expect you to also help keep them safe, and then when you do find jerkface asshole Hollyhock, assumin’ it’s him, I want you to smite the fuck out of him before he can hurt your scouts. Got that? And then… HEY!”

Apple Bloom’s yell was to no avail. The Kirin, Hina-rin, tottered. Her eyes rolled up. She collapsed, where she stood, in a curiously light sprawl of slim elegant limbs and a riot of glowing mane, tailtuft and fetlocks.

All hell broke loose. Ponies reared, whinnying, panicking, turning to flee.

“HOLD IT!” yelled Apple Bloom. “STOP!”

By the time they’d controlled the panic, they’d lost Knothole. Dursaa had charged off, but not in the direction Knothole had gone: his loyalties lay elsewhere, and he’d run straight back to Fluttershy’s cottage. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Spy hadn’t budged. Oakback stood loyally by Apple Bloom, his mighty legs shaking, but refusing to abandon her. Snowy Hocks cringed well back, his eyes taking in everything, studying all the ponies, and always returning to the unconscious form of the Kirin. He looked deeply shocked, like he hadn’t bargained on her doing that.

“Snowy!” yelled Apple Bloom.

“MM?” grunted Snowy, his eyes rolling in sudden panic.

“You get a new buddy,” said Apple Bloom. “Don’t you approach Hollyhock, it’s too dangerous. That is an order, don’t you cross me!”

Snowy’s eyes widened. “Mm hm,” he said, carefully. He nodded, grim-faced, and stamped the ground with a forehoof, tossing his mane.

“Damn right,” said Applejack. “You’re lucky he din’t attack you. If he din’t kill you outright, this Kirin here woulda smelled it on you, an’ lit you right up with her fancy horn. Don’t even think about trying to talk to Hollyhock, you ain’t nearly fast enough to get away if he tried to getcha.”

Snowy glowered, insulted, kicking the dirt. “Mm.”

“So that’s present company accounted for,” said Apple Bloom. “We best wait until morning for the scouts to get to work. Seems to me vampire hunting in the night is about the dumbest thing ever…”

“Uh, Apple Bloom?” said Applejack.

“Yeah?”

“Present company’s a-conked out,” said Applejack, gesturing with a hoof at Hina-rin. “What are we supposed to do about that?”

Apple Bloom scratched her head with a hoof. “Dunno. You sure this critter’s the big evil-hunter? Seems to me she was advertised as bein’ death on evil things. We got death, sure enough, but I don’t see her bringin’ it.”

“We need to get Fern Gully a proper burial,” said Applejack.

“Is he gonna turn into a vampire?” asked Apple Bloom. “He’s dead right enough, but we know from Fluttershy that they don’t mind it much.”

Oakback prodded him, even as Applejack called out, “Ah wouldn’t!”

“I think he’s proper dead, poor fella,” said Oakback. “Din’t the Kirin say, the monster ate his soul? Got stronger? I don’t think we’ve seen this before. Snowy, didn’t you tell us once that the vampire can eat up its victims, not just turn them to thralls?”

Snowy nodded, still looking grim. “Mm-hm.”

Apple Bloom looked back and forth among those remaining. “So here’s the situation. We got us a wild vampire that may or may not be Hollyhock, though I’m guessin’ that’s our vamp. Rainbow says she saw him biting Fluttershy’s wing real fierce, and I got no reason to doubt it, though if I’d known, I tell you… never mind. We got a scouting team, but had best wait until morning, when Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Northern Spy can cover the ground more safely. We got a buddy system that ain’t worth a crap because damn ponies lose their minds and panic and run off however they please, and we got a big damn hero Kirin magic-pony who gits th’ vapors and passes out on us.”

“She mighta choked on too much evil,” suggested Applejack. “It proper makes my head spin, even. Poor Fern Gully!”

“That she might,” agreed Apple Bloom. “Don’t you start!”

“Naw,” said Applejack, grimly. “Somethin’s gonna pay. This ain’t no time to be fussy an’ fancy. We’re gonna kick some vamp.” She snorted. “Fluttershy’s gonna shit lil’ vampy-apples. Let’s not tell her.”

“Nope,” said Apple Bloom. “I agree she ain’t what you call directly responsible for this, but we’re not having her try to reform the mean ol’ fucker. I am not inclined to be merciful with Mister Hollyhock, if he’s the one that done it. This is farm pony business. He’s one of ours.”

“Present company’s accounted for,” said Applejack, “but several of our ponies already run off. Do we go out and hunt for them?”

Apple Bloom brooded over this suggestion. “No. Ponies gotta run. If they’re really frightened, they might be going too fast to catch. You know our farm ponies. Can you imagine tryin’ to bite one while they run as fast as they can?”

“Let ‘em run?” said Applejack. “How far?”

“Far’s good!” retorted Apple Bloom. “We can always go find them when this is all over! If they’re not ready to take discipline, I want them well out of town! We got us a live vampire, I mean a dead vampire but lively and hungry, lurking around trying to eat ponies. I don’t know what kicked this off all of a sudden, but we’re in for it now. We got to get this Kirin back in workin’ order.”

They gazed at the hapless heap of Hina, still comatose, a look of tragic dismay on her unconscious face. It seemed that even out cold, the miasma of evil still troubled her.

“How you reckon we do that?” asked Applejack.

“Dunno,” said Apple Bloom. “Think it’s safe to poke her?”

“I don’t think so,” said Oakback. “You might get zapped with magic or something.”

Apple Bloom made a face. “Figures. Oakback, I suggest me and you watch over her, even if it takes all night. The rest of y’all, try going to bed. Lock all them shutters and don’t open the doors for no pointy-toothed assholes.”

“I’m stayin’,” said Applejack.

“Figures,” said Apple Bloom. She trotted over, reared, and hugged Applejack… hard.

“I’m staying too!” said Rainbow Dash.

“Course you are. I’d hug you too, but Spy’s asleep under your wing,” said Apple Bloom.

Dash blinked, and looked. She glanced back, her eyes moist.

“We’ll sleep in shifts,” ordered Apple Bloom, “right here. Right here by Fern Gully, poor Fern Gully. Close his eyes, will you, Oakback? We’ll pay him better respects tomorrow. Also, go tell Granny once you’ve done that. She might come join us out here, in fact I bet she will, and that’s good: we can protect her as well. We kin make plans, too. Maybe the first plan is, how to get that Kirin workin’ again.”

Applejack considered this. “She came out here for farm pony fuckin’. Maybe we can settle her down by showin’ her a good time? This ain’t a good time, but you know what I mean. I would be honored to try and relax the lil’ darling with some…”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Rainbow. “She freaks out about magic bits, I saw it. She didn’t faint that time, but she nearly did.”

They looked, together, at the stricken Kirin.

“She ain’t the toughest evil-fightin’ magicpony, I’ll say that,” said Applejack.

“She’s kind of young,” said Dash, “maybe she’s never fought evil before? She really looked overwhelmed. Like, just the leftover evil from Hollyhock murdering Fern Gully wiped her out. I don’t even know what she’d do if she confronted Hollyhock.”

“Faint, maybe?” said Applejack.

“Dang it!” objected Apple Bloom. “You don’t know that. It's easier to fight something than to fight a lot of scary nothing. Here’s what we’ll do. Big Macintosh is prob’ly the most famous studpony in all Ponyville, less’n you count Braeburn. We’ll give her Big Macintosh, who’s real gentle and quiet and warm-hearted, and he’s gonna straighten the Kirin out. Heck, he don’t even have to be fuckin’ the whole time. Ain’t nothin’ half so comforting as Big Macintosh snuggling you and singing lullabies, and I know that for a fact bein’ his own little sister. This Kirin can have whatever she wants, so long as she toughens up and helps us fight our evil. ‘Cos we sure do have us some evil!”

There was a pause, as they studied Hina’s prostrate form.

“What if she can’t?” asked Rainbow Dash. “It’s possible to be very awesome and also very scared. What if she can’t do it?”

Apple Bloom stared at the fallen Kirin. She sagged a little. “She ain’t no Apple mare, I’ll tell you that. All the Apples are a lot braver. Even some of the farm ponies are pretty brave, compared to this. Even old and useless farm ponies kin be brave: look at Snowy Hocks, he din’t run away, he’s jes’ settin’ here without a word of complaint, watching and listening to our plans like a good farm pony. I don’t know, Rainbow Dash. I jes’ know she’s supposed to be an evil-hunter. And we’d better have plans.”

“So, what the heck do we do?” said Rainbow Dash, striving for bravado and achieving a certain amount of it. “Do we band together and hunt for whatever did this, without her? Do we send off for a replacement Kirin that doesn’t blow her fuses in a crisis? Or do we, like, panic like flower ponies and just get out of town?”

“I’m gittin’,” mumbled Snowy Hocks, looking at the fallen Kirin, and he scowled… tight-lipped.

Cold Comfort

“Can you, like, totally wreck her little Kirin ass… but nicely?”

Only Rainbow Dash could combine that level of licentious wantonness with adorable sincerity.

Only Big Macintosh could respond, unhesitatingly, “Eyup.”

“Land sakes, Rainbow!” said Applejack. “I hardly think this is a time for wreckin’. Come along, Big Macintosh! We have to get back to the others before they all get kilt by vampires.”

Big Macintosh gulped. “Yeah? Maybe I’m a-stayin’ here.”

“You do,” snapped Applejack, “and you’re livin’ more dangerously. We’re all campin’ out and keepin’ watch. I told you, it got Fern Gully. We reckon it’s Hollyhock who went to the bad. Ain’t Fluttershy who bit him, either, he bit HER… maybe you remember the occasion!”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh. “You’re campin’?”

“All us ponies are keeping watch,” explained Rainbow Dash. “In the morning we’re going to find Hollyhock and, well… you can guess. It’s not the same as the last time. He went crazy and killed Fern Gully and we have to stop him before he does it again.”

Big Macintosh considered this, seriously. His ears were laid back hard as he listened to the terrible tale. “Watchin’ just for Hollyhock?”

“And who else?” retorted his sister.

Big Macintosh looked distressed, and didn’t speak.

“Upon my life, Big Macintosh,” said Applejack, “if ever you knew when not to say unkind words, this might be the best time NOT to…”

Big Macintosh stamped a heavy hoof, and Applejack was cut off short. “How can you be that sure,” he said, “that it weren’t Fluttershy?”

“It’s not Fluttershy!” protested Rainbow Dash.

“She’s a strange mare,” insisted Big Macintosh, “keeps to herself, don’t mix with th’ farm ponies. And she is the one critter around here we know is a vampire. How can you be sure?”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, chagrined.

“Uhh…” said Applejack, “character witnesses? I saw Princess Celestia give her a magic spell once, that meant she never had to go to th’ bad.”

“Fluttershy’s one of my best friends!” vowed Rainbow Dash. “She would never hurt anypony, ever, no matter what!”

Big Macintosh glowered at the ground. “How can you be that sure?”

Rainbow Dash set her jaw. “I’ll tell you how. Applejack, can you guys scout Ponyville without me? Or maybe we should say, I’m not scouting Ponyville tomorrow until I have my partner flanking me.”

“I’m your partner, Rainbow,” said Applejack.

“No,” said Dash. “I mean, call her my… wing-mare? And I don’t mean we’ll cover twice the ground, because she’s not flying searches alone. But she might be better at spotting a vampire, even though she’ll be flying in that mane and tail and looking like a pegasus.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “Oooh. You think she might have a special sense for that stuff?”

Dash pouted, and glared at Big Macintosh. “Not exactly. What I really mean is, I’m not letting her out of my sight until we find the real vampire! And then you might owe her an apology.”

Big Macintosh studied her. Slowly, he nodded. “That’d work.”

“It totally will,” said Dash, “and you know why? Because Fluttershy isn’t a vampire! I mean, yes she totally is, but she’s not THIS kind of vampire. She’s not the hurting and killing ponies kind of vampire. She’s the other kind.”

“How many kinds do you ‘spect we got?” asked Big Macintosh.

“Too dang many,” said Applejack. “Come along. You agreed to help us with th’ Kirin. Apple Bloom’s makin’ a bonfire.”

“Of the Kirin?” gasped Big Macintosh.

“Of firewood!” snapped Applejack. “Maybe of Hollyhock, if we can catch him. I reckon if we threw an innocent pony in th’ fire Nurse Redheart could look after him, but if it’s a vamp the bugger would go up like dried leaves. Rainbow, keep Fluttershy away from the bonfire, got that?”

“Got it,” said Rainbow Dash. She hesitated. “Do you and Big Macintosh need me to escort you back to the others? I need to get over to Fluttershy’s, right away.”

“Yes, we do,” said Applejack. “And you need to report back and tell the Boss Mare what you’re doin’. I don’t think she can object but all the same you ought to get her okay, before going. She’ll say yes.”

By the time they got back to the campfire, Big Macintosh and the Kirin seemed almost equally fretful. Big Macintosh skulked through the night, startled by every snapping dry stick and unexplained noise in the darkness. Since his frame was massive, the snapping dry sticks underhoof were plentiful. He was nearly to the point of whimpering by the time the dim glow in the distance gave way to a reassuring campfire and his pony companions.

If Big Macintosh’s trepidation was obvious, Hina’s terror was debilitating.

She cowered, curled up on the ground as Apple Bloom exhorted her.

“Git up, ma’am! Time for workin’! Light that funny horn up and do somethin’ useful with it for a change!”

On the far side of the bonfire, cowering nearly into the shadows, Snowy Hocks shook his head frantically. Beside him, Oakback also objected. “Boss, we got this. Send her home, she ain’t up to this mess. We’ll start patrollin’ in the morning. We don’t need no fancy magic ponies to do what Ponyville can do for itself, like we done of old!”

“Well, we got one, don’t we?” argued Apple Bloom. “They’re supposed to be all that and a bag of apple chips! Or they would be if they’d quit shirkin’ and get busy! So help me, ma’am, I will nip your little rump for you if you don’t uncurl and start gettin’ a sense of how things lay…”

“Nooo!” wailed Hina. “Don’t, that would be bad! Please no more biting!”

“Then git the fuck UP!” demanded the diminutive Boss Mare, snorting figurative fire and nearly snorting the real stuff as she stomped a burning brand and sent it flipping through the air.

“Please reason with me nicely!” begged Hina. “The vibrations are awful!”

“This IS nicely,” snorted Apple Bloom. “You wanna try for nasty?”

Hina looked despairingly at another old face across the fire, as if seeking venerable ancestors for wisdom. Unfortunately, she got Granny Smith.

“Yep!” said Granny approvingly. “She even said ma’am. Twice, that she did. Now if you ask me, I’d recommend that you stand up right quick when the Boss Mare asks so nicely. Kin you catch bein’ a Kirin if somepony bites your patootie so hard they draw blood?”

Hina gasped. “No!”

“Care to test that assumption?” quipped Granny Smith.

The watching eyes were full of many things: fear, frustration, appraisal, disappointment. What they weren’t showing was sympathy. The farm ponies were waiting for instructions, and their Boss Mare was sidetracked trying to rouse a cowering magic-pony of foreign extraction… if she even counted as a pony, for she was more deerlike or goatlike… and enlist her aid. Apple Bloom’s exasperation was contagious.

Hina, still shaking with fear, pouted and struggled unsteadily to her little cloven hooves.

“Thankee,” said Apple Bloom wryly. “Now, if you were payin’ attention instead of kickin’ up a big fuss, you would see that right behind you…”

Hina squealed and hit the dirt again, covering her head with her forelegs.

Apple Bloom didn’t even move, though a muscle in her neck twitched. “As I was sayin’, right behind you is our good Big Macintosh. We’ve brought him here for ya on account of you came to town looking for a good farm pony fucking, plus he’s a pow’ful comforting individual in tough times. Oh, don’t blubber, Big Macintosh! Ah swear, you two deserve each other!”

“Ah ain’t blubberin!” argued Big Macintosh. “Smoke got in my eye.”

Hearing that deep voice, Hina’s head jerked upright again, and she whirled to face him. “You! The big red pony! I helped you mate that young mare! I h-helped you, I wasn’t useless, truly I helped you…”

Big Macintosh blinked at her, ears back. “With fuckin’? Beggin’ your pardon, miss, but it ain’t that complicated.”

“Shh!” hissed Rainbow Dash. “Humor her!” She turned to Apple Bloom. “Can I go? I need to go check on Fluttershy, like right now, okay?”

“Since when?” demanded Apple Bloom. “I thought I told you, we need you to patrol tomorrow!”

“Yeah, well,” said Rainbow Dash, “I need to go get Fluttershy tonight and we can deal with tomorrow when it’s tomorrow!”

“Aw, shit,” came a voice, “you’re bringin’ her here?”

Rainbow looked around frantically, and then spotted Snowy Hocks peering around Oakback, plainly appalled, his mouth shut tight in disapproval but a world of ‘nope’ in his eyes. She stamped a forehoof. “Maybe I should, whatever you farm ponies think! You liked her well enough when you were banging her and you didn’t think she could fight back!”

“No fighting!” begged Hina.

Rainbow gave her a hard look. “Funny you should mention it, because Fluttershy is the most no-fighting pony I’ve ever met. Until I met you, I guess. But I don’t care what you think!” she yelled, turning back to Snowy. “What I need to do is go and be with Fluttershy. Then if anything else bad happens, she has an alibi which is me, and when morning comes both of us can go on patrol, together!”

Apple Bloom wasn’t flinching, and stared back at Dash with matching fierceness. “So you’re not defying my orders, huh?”

“I’m doubling them,” retorted Dash. “Maybe Fluttershy has a sense of vampires. She ought to. Once she finds him, I bet she can compel him to be nice!” She hesitated. “If that’s even the way it works. It was with Gilda! And with Gilda and Northern Spy.”

“Yeah!” said Spy, who was balanced on Granny Smith’s back. “He wouldn’t ever disobey her!”

Apple Bloom lifted her chin. “Don’t y’all get carried away. We’re still makin’ a bonfire, this very one, and we ain’t had a vamp get so obstreperous before. I am not sure if we are going to rehabilitate Mister Hollyhock. You might want to look in poor Fern Gully’s eyes and tell him it’s time to make nice.”

“Somepony closed his eyes,” objected Rainbow Dash, her ears flattened in dismay.

“Then look in mine.”

Dash shuddered. “No thank you, Apple Bloom. I think maybe you’re right and it’s time to kick vamp.”

“Maybe? Maybe?!” retorted Apple Bloom, but Applejack hastily spoke up. “I think you got her okay, Rainbow. Go ahead… and keep her safe!”

“From us, y’mean?” said Oakback, while Snowy glowered silently. “Safe from us?”

Rainbow Dash sagged a bit. “Maybe a little of that, Oakback. But also, not saying you’re right, but it can’t hurt to have somepony watching Fluttershy around about now.”

“That’s me, silly!” chirped Pinkie Pie, brightly.

Every pony shrieked and cringed back. Pinkie had every reason to remark brightly, for she was doing it out of the heart of the bonfire, and the flames seemed like curls of pink mane just for a moment.

“Git her outta there!” wailed Applejack, charging forward.

Rainbow Dash caught her. “No, Applejack!” she yelled. “Stop! She’s gone! See? She’s not there! Maybe she was never really there, like with the mirrors and stuff?”

Applejack panted, but stopped trying to throw herself on the bonfire. “Mirrors? What?”

“Good, good girl,” said Rainbow, “that’s the way. Yeah, mirrors, you know? When she appears in mirrors and just says HI! and then she’s gone? Like just to mess with you?”

“Nope,” said Applejack flatly. “She ain’t done any such thing. You tellin’ me that girl’s popping out of mirrors now? That’s bad luck!”

“Nah,” said Dash, “she just kind of… appears? With this big creepy smile? She doesn’t do that to you, huh?”

“She pops out of teacups,” said Big Macintosh. “She broke m’ teacup. Granny, kin I have another teacup? Pinkie Pie broke it.”

“How’d she do that?” pressed Granny, suspiciously.

“By jumpin’ back in,” said Big Macintosh. “Don’t seem possible, nohow. No wonder it broke, that mare’s got a butt full ‘a cupcakes.”

Hina trembled. “These things are not right!” she wailed, distraught. “The evil chokes me! I will faint again!”

“Oh, no, you don’t!” commanded Apple Bloom. “Here, Big Macintosh! Miss Hina, you go with Big Macintosh, he’ll take care of you. Rainbow Dash, you go off and keep an eye on Fluttershy, and don’t you bring her back here tonight, especially not all lookin’ fangy and scarey, ‘cos that would be entirely too damn much. I’ll expect you flyin’ search patterns tomorrow morning. And before you go, fair warning: when you report in tomorrow morning, I’m gonna have you hold your hoof over the bonfire to prove you ain’t no vamp, and I’m checkin’ your teeth. Fluttershy is exempted from this for obvious reasons. Off you go!”

“Got it!” said Dash, spreading her wings.

Applejack gasped. “You’re holdin’ her HOOF over the fire?”

At that, both Dash and Apple Bloom turned to stare right at her.

“Name one thing scarier than a secret vampire Rainbow Dash what ain’t on our side,” said Apple Bloom. “We got to be sure.”

“Bring it on,” vowed Rainbow Dash. “Fluttershy would never hurt me, and even if she tried that would be incredibly sad but she still couldn’t catch me. I’ll be careful, and I’ll prove I’m still a pony when I come back in the morning. And like Apple Bloom said, Fluttershy will be flying searches alongside me but she’s exempted from the test because she’d pretty much automatically fail it.”

“Sorry I asked,” moaned Applejack, as Rainbow turned and took to the air, flying directly to Fluttershy’s while staying far out of earth pony vampire reach.

“How’d Pinkie Pie appear in the pyre?” said Snowy Hocks, indistinctly, from behind Oakback. Just his knees could be seen, and they were shaking terribly.

“What?” said Applejack. “Speak up, dammit! Ah don’t know, but she’s a pow’ful strange pony, and I guess we’re still learnin’ how powerful and strange.”

Snowy saw Hina, the Kirin, being led off by Big Macintosh toward the Sweet Apple Acres farmhouse: he’d seemingly decided that his barn room was too close to the festivities, and wanted somewhere quieter, such as Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s master bedroom while they weren’t in it. Such a thing might never have occurred to him under normal circumstances, but these were anything but normal circumnstances.

Oddly, the sight of the trembling, departing Kirin seemed to upset Snowy more. He thought hard for a moment, then asked “Is she BAD?”

“Pinkie?” blinked Applejack. “You spit your bit or somethin’? Leavin’ aside anything to do with promises, it appears our Pinkie can do all manner of strange stuff to help us. They say she’s appearing in mirrors, I’ve personally seen her take on all sorts of bizarre shapes, she just appeared in the bonfire without bein’ harmed which proves she ain’t no kind of vampire, and she’ll be doing all that stuff and more to help us, plus her spooky visions, with only laughter as her guide. How’s that make you feel, Snowy?”

Snowy shook harder for a moment. “Scared!” he brayed, and he turned and charged off into the darkness.

“SNOWY!” yelled Applejack, beginning to chase.

“No!” demanded Apple Bloom, jumping across her path. “Stop it! Let him go, th’ foolish old horse! Stop, don’t go after him!”

“But…” protested Applejack, and then made a face. “Shit!”

“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom. “You got that right. Nopony else do nothin’ stupid! We stick together! If we’re lucky we’ll see our Snowy again, alive. Which I’m sure is what we say more often than not, old coot that he is…”

“Manners!” snapped Granny Smith.

“I coulda said if we’re UNlucky we’ll see th’ malingering old fool alive,” grumbled Apple Bloom. “That was good manners!”

Granny Smith considered that. “Hmph. True enough. Dang if you ain’t like old Applesauce. Applesauce of old, that is, your mother: ain’t like she lived to be old, pore thing.”

“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom, “well you ponies are gonna live to be old if I got anything to say about it. Snowy Hocks can come back if he knows what’s safe for him, the crazy old fool. If th’ vampire tries to eat his soul it’s gonna get a stomachache.”

“Hollyhock, y’mean,” suggested Applejack.

Apple Bloom took another long look at dead Fern Gully… her farm pony, and her responsibility.

“Ah think he’s gonna be ‘the vampire’ to me from here on out,” she said, grimly.

The master bedroom was cozy as ever, though the bedsheets whiffed of pegasus. Big Macintosh glanced at Hina uncertainly, wondering if that would offend her. Seeing her jump into bed and hide immediately under those same covers, he concluded it did not.

Before joining her, he went over and drew the curtains, taking a moment to peer fearfully into the darkness.

“It’s all right, Miss Hina-rin,” he said. “Our Apple Bloom has it all under control.”

The covers rumpled. The Kirin’s dainty head peeked out from under them, wearing an expression of disbelief. “You are kidding me.”

“Naw,” said Big Macintosh. “Ain’t jokin’ nor jestin’. You’re safe.”

“That can’t be right!” protested the hapless Kirin. “I mean… oh, I’m so sorry, I can’t even give you courtly speech, I am so flustered! Give me a moment. I’m better than this, surely I am better than this…”

“Courtin’ speech?” said Big Macintosh. “Uhh… you might have to give me a moment, too. Not what you might call ready to drop a stiff one an’ go to town. Ah’m sorry, Miss Hina.”

“Oh!” squeaked Hina. “That’s right, they wanted me to have sex and be soothed! I’ll fix this, I can rise to the occasion…”

“Kin you?” snorted Big Macintosh. “More’n I can promise.”

Hina gulped. “I am out of sorts, and have let the ponies of Equestria down, and if you let me use my magic I can help you become erect though I, I, maybe you should go slowly or we could go see if the pantry has any butter we could use…”

“Hold on,” rumbled Big Macintosh.

“I would be happy to!” said Hina. “I’ll hold onto whatever you like, it doesn’t matter how…”

“HOLD on!” repeated Big Macintosh, and the Kirin froze, alarmed at his sudden sternness.

Big Macintosh drew a deep breath, and let it out again. “How old are ya, Miss Hina-rin?”

“Five hundred and seventy-three years old,” said Hina.

Big Macintosh’s eyes bugged out a little. “Huh. I could ask what that is in Kirin years, but never mind, then. You seem fretful, Miss Hina.”

Her eyes were tragic. “I must help this town! But the miasma of evil was so strong I could not think! The angry filly was so aggressive, nopony in Neighpon has posed such challenges, I can’t even speak right…”

“Shh,” said Big Macintosh. “I reckon I know what to do here. Prob’ly Apple Bloom knew it all along…”

“The sex, yes! Give me a minute…”

“No, ma’am,” said Big Macintosh sternly. “You got some funny ideas about your obligations.” He climbed onto the bed, which creaked under his weight as Hina’s eyes widened. He rolled onto his side, and he held out his forelegs. “C’mere.”

Hina’s eyes glistened as she understood… and then she’d wriggled out from under the covers and, snuggling up, was clasped in his strong and protective embrace.

“There, there,” he rumbled. He made a point of dropping his voice to subterranean depths, knowing the likely effects: and indeed, Hina trembled as the vibrations from his mighty ribcage went through her. “All right. It’s good.”

Big Macintosh felt her tail flicking against his crotch. She drew a breath that wasn’t as steady as he’d have liked, and suggested, “I could let you have some sex… if you are gentle?”

“Slow down,” he said. “Forget about that for now, Miss Hina. Why are you so all-fired eager ta please?”

She turned her head, and those huge heavy-lashed eyes served him a startled look. “I shouldn’t please just myself! Ponyville is in danger!”

“Must be Tuesday,” grumbled Big Macintosh. “Me, I’m more concerned with pleasin’ my Boss Mare. You shouldn’t call Apple Bloom the ‘angry filly’, at least not where she can hear you.”

“Can she hear me?” squeaked Hina, caught off guard.

“Eenope,” said Big Macintosh. “Just sayin’.”

Hina subsided. She snuggled up against Big Macintosh, the magic mane sparkling fitfully. “Spirits and monsters,” she sighed. “Which is the one that appeared in the fire before us? Is she dangerous?”

“Nope,” said Big Macintosh. He considered this, and said “Yup and nope. Depends on what you’re up to, I reckon? Pinkie Pie’s a caution, but as long as you let her behave like everythin’s happy fun play time forever, there ain’t no harm in her.”

“Happy fun play time in fire?”

Big Macintosh thought about that, and about Fluttershy, and what little he knew of Pinkie’s life. She’d never gotten over learning Fluttershy was a vampire, or worse: a heterosexual. She spent a lot of time with Cloud Chaser, and had been dating Zecora but that turned sour—Fluttershy had apparently taken Zecora from her, though gossip suggested it’d been the other way around, and that Pinkie had been the one making a play for Zecora and failing. She was very protective of the foal she’d had with Fluttershy, taking responsibility for her role in triggering pegasus ovulation through wing-biting and the part her spirit played in young Rock Candy’s makeup, but she barely acknowledged the zebra-pegasus foal Dursaa Jr. at all, even though as rumor had it, and as Fluttershy confirmed, she’d done exactly the same thing with him. He was still too little to notice her attitude, but Fluttershy’s zebras certainly did.

“You got a clever way of puttin’ things, Miss Hina,” said Big Macintosh. “In fire, eyup. Guess so.”

Hina nestled closer to him. She took a deep breath. “I must be honest. I’m not in a mating mood. Can you just hold me?”

“Eyup,” he said, and he did.

Hina sighed, comforted. “I will help this town,” she murmured, forlornly. “If I can. I am not useless. Though if I could call in some senior Kirin… “

Big Macintosh blinked. “More? More Kirin, comin’ here? I ain’t sure what Apple Bloom would say about that.” He considered it. “I ain’t sure what Princess Celestia would say about that.”

Hina winced. “True, I have no authority to do that. I should consult the Princess. I wish our Kirin authorities were here.”

“It’s real different in Ponyville, huh?” said Big Macintosh. “Don’t be frightened, lil’ Hina. We’ll keep ya safe.”

She wriggled, petulantly. “I should unleash the potent powers of good!”

At that, Big Macintosh chuckled.

“What?”

“That’s what Apple Bloom wanted me to do. Maybe I’m still doin’ it but in a different way.”

Hina gave him a look. “Hmph!” she said, and the corner of her mouth turned up. “Just for that, I’ll unleash the potent powers of good on you, mister. That is a promise, and I will keep the promise.”

“Oooh,” remarked Big Macintosh. “Who’s doin’ the unleashing now?” He frowned for a moment. “Soundin’ like Rarity, with all this talk of leashing. Huh.”

“Huh? Like Rarity?” said Hina.

“That was a funny, awkward time in my life,” said Big Macintosh, gazing into Hina’s heavily lashed eyes. “You kinda look like her… perty, that is, an’ all white, and them eyelashes. Are yours fake? Rarity don’t like ponies talkin’ about how her eyelashes is fake.”

The lush, radiant eyes widened. “Not fake in the least! Nothing about a Kirin can be fake, sir!”

Big Macintosh chuckled again. “Eyup, you do remind me of her. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. I used to be awful scared of not being right. Rarity likes bein’ wrong, which I never could understand. For all that, she’s a clever mare. She knew I was gonna like takin’ a stallion, back when that seemed like the worst possible thing. Dang, how I hated her for that, for a mighty long time, too.”

“Please don’t hate?” urged Hina. “Not here, not right now.”

Big Macintosh wasn’t paying too close attention to her. He gazed off thoughtfully into the distance, and Hina’s mane lay quiet against him, hardly sparking at all. “Past tense, Miss Hina. Rarity’s changed. She’s with that Derpy Hooves. Turned out she was Sweetie Belle’s Mom, too… still don’t understand all of that, to be honest. I b’leeve I was wrong to be so angry at Rarity. I don’t think she blamed me. She did think it was awful funny to see me with Braeburn, though! Well, I guess maybe that is funny.” He blinked. “Uh. With all your talk of goodness, do y’all Kirins object ta gay ponies? Cause this might be a short snuggle, I’m jes’ sayin’.”

Hina shook her head. “Pony ways of love come in myriad forms. So do the ponies, in fact. Back in Neighpon, where I live? I help with many matings. Some in most peculiar ways. My scales don’t grow over that.”

Big Macintosh’s eyes widened. “Scales? Y’mean, some kinda disease?”

Hina laughed, for the first time since she’d panicked at the bonfire. “On my neck, silly!”

He studied the elegant arch of her neck, but there was nothing, just alabaster hide, as fine and flawless as Rarity’s had been. “I don’t see nothin’.”

Hina wriggled. “You’re such a good horse. That is why.”

“Heh, heh, heh… you don’t know that yet!”

“Eep! I did not mean… let’s not test things out so soon! I need to relax.”

Big Macintosh snuggled her closer. “Just teasing, hon.”

“Hina-rin,” corrected the Kirin, nestling into his embrace again.

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh, obediently. He quirked an ear, considering with surprise just how much he felt stirrings for the exotic creature he cuddled. She reminded him so much of Rarity, but it hadn’t occurred to him the way that could latch on to his libido… and, deeper than that, his feelings of protectiveness and chivalry. It seemed the first love left deep roots in one’s psyche, and now, with his forelegs wrapped around a demure and fussy mare (sort of) who combined arrogant public graciousness with an eagerness for private wanton debauchery, Big Macintosh felt utterly at home.

“These bedsheets stink dreadfully of pegasus,” observed Hina-rin. “Just whose bed is this?”

Big Macintosh smiled. That was Rarity all over. “It’s the Apple master bedroom,” he said. “Once I thought Ah was gone git it. That’s why it tickles me to be here in it now. Want me to tell ya the story?”

“Yes, please do,” said Hina, wriggling pleasantly and melting against him like a contented cat.

“When we lost our mother… a barn fell on her… the master bedroom was empty,” explained Big Macintosh. “I thought for sure I was gonna get it, which din’t seem like a bad idea as I was a growin’ colt and it’s the biggest bed by a long shot. But my lil’ sister, Applejack, she took on the Boss Mare job. Won’t say she kept it, nor did Granny Smith before her, but she took it. And she decided she was gonna sleep in that big bed, all by herself.”

Hina blinked. “And?”

Big Macintosh chuckled. “She didn’t bargain on thundery nights.”

Hina’s eyes widened. “Oh…”

Big Macintosh nodded. “Terrible scared of thunder, my sister is, always has been. All the Apple mares are, except lil’ Northern Spy. They kin boss the farm like nopony’s business but in the dark of night, with all that rumblin’ and boomin’, you find them all cuddlin’ up to you at once, shivering and crying. It’s jes’ their way. And Celestia help you if you go talkin’ about it the next morning!”

“What has this to do with beds?” pressed Hina-rin.

“Well, the very first night Applejack took over th’ master bedroom, there was a big storm. And I kept waiting for her to come and hide under my covers, along with Granny Smith an’ Apple Bloom. But she just wouldn’t. Lil’ Apple Bloom, still just a foal, she’s askin’ me how come Applejack wasn’t scared of thunder no more. And I told her Applejack was very special, and she’d become the Boss Mare even though she was still little, and she weren’t scared of nothin’ in Equestria no more.”

“But, the beds…”

“The next morning,” said Big Macintosh, “she come down to breakfast. And there’s these big dark circles under her eyes, and she gives me a look and I din’t say nothin, not one word. That mare toughed it out all night in this very bed, rather than show weakness. She showed lil’ Apple Bloom what it is to be an Apple Boss Mare, and I guess she showed herself a thing or two. Even after Apple Bloom took over, she let this be Applejack’s room. So this is Applejack’s bed. She earned it. Just tickles me to be usin’ it. Though I admit it might be strange to be a-fuckin’ in it. But not as strange as you’d think, all things considered…

“But,” said Hina, “the smell?”

“That’s why it ain’t strange to be fuckin’ in this bed. My sister’s with Rainbow Dash, you prob’ly saw it. Rainbow is a mighty wild mare, but ain’t much for housekeeping, so I guess it’s her turn to wash the bedsheets.”

Hina considered this, her elegant ears splayed in dismay. “She does not do the chores fairly given her?”

“That seems strange to you?” said Big Macintosh. “Ponies are balky critters, especially Apples, and Rainbow is what you might call honorary Apple. That’s probably why Northern Spy ain’t scared of thunder, she’s Rainbow and Applejack’s kid. With, uh, with a lil’ help. So she’s all kinds of Apple.”

Hina’s mane had flared up briefly as Big Macintosh touched on the way he’d ‘helped’ bring Northern Spy into the world. She ignored it. “In Neighpon, all is harmonious and calm. Ponies gladly do their work. We help them find paths that bring them lasting joy. We keep them from conflicting. And we always, always make the ponies talk it out.”

Big Macintosh blinked. “Beg pardon? You make ponies talk when they’re fussin'?”

“Yes, obviously,” said Hina, rolling her eyes.

“But,” said Big Macintosh reasonably, “ponies think different things. That’s why they argue. Wouldn’t be no arguments or fightin’ without ponies each makin’ up their own minds. Why, I used to be in a heck of a fight with Rarity on account of I had it in my mind that certain stuff mattered. An’ I weren’t too far off, neither—practically got disowned by my Granny and it’s a grateful wonder we all worked it out in th’ long run, and Granny still ain’t thrilled but she’s come a long way. That’s why she loves it so when I am th’ stud-boy.”

Hina sniffed. “If ponies talked, then they wouldn’t think such different things. In Neighpon, we know better. Conflict is wasteful.”

“How kin you possibly stop ponies from thinking different things?” said Big Macintosh. “Like, terrible awful different best-not-even-talk-about-it things, that you gotta jes’ mind your own business and not bring up?”

Hina batted her eyelashes at him with serene confidence.

“The Kirin magic of knowing what is best.”

Big Macintosh boggled at her for a moment, but she seemed to believe it. “Y’sure about that, now?”

“How else could it be?” said Hina, puzzled.

“Okay,” said Big Macintosh. “I guess we’re gonna have to agree to disagree? I’m jes’ saying, I’ve known all kinds of things in my day, and not all of them was ‘best’.”

Hina gave him a look of polite disbelief and incomprehension, mystified that he’d ever take upon himself the Kirin burden of knowing how everything should be. Then, the troubled look passed, and she smiled indulgently at him and snuggled back into his embrace.

“I prefer the ‘agree’ part,” she said.

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh, stroking her belly with a gentle hoof. He pouted slightly, and smirked slightly, and his eyes were narrowed slightly.

They would indeed agree to disagree… and at some time, not tonight but before long, the haughty creature could be in control all she wanted… while she could.

Big Macintosh didn’t need to bite or dominate mares to get them to melt into submission and drop their argumentative natures. A few more inches of dick generally sufficed, and left everypony happy. And then, he’d again enjoy the experience of snuggling a quivering lover, formerly bossy as all hell, rendered limp and struck dumb by the magic of horsecock.

It wouldn’t last, he knew, but nothing lasted forever. Did it?

Snowy Hocks galloped through the darkness, his eyes glowing disturbingly. It was mighty fine to have energy again,  though he thought he might’ve broken an ankle on a tree root that stuck up where it shouldn’t. He didn’t care, because his vampire powers would let him run on through the pain and probably fix up the broken ankle and who knew what else, forever.

He wasn’t running away, though. He was running TO, as fast as he possibly could.

Realizing this, he forced himself to stop. To think!

Snowy’s rational mind had never failed him, even as his body began to break down and mortality loomed. He’d thought clearly and coldly, reasoning his way through life to get what he wanted.

He’d had a plan, too. Mortality could go fuck itself. Snowy didn’t want any of it. When he’d realized Hollyhock was acting funny, and why… the plan had sprung into his head nearly fully formed, and it was simple and foolproof.

Win over Hollyhock’s trust by any means necessary, and then contrive to ‘join’ him in undeath just before the ponies caught up with him and killed him. Then, Hollyhock would be gone, and Snowy would be immortal, all-powerful, and free. The Kirin had seemed like the perfect opportunity, and then when Snowy’d learned Applejack and Rainbow Dash would be teaming up with the Kirin to hunt down the evil that could only be Hollyhock, things got urgent. Snowy, terrified that the anti-evil patrol would wipe out his immortality ticket, had dragged off an equally panicked Hollyhock and demanded immediate thralldom, for Hollyhock’s protection.

And then, as the fangs delicately entered the flesh under his mane (for Hollyhock didn’t want to leave a visible mark, and Snowy had worked that out too), Snowy knew that he’d fucked up, bigtime.

His brain was still sound. That was the torturous part. All his reasoning was intact. Hollyhock was a fool, not capable of managing the realities of being an immortal predator compelling ponies into obedience. He was literally dead meat but also figuratively, set against mares like Applejack and Rainbow Dash. They’d defeated Discord even after he turned Ponyville to a demented playland. Hollyhock had no chance at all, even before the Kirin turned up.

And Hollyhock was suddenly also the one thing Snowy Hocks loved most in the universe. It was beyond comparing, beyond reason. Snowy loved him, helplessly.

And the plan remained… but twisted, perverted. It’d turned from being a coolly calculated set of events, to a nightmare of wrongness, and yet it waited like a steel trap and could not be defused.

Hollyhock was going to die… unless Snowy could save him, in spite of himself. Die… and set Snowy free. And what was free, really? What price was ‘free’?

Snowy stood, shaking, grimacing, tears running down his face as he fought to master his mind. Logic had to be his guide. He was in love, and he knew what that meant though he’d never had it so bad. He’d always managed not to be ruled by love, for it got in the way.

If he couldn’t save Hollyhock (never mind that he’d been reasoning out ways to betray him, such thoughts tormented him now) then logically the only response was to hate Hollyhock’s murderers. Unfairly persecuting a wonderful creature who was only eating the souls of the weak and the useless! How dare they!

Snowy shook his head and tried again.

If he couldn’t save Hollyhock he’d have to save himself, so he had to think hard and figure out how to defeat their enemies. That way he could destroy all the enemies, outwit them before they could even think of harming Hollyhock, and…

Snowy shook his head, fretfully. He knew he’d have to do better than that. He couldn’t remember why it mattered, but some part of him had foreseen what thralldom would be like. He’d left himself secret notes that now shamed him, notes reminding him that his real duty was to protect himself and see to it that Hollyhock was destroyed as soon as possible. He’d left notes telling himself to run far away, to convince himself his personal danger was so great that Hollyhock had to be left to his own devices. He’d left notes telling himself to focus on the wickedness of the townsponies and never think about how he had a secret plan to turn Hollyhock over to them.

Up to the moment those fangs entered his neck, that plan was clicking in every detail. It even took account of the possibility that Snowy wouldn’t be able to control himself after becoming a thrall. Snowy’d studied all the information he could get about the case of Gilda, and Northern Spy, though it was difficult to get ponies to talk. He knew the risks and had been preparing things carefully.

Snowy wept. He’d prepared things too carefully.

And then, his hooves were flying again, flying like a young stallion’s, and then he was before his master, drinking in the wonderful sight, his lip quivering.

“Took you long enough,” said Hollyhock.

Snowy gulped. “I think I broke my ankle running to be with you,” he said.

“Oh,” said Hollyhock dismissively. “Whatever. What did you find out?”

“Bad news,” said Snowy. “They’re all camping out and keeping watch. Applejack’s still gonna hunt you, same with Rainbow Dash, but there’s a problem. They’re gonna get Fluttershy. She’ll be flying with Dash, so stay under cover. Can, can she control you just by being near you?”

“Nothing can control me!” snarled Hollyhock. “Not if I get more power! You told me that, and it’s true!”

“Aw shit,” quavered Snowy. “Uhh, I think maybe I need to amend that advice just a mite…”

“Now what? And the Kirin! You said the Kirin’s the wild card and more dangerous than all of ‘em put together. What about the Kirin?” demanded Hollyhock.

Snowy tried to shift from hoof to hoof, and yelped as the other forehoof gave way under him. He held it up and frantically tried to vampire-mend it as Hollyhock stared angrily at him.

“I said…”

“About th’ Kirin!” blurted Snowy. “Funny thing about the Kirin. She ain’t the threat I thought she was. I’m more worried about the prospects of Fluttershy entering th’ equation. The Kirin freaked out and fell down crying. Must be young for a Kirin, not as good as the others, or possibly they’re just used to magemelding, which is a thing they do. If I don’t miss my guess, the thing that was freakin’ her out was none other than yours truly, standin’ there all brave and even asking questions, though I had to talk funny to keep my fangs from showin’. I don’t think they suspected a thing on account of they’re dumbasses and caught up in their own plans. More the latter, really, which is something to be concerned about. The instant these ponies do shake loose from their plans, they’re mighty quick to catch on…”

Hollyhock kicked his other foreleg out from under him, and he fell on the injured one, which immediately snapped. Snowy let out a strangled scream, desperately trying not to be loud and obvious, and looked up at Hollyhock like a whipped dog.

“What do we DO about the KIRIN?” demanded Hollyhock.

“Uh, uh, prob’ly nothing. She’s goin’ off with Big Macintosh to get fucked. I think our big problem is gonna be Fluttershy, but there’s another thing I hadn’t accounted for. Pinkie Pie appeared in the fire. She’s actin’ real crazy, but curly-mane crazy not straight-mane crazy. You know? It’s pow’ful important on account of she can do any damn thing in or out of reality when her mane’s curly, but when it’s straight she just raves creepy stuff and she cain’t do diddly-squat in that state. That’s important. In my opinion the most important thing we can do might be to figure out how we can get Pinkie Pie into that straight-mane state, nopony listens to or understands her anyway when she’s like that, because I can’t rightly defend against curly-mane Pinkie and some of the rumors I’ve heard are damn scary…”

“Snowy, you fuckin’ idiot,” said Hollyhock, shaking his head.

“Ya know what to do?” squeaked Snowy cutely, his eyes lighting up in helpless adoration. As Hollyhock spoke, his face fell.

“Pinkie Pie is an earth pony! Like I used to be, just a dumb earth pony. Don’t be stupid. We need to figure out how to kill the Kirin, because you told me it was the biggest danger and it’s a creepy foreign magic thing. I can kill all the earth ponies I want and it just makes me stronger. I did it once already, I’m going to do more. So, stop thinking about Pinkie Pie and tell me how to kill the Kirin.”

Snowy’s face was a mask of woe, but he obediently set his mind to the task. “That horn’s fragile. The problem is, getting through and delivering a physical attack, like with a hoof or something, when their magic is so hot. They can block you, and they might have magic to wake ‘em if you attack while they sleep. If they sleep, which I ain’t sure if they do. But I’m telling you, Hollyhock, it ain’t the Kirin. It’s just Ponyville that’s the problem.”

“Now you tell me? You got a problem with Ponyville all of a sudden? You fuckin’ coward! Can’t even decide what to be most scared of!”

Myself, thought Snowy, but managed not to say it. Instead, gazing deep into Hollyhock’s enraged eyes, he said, “You got to trust me. I… don’t want to get into too much detail, but I think we should change all our plans now. I got good reasons for throwing away all my old plans and makin’ all new ones which I would be delighted to do for ya…”

He knew Hollyhock was stubborn and didn’t change ideas easily. That had been part of the plan, the horrible horrible plan, too. And sure enough…

“Throw away the PLAN?” demanded Hollyhock. “Are you kidding me? That’s why I made you a vampire in the first place! To help me go through with the plan! The Ponyville plan, you explained it so many times, you told me what would happen and now I can’t have it? You fucker!”

Snowy Hocks whimpered. “Can’t we just run away somewhere and live forever in peace? This ain’t good. I swear, you don’t want to go with the original plan. Let’s go away from here right now, far as we can, and find somewhere to live far away from all the ponies and other vampires and Kirin. I don’t want to get into why I told you what I told you. Kin I persuade you to go somewhere peaceful with me that ain’t in ANY way here?”

“Peaceful?” snarled Hollyhock. “Fuck peace! You told me I had a birthright! Why are you giving me this peace crap all of a sudden?” He glared, his nostrils flaring out and his fangs bared threateningly.

“That so?” said Snowy, trying desperately not to blurt out his guilt as an answer. It seemed the height of folly to cry out, “Kill me, I am trying to betray you!” for Hollyhock would no doubt do exactly that: and then, so much for him, as he didn’t stand a chance without Snowy’s keen mind to think out the best course of action! And so, Snowy made it another second, concealing his treachery because to reveal it would truly be to betray his sire. He’d be lost without that expert guidance, Snowy told himself.

“Ruling Ponyville,” snorted Hollyhock contemptuously. “You tole me you’d help. I made you into another vampire since you was so dang sure of yourself, and now you got cold hooves? Fuck you, Snowy. I shoulda eaten your soul too. I run right off and kilt that idiot Fern Gully, and now you ain’t gonna help me take over the town?”

“Ah jes’ want to serve you,” said Snowy Hocks helplessly, cursing his wicked, faithless heart. Looking into his sire’s eyes, he had no resistance at all. Hollyhock dominated him uncaringly, the vampire eyes burning into his very soul and making him a grovelling slave, and yet the big oaf had no plan and nothing more than crude dominance to offer. He was surely doomed, up against the Apples and Rainbow Dash and the alarming Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy his hated, never-faced sire, and the Kirin… if that even mattered anymore. Snowy felt his desperately fought-for resistance erode like a piss-hole in the snow, and was filled with shame… all the more, since he knew that his scheming brain wasn’t done with him yet. A part of him knew he was enthralled, even as he cringed in horror away from that part and what it intended for his beloved sire.

Even the sight of Snowy grovelling didn’t move that sire to mercy. Hollyhock smacked him across the muzzle with a heavy hoof, and Snowy yelped, and Hollyhock growled, “You said you had a plan. Serve me, hell, you’re gonna stick to the plan about me ruling Ponyville and it’s gonna work! I don’t need to know th’ details, it’s all fancy-pony crap. That’s your job! You had me make you a vampire, and I went and got more powerful like you said, an’ now we’re gonna do the rest of your plan whether you like it or not. I got the bravery and the power, now tell me your stupid plan’s gonna work." Hollyhock kicked the dirt, baring his fangs, hissing "Tell me right now that your plan’s gonna work!” …and Snowy stared back helplessly, trapped in that burning gaze.

He began to cry. “Yeah,” said Snowy Hocks with sheer, miserable honesty. “Yeah, I’m afraid it jes’ might.”

Hot Comfort

Dash banged on the door.

“Open up!”

Nothing happened for a moment. The darkness seemed to be closing in, and Rainbow glanced fearfully around her, wondering what a vampire farm pony even looked like when it attacked.

Then she heard movement inside Fluttershy’s cottage, and the door opened just a crack, and an eye that looked even more fearful than hers peeked out.

“Oh!” squeaked Fluttershy. “It’s you!” She turned to call back into the room, “It’s Rainbow Dash! Not her!”

Rainbow blinked in surprise as the news got two zebra yays, quite plain to hear.

Fluttershy turned again. “Thank goodness you’re here! I’m kind of tired and sore, and we’re doing our best but it just, I, um… Rainbow Dash, could you do me a teensy weensy favor and borrow one of my zebras?”

Dash boggled at her.

“Just to have sex with,” added Fluttershy primly, “not to keep, you know.”

Dash added a dropped jaw to the boggle, and glanced further into the cottage, to see Zecora and Dursaa anxiously peering back out at her.

“You mind running that by me again?” said Rainbow Dash. “I have to be missing something. And why do they look worried?” She blinked, and added, “I mean, sure, it’s normal to look worried when approaching the scorching sexual intensity of the amazing Rainbow Dash, but I mean something else is wrong…”

“Yes!” said Fluttershy. “Something else is wrong! That’s why we have to have the most penis-y sex possible because it’s our only defense against her, but I just don’t have as much selfdestructiveness as I used to and I can’t keep it going any longer and please come in and talk to us, I really hope you can help.”

Dash followed Fluttershy in, and gawked again while doing so. “Hey, you’re really limping, and wow what happened to your…”

“Dursaa happened to it,” said Fluttershy petulantly. “And then Zecora. And then Dursaa again, and then Zecora, and Zecora some more until she said she was too sore to keep going, then Dursaa but it made me cry because I was too sore and then he couldn’t keep going even when I promised I would fix myself up after…”

Rainbow kept staring at Fluttershy’s poor hindquarters. The hindquarters themselves were okay, good as ever, but nestled between her buttery rump-cheeks was a vampony vagina that had seen better days. Rainbow corrected herself: knowing Fluttershy’s weaknesses, perhaps it had been the best day ever, but now Shy’s pussy gaped and was reddened and sore, showing bruising and chafing. Dash boggled again. Yes, that was chafing, even though by Rainbow’s estimation her friend really got off on rough sex. For some reason, Fluttershy had been screwing like a maniac without being properly aroused, and the usual bounty of copious pegasus juices hadn’t been forthcoming.

Fluttershy turned her head and gave Rainbow a sulky look. “I know, and don’t stare. I tried my best! It’s all too distracting. That’s why we need your help.”

Dash gulped. “WHY?”

Dursaa looked away, bashfully, but Zecora cleared her throat. “Miss Dash, I realize how mad this sounds… but Pinkie Pie won’t pry while penis pounds!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Are you kiddin’ me? What do you mean, pry?”

“Please don’t argue,” begged Fluttershy. “Just have sex with one of my zebras, quick, because she’s getting worse and worse and I don’t want to think about what might happen…”

“Okay,” said Rainbow, “first of all what do you mean ‘your zebras’, ‘cos that’s weird, and second of all what’s so bad about Pinkie Pie anyway?”

Zecora laid her ears back. “Don’t let this term for our sweet herd bring you dismay. It’s just our Fluttershy’s personal little way… but if you wish to see the bad of Pinkie Pie, then stick around but let US hide from that mad eye!”

“Diiambs?” murmured Dursaa, but then he whinnied in terror, cowering back from the wall. Zecora flinched also, and promptly shielded him with her body.

Rainbow whirled, and the wall was pink. The window seemed normal enough, until it blinked.

“Mad?” came that chirpy voice, lowered to a dread rumbling. “That’s not nice!”

“GYAAAAH!” squealed Rainbow. For a moment, she fought the urge to burst through the window to safety. But what would that even do, if the wall was Pinkie? “Pinkie Pie! Stop that!”

The house seemed to wobble. The wall contorted and bulged, shrinking as it did, rapidly congealing through monstrous forms into one all-too-recognizable one. Pinkie stood there, as the house sagged and seemed about to collapse. Then, Pinkie’s eye twitched, and the wall was back again, as if nothing had happened.

“I always forget that wall!” remarked Pinkie, with wry amusement… seemingly carefree, but Rainbow could tell there was something to the set of her jaw and the grit of her teeth, something terribly wrong.

“What do you mean, always? What wall? The one you put back?” challenged Rainbow, as Zecora frantically tried to shield Dursaa from Pinkie’s presence, her zebra eyes spitting defiance.

“It could be any wall, really. Hah! That’s a GOOD one!” exclaimed Pinkie.

“What?” cried Rainbow. “What’s so good?”

“NOTHING’S ‘really’!” said Pinkie, with a grin and a twitch. “That’s the big secret! Mine, anyways. Fluttershy, how about yours? HUH? Ya can’t hide forever! I’m watching you, missy!”

“Pinkie Pie!” wailed Fluttershy. “This is not okay! I’m warning you, stop it, you’re frightening my zebras!”

“You’re warning ME?” giggled Pinkie, as Dash looked on in horror. Pinkie frowned in concentration, and beginning with her left hind hoof, turned herself inside out, her mouth opening out like an umbrella, the rest of the pony whooshing through it with a bizarre noise like rumpling a pool toy. The inside of Pinkie looked the same as the outside, and when the limbs and tail and hooves popped into place, the inside-out Pinkie turned around grinning, to reveal her eyes were buttons, and then they were Pinkie’s normal eyes again… not that anypony present could call it ‘normal’.

“Nothing’s true!” confided Pinkie. “And everything’s funny!”

Dash was shaking. “Pinkie! Snap out of it!”

“Nuh-uh!” chirped Pinkie. “I gotta eff up the ineffable! We’re gonna get to the end of the story and it’ll be MY story, and how we’ll all laugh!”

“I am NOT laughing!” raged Fluttershy, baring her cute little fangs.

“Oh, you will,” vowed Pinkie Pie. “You will!” She then looked puzzled, as if she hadn’t expected that one. “Huh. Apparently, you will! What’s that about?”

“PINKIE!” yelled Dash.

Somehow, that got through, where nothing else had. Pinkie blinked, and in a normal voice said, “What’s the matter, Dashie? You sound like something’s wrong.”

Dash braced herself. “Yeah, ‘cos it is. Take a big deep breath, Pinkie, because I have to tell you something…”

“How big?” asked Pinkie, an ominous lilt in her voice.

“Never mind!” squeaked Dash. “Listen, okay? Just listen and don’t do anything weird. You’re freaking out. We’ve done this before, remember? With the party, and the rocks, and the flour sack? It’s happening again, Pinkie, and I need to get you back to reality and away from wacky-la-la-land…”

“This is much more important, Rainbow Dash!” insisted Pinkie, her smile dropping away. “Sometimes a pink pony’s gotta do what a pink pony’s gotta do! You can help. Have you got a kazoo, or some confetti?”

“But what’s it FOR?” demanded Rainbow Dash.

“Watching Fluttershy, silly! With musical accompaniment!” replied Pinkie, and the lilt in her voice was giddier than ever, and ironically she seemed to avoid Fluttershy’s gaze, for all that she claimed to be watching her. It was understandable, for the hurt and stricken look Fluttershy was wearing would have melted a heart of stone.

Dash cleared her throat. “Yeah, but you’re overlooking something. I’M watching Fluttershy! To make sure nothing hurts her! And in the morning we’re hunting the bad vampire! Can you settle down now? I know you found the body, but we all have to keep from freaking out!”

Pinkie stared at Rainbow Dash, stunned. She blinked. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah. So you might want to head back to where the other ponies are waiting around the campfire, if all this is scaring you…”

“That’d work,” said Pinkie, as if to herself. “Yeah. That’d work, since it’s you, Rainbow Dash! Okay, if you’re sure about that! I’ll see ya tomorrow, keep a good watch Dashie!”

Pinkie bounced up into the air, whirled and contracted into a soap bubble, which burst. She was gone, with only the sound of ethereal giggling to mark her departure.

Rainbow Dash heaved a big sigh. “Okay. Fluttershy, we need to talk.”

Zecora and Dursaa were still at bay, peering huntedly at the window that had been a great big cheerful eye. Fluttershy stood, pouting but determined, and faced Rainbow.

“I think we do, Rainbow Dash. What do you mean, Pinkie found the body? Has something bad happened, and it drove Pinkie insane? More than usual, I mean,” she corrected. “I understand she’s been bothering Dursaa and Zecora, but suddenly she was much worse.”

“I thought she was fucking Zecora?” blinked Rainbow Dash.

Zecora’s lip curled. She spat, but said not a word… though her eyes burned.

“Hoo boy,” sighed Dash, and turned to the zebra mare. “Look, you gotta cut Pinkie a little slack. I know she’s kind of exhausting at times, but she means well and she’s really nice if you don’t push her buttons too much…”

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Fluttershy. “Tell me what happened! What body do you mean? Has a pony died? Is that it? Is it old Mister…”

“It’s Fern Gully,” said Dash. “Maybe you should sit down…”

“Tell me,” insisted Fluttershy, sticking out her lower lip only to squish it against the cute little fangs, adorably.

“There’s another vampire,” said Dash. “We’re pretty sure it’s Hollyhock, and he killed Fern Gully. Kind of sucked all the life out of him? I didn’t know they could do that but it sort of figures.”

“What made this vampire?” pressed Fluttershy.

Dash gulped. “You did.”

“Leave our house!” snapped Zecora, rising to her hooves and advancing on Rainbow furiously. “Blue-winged l…”

She froze. Fluttershy’s head had whipped around and caught her in a gaze that permitted no misbehavior. Rainbow couldn’t see Fluttershy’s eyes, but she could see Zecora walking awkwardly backwards to where Dursaa watched.

“Let her explain,” commanded Fluttershy, and Zecora didn’t have to nod. Dursaa hugged his fellow zebra, and his gaze at Fluttershy was trusting but questioning.

Shy turned back to Rainbow Dash. “I’m sorry. She’s very dominant and she might have hurt you or driven you out of here.”

“Uh, thanks,” said Dash, “no problem…”

Fluttershy’s eyes glinted oddly, with intense suppressed energies. “And she mustn’t… because you have to explain that. Right now, please. Why do you say I made Hollyhock into a vampire?”

“You didn’t mean to!” cried Dash. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to, but don’t you remember? That night with the farm ponies, remember? How could you forget?”

Fluttershy winced. “Oh, that. So intense.” She glanced at Dursaa, love in her eyes. “And the beginning of something wonderful!” She turned back to Dash. “But I do remember that whole night. Including you kicking me in the head, I’ll have you know. Thank goodness it all worked out all right, and you were there to catch dear Rock when I dropped him. And I know I didn’t bite one single…”

Her eyes scanned back and forth as she reminisced about that shocking day, and then she remembered.

“I was there too. I watched him go after your wing,” said Dash. “It was the most obscene thing ever. He just about bit it off, don’t tell me that doesn’t count.”

Fluttershy just stood, her jaw dangling slightly, staring at nothing. She remembered too. That very wing twitched to think of the mauling it had gloriously suffered… and for seconds, nopony spoke.

“Oh, fuck,” said Fluttershy, despairingly.

“So you get it?” squeaked Dash. “You see? It’s not really your fault, except now we know better, but you see what happened? He, like, accidentally made himself into a total scary evil vampire and he’s been hiding it all this time! And he killed Fern Gully, it must have been him! We didn’t actually see him. But you see how it HAD to be him? And we gotta find him and destroy him! He’s not like you, Fluttershy, he’s bad!”

Fluttershy winced. “Why can’t they be like Gilda, and try really hard to be nice?”

“Because you bit Gilda yourself?” guessed Rainbow Dash, “and that put the fear of nice into her?”

Dursaa rumbled, “Because he flees from Fluttershy, of course! That Hollyhock’s a wicked cruel horse!”

Zecora, shaking off the compulsion to be still, was so upset she’d lost her rhyming. “This Hollyhock, he is killing ponies? And Fluttershy could control him, she is his sire?”

Dash didn’t notice. “Yeah! But the Apples have other plans for him. He’s one of theirs! They’ve made a big bonfire. I have to put my hoof in it when I come back in the morning with Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy winced, understanding the implication immediately.

“Oh, you don’t have to,” said Dash, “Apple Bloom said you’re exempt for obvious reasons…”

She trailed off. Both Dursaa and Zecora had come forward to hug and pet Fluttershy, who trembled and bore a piteously sad look.

Rainbow Dash didn’t hesitate. She, too, trotted over and gave Fluttershy a big hug. “She’s just being careful,” said Dash. “Apple Bloom’s Boss Mare, remember? She knows you, she’s just dealing with the farm ponies and she’s gotta do stuff a certain way. We’re not going to fail you, Fluttershy. We believe in you.”

“I wondered if I was imagining things,” said Fluttershy very quietly. “Nagging feelings. Familiar ones.” She gulped.

“Oh. Yeah, now that you mention it, it’s kind of deja vu, or maybe deja vamp?” said Dash. “I would have asked you except for we only just found out and we were distracted by the Kirin who’s freaked out and sort of fainted…”

“I nearly didn’t forgive Gilda,” said Fluttershy, in that same tone. “For killing all those bunnies. And of course she didn’t kill them, did she? Not all the way. Twilight did, in the end, and I helped.”

“I’m really glad you forgave Gilda but it’s a little more complicated than that…”

“He killed Fern Gully?” asked Fluttershy. “All the way dead, I mean?”

“I saw his face,” said Dash. “He was about as dead as any pony can be. Looked like it was pretty horrible, not to mention surprising. You don’t expect your fellow farm pony to whip out big fangs and suck your blood. Except for some reason he didn’t become another vamp, he got dead. Extra dead, huh?”

Zecora grimaced, her eyes glistening. “Miss Dash, you do not understate the story of Fern Gully’s fate. Back in my cottage, I contrive to keep some exiled souls alive: my masks make homes for wandering souls, for Zebra spirits to feel whole when they’ve abandoned body’s warmth. In this way might their spirit morph into a form sans bone and hair, but nevertheless passing fair. Indeed, I rescued Fluttershy by crafting mane and tail whence I could bind her soul to something pleasant, to remain within her presence. I knew Fern Gully, and though he was clumsy, anyone could see his soul was loving, pure and true. And willingly, this I would do: I’d craft a mask for him, the goal to shelter his sweet foolish soul. But if the things you say are true, then when this wicked creature slew our friend, it was not just his life laid down during that final strife. I fear no spirit wanders free, no more Fern Gully that could be enticed to find a final call within a mask upon my wall. That soul’s by Hollyhock accursed…”

Zecora trembled with rage and grief. “The fucker’s gone and ATE it first!”

Dursaa moaned. Fluttershy looked sick. Rainbow whimpered.

“That’s bad,” said Fluttershy, tightening her lips.

“Ya THINK?” squeaked Dash.

“We can’t have that,” said Fluttershy. “Did you say in the morning you wanted us to go and hunt for him?”

“Yeah,” said Dash. She hesitated. “Are you okay with that? The farm ponies are a little weird about it, but I think it’s the only way to show them you’re not like him.”

“I nearly didn’t forgive Gilda,” said Fluttershy, “so what do you think? Are you okay with it, Rainbow?”

Dash made a face. “I kinda want to go back and check on Applejack, but that’s not fair. Everybody’s in danger now, not just my marefriend. They’re around a bonfire and about as safe as we could ask for. I wanted to come here to make sure you were safe too.”

Fluttershy winced. “Apart from Pinkie Pie, we’re all fine. And it seems like you’ve made her stop persecuting us, and thank you for that. It was awful, and so unnatural.”

The zebras cringed, reminded of their evening. Dash winced. “She was that intense?”

“Now we know why,” said Fluttershy. “She obviously thinks I’m building a vampire army, which is a very hurtful and unfair thing to think. I suppose if she discovered Fern Gully’s body, we should make allowances.”

“I don’t think the zebras are making allowances,” said Dash.

Fluttershy blinked. “Not the grown-up ones, anyhow. Poor Dursaa and Zecora are at their wits’ end dealing with it. I had to send little Dursaa to bed because he was enjoying it, and he mustn’t take pleasure at the distress of his father or laugh at his fear.”

“Wait a minute,” said Dash. “The itty-bitty zebragasus is HERE?”

“Where else?” retorted Fluttershy, tartly.

“And you’re okay with putting him to bed upstairs and leaving him up there when Pinkie Pie can turn into weird stuff and appear in mirrors and stuff and go anywhere she wants?” said Dash.

Fluttershy shared a look with Dursaa.

“My little boy won’t face her whim,” said Dursaa. “The pink one will not bother him.”

Fluttershy’s face was sour. “She won’t even look at him, Rainbow. It’s like he’s not real to her, and he’s the sweetest little colt ever. He likes her, but he likes everypony and he’s not old enough to understand what she’s doing. I wish I didn’t.”

Rainbow glanced back and forth between her formerly-pegasus friend, and the big hulking masculine zebra she doted on.

“We ought to try and fix that,” said Rainbow Dash. “Pinkie’s being extremely not awesome. I get the hating of dick, at least in theory, but your kid’s adorable and this is messed up.”

“I think we’d better pass the night somehow and deal with Hollyhock first,” said Fluttershy. “Pinkie’s being a meanie, but, well…”

“Yeah,” said Dash. “You’re with us?”

“Of course I am,” said Fluttershy, staunchly.

“What about Rock?” said Rainbow Dash. “Rock Candy. Is Rock here? Is she being okay with Rock?”

Fluttershy winced. “Pinkie has Rock. Once tonight it WAS Rock peeking. He poked his head out of a teapot, just like she does. He saw the look on Dursaa’s face, and he ducked back into the teapot so fast the lid bounced off: he was wearing it like a hat, you know. I rushed over and listened and from inside the teapot I could hear him arguing with Pinkie Pie. He said it wasn’t nice, which it isn’t. I tipped over the teapot, but it was empty, and Dursaa smashed it with a hoof and I had to scold him as it wasn’t the teapot’s fault at all…”

“I’m so sorry,” said Dursaa. “Those things scare me.”

Fluttershy continued. “Rock didn’t reappear, but Pinkie’s been teaching him to violate reality. He always was her favorite and now they’re doing that superhero thing…”

Dash was pale. “Yeah, same as Northern Spy. Do you think she’s going to try to teach Spy to break reality too?”

“I think she’s more interested in breaking velocity,” said Fluttershy snippily. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to be unkind, but I think you have to have Pinkie Sense to learn those creepy things, and your Northern Spy doesn’t have that.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t need it to be her own kind of superhero,” protested Rainbow.

“I never said she did!” complained Fluttershy, and winced again. “I’m sorry. I hurt and it’s making me cranky and I need to concentrate if I’m going to repair myself at all.”

“You hurt?” squeaked Dash. “What hurt you, did something attack you?”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes, and Dash remembered. “Oh. Heh. Yeah. So in a sense, something did attack you, but like in a sexy fierce pound-the-pegasus way…”

“All of that,” said Fluttershy. “But even I have limits.”

Dash’s eyes were wide. “Wow. Wish I’d showed up earlier! I always said you were awesome, Fluttershy.”

“No, you didn’t,” retorted the bedraggled vampegasus. “You’ve said many things and yes, sometimes that, I’m sorry, we’ve had such a night and I didn’t realize Pinkie Pie was going to be so unpleasant and I really need to start repairing myself…”

“Got it!” squeaked Dash. “Go ahead, you do that. Wow, look at you, it’s obvious you have a perfect alibi of getting pounded by multiple zebras until you can’t even walk…”

Fluttershy glared angrily at her, and Rainbow Dash stopped talking about alibis.

“Zecora, come snuggle me,” said Fluttershy, “and I’ll start fixing myself back up again.”

As Zecora walked proudly over to cuddle her vampegasus lover, Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wait a minute. I thought it was Dursaa who was your special honey? What’s he gonna be doing?”

Eerie pink eyes glinted… with amusement.

“You,” said Fluttershy, smirking.

Rainbow boggled at her, then glanced quickly at Dursaa. He was watching her, looking bashful.

“Are you kidding?” she gasped. “With a fucking hungry evil vampire running around out there in the dark?”

Fluttershy pouted. “My zebras aren’t afraid of vampires. And they shouldn’t be, especially not of a vampire I can control. Now I know why I never saw Hollyhock after that one night. I thought it was just farm pony cowardice, but I was wrong. Anyway, my husband isn’t afraid of Hollyhock. He is afraid of Pinkie Pie, and I can’t blame him. And maybe you convinced her to go away… but we know what always keeps her away. Dursaa will feel better with a big hard-on sunk into a nice mare. Didn’t you notice me begging for your help when you came here?”

“You’re telling me Dursaa’s going to forget everything with one wink of a pegasus pussy?” protested Rainbow.

Zecora rolled her eyes. Fluttershy smirked. Dursaa looked more abashed.

“Stallions are a little magical that way,” said Fluttershy smugly. “Don’t even pretend that you don’t understand, Rainbow, I know you.”

“Wow,” said Rainbow. “Wow. But does he even want to?”

Zecora snorted. “Is this a tease? Oh, spare me, please. Who wouldn’t thump on that blue rump?”

“You’ve been telling all Ponyville how amazing you are to fuck ever since you were a filly,” sniffed Fluttershy. “Why do you think we were so pleased to see you? If anypony can get another round out of Dursaa, you can.”

“Well, uh…”

“He’s so drained,” added Fluttershy, “that you might not even burst when he comes in you like he does.”

Rainbow whinnied in alarm, shying away. “Burst?”

“Surely not, so do not fear,” urged Zecora. “Nopony is bursting here!”

Fluttershy smirked at her excessively wanton and debaucherous friend, obviously delighted that she’d finally managed to shock Rainbow. “No, of course not. I was teasing you, Rainbow Dash, I didn’t really mean it. It’s true they orgasm very much, I promise that’s not a rumor and even if Dursaa is spent I’m sure he can fill you right up with zebra come. But if it gets uncomfortable, all you have to do is squirm or lift a leg and try to relax, and it squirts out just fine. Don’t clamp down and go still, though. Unless you want to. But no, you’re no vampire, you wouldn’t want to.”

“Gosh,” said Rainbow Dash, staring into Dursaa’s eyes as the big stallion steadily became red-and-black-striped in the face.

“And we do have to pass the night,” said Fluttershy. “It sounded like you weren’t going to sleep, just watch me for sort of hurtful reasons though I understand how things stand…”

“Gosh,” said Rainbow Dash, shifting awkwardly from hoof to hoof, her wings fluttering nervously against her sides.

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, dear. Unless… you’re not okay with this? I just assumed that, you being Rainbow Dash, you’d be all over it. I’m sorry, that’s unkind of me. I do know that my Dursaa would enjoy you a great deal, and the way he likes to do things shouldn’t be a big trouble to you, but if the idea of balling a zebra doesn’t excite you, that’s all right though I think you’re being unfairly closed-minded…”

Rainbow Dash breathed two words that shut Fluttershy up immediately, and caused an equally immediate stirring between Dursaa’s hind legs.

“Bucket list…”

Zecora rolled her eyes again. “Stallions one can trust, to lust. But how much more, a pegasus!”

Fluttershy whapped Zecora fondly with her wing. “Shh. They’re going to have sex and it will be wonderful, so there.” She turned to watch, and Zecora quit complaining.

Entranced, trying to peek under the big zebra stallion, Rainbow sidled nearer. Dursaa’s face was flaming red, but he’d begun to grin. And then…

“Hey, one condition!” demanded Rainbow.

“I’m sure you can have whatever conditions you like,” said Fluttershy. “Don’t act like we’re forcing this on you, it’s an act of kindness plus you ought to enjoy it an awful lot, trust me…”

“No, no argument there! Wow!” said Rainbow, staring. “It’s just… Promise me that Applejack can have a go, later!”

Dursaa’s jaw dropped. He gulped. “If the lovely Apple mare wants a ride on Zebra pole, I think that is only fair. I suggest we make no foal?”

“Yeah,” said Rainbow, “that’d be the best. We got earth pony’s friend at the farm, no worries. I think she would. I gotta offer, okay? Applejack knows me by now, but some things are best shared…”

“Your beloved shares your life,” said Dursaa. “Yes, I’ll fuck you AND your wife.”

“There you are,” said Fluttershy, “you can’t ask for more than that. Well… I suppose you could ask him to fuck you and Applejack at the same time, if he used a magic bit…”

Both Zecora and Dursaa smirked and said absolutely nothing. Dash noticed it immediately.

“What?”

“Hmph!” said Fluttershy. “They won’t tell me, I was just assuming. They also won’t show me, which is extremely unfair!”

“You could probably compel them?” suggested Dash.

Zecora drew Fluttershy closer, as Shy’s gaze turned tragic.

“Sorry,” said Dash. “But you know, me and Applejack haven’t ever seen what happens when a stallion uses a magic bit either…”

“You can see if Dursaa will tell you after he’s had sex with Applejack,” said Fluttershy. “I don’t think they’ll ever tell, though. They’re so stubborn about some things!”

“Apologies,” said Dursaa, “I did not mean to bring you to dismay! There’s better things to bring you to, on this or any day. Or night, I mean, a still more fitting time for such cavorts. Let’s change from gripes to happy cries of many pleasing sorts!”

“Uhhh, if you say so,” said Rainbow Dash. She was sniffing the air fascinatedly, her ears forward, trying not to obviously peek under Dursaa and failing. “Fluttershy, is he supposed to be doing that?”

“Doing what?” said Fluttershy. “Getting an erection? I’d like to know what you’d do if he didn’t.”

Rainbow’s wings were steadily becoming more erect, in near-synchrony with the stiffness of the zebra penis she kept staring at. “No, I mean… eee!”

Dursaa backed off, hastily. He’d reared a bit, as if to mount her, and Rainbow whirled to face him, her eyes very wide.

“Not the wings!” she squeaked. “Oh my gosh! I mean this is super hot and I can’t help it but seriously, not the wings!”

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, right. Dursaa? Be extra careful not to touch even a feather. I know Rainbow has lovely wings but they’re Applejack’s and she’s not kidding.”

Rainbow was blushing. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I mean leading you on and I know being a zebra you probably want to do me super macho and hardcore but there’s just no way that can happen without you rubbing my wings, I mean even if you’re good and don’t b… you know. I’m so sorry, we just can’t…”

“Hush, blue waif!” intoned Dursaa solemnly. “Your form indeed is anything a horse might need. Your sculpted flanks, your radiant tail, these things must surely never fail to drive a stallion wild with lust, and render him all fit to bust your precious pussy with a shove of thick and throbbing Zebra love.”

Rainbow stared, wide-eyed and trembling. “Oooh, fuck. Fluttershy, is it okay that he’s spouting love poetry? He’s, like, your husband.”

Fluttershy smirked. “Oh, Rainbow. I’d be more concerned if he stopped rhyming. You don’t know zebras, do you?”

Rainbow gulped. “Thought I did.”

Dursaa hastened to explain. “Oh, Rainbow Dash, please have no fear! You’ll find there is nopony here who wants to see you dial back devotion to your Applejack. In no way would I once suggest that mounting you would make this best: indeed, I have a pegasus and am familiar with this fuss. We’ll keep your wings both free and clear…”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. In complete contradiction to anything she’d ever heard about zebra stallions, Dursaa backed off, lay down, rolled onto his back and waited for her, big black cock sticking up passively into the air. It was unthinkable, but there it was: he was going to let her be on top.

“So, pretty mare…” rumbled Dursaa suggestively, “come over here.”

There was a moment of absolute silence, and then Fluttershy scolded, “Rainbow, if you drool on my floor I’ll have you wipe it up, because it’s not Dursaa’s fault and he shouldn’t have to do it.”

Rainbow wiped her chin hastily with the back of a hoof. “Sorry! I… wow! Oh my gosh, how do you handle that?”

“Vampire, remember?”

“Shh,” soothed Zecora, “heal.”

Rainbow didn’t notice the touch of intimacy. She was already slinking forward, wings vibratingly erect but safe from unwanted handling, eyes nearly as wide as the girth of the zebra cock before her. “Oh my gosh oh my gosh…”

“Or if it scares you too much,” continued Fluttershy, “we could give you a rain check…”

“Shh!” insisted Zecora, cuffing her snippy vampegasus with a gentle hoof. “These sweet two shall have their fun. Tease them once they’re good and done.”

Dash didn’t even hear. She kept prowling forward, hooves as soft as cat-paws on the floor, and Dursaa’s eyes widened as well. It felt to him like he was being stalked: he was, and even from Zecora at her most dominant he’d never felt so much like prey. It didn’t matter that Rainbow was relatively tiny, she still advanced on him like a griffon spying lunch.

“Ooooh,” breathed Dash. Dursaa had visibly stiffened, seeing her advance.

“Told you so,” whispered Zecora to Fluttershy.

Then, onlookers were completely forgotten. Dash straddled Dursaa with a graceful hop and a flutter of her rapidly stiffening wings, soon to become far too aroused for even the briefest flight. She descended with a fluffy flump onto his belly, and he grunted in surprise and satisfaction. The satisfaction seemed to be mostly Rainbow’s, for she crooned wordlessly, nuzzling his massive chest with her cheek, while her trim hips wriggled back and forth. Between them, her pony breasts pressed the throbbing erection.

“Rmmmmm!” rumbled Dursaa.

“What rhymes with rmmmm?” chirped Rainbow, her eyes closed in sensual bliss.

“Mmmm?”

Rainbow looked at him. “Yeah, I’m not sure that should count, dude. Too easy.”

Dursaa gazed back in dismay. It was true that he hadn’t come up with proper rhymes of sexy-talk. The trouble was, Rainbow Dash’s crotch rubbing lovingly against his cock was far too distracting.

“Maybe you just need some inspiration,” teased Dash, and scooched forward.

Dursaa couldn’t help but look. She had to scoot so far forward that her groin was right up in front of his face, and he was breathing against her chestfluff, which had a mysterious scent he could only imagine as what powder-blue must smell like. It was also finer and silkier than he’d have guessed: the little pegasus always looked sort of scruffy, but she plainly concealed secrets.

One of them stood out right away to him. He could just barely see the nub of her clit between her legs, that little cleft of her vulva and the target his hard-on yearned to acquire, but just above it, one tender pony breast seemed odd. Dursaa realized that Dash bore an obvious scar right there. He cringed, wondering what in Equestria the feisty pegasus had been doing with herself to get that, but then Dash lowered herself and his attention was seized by the sensation of that firm vulva pressing up against his erection… and wriggling.

His ears laid back. Not because it was a bad sensation, but because it was all too good. Dursaa flared out hard, the end of his cock going bulky and wide, and he knew that could be a problem.

A problem, it seemed, for other ponies that weren’t Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow grinned in satisfaction, accepting the challenge. She’d managed this very position with Applejack many times, and Dursaa wasn’t the only one who flared up dramatically into a bulky wedge. She tossed her mane, and got busy.

Dursaa grunted in surprise. It wasn’t just the shoving, though he was startled at how fiercely the little blue pegasus shoved back against him. There was more. Rainbow’s tail swished about like a dancer’s as she pivoted and swiveled her hips, trying different angles, expertly looking to wedge the side, the top of that geometrically challenging bulk into herself. He saw the glint of her eyes, mere slits of concentration, and he gulped as Rainbow Dash quickly painted the whole surface of his cock-head with happy pegasus ooze, always pushing, angling, pressing…

A squeal rang out, combined with a gasp from Dursaa, and Rainbow reared up high, her wings quiveringly erect above her. Below her, the daunting mass of Dursaa’s zebra cock projected up and transfixed her crotch, locked in place by its own size and geometry. A visible bulge showed, where Dursaa’s flare throbbed inside her.

“Oh… my… gosh…” squeaked Rainbow, her ears laid back flat against her head, her entire expression screaming ‘oh, FUCK!’

Dursaa gulped, and held quite still. “Oh, l… little one… is this still fun?”

He hadn’t long to wait for an answer.

Rainbow Dash bared her teeth in an exultant grin. She swished her tail, and he gasped at the clench of her muscles, at how alive she felt. She gazed down, unable to stop grinning like a maniac.

“Best… cock… ever!”

“Oh, good,” managed Dursaa, taken aback.

“One of ‘em,” corrected Dash, swiveling her hips, which wrenched Dursaa’s hard-on about. She frowned in concentration and did it again with more angle to the swivel, and inside her the mass of the flare got unstuck and abruptly slid against the juicy inner walls of her vagina, which caused her to squeal and her eyes to roll back in her head for a moment.

“Nrrrhh!” grunted Dursaa, the sensation jolting him as well.

“AW yeah,” moaned Dash, and gave herself over to flareworshipping by motion and rotation.

Dursaa groaned, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. He’d driven Fluttershy to peaks of ecstacy many times, and she tended to melt into a shuddering, squealing limpness. Zecora’s way of loving was forceful and self-possessed, even when taking a dick. But Rainbow Dash wasn’t like either of them. He winced at how fiercely she gripped his cock-shaft, but it didn’t seem like she was trying to produce an impression, or even a dent. It was just enthusiasm, and that athletic blue pegasus body writhing in transports of pleasure over him.

Rainbow gritted her teeth, glorying in the intensity of the sensation. She wasn’t going to tell him, but it felt like getting knotted by a Diamond Dog! Except it was all knot, or flare, and no smaller shaft sinking to her depths.

Experimentally, Rainbow tried pushing deeper onto the massive thing. She got a few inches, and subsided, panting. It was just too fucking much.

“Hrrrm?” rumbled Dursaa, and Dash realized he was reaching his massive forelegs up toward her. Suddenly, she realized what he meant. If she snuggled down onto his chest, he’d be able to hold her if he didn’t get too near her wings… and then he could do the moving.

Rainbow’s eyes were wide. “D… do I trust you that much?”

Dursaa’s reply was to stick out his lower lip, and withdraw his embrace just a bit.

Rainbow hesitated. “I… I SOOO don’t care. Oooooh!” she crooned, and, her wings rigidly aloft, she snuggled down into Dursaa’s hug, feverishly imagining the fearsome power of his massive zebra hips lying quiescent below her, just waiting to be unleashed.

What startled her wasn’t the hips, however.

“Aaaahh!” squeaked Dash. Dursaa’s hooves were fondling her body, and though he hadn’t come close to touching her wings, he’d inadvertently kneaded her wingbases, and her body abruptly screamed to go all the way.

A glance, and he knew. “Sorry…”

Rainbow panted, her eyes wild. “Wow. Oh my gosh.”

“Not so near, to pegasus parts here?” managed Dursaa. Though his rhythms were off, Fluttershy nodded to see him still attempting to rhyme.

“Right,” panted Dash. “Okay? I mean even if they’re the best parts, or the most exciting parts…”

Dursaa only chuckled, the vibrations from his amusement coursing through Dash’s quivering body. He wrapped her shoulders and neck in a hug, pressing her face to his chest, bracing her.

“Aaaahhh!” squealed Rainbow Dash, as he proceeded.

It wasn’t that he was rough, for he so completely wasn’t. It didn’t even hurt, not more than it already did. It was just the obvious fact that Dursaa’s hips were every bit as overwhelming as Rainbow had hoped. He seemed to know with unnatural wisdom just how deep you could plumb an overstressed pony vagina, and he delivered tender little thrusts with enormous, irresistible force and magically didn’t go the least bit too far inside her.

Rainbow began to shudder violently, her tail thrashing over where that massive shaft pressed, again and again, just a little way into her. In depth it was only a little way, for his bulk was too vast to permit more. In sensation, it was blowing Rainbow apart deliciously, each time just a hair deeper, just to the exact point she could stand, and then withdrawing with a giant tugging sensation, leaving her shaken. And then a decorous pause, and then those potent zebra hips so gently slid his bulk just a bit farther…

Rainbow convulsed, squealed, kicked with her hind legs. He didn’t even slow down, nor could he as he was moving so sedately already; the frenzy was all confined to the increasingly hysterical blue pegasus. Her butt tensed up hard, and again, as Rainbow clenched down on him with savage intensity born of her wild excitement.

Dursaa, husband to a vampegasus, was unmoved by the wildest sexual outbursts of nonvampiric pegasi. He did no more than grunt, and kept up his loving, tender motions as Fluttershy looked proudly on, nodding to herself, more than a little smugness in her expression.

“That’s the way,” Fluttershy crooned. “Told you you’d like him.”

“Gyaahh!” squealed Rainbow, writhing in Dursaa’s grip, her feathers bristling out irregularly. He glanced over at Fluttershy.

“Mercy?” he asked, quietly.

The pink eyes glinted, and so did the cute little fangs in Fluttershy’s smile.

“No. Finish.” She hesitated, and added, “Help her if it’s too high pressure?”

Dursaa nodded seriously, and kept up his movements, gritting his teeth as Rainbow’s intensity built and built.

“Eeeee! Eeeee!” shrieked Dash, pounding the floor beside Dursaa with a forehoof, a sharp woody banging.

“Just like that,” said Fluttershy approvingly.

“I can’t…” began Dursaa, shuddering.

“Go ahead,” urged Fluttershy. “She’ll love it, go on.”

“ERNnnnh!” went Dursaa.

Rainbow Dash was already incoherent with sexual frenzy, unable to focus, on the one hoof driven bonkers by the intensity of Dursaa’s stiff flare prying her so wide inside and insistently nudging the tiny amount that it could. On the other hoof, his sheer bulk meant that he couldn’t slide up deep inside her, and it was driving her insane to be tantalized harder and harder without ever taking a good deep thrust. It was like being relentlessly masturbated by somepony who kept right inside the entrance and left the quivering depths ever untouched. Gilda would have torn the house down. Rainbow was about ready to, even though she wasn’t exclusively about deep penetration at all costs.

Regardless: inside Rainbow Dash’s sex-maddened vagina, her depths waited agitatedly, utterly untouched and unreached.

Until, that is, Dursaa suddenly inflated her with zebra come, in a single blast hard enough to count as its own sort of plunge.

Rainbow Dash shrieked so loud a picture fell off the wall. It clattered onto the floor in the sudden silence, as Dash stared wildly up from Dursaa’s sensual embrace. She’d blown out her voice in an instant, and was utterly helpless, crammed full of cock and spooge until every inch of her was tightly packed. That empty place was suddenly hotly filled, hydraulically filled, and Dursaa had been drained to the point that it was just right.

Then, Dursaa’s hips gave a series of gentle nudges… and, inside Rainbow, the big hard slippery mass of everything everywhere tenderly began to fuck her, just when she was on the ultimate brink.

“EEE!” squealed Rainbow hoarsely, and her mind and body disintegrated into numbingly powerful orgasm. She shuddered, and squealed, and her wings groped brokenly at the air, repeatedly frizzing into featherduster form as if trying somehow to give form that could even portray how hard Rainbow was coming. Dursaa kept nudging and nudging, knowing he was going to subside soon, and Rainbow kept writhing and shrieking a song of fuck in his embrace, exhausting herself.

When her wings bristled out so hard that a single blue feather fired up into the air, to flutter mockingly to the floor, then Fluttershy nodded and said “Enough.”

Dursaa immediately quit nudging, and quit tensing his pelvis, and allowed his hard-on to begin softening as it would naturally do.

“I think she liked it,” teased Fluttershy, smirking. “Well done. And well done, Rainbow! Not every pegasus could handle that. Sometimes I rely a leetle too much on my vampire healing powers.”

Rainbow panted raggedly. Every feather on her wings was disheveled, though Dursaa carefully didn’t touch even one. She melted against his broad chest, stricken, just about smouldering, feeling like she’d been struck by lightning. Inside her, the intense saturating pressure ebbed away, leaving a fierce blissful glow.

Dursaa carefully stroked Rainbow Dash’s body, savoring the feverish limpness, well satisfied with his work. It seemed his own special magic was not reserved to vampegasi alone. This pleased him, for it was a fascinating blend of traditional zebra stallionliness and Ponyville mare-driven submission. He was happily the tool to be shared between or beneath delighted mares of all varieties, and also the rampant stud-horse laying females to quivering waste, and all of it benevolent and friendly. Contentedly, he petted Rainbow Dash just as if she was his own wife, and murmured, “My little darling, let what’s huge, subside: and while you’re soaked in spooge, it will release when you dismount and then we can in tandem count, not orgasms nor thrusts so deep, but seconds slipping off to sleep.”

Rainbow wriggled on his hulking, stallionly chest, drooling onto his stripey chestfur. “Agggh. Nuuu. Uh-uh, no… nope.”

“Oh, really? Sleep would not please you?” said Dursaa. “Then what do you suggest we do?”

Undaunted, the puddle of blue pegasus took a deep raspy breath. “That! Again! Oh my gosh, again, again!”

“Your turn,” said Dursaa to Zecora, helplessly, as Fluttershy just giggled.

One Down

Before Rainbow could fly again, she had to preen her feathers for half an hour.

Even that didn’t really render her flightworthy, but determination counted for a lot. Rainbow’s determination had truly been epic, all night long…

She’d given up on the zebra dick after a session with an amused Zecora and an unsuccessful attempt to go back to Dursaa,  and then had passed the rest of the night smooching Zecora. The zebra mare had been slightly aloof despite her previous intimacies, but Fluttershy was cuddling Dursaa to sleep, and Zecora didn’t object to staying up with Rainbow Dash. Her emotions may have been a touch reserved, but for all that, her touch hadn’t been nearly so reserved, and she seemed to enjoy the change of pace.

Rainbow was grateful for that, because it was easier than explaining the real reason she’d launched herself into a frenzy of sleepless pegasus horny.

She still had to return to the vampire-hunting farm ponies, and vouch that she’d watched Fluttershy all night, uneventfully.

Well… some-eventfully. Very fully indeed. But not the sort of events that were worrying everypony.

Zecora had other plans for the morning.

“Are you sure, Zecora?” asked Fluttershy, fretfully. “We can accompany you there, it’s not too much trouble.”

Zecora shook her head. “The day I fear the Everfree… attack that mare, for it’s not me! By secret paths we’ll trot and fly, and once we’re home, be safe as pie.”

“Pinkie Pie?” quipped Rainbow Dash, and Dursaa flinched while Zecora glowered.

“Within my hut, I’ll take great care to barricade both foul and fair,” she said. “With arcane herbs I’ll weave my spell. Invade us then? Like pony hell!”

“But that’s not the point!” protested Fluttershy, for Zecora was beginning to prance and toss her mane, clearly readying herself for a great effort. “I understand you think you can make your hut safe against Hollyhock…”

“Don’t say that name! What if he came?” retorted Zecora, angrily.

“Then I would stare at him,” said Fluttershy, “and I’d make him go quietly to the Apples and very soon nopony would have to be frightened of him anymore, ever. Hollyhock hollyhock hollyhock! I dare you! Face me!”

“Easy now, Fluttershy,” said Dash. “Wow. You really hate him, huh?”

The gentle vampony pouted. “I knew Fern Gully. I thought I knew Hollyhock. He’s ever so much worse than I could have imagined, and I am responsible for that.” She turned to face Zecora. “And that’s why I don’t like you going alone to your hut, with Dursaa and little Dursaa! Why aren’t you accepting our help?”

Zecora sighed. “Ah, dear beloved Fluttershy… through forest paths we three can try to make our way: unheard, unseen, scarce to disturb the leafy scene.”

“But…” said Fluttershy.

Zecora narrowed her eyes. “I know the path we’ll use by heart. In truth, already we should start: our camouflage in the dim dawn is all we’ll need to travel on.”

“Uhh…” began Rainbow Dash suspiciously, and trailed off at a glance from Zecora… and a smirk.

“We’re born to do this journey,” said Zecora proudly, “but… not if we’re trailed by a brightly-colored parade of pegasus pony butt!”

Dash’s jaw dropped. She stared for a second, then exploded “Oh COME ON!”

Zecora, smirking, stuck out her tongue at the prismatic, petulant pegasus.

“You can’t say that!” wailed Rainbow. “It didn’t even fucking… you can’t rhyme but with butt! And you used way too many words or something… Zecoraaa!”

“Shush, delicious candy-tail,” chided Zecora, much amused. “We’ll stay safe, while you prevail.”

“I think it means she likes you,” said Fluttershy, frowning. “The words not perfectly rhyming, I mean. But she didn’t answer my question!”

“I do,” said Zecora hastily. “And I did. We will take my private path. I can ward off dangers, and I can spot a vampire before it attacks, I think. This one is but an earth pony turned to evil, and he does not know the forest as I do. Little Dursaa can fly, but he will be riding on Dursaa’s back and making himself small. Nothing will see us. Go quickly on your own journey. With my magical wards, nothing whatever will enter my hut.”

“There,” said Fluttershy. “You see? It’s hardly a surprise after last night, and the things you two were doing to each other. You must be an honorary zebra now, Rainbow, to hear all that. And I suppose it’s true, besides. Zecora does know the Everfree Forest like nopony else, and it’s true she is hard to spot among the foliage.”

Rainbow marvelled at Zecora’s words. “Wooow. Cool, I’m like part of the family? That sounds bad ASS. Seriously?”

Zecora nodded, solemnly, her face impassive but her eyes warm and affectionate.

“If I, like, rolled in the mud to camouflage myself,” said Dash, “can I…”

Zecora gasped. “Please do not! Those lovely wings should not be heavy, mud-caked things when you and Fluttershy proceed to answer Apple ponies’ need. Go at once! The both of you have fearsome, daunting things to do.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow, blinking. “Right, we should get going.” She shook herself. “She’s right, Fluttershy, we need to join the hunt. Look at her, I think she’s gonna be okay. Oh my gosh! You are so bad-ass, Zecora! I wish I could watch you sneaking through the Everfree Forest.”

Zecora smirked. “Watch all you like, cerulean wing. You’ll look, but still not see a thing.”

Dash grinned and hoof-pumped. “Yeah! I’m convinced, Fluttershy. Let’s go. Zecora will keep both the Dursaas safe. Both the little one and the big one!”

At this, big Dursaa winced, just a tiny amount, and Zecora caught it. She frowned, and thought fast.

“It’s not just to our Fluttershy that Dursaa’s sworn an oath! We’ll go to my defended hut, and he’ll protect us both!”

“Oh, really?” said Rainbow, startled. Zecora nodded, solemnly. Dursaa blushed. “Okay, then,” said Dash.

“Go ahead,” said Fluttershy, frowning. “It’s still against my better judgement, but you have a good point.” She shot a glance at Rainbow Dash, whose bleary-eyed expression just underscored the fact that she refused to let Fluttershy out of her sight. Clearly, there would be no sneaking through the Everfree with two brightly-colored pegasi tagging along.

Zecora’s smile slowly widened. She gathered Dursaa and little Dursaa with a glance. They trotted over to the edge of the forest, where shadows met underbrush, and then with mocking ease the three zebras were simply gone, vanishing into the flicker of moving foliage.

“Wow!” breathed Dash.

“I’m still not that sure I trust them to do it,” complained Fluttershy.

“Yeah, but… can you see them? She was right! They’re just gone!”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” retorted Fluttershy.

Dash blinked. “Is it true that if you call a vampire, it can appear?”

“Of course not,” said Fluttershy. “Zecora was being silly. Do you see Hollyhock around here?”

“Yeah,” continued Dash, “but if I call out Fluttershy, does that mean you feel it? And come sneaking up to meet me?”

“Noo!” objected Fluttershy. “Of course I don’t come sneaking up to hurt you!”

“I didn’t say hurt me, I said meet me since you’re a nice vampire. And hey, you didn’t deny you can feel it. Can you feel this? Fluttershy fluttershy fluttershy…”

“No, I can’t!” protested Fluttershy. “Or not much! Oh, pooh. Are you done teasing me?”

“You can! You just admitted it. Do you have, like, other awesome vampy powers I should know about?”

Fluttershy sulked. “What’s so awesome? And for your information, I sort of do. I can tell he’s in Ponyville, or I think I can. I feel… something. It’s not quite like when Gilda was here. I mean, I can feel the sense of a thrall, but there’s something else. Maybe it’s because he fed.” She shuddered. “I hate him, Rainbow. Poor Fern Gully. I can’t bear it. Why do I have to exist as a curse this way?”

She’d shut her eyes in a grimace of pain. Before she opened them, she felt a kiss.

“Hey,” said Rainbow Dash. “It wasn’t your fault. Let’s go kick his ass. He’s not like you at all, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy stuck out her lower lip, and it squished against the cute little fangs. “Okay. Yes. He’s dangerous.”

“Not for long!” vowed Dash bravely.

Fluttershy hesitated, looking around her, and said, “I should never have let Zecora go off into the forest like that.”

Dash snorted. “Really? All three of them were amazing, Fluttershy. I didn’t expect it of big Dursaa. Actually there were many things I didn’t expect from big Dursaa,” she added appreciatively. “But Zecora wasn’t kidding. All three zebras just melted into the forest, without even a r…”

Dash froze.

“What?” squeaked Fluttershy.

“Shh,” urged Rainbow frantically. “Over there!”

Shy’s reaction was to cower, but Dash was already stalking toward the bushes, pressing low to the ground, a wild light in her eyes. Even as Fluttershy reclaimed her courage and flew up into the air, ready to swoop, Dash wiggled her butt, her tail thrashing with a dry fluffy sound, and…

“HAH!” she yelled, pouncing into the bushes.

“EEEE!”

The squeal didn’t sound much like a crazed male farm-horse vampony. Fluttershy dove upon the scene, but Dash was already struggling in a riot of churning foliage, shoving forth into the light… a cream colored earth pony mare, wearing a pair of black-framed sunglasses, and a large brown false mustache.

“BON Bon?” squeaked Fluttershy, dumbfounded.

“Gahh! I don’t recognize that name! Sacrebleu! Je suis le pony de quelqu’un d’autre! Tenir compte de la moustache!”

“What?” cried Fluttershy, trotting in place with dismay. “What are you saying?”

Before she could spout any more Fancy, Rainbow Dash seized the false mustache in her teeth and yanked it off. The glasses went next, and then there was no denying it: Bon Bon stood there, pouting and covered in leaves and twigs.

“Bon Bon, what the heck are you doing in the bushes?” demanded Rainbow Dash. “It’s dangerous! Don’t you know what’s running around loose out here?”

Bon Bon stared back at her, shocked. “Me, not know? The impudence! Of course I do! I almost caught it, I’ll have you know. I bet you didn’t know Ponyville was being stalked by…”

“A vampire!” insisted Rainbow Dash, and Bon Bon instantly fell silent. She blinked, blinked again, looked around… seemed completely at a loss, her eyes very wide.

“Oh yeah,” said Dash impressively. She blinked too, and added, “Not Fluttershy, I mean. I’m talking a new vampire, a really bad one. We’re pretty sure it’s Hollyhock, from the Apple farm. He killed Fern Gully.”

Bon Bon seemed stricken. “But,” she managed, “there can’t be something that bad happening. The Princess isn’t here. In Canterlot, I mean. She’s on vacation, she says the Kirin can look after things. That it would be okay and not to worry. B—because Ponyville’s so… quiet?”

“Really?” said Dash. “Then it’s time for us ponies to save the day. It’s what Princess Celestia would want us to do. It’s the awesome thing to do! And so what about the Kirin? She’s been freaking out the whole time. We got this. Me and Fluttershy are going to go and join the Apples, and we’re gonna fly patrols for them.”

Bon Bon’s eyes were wide. “You’re kidding. Are you joking? What in Equestria gives you the idea that you’re qualified to handle a major vampire incursion?”

“Sheer unmitigated awesomeness,” said Rainbow confidently. “Also we’ve got some secret help right here.” She indicated Fluttershy, who stared in horror and shook her head frantically.

Bon Bon gave Dash an exasperated look, forgetting her cover story in her irritation. “What do you mean, ‘secret’, Rainbow Dash?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Dash, noticing Fluttershy’s dismay. “I guess I mean stuff I shouldn’t even be telling you. I realise it’s shocking but there are serious things that happen here, and ponies who have to take care of danger and adventure and extreme awesomeness. Not like you, I mean. We’re here to keep you safe so you can be… uhh, like you are, in safety. If you don’t mind me saying, all this is waaay beyond your pay grade, so why don’t you go home and hide under your bed until it’s safe?”

At this, Bon Bon actually snarled. “Rainbow Dash, you have no idea who you’re talking to! My pay grade? Seriously? Don’t you know who I am?”

“A bitchy candy maker who’s more trouble than she’s worth?” suggested Rainbow Dash.

Bon Bon twitched, remembering. “Ah. Right. That.”

“Wow, you look surprised,” said Dash. “I’m sorry if I was harsh, but you should go home now.” She hesitated, as Bon Bon looked stricken, and Rainbow added, “It’s that much of a shock? Really? But Bon Bon, who do you think you are, if it’s not that? I always thought you just liked it.”

Bon Bon gulped. “Ah… nothing! Nothing to see here!” Rapidly, she gathered up her fake mustache and sunglasses. “Thank you so much for your advice, I’ll just be going now!”

“Who’s there?” called another voice, and across the grass trotted Rarity, closely followed by Derpy Hooves. Rarity was a sight: her lashes were on, but one was slightly crooked, and her mane was still in curlers. “I thought I heard a scream!”

“Nothing!” yelled Bon Bon, brushing dirt off her things.

“And I’m certain I heard somepony from Prance!” continued Rarity. “What in Equestria is going on?”

“Nothing! I have to go now!” said Bon Bon.

“It was Bon Bon! Playing in the bushes! But she needs to go home and be safe, and so should you!” said Dash.

“Good morning, Rainbow. Good morning, Fluttershy,” said Rarity. “Forgive my appearance, please? And I’m not sure I understand, I’ve not had my coffee and I am both cranky and slow without it, I fear. Why would Bon Bon talk like she was from Prance?”

“Yeah,” said Dash. “Why did you talk all fancy, Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon was turning to go, but she turned back for a parting shot.

“The BEST chocolate is from Prance!” she snorted, and off she went… in serious haste.

Dash ignored her. “Rarity, there’s a problem. We have another vampire in Ponyville. It’s Hollyhock, from the farm… and he killed Fern Gully!”

Rarity gave a little shriek. “You can’t be serious! How could that happen?”

“It’s my fault, of course,” grumbled Fluttershy. “Remember my special night? He bit my wing too hard. I should have known better!”

Rarity did a doubletake… and rushed over immediately, to hug Fluttershy. “Oh, poor dear! How terrible for you! Rainbow, you say he killed a pony? Are you sure?”

“I saw the body,” said Dash grimly. “We have a rogue vamp on our hooves.”

Though she was still hugging Fluttershy, Rarity spotted the quivering lip of her marefriend Derpy. She released Fluttershy, trotted over and hugged Derpy as well, and as she did, she turned to speak with Rainbow. “What are we doing about it, Rainbow Dash?”

“We’re going to catch him,” said Fluttershy. “And bring him to the Apples. And then he won’t be hurting anypony else, ever again.”

“They’ve got a big bonfire,” said Dash. “I need to stick my hoof in it when I get back.” She winced. “Don’t ask.”

Rarity considered this. “Oh, dear. I don’t suppose I need to. Who did you say it was, Rainbow?”

“Hollyhock,” repeated Rainbow. “He probably went for Fern Gully ‘cos Fern Gully’s kinda trusting… well, was. We need to hunt him down before he hurts anypony else. Apple Bloom was jumping around giving orders, it was amazing. Applejack’s there too. All the farm ponies are waiting for us to join them at the bonfire.”

Rarity lifted her head. “And join them we shall! Sweet Apple Acres, was it?”

“We could wait while you go fix your mane,” suggested Rainbow Dash.

“No time, darling. Derpy! Fluttershy! We’ll cut through the woods, I think I know the place.”

“Well, I know that,” said Dash, “I just thought you’d need us to wait because your mane is really incredibly horrible…”

“Thank you for that, Rainbow,” said Rarity, steely-eyed. “This way.”

“Yeah, that’s where we were going as well,” said Rainbow. “Wow! This is great! Get your magic ready, Rarity, we’ll all fight him!”

Derpy’s lip still quivered. “There’s… there’s a bad vampire, not like Fluttershy but bad? And he’s killing ponies?”

Dash shot her fellow pegasus a glance. “He killed one pony. Okay, Derpy? Just one. And we’re gonna stop him, he is not going to kill again.”

Derpy glanced at Rarity. “Are you gonna stop him too? Is this what all the mean stuff you used to do is for?”

“I beg your pardon, Derpy?” blinked Rarity.

The adorable wall-eyed pegasus knit her brow in concentration. “All that meanie business. Are you gonna be a bigger meanie than the bad vampire? And make him stop?”

Rarity’s eyes widened, and she gazed at her beloved in astonishment. Such an explanation had never occurred to her, as whips and punishment devices to her meant carnal pleasure of a particularly intense variety. Yet, she couldn’t deny how much sense it made. This, she could do… this, she was born to do. Slowly, Rarity bared her teeth in a dreadful grin. “YES. Never fear, my love. Mistress Rarity is in her fucking element. And punishment is on the menu!”

Derpy’s face lit in a grin that widened and widened. Behind her, Rainbow Dash, delighted, hoof-pumped with a “Yeah!”.

“Let’s go!” cried Derpy, thrilled, and the little group of ponies set off upon their short journey.

They were close to the Apple bonfire. The smoke rose above the treeline, in one of the small clearings that dotted the woods. Subdued voices from the Apple encampment could be heard through the trees.

Derpy Hooves pranced excitedly. “We’re almost there!”

“Yes, Derpy dear,” called Rarity. “Now, stay together. I know you’re excited, but please desist from your incessant running ahead!”

In a little arch of trees, silhouetted against the darkness and the backlighting of the roaring bonfire, Derpy stopped, and turned.

“What’s a cessint?” she asked, looking puzzledly into Rarity’s eyes.

A shadow moved behind her. Rarity’s pupils shrank to pinpricks, even as they reflected Derpy’s helpless gaze.

The massive, muddy, fanged form erupted out of the bushes, as Derpy’s head whipped back around, too late.

The scream rang out across the forest, one scream from two pony throats. Derpy’s shock mingled with Rarity’s horror… and then, the scream was gone as suddenly as it had arrived.

Gone in a cerulean blur, as Rainbow Dash blasted across the clearing to tackle Derpy even as the fanged horror came down upon her. Rainbow bore Derpy up into the air, panting with her exertion, clutching her tightly in frantic pegasus forelegs.

“Gotcha!” she cried.

Derpy looked back, and shrieked.

Rarity had been scant inches behind Rainbow, for all that she was merely a ground-bound unicorn. She’d charged in desperate haste, and then saw Dash bear her beloved away to safety.

And Rarity screeched to a halt, losing her footing and plunking down on her lovely posterior, directly beneath the raging, prey-deprived Hollyhock as he descended, fangs bared.

“RARITY!” shrieked Rainbow and Derpy.

Rarity’s look of horror lasted only a fraction of a second. Her jaw tensed, and her eyes narrowed.

Hollyhock, glorying in the dominance of his position, raised his head in a snarl of triumph. Fangs flashed. His head went down in a deadly lunge.

POW!

His head went back up again, as Rarity came off the ground and nailed him in the jaw with a withering, savage hoof-punch.

Hollyhock roared. He smashed at Rarity with a forehoof, and she squealed in pain, bleeding from her nose. He went for another bite.

Rarity whirled, and kicked him in the head with both rear hooves, leaving a hideous dent and shattering his jaw.

Hollyhock howled like a beast, reaching for his jaw with a forehoof, to the sound of thundering hooves approaching. His eyes flashed a horrible red.

Rarity lay where she’d landed. So fierce was her attack that she’d ended up sprawled on the ground, clutching at her bloodied nose and wincing.

Her eyes opened, to see Hollyhock looming above her, jaw ruined… and both fangs still intact.

Slowly, hatefully, he descended upon his off-balance, helpless victim…

A small, pale-yellow form tackled him, physically knocking him over Rarity and out of her way.

Apple Bloom shrieked a battle-cry of wordless rage, pummeling Hollyhock’s head with her little hooves. So enraged was she, that she’d led the charge: not through any authority, but through sheer fury. But she was far from alone.

Seeing the vampire’s fangs flashing, seeing his neck bend to attack the raging Boss Mare, Oakback tackled Hollyhock, seizing him around the barrel, yanking him back before his fangs could connect.

As he did, Applejack tackled the other combatant, dragging Apple Bloom away from Hollyhock’s snapping fangs. “You got to lead!” she cried.

A green streak zipped into the scene. A blue streak flashed out of the air and pinned it to the ground. “No!” yelled Rainbow Dash, shaking. “Big ponies now!”

Oakback was a big pony, one of the biggest, and he’d seized Hollyhock from behind. He wrestled with Hollyhock, dodging the thrashing head, ears laid back at the unearthly howls of rage. Behind him in turn, Big Macintosh loomed. Distantly, through the trees on the far side of the bonfire, Snowy Hocks could be seen, charging to the rescue.

“Don’t look at his eyes!” yelled Apple Bloom, as Big Macintosh joined Oakback in his efforts to drag Hollyhock to the fire. “Don’t you look! Keep clear of them fangs! Drag him that way!”

Three ponies wrestled, two of them frantically trying to avoid the flashing fangs of the third. Two mares pinned down two fillies, one filly still barking orders, the other struggling to join the fight. One old pony galloped out of the distance with desperate haste, unable to reach the group. Hollyhock fought like a demon, thrashing around with Oakback and Big Macintosh clinging fiercely to him, frantically dodging his fangs.

One white unicorn pony, face bloodied and teeth bared in a hideous grin, lunged forward to stab the raging vampire in the balls with her horn.

The glowing red eyes went very wide. The unearthly howl shifted sharply up in pitch. He looked down at his tormentor in shock.

He caught only the briefest glimpse of vindictive sapphire in Rarity’s slitted eyes… before she’d squeezed them shut, and that horn had lit. And she scrabbled forward blindly, her teeth gleaming in the growing light of the fire, her magic dragging him by his nuts and twisting them.

Hollyhock had only a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t true. Rarity was not dragging him by his balls. She was helping others to drag him. And he wasn’t scrabbling away from that torturous plight. He was being pulled. By…

Big Macintosh broke away, rolling clear.

Oakback plunged into the bonfire, clinging tightly to Hollyhock.

Both screamed, but Hollyhock’s scream tore leaves off the trees. He writhed, suddenly aflame. Oakback hastily rolled away, crying out “Aaaah sweet Celestia AAAH! Fuck! Aaah!”

“Stay back, Fluttershy!” yelled Dash. She’d released Northern Spy, upon seeing that Hollyhock had gone into the fire. She swooped hectically at him, scorching her feathers, kicking wildly to prevent him from getting away. A small undaunted green streak ricocheted off the struggling vampire stallion, and spiraled into a bush trailing sparks. She’d managed to knock him back by sheer impact speed, gaining the ponies another precious second.

Rarity pranced at the edge of the fire, raging. “You DARE? You DARE threaten my love? Burn, monster! How do you like that? How do you like Rarity now? SUFFER!” Her teeth were bared in a grimace of sheer hate. Her horn flared to life again and the rearing vampire, still screaming, clutched at his testicles and again fell thrashing into the bonfire. Rarity’s horn shone brighter as she twisted, and the venomous blue light reflected in her savage eyes, combining with the reflection of the flames.

On the other side of the bonfire, Hina approached, looking traumatized. Behind her, ponies dashed to and fro in terror, or leaped madly. Snowy Hocks, reaching the scene, whinnied hysterically and joined the leaping forms, catching Applejack’s eye.

“Hey… HEY! STOP IT!”

She seized the geriatric old pony, fighting to restrain him. “STOP! You’re gonna jump in the fire! Will ya stop struggling? CALM DOWN! It’s over now, you’re safe!”

A tortured scream rose from the clump of burning, foul-smelling material that had resembled a pony. The blue light from across the bonfire redoubled. Snowy Hocks shook horribly in Applejack’s clutches… and then, the remains of the vampire sagged. The blue light went out, as Rarity panted for breath. And Snowy Hocks, held tightly by Applejack, went very, very still.

Silence fell, as all the ponies stared at the smoking husk that had been vampire Hollyhock.

“You okay there?” said Applejack, to Snowy.

“Mm-hm,” said Snowy Hocks… tight-lipped. He shuddered, then gave an emphatic nod, his eyes squeezed shut. “Mm-HM!”

“All righty then,” said Applejack, releasing him. “You stay safe now!” She turned to check on Northern Spy, and Dash, and Apple Bloom.

A nod was all she got. Ponies began to stir, to look around at each other.

Snowy Hocks stood utterly still. Just his eyes moved, glancing here and there. He trembled. Now and then his ears flicked, though his face was unreadable… except for the briefest, fugitive glimpse of an unearthly, demonic glee, gone almost before it appeared.

“Hina!” cried Applejack. “Over here! Poor Oakback!”

The Kirin shook herself and rushed to his side, cringing to see his pain. Oakback lay quietly, but wept in the agony of his terrible burns. “Worth it…” he croaked, then coughed, and shuddered horribly at the strain on scorched lungs.

Hina didn’t hesitate. She flowed down onto him as if trying to drape his entire body in shimmering Kirin mane. “Breathe this now!” she commanded.

Oakback drew a labored breath. His eyes widened, and he did it again. His body stopped shaking.

“Your service is done,” said Hina. “I cannot truly heal you… let me soothe your pain.”

“You shouldn’t mix business with pleasure!” chirped a familiar, too-giddy voice. Pinkie Pie bounced into the campsite, wrinkling her nose at the smell of burnt vampire.

Dash’s eyes widened. “Pinkie! I think we have it under control. You can quit with the scary now, okay?”

Snowy had tensed absolutely rigid. He said nothing, but studied Pinkie through slitted eyes, holding very still.

“Something’s still so wrong…” breathed Hina, uncertainly.

“You got that right, sister!” asserted Pinkie Pie. “There’s no STREAMERS! Not to mention balloons! What kind of murder party IS this anyway?”

“Easy, Pinkie,” cautioned Applejack.

“Maybe we should try it AGAIN!” chirped Pinkie, brightly.

“Now WAIT a minute!” yelled Rainbow Dash, placing herself between Pinkie and Fluttershy, but Pinkie wasn’t the only interruption that morning.

“DA!” cried a tiny voice. Into the midst of the ponies flew a tiny, zebra-striped pegasus colt. He made a beeline straight for Pinkie Pie, and glommed onto her neck in an eager, fluffy hug.

Everyone saw Pinkie recoil, her mane seeming to shudder and unpoof for a moment. Snowy Hocks’ eyes widened, then narrowed thoughtfully.

In a thunder of hooves, Dursaa and Zecora galloped up. “Dursaa small! Heed our call!”

“Da!” squeaked the colt, and zipped over to hug his Dad, and then Fluttershy, with a squee of delight.

Fluttershy was trembling. Her eyes flicked between the Kirin, the bonfire, and the look in Pinkie’s eyes. She didn’t respond to little Dursaa’s cuddles. Her lip quivered, twisted. Pinkie frowned at her, or possibly the zebras standing around her. Snowy Hocks took that in, too.

Fluttershy gulped. “I’m sorry…” she managed. “I’ve spent so much time being bitter. But my existence is so beautiful right now…”

Hina lifted her head curiously. Pinkie began to smile, but her eyes didn’t. Fluttershy shrieked, gave Rainbow Dash a fierce hug, then flew home as fast as her illusory wings would take her. Little Dursaa zipped after her, followed by the zebras.

Pinkie didn’t even budge, or react. There was something chilling about her refusal to move. The smile said she didn’t even have to hurry. Where she needed to be, she would be, so long as she kept smiling, bouncy and fluffy.

“Fluttershy!” cried Dash. “Aw, horseapples! Anyway, we got the problem vamp.”

Hina’s eyes were very wide. “What do you mean, problem vamp?”

“Uhh… Nothing!” said Dash hastily. “Nobody here but us pegasuses, right?”

“Something is still wrong!” protested Hina, trembling.

Pinkie twitched, and gave a horrible extra push to her smile. “Nuh-uh! Or not for long!” she chirped, as Snowy Hocks stared tensely at her. “Toodles!” she said, and began to bounce away.

Dash went white. “Gotta go! There’s a friend I need to visit!” she said, and flashed off in the same direction Pinkie had gone… which was also the same direction Fluttershy had gone.

Distantly, her voice could be heard. “Pinkie! Haha, where do you think you’re goin’, funny pony? Visiting Fluttershy, maybe? What a coincidence! Me too!”

“Nope!” came the pink pony’s cheery little voice. “Not this chapter! But eventually!”

“Well, I’ll just go ahead and, uh, and, uh, I’ll say hello for you!”

“How are you at goodbye?” came the cheery, receding voice.

Applejack’s ears were laid back. “She usually ain’t that creepy,” she protested, and then gasped. “Derpy, honey! Are you okay?”

Rarity was still staring into the fire, her teeth bared. Hina hesitantly approached her, only to shy away as her mane exploded in a shower of sparks, even to be near the vengeful unicorn staring at the corpse of her victim.

Then, slowly, Rarity looked up to see Derpy Hooves… crying.

Rarity’s eyes flooded with tears as well, and then she had rushed over to hug Derpy, both ponies sobbing, Rarity wailing in hysterical dismay. “Oh! OH! Does it hurt? Tell me that monster didn’t bite you! Oh, Derpy! I’ll kill him again!”

She clung to Derpy while also trying to look over every inch of her solid gray body. Northern Spy, next to Applejack and still radiant with excitement and adventure, wrinkled her brow in thought. “Hey, if she was a vampire would her FANGS point different directions?”

“Thanks, Spy,” sighed Applejack. “That’s real helpful.”

“He went after Derpy!” wailed Rarity. “She could have died, like Fern Gully!”

“You kicked him in the head, lots!” cried Derpy, hugging her back. “And did something with his boy parts that looked like it hurt! And the fire, that looked like it hurt so bad! It was awful!”

“Hold still, darling!” begged Rarity. “I must check you for bites!”

Derpy blinked. “But Rarity, Rainbow Dash knocked all the breath out of me! All of a sudden I was somewhere else, he never bit me! Ow, my chest still hurts!”

“But he wanted to,” argued Rarity, “so hold still! I must know…”

She trailed off. Hina was waving at both of them, through a glittering fireworks display of mane, her body almost totally covered in trout-like scales.

“Calm yourselves, oh pony friends!” begged the Kirin. “Let me heal your woe. But I cannot approach you! Not until you’re calm!”

“But I saw that monster try to HURT Derpy!” wailed Rarity. Her ears were still laid back in blind fury.

“My mane will burn you if you continue this hating!” commanded Hina, who was visibly shaken. “Calm yourself!”

Rarity’s eyes widened, and then she understood. She gulped, and allowed the Kirin to approach… but for all that, Rarity still trembled, and the Kirin’s mane flared into incandescence just to approach her. Behind her, farm ponies backed off, unsettled. Snowy Hocks had nearly backed out of the clearing entirely, his eyes suspicious slits.

“What are you thinking?” pleaded the Kirin, for Rarity remained frighteningly tense.

The normally elegant unicorn, her mane a disheveled mass of curlers and her lash coming off, grimaced. “Only that I wish I could kill him again! So I could give his balls an extra twist. Before the fire distracted him too much, I mean.”

“Oh, Rarity, Rarity,” sighed Applejack. “Derpy! With me, honey.”

Derpy blinked puzzledly, and then understood as Applejack moved right in, while Hina still stood at bay. The earth pony and pegasus enfolded their trembling unicorn friend, brittle with rage, in a nurturing hug. Rarity stood it for a few seconds, glaring at the remains of the bonfire, and then…

“bwwWWWAAAAHHHAHAHH!” wept Rarity, tears gushing forth, snapping like a twig into total vulnerability within that sheltering double hug.

“Come on in, Miss Hina,” encouraged Applejack.

Hina approached, nervously. Her mane still sparkled but it didn’t seem to be centralized around vengeful unicorns anymore. Rarity bawled, clutching Derpy desperately, finally letting go of the psychotic and sadistic rage that had shielded her from the true feelings she’d suffered when she saw fangs descending upon her own private angel. Hina cautiously hugged the three of them, feeling rather traumatized herself: Rarity had been such a good pony, though gravely flawed. Then, the fear of her great loss had driven her to terrifying savagery. Hina felt it still, alive within the formerly-elegant unicorn: so civilized, yet hideously broken. Or was that even her? Something was so terribly wrong, somewhere.

“That’s better, huh?” soothed Applejack.

“This is not enough,” mumbled Hina.

“Weren’t talkin’ ta YOU,” snapped Applejack. “What do ya mean, not enough? Ain’t we done?”

“Yeah!” said Apple Bloom. “So, Miss Evil Senser, we just burned up the meanest ol’ vampire we ever did see. Everypony, take a deep breath! How’re we doin’, Miss Hina? Evil-wise?”

Hina looked around at the remaining ponies: Big Macintosh standing so solid and trustworthy, the old Snowy Hocks peering tight-lipped from behind him, the shattered unicorn clinging to the slow-witted but earnest gray pegasus. The fierce little Boss Mare, Apple Bloom. The brave farm pony Applejack. Oakback, lying quietly awaiting more effective healing than she could deliver. The ruined bonfire, smoking horribly and emitting the stench of undeath turned death.

It seemed like it ought to be the aftermath of a grievous battle against evil. Surely, the vibrations were the echoes of the terrible evils attempted before her very eyes, and though it’d be uncomfortable, she owed it to them to extend her sensitivities and vouch that they’d turned a corner: that good had, in the end, prevailed.

Hina-rin took a breath, closed her eyes, and concentrated…

She screamed. She collapsed to the ground, trying to shield her head with her hooves, that Kirin mane exploding with energy, her body wrapped in scales.

“Miss Hina!” yelled Apple Bloom, rushing over, shaking her. “Miss Hina! What did ya see? What happened?”

Hina opened her eyes, drenched with tears, and gazed up at Apple Bloom like she was suddenly a very little Kirin after all.

“It’s not gone! The evil is not gone! It’s worse, so much worse!”

“Aw, fuck,” breathed Applejack, and glanced off through the trees, where she’d last seen Rainbow… and Fluttershy… and Pinkie.

Snowy Hocks backed up a step, staring at the Kirin, narrowing his eyes.

Rarity lifted her head. She’d ceased her hysterics abruptly, upon hearing Hina’s news. The rage had left her, but something within her still rose to the occasion. She drew Derpy a little closer, and cleared her throat. “What must we do? We can’t stop now.”

“I don’t know!” wailed Hina. She rose to her little cloven hooves anyhow, and turned this way and that, pitably confused. “It’s everywhere! It’s here…”

“Are you being a spoilsport?” asked Pinkie Pie. Applejack whinnied in alarm, Big Macintosh reared and snorted, Snowy jumped back another step with curious litheness.

She’d congealed out of the guttering campfire smoke, which had turned pink and then suddenly taken pony form.

“What, what?” squeaked Hina. “What are you? You smile so much!”

“I’d better!” replied Pinkie, with a huge grin. “I’m gonna have to, before this is over!”

“Before what is over?” cried Hina, unsure what to attack.

“The murder party, of course!” chirped Pinkie. She walked fearlessly over to the shivering Kirin, and put a companionable foreleg around her. “You really ought to leave it to the experts. Trust me, we’ll get it right before the multiple sex scenes in the last chapter!”

“Get what right, Pinkie Pie?” demanded Applejack.

She flinched, as Pinkie’s gaze slowly turned to take her in. That smile widened and widened…

“I… can’t… say!”

Applejack’s ears were back, and she held her ground, just barely. “Kin ya tell us maybe… by charades, or somethin’?”

The grin went beyond the plausible.

“Ha! Charades! Ha! CHARADES! Ha ha ha ha ha....”

Applejack had just time enough to notice Pinkie’s hocks trembling, sign of some terrible strain, and then the clearing was full of fleeing ponies.

“MADMARE!” screamed Snowy Hocks, as he turned to flee. Big Macintosh seemed frozen in fear. Oakback ignored his pain and staggered off toward town. Derpy clutched Rarity in a panic.

“PINKIE PIE!” screamed Rarity. “Stop that this instant, you’re frightening everypony!”

At that, Pinkie blinked. She pouted at Rarity.

“Aww! Fine! I know where I’m not wanted!” she said.

With that, Pinkie Pie whirled, seizing her own foofy tail in her mouth. She inhaled, or perhaps swallowed, and in a horrible distortion of perspective and physical reality, she began to disappear into her own mouth, her jaw unhinging, her eyes pointing off blindly in two different directions, contracting faster and faster until with a pop, she was gone.

Hina’s dismayed look barely even fit on her face.

“Damn, that’s a thorough way to eat pussy,” managed Applejack, stunned.

“Need a hug, dear Applejack?” offered Rarity, her expression shaken but determined. “You had one for me, and it seems we must return to some sort of fray.”

“Ah think we all could use one,” said Applejack helplessly.

Exodus

“Forgive me, darlings,” said Rarity, “but would it be all right if I freshened up a bit?”

Once things had quieted down, several ponies had accompanied Rarity back to the Carousel Boutique, lured by the promise of a soothing and truly fabulous breakfast, delicious coffee and the complete lack of corpses or monsters.

One thing Rarity hadn’t mentioned was that she intended to conversationally examine the topic of ‘monsters’, on behalf of her absent friend, Fluttershy. Of course, thought Rarity, with recent events she might well find herself discussing Pinkie Pie. She greatly feared such a topic would be beyond her, and most certainly she’d need to look herself if she were to tackle it.

“Let me help!” said Sweetie Belle. “I can get breakfast started, I promise I can! I’ve been making breakfast for Scootaloo and she loves it!”

“Erm…” said Rarity. “Perhaps you can place the table settings? I confess I had my heart set on making my best omelets, and it is touchy work to cook them perfectly. I’ll need to pay close attention, which means I must cook them from beginning to end, undistracted.”

Derpy perked up. “Ooh! I can help put out plates and forks and things!” Excitedly, she took to the air, blowing a picture off the wall.

“Yay!” cheered Sweetie Belle. “We’ll both do it! Come on, Derpy!”

They galloped and flew into the kitchen, as Rarity grimaced. A crashing noise added a twitch to the grimace, and the normally-elegant fashion pony peered around huntedly, her ears laid back in alarm and tension.

The remaining two ponies… or guests, at any rate… regarded her with sympathy.

“They seem to mean well,” said Hina. “How fragile is your kitchen?”

Big Macintosh glanced at her. He’d come along, a bit hesitantly, but not wanting to let the upset Kirin out of his sight. Rarity had observed this, but said nothing critical, indeed had been most welcoming. Neither Big Macintosh nor Rarity mentioned one particular fact: Big Macintosh had not been under the roof of Carousel Boutique since he’d dumped her, so many adventures ago. Now he stood, as always seeming to take up the whole room, next to the table upon which she’d found his break-up note. Her decorations were as always fresh and different, but the table was the same.

Hina frowned worriedly. Rarity seemed terribly overstressed…

Rarity glanced up, wide-eyed, one lash still askew, as Big Macintosh approached her. Firmly, he hugged her, and she gulped.

“You go git yourself perty. Ah mean, by your standards perty. ‘Cos you are, anyhoof, Rarity,” said Big Macintosh. “Don’t you worry. I’ll keep an eye on your two helpers, and we won’t start without you.”

Rarity’s lip quivered—and then, she reared and hugged him right back. “Thank you. Thank you, Big Macintosh. I’ll be just a moment, I must fix my mane.”

“Eyup,” replied Big Macintosh, as if he’d never left.

Rarity winced, pouted, gave him another hug and a kiss on the cheek, repeated “Thank you!” and scampered off to her primary fabulousness room, the secondary one being really better suited to less severe fashion emergencies. Her horn was already lighting with a vengeance before she’d shut the door, curlers flying in all directions.

“Should we wait?” asked Hina. “What if the filly and pegasus are too hungry?”

Big Macintosh chuckled, and there was fondness and also a wry amusement to it. “Eenope. If it was jes’ me, she might take an hour. But guests? And she’s promised to cook for ‘em? Ah might even start countin’ down from… uhh, thirty, no more’n that.”

Hina’s eyes widened. “We should count? Is that what Rarity likes?”

“No no!” protested Big Macintosh. “Don’t you count. You’ll offend her. All I’m sayin’ is, ain’t no big delay. An’ don’t remark on it, neither. Act like nothin’ happened and she got up outta bed lookin’ like that. It’s gosh dern amazin’, always was, but she don’t want it remarked upon or nothin’.”

Hina’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Do you know this mare?”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh, and then he trotted forward hastily. Derpy and Sweetie had emerged from the kitchen, with plates and forks and glasses, and Big Macintosh’s eyes widened as he saw the stacks of delicate glassware wobbling…

He wasn’t in time to catch the toppling glasses balanced on Derpy’s wing, but he wasn’t the only guest. While he thudded onto the floor reaching out to the falling breakables, Hina’s strange horn abruptly seethed with energy, and every last bit of crockery and cutlery began to hover, unharmed.

In a silent flurry of motion, Rarity emerged from her emergency coiffure reboot, radiant. She burst forth so exquisitely made up and styled that her appearance seemed to demand spotlights and a red carpet, and she froze as she saw Big Macintosh, sprawled on the ground under Derpy, and Hina levitating glassware.

Rarity’s horn lit. “Allow ME,” she said with stern graciousness, and took the plates and glasses from Hina. “We do not ask our esteemed guests to bus their own table settings, darling.”

As Big Macintosh got to his hooves, blushing, Rarity’s hostess smile grew warmer, and she winked one glamorous eye at him, and whispered, “Thank you three times… you gentlepony, you!”

Having set the table, she swished elegantly into the kitchen, quietly singing some of her soprano parts from the Ponytones. Big Macintosh briefly considered singing with her, but chose to sit and wait politely. It wasn’t wise to distract Rarity when she was in the throes of creation, and breakfast qualified: as she’d explained in the old days, everything qualified, even (as he’d learned) pony-pegging.

But on this morning, there was nothing nearly so unsettling going on. Rarity sang to herself, and Big Macintosh fancied he detected an extra harmoniousness to her song, as if she’d found a closure for an old niggling grief she’d nearly forgotten she had.

He glanced at Derpy Hooves, who’d ended up Rarity’s special somepony, and saw Derpy gazing adoringly at the glimpse of purple tail visible in the doorway. He pondered this, nodding to himself. His old ex had found love, sure enough. Who’d have thought it would be somepony like Derpy, and not a fancy Canterlot horse? Maybe there’d been things about himself, too, that she’d valued all along. He’d been a foolish pony, seeing wicked intent where it hadn’t existed. And there they were, able to become friends again after all that bad feeling. Big Macintosh nodded to himself again. That was good.

He glanced over, and was startled to see the Kirin, Hina-rin, gazing at him much as Derpy gazed at Rarity.

“You are so benevolent,” purred Hina, batting her eyelashes, that rivalled Rarity’s for lash-osity. “I feel it in you.”

“Uh… eyup?”

“What’s a nevolut?” asked Derpy, blinking at Hina and abandoning her study of Rarity’s tail.

Hina smiled. “He’s like you: a good pony! This horse has such a good heart.”

“Ahem!” rumbled Big Macintosh, blushing awkwardly. “Ain’t always been so, you jes’ settle yourself. Don’t you be makin’ stuff up now! Ah does my best. Most of th’ time.”

Hina batted her eyelashes again. “Oh, come now. Surely your heart cannot fail? Are you not goodness itself?”

Sweetie piped up, “Big Macintosh is a famous stud-pony! He even helped Princess Luna get with foal! All the mares like him!”

Big Macintosh blushed even worse, as Hina studied him. “Aw, ‘cmon… shucks!”

“That must be the truth,” encouraged Hina. “I helped him breed a young mare. He is bountiful!”

“Sweetie Belle!” called Rarity, from the kitchen. “That is not a breakfast conversation!”

Sweetie had flinched, and her little ears were back. “Sorry, Rarity!” She turned to Hina. “We shouldn’t talk about rumpypumpy over breakfast, Rarity doesn’t like it.”

“All things in their proper time!” chided Rarity, still just a swishing visible tail and a gleam of blue light through the doorway as she cooked and created omelets and alfalfa croissants. “And in the proper context!”

“Sorry!” said Sweetie.

Rarity poked her head out of the kitchen for a moment. “Don’t fret, Sweetie darling. For all you know, our guests may delight in such conversations at other times: I may say that it would please me for such a lovely Kirin and fine gentlepony to find joys together. But I would also suggest that MY breakfast table would not be an appropriate spot for such joys, when I’m taking pains to instead bring them culinary joys in the peace and quiet of a proper Ponyville morning!”

“Mom?” said Sweetie uncertainly.

“Yes, Sweetie Belle?”

“The omelets…”

Rarity turned, shrieked, and could be heard cursing under her breath and dumping a burning omelet into the sink, to start afresh.

Big Macintosh carefully didn’t laugh, but his eyes did. Rarity would be fine: she’d fix the problem and present them with ostentatiously perfect breakfasts, which would be delicious. He’d missed that. It seemed easier to accept Rarity’s generosity when he’d long since walked away from any notion of repaying or balancing it. That had always seemed impossible, and they’d been forever out of balance.

He studied Derpy Hooves and wondered if, rather than being too crude and dumb and simple, he’d actually been not simple enough.

Even as he thought it, Rarity emerged from the kitchen levitating a small constellation of omelets: they cooked quickly, and had to be served just as quickly lest they lose their magical tenderness. Sweetie seemed unimpressed, but Derpy Hooves wore nearly as awed an expression as Big Macintosh himself. It had been so long since Rarity had cooked him breakfast. Now she cooked it for him and his… new sweetheart? Pleasant responsibility? There was no question that soothing the Kirin had become his problem, though if it meant breakfasts like this, it was a nice problem to have.

“What an omelet!” exclaimed Hina, tasting hers. “It’s miraculous!”

“Thank you, darling,” said Rarity, well pleased. “I can but try to soothe rattled ponies to the best of my ability. After this morning, we all could use a respite.”

Sweetie, polishing off her omelet, blinked. “What’s the matter with this morning? Other than you running off with curlers in your mane. I thought that was weird!”

“Ah,” said Rarity. “Er… how much do you know, Sweetie Belle?”

Everypony could see the thoughts ticking over behind those so-innocent eyes. Rarity hastily continued. “Do you know Fern Gully, on the Apple farm, Sweetie Belle?”

“Yeah!” said Sweetie. “How come? What did he do?” Her eyes widened. “Did you run out to have sex with him? Or, like, whip him or something? Wow! It must have been amazing if you couldn’t even wait to take out your…”

“Sweetie Belle!” exclaimed Rarity. “No, I did not! I’d better just tell you. Fern Gully was killed.”

Sweetie’s jaw dropped. “How?”

“There was a vampire. Not Fluttershy! An evil vampire, Sweetie Belle. It’s dead now. Ah… perhaps I should say it’s destroyed, for it was dead already. It… it was Hollyhock, I’m afraid.”

Two voices clashed, protesting in unison.

“Are you kidding me?” wailed Sweetie Belle. “Oh, no! I have to go see Apple Bloom right away, is she all right? She LIVES there!”

The other voice was the Kirin, Hina-rin. “There was just one vampire! We all saw it, too! How can you speak of an evil vampire? They are all evil!”

“Please, calm yourselves!” begged Rarity. “Everything is nice and quiet. We can talk about these things. And Sweetie, Apple Bloom attacked the vampire herself! Applejack had to remind her that her place was to lead. I’ll have you know that Apple Bloom personally rescued me from the vampire’s clutches, don’t worry about her, dear. I am more worried about smoothing over some lingering worries left to us…”

“Do you have a KAZOO?” demanded Pinkie Pie, sticking her head out of the kitchen.

Rarity shrieked. “Pinkie! How did you get there? What do you mean?”

“I mean a baritone kazoo!” said Pinkie. “It’s important! And I came out of the teakettle, of course. Duh!”

“Why a baritone…” began Rarity, and gulped. “Why ME?”

Pinkie gave her a big smile. “Well, logically of course you’d have a comb, and also tissue paper for your dressmaking, which is kind of like a kazoo so it’s not that much of a stretch for you, Rarity, to have kazoo capability! Even an extra specially large and sonorous one!”

“WHY a baritone kazoo?!” demanded Rarity, trembling. Pinkie would not stop smiling that smile.

“Why a baritone kazoo?” said Pinkie. “For authority, of course! There has to be the right fanfare when you’re talking about the destruction of a character we’ve been with for nearly eight books! Get with the program! And that classic downward-trombone motif loses its mojo if it can’t reach a low n…”

She gasped. “Oh my gosh. TROMBONE! Gottagobye!”

Her head yanked back through the kitchen door and vanished. When Rarity, in a clatter of hooves, made it to the kitchen, there was nopony there and the teakettle was knocked over on its side, balancing precariously on the edge of the counter.

“Damn that pony!” she grumbled, returning to her breakfast table. “It’s not the first time she’s… Sweetie Belle! What’s the matter, what’s frightened you?”

Sweetie, who’d been on the opposite side of the table from Rarity and closer to the kitchen door, gulped. “Mom? It wasn’t her, I mean not all of her. It was just Pinkie’s head, talking. And her neck, it kind of stretched back in there…”

Sweetie’s eyes widened in terror, looking over Rarity’s shoulder. Slowly, Rarity’s head turned.

“I’ll talk to YOU later, little filly!” said Pinkie, or at least as much of her she needed in order to poke her head out from Rarity’s kitchen again. “Me, Rock, and the Green Streak are going to be expanding the Pinkie Force!”

Sweetie just shook her head, in mute dismay.

“I’ll wait until after breakfast,” said Pinkie placatingly. “It’s important. Toodles!”

Her head zipped back into the kitchen, and the teakettle could be heard falling onto the floor.

“What is this creature?” cried Hina, distraught. “She reeks of chaos! And merry madness!”

Rarity sighed. “She’s one of the lingering worries I spoke of, Hina. That was Pinkie Pie. I fear Pinkie has gone demented on us again, and I don’t know where it will lead. I think we have two equally alarming concerns, judging from what I’ve heard from Fluttershy.”

“What’s that?” said Big Macintosh.

Rarity’s ear twitched. She set her jaw. “Firstly, I’ve heard she isn’t getting along well with Fluttershy and her zebra harem any longer, even to the point that she’s hostile to little Dursaa, the zebragasus foal. And that is alarming, for he is adorableness itself on tiny striped wings, and Pinkie normally responds well to cute things and foals. I am very worried she is letting jealousy get on top of her. Even in normal circumstances, Pinkie has curious powers, and the times when she turns giddy and fey are times when her power burgeons.”

Ponies stared wide-eyed.

“What’s th’ other concern?” said Big Macintosh.

Rarity gulped. “I’d better just say it. Pinkie sired Rock Candy, and also little Dursaa, to hear Fluttershy tell it. That means she bit Fluttershy’s wing, causing her to ovulate, as pegasi do. Fluttershy says, and we’ve always assumed, that she did it gently enough to not catch vampirism… but I fear we need to ask some questions about that. Such as: if Pinkie Pie can transform herself so grotesquely, and she’s a vampony, might she also conceal fangs using the same reality-defying powers?”

The appalled silence deepened.

“Oh, fuck,” moaned Big Macintosh.

“What?” said Derpy Hooves, looking terribly unhappy. “What are you talking about? Say that again, it’s confusing and sounds bad.”

Rarity trotted over, and hugged Derpy. “Poor dear! I will protect you, I swear it. For now, I must ask you not to talk to her, okay? Until we know everything’s all right.”

“I’d like a hug, too,” said Hina. Her mane seemed to fizz with stray energy, and scales kept flickering down her back. “And an explanation, please? How do you know all these things?”

“Mac dear?” suggested Rarity, not leaving Derpy.

Big Macintosh walked over and extended a hoof, and the Kirin gratefully snuggled up to him, the turmoil of her magic defenses seeming to settle down at his touch.

“So that’s the concern,” said Rarity, “at least as I see it. I think the latter isn’t likely, honestly. When Pinkie is mad like this, she seems to conceal nothing, yet it makes no sense. I can’t picture her hiding fangs. I’m more worried she is pursuing Fluttershy. Fluttershy is innocent. Or at least we’ve known her to be. Hina, what do you mean when you say the evil isn’t gone, after we destroyed Hollyhock? Is Fluttershy the evil you refer to? How can she possibly be, if she’s terrified of everything including herself? Or is she terrified of herself for a reason… and if so, does she have the freedom to be good and kind that we’ve assumed she had? Or is her dark side too difficult to repress?”

At that, Hina stirred. “What side do you mean?”

“When ponies lose their way and begin to fret and think too much…”

“There is no dark side!” protested the Kirin. “There is only light and dark! If only I can be equal to all this…”

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Rarity crisply. “Not here in Ponyville. I can see we have to have a conversation now, just as I’d expected.  My dear Kirin, if there were no dark side my sales would be half what they are! No, let me amend that. If there were no dark side, I would not have to restrict some of my product lines as I do. Can you understand these things? There are, shall we say, shades of gray in our happy village.”

“Gray is DIRTY white,” said Hina stubbornly.

“Oh, sweet Celestia!” said Rarity, in frustration. “That’s it. I’m not going to let you out of this room until you’ve learned a few things. We should have spoken with you by now, and I blame myself for not recognizing the need: I could tell you were naive, but I didn’t think it would matter as much as it does. Let us talk monsters, Hina-rin. What is your favorite monster?”

“How can there be such a thing?” said Hina, wide-eyed, still snuggling against Big Macintosh.

Derpy glanced at Sweetie. Sweetie glanced at Derpy. Both glanced at Big Macintosh’s crotch. Both smirked.

“You’ll find out!” said Sweetie, helpfully.

“Sweetie Belle! Derpy!” complained Rarity. “Behave! That is not what I meant and you know it. All right then, who is your favorite monster? Dare I say it, myself? You’ve scoffed down my omelet with every evidence of satisfaction, so perhaps I’m your favorite monster this morning.”

“But YOU are not a monster!” protested Hina.

Rarity froze her with an unexpectedly authoritative gaze. “Tell that to the ashes of Hollyhock. I think, as I gave his balls an extra twist, he’d have rated me highly for monstrosity. I hoped so.”

“But he was a vampire, slaughtering the innocent!”

“Then why couldn’t you approach me?” countered Rarity. “Did that not happen… darling?”

Hina hesitated. She stared wonderingly at Rarity. “Do… you wish me to hurt you?”

“HEY!” squeaked Sweetie, and everypony winced. “Don’t you dare! Mom, don’t let her do anything to you!”

Rarity didn’t flinch, however. She gazed coolly at Hina, with a little half-smile. “Not in a bad way,” she suggested.

Hina blinked. “…a bad way?” she said.

“Read my aura, darling, if that’s what you do,” challenged Rarity. “Go on! Right now, while I’m in this mood.”

Big Macintosh’s ears quirked, and he drew Hina a little closer. Rarity was staring at her so oddly, filled with confidence… but why?

Hina gulped.

“What are you doing?” she said, plainitively. “I can’t tell what you are now. You feel so grounded. But there is darkness within your intentions. How does it not taint your soul?”

“You make it sound bad,” purred Rarity playfully. “All I’m doing is imagining how fiercely you could use a lovely whip. With that breathtakingly powerful Kirin magic. Upon me.”

“Rarity!” cried Derpy. “I thought you didn’t have to do dumb hurty stuff anymore!”

“Sh, Derpy love,” said Rarity hastily. “I’m making an argument. Hina! How do I seem to you now?”

The Kirin frowned miserably. “But what have you done? You’re a tangled skein of sin. Such streaks of darkness. Yet there’s this deep powerful underlying goodness…”

“That’s why I dare to do this,” explained Rarity. “Much of that is nurtured by Derpy. Also, Sweetie coming more honestly into my life did me a world of good. I think there was a time when you’d have blotted out my existence without a second glance.”

Derpy screamed. Sweetie squealed. Hina flinched, looking around frantically.

“Wait, stop!” cried Rarity. She rushed over and hugged Derpy. “It’s okay! She won’t, I promise she won’t. Steady, Sweetie Belle! Check me again, Hina! There, there, Derpy, we won’t think of such things…”

Hina blinked. “Where’d it GO? Where’d the darkness go?”

Rarity turned to face her. “Oh, those moods don’t last long around these adorable miscreants! Between Derpy and Sweetie, not to forget Big Macintosh, it’s surprising I can even enter dom-space or sub-space at all. Doesn’t fit with my lifestyle anymore, even if I do reminisce with Trixie at times. I fear I really dug deep when I went after Hollyhock, but I’m sure nopony could blame me for that.”

“Dug? Deep? What?” said Hina, totally confused.

“Evil, darling,” purred Rarity. “That little taste of evil that delights in torment and suffering. It’s good to be able to switch, mind you. Hollyhock clearly had no trace of that, if he was a domme he’d clearly have been a rogue practitioner, which is surely why I was so very merciless.” She winced, and hugged Derpy again. “Part of it, let’s just say.”

“Why are you teaching me you can turn evil?” said Hina. “Please never do that again!”

“I’ll tell you why,” said Rarity. “Have you ever met an evil monster that can turn good?”

“That’s impossible.”

“Nonsense,” said Rarity. “You have. Just this morning you have. We simply must make you recognize the fact, so that you’ll be safe around her.” Rarity blinked, wrinkling her lovely brow. “Them, rather. I suppose we’re more worried Pinkie’s going insane, but in many ways she’d qualify just as much. At least, none of us dare to cross her. I wasn’t thinking of her.”

“What monster?” begged Hina. She was trembling.

“Fluttershy, that’s who,” said Rarity. “Our peaceful, non-evil vampony. I warn you, if you harass her you’ll have me to contend with. I suppose you could smite me like a squished bug, but by Celestia I’d leave some welts and scars on you first. You are NOT to harm Fluttershy in the least.”

Hina had got stuck on an earlier word. “I saw no vampony here! None but Hollyhock! What are you saying?”

“That’s the enchanted mane and tail extensions!” retorted Rarity. “That’s why she didn’t look like one! And for the rest of it, it’s no wonder you didn’t spot her, as that mare hasn’t got an evil bone in her body! Vampire, she is, and completely peaceful and kind nonetheless. She’s spoken of having dark impulses. And what of it? The point I’m making is that we must smash your rigid categories of thought!”

“You would smash my thoughts?” wailed Hina, horrified.

“If they endanger my dearest friends, I would!” declared Rarity, raising her chin proudly. “It looks like we took care of our evil vampire ourselves! And if you’re hanging around to target our good and kind vampire pony, if that’s what you’re sensing when you say there’s still evil here, then you will taste my lash!”

“Your eyelash?” said Hina, completely boggled.

Sweetie gasped. “No! Mom! If you try to do that she’ll… Derpy!”

“Yes, Sweetie?” cried Derpy, alarmed by all the contentiousness.

“Mom’s starting a fight with the Kirin and the Kirin’s gonna squish her or zap her or something!”

Rarity paled. “Oh, now, Sweetie, it was just rhetorical… hey! Stop it!”

But it was too late. All she could see was a pair of virtuous rumps: both Derpy Hooves and Sweetie Belle had interposed themselves between herself and Hina, and were advancing on Kirin and Big Macintosh alike.

“Don’t you hurt my Mom,” snarled Sweetie Belle, “I’m warning you!”

“Oh my gosh!” added Derpy. “Nuh-uh! You’ll have to squish me first!” She blinked, and her eyes swapped targets. “Um, please don’t? That would be really mean!” She glowered. “How come you’re mean? Stop it!”

Rarity gave a little shriek. “Darlings! Don’t protect me, I was just making my point!”

“She’s gonna feel the point on the end of my horn!” vowed Sweetie. “Derpy! On three we charge! Mom’s too kinky and the Kirin’s gonna hurt her!”

“Nooo!” wailed Derpy. She stamped a hoof, flapping aggressively.

Hina could only gape in horror. “Good ponies! Don’t do this!”

“Big Macintosh!” cried Rarity, in desperation.

“Eyup?”

“Get her OUT of here!”

Big Macintosh had seen many things in Ponyville, but he’d never seen so adorable an onslaught. Faced with the advance of Sweetie Belle and Derpy Hooves, the one so given to filly unicorn crazy that there was no reasoning with her and the other famously slow on the uptake, he had no choice. So, he swept little Hina up into his mighty forehooves, and rushed awkwardly out the door even as two of the cutest and most innocent ponies in Ponyville charged, in a last ditch defense of their notoriously kinky beloved.

Behind him, he heard pony cries of triumph.

“Yay!” “We won!”

“Sweetie Belle, for heaven’s sake!” yelled Rarity. “You’ve ruined breakfast!”

“No, they ate that before we chased them away…”

Big Macintosh tripped, and tumbled onto the clean grass, sending Hina flying in a tangle of gangly limbs. He looked back, to see Derpy kicking the door closed, and hear a thump that was probably her interposing her solid pegasus body and blocking the door.

He sighed.

“That was a dern good omelet,” he said, wistfully. From inside the Carousel Boutique, he heard at least one shrieking unicorn, and the smash of a flung plate.

“Come on, Miss Hina,” he said. “Best give ‘em some space…”

“But why?” wailed Hina. “Why do they turn from good to evil and back again? Why do they attack me, foolish things? Why do they fling plates and smash their finest table settings in fits of madness?”

She flung herself onto Big Macintosh’s bed, and pounded the pillow with fluffy little flailings of her curious, cloven hooves, as if she sought to vent her feelings but feared a mouse might hide beneath. “Why?!?”

Big Macintosh blinked. “Uh… them weren’t the finest table settings.” He’d hoped bringing her back to his place would settle her down, but it hadn’t worked as well as he’d hoped.

“What?” she said.

“That plate breakin’? Don’t you worry, Miss Hina. I know that sound.”

Hina gulped. She tried to compose herself, and spoke with more decorum, as Kirin preferred to do. “They smash their table settings that frequently?”

“Naw. Them’s the breakin’ plates, from the sound of it.”

“But I just said that!”

Big Macintosh strove to explain. “Ain’t th’ table settings. Ah promise, they didn’t hurt their nice things. Rarity keeps breakin’ plates handy, cheap ole things. Did back in the day, I reckon she still do. She’ll float ‘em over, buck ‘em into the wall with a big noise, and then she’ll clean ‘em up real nice with a lil’ broom and pan. It soothes her mind. Don’t you worry about that, Rarity’s all right. Ah ‘spect them plates is already swept up and in the trash bin, and nothin’ happened to the nice plates at all.”

Hina’s face had steadily fallen with every word, her lip quivering over that incongruous tuft of Kirin magic-beard, as she tried to follow his explanation. When he finished, her gaze pleaded with him to keep going, to take it back or say he was joking or somehow un-say the horrifying, incomprehensible story.

Big Macintosh blinked puzzledly, and then his own eyes widened, for Hina burst into tears and buried her face in his pillow.

“Aw, honey pie!” he said. “What’s so wrong? Ain’t nothin’ happening for to cry over…”

The next thing he knew, she was clinging to him and babbling, her odd and stilted manner of speech gone.

“I can’t stand it!” she sobbed. “Is this what the old Kirin meant? When they said my compassion wasn’t deep enough? I tried to reason with them and it just made it worse. They are good, I know it, how could they be otherwise? What mystery could they conceal, and why could they not simply tell me?”

Big Macintosh hugged her. She felt so strange, like no pony he’d touched. It seemed like a creature so tiny, relative to his farm-horse bulk, should feel frail… but the embrace only reminded him of how different she was. Her flesh felt like some substance denser than muscle. The scales rippled across her body in response to her emotion, and where they extended her body felt invulnerable, like some arcane metal. The magical aura of a mane washed across him in glowing billows, tingling and throwing no sparks as it contacted him.

“There, there,” he soothed. “Mystery? What’s that, honey?”

She sniffled, wiping her nose with a shimmering fetlock, and then she fixed him with a brave, tearful gaze that took his soul and heart in a firm, possessive grip. Never a horse of many words, Big Macintosh suddenly had none at all. He could only sink into those eyes, those heavy-lashed, brilliantly alive, bold yet compassionate eyes.

“They told me to travel abroad,” she said. “They told me to make love and to make peace. They are Kirin, as I am, but older and wiser, and I must trust their judgement.”

“Uhh… okay,” said Big Macintosh, entranced.

Hina sniffled. “Traveling abroad and making love didn’t seem bad,” she said, and gave him a hurt but forgiving look. “Though you didn’t want to do it, when I offered. You don’t trust my skills? I can make love better than any pony you’ve seen.”

Big Macintosh blinked. “Um… that’s okay,” he said. Privately, he thought of Rarity, and doubted it. Then, he thought of Braeburn, and doubted it twice… but he didn’t say anything. It seemed a desecration to imagine Hina carrying on like Braeburn, all the more since she was doing just that. Why couldn’t she be more romantic, rather than behaving like a wanton slut-pony? “It ain’t prop’ly about skills, miss,” he added.

Hina snuggled against him, and sighed. “It’s all right, really. I just wish I understood. Ponyville daunts me.”

He allowed her to nestle against his massive body, stroking her until the scales went away. “What’s that mean?”

Those eyes caught him again. “How can it resist goodness? Why protect evil? And you won’t fuck me.”

Big Macintosh gulped. “Well, now, miss…”

Her curious hoof touched his lips, silenced him. “It’s all right,” she said. “I am here to serve ponies, and living things that are good. Being gay, or finding distaste for me, is not evil.” She sighed, pouting. “It may make me sad: I crave your massive horse cock. But it’s not evil.”

“Now see here, miss!” said Big Macintosh.

“Don’t argue,” said Hina. “I will love you anyhow. It is distaste, then? You liked the earth pony mare. I only wish my body attracted you.”

“Will ya listen?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, serenely.

Big Macintosh heaved a deep breath, squishing little Hina to the side on the bed. “Ooooh…” she crooned. “At least I have this? May I clop? While you breathe so deep.”

“Dang it!”

“I’m sorry,” said the seemingly deranged little Kirin. “I interrupted. Forgive me?”

Big Macintosh’s ears were laid back, and he felt a stirring in his groin, for Hina had wriggled in pleasure against him, just to feel him breathe. Hastily, he gathered his thoughts while he could. “It ain’t that, Miss Hina. Don’t you see Ah would want ta make sweet love? Don’t carry on like, like… a pleasure horse! You mean so well and you’re so perty, an’ can’t I jes look after you for a spell?”

Hina’s eyes widened. “That’s why they gave me to you?”

“What? Ain’t nopony gave nothin’ nowheres! If you mean Apple Bloom, well she’s used to bein’ Boss and it ain’t the first time she’s sent farm ponies off to serve a mare. Hell, she had all the stallions wreck Fluttershy’s lil’ tail, there’s nothin’ surprising about her telling me to stand at stud for you.”

“They gave you to me?” blinked Hina. “Such an ample gift!”

“Dang it,” cursed Big Macintosh, and then he gave her a gaze that, in its own way, was just as devastating as the luminous Kirin eyes he sank into.

“Ah’m thinkin’ maybe I love you,” said Big Macintosh. “Please be kind?”

Hina’s jaw dropped, and her mouth hung open… until Big Macintosh sealed it with a kiss, shuddering with passion he’d not felt since his first love.

His head spun, as that glowing mane swirled around his face so trustingly. It wasn’t a reflection on Braeburn, or on the other ponies Big Macintosh loved. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. It felt like those early days with Rarity, wonderful and terrible Rarity, the discovery of her and the strange, awe-inspiring sense of liberty that had filled his life.

As he felt Hina’s lips against his, tenderly exploring his kiss, it all came back to him. The sense of scrutiny, the intelligence and judgement, so poised to reject him and dash his hopes: and yet she did not. Acceptance… more than that, a growing eagerness, drinking him in as if his oafish clumsiness was just what she needed, just what she’d yearned for. And when Rarity had broken from that first kiss in Fillydelphia, she’d gazed upon him exultantly as if he was everything she could have wanted.

And she’d taken him, taken his love and his heart and then, later, taken every inch of him in screaming ecstacy. He didn’t have to doubt, or guess, or be confident in himself: she seemed to know without asking, seemed to share a mysterious wisdom that told him he couldn’t put a hoof wrong, and he followed in Rarity’s wake ever after, guided by her love, basking in her confidence until that one bridge too far, that last night when she’d taken everything he thought he was and left him more lost than he’d ever imagined.

And when Hina broke from his kiss, he sank deep into her eyes, and it was the same, the same: the little smile, the unbreaking, confident gaze, the quiet, soul-shaking joy emanating from her. It would be awe, if she didn’t seem so utterly in control.

Big Macintosh gulped.

“Hina,” he said, “will you marr…”

Her dainty cloven hoof sealed his lips. He couldn’t tell whether the little halfsmile was happy or sad… but love poured out of her compassionate gaze, and his words drained away unspoken.

“Don’t say it,” she breathed, so calmly. “You mustn’t think of me hearing words like that. Oh, Big Macintosh… don’t make me reply.”

He couldn’t look away, and she didn’t. Tears glistened in her eyes, as she drank him in, adoring, appreciating.

“What mus’ I do?” said Big Macintosh.

She leaned closer.

“Show me,” she whispered, and melted forward into another kiss.

Somehow, she seemed to know. She didn’t dive for his dick, or anything so crass. Something about his protestations of love had explained things to her, and Hina made no further offers of sexually servicing him.

They’d have been superfluous. She was already in his bed, pressing eagerly against him, wriggling in pleasure just to touch him. She made love with her eyes, trusting that genitals would catch up promptly.

As her tongue traced the inside of Big Macintosh’s lips where they met hers, her faith was rewarded.

Big Macintosh groaned, one hind leg kicking as his cock swelled forth. His hoof explored her slim body, and wherever he touched, the troutlike scales retreated. Her mane quieted to a warm luminous glow, the glittery sparkle ebbing away in his presence.

With an air of calm certainty, Hina wriggled about, repositioning herself, tucking her body into Big Macintosh’s fretful embrace. Rather than cling to him, she sought to be clung to: oriented herself to be a little spoon to his enormous ladle, scooted back until she’d snuggled up with her rump against his belly, his forelegs embracing her with foalish tightness as if she were a beloved toy.

Flicking her curious, half-bare tail, she arranged her legs and closed them gently upon his burgeoning erection.

Big Macintosh grunted in surprise and looked down, only to see Hina gazing lovingly up at him with that little halfsmile… that became a two-thirds smile at least, or better, as her legs were tenderly pried apart by stallion bulk.

“Uhmmmmm…” crooned Hina.

Big Macintosh gulped. “Miss? I, uh, I, uh… not sure what you’re gettin’ at here…”

“Love me,” purred Hina. “Once you are stiff. I will help.”

His ears were back again, as he tried to keep up with her plans. “Uhhh… ya keep squirmin’ like that an’ I can’t answer for th’ consequences…”

She lifted her head, and squeezed his cock between her thighs speculatively. “Mmmm. Yes.”

“Beggin’ your pardon?”

Rather than answer, Hina wriggled forward, Big Macintosh staring wide-eyed all the while.

“Uhhhmmmm!” she moaned. She’d got in front of him by scooching nearly off the bed, positioning herself with insouciant grace.

Big Macintosh looked down toward his crotch, his heart pounding and cock throbbing. He was on the verge of flaring out aggressively, and boggled at the sight of Hina’s trim hips barely obscuring the end of his cock, that strange bare-shanked tail not obscuring a thing. She pressed back against him, and he gasped. It seemed an outlandish suggestion, to enter her. She had to wink, there was no chance he’d push that thing into her if she wasn’t winkingly aroused, her vulva seemed solid and unyielding and there had to be a signal telling him this wasn’t purely a stupid idea…

Hina moaned, squirming hotly. Big Macintosh realized she was trying to push down onto him, and the wetness he felt wasn’t his own pre-come ooze. The Kirin’s taut body wasn’t winking her pussy at him, but he felt something like an indentation, a nook, and it was not only hot and squirming, it was seriously wet and slippery. She was lubricating more than he’d ever seen or felt. Of course, she was the one who’d scooted forward and now tried to press back onto a massive earth pony cock, so it was a mighty appropriate reaction… if she meant to be penetrated.

Right then, right there.

…and apparently didn’t want to issue slutty demands for it, because he’d said he loved her.

And she’d said, “Show me.”

Big Macintosh clasped the trembling Kirin to his chest, and she gasped and melted against him, and he could feel her Kirin vagina melting away against him even if it didn’t wink, and at last he knew just what to do.

His mighty hips tilted in a tender but irresistible push, and Big Macintosh’s bulky cock-head squeezed into Hina-rin’s pussy and came to rest wedged tightly inside her, where it began to flare with real authority.

“Ahhh!” cried Hina. Big Macintosh’s ears were sideways with anxiety and alertness, but it wasn’t a squall of pain he’d heard. For one, it was a formidably juicy squelch, but also Hina’s voice was radiant, joyous.

“Rrrf!” he grunted in reply, his eyes crossing. Damn flares! It was already too late to pull out… and the Kirin was tight, fearsomely tight! Surely he had to be doing her an injury…

Hina turned, her face rapt with delight. “Oh, don’t stop!”

“Ah’ll hurt you!” protested Big Macintosh.

The smile on her face wasn’t anywhere near half a smile. It was more like a smile and a half. “Put your hoof on my belly… and push, glorious horse, push. Tell me what you feel.”

Eyes wide, Big Macintosh did as he was told. His hoof stole down to caress Hina’s lovely little abdomen, and as her trim bottom wriggled playfully, he gave a cautious push.

His heart leapt into his throat as he felt a massive bulge, from his flare, shift inside his lover. It slid right up under his hoof, and though the Kirin-pussy was crushing his cock in a death-grip, still everything was slippery and sensuous inside her, and he saw no reaction of pain on her face.

Or not exactly… Hina bit her lip, her eyes unfocusing for a moment, reeling with pleasure even as the horse cock seemed to slide deeper than it ought.

Big Macintosh tugged, gently, and the bulge receded to her pelvis, beyond which it could not tug. He felt himself throbbing in her vise-like grip. He gazed down at her pretty face in a kind of terror and wonder.

Hina smiled up at him.

“The flesh of Kirin is not easily harmed,” she told him. “Especially not with love. My glorious farm stallion! Do not fear. Sate yourself upon my body and come inside me! In this way we may show love.”

Big Macintosh stared. “Are ya serious, Miss Hina? You’re a lil’ thing. How deep do you even want it?”

She bared her teeth in a very Rarity-like exultant grimace. “All the way!”

“Oh HELL naw!” declared Big Macintosh, ears back and appalled.

This broke the spell of her flowery exhortations. Hina blinked. “Huh? I’m not making that up. Do you think I’m making it up? Do you not know about sex with Kirin females?”

“Um, it’s tight an’ pinchy but slippery as all get-out?”

Hina wrinkled her brow. “Oh! I’ll try to relax. Poor thing! It will keep you stiff, though.”

“Miss Hina, why ain’t this hurtin’ you? And how can you be beggin’ me to… you got to be puttin’ me on. Din’t you see how big I was?”

She pouted. “Of course I did. Delightful. Please push that much deeper? Pleeeeease?”

“Only if you explain!” said Big Macintosh.

“Fine!” said Hina, petulant and disposing of all traces of her flowery manner. “We’re a self-created species. You know we don’t reproduce like ponies do. What do you think is in there, a womb?”

Big Macintosh’s eyes were getting wider and wider. “What else, ma’am?”

“We don’t only punish,” explained Hina. “Kirin also reward the truly good. You saw that our flesh is more supple and tough than that of a pony…”

“Ah saw a big ol’ bulge. This ‘un,” said Big Macintosh, and slid it forward to where his hoof could find it again.

“UNHHH! Oh, do that again, more, more!”

“Not until you explain,” said Big Macintosh stubbornly. “It ain’t a pussy I’m in? Not that I’m too fussy, but y’know what I mean. You’re saying my flare don’t hurt you?”

“It could be twice the size,” boasted the Kirin. “We’re created, I told you! Kirin vagina serves solely this purpose. Ours are the most glorious pussies in the world.”

“Modest, too,” snorted Big Macintosh, reminded again of Rarity. “If they’re so fancy how come y’don’t wink like a pony?”

“Wink?” said Hina puzzledly. “Oh! That!”

“Oh, that, she says!” replied Big Macintosh. “Ah was tryin’ to feel for that, ma’am! Braeburn’s taught me plenty of things about winkin’ and clitorises. You’re missin’ out. You kin rub on them, lick ‘em, all manner o’ stuff. Ah would like to do that for you, if I may.”

Hina quirked her ears. “Sounds affectionate. Clitoris, you say? Winking?”

“Seems like you ain’t got one,” suggested Big Macintosh, “or leastways it cain’t wink. Ah could go lookin’ for it if I weren’t wedged in ya like a greased cork in a bottle… mind you, what with all this talk I’m a-flaggin’…”

“No, you don’t understand,” said Hina earnestly. “There’s a reason Kirin pussies are the most wonderful ones in the world. Ordinary ponies have those clitoris things, in a sort of spot that pokes out. Other creatures have them too, in roughly the same place or in different places for different reasons. Such as griffins, they have something like that up at the end which encourages them to seek deep penetration, a breeding thing since they aren’t self-created species…”

“But you don’t seem to have one!” protested Big Macintosh.

Hina shook her head. “No, it’s just a Kirin secret. We don’t want to cause jealousy, so we prefer to describe it as our great skills. But really it’s because what would be a clitoris for a pony, for us is the entire inside surface of th…”

She trailed off, and gulped. Big Macintosh’s ears were bolt erect and perked forward in full attention.

“Please don’t tell anyone?” said Hina. “We don’t want our unicorn mares to be jealous of us. We try to teach them pleasures of their own, to make up for it.”

Big Macintosh’s ear flicked. “Ain’t tellin’ Braeburn. On account of I can’t answer for th’ consequences. Dang!”

Hina’s own ears were folded back, in dismay. “I shouldn’t have told you. It’s too much differentness for an earth pony to handle. Oh, woe!”

“That ain’t the kinda woe I had in mind,” said Big Macintosh.

“Huh?” said the Kirin.

Big Macintosh tensed his pelvis, causing his softening erection to surge, and slid it up into Hina for half of its length.

Her eyes bugged out. “WHOAAA!” she squeaked, and stared at nothing with a look of great astonishment.

Big Macintosh’s hoof massaged her belly, partly distended by horse-cock. He chuckled. “Ah kin listen. And you ain’t givin’ us Ponyville folk near enough credit. Now, when you say whoa, do you mean whoa? Or do you mean giddy-up?”

Hina panted. “MORE!” she gasped.

“Close enough,” said Big Macintosh, and got busy.

It was delightful, though it never stopped being pinchy. Hina was far too excited to control herself. He scooted her down toward his crotch, and then did it again when he found her vagina getting deeper once she warmed up. He held her close and tight, though not nearly as tight as she held his dick, and his hips swung affectionately and tirelessly as he worked himself up from his half-stiff state to near-climax.

It really was amazing. He couldn’t fit all of himself into her, because her body simply wasn’t that large, but he was able to feel his flare sliding back and forth while stroking her belly and abdomen, and even early on it managed to slide way up into her ribcage without harming her in the least.

Or, even, the opposite. Big Macintosh wondered whether the Kirin were stealing ideas from griffins, though he knew she’d never tell him. He couldn’t help but notice that whenever he slid extra deep, and ran out of room inside her, Hina jolted and clenched on him and reacted like a pegasus mare with Braeburn doing some intense clit work on her. She had an awful lot of energy, Hina did, but it was all being expended on relentless orgasm, and he’d taken her at her word and was driving her real hard.

Hina shrieked and thrashed in ecstacy as Big Macintosh gave her another few super-deep thrusts. He’d got past his medial ring, though the way she clamped down it was tough to deal with the compression. Kirin flesh really was something special, but so was the hydraulic pressure of a wildly aroused farm horse. Something had to give.

Big Macintosh gave.

“HNNH! UNH! NGGH! Guh! hhh!”

His Kirin lover squealed as pony-come gushed vigorously into her. She tensed, writhing, her ears laying back hard…

Pony-come squirted violently out from between Big Macintosh’s erect cock, and the edges of Hina’s tight-strained vagina.

Big Macintosh grunted in surprise to feel the spray against the inside of his leg. He felt Hina shaking, heard a whimper… realised he was still crammed into her as deeply as he could go… remembered.

Kirin were pleasure horses… or pleasure Kirin, not even pony in nature. Hina didn’t have a womb to flood. There was no extra space in there to accomodate cupfuls of stallion seed. He was already stuffing her more full of cock than any reasonable creature her size should accomodate.

He tugged, withdrew, and as he did he felt Hina go bonelessly limp in his forelegs, her heart pounding.

He peeked at her face, and she stared and smiled at nothing, her tongue lolling out. “Agggg…” she informed him.

“Seconds?” he asked, and the dumbfounded look on her pretty face made his heart sing.

He sagged as well, snuggling her close, and he laughed for sheer joy of life.

“What’cha thinkin’, Miss Hina?”

Hina-rin didn’t reply at first. The first two times Big Macintosh had asked her, she’d nuzzled him and teased that she was thinking about more sex. She’d been genuinely shocked by how long he’d screwed her, even when he’d admitted he’d learned things from Braeburn about lasting longer. She’d been left unable to move for minutes on end, which didn’t stop Big Macintosh from stroking and petting her quivering body. Her thoughts had been fixed on his sexual virtuosity, and so, foalishly, he asked her again and again, delighting in the praise and the knowledge of how deeply he’d pleased her.

This time, Hina didn’t answer.

“What’cha thinkin’?” repeated Big Macintosh.

“I am thinking about how I can fight an evil that would take five Kirin to defeat,” said Hina solemnly.

Big Macintosh blinked. “What, five?”

“I think so,” said Hina. “I feel it out there. Yet now I am resolute.” She snuggled back against him, still quivery and weak. “Now I must prevail.”

“How come?”

“To save all of the ponies,” she said. “To save you. Though I think it is five times worse than before.”

“Save me? Well, shucks,” said Big Macintosh. “Specially me? Silly ol’ me?”

“Yes, glorious you,” said Hina. Tenderly, she nuzzled under his chin. “Beloved.”

“Aw,” said Big Macintosh, blushing. He thought. “Still feelin’ evilness, huh? You reckon it’s really five times worse’n ol’ Hollyhock turning to the bad?”

“I am so frightened,” admitted Hina. “How can I face this much evil all alone?”

Big Macintosh hugged her closer. “Us farm ponies will handle it. Honest, we will. You’ll see.”

Hina frowned, unconvinced.

Snowy Hocks trudged on.

More than one farm pony had fled Ponyville entirely. Sweet Apple Acres would run short-hooved. Silver had already set out for Appleloosa. Knothole was likely to be the next, obediently staying with the Apple family but looking over his shoulder all the time, cowering and startling at nothing. Snowy Hocks guessed that Knothole would be the next to flee vampire terror.

Snowy wasn’t going to be there to see it. Yes, he was exactly the vampire terror they were fleeing… but he proposed to flee Ponyville, himself.

It wasn’t a spontaneous decision. When Hollyhock had died, Snowy knew his original plan would hold up. It was sheer luck that he’d weathered that period: he’d have laid down his unlife to protect Hollyhock, would have exposed himself in desperate attempts to protect his sire, but when that asshole burned up Snowy had been set free, and the plan snapped back into focus with perfect clarity.

He was no Hollyhock. Not for him, the preying upon stray ponies where he could be seen and captured. He had to make a more secure place to prey from, well out of town. Little did the hapless ponies know that they’d be safer staying in Ponyville!

It didn’t matter. Only the plan mattered… and the most serious threat to the plan wasn’t Hollyhock. That was a calculated risk Snowy had known he would run from the beginning. He’d known he would become untrustworthy to himself once he was a thrall, and he’d set things up so that Hollyhock overstepped himself, and he’d distracted himself as hard as he could, keeping far away, lying to himself that Hollyhock was wise and smart and could take care of himself, and he’d believed his own lies just enough to be far away when the dumb bastard got dragged onto a bonfire.

No, the serious threat was Pinkie Pie. There were other threats: Rainbow Dash was fast and nimble, the Apple clan were dogged and determined, Fluttershy could end up having mysterious vampiric senses and track him down somehow… but Pinkie Pie was something else again. She could turn into things, could be anywhere, she was known to fly into rages: worse, there were times when her fits of madness coincided with spooky, uncanny powers. She could skip to the end of a problem, and she could also get it horribly wrong.

She had another state: when her mane hung lank and straight, she became sour and critical, and seemed to have no spooky powers at all. She’d come through town that way once, with Fluttershy, warning ponies about Gilda the Griffin, and nopony believed her. She’d then gone off, found some kind of crime scene, and returned to Ponyville completely fluffily insane and raving, and the ponies fled for their very lives even though her information was no different than before. There were two Pinkie Pies, and he needed her to be the straight-maned, depressed one.

Snowy glowered at a passing bush, on the forest path he trod. He hadn’t waited. He was already heading into the Everfree, acting on his plan to ‘flee’ Ponyville.

If he had anything to say about it, he’d have Pinkie Pie depressed. There had to be some way to get through to her, somepony to kill. He’d kill Fluttershy in an undead heartbeat, except that he wasn’t sure he could kill her without first feeding on a mortal pony or three, and secondly the way Fluttershy and Pinkie were getting along, killing Fluttershy might cheer Pinkie up.

What a romance for the ages, thought Snowy. What a joke. Fluttershy should have just made Pinkie a thrall if she wanted a compliant lover, and Pinkie Pie’s role was even more laughable. Fall in love with a vampire? Might as well fall in love with a waterfall, and fling yourself to death off it. In the long run, it made little difference, except for some temporary stains on the jagged rocks below.

Danger and death, thought Snowy Hocks, and he snuck off the forest path. That was a habit he had to break. He was still acting as a pony, still clinging to things like the safety of forest paths. He didn’t need any of that. All the rules had changed and he had to keep up, or perish.

Going through the Everfree forest seemed dangerous, but what would beasts and monsters even do to him? Kill him again? That was mortal-pony thinking. Anything that attacked him would become a thrall, to command or simply devour. Let them try! The important thing was that he stayed clear of the ponies. He couldn’t risk getting discovered by the Apples, or worse, Pinkie Pie. She’d gone into that creepy silly mode and stayed there, and that was bad. That had to stop if he was going to take over the town. Pinkie in that mood was too unpredictable, very likely his worst threat. Far worse than the Kirin, who seemed confused and demoralized. Killing a few spare ponies would probably screw her up even worse. Snowy crept through the forest, near a path to orient himself but staying out of sight.

Not  far from the path, Snowy Hocks spotted Zecora’s hut. He tensed. She’d have wards, if he was any judge of character. He crept closer. He was no fool, and didn’t dare get too close.

In the window, he saw the little flying zebra foal, and he remembered. Pinkie Pie had reacted. Something about the kid shook her up. He’d find out what that was, if he could get hold of the kid. Either as a hostage… or something else. It seemed like Pinkie didn’t like him? That was out of character. Snowy frowned. If he guessed right, he might be able to get inside her head in a very special way. And he didn’t have to get inside anything, to bag the foal. Not if you were a vampire, you didn’t.

You didn’t have to go into the house, if you were patient enough. Patient like the dead. No problem there. You didn’t have to go near the house, all you had to do was catch the eye of the one you wanted to get out. And stare at them just right. They’d do the work for you, and nopony would suspect a thing.

Really, it was a win/win. Either he’d have a pawn that might defuse his worst enemy, or he’d have a snack.

Could work, thought Snowy, and settled in to wait.

Over The Hills And Far Away

The ponies, both unicorn and alicorn, fretted before the last magic portal. They’d made it all the way to Camelu, where the last jump awaited. Unfortunately, so did Neighpon Customs.

“How long are they going to make us wait here?” demanded Twilight. She pouted. “It’s a diplomatic insult!”

“As long as they must,” answered Princess Celestia. “Please don’t raise your voice. Be calm. Meditate. We are not done negotiating with the Kirin on the other side.”

Trixie Lulamoon cowered, trembling. Against Twilight’s advice, she’d obeyed Celestia’s firm directions and identified herself in a clear, yes, even a Great And Powerful voice (that quavered only a little) when the voices of Kirin asked for the travellers to identify themselves.

It wasn’t the immediate word “Stop” that had shattered her nerves, either. It was the twenty minutes of silence that had followed.

Chaos cuddled Trixie, uncharacteristically serious. She’d stuck to her alicorn form since leaving Canterlot, and groused about it the whole way, and swore she’d explode in a huge burst of randomness as soon as she got back… but the whole time, she’d figured that the diplomatic issue would be herself. She’d joked about it, teased Celestia about her poor taste in consorts, said again and again that for Trixie’s sake she’d willingly go back alone and let Celestia, Twilight and Trixie enjoy Neighpon if there was trouble.

Celestia had protested that idea with gentle force, and Twilight and Trixie sided with Celestia, and they’d all arrived at the final portal feeling brave.

And the Kirin on the other side, their voices kindly but stern, hadn’t even hesitated at Celestia or Twilight, and barely hesitated in welcoming ‘Alicorn Princess Chaos, it’s just a name’. They’d greeted each one in courtly manner, while Trixie got the shakes worse and worse hearing those voices, so like the ones out of her past.

And then she’d introduced herself, and the voice said ’Stop’, and the portal went out.

Celestia’d had to order away several dromedaries to ensure Trixie’s safety, for it appeared much like Trixie had broken the portal somehow.  The tall, statuesque alicorn Princess had insisted it was part of a diplomatic negotiation, normal procedure, security protocols.

She very much feared that was the truth, and racked her brain for what to say when communication was re-established.

“Twilight, don’t charge through the portal when it comes back,” she said.

“You mean, IF it comes back!”

“It will,” vowed Celestia. “I have known the Kirin for many, many years. I don’t know what’s taking them so long, but they will return.”

“Why don’t you warn Trixie not to charge the portal? Since they’re apparently so paranoid about her getting in?” challenged Twilight.

“Look at her,” said Princess Celestia.

Twilight looked, and almost started to cry, just to see Trixie brought so low. She stared dully at nothing as Chaos petted her mane and gazed worriedly up at Celestia and Twilight.

The lavender unicorn gulped, her lip quivering. “Kirin SUCK!”

“Twilight!” chided Princess Celestia. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I assure you, they certainly do not! I knew the Kirin for centuries! We will continue to wait,” she said, glaring sternly at a couple fretful dromedaries who were growing impatient.

“We should go home and take care of Trixie!” protested Twilight, stamping a hoof.

“If needs be,” said Celestia. “For now… wait! I command you. We know nothing of the situation. The Kirin will not betray my trust.”

“Wait how long? Centuries?”

“No,” said Celestia. Her gaze darkened. “They are aware of the company I am with. The Kirin had better not betray my trust. I do not have centuries to spare.”

“Centuries?” brayed one of the dromedaries, and spat at the Princess, narrowly missing her head.

“Stop it, Swirlie!” cried Celestia at once, not even looking. Hastily, she added, “You too, Twilight!” She then turned to the hapless Camelu official who’d let his frustration get away with him, and she glared. “You don’t know your peril. Cease.”

“It’s my nature,” grumbled the dromedary.

“Very well,” said Celestia. “Shall I allow this smaller alicorn and this lavender unicorn to express their natures?”

The dromedary tried to play it cool as he checked out the savagery of the glares coming from Chaos and Twilight.

“I’m not sure they’ve ever cooperated,” said Celestia, “but I think they’re about to start.”

The dromedary official gave her a withering, sour look, and he stalked off, his ungainly hocks trembling only a little. Once he was out of sight, they heard the frantic drumming of his hooves as he fled. The other dromedary batted her heavy black eyelashes haughtily, stood her ground, and said nothing.

Chaos turned immediately back to Trixie. “What are we going to do? She’s taking this so badly.”

“You mustn’t jump to conclusions!” protested Celestia, looking haggard. “We don’t know if this is rejection.”

“Well, what else would it be?” demanded Twilight, with another stamp of her hoof.

The portal flickered to life again.

“Twilight! Don’t!” snapped Celestia, and Twilight clattered to a halt, inches from the glowing magic field.

From the portal, the Kirin voice came once more. “Don’t what, Celestia-san?”

“Ah, nothing!” replied Celestia, hastily. “Greetings to you! We rejoice in your return! May we come through, jewels of Neighpon?”

“Two Kirin come to join you,” said the voice. “Permit them passage.”

“Stand aside, Twilight Sparkle,” commanded Celestia. “We’ll do this diplomatically. You must trust me.”

Through the glowing field of magical force came two Kirin, whose expressions were grave. Twilight glared at them, while Chaos looked more curious than angry.

They paid attention to neither. The Kirin looked around, appraising the situation, and then converged as one on Trixie Lulamoon.

Hearing them approach, Trixie looked up… and jerked in surprise, her eyes going very wide, stricken, guilty.

“Trixie, what is it?” cried Twilight.

Trixie’s voice rasped. “It was you…”

“Please hold still,” said one Kirin, his eyes troubled and attentive.

“They’re gonna… Princess!” shouted Twilight, but Celestia’s foreleg blocked her path.

“Be calm,” ordered Celestia. “Trust.” Her haughty gaze raked the two Kirin. “They shall not harm her, lest they face my wrath. Do not fear.”

The other Kirin glanced at the Princess. “We must know the truth of her, oh Celestia-san. Surely you see that?”

“I think I do,” replied Celestia, watching the two Kirin sternly.

Without further argument, both Kirin leaned in as if trying to hug Trixie Lulamoon, who made no effort to escape. Their manes flashed and flickered, but they didn’t complain: they concentrated fiercely, as the other ponies fell silent. Trixie stared off into space tragically, surrendering to whatever it was they proposed to do.

The Kirin backed off. One glanced at Celestia. “Your doing?”

“If you mean her curse, no,” said Celestia. “She, and Twilight here, cured that themselves. I presume this was your purpose here, and that we shall be free to proceed to our destination?”

“No,” said one Kirin, as the other said “Yes.” They glanced at each other, startled.

“Which question did you answer, jewels of Neighpon?” asked Celestia, with a touch of asperity.

“It’s complicated,” said one, and the other said “It is a secret…”

“Are you concealing something from me?” said Princess Celestia, and her tone was darker still. She scuffed the ground with a forehoof, her eyes narrowing.

“Don’t worry!” squeaked the first Kirin, and glanced frantically at the second one. “Do it now!”

Before anypony could make a move, the Kirin had magemelded and sent some kind of magic force against the portal, causing it to shimmer and morph. Almost as soon as they’d begun, they were finished.

“It is only right!” said the second Kirin, gulping. “You will see!”

“We must go!” protested the first, and, pinned in the mistrustful stares of ponies and alicorns alike, they bounded forward and disappeared through the portal, back to Neighpon… or wherever they’d directed the portal, when they’d altered it.

“Okay, that was special,” grumbled Twilight. “What did they do to it? We’re gonna end up in a jail cell.”

“It was them,” said Trixie, trembling. “Those ones. They’re older now, but… I just know it was them.”

Celestia nodded. “I remember your story. Yes, I daresay it was. You did see what they were doing? If I’m not mistaken, the Kirin remembered Trixie. Upon hearing her name, they sent for the two Kirin who’d turned her away. Call it a second chance? Or a health check-up. I fear had your curse not been lifted, we would remain unwelcome. But we’re clearly free to enter Neighpon: they said yes.”

“And no,” added Chaos. She blinked at the looks of dismay she received. “What? I thought that was nicely random. They even know how to make a spirit of Chaos feel at home!”

“It’s not that,” argued Twilight. “They’re up to something. I’m sure they were reprogramming the portal. We’ll end up in a jail cell… or dropping into the mouth of a volcano.”

“They themselves went through the portal, Twilight!” objected Celestia. “I don’t sense moral tone as they do, but I can’t believe they mean us ill.”

“I don’t know,” said Trixie, distraught. “I just know those were the ones I saw. Last time they told me I had to leave. They didn’t tell me that this time. Does that mean we can use the portal?”

“I don’t like how frightened they were,” said Twilight. “They were up to something. They panicked and ran back into the portal!”

Celestia tsked. “If you could see yourself, Twilight, maybe you’d have a hint about why. They know you and Trixie are with me, and might have what you’d consider a sort of limited diplomatic immunity. Yet I believe it was my own visage that caused them to flee.” She sighed. “I owe them an apology. And, very likely, a hug.”

“But why would they be so scared of you being mad?”

Celestia lifted an eyebrow. “As only two Kirin? And, moreover, ones I’ve never met? It stands to reason. Stories of my power have not faded, since my last visit to Neighpon. I really must apologize.”

“Fine. The portal is that way,” said Twilight. “If it’s a jail cell, I’m not sure we should break you out of it.”

Celestia snorted, but gave a little smirk. “Twilight!” she said. “It will be no such thing!”

“One way to find out…” challenged Twilight.

“Hmph!” said Celestia. She flapped her mighty wings once, and then walked decorously across the floor. She reared a bit, lifting her forehooves over the lip of the portal, plunging her front half into the magic field.

She unexpectedly toppled forward, falling right into the portal, her hind legs flailing briefly… and, faintly, the sound of a squeal was heard. Not through the portal, for sound from hundreds of miles away didn’t carry. The sound was transmitted through Celestia’s body, through lungs and diaphragm and flesh and large, elegant rump. And then she was gone.

“Celly!” squealed Chaos, and before Twilight or Trixie could blink, the little alicorn had plunged headlong through the portal herself.

Twilight and Trixie gawked at each other. Behind them, the remaining dromedary spat on the floor.

“I have to know,” said Trixie. “You understand that, don’t you?”

“If it’s something bad,” said Twilight, “I’m going in there with you.”

That broke Trixie’s funk. Her lips quirked in a smile, and some spark returned to her eyes. “Trixie suspects you want it to be bad, so you can spank a Kirin!”

“Princess Celestia fell down!” protested Twilight. “Or… something?”

“We’d better go see,” said Trixie.

“Okay. One… two…”

They bounded, side by side, through the portal, little unicorn bodies in perfect synchrony: mute testament to their deep and timeless bond, two mares acting as one.

They burst forth into a clear dawn, soft and radiant as if the light was cast through flower petals in a world that was a poem.

They dropped just as Princess Celestia had, with no floor beneath their extended forehooves…

Two unicorn mares splashed, as one, into clear and unaccountably fresh waters.

“Pbbft! Gah!” squalled Twilight, her mane drenched and falling wetly across her face. She heard laughter and a mocking clapping of hooves, and tossed her mane away from her eyes, looking for her tormentor or whoever aimed to teleport her to a strange place only to laugh at her.

But the hoof-clapping was only Chaos… and the laughter, was Princess Celestia herself, standing on the shore with the two Kirin.

Twilight stuck her lower lip out and glared at her Princess ferociously. The water was so shallow, that she could easily stand on the bottom, and just deep enough to ensure she hadn’t been hurt by her unexpected fall. She drew a deep breath, prepared to shriek in exasperated outrage at naughty Celestia, so rarely the prankster, and the Kirin she apparently hoped to impress.

Celestia’s eyes had widened, she put a hoof to her lips, she was frantically gesturing to Twilight, and to the side. To what side? To move to the side, rather than gallop through the clear waters and bop Celestia on the nose with a teleported pillow? Under normal circumstances, Twilight couldn’t blink a pillow all the way from Equestria, but in moments of great excitement and emergency…

No. To look to the side… to look at Trixie, for the first time since materializing on the shore of Neighpon.

Twilight looked.

Trixie was frozen, barely able to breathe, looking across the short stretch of water to the shore with her eyes wide and vulnerable. She bit her lip, and released it. Her body trembled.

Twilight suddenly remembered her story. How she’d journeyed to Neighpon, reaching the shore, only to encounter two Kirin. How they’d told her that she must leave, given her no choice. She had come all the way and turned around and gone home, never to return. Trixie Lulamoon had clung to her old book with its pictures of Neighpon, and pursued her tragic and cursed destiny as best she could. And she’d never seen a cherry blossom, not a real one.

Twilight followed Trixie’s gaze, across the water to the shore.

Trixie wasn’t staring at the Kirin, or Chaos, or Celestia. Her gaze was locked upon a hill, right by the water.

They were to the side of a river’s mouth, as it poured fresh water into the ocean. Pristine beach gave way to luminous green, a bed of grass where one could believe every blade was individually tended to by ageless Kirin, and from the grass the hillside rose serenely into a stand of trees, Neighponnese cherry trees, fine and green and healthy, their limbs curled in elegance as if they were very slowly dancing for the joy of existence.

Near the top of the hill, one single tree caught a persistent sunbeam, filtered and refracted it in a different way.

It was a solid mass of cherry blossoms, just for Trixie Lulamoon.

Trixie seemed paralysed. Twilight could see why. It was so beautiful it hurt to behold.

The air was warm. The barest hint of the fragrance came delicately across the water. Trixie bit her lip again, tenderly, her ears laid back in distress, not daring to believe.

Twilight’s eyes glistened. She nudged Trixie with a hoof, not to break the spell but to un-freeze it. “Go on,” she said. “It’s time.”

Slowly, Trixie began to walk, never looking away from the glowing petals spotlit at the top of the hill.

They reached the shore, and Twilight trotted over to hug Princess Celestia, a wordless apology for her mistrust, an embarrassed glance at the Kirin who sat, so calm, watching.

Twilight followed their gaze to see Trixie steadily walking onto the grass, up the hill, through the quiet stand of trees, and before she knew it she was following without getting too close: unwilling to intrude upon the moment but unable to be far away from her beloved as she steadily closed on her destination.

Trixie walked up to the tree. She closed her eyes, her nostrils flaring at the exquisite scent, nuzzling the cherry tree and rubbing the side of her face against it.

As Twilight watched, breathless, Trixie lay down beside the tree on a soft bed of grass, her back snuggled up against it.

Trixie looked up, her neck arching as if trying to reach out to all of Neighpon, her lips slightly parted. Her eyes seemed unfocussed, as if she wasn’t really seeing the hillside and Twilight watching and the Kirin and alicorns at their polite distance… or, as if she was seeing it all at once, drinking in the sights and scents and sounds and feels of her surroundings.

A little breeze stirred the hillside.

Tenderly, cherry blossom petals drifted down to blanket the grass, her body, and Trixie Lulamoon’s upturned face.

As the five watchers held their breaths, Trixie’s expression changed. In the magic of her introduction to Neighpon, she’d resembled an innocent filly, somehow: some alternate Trixie Lulamoon who’d never been hurt, who hadn’t suffered.

In an instant, as flower petals settled onto her, that expression was transfigured. The entranced naivete dropped away, and it was the grown and experienced Trixie Lulamoon laying beneath the tree, fully present… but there was something more. It wasn’t just Trixie, with all the weight of her tragic past. It was a Trixie that only Twilight had seen, sometimes only while asleep or at very special moments.

It was Trixie Lulamoon, as if she had just been kissed for the first time, and told she was loved.

Her eyes remained focussed on everything at once, but tears flooded them, ran down her cheeks even as she stared, transfixed, stricken to the heart with forgiveness and love as she’d never felt.

She lowered her head, and wept: her face hidden in her forelegs, sobbing in near silence, her tears watering the nurturing grass.

Twilight Sparkle gulped, her lip quivering.

And, with that one quiet sound, Trixie reached out a foreleg blindly in Twilight’s direction, and then Twilight was galloping madly over, herself weeping, throwing herself to the grass to embrace her beloved Trixie like she’d never let go, and the two little unicorns hugged and sobbed and kissed, sharing Trixie’s perfect moment, helping her to withstand the devouring beauty of it, making it real for her moment by moment.

At the foot of the hill, two Kirin silently wept for joy to witness it, and little Chaos hugged Celestia in delight.

“I like this place!” she cried. “Who knew fussy tidiness could feel so nice?”

A tear of joy dripped down Celestia’s cheek, as she held her head high, vindicated in her trust.

And, softly and forgivingly, Kirin magic snuck up the hillside… not to touch the sobbing, overwhelmed unicorns, but only to heal the crushed and broken blades of grass Twilight had trampled in her frantic haste.

“Bring that old gunny sack over here, Silver!” yelled Apple Bloom.

Ponies scurried this way and that. “Applejack!” demanded Apple Bloom. “You get them scissors from Granny Smith?”

“Sure did!” said Applejack. Earth pony scissors were cumbersome things that you braced against a table or floor and stepped on, but sure enough, Granny had a set stashed away in the basement, testament to bygone days before Rarity had come to Ponyville and single-hornedly supplanted all earth pony seamstress duties.

“We’re gonna cut up that big heavy cloth,” explained Apple Bloom, “and we’re all gonna wear a double layer of gunny sack around our necks. Hear me? It’s gonna be some kinda protection, while we hunt for more vampires.”

“What if it ain’t more vampires?” said Oakback.

“Then we’ll do somethin’ else!” said Apple Bloom.

“What if it’s Fluttershy?” said Silver.

Apple Bloom snorted. “Then, wrap it around your dick! Shut up, we’re doin’ what we kin to keep y’all safe.”

“The other vampire already done kilt Snowy Hocks!” protested Silver, ears laid back in panic. “Et him up, hooves an’ all!”

“We don’t even know it is another vampire!” argued Oakback. “An’ Snowy run away like the coward he is, I seen it myself!”

“He ain’t the only one,” grumbled Applejack. “A whole mess of ponies run off outta town. Somepony’s talkin’ about our lil’ problem and it wasn’t me, or Rainbow Dash either.”

“Where’s Rainbow Dash now?” said Apple Bloom.

“Off watchin’ Fluttershy for every second of the damn day,” retorted Applejack, “the dern fool! We know it was Hollyhock all along, and we even know how he caught it.”

Apple Bloom frowned at her big sister. “She din’t stick her hoof in the fire, like she promised.”

“ARE you suggesting…”

“Ain’t no suggesting. That’s a fact,” said Apple Bloom. “I’m not gonna overlook it twice, and maybe it would be good to check in on our good friend Rainbow Dash.”

A blue streak zoomed out of the distance, and Apple Bloom tensed.

“Hey guys!” said Dash, flying up looking frustrated. “I can’t get her to come out from under her bed, so I thought I’d come back and…”

“Well, Rainbow Dash!” proclaimed Apple Bloom. “Ain’t that convenient.”

“Yeah? And by ‘her’ I mean Fluttershy, obviously. I’m not sure whether it was seeing Hollyhock burn, or seeing the Kirin right there in front of her, but…”

“Your turn, Rainbow,” said Apple Bloom, with a tight little smile.

“What?”

“We won’t ask Fluttershy to jump in what’s left of th’ bonfire. It would be cruel on account of we know what would happen,” said Apple Bloom. “But I remember you making a promise to me. Did you forget?”

Dash glanced at the guttering fire, still feebly burning even after the corpse of Hollyhock had turned to foul ash. Then, she looked back at Apple Bloom, her eyes wide and shocked.

“There’s the fire, Rainbow,” said Apple Bloom. “Ah am WAITING.”

For a moment, their gazes locked. Dash, looking angry and hurt, Bloom tense and grim.

Then, without a single word, Rainbow stalked over, and stuck her hoof right into the flames, gritting her teeth, and not drawing it back.

“Alright, stop,” ordered Apple Bloom, as Applejack glared at her. “Stop! You heard me. You’re good. And don’t even pretend that wasn’t necessary.”

Dash had staggered back, into the embrace of Applejack, who hugged her and blew on the lightly scorched hoof, then ran madly over to the barn, grabbed a bucket, filled it at an irrigation brook and galloped back. Rainbow gratefully lowered her hoof into the bucket. No steam came up, but she looked relieved.

“I get that,” said Rainbow. “I wonder if you realize how fucked-up it was, even so. After all this is over, you might owe Fluttershy an apology.”

“That’s as may be,” retorted Apple Bloom. “Ah got responsibilities. Thank you for makin’ the effort and not being just another insane pony violatin’ my trust in them. Already now, Hollyhock turned into a murderin’ monster, Snowy run away when I need him to guide us an’ teach us about monsters as he’s always done, the Kirin’s a whiny pile of mess, and don’t even get me started about Pinkie Pie!”

Dash winced. “Yeah. She’s taking this really badly. Can you blame me for trying to protect Fluttershy?”

“How bad do you think?” said Applejack, still directing sulky glares at her little sister. “What’s she doin’?”

“I’m not totally sure,” said Dash. “She’s gathering stuff, like she did with the parasprites, but it’s not quite the same stuff. I mean, it’s not just musical instruments though it looked like she found a trombone somewhere. She’s not much good at it…”

Applejack’s distraction continued, as she and Apple Bloom glared at each other. Rainbow poked her. “Hey. Hey!”

“Whuh?”

Applejack got a fervent kiss on the muzzle, and for a moment she only had eyes for Rainbow.

“Settle down,” ordered Rainbow. “We’re all in this together and I’d be pretty worried if Apple Bloom didn’t keep a close eye on me. We know Fluttershy’s a sweetheart, but think about it, okay? If she did go wrong, and she turned me, you guys would be in really bad trouble.”

Northern Spy, who’d helped Applejack find the earth pony scissors, grinned. “Yeah! I was mostly good when I was a vampire, but when I went on a rampage, not even Twilight or Princess Celestia in a bunny suit could stop me!” She nuzzled Applejack. “Just only mom…”

Rainbow continued, “Besides, you know me, right? You have to admit there’s nothing more badass and hardcore than the amazing Rainbow Dash sticking her hoof in a FIRE to prove her true identity. It’s, like, total Daring Do grade awesome but it’s real and we’re living it. Top that! If you can!”

Applejack made a face. “If you say so.”

“Well then…”

“Stick your dern wing in th’ fire if you’re so hardcore,” griped Applejack.

Rainbow jumped back, flapping frantically. “OH FUCK no! What? You can’t… Applejack! Oh my gosh, what the fuck?” She glanced frantically at Apple Bloom, her gaze pleading with the diminutive Boss Mare.

Applejack smirked, a bit sadly.

“You settle down, Rainbow. Ain’t nopony doing nothing of the sort, nor asking you to do it. You did tell me ‘top that’, it’s your own silly fault. An’ I guess Apple Bloom ain’t so far off base if I’m honest.” She shuddered. “I just don’t like any of this. How do you know we haven’t killed the real monster, and the Kirin’s just making a big fuss over nothing?”

“She was right about Hollyhock,” said Apple Bloom. “Big Macintosh’s gonna try to settle her down, and she’ll try again. I don’t know what else to do, Applejack. Din’t Rainbow Dash say that Bon Bon said that Princess Celestia’s on vacation?”

Granny Smith snorted, while trying to cut up gunny sacks. “Snowy Hocks was right. This ain’t Princess business. This is old school earth pony business! If we got us an infestation of vampires, we’re gonna give ‘em what fer! Plus, it’s personal. They got Fern Gully, the pore silly thing, and it was Hollyhock what done it, and who’s to say it was Fluttershy who turned him?”

Rainbow blinked. “But we watched it happen, Granny. I saw him gnawing on her wing and everything.” She blushed fiercely, and furled her own wings tight against her body.

Granny quirked a half-smile. “I don’t see as much, maybe…”

“Let’s not get into that ol’ story,” said Applejack, glancing nervously at Apple Bloom. She’d disobeyed the Boss Mare good and hard, that night.

Granny wasn’t finished. “But from the tone of th’ pegasus music, I’ve HEARD my Applejack doin’ the same dern thing to you!”

Rainbow went scarlet.

“And I never saw or heard about no blood, crazy lil’ wingy-pony,” added Granny Smith, smug at putting one over on Rainbow for a change. “All y’all pegasuses got a bee in your bonnets about wings. It might not have been what you thought. Mebbe you were readin’ too much into that on account of what it’s, how’d you say… a sensitive spot.”

Applejack was cuddling Rainbow, as both grinned shamefacedly. Their private bedroom rodeos took place behind closed doors, but not by any means soundproofed. And they could hardly object to their family cataloging Rainbow’s cries of lusty delight, when ponies halfway to town could hear those birdpony calls. And yes, the wings were Applejack and Rainbow’s favorite spot for a blow-off, the finisher meant to leave Rainbow hoarse, limp and stunned by her own erotic fireworks displays.

Applejack nodded, fondly nuzzling Rainbow, smiling. “So you’re saying, maybe it ain’t such a danger, ‘cos the best part of pegasi is using ‘em as chew-toys, and there ain’t no harm in it?”

Rainbow blushed and smirked harder, fwapping Applejack with her wing before furling it tightly again.

“Ah’m sayin’ mebbe somethin’ else turned Hollyhock, not Fluttershy,” said Granny Smith, and the two lovers’ smiles switched off as one.

“Another vampire?” said Rainbow.

Granny Smith added, “An’ it’s still out there. And us earth ponies… we’re gonna hunt it down an’ kill it.”

“Think about it,” said Apple Bloom. “We had to test Rainbow, in case it was Fluttershy. But if it’s not Fluttershy then it’s something else. Maybe not even a pony at all, but there’s enough of ‘em to freak out the Kirin. And either the Kirin’s gonna help or she’s not, but we are not gonna sit around waiting! We’ll try to bring her back and have her sniff the thing out, whatever it is. But if she’s flipping out because there’s not one vampire but a whole vampire team trying to take us all over…”

Silver whinnied in terror, and ran for it, panicked beyond reason.

“DAMMIT!” yelled Apple Bloom. “Silver! You see? It’s like that! If vampires are pickin’ off damn fool ponies who won’t answer to discipline, well on the one hoof Ah’m mighty glad Rainbow Dash is tough enough to keep up, and on the other hoof we gotta go out and do battle right away, before their team is chock full of stinkin’ pony idiots! And MY farm ponies, I might add!”

Applejack nodded. “You ain’t wrong there, Apple Bloom. Okay, I’m with you. We got some special help, whether that’s Hina the Kirin, Rainbow Dash, or even our tame vamp Fluttershy. Did you say she was with us, Rainbow?”

“Absolutely,” swore Rainbow. “I saw the look on her face. I asked her if she was okay with the whole bonfire thing, ‘cos I had to warn her not to fall in it. This is why I’ve been so upset you guys don’t trust her! She was ready to kill Hollyhock herself. You gotta understand, Fluttershy’s super nice, but if you’re hurting animals or ponies around her… She is so totally not down with that. She’s on our team to the death. Uh, or a little ways past death if you want to be picky about it.”

“I agree,” said Applejack. “I hope you see that, Apple Bloom.”

“I do, and unless there’s some reason to think otherwise we’re gonna consider her an important ally,” said Apple Bloom. “We just proved she didn’t turn Rainbow, and I’m bearin’ that in my consideration. Though keep in mind, we’ve been thinking about this stuff for a while. Even before we learned Hollyhock was a vamp, the farm pony workers were learning how to kill vampires. Maybe that means they got Hollyhock recent-like. Ah know he was part of the hunt when they were huntin’ them monster-bunnies.”

Rainbow Dash cringed. “That was weird. And incredibly gross. We dealt with it, though. Or at least Fluttershy and Twilight did. Me and Applejack were way too busy restraining Pinkie Pie, she went nuts and tried to stop us.”

The words hung in the air, horribly. Apple Bloom frowned.

“Oh, now, come on!” protested Rainbow. “That was ‘cos Pinkie can’t possibly handle killing bunnies! Or especially Fluttershy killing bunnies, or being around Twilight killing bunnies… something like that! She seriously went completely insane!”

“Must be Tuesday,” grumbled Applejack. “That does worry me, Rainbow. Is it me, or does she seem a lil’ more apple turnip cakes these days?”

“Hey!” squawked Granny Smith. “That was an accident! And they weren’t so bad, were they?”

“Sorry,” said Applejack. “Ah mean… apple turnip cakes drenched in a pound of salt and four cups of special cider?”

Granny made a face. “Ow. Ah see yer point, though. That mare ain’t right. We’re tryin’ to find an’ wreck the Ponyville monsters, usin’ mostly good old earth pony ways. Here, take a gunny sack neck-cloth, Applejack. My point bein’, does Pinkie Pie even count?”

A pink head stuck out of a nearby tree. Not the foliage… the tree.

“I can count to zero! Can you?”

“Dang it!” yelled Apple Bloom. “Pinkie, you can’t do that!”

“Yes I can,” objected Pinkie’s head. “Why are you being a party pooper?”

“That’s one of them willow saplings we’re gonna plant for erosion,” insisted Apple Bloom, “an’ you don’t even fit in there, and what the HAY do you mean by count to zero, Pinkie Pie?”

“We can all count to zero if we know how!” replied Pinkie’s head. “In the end, everypony counts to zero when they know the secret!”

“What SECRET?” demanded Rainbow Dash, trotting over to confront her old friend and lover.

“The SECRET is… it’s sad!” chirped Pinkie. At this, she blinked, and twitched, and just for a moment she stared into space and seemed to wilt, tragedy written across her features.

“Pinkie?” said Rainbow hesitantly.

Pinkie shook herself. The willow’s branches curled inward, reaching like hooves making spell-casting gestures. A curious sort of headband appeared, with one-half an arrow on either side of it. The branches placed this on Pinkie’s head. She coughed, coughed again, and a party squeaker flew out of her throat. She caught it between her lips, and blew, and it unrolled and went ‘fweeeeeeee’.

“Pinkie!” yelled Rainbow Dash.

“Not now, Dashie!” said Pinkie. “I’m counting to zero! And I have ponies to talk to! Right, Green Streak?”

“That’s right, Punka Pow!” said Northern Spy loyally. “What’s the plan?”

Pinkie winked at the feisty green filly, as Rainbow and Applejack looked on in horror. “Counting first, plan later!”

“Okay!” said Spy, and Pinkie vanished back into the willow sapling again.

“Spy, what the hell is this?” demanded Rainbow.

“We’re superheroes!” said Northern Spy, in exasperation. “Don’t you remember? She’s the Pickle Poing, and we fight evil! We’re even talking to…”

“Now hold on a minute!” interrupted Applejack. “Before you get too busy with that, maybe we need to have a lil’ talk about our good friend Pinkie…”

“We’re talking to HER!” said Spy, and Applejack turned to follow her kid’s gaze.

“Hello!” said Numeric Essence politely, trotting up to join the group. “I thought I saw our leader Pinkie Pie here? I must report on my progress!”

“You can report to me!” said Spy proudly. “Me and Rock Candy, I mean the Rock Lobster, are second in command!”

Oakback stamped a hoof, and stomped over angrily to confront the tiny green filly and tall, elegant winged unicorn.

“Miss Spy? First of all there ain’t but one Boss Mare in these parts, and secondly, what if Miss Pinkie Pie is actin’ so strange because she’s another vampire?”

Spy didn’t even flinch. “But she isn’t. I’m the vampire expert here. I WAS one. I think I can tell if somepony is a vampire or not, even after I got cured. Hollyhock must have gotten made into a vampire only a couple days ago ‘cos I never noticed anything vampirey about him before. Fluttershy’s a vampire, but she’s nice. Peggle Pop is a superhero, not a vampire. Everypony knows that!”

“Whoof,” said Rainbow Dash. “Are you serious, Spy? Do you have some kind of vampire-sense now?”

“Maybe! ‘Cos I don’t feel anything wrong with Pinkie, vampire-wise!” She trotted over, reared way up, and threw a companionable foreleg around Dash’s neck. “I think I probably should tell you, though, Mom. Just between you and me…” she glanced from side to side, and whispered, “Pinkie Pie’s kind of weird in the brain.” Spy nodded solemnly.

Dash rolled her eyes. “I’ll make a note of that one, Spy. You think?”

Spy nodded. “Rock Candy’s noticed too! It’s okay, though, because it seems to make her more powerful. We’re totally gonna wipe out the evil.”

“Yeah, about that…”

Numeric Essence interrupted. “I believe I’ve observed something similar. But please, I must report my findings to Northern Spy, as she requested! I’ve made important progress on the spells we’d discussed!”

“Whoa, hang on,” said Applejack. “She’s got you makin’ spells? This here’s earth pony business!”

“No no!” protested Essence. “Not little Spy, no! It is Pinkie Pie!”

“What is?” chirped Pinkie, now wearing X-Ray Specs as well as the arrow-through-the-head as she poked her head out of the slender willow sapling.

“Oh!” cried Numeric Essence. She squinted at the sight of Pinkie’s head sticking out the side of a slim treetrunk. “Pardon me, Pinkie Pie, but if I’m not mistaken, that is impossible.”

“SO?” demanded Pinkie.

Essence, flustered, kicked the dirt with a forehoof a couple times and then carried on anyhow.

“Thank you for letting me work with your team of heroes,” she said. “I think I’ve found a spell that I can cast, which will do what you asked. It’s a ‘getting killed spell’.

“That’ll save time,” said Pinkie’s head, “but it sounds totally useless. Try harder!”

“No, no!” said Essence. “I mean, it’s like a beacon! I’m nearly certain that using it, I can target whatever vampire or evil influence is at large in Ponyville! It’ll make a brilliant beam that extends upward and downward for miles, visible from anywhere in Ponyville. If you see the beacon, it’s time to converge and destroy the monster, which should be in the vicinity of the beacon!” She hung her head. “I’d like to make it target the monster directly, but I’m not sure how to do that without killing the monster.”

“Then you’re on the right track!” said Pinkie’s head, and her eye gave a horrible twitch. “We’re lucky you’re here! Sounds great!”

“Oh, thank you,” said Essence, her serious face lighting up in a grateful smile.

“Yeah,” said Pinkie’s head, “you’re going to save the day in the most appropriate way for a subverted alicorn OC with no fucking personality!”

Pony jaws dropped all around the remains of the bonfire.

“What?” said Applejack.

Pinkie’s eye twitched again. “Did I say something bizarre? Oh well, the end of the series is always weird. How many times have we done it, three?”

Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “Hey listen, Pinkie, how about you come out of there and I take you to see Nurse Redheart, maybe she can make you some nice herbal tea and you can get some sleep and maybe you’ll feel better…”

Dash’s voice was openly worried, but Pinkie didn’t respond to that at all. “No sleeping, no better!” she declared. “Essence, you keep working, stick that spell everywhere you can! Green Streak, you practice charging to the rescue. Pyrrhic Plot, out!”

She yanked her head back into the slender willow trunk, impossibly, and was gone.

“What-ic what?” gawked Applejack.

Numeric Essence nodded. “She’s right! If I might ask for volunteers? Because of the nature of the spell, the more ponies it’s cast on the better. I think the most risk is run by the first instance of any given species, but once I’ve cast it on say an earth pony or unicorn, I think that will help establish its safety going forward…”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” said Apple Bloom, trotting right up. “Start over. What is this spell, Miss Essence, that you’re gonna cast?”

Numeric Essence blinked. “But I told you. It’s the getting killed spell.”

Ponies stared at her. Apple Bloom quipped, “Sounds useful! What the hay do you mean?”

“If you are killed by the evil influence, whether that’s more vampires or some other form of evil, the beacon is cast and will persist for at least three hours, visible at a range of the square root of two RH plus H squared in which R is the radius of Equestria and R and H must be in the same units. I need to account for atmospheric refraction, though, because that will cause light to be directed downward, particularly over water. The opposite may occur if there are deserts between the beacon and the observer, which makes it very difficult to estimate maximum ranges though they will be very great in practical terms… what?”

Apple Bloom stared at Numeric Essence. “Did you say, ‘getting killed spell’?”

Essence nodded happily. “Yes! Get killed and a beacon springs forth that will reveal the location of death! It was very difficult to exempt all forms of natural death, such as heart failure, simple accident, being crushed by falling rocks either alone or in a party…”

“We AIN’T gettin’ killed!” vowed Apple Bloom. “We’re huntin’ monsters! You get on back to th’ drawing board, missy!”

Essence blinked. “But that’s the spell! I’m sorry, I should explain that it triggers on the recipient getting killed. I didn’t mean to say that casting it kills the recipient. That’s largely unproven. It shouldn’t take much testing to determine that.”

Applejack frowned. “Whaddya mean, shouldn’t take much testing?”

“Well, there’s no way to know whether it’ll kill an earth pony upon casting,” said Numeric Essence, “that’s clear. It would be a category error.”

“It’d be a bigger dang error than that!” objected Applejack. “See here—the beacon idea sounds okay, but you’re saying it ain’t safe?”

Granny Smith spoke up, outraged. “Okay? Spells that kill earth ponies, okay? You git outta here, Miss Numeric Essence, if you’re gonna do magic experimentin’ on us earth ponies!”

Essence fell back a step. “It’s not about persecuting earth ponies!” she protested. “I assure you, I have no better grounds for assuming pegasus or even unicorn safety!”

Rainbow’s ears were back. “Oh, that sounds promising! You have a killing-ponies spell, but it fires off a beacon? What if we just all agreed that, if we get killed by a vampire, we’ll scream really really loud?”

Essence knit her brow. “But… Rainbow Dash, the attenuation of sound frequencies makes such a scream far less useful. I thought I’d explained that under normal atmospheric conditions the beacon would be seen tens, even hundreds of miles away.”

“Sure,” objected Granny Smith, “while it kills ponies!”

“We can’t be sure of that!” pleaded Numeric Essence, her own ears back in chagrin. “With a spell of this nature nothing can be tested conclusively without unleashing the whole spell! I simply cannot guarantee earth pony safety, as I said it’s a category error and the spell must be considered effectively untested. But isn’t the chance of targeting the evildoer with a beacon, worth the risk? I thought the benefit would surely outweigh the risk!”

Apple Bloom stared hard at Numeric Essence. “How do you know if it worked?”

Essence gulped. “Er… you die. At the fangs of the vampires. I believe that would be a good test. I’m sorry. I can’t do better than that, and by the nature of the thaumic matrix, which uses a rather clever mechanism for diverting energy from the disruption caused by grave and malign injustice, it can’t be tested other than setting it off for real…”

“You can’t even know whether it’s ON?” demanded Apple Bloom. “You’re gonna risk killin’ earth ponies with a totally untested magic spell and you can’t even know if it worked without killin’ the pony anyway?”

“Not exactly,” said Essence, blinking rapidly.

“Oh, Ah’m sorry, you can’t know if it worked unless you kill the pony anyway AND you’re evil!” yelled Apple Bloom. “If you’re good, ain’t nothin’ happens at all!”

Essence whimpered. “But… the specification said, the spell must only trigger if it’s really the evil! That seemed like a reasonable constraint! Do you want the beacon to trigger in the event of some tragic accident? What purpose would that serve?”

“Funny,” retorted Apple Bloom, “I was just asking myself that! What purpose would this serve? You know what? Git outta here! You may not zap the ponies here with spells and maybe kill ‘em, you got that? Back to the drawin’ board with you, Miss Numeric Essence! You’re just gonna have to come up with somethin’ better… or, better still, you kin help us hunt the evil, on hoof, like earth ponies done since the olden days!”

Essence backed off a step, looking distressed. “I can’t come up with something better. I’m totally committed to this spell. I told you, it’s merely untested for your purposes. If I can persuade other earth ponies to test it, can I do that and report back on whether it killed them?”

Apple Bloom growled. “We have enough monsters killin’ us, ma’am, and don’t need your help…”

“You tell ‘er, Apple Bloom,” encouraged Granny Smith, her eyes cold slits. “Miss Essence, take your magic elsewhere.”

Applejack gave Numeric Essence a hurt look. “Sorry, Essie… I gotta side with my kin. It ain’t right for you to experiment on us like we was some kinda lab animals! How is that fair, hittin’ us with spells and not knowin’ if it would kill us right off?”

Numeric Essence’s lip quivered. “But… I can’t know! You can’t make generalizations like that about safety! I’m only being honest with you!”

“And I honestly think,” said Applejack, “you’re gonna have to give up on this idea. Sorry, Essence. It sounds like a neat spell an’ all, but it ain’t never gonna be tested if it’s that dangerous.”

Essence’s lip quivered harder, and then she’d dashed off into the woods, much as Silver had: giving way to the most natural tendency of the panicked pony, to gallop.

“Land sakes, look at her go!” exclaimed Granny. “Foolish girl! I don’t see why them unicorn ponies can’t just help us in normal, pony ways. Makin’ up a killing ponies spell? That is jes’ exactly what we DON’T want, the daft pointy thing!”

“Easy now,” said Rainbow Dash. “You don’t mind me flying recon, so don’t get too snarky about us different ponies. She was trying to help, it’s not her fault if she couldn’t use the spell she made. It really does sound like it was dangerous. I’m kind of disappointed in her. That’s pretty cold, to think of something that dangerous and then trot off and ask us to be her test subjects. It does sound cool, though. A beacon, miles high?”

“Unless I miss my guess,” said Applejack, “she’s still gonna be lookin’ for ponies to experiment on. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll zap a vampire by mistake!”

“Reckon there ain’t nopony that lucky,” said Apple Bloom. “More’s the pity.”

“Could have been worse,” suggested Rainbow Dash. “Could’ve been Twi. I think maybe we got off easy!”

Battlements

“Did you remember the most important part? Didja didja?”

Only Pinkie Pie could become that excited, creepy and cheerful at the same time. Scootaloo backed up a pace.

“No,” said Scootaloo. “Can you run that by me again?”

“The most important part,” said Pinkie impressively, “is kinda LIKE THIS!”

Her eyes bugged out… literally. They bobbled around on stalks, just for a moment, and then returned to what passed for normal pony form.

Scootaloo whimpered, cowering back into a little ponyball and trying to stay brave in front of little kids, or at least the one little kid who was watching: Rock Candy, Pinkie’s kid.

Oddly, he seemed nearly as disturbed. “What was that for?” he cried, running up and confronting his Mom.

“What was it for?” squeaked Pinkie, in indignation. “What was it FOR? It was for about three seconds, and do you know how difficult it is to fit your eye back? I think you need to do some eyeball practice if you think it’s so easy, mister! This takes skills, as well as kazoos!”

“You’re being scary!” wailed Rock. “This isn’t how this is supposed to go! And you scared Scootaloo!”

He looked over to see that worthy filly, only to be surprised by the sudden change in her attitude. Scootaloo hadn’t stayed down for long. She was giving him a dirty look, and she turned to Pinkie with her chin held high. “Yeah,” she said, “pretty impressive, I guess. Looks to me like you scared Rock Candy, which seems kinda mean since he’s your foal and all. And never mind how long you did it, what good is it?”

“I can do it again?” suggested Pinkie, with a big bright smile.

Scootaloo cringed back for another moment before gritting her teeth and forcing herself to stand her ground. “Boring! Seen it,” she replied. “No, I mean, how is that going to help us fight vampires?”

“Some vampires,” said Rock. “Mom says they got Hollyhock, he was the bad vampire.” He shot a nervous look at Pinkie, but her attention remained fixed on Scootaloo.

“Whichever vampire,” said Scootaloo. “Not Fluttershy of course, she doesn’t count. Whatever’s still there. Didn’t you say the Kirin was freaking out because we still had vampires?”

Pinkie grinned even worse. “We’ve got something! That’s why I keep telling you, we need the whole team. And that’s why it’s so important to get you on board, Scootaloo. You might be better suited than Rock to, uh, certain secret missions of great importance.”

Slowly, Scootaloo grinned. “I like it…”

Pinkie’s eye twitched, but the smile held. “That makes one of us!”

“What?”

There was a noise in the foliage. The secret gathering place, which was in the bushes around the back of Sugarcube Corner, was proving not so secret after all.

“Scootaloo!” called Sweetie Belle. “I know I heard your voice, I… EEP!” She’d run right into Pinkie Pie’s rump, and into the brunt of the most high voltage, yet artifically generated, smile in all Equestria.

“Good evening, Sweetie Belle!” called Pinkie. “I’m so glad you’ve come. You can join Scootaloo!”

“In what?” quavered Sweetie, backing up.

“In the most important job you ever had to do in all your life!” chirped Pinkie. “It’s time to join our superhero team and go forth to combat evil!” She paused, made a face, and rapidly counted on her hooves. “Me, Rock, Spy, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle… no, it looks like you’ll go fifth. Is that okay? It’s still very important and you should be proud to volunteer!”

“How did you do that?” said Sweetie, trying to remember how many hooves ponies were supposed to have. “There’s a superhero team?” She gave Scootaloo a suspicious look.

“I talked to the kids, that’s the Rock Lobster over there and the Green Streak should be showing up any time now, and they Pinkie Promised that we could all be superheroes together! And so we are!” said Pinkie. “So, speaking of which, how about you and Scootaloo make us the same promise? You know the kind. A Pinkie Promise. It’s super important!”

Scootaloo frowned. “Is this like when we promised Fluttershy we’d listen to her and not go out into the Everfree Forest to look for her chickens except we totally did anyway and then Fluttershy had to rescue us and Twilight Sparkle too?”

Pinkie’s smile became more of a grimace. “Um… yes and almost completely oppositely no in a way I can’t explain right now!”

“Oh, okay,” said Scootaloo, mollified. “How do we do it? Don’t you have to poke yourself in the eye or something? Can we skip that part?”

“Scootaloo!” exclaimed Sweetie. “I think you should skip more than that, dearest.” She turned to Pinkie. “What’s the matter? Something terrible is wrong. You’re so sad and upset!”

“I am not!” denied Pinkie, bouncing determinedly off all four hooves. “Everything is just the most splenderiffic ever, these are the best end times we could ever watch dwindling away into futility!”

Sweetie stuck out her lower lip, trying to parse that, glowering cutely. “Oh, really? Pinkie Promise that it is?”

“Watch it, buster,” warned Pinkie.

“Momm!” whined Rock, giving her a piteous look.

“What?” she said. “It’s recruiting! Don’t you understand how big of a hero team we need for this?”

“Yeah, but… it’s our hero team!” pleaded Rock. “How come you gotta be the boss hero when we were here first, and why is everything so screwed up?”

“BECAUSE,” screeched Pinkie, and then fell abruptly silent. Her problem remained, no matter how frantically she tried to work around it. Already there’d been a dead pony, and she knew in her bones things were going to get worse before they got better, if they even got better at all. She faced a scary void filled with the vision of wrathful Fluttershy wreaking unearthly vengeance on some hapless victim. Was the victim, perhaps, herself? She couldn’t feel her crucial Pinkieness persisting beyond that scenario. So, she did her level best to lay plans for murdering Fluttershy, knowing that it could be her own end she faced. Something was going to die, perhaps many things in many ways. That seemed to be the story in which she lived.

Pinkie, completely at a loss for how to answer her and Fluttershy’s colt Rock Candy, dove into the bushes, and emerged with a paper squeaker, the same sort of party favor she’d coughed up earlier. She blew it at him, petulantly, and pouted, stubbornly.

Part of her wept to see his tragic look. But, Rock Candy wasn’t without resources himself. He reached up and pulled a matching paper squeaker out of his right ear, tapping into his own version of Pinkie Powers… and he gave her puppy-dog eyes, and he blew his own paper squeaker and tried to smile.

“Not bad,” said Pinkie, and his worried little smile bloomed.

Pinkie gazed into those adorable eyes and her lip quivered. Please, she thought, could this not be happening? No, don’t think it! Get too close to the reality, and all the fun goes away forever and then what are you? A useless earth pony lump who couldn’t save anything! On with the plan, and the new recruits!

“New recruits!” Pinkie called. “Sound off!”

She looked around, and there was nopony there except herself and Rock. Sweetie and Scootaloo had snuck off while she was distracted by the apocalypse inside her own head.

“NOOOOO!”

“Mom!” begged Rock. “Settle down!”

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo galloped through Ponyville like a tiny stampede, Pinkie’s scream of betrayal echoing in their ears. It seemed to be ‘run around like a madpony’ day: Scootaloo squealed and jumped as a green streak flashed directly under her, Northern Spy busily racing the other direction. In the distance, Lily the flower pony was screaming and running too, possibly an earlier victim of Northern Spy’s velocity follies. The flower ponies all tended to react poorly to Spy running by, as she moved too fast to be identified as a pony, and was often startling to encounter when at speed.

In the air, Rainbow Dash whizzed overhead in yet another direction, describing a rough spiral that covered Ponyville and headed outward toward Sweet Apple Acres. Sweetie and Scootaloo ran on, while Scootaloo wondered for a moment what was so urgent that Rainbow wouldn’t swoop down to check on some of her favorite fillies. There was no pausing to ask Sweetie, though. Sweetie was going so fast that it amazed Scootaloo: the unicorn filly was typically more concerned with sensuality, beauty, and hedonism, and Scootaloo hadn’t even known Sweetie could run so fast. But there she went—she’d caught Scootaloo’s eye, gestured with her horn in the direction of ‘away’, and when Pinkie’s attention had lapsed, Sweetie had been off like a scared bunny with Scootaloo right behind her.

Just as Scootaloo began to wonder where Sweetie was going, the question was answered. Sweetie swerved and burst into the Carousel Boutique, nearly knocking the door off its hinges and toppling a hapless ponyquin before she skidded to a halt.

Rarity let out a shriek. “Sweetie Belle! Whatever is the matter with you? Don’t roughhouse in here! I’m trying to set up dress displays!”

Sweetie, winded, panted like an adorable tiny bellows. “You… you gotta…”

Rarity blinked. Her eyes widened. She stared hard at Sweetie, and she abandoned her displays at once, even allowing one to topple over, its ignored dress spreading across the floor like elegant paint. “What happened? Sweetie, tell me what happened. What’s wrong?”

“I’m not really sure,” said Scootaloo, nowhere near as tired. “We were running all through town. This place is going nuts!”

“Sweetie Belle!” commanded Rarity. “Speak! Have you been attacked by a vampire? Does it pursue?” Her horn lit, and she slammed the door to the Boutique, and then braced a ponyquin against it to bar entrance.

“You gotta…” panted Sweetie.

“What’s going on, Rarity?” asked Scootaloo. “Why are you so serious? You were just scolding Sweetie for running in here, roughhousing! She hasn’t even said what’s wrong so what’s the big deal? For all you know we WERE roughhousing!”

Rarity shut her eyes, frowning, her ears splayed in chagrin. “If you must know…”

“We must! We must!” encouraged Scootaloo.

“I know it’s not roughhousing, because had you been roughhousing your hoof marks would be on my Sweetie’s flanks,” Rarity informed Scootaloo. “Forgive the observation, but by now I’m so accustomed to your little roles that the lack of mounting-scuffs is alarming and suggests a darker explanation for her rambunctious entrance.”

Scootaloo had gone pale, then blushed scarlet, at Rarity’s admission. It was easy to forget that Sweetie’s happy hedonism existed in a context beyond just the two lovers, and shocking to discover that their intimate ways weren’t nearly so intimate as they’d seemed. And it was true: Sweetie had a great fondness for getting pounced by pokey pegasus, and Scootaloo had seized her own adolescence by laying claim to a magic bit and mounting Sweetie with great enthusiasm. And her hoof-marks had been on Sweetie’s sides many, many times. But it had been private… or so Scootaloo thought.

“I’m sorry,” mumbled Scootaloo. She considered saying she’d stop, but feared it’d cause Sweetie to either burst into tears or beat the crap out of her, so she left it at that.

Rarity snorted. “Tut! I am most certainly not, darling. We’ll not speak of it further as your, a-hah, affairs are your own. You’ll also not speak of it at breakfast, or in social gatherings, please. Or in front of my customers, which is not precisely a social gathering but is in some ways even more civilized. Enough of that! You’ve not been roughhousing in the sense I mean, so what is happening? Answer me, Sweetie Belle!”

Sweetie’d caught her breath through Rarity’s diatribes. She turned to her Mom, completely undaunted, and said, “You gotta let us hide in your creepy sex dungeon!”

Scootaloo’s jaw dropped. Rarity didn’t even blink. “Spoke too soon,” she said. “No, get your own, and you had better be responsible or there will be hell to p… Wait. Did you say ‘hide’, Sweetie Belle? Hide from what?”

Sweetie gave her an eye-glistening, lip-quivering, fillyish gaze, and said, “Pinkie Pie! Okay, so let us hide in a closet or something. Please, Mom? She’s trying to get us!”

Rarity turned to Scootaloo. “Is this true? Are you fleeing Pinkie? Did you make a,” she said, and glanced huntedly at the windows of her shop, “Pinkie Promise, only to break it?”

Scootaloo blinked in surprise. “How’d you know?”

“Oh, Celestia!” wailed Rarity. “Maybe if I use my magic to dig a cellar for you girls, and then pretend it doesn’t exist…”

“No!” said Scootaloo. “We didn’t make any promises. But she wanted us to! She’s making this superhero team or something. She wanted us both to promise to be part of the team, to Pinkie Promise it, and Sweetie wasn’t having any of that and the next thing you know she was running faster than I’ve ever seen…”

Rarity grimaced, holding back some remark, and Scootaloo went, “What? What?”

“Nothing, darling,” said Rarity, thanking her exceptional self-control. There were times to exhibit honesty and times to put a cork in it, and replying ‘fillies run faster without an amorous faux stallion clinging to their butts’ was nearly the worst thing she could have said. The worst thing would probably have been, ‘if you had spurs on those fetlocks I’ll bet you she’d run faster still’. Rarity’s eye twitched as she firmly sealed off the well of such retorts, and she smiled and said, “Will you girls join me for dinner? I feel we should talk about our friend Pinkie, and what you may expect from her. Or, rather, what you can and can’t expect from her.”

Sweetie stamped a forehoof. “But we need you to hide us!”

“Sweetie, no. There’s no danger,” said Rarity. “I’ll explain, if you calm down. Hm?”

Rarity’s smile grew warmer as she watched Sweetie pout, scuff the floor with a forehoof, look anxiously at the blocked door in spite of her Mom’s reassurances… and nod.

Triumphantly, Rarity led the girls to the dining table, and busied herself with cooking dinner for three rather than one. Derpy had gone off to fly her mail route, and lunch for Rarity was often a hasty affair, but this warranted extra effort. Among other things, thought Rarity, dear Sweetie had been rushing madly about, and if she was not fed she’d be melting down in no time, or even emitting those high-pitched screams that broke window glass and peeled the paint off ponyquins.

Perhaps not, thought Rarity, as she noticed the girls waiting. Scootaloo was sitting very close to her Sweetie, who did show signs of meltdown coming on. The little pegasus filly’s attention wasn’t amorous in the erotic sense: with little wing-snuggles and kisses, Scootaloo was being amorous in the grander sense, and taking pains to soothe the jittery and excitable unicorn filly.

Rarity smiled to herself, and finished dinner up properly. Her Sweetie was in good hooves.

When they’d been served, both Sweetie and Scootaloo looked to Rarity and demanded, “What’s up with Pinkie Pie?”

“And why’s she so freaky and scary?” added Sweetie, taking another bite of saffron-infused haycake.

“She is not! I wasn’t scared,” insisted Scootaloo, with just a touch too much attitude.

“Hm,” said Rarity. “May I ask what she did? I may say that I have seen some, as they’re called, doozies from Pinkie in my time.”

Sweetie frowned. “She didn’t really do anything, really, it’s what she was saying. Or just how she was feeling?”

“A lot you know,” scoffed Scootaloo. “She stuck her eyes right out and wiggled them around! And then she put them back!” As Sweetie cringed, Scootaloo added, “It was before you got there.”

“That’s pretty bad,” said Sweetie, “but more just weird. I mean what she was saying! It’s not nice for Pinkie Pie to say, ‘these are the best end times we could ever watch dwindling away into futility’.”

“What?” said Rarity, startled.

“She did!” insisted Sweetie. “And then Rock was arguing with her and she was so upset, she was yelling and SO upset, and…”

Sweetie trembled. Scootaloo hugged her. Rarity said, “Eat your haycakes, they’ve got alfalfa. Did you say dwindling away into futility? That is not right.”

“It’s totally weird!” said Scootaloo. “The eye thing was weirder, though.”

Rarity frowned. “Hrm. Do please bear in mind that ‘weird’ is our Pinkie’s oats and drink, as it were. This town was once invaded by parasprites, and I cringed upon a stool, surrounded by the beastly things as they ate my finest fabrics. Pinkie appeared, vowing to save me, but all she did was seize a little flute, as I watched. She then played upon it with the noise of a concussed and very sick goose. Naturally, I screamed and screamed.” She shook herself. “Who’d have thought she would solve the problem in the end? She was terribly cross with us, knew what to do the whole time. My point being, Pinkie Pie does not seem to follow the usual rules. You must give her space at times, and she’ll work it out.”

“But how does that work,” said Sweetie plainitively, “when she’s incredibly, unbearably miserable?”

“Oh, come on,” said Scootaloo. “How can you be miserable when your eyes are on stalks like that? You’re making it up.”

“I wish I was,” said Sweetie, and her eyes were troubled and tearful.

Rarity frowned again. “You’re sure, Sweetie dear?”

Sweetie just nodded. Her lip quivered, but didn’t pout in the manner of a filly putting across a deceit: she seemed to be still feeling the woe she claimed Pinkie’d had.

Rarity’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Hmmm,” she mused.

The thing was, some ponies were simply more empathetic than others, thought Rarity. It wasn’t surprising that Scootaloo didn’t pick up on such things: Scootaloo was much like Rainbow Dash, who was sometimes blissfully oblivious to the emotional overtones of others. Fluttershy, of course, was very solicitous… but Fluttershy, as Rarity well knew, wasn’t with Pinkie anymore. And Sweetie… well, Sweetie was very unusual.

Rarity had raised Sweetie in secrecy, not even admitting their true relationship until events made it impossible to deny… but though she’d been deprived of the title of mother, all the same she’d devoted herself to Sweetie’s care with an intensity that nearly compensated for her distraction as she ran her business. It was disconcerting how much Sweetie picked up from her: though not privy to any private debaucheries, she’d nevertheless emerged as a spectacularly shameless little pony, but without the undercurrent of guilt Rarity experienced. That curious innocence had some consequences, and one was this: whether it was through her upbringing, and connecting to her ‘sister’ as the mother she truly was, or whether it was simply some streak of understanding passed down from mother to daughter, Sweetie Belle sometimes could sense the heart of an emotional situation like no other. It didn’t mean she had answers for it, but she’d sometimes see right through you with that so-innocent gaze, not judging or criticizing, but rendering you completely transparent to her earnest little pony heart.

And at those times, Sweetie Belle would speak the truth, and it was up to other ponies to know what to do with it.

“I see,” said Rarity. “I’m sorry to hear it… though I suppose I’m not as surprised as I might have been. Pinkie’s had to deal with some things that aren’t easy for her… or,” she corrected, “she hasn’t been dealing with them at all, and I daresay that’s what you’ve noticed. She’s that sad, is she?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” argued Scootaloo. “She’s bouncier than ever. And all that smiling and being happy and doing crazy things…”

Rarity frowned. “It’s a front. I guess all this is really eating her up, damn it. The trouble is, how do you even get through to her? If what you’re saying is true, Scootaloo, then she’s completely in denial and won’t even admit she’s hurting, perhaps won’t even admit it to herself. That’s foalish, but then sometimes Pinkie is awfully foalish. Damn it… however will we get through?”

“If we’re gonna go hug her,” said Sweetie tremulously, “can you come along? Because she’s scaring me. How she feels and how she looks are so different now!”

“Of course I would,” said Rarity, “but I’m not sure we’re the best choice for it. And, if she’s that off the beam, I’d rather you not be around her if we can help it. That goes for you as well, Scootaloo. Please don’t defy me on that, Pinkie can be very intense and mercurial when she’s keyed up, and it sounds like she is under terrible stress.”

Sweetie nodded, unhappily.

“I guess, if you say so, even though I’m totally okay with her and not scared at all,” said Scootaloo, gratefully. “I can stay with Sweetie.”

“You do that,” said Rarity.

“Can we go see the sex dungeon Sweetie was talking ab…”

“No,” said Rarity, and sank into contemplation. “Hmmmm. I fear I shan’t be able to reach Pinkie. It’s hopeless expecting Fluttershy to do it, and rather unfair to Fluttershy. I’m not sure Applejack has that sort of connection with her, plus Applejack and the other Apple farmers are quite busy with their vampire hunting, or whatever it is they’re hunting now that we got Hollyhock. I’ve no idea where Twilight is, probably off being royal with the Princesses. And then there’s… hmmm. Hmmm!”

“What is it?” asked Sweetie hopefully.

“Oh, perhaps nothing,” said Rarity. “I’m just wondering if the best way to reach a Pinkie Pie who’s gone quite dreadfully bonkers… is through Rainbow Dash. You know the two of them go way back, ever so far back. And close? My goodness, yes. I really wonder whether we can get hold of Rainbow Dash, and enlist her aid.”

“Yeah!” said Scootaloo loyally. “Rainbow Dash could fix everything!”

Rarity twitched. “Well, that or wreck all of Ponyville even worse than the parasprites wrecked it. The notion of both Pinkie AND Rainbow off the beam is rather too alarming to credit…”

The bushes seemed to explode in a heedless burst of Northern Spy.

“Hey, guys!” she cried. “You’re not gonna believe what I found out!”

“Not right now!” pleaded Rock Candy. He was turned away from her, hunched over the figure of Pecan Peep, who was… napping? She was turned away as well, her face in her folded forelegs, as if she was napping in the bushes.

Northern Spy wrinkled her brow. “Not right now, Rock Lobster?”

The pink figure vibrated, rustling the bushes, and then suddenly whirled, and Pinkie Pie was facing the Green Streak with that bulletproof smile in place on her grubby, streaky face.

“NO,” she said. “Right now! And when I say right now you better believe it’s the nowiest now since whenever! What tidings do you bring, Green Streak? Tell us… right now!”

There seemed to be something weird about the situation, and Rock looked very upset, but the Green Streak could not resist the mighty invocation, ‘right now’.

“AW yeah!” said Spy, bouncing in place. “I have news! You know that crazy unicorn-pegasus pony, Numeric Essence? Real tall, plays chess? Well, she’s gone totally out of control!”

Rock frowned unhappily. “You mean, like rumpypumpy? Like all those other ponies in Ponyville, that we’re not s’posed to watch when they do that?”

“No!” proclaimed Spy. “She wants to do crazy experiments on earth ponies that might kill them! And she ran off when Apple Bloom told her not to!”

Rock protested, “That’s not very nice! I don’t believe you, I met Numeric Essence and she’s a really nice pony, she wouldn’t do that!”

“Would too!” countered Spy. “I saw her, she was really into it! She might be killing ponies with magic spells even now!”

“Cut it out, Northern Spy!” wailed Rock.

“The Green Streak!” demanded Spy. “This is an important superhero meeting, Rock, use my hero name!”

Rock backed off, pouting, scuffing the ground with a forehoof. “Not if you’re telling lies, Northern Spy! I know that pony and she wouldn’t be so mean! Mom! Tell Spy to be good!”

Spy turned to Pinkie as well. “I’m making my report, Punchy Puke! You probably know it already with your creepy powers! Tell Rock, isn’t it true Numeric Essence is going to kill with magic spells?”

Pinkie blinked, staring at nothing. “Indirectly, yeah,” she said. “That’s not the important part.”

“What?” said Rock in dismay.

“Told you so!” crowed Spy. “So what’s the important part, since I’m totally right?”

Pinkie’s eye twitched, in a creepy way.

“KAZOOS!” she exclaimed, so loud that two little sprinkles of confetti came out her ears.

Northern Spy blinked. She wrinkled her brow in irritation. “Kazoos?” she said.

But Pinkie was already off, Rock cringing back from her as if his Mom had become something scary and sick. “Kazoos!” she raved. “The trombone is too serious so the tone must be set by massed kazoos! I can probably manage two, three if we had an extra serving of beans for dinner, so we’re gonna need you and Rock to pitch in and that means MORE KAZOOS!”

Northern Spy was totally undisturbed by Pinkie’s ravings, but also painfully unimpressed. “That sounds dumb, Petunia Pow. What’s the big deal? Kazoos are dumb. Is this some kind of weird Sense thing again?”

Pinkie nodded frantically, her eyes too bright but not really focussing on the world around her. “Yes, oh yes! We’ve got to have the full complement of kazoos!”

“Why?” demanded Spy.

“They set the right sort of nihilistic tone, where all our efforts are bitter mockeries of the ponies we might have been!” replied Pinkie.

Northern Spy screwed up her brow again, while Rock trembled, staring in horror at his Mom.

“So, definitely a dumb weird Sense thing, huh?” said Spy, resignedly.

Rock Candy burst into action.

“I saw one over THERE!” he squealed, panic giving his voice urgency and verisimilitude. And he tore off through the bushes, without looking where he was going.

Behind him, two squees of excitement, two ponies thrashing through bushes toward their promised kazoo quarry.

Ahead of him, just enough bushes to obscure his path… and a street, doubling back around Sugarcube Corner.

Rock Candy reversed course, zipped past Northern Spy and Pinkie Pie as they noisily churned through foliage like little pony hedge-clippers, and tore ass away from Sugarcube Corner, keeping clear of the road for a few seconds so the sound of his hooves would be muted on the grass. He gulped as he ran. They hadn’t seen him. If it didn’t work…

“I think that’s it!” squeaked Northern Spy, scrabbling at shreds of bush. “Under here!”

“No, that’s a twig, silly!” said Pinkie Pie. “It’s over here! Or here… Rock, where did you say it was?”

“…Rock?”

Rock Candy was already out of sight, weaving through the streets of Ponyville, crossing the bridge over the town brook, charging down the road toward the Apples and the Everfree, galloping until he couldn’t see straight.

His Sense was just fine and was telling him a lot, but he wasn’t going to be able to handle this one alone. And the Apples were amazing, and brave, and strong, but he needed more than that. He needed his Mom.

Flutter-Mom.

Whether or not he was welcome there, anymore.

Rainbow Dash swooped down out of the sky, panting with effort, trotting up to Apple Bloom.

“Yeah?”

“My report is, nothing to report,” said Dash. “I did a fly-over in a spiral pattern and I didn’t see anything unusual except a lot of bush-related stuff.”

Apple Bloom’s eyes widened. “Vampires hiding in the bushes?”

“No, no!” cried Dash. “Just regular bush stuff. Like, Pinkie Pie and my kid playing in the bushes. Oh, and Bon Bon sneaking through the bushes wearing a fake mustache.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “To hide scary fangs, maybe?”

“No, she just does that,” explained Dash. “Me and Rarity and Fluttershy and Derpy caught her at it before.”

Applejack gawped at her. “You never tole us this! All right, then, if she sneaks through bushes wearing a fake mustache, WHY does she do it?”

“Because the very best chocolate is from Prance,” explained Rainbow Dash, and then blinked, her ear twitching.

Her perplexed look was at least matched by the two Apple mares, and they all stared at each other for a boggled moment. Then, Rainbow rolled her eyes, and shrugged.

“Ponyville!” she said, dismissively. “Am I right, or what?”

“No kidding,” said Apple Bloom, with a sigh. “Okay. Thanks, Rainbow Dash.”

“At least somethin’ never changes!” said Applejack, and hugged Dash and gave her a kiss. “What next, sugarcube?”

“I want to get back to Fluttershy’s!” said Dash. “She’s still hiding under her bed and won’t come out! That weird friend of hers is there. Dursaa and Zecora are at Zecora’s with little Dursaa, and I tried to get them to come help with Fluttershy but they said they had to stay, that they promised they’d keep little Dursaa safe there. Zecora has a lot of freaky stuff going on, her place is lighting up and glowing. I didn’t want to argue. Actually they wouldn’t let me come in!”

“Y’don’t say?” said Applejack. “Dang! Does Fluttershy know they’re doing that?”

“I was there when they decided it. Yes, she knows. That was before we killed Hollyhock, remember? They were already there and safe when Fluttershy flew home and hid under her bed.”

Apple Bloom frowned. “Can’t argue with that. In fact, I’mma go along with Fluttershy on that one. Rainbow, don’t you interfere with them, sounds like the zebras have a lil’ zebra fortress going on. I’ve been in Zecora’s place and I believe they’re secure, and it’s right for them to look after the colt. You want to get back to Fluttershy, huh?”

“You want me to stick my hoof in the fire again?” griped Dash. “I totally will if I have to. Can I use the other forehoof, and can we have the water bucket right there this time?”

“Aw, Rainbow,” said Apple Bloom. “Open your mouth! Okay, you’re excused. Go look after our nice vampire.”

Rainbow whirled and took to the air with a blast of wing-downdraft, as Applejack turned to her sister.

“She kin do that? Dammit, Apple Bloom, if all you got to do is look in her mouth, why’d you…”

“Nope,” said Apple Bloom. “Back before Snowy ran away, before any of this, he was talkin’ about vampire powers. We do the bonfire thing ‘cos they can’t fool a fire. Snowy Hocks, he thought that if a vampire was subtle enough, the mouth-lookin’ thing might not work.”

“Why not?” challenged Applejack.

“Because the vampire catches your eye, and you’re hypnotized, and he cleverly makes you see regular pony teeth instead of them fangs. But he can’t fool a fire. I’m sorry, Applejack, for the hurt to Rainbow’s hoof. I am not sorry I asked her to do it.”

Applejack mulled this over.

“Then why’d you let her go this time, with jes’ a fake test?”

Apple Bloom sighed, suddenly weary.

“Cos sometimes ya gotta trust somepony…”

As Rainbow Dash approached Fluttershy’s cottage, she saw a tiny white pony with a pink mane and tail galloping the same direction at breakneck speed.

“Hey, Rock!” she called, but she was too high up and he didn’t even pause, or look around. As she descended, trying to be careful and make a decent final, she watched him charge up to the door and burst right in.

Rainbow concentrated, knowing her tendency to rush the final approach and go tumbling through a window. That was the last thing Fluttershy needed! She made a neat four-hoof landing, and trotted in through the open door after Rock—and then, upstairs, where Fluttershy was exercising her skills in hiding.

Rock was hopping up and down, tearful, crying out “Mom!” while Tree Hugger tried to soothe him. It was quite a sight, for Rock was agitated and Tree Hugger was very sedate, so she tended to coo calming remarks to where he’d been half a second ago.

Fluttershy’s butt and hind legs stuck out from under the bed, kicking wildly. She plainly heard Rock, and though she was done with hiding for the moment, she remained stuck.

“Fluttershy!” yelled Rainbow Dash. “Let me help!”

Fluttershy’s kicking instantly stopped.

“Do NOT pull me,” she ordered, from her under-bed position. “Lift. The bed. UP!”

“Yo, Tree-butt!” said Dash. “Let’s do it!”

Tree Hugger smiled, and she and Dash each took one post of the bed and heaved. Up it came, and Dash remarked, “Hey, not bad! I didn’t know you were that strong!”

“A clear mind and pure spiritual attitude is best supported by a healthy body,” replied Tree Hugger with satisfaction. “Fluttershy, sweetie?”

Fluttershy scrabbled backwards and was free, and Rock Candy flung himself into her forelegs, and was then wrapped in her wings nurturingly. She looked around and told her friends, “Thanks, that’s a much nicer way,” and then her attention was fully on her colt.

“Mommm!” wailed Rock, indistinctly, his face buried in her chestfluff.

“Shhh. Shhh. What’s wrong, Rock?” she said. “Tell me what happened. Mama will fix everything.”

“It’s Mom! It’s Pinkie Pie,” sobbed Rock.

Fluttershy stiffened, and for a moment she stared at nothing with a stricken look.

“Mama will try,” corrected Fluttershy, bleakly. “What happened, honey?”

“She went crazy,” sobbed Rock Candy, “and she’s talking a lot of stuff I don’t understand! But my Sense does! She’s… she’s gonna hurt somepony, really bad…”

“Hoo boy,” moaned Dash.

“She wanted to get Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle to make Pinkie Promises to her, but they’re promises to do bad things and they shouldn’t be doing bad things just because Mom says so…”

“Hoo boy!” gasped Dash. “Really? She’s freaking out but she’s getting Sweetie and Scoots in on it?”

“But they ran away, I think Sweetie made an excuse and she and Scootaloo ran off before they promised anything, and Pinkie Pie, she screamed no in such an awful way…”

“Whoo boy!” said Dash. “Who else? Who’s she got tied up in all this?”

“And I ran away when I sensed she’s gonna hurt somepony, but Northern Spy is still there, I don’t think she’s going to give up…”

“Fuck,” said Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy cuddled Rock, and he was quiet, though still trembling. She looked levelly at Dash. “What are we going to do?”

Dash squinted her eyes shut in fierce thought, hoof to her forehead. She looked up. “I don’t think we can turn Spy. But I don’t think anything she does is gonna hurt Spy. And something else… I don’t think Spy will go along with something really wrong.”

“It’s all wrong!” wailed Rock.

“Shh! Shh,” said Fluttershy. “Rainbow, I think I have to agree. With Northern Spy and what she’ll do, I mean. I think she’s caught up in whatever Pinkie is doing, and it seems very exciting and brave to her. She’s in it up to the stifle: Pinkie is nothing if not dramatic.” She looked around, huntedly.

“Is she still bugging you?” asked Rainbow. “Or the zebras?”

“The zebras are at Zecora’s,” replied Fluttershy. “And no… she stopped. She completely stopped. I’ve been trying to tell myself that shouldn’t frighten me.”

“And I want to tell you the same thing!” encouraged Tree Hugger. “Fear will put up all your walls and leave you unable to experience authentically. Fluttershy, take a deep breath and repeat after me the mantra I suggested, okay honey?”

“The what now?” gawked Rainbow.

“Shh!” said Tree Hugger. “Okay, breathe… and after me… What do I really have to be afraid of?”

“A vengeful ex driven by jealousy and resentment she won’t admit with creepy unnatural powers who’s now gone completely insane?” suggested Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy glowered at Rainbow, rolled her eyes, and then snuggled Rock once more and stepped back, studying him intently.

“Rock Candy, honey, I know you have powers too. I know they’re frightening you right now. I’m going to stay with you and we’re going to be safe. Rainbow is a big jerk but she’ll protect you too, and so will Treesie. Isn’t that right, Treesie?”

“Of course I will,” said Tree Hugger soothingly.

“You bet I will!” vowed Rainbow, not put off by the dose of Flutter-truth one bit. “And you know I can kick some serious ass. We’re gonna keep you safe. And probably at some point I can talk Pinkie down, we have a lot of history y’know.”

“You see?” said Fluttershy. “It’s going to be okay. Even if Pinkie’s having a bad scary time she can’t hurt you, we won’t let her. We’re here, Rock Candy, and you’re okay.”

“Hey, now that you mention it…” said Dash, “Rock does have some of that Sense stuff, doesn’t he?”

Fluttershy made a face. “It’s as bad as being a vampire! Look at the poor baby, he’s distraught. It’s not fair on a young colt.”

“Yeah, but maybe he can use it for us,” said Rainbow. She fixed Rock in a determined gaze. “So, Mister Apprentice Freaky-Pony… is this right, what we’re gonna do? Should we be here? Or… well, I’ve been trying to zip around and check on everypony at once, because that’s kinda how I roll. And your Mom’s hiding under the bed, because that’s how she rolls. Is that good, or should we be trying something else?”

Rock’s lower lip quivered… but, obediently, he let his feelings roam, searching for something in the shape of answers.

“I’m just not sure,” he admitted. “I think it’s okay for you to fly around taking care of ponies. That’s good, I guess. The answer isn’t to help Fluttershy hide from everything. Mom, I mean.”

Rock glanced at Fluttershy, as if frightened that talking of her in the third person had angered her.

“Keep going,” said Fluttershy firmly.

“I don’t understand much,” said Rock, in a small voice. “It’s about love, somehow. And… a rescue? And it hurts, what Mom has to go through, I mean Pinkie Mom. But Fluttershy Mom also has to get, um…”

He trailed off, looking worried, lost for words. His brow knit, as if he was trying to work out something that made no sense. “How can something be very bad but right? How does gratefulness fit in?”

Fluttershy had gone pale, looking haunted. She looked at Dash worriedly.

Hooves echoed downstairs. They’d not shut the door when they’d come in.

“Oh little stripey wingy colt!” called a voice. “Why did you, from my lodgings, bolt?”

Zecora. With her, up the stairs, came Dursaa. They entered the room, saw Fluttershy and Dash and Rock and Tree Hugger, and froze.

“A mystery, that seemed so clear,” said Zecora. “Where has he gone, if he’s not here?”

“You LOST him?” squeaked Rainbow, shocked. “You lost the kid?”

Zecora stamped a hoof. “What do you mean?” she demanded, dropping her rhyming speech in her urgency. “He stays with us! We thought he had returned to Fluttershy, and willingly crept through the forest again to reclaim him. What is this madness?”

“You might not need to sneak through the forest now,” said Dash. “We got the evil vamp, at least the one we know about. It was Hollyhock, and he’s gone. And the Kirin thinks there’s even more evil now, and everything’s going crazy. But we thought little Dursaa was with you!”

“He was,” retorted Zecora icily, but then she fell silent, looking at Fluttershy.

Fluttershy had gone ash-pale. Her lip quivered, her eyes seemed to stare upon nightmare realms.

Love? A rescue? Very bad but right?

Fluttershy gulped.

“Rainbow,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“You’re with me.”

“Always,” said Dash, and then her eyes widened. “Oh my gosh. You don’t think Pinkie Pie's gonna hurt…”

“Rock Candy!” called Fluttershy, loudly.

“Yes?” squeaked Rock.

“Stay here. Make Dursaa and Zecora stay, too. We don’t know exactly what’s happening but you need to protect them, and they can protect you. Treesie, you can, uh, just soothe all of them, okay?”

“Of course,” said Tree Hugger, warmth and concern in her voice. “But Fluttershy, honey, can’t I soothe you?”

“No,” said Fluttershy. “Not really.”

“But…”

“Something bad's happening right now, and it might be about Pinkie Pie or it might be something else, and it might even be another victim,” said Fluttershy, “…and I have to know. My littlest foal is missing, and Pinkie Pie is acting different, and as far as we are concerned she’s missing too. It’s like she’s found something more amusing to do. I have to know many things now before I come back here. You see that, don’t you?”

Not a pony present could argue with it.

“Can I come?” said Rock, in his littlest voice.

Fluttershy turned. “No, and here is why: we can’t be sure who the real enemy is, Rock Candy, or what’s truly happened. I told you to stay here with Zecora and Dursaa. I need them to stay safe, and you may end up needing them too, but even more than that, what if little Dursaa is lost or trapped somewhere? What if he returns here, or if he’s trying to find you? He adores you, Rock. There MUST be somepony here to meet him if he turns up. We’ll be searching for him, but if something happens to us… do you understand?”

“I don’t want to understand,” said Rock miserably.

Fluttershy hugged him with great tenderness, and then looked him in the eye. “Dear Rock Candy… can I trust you to wait here for your little brother?”

Rock’s lip was wobbling dreadfully. “I don’t know if it’s the same story as Pinkie Mom going crazy and bad! I can’t tell how the story’s gonna go! I can’t see past the part where… it all comes together…”

“You want a story?” said Rainbow Dash. “Try this: we’re going to go and get him back. Right fucking now. And if it’s Pinkie throwing some fit, she can’t stop us. Right, Fluttershy?”

Her wings were flexing, a mad energy filling her athletic body. Rainbow Dash was going to war, even as darkness fell upon Ponyville and evening closed in. She glanced at Fluttershy, and saw the same mood reflected in her eyes. This time they would not wait for dawn.

Rock just stared at her, his gaze too deep, too knowing.

“But she will. She will stop you, Rainbow. And th—then…”

“Shhh,” urged Fluttershy. “Every story has an end. I love you, Rock, and if I can, I’m coming back with your little brother.” She kissed him, and turned. “Rainbow? You’re with me.”

It was five minutes before Rock, Tree Hugger, Zecora and Dursaa could bear to close the door after Rainbow and Fluttershy had flown through it, bound for justice.

Shards

“Maybe if I can peek for just one moment?” said Hina fretfully. “Surely I can do these things! I must try again.”

As it wasn’t Shirley she was talking to, but Big Macintosh, the response wasn’t nearly as encouraging as she’d hoped. Big Macintosh’s ears laid back in dismay as the Kirin opened her sense-of-ambient-evil to Ponyville yet again… only to cringe back whimpering yet again in pain and fear. He watched this in dumb misery, his heart breaking for her, and tried to work out what to tell her.

“Kin you peek for a half moment?” he suggested.

Even as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. She burst into tears, and he reached out and snuggled her to him, out of suggestions for soothing her, and alarmed at what she was claiming.

“You reckon it’s that bad, huh?” he said, helplessly.

Hina sobbed, trying to answer. “H-how can it be this much worse? I have to heal this small town! How many more vampires can there even be?”

“Um,” said Big Macintosh. “Ain’t sure how to answer that one, Miss Hina. Except to say maybe it ain’t about vampires anymore. Ya think it’s vampires?”

“I don’t know!” sobbed the Kirin, nuzzling his neck as his hoof stroked her mane. “Could many ponies turn to terrible evilness?”

“Depends how y’mean, I guess,” said Big Macintosh. “Sometimes this town is a lot for even Princess Celestia to handle. It all turns out okay in th’ end, don’t it?”

“What is that, an anal sex reference of some sort?” sniffled Hina.

“Hey now!” protested Big Macintosh. “First of all, no it ain’t, and besides I thought you din’t mind such carryin’ on!”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Hina. “I am not myself. My powers are weak. So terribly weak…”

Big Macintosh frowned. “Does comin’ here change you? Like, once you get into Ponyville you ain’t as powerful as you were back in Neighpon? You know, when you went around fixin’ everything and makin’ all the ponies better, with your Kirin friends?”

She gave him a tragic look, and just when he was about to apologize for the suggestion, Hina leaned over to whisper into his ear. Her voice was softer, and even the rhythms of it seemed different, as if she’d fallen back on some more intimate communication.

“But I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t, Big Macintosh. The older Kirin did that. They… they wouldn’t let me do it.”

“They what now?” said Big Macintosh, surprised.

She snuggled against him, a forlorn look on her face. “Coming here was supposed to change me. The older Kirin suggested it. I just know I was meant to prove myself! How could they have sent me on a mission doomed to failure? Or even,” she sniffled, her lip quivering, “death? It is proper for a Kirin to die defying great evil. But it’s too soon! Is it fair to say it’s too soon? I… I don’t want to end, yet.”

“Aw, sugarcube!” protested Big Macintosh.

“How could they want me to be destroyed?” said Hina, plainitively. “I love them still. But I don’t understand!”

“Whoa back there, lil’ darling,” said Big Macintosh. “This cain’t be right. Ain’t you one heck of a powerful magic-pony? Er, or whatever it is you is? Never did see a mare who couldn’t wink. But whatever you are, we’re gonna take care of you. It’s gonna be okay, ma’am. It’s all good.”

“No, that’s not right!”

“Ah’m sorry!” said Big Macintosh. “I know you ain’t prop’ly a pony. You’re a lil’ like them critters from Cervidas. Or if a goat was, y’know, more sexy-like. Sorry! Din’t mean to offend.”

“It’s not that!” cried Hina, looking tragic. She glanced around, and then whispered to him again. “I’m not powerful.”

“Could’a fooled me,” said Big Macintosh. He blinked. “Some of your bits are gosh dern amazin’. Does that count?”

She shook her head. “I mean, not as a Kirin. Look at me! I can’t even open myself to the moral atmosphere of this town, much less conquer its evils.”

Big Macintosh looked at her with that oddly innocent gaze. “Um… dependin’ on what you call moral, ma’am, this town might be a little rich for your blood…”

“I’m not talking about that!” argued Hina. “Neighpon can be sexually adventurous too! There’s even some things the older Kirin kept me away from, back in Neighpon. I mean, the really powerful ones, so wise and sophisticated, aware of so many dimensions of reality. They see things a young Kirin like myself cannot perceive. They… they said I wasn’t ready for that jelly.” She frowned, looking sad. “I saw no jelly, and did not understand them then. I am not earning my way into their company now. I’m not succeeding. I remain inadequate, even now, and my mission is failing.”

“Will it make ya feel better to do some sexual adventurin’?” asked Big Macintosh. His hoof stole lower, began to fondle her trim body. “You keep talkin’ about what you’re asked ta do, about a mission. Well, my lil’ sister who happens to be also our Boss Mare, she gave me a mission too. She wants me to make you feel better. Kin I give that a try?”

Hina trembled. She stretched against him, almost writhing sensually against his insistent touch, her face that of a mare giving way to longed-for but wicked seduction.

His hoof reached down between her legs, encountering no nipples on the curious, gestation-less creature… but beginning to massage her so-sensitive vagina.

“No!” wailed Hina, and Big Macintosh stopped instantly.

“Ah’m sorry. Does it feel bad? Mind you, Braeburn, he says don’t put no conditions on a no. He’s a good pony for all that he jumps on everything from weatherponies to waiters. I was only askin’ cause I wanted to know, ma’am, and that’s a fact.”

“It’s not that,” said Hina. “Look at me! Failure to combat evil. Wallowing in pony dick! It’s not that I don’t want it. I don’t deserve your loving! You are wonderful and powerful, and what am I?”

“Well, now, see here,” said Big Macintosh, wriggling as he tried not to prod her with his half-erect cock. “I think you’re a sweet thing, and sexy as all git-out, and what do you mean? Don’t you understand we’re tryin’ ta give you strength?”

She turned, and stared at him in astonishment. “You have it backwards. That is my solemn duty. At which I’m failing.”

“Do you really think you got to wipe out all our evilness in this crazy town before you deserve a fuckin’?”

Those huge, luscious lashes blinked. Those glorious sky-blue eyes gazed into his, innocently.

“Yes,” said Hina. “What use am I, otherwise?”

Big Macintosh stared back at her, realizing she meant it. Then, he began to chuckle.

“Heh, heh, heh…”

Hina actually blushed. She thwapped him gently with a hoof. “Oh, you! Yes, I know my pussy feels good, that’s not the point, you lovely big earth pony! I’m talking about my responsibilities.” She nestled back against him, allowing his hoof to explore her body again. “Hmph. You keep making me feel better and I haven’t earned it. I don’t know why I’m not sensing that as wickedness.”

Big Macintosh blinked. “Maybe because you’re tryin’ not to sense anythin’ much right now? You keep sayin’ it hurts you when you try.”

Hina winced. “Yes. I’m so off balance I’m not even talking to you with respect half the time. My syllables fall clumsily and wrongly. I suppose it’s pointless now.” She sighed, closing her eyes and nestling between his body and his caressing hoof. “My words, respectless… fall like lifeless autumn leaves… sans the green of life.”

“You’re a strange critter,” grumbled Big Macintosh. “So all you care about is talkin’ perty and you can sense just fine?”

Hina’s eyes popped open. “No! I wish I could, but I just can’t! It feels like there’s an even more evil vampire here plus more than one ordinary pony who ought to be good but are steeling themselves to commit terrible crimes! Or something even more confusing and bad than that! I can’t tell if you’re wicked because I can’t even open my mental eyes against the glare!”

“Easy! Easy now,” soothed Big Macintosh. his petting continuing its leisurely tempo. “At least you tried!”

“So what?” sniffed Hina, inconsolable. “That’s the problem. I’ve been trying. It didn’t work. I… I think I’m going to die, fighting this…”

“Aw, honey!”

“And th… that’s not what Kirin are for!” managed Hina, her lip quivering desperately, and then she began to weep helplessly, her body strained tight in Big Macintosh’s sheltering embrace.

Big Macintosh’s lower lip stuck out in a pout, his brow furrowed as he patiently cuddled his weird lover, letting her cry it out, racking his brain as he tried to make sense of her plight. It took all the time she gave him: his thoughts didn’t prance like pegasus ponies at the best of times, they plodded as industriously as he did, and just like he did, they had a boner. He set that aside as best he could, because as near as he could figure there was nothing so wrong with it: but all the same, despite what he’d learned from Braeburn, this time he knew he wasn’t going to be able to fix things with just a hip-thrust.

When Hina quieted, he was ready.

“Ma’am… you’re as plumb crazy as us ponies!” he said, and her eyes widened.

Her lips opened. He kissed them. They closed, but she gazed at him, vulnerable, completely surprised at his contention. Before she could argue, he hastened to explain.

“Near as I can tell, Miss Hina, you figure goodness gotta be earned!” he said. “You are behavin’ like you got to do all the good things before you can have kisses an’ fuckin’ and all that good stuff. You’re talkin’ like your old Kirin back home sent you out here to die, and how kin that be? That’s crazy talk, ma’am! Ah put it to you that you ain’t understandin’ your world right.”

The dainty alabaster lips opened. Then closed. Hina kept looking at him with those huge, lustrous eyes, but she was speechless for a change.

“I don’t know what’s happening out there in Ponyville,” said Big Macintosh. “I reckon us ponies will work it out, though! We always do. An’ I’ll tell you something else. I tried to earn goodness from my ole Granny, once upon a time. And she tried to earn goodness from believin’ in me. And then I discovered a fine stallion name of Braeburn, who’s lovely an’ wicked an’ kind and just about all of my whole heart, and me an’ Granny fought over him an’ set out to wreck all the goodness we had. An’ of course now I’ve met you…”

“I don’t understand,” said Hina faintly. Her heart pounded, and she whiffed of sexual excitement. It seemed Big Macintosh wasn’t the only one aroused by deep, intense, earnest emotion and intimacy.

Big Macintosh shook his mane. “Naw! You sure ‘nuff don’t, Miss Hina. Look around… or, well, I’ll tell ya, 'cos you can’t look right now. Me and Granny, we’re full of love again. Braeburn, he moved to town. I showed Granny the perty apron Braeburn got me, and she weren’t even mad. You know somethin’? I had this teacup, real girly fussy teacup, Pinkie Pie busted it. I had it on account of Braeburn, he liked his Princess drinkin’ tea out of such a perty girly cup. Well, you know who gave us, I mean gave me, that cup? Granny did. Ol’ Granny gave us that prissy teacup, and it ain’t because of jes’ makin’ me happy. Granny gave us that there teacup because she knew it made US happy for me to have it…”

He gulped, his eyes tearing up for a moment.

Hina bit her lip, tenderly, and ventured, “What do you mean?” Then, she gasped, for Big Macintosh’s deep luminous eyes had seized hers and wouldn’t let go.

“Goodness IS,” said Big Macintosh.

She couldn’t respond, but he didn’t need a reply. He gulped again, and went on as if his life depended on it.

“Miss Hina, goodness IS. It’s a part of you if you let it. You don’t have to go prove nothin’, you don’t have to fight all the whole world. Settle down. Relax. Let yourself be loved, stop runnin’ around trying to fix everything. Then goodness, it'll come easy. Can’t you see? Goodness is. You can be a part of it. An’ you’re about the most beautiful creature I ever saw, an’ maybe that stops me from thinkin’ straight but Ah swear to you, you are here to love, not to die.”

She couldn’t even breathe. The intensity of goodness emanating from the sweet huge gentle earth pony… and the wisdom, the deep Kirinlike wisdom… had her stunned.

“Ah love you, Miss Hina,” said Big Macintosh, earnestly. “Please, please love yourself enough to pipe down for a spell. Stop thinkin’ crazy. We’re gonna be okay… and you’re gonna be okay.”

And with that, both earth pony stallion and dainty Kirin gave way to sobbing, weeping, clinging, hugging, clutching at each other like they were drowning in a sea of emotion. Wriggling around to hug face-to-face, pressing together, squirming and trembling and breathless and…

“Love me,” panted Hina, dry-humping Big Macintosh’s thick erection as it thrust between their bellies. Or, rather, wet-humping, painting its shaft with the magical lubricants of her quivering pussy. “Please! Please, love me, please…”

He shifted his hips far, far back as she trembled expectantly. He nestled his thick flare against her unwinking, elegant little nook. He pressed, lovingly.

Hina’s lips parted in an O of ecstacy as Big Macintosh tenderly penetrated her, so slow, so deliberate. He knew her, remembered with the attentiveness of a lover who’d learned from Braeburn. But the bravado, the panache of Braeburn wasn’t the least bit present.

Instead, that shocking bulk just pressed deeper, his body huge between her legs and steadily looming, dipping to nuzzle her radiance as her mane flew like flags of victory, luminous with magic but not a sparkle of static as she basked in his aura.

Big Macintosh panted like a great bellows as he slowly entered Hina, her crotch a shocking topological improbability: unreasonably pert and trim like a small alicorn Princess, but transfixed by a monstrous horsecock, and all the while she gazed up at him in awe and delight with her lips parting in a soundless cry of joy.

And he went to the hilt in her, stretching her absurdly wide, and dripped tears on her face as he gazed down upon her, drinking in the sight of this precious lover, all his in her moment of defeat and surrender, letting him soothe her hurts, sheltering her with his massive body. She’d melted away completely… he curled her legs up and nudged still deeper… he gazed imploringly at her as if he could lend her a heroic backbone by inserting a massive stiff horsecock right through most of her quivering body.

Hina seemed to understand. She reached up to his sweet, earnest, earth pony face, and even as he nudged deeper and just about rubbed his groin against hers, even as her magic kicked in to protect her from his outrageous girth and length… she caressed his cheek with a silken, cloven hoof, the swirling magic aura of her Kirin fetlock untroubled by the slightest hint of interference.

“Yes…”

And she reached up, wrapping forelegs around his barrel, wrapping hind legs around his waist, nuzzling under his chin, her silken glowing tail wrapping around his mighty hock, and Hina-rin gave herself completely to Big Macintosh in utter erotic surrender, her heart pounding madly.

Big Macintosh gave a little sigh… and began to fuck her like it could last forever.

At first, it was a mere nudging, while buried to the hilt in her elegant Kirin body. His testicles pressed softly against her pert rump. Hina gasped, revelling in every single sensation he brought, whether it was hot horse balls lovingly and teasingly nuzzling her bum, or the eye-widening sensation of his flare rammed up against the extreme depths of her Kirin-pussy and pushing hungrily. Her magic kicked in a little more, allowing her more stretch, but it literally took her breath away since she could barely inhale.

Big Macintosh groaned, his embrace tightening. His cock stiffened still further.

Hina nuzzled him feverishly, curling her hind legs back around her ears and giving him all of her, throwing caution to the wicked winds of Ponyville. If her doom awaited her, let it come like this! Let her body be ravaged by an inflamed, maddened plow-horse until she expired from the battering. A glorious, incredibly erotic and kinky doom!

He wasn’t following that script, though: or, if he was maddened, his reaction to it was a little different.  Even as Hina melted under him, angled her pelvis to be more easily plumbed to ruthless depths, licked his neck in a frenzy of sexual intensity, Big Macintosh launched into his own frenzy in his own way.

Shuddering, hard as a pillar of rock, tearing up with strong emotion, Big Macintosh made something between sweet love and rich butter. His seething groin right up against Hina’s little crotch, the Kirin all curled up in a lewd pose that begged, nay screamed to be pounded with plow-horse force, everything pulling him to get fierce and physical, Big Macintosh did things his way. He could feel that Hina’s tight slick little pussy wasn’t quite going to fit all of him: she’d softened and stretched amazingly, but there were inches to spare. His body shook with the desire to just shove with all his might, to hilt her and assert his authority over her, crotch ramming against her butt, pounding hungrily against this incredible creature, this delicious trembling love-puddle herself begging him for fierce, epic screwing. He was flooded with the shared desire to push way too far, and he knew Hina was out of her head and craved exactly the same irresponsible mare-pounding finale.

And so, he didn’t.

Weeping with pleasure and strain, throbbing so hard it hurt, Big Macintosh worked his hips back and forth and slid his monstrous erection back and forth between about halfway out, and fully in to his Kirin’s ultimate pussy-depths. Not once did he shove, or ram, or even thump: instead, his swinging testicles pressed gently against Hina’s little rump, over and over, never to scrunch against her in a mare-damaging shove.

Hina shrieked a curiously melodious squeal of joy as the huge stallionhood swung so carefully into her again and again… clenched at him in a wild pinch that made him whinny sharply… and then she was insensible, orbiting Equestria on a ride that blasted her into the sky higher and higher until she didn’t even know who or where she was.

And Big Macintosh clung tightly to her as she melted into a wildly shuddering and shaking pile of Kirin goo, another puddle of goo dripping around her tail as she came and came and came around his steadily plunging bulk, and he hung on for thrust after thrust, marvelling at her stamina…

“Nhh!”

And Big Macintosh flooded Hina with earth pony come, his body drenching her… and, remembering her curious anatomy, he drew back just a little and allowed his mind-blown lover to feel that sensation. The little charmer was built quite literally for pleasure, and was very proud of that. One more thrust would squirt his whole load out as his cock left no room in her at all. He didn’t make that thrust, he just gazed down into her eyes as the frenzy of Kirin-orgasm subsided… and as she realized that, pony womb or not, she lay under him with a bellyful of hot stallion-spunk, wrapped in the forelegs of her lover.

Hina, breathless, gulped and quivered, too overcome to speak.

Big Macintosh, gradually softening and subsiding, warmed her with his loving, accepting gaze, and had no need to speak and nothing more he could say.

They rested in a silence that seemed to stretch out forever, a silence to begin the world or end it.

It stretched out so long that Big Macintosh became uncomfortable. He felt unequal to her worshipful gaze, like he had somehow inherited the mantle of her elders, and that deference lay uneasily around the neck of a simple plow-horse more accustomed to a farmer’s yoke than… than a royal crown.

Braeburn had warned him about these moments, too.

“You be careful, Princess,” he’d said. “I seen you pickin’ stuff up offa me. And you know sometimes I scold you ‘cos you ain’t learnin’ enough, or you throw it all away like that time with Miss Fluttershy…”

“Ah’m sorry!” Big Macintosh had said.

“Naw, listen!” said Braeburn, kissing him on the nose. “You’re a mighty well-favored boy. Good an’ popular an' a derned quick study… but I warn you, if you learn the ways of the Wild West, an’ by that I mean them beautiful heartful ways of lovin', you got to know the consequences.”

“Consequences?” Big Macintosh had said, blinking in puzzlement.

Braeburn had shaken his head, smiling. “I prob’ly kin trust you with ‘em. Still! Princess, if you whip out all the tricks and perform on some lucky filly, you may find you worked your magic too well. Why do you think I became the master of th’ quick getaway?”

“Thought you jes’ liked it,” Big Macintosh had said.

“It’s one thing to be amazing at fuckin’,” Braeburn had said. “Mares kin deal with that. They love it when ya know how to please 'em. Problem is, mares is so gosh dern beautiful… I warn you, Princess, beware the day you lay a lovely mare to waste, AN’ you loves her, I mean seriously your heart is full of love for her. ‘Cos it will make you better at it, and that makes it feel better for you and for her, and it gits so big it blots out th’ sky even on the open prairie… and if you end up afterwards jes’ staring and staring into each other’s eyes an’ she’s the whole entire world… Run!”

Big Macintosh, shocked, had blurted “Run?”

“Ain’t no pony in Equestria can be really trusted with another pony’s very soul,” Braeburn had said. “Don’t you forget it. You may have to be very careful one day. ‘Cos if that happens to you, and you don’t run… that mare might die for you, not even thinkin’ twice. It’s a pow’ful thing, the deepest love of a mare. Some ponies ain’t worth a damn, an’ I would never warn them ‘cos it would never matter. Some ponies, they’re born to go live on a farm with a mate until they die, and you might say such things are made for them. But such as you an’ I, born to gallop the prairie an’ be free, well you jes’ better be careful. Don’t start nothin’ you can’t finish!”

Big Macintosh had listened carefully, but he hadn’t really understood what Braeburn meant until he’d cared for Hina the Kirin, been attracted to her, made love, fallen in love with her, done everything he could to spare her the apparent torments of Ponyville, balled her again until they both were stunned senseless… and then gazed into her eyes, as she looked up at him that way.

She didn’t belong anywhere in Ponyville. She came from a distant land. She could barely venture outside his big sister’s bedroom (and he was going to have some work to do, washing up where she’d gushed Kirin juices in relentless orgasm as he pumped her) and was completely demoralized, dared not even sense the mood of Ponyville, and even if she had the courage there was no guarantee she would do anything useful or helpful. She was a loose party cannon, a one-Kirin parasprite infestation, utterly out of place…

And she was all his now, to her very soul.

Big Macintosh couldn’t look away from those luminous eyes that drank him in as if there was nothing else to do in the world. His brow furrowed a little as he considered how well he’d succeeded at his task of making her feel better, and how poorly he’d done literally everything else. Nothing had changed: she was still yearning to do battle against Ponyville’s evils, perhaps now more than ever, and still totally outclassed by them. He couldn’t let her go to this war, even if she longed to destroy herself against the evil for his sake. She was the early warning system, and her job was already done. His sister, and Rainbow, and good-vampire Fluttershy, and boss mare Apple Bloom, and clever Rarity, and crazy Pinkie, and Twilight and the Princesses… they were Ponyville’s defenses, not some stray kitten that spelled itself ‘Kirin’ and danced on mists.

Hina saw the wrinkling of his brow, the hint of his frown, and her lips parted as in a cry of dismay, but only a tiny squeak emerged. Her eyes pleaded with him, not knowing but observing the shift in the tone of his thoughts, and he reached out to stroke her mane and she pressed against his caress like a cat, eyes closing in a transport of bliss… and then opening, pinning him again in that flood of love.

The sadness in Big Macintosh’s eyes was hard to miss… until her tears blurred it from her sight.

“Aw, Hina,” sighed Big Macintosh, holding her tight, and thinking of Braeburn’s warning.

Eventually, she quieted. “You need water,” he said. “You gotta drink some water. Y’lost so much, ma’am. I mean from all that juicy come-squirtin’.” He gulped. “And, well…”

Hina sniffled. On the bedside table was a cup of water, typical of Applejack’s domestic arrangements: there was a pony who was born to settle down on the farm with her heart’s desire, and she’d managed it even though the heart’s desire was Rainbow Dash. Of course there was a cup of water, thought Big Macintosh. If it was me, I’d forget. She never forgets. She lives for that stuff. It's easy for Applejack to be that mare.

Chastened, Hina went and drank from the cup, wobbling from exhaustion and emotion but so in his sway that she didn’t hesitate for a moment. Big Macintosh watched. She did exactly as he said, trusting every word, and then she turned and looked at him and it was his turn to be speechless.

Hina’s lip quivered. The dark mood of Ponyville seemed to press closer, all around her, but all she had eyes for was Big Macintosh, standing like an overgrown colt and scuffing the floor. There was nothing about his silence that promised happiness for her. Hina’s dreams softly crumbled, and not only because her beloved earth pony lover wouldn’t promise the world for her: as the waves of erotic overload receded, Hina could feel how different she was from him. She didn’t belong with him, for all that her overstimulated body yearned to forever entwine with the big lug. Somehow, she’d found the purest love in all the world, plus a staggeringly potent tonker, and yet it wasn’t working.

She blinked away more tears, her world spinning around her, and looked directly at Big Macintosh. Her lip quivered, but only a little, because she couldn’t bear to pressure him or manipulate him emotionally. This had to be honest, or it meant nothing. And perhaps refuge wasn’t for such as her. To stay, sheltered, with him, in love and safety… that was no path for a Kirin. It was her turn to prove herself somehow. She’d had all that he would give, and now she awaited her fate.

“What do I do now?” said Hina, the Kirin, and waited to hear her doom.

Big Macintosh gulped.

“Go home,” he said, firmly.

Hina’s jaw dropped in astonishment. “What?”

“Go home.”

The tears started up again. “But… I love you! To desert you? Now? With all of this…” She gritted her teeth, shook her head until her mane thrashed sparks, forced herself to speak with decorum and reason. “My duty is to protect. Even more so, now! I thought you recognized that. I thought you were letting me follow my path.”

“Ah am,” rumbled Big Macintosh. “Go home, Miss Hina. Go home an’ be safe.”

“I would die defending you! From this town’s evil!”

Big Macintosh frowned, and she backed off a pace, though he couldn’t possibly hurt her. The sway he had over her psyche, held.

“Did you ask what I wanted?” he said. “Din’t I tell you to listen, Miss Hina?”

That got a lip-quiver.

“Well then,” she said sulkily, “what is it you want?”

“Leave Ponyville to Ponyville,” said Big Macintosh solemnly. “Go home to Neighpon, an’ be beautiful. Make gardens or somethin’, I dunno. I’m thinkin’ the sooner the better in case folks get obstreperous around here.”

“You’re going to fight the evil,” accused Hina. “Without me! I cannot bear it.  If I can’t die for you, I won’t let you die for me! Big jerk horse!”

“Who, me?” said Big Macintosh. “You spit your bit or somethin’? Whatever gave you such a dern crazy idea, Hina? You’re some kinda lil’ jerk horse! Or Kirin, whatever, th’ point is you ain’t got no respect!”

“I don’t have to honor self-destructive foolishness! You’re too beautiful to lose! Don’t you dare! Protecting me, hah! Some Kirin you are!”

“I ain’t!” yelled Big Macintosh, shaking the house with a stamp of his hoof, and she desisted.

Hina looked grumpily at him, still with an element of awe and worship in her gaze. She blinked. “It is late at night. This is a family house. Aren’t you scaring the ponies?”

Big Macintosh pouted. “Sorry. I shouldn’t git stompy, though, I might go through th’ floor or bust somethin’ important.” He rallied. “I do b’lieve you’re missin’ something, ma'am. What gave you th’ idea it was gonna be you or me, dealin’ with Ponyville mischief?”

“Well, I, er…”

“Eg-zackly!” proclaimed Big Macintosh. “Ma’am, Ah reckon I’m better at you at trustin’ my neighbors and kin. It helps when half your dern friends run ‘round with Elements of Harmony.”

“What are those?” said Hina, suspiciously.

“Y’see?” replied Big Macintosh. “You don’t even know what we got. Thinkin’ that me, your trusty plow puller and stud-pony, that I’m gonna trot out and fight them big monsters an’ such?”

“What do you mean, Elements?” challenged Hina.

Big Macintosh came right back at her. “Do you really think it’s about them trinkets? Ma’am, it’s about the friendship.”

Hina pouted. Big Macintosh argued fervently. “Nopony’s gonna ask me to go up all by my lonesome and fight some monster. Nor should you. Ah’m tellin’ you, we got this all under control. You got no idea, jes’ no dang idea of the power of Ponyville. I bet you wouldn’t guess the kinds of help we got, either! Ma’am, if you want fightin’, we’ve had Gilda as a house-guest over an’ over, lil’ Spy proper grew up with her. Gilda would come to our aid. We got Fluttershy, and I ain’t even tellin’ you everything about Fluttershy on account of I don’t want you messin’ with her! It looks like you’re plumb out of your league, Miss Hina, but you won’t even recognize how protected we are! We got Princesses, Miss Hina. Alicorns. Don’t you know what an alicorn is?”

Hina pouted worse. “Your Princess Celestia? She trusted me to protect Ponyville in her stead.”

Big Macintosh snorted. “She was bein’ polite. And we got others, jes so’s you know. Miss Hina… go HOME.”

Hina looked up, and her vulnerability tugged at his heart. “Big Macintosh… I’m frightened. You’re sure you will be okay?”

“Thought you’ve been scared this whole time that the evil was gonna wipe you out?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” she said simply. “I’m frightened for you.”

Big Macintosh sighed, and he stepped forward and wrapped her in a big, farm-horse-sized hug, tearing up as he felt her shaking. Then, he held her at hoof-length.

“Ah will stay safe,” he informed her. “I know it might be hard to believe but there ain’t much call for me as a battle-horse. Ah am a lover, an’ ain’t no fighter.”

A plainitive smile quirked the side of Hina’s little mouth. “I noticed.”

“Believe it,” ordered Big Macintosh. “Ah’m gonna be the biggest ol’ scaredy-pony, and hide under th’ bed with Smarty Pants until it’s safe.”

Her eyes widened. “Who is he? Some defender horse?”

“Uhh…” stammered Big Macintosh, and began to blush. “Naw. Twilight Sparkle, she had this lil’ doll, just a little cuddly snuggly thing so cute with all yarn hair, an’ she let me have it, or sorta all Ponyville let me have it after I whupped ‘em for it, and, and, uhhh…”

Hina’s eyes widened. “You will snuggle under the bed… with a doll?”

Big Macintosh’s lower lip stuck out, truculently. “Eyup.”

Hina kept drinking him in, amazed, until she squeed and leapt to hug him, her glowing mane radiant and serene. “Eeee! I love you so much! You are so adorable!”

He pouted, and grinned wryly. “Ah guess. So are you.”

She smiled, her eyes sad. “We are both scaredy-ponies? You want me to hide, as well.”

“Naw,” said Big Macintosh. “You ain’t from around here and don’t know good hidin’ places. Ah want you to hide even better! You told me once you can’t stay.”

“That is true,” admitted Hina.

“I’ve seen you strugglin’ with all this,” said Big Macintosh. “What I also have seen, is my lil’ sister who’s our Boss Mare, proper terrorizin’ you to get you to fight. I don’t think our ponies really understand that you ain’t some Princess for us. You’re jes’ you, Miss Hina, and maybe you’re not big enough for all this. And I’m not so sure they’ll believe it.”

Hina trembled, remembering. “That terrible day… all they wanted was the use of my senses…”

Big Macintosh nodded. “It hurt you so much! You said it all got worse. Ah don’t wish to upset you more, Miss Hina, but do you remember what the ponies did that day?”

Hina looked haunted. The curious poetic lilt left her voice. He hugged her while she remembered.

“The monster… it burst out of the bushes toward the gray pegasus. Then, the blue one tackled her, almost faster than I could see. And it was Rarity there in her place, looking up at the monster. It came down, and then went up: did she fight it back? I remember its hoof coming down, smashing her face. And then the little filly, Apple Bloom, she ran straight at the thing, knocked it away. How can that be? She is a child!”

Big Macintosh snorted fondly. “Like hell she is. Go on, Miss Hina.”

“And the one whose burns I soothed, he was there. And you,” said Hina, and gave him an accusing look. “Scaredy-pony? You wrestled the monster, while I stood frozen in terror!”

“Uh… maybe,” said Big Macintosh. “Ah promise t’ be more scaredy-pony in future. Then what?”

Hina shook her head, snuggling against him. “Such chaos. Ponies everywhere, such a terrible struggle! Innocent frail creatures, rearing and charging the monster. I can still see Rarity. The look in her eyes as she dragged it by its…”

She hesitated. “…I think I see what you mean.”

“Ah think the term would be ‘him’, not 'it', ma’am,” said Big Macintosh, wincing. “I saw that too, and I saw Rarity. No wonder he stayed in th' bonfire. You gotta trust us, Miss Hina. We got this. I’ll hide under the bed with Smarty Pants if you like. But you gotta go home. You got your horse fuckin’, but the vacation’s over. I need you to go home an’ be safe. You can’t stay here. You should go now. By dawn you kin be halfway to Neighpon where everything is as beautiful as you.”

Hina regarded him suspiciously. “By dawn, you tell me? You seek such terrible haste. Why the stupid rush?”

“Cos Ah’m a stupid horse,” muttered Big Macintosh.

“Surely not!”

“Well, I wish I was either more smarterer,” said Big Macintosh helplessly, “or more stupider. So please, Miss Hina, trot that sexy lil’ ass back to Neighpon, okay? Like you must do… an’ right now, if you please.”

She set her jaw. “Why?” she demanded. “Why NOW?”

Big Macintosh hung his head.

“Because if you don’t leave now, ma’am, I’ll never be able ta let you go, an’ that’s a fact.”

Her eyes brimmed. Her lip quivered.

“Come with me!” she impulsively cried.

Big Macintosh looked up, and her excitement crumbled as she saw his expression.

“This is MY home,” he said.

There were no words. She went to him, and hugged him, and then Hina defiantly opened her sensation all the way, enduring the devouring evil of her surroundings just to properly feel Big Macintosh’s heart and spirit up close. Ponyville’s fury and despair nearly obliterated her, but she kept her channel open second after second, just to feel the truth of her pony lover. And it told her what she didn’t want to believe, but couldn’t avoid: it was all true, what they’d talked about. It was true that Ponyville had unforeseen strengths to match the evils that nearly swamped her. She could feel them out there among the hate and fear. It was true that she’d have to go home: she felt the tug of it, even though Neighpon was so far away. And it was true that her glorious farm stallion loved her every bit as much as she’d thought, but his love for Ponyville shone through regardless, leaving him torn and sick at heart.

Though it was horrible, he was right: the more she lingered, the more deeply he would hurt. She didn’t understand how he knew this, and yet he grasped it so completely that he might have been a fellow Kirin, communicating matters of the heart and working out painful answers when the questions became too tangled to unravel.

Hina embraced Big Macintosh fervently, tears flooding her eyes, and he nearly crushed her with his straining, trembling forelegs, and she did not resist. There would be all the rest of life to breathe freely. She would be his little stuffed doll just for a moment, without complaint. It stretched on until she nearly passed out, and then he managed to let go, and eventually released her. And, with that, they began to walk, step by step.

Out the bedroom door.

Down the stairs.

To the front door, where Big Macintosh opened it upon the dark night, and hesitated, unsure, peering into the scary darkness. He glanced at her, worried for her safety.

Hina gave him the saddest smile… and one heavily-lashed eye winked. She took a deep breath, and exhaled out the door, her horn scintillating to life.

Her breath transformed into a shaft of mist that stood out in the moonlight, that reached up into the sky. Kirin did not have to travel dangerous roads at night. She would not have to wait, to stretch out their parting and extend his pain and perhaps linger until they could no longer endure any of their choices. She only had to walk on her clouds and mists, bound for Neighpon.

Hina-rin softly stepped onto her mist. Big Macintosh forced himself not to make a sound, no sob or cry to sap her resolve. This was for her own good, for her protection. It was so she could continue to live, in beauty, somewhere.

She walked away with delicate little steps, her cloven hooves treading the fluffy vapor. After a while, she directed the mists downward, seeming to seek a final view of Ponyville from grass level and not cloud level. She didn’t hurry. Eventually, she was lost to sight.

After a longer while, Big Macintosh stumbled upstairs and fell into bed, burying his head in the pillow, and wishing he had Smarty Pants to hug. But Smarty Pants wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was Ponyville.

It was so very odd, Big Macintosh thought. One more day, one more week, and he’d have been destroyed by Hina’s departure. But, thanks to Braeburn, he was a Wild West prairie wanderer who needed no mare, and he hoped sweet Hina found love and joy back in Neighpon where she belonged. Maybe they’d let her see the ‘sexually adventurous’ things they’d kept her away from. Maybe Hina would be ‘ready for Neighpon’s jelly’, whatever that meant. He’d certainly turned her to jelly, and Braeburn, dear charming Braeburn whom he loved so very much, would be proud of him. And Hina would be safe. They would have memories, special memories to treasure, of that one amazing time in Ponyville in the eye of the storm. And thanks to darling Braeburn, he’d sent her happily on her way full of stallion-come before anypony got too… before anypony… before…

Big Macintosh cried and cried.

Eventually, he slept.

Celestia’s ears were splayed to the sides in a disconcerted look such as she’d rarely shown.

“I think,” she said, “they’ve gotten into the swing of things very thoroughly.”

Chaos nuzzled her. “Did you really think they wouldn’t? I was more concerned for you, Celly.”

Celestia’s eye twitched, and she gulped. “Nonsense. I trust the Kirins’ judgement completely. And I’ve long known Neighponnese unicorns were capable of brazen sexuality.”

“And pony bondage!” added Chaos, cheerfully. “Who knew?”

Celestia gulped again. “Certainly not I.”

“I still wouldn’t have guessed the extent of their ingenuity,” said Chaos, entranced, as tender slurping noises filled the arena.

The subject of their fascination continued.

Celestia, Chaos, Twilight and Trixie had been puzzled at the invitation. The Kirin seemed hesitant, uncertain, but unmistakably suggesting something. They hadn’t wanted to explain directly, hinting tangentially about kinds of pony fun, inquiring if the alicorns and ponies had ever, in their lives, been… naughty.

Very naughty.

Very, very naughty, explained the Kirin.

The more Trixie lit up and bounced with delight, the clearer the explanations became.

There was a game, explained the Kirin. It was an unusual game. A special sort of game, that they’d figure out. Or, perhaps, an athletic endeavor? But they wouldn’t be doing the athleticism, not exactly. No, it wasn’t confusing at all, they’d see. The important thing was… and here the Kirin looked nervously at each other… whether their guests were comfortable with… restraint? What one might call erotic restraint, explained the Kirin.

“Called it,” Twilight had said with satisfaction, as Trixie squeed. “I’ve got a book with this in it. Let’s!”

One of the Kirin blinked at her. “No indeed,” he said, “no, you don’t have this. No book mentions this. You will see. Remember, these ponies are all volunteers. They are a sort of athlete… athletes of kinky.”

“Yay!” Trixie had cried, and they’d charged merrily after the Kirin and into… a room.

It was a very odd room. Some type of enormous machine extended out of the wall, like a giant wheel with square brackets or frames attached to it, rotating on a pivot entirely outside the room, and slicing through the room vertically. The room was long, and nicely decorated, and another framework extended down the hall to the far end, a shocking fifty yards away.

At the end, the framework reached out into the room to hold a sign, which could apparently be moved closer and farther by an attendant. The sign was large, the size of a pony, but it wasn’t the shape of a pony. It was the shape of a pony face: a unicorn mare, beaming in delight, her mouth open in a painted cry of ecstacy.

A balcony overlooked it all, and along the balcony sat a row of quiet, polite, very respectful Neighponnese unicorns.

“What the pony hell is all this?” Twilight had said.

The nearby mechanism creaked into life, and the whole wheel thing began to rotate upwards… and the next rectangular frame rose into view, with a Neighponnese unicorn mare spread-eagled within it. Her back was supported by a cozy hammock-like arrangement, but her tail hung down exposing her nether regions. The whole rectangular frame could be tilted and angled by geared wheels built into the mechanism.

Her mouth was gagged, and her head was strapped tightly to a head-rest on the frame that pointed her pretty little horn in exactly, but exactly, the direction the frame pointed.

Twilight looked at Trixie. Trixie looked at Twilight. Both looked down the hall at the pony-face sign, which was about thirty yards from the far wall. An attentive unicorn looked back at them, ready to adjust the position of the sign to suit their degree of confidence.

Twilight had smirked and said, “I bet you I can do it. I’ve had enough practice, bit or no bit.”

“WE can,” Trixie had insisted…

Celestia peeked again at the two unicorns who’d so delightedly taken on this challenge. “Please tell me they won’t meld. We’ll be chased out of here, perhaps forced to flee the country!”

“Celly!” chided Chaos, fascinated. “They’ll do nothing of the sort. They’re having far too much fun. Good heavens, what’s got into them? Our little lesbi-corns—look at them go!”

And indeed, even as she said it, Trixie nuzzled against the bound unicorn’s vulva while Twilight, emitting a cute little snarl of sensuous hunger, suckled upon the Neighponnese mare’s clitoris. Her teeth showed in a grin: that wasn’t all, she’d seized the hapless pony’s clit in a tender grip between her teeth. And, as the mare writhed uselessly against her tight bonds, Twilight Sparkle kept that pony clitoris trapped and rapidly flicked her tongue across it, even as Trixie valiantly strained to lick the inside of her vagina…

The helpless, bound unicorn mare struggled, her muscles standing out in high relief even though she couldn’t move in the least, especially not her head… and then, from her sensuously tormented vagina, fluid gushed, to Trixie’s apparent delight. And when even that didn’t get Twilight to relent, the inevitable happened. Eyes screwed shut, tendons standing out on her neck, the mare let out a muffled shriek through the ball gag in her mouth, and then a long and beautiful gout of magic burst forth from her horn, reflected in the rapt eyes of the solemn and attentive onlookers in the balcony. It arched up to their level, eliciting some gasps, and it splashed down across the floor… and, at its furthest reach, it splashed off the distant target, the smiling and expectant pony-face sign.

“Mistress!” cried Trixie exultantly, mare-spooge on her face, and Twilight looked up and released her erotic prey, and licked her lips, much satisfied.

The bound unicorn mare panted through her nose, looking stunned, and a ripple of equine applause poured down from the balcony. It surged appreciatively as Trixie trotted around to kiss the mare fondly on the muzzle in spite of her gag.

Twilight sat back, apparently still savoring her experience. She winced. “Ow, my tongue!”

Trixie looked back at her and called out, “Mistress! Can we even learn her name? She’s lovely! And so tasty… hey! HEY!”

But her objections were in vain: in spite of her protests, the happily stricken mare whose pussy she’d been ravaging was rising up. Not through levitation, either, but through the rotating of that great wheel. Trixie’s mightiest jumps couldn’t reach her, and only offered a brief glimpse of what waited in the ceiling: ponies with glasses of water and hot towels, solicitous and poised to cosset and cuddle the athlete-horse: possibly even a Kirin lurking in the background ready to cast soothing spells, though Trixie wasn’t sure if she was imagining it.

Trixie stopped jumping, and looked around. The appreciative applause, and some giggles and Neighponnese remarks, continued to drift down from the balcony.

“COME SEE US SOMETIME!” cried Trixie, boldly, to the ceiling. Having delivered her message, she lifted her chin and flicked her tail and trotted over to hug Twilight, who was still licking her lips speculatively.

As the applause trailed politely off, Trixie guided Twilight over to where Celestia waited. “Thanks for letting us play!” she told Celestia. For Chaos, Trixie had a slightly different message.

“Top THAT!” she said, smirking.

Celestia tensed. “Oh, Sw… I mean Chaos… let’s go, we’ve imposed on their peculiar hospitality enough…”

The giant wheel creaked into motion again. Through the floor, yet another nameless unicorn mare ascended for her moment of glory. This one was a lovely powder-blue, with lilac mane and tail. Down at the end of the room, the attendant called gently in a language they didn’t understand, gesturing gracefully to the sign as if to say, nearer? Farther?

“Bet cha can’t,” suggested Trixie.

“Oh, Celestia, please!” said Twilight. “I want to watch this time! Let her try.”

Celestia hung her head in frustration. “Very well. No… you know! Let us just say, earth pony style. Please?”

Chaos lit up with a gratified smile. “Really? Really really? Oh, thank you! Oh, this will be so much fun, what a nice game!”

“I mean it!” urged Celestia.

“And you shall have it,” said Chaos haughtily, “or rather this little pony shall have it. Earth pony style. One side!”

She trotted out to investigate. The attendant called out again, indicating the target.

Chaos waved her impatiently back, going right over to check out her ‘horngasm cannon’. “Oooh! Such cute little pussies, and what lovely skin they have, how ravishing!” She turned the wheels, aiming the unicorn more directly at the target, to get a better look at the blue unicorn’s private parts. The attendant, confused, took her waving at face value and began moving the target farther and farther back.

The balcony onlookers stirred, talking back and forth in Neighponnese, some describing parabolas with their hooves to illustrate their arguments. The attendent called out to Chaos again, and got another dismissive hoof-wave, and moved the target still further back to even more discussion from the gallery.

“You’re supposed to aim at the…” began Twilight.

“Shh!” chided Chaos. She bent, and licked the winking pinkness that presented itself, waiting piquantly between the legs of the pretty pale-blue bondage unicorn… who shuddered, and winked harder, glistening with nectars.

“Ooooh!” squealed Chaos. She turned. “Was yours like this?” she asked Twilight.

“Probably,” said Twilight. “You mean, delicious? I don’t know how they manage that, but wow! Maybe it's a special diet. She was so good I wish we could take her home with us.” She looked forlornly up at the space in the ceiling.

Licking her lips, Chaos turned back towards her splayed pony. She nuzzled the mare’s perky teats, rewarded by a murmur of appreciation from the balcony, her style earning their approval. She ignored them completely.

“Only…” warned Celestia.

“Earth pony style, I know,” said Chaos with a roll of her eyes. She bent her head… and got to work.

At first, her style was subdued, elegant, which in turn got approval from the audience. There were even a few squees of delight, as the unicorns watched Chaos nuzzle and lick at their countrymare’s eager pussy. It was immediately obvious that Chaos was in heaven, worshipping the lovely mare’s vagina by touch and taste.

Then, her tempo picked up. The pretty powder-blue unicorn wriggled, stretched tight, but agitated by Chaos’s increasingly fervent pussyworshipping. Chaos could be seen sticking her tongue well into the mare, and then withdrawing it and suckling on her clitoris. This unicorn had a noticably smaller clit than the previous: Twilight nudged Trixie and whispered, “More sensitive.” Trixie nodded in agreement.

The pale blue unicorn began to whimper through her ball-gag, then squeal and moan, her lilac tail thrashing like a waved flag. It made a silky sound, reminiscent of the finest grooming: even the sweat standing out on the elegant little mare’s brow seemed to glisten with unusual purity and elegance. And all the while, little Chaos purred and nuzzled and licked and suckled her crotch, her own mysterious tail lashing with increasing frenzy.

And then… Chaos reared, and placed her hooves upon the blue unicorn’s inner thighs. It could have been to spread the quivering labia farther. It could have been just to touch the lovely creature all over, to feel the shudders and spasms of her hind legs, as that lovely mare had been coming harder and harder, and her muffled squeals were turning to orgiastic shrieks through the ball gag.

There was no reason to suspect Chaos’s hooves were shielding or concealing anything, even when the far hoof casually reached across the mare’s belly to almost completely obscure Chaos’s muzzle and part of the mare’s body.

Trixie’s eyes widened. She gasped.

And, very unexpectedly, the lovely powder-blue unicorn in the bondage frame went rigid with shock as if something deeply alarming had happened… and then, squalled through the ball gag, thrashing in her restraints, and seemed to explode.

A massive bolt of horngasm erupted from her horn and blasted straight across the room, directly into the pony-face sign, which burst into flame and fell off its mounting bracket. The attendant cringed back in terror, gazing across the room at Chaos and her athlete-mare, and then looked at the sign. Its face had melted off.

Chaos, her hoof and foreleg still obscuring the blue unicorn’s personal areas, sagged for a moment, seemingly enthralled with the reaction she’d produced. Then, she tensed, and made a very odd noise against the unicorn’s pussy, as if her tongue was in an uncomfortable position… and twisted and wiggled her neck, straining to do something other ponies couldn’t see.

The blue unicorn shrieked through her ball gag, and let out another eruption of horngasm that left her poor horn smouldering. All eyes stared in disbelief at what Chaos had done with the hapless, bound mare. Then, they followed the path of her ejaculation down to the end of the room, where they saw that she’d blown a hole in the far wall.

All eyes returned, to see Chaos, hooves no longer obscuring the unicorn’s vagina and belly, kissing her passed-out partner’s pussy, then belly, then trotting around to kiss her nose, and finally the shank of her horn.

Chaos turned to Trixie, triumphantly.

“I win!”

“Darling,” hissed Princess Celestia, looking worriedly all around her. “Pray be so good as to accompany us. Out of here. Now!”

“I’m very good!” chirped Chaos, trotting bouncily over. “Of course. Thank you so much for letting me have my fun!” She turned to the stunned and terrified crowd. “And thank you all for a wonderfully special moment!”

“Chaos!” hissed Celestia. “I mean it. I know what you did, you’ve done it to me, who’s going to explain to that poor mare? You promised. Out! Mayhap you can drink tea without screwing that up!”

The crowd was turning, steadily, from shocked silence to loud, stomping equine applause, accompanied by worshipful cries, even as the obliterated blue unicorn was raised up into the ceiling to be released from her bonds and fussed over by her trainers.

“Listen!” called Chaos. “It’s the sound of my people!”

“Help me get her out of here,” said Twilight to Trixie, “or she’ll have them line up and she’ll do them all, and then they’re gonna be planting us under those cherry trees for heresy.”

“They love me!” cried Chaos, her mane swirling with delight.

“You’re a legend,” replied Trixie. “Now move it!” She butted the giddy alicorn in the rump with her horn, and Chaos squeaked and began to run out of the room, partly because Celestia was dragging her by the ear.

And ever after, the legend was told of how the alicorn of ultimate orgasm returned to her own people, who were doubtless sturdier ponies, and how she bestowed upon the Neighpon horngasm arena the parting benediction, “But Pinkie Pie counts as an earth pony!”

None understood it, but of such things, legends are made.

It was a crappy little cabin, thought Snowy Hocks, abandoned and decrepit, but it was well out of the way and that was the important thing. He wasn’t sure how much time he’d have. He prided himself on being able to assess threats well, even to the point of correctly planning for his own disloyalty to himself while a thrall. The threat he now faced was far worse, because it was almost impossible to gauge.

Was Pinkie Pie even an earth pony? No earth pony could do the impossible, bizarre things she did. Yet, for all that, there had to be some way to either turn the townsponies against her, or defuse her, or get the jump on her.

No! thought Snowy. Getting the jump on her wouldn’t work, he had to put it out of his mind entirely. It was far too dangerous, a Hollyhock-grade plan, and he had to do a lot better than that. First: it was possible that she had to respond in kind. If he attacked her, he’d be snuffed out instantly. But if he talked, she might have to talk. If he made claims or arguments, she might have to counter-argue them. That could be the answer. It was so hard to tell, given the range of her known activities, but she seemed to always be ready with a quip. And then there was the question of her alliances… and her dislikes. And that might be where he could get through, could un-Pinkie her.

Even Pinkie Pie had to have some kind of weakness, somewhere, and Snowy proposed to find it.

First, he had to use some kind of trick or key to knock her out of that fluffy mode, into the straight-hair mode where she still raved but couldn’t do crazy things. That seemed the most urgent problem.

It was a shame he couldn’t kill and devour a little soul to get in shape, but something told him he’d made the right call. Certain… keys to the problem, were going to have to stay alive and unthralled, however frustrating that might be. Snowy Hocks was almost certain he’d captured one such key. There had to be a way to use it to his advantage, and at least there wasn’t a discipline problem: a vampire Stare worked wonders, as effective for him as it had been for Fluttershy. He glanced into the corner of the crappy little cabin in which he’d hid.

Little Dursaa gazed back, entranced, and called, “Da!”

Secrets

“You’ve got to tell me, Green Streak!” insisted Pinkie. “What exactly did Numeric Essence say she was doing?”

“Other than maybe killing earth ponies?”

“Unless I miss my guess,” said Pinkie, “she’s up to more than that! They’re all up to something, but Percale Pleb will outfox ‘em! Now tell me again. What did she want to do when she wasn’t killing ponies for fun?”

Northern Spy frowned. “What?”

“I said…”

“I never said she was killing ponies for fun!” insisted Northern Spy. “Nobody ever said it was fun! If you’re not gonna play nice I’m gonna leave like Rock did. Stop being dumb, Pinkie Pie!”

“PONKA…” screeched Pinkie, and then stopped, trembling. The smile she forced was genuinely horrible. “I’m sorry, Green Streak. I can handle it. Everything is super okay. Don’t leave.” Her teeth grated quietly against each other.

“Shyeah right!” complained Spy. “Everything’s really stupid! We have to find whatever bad thing was freaking out the Kirin. Do you think Big Macintosh made her feel better?”

“Vigorously,” said Pinkie, and gave a twitch.

“So are you gonna take it back, and admit Numeric Essence doesn’t want to kill ponies for fun?”

“Maaaaybe…” said Pinkie, and glared back at Spy. “If you tell me exactly what she’s doing! It’s vitally important to my plans!”

“Whaddya mean ‘your’ plans?” challenged Spy.

“Okay, our plans,” conceded Pinkie Pie. “I can’t stress this enough. Everything depends on the report you, Green Streak, deliver about the activities of Pony X!”

“Pony X?”

“I just made it up to be cooler,” explained Pinkie. “Really I mean Numeric Essence. The last I saw her, she was working for us! She was going to make a beacon that would target the big evil, and all of a sudden you tell me she’s talking about killing ponies? Come on, Streak! We’re depending on you and your information!”

Northern Spy nodded seriously. Pinkie was acting extra stupid, she thought, but on the other hand the drama of the situation was very appealing, and of course everything depended on her information: that sounded exactly right. Mollified, she began to explain.

“You remember about how Numeric Essence was making a spell to help us, right? It was a magical beacon. Well, after you left, she started talking about how it worked, and Apple Bloom got real mad! It sounded like, when Essie casts the spell on earth ponies, it’s gonna just kill them, boom, like that!”

Pinkie gazed seriously at her. “That is a very effective way of making sure the big evil thing doesn’t kill the earth ponies, while also being totally backwards,” she said.

“I know, right?” said Spy. “Apple Bloom told her to get lost! She said we’re getting killed enough without her help! I don’t think she cast the spell on a single earth pony!”

Pinkie twitched, again. “She didn’t, she doesn’t, not even one,” she said, her eyes unfocused. “Do you think she can cast it on other things? Like rocks, not my Rock but like real actual rock rocks, or trees? We might need to follow that beacon!”

“I dunno,” said Spy. “I’m not sure she can help us at all. She’s not like the Kirin, she’s not scared, but she’s really weird and I sure don’t want her testing dangerous pony-killing magic on me.”

“How’s she going to test it?” said Pinkie. “I mean, how did she want to test it when it was a thing?”

Northern Spy frowned again. “I remember that part. She says, first she has to cast the spell, which maybe kills you. Then to test it, you let the big bad evil monster kill you, and if the beacon goes off, it worked.”

“Has she ever considered going into computer network data security?” asked Pinkie Pie, twitching.

Northern Spy stamped her hoof. “You’re talking gibberish again, Potato Poo! Focus!”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Pinkie, her mane frizzing out and disheveled, her eyes rolling. All around, she felt the pounding of nonexistent jungle drums, the crackle of terrible fires. “They say her methods are… unsound…”

“Whose?” demanded Spy.

“Huh?” said Pinkie, fighting off visions from entirely other movies. “I mean, nothing! No unsound methods here! You have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary…”

“Oh yeah? How about a hoof to the face?” suggested Northern Spy.

“Huh?” said Pinkie, blinking and caught even more off balance.

“A hoof to the face!” said Spy. “That’s what’s necessary! You know… pow! Bam! Screw you, evil monsters! Hah!”

Pinkie stared at the pale green filly with hair the color of Rainbow Dash’s flank, and all the visions floated around her like double images, multiple choice, a story that could go anywhere.

And then, suddenly… resolution.

Pinkie Pie smiled, almost not insanely. “I know what to do.”

“You do?” said Spy, uncertainly. “So… you like the hoof to the face idea?”

“I have an even better idea,” said Pinkie. “Rock would like it. It’d help him do what he’s already doing.”

“Being a big stinker and not playing with us?” said Spy.

“Shh. Sh,” said Pinkie. “I need your help with something. Do you know anything about schoolyard rhymes?”

“I’m not going to school yet,” said Northern Spy bashfully. “It’s s’posed to be really hard. I dunno if I wanna go, but Rock says I should.”

“Stand on that rock over there,” ordered Pinkie.

Spy hesitated, then complied. It seemed a confident and focussed Pinkie could be even more unsettling than a raving, wacky one. The mane was still floofy, though, floofier than ever. Spy wrinkled her brow, looking at her companion. This was a new Pinkie, self-assured and… different.

“Stick out your butt,” ordered Pinkie.

Northern Spy shied away. “Nuh-uh. Mom told me sometimes I should yell out, I need an adult!”

“I am an adult!” retorted Pinkie Pie. “Which Mom? Rainbow Dash?”

“Naw, Applejack,” said Spy.

“Steady, Green Streak! Now stick out your butt. I’m going to create something amazing with it!”

“I NEED A…”

“I dare you!” said Pinkie Pie, and stared at the filly. “You’re being foalish and worse… chicken! What do you think I’m gonna do, anyway? You don’t even know what you’re scared of!”

Spy bit her lip. “I… um…”

“It’s important. The whole ending of the book depends on it.”

Spy gulped. Her lip quivered. “Fine!” she said, and stuck her little green butt out. “But I’m gonna tell Mom if you do wrong stuff!”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes lit up, but not in carnal delight at the still-neuter cooter. She bounced over, and demanded, “Repeat after me! Bump, Bump…”

Spy’s eyes were huge. “Uh, bump, bump…”

“Sugarlump RUMP!” cried Pinkie delightedly.

“Sugarlump rump… hey! What was that for?” demanded Spy. Pinkie had crammed her butt up against Spy’s, but not in some weird sensual manner. Instead, she showed off her cutie mark, against Spy’s complete lack of a cutie mark and far tinier rump.

“Shh!” demanded Pinkie, and began to concentrate fiercely.

“No really, what was that about?” pressed Spy. “I’m telling!”

Pinkie ignored her. Something was forming in midair between them. The air seethed, almost as intensely as Pinkie’s burning blue eyes. Her mane seemed to refloof itself to unheard-of floofiness…

It was a small box, a small metal box. On it was a big red button. It clunked to the ground, and Pinkie pounced and picked it up, and held it before Northern Spy, crowing “You see?”

Written below the big red button were the words ‘This Way To The Egress’.

Spy furrowed her brow. “What the pony hell is that thing?”

“It’s the answer to my problems,” said Pinkie Pie. “It’s the way I’m going to go into the big scene. When I push this button, the only ones that can go closer are me and… I guess we should say the Big Bad. I know who it is, I’m sure she’s gonna be there, and I set it up so the world ends with us two. Just like,” she said, and gulped, “the world began with us. ‘Cos this world really did begin with her, like in the very first scene long before you were born, and it’s only right it should end that way too.”

Her mane threatened to fall lank and straight across her neck. Northern Spy glared.

“I SAID, what is it? What is that box and why did you have to bump my rump with your rump and sing a little song about rumps? Pinkieee!”

Pinkie quivered, on the brink of tragedy as she thought about who she was setting out to kill. She pondered the device she’d made which would block off the final death scene, leaving only herself and Fluttershy to battle it out, nopony else able to approach the zone of Big Evil. Especially not Rock. Please, not Rock! Pinkie gulped, knowing it was the only way, hoping someday Rock would understand why she had to do it, but wishing he never had to reach such a bitter enlightenment… and then, the madness crept back into her eyes, and her mane floofed back out again, and she turned a gaze and smile upon Northern Spy that made the filly back up five paces.

“Why? Because it’s… a PLOT DEVICE!” proclaimed Pinkie Pie.

Northern Spy stared in dismay and disbelief at the older pink mare who laughed and laughed, laughed until she couldn’t stand and fell right over, laughed until it sounded like weeping and then wrapped around to laughing again, or to some place where the two were the same. And, all the while, the box waited patiently for its big moment, and the fluffy pink mane never lost its fluff, no matter what. Forever!

Northern Spy sulked, lay down with her chin on her crossed forehooves, pouted, and proceeded to wait it out.

Chicken, she wasn’t.

The abandoned house was quiet as death. Occasionally, it creaked in the wind, the decrepit walls threatening to collapse, but time wasn’t ready to claim it yet. It might well burn down, thought Snowy Hocks, but all the same he'd had sense enough to get a fire going in the fireplace, and to stay the hell away from it. Ironic: it was a deadly danger to him, but he was terribly cold and welcomed the warmth that could never truly reach him again. It was total shit against the chill of death, but it was better than nothing and it was far from the worst danger he faced.

Snowy Hocks thought, with the little zebragasus colt on his lap. He scratched the kid’s ear, not really paying attention, and tried to work out his plan.

Pinkie Pie had to be counted the biggest threat. Oh, Fluttershy had power, but she hadn’t fed on any pony souls and that gave him an opportunity. He knew he could handle the power better than idiot Hollyhock, but souls he must have: it would give him power to stand against Fluttershy. There would be no way she could prevail against him if he’d been eating souls and she hadn’t, and he was ready to bet she’d never do such a thing.

Rainbow Dash appeared dangerous, but there was a catch: she had to close on him to do damage. And he was undead: if he didn’t panic, there was nothing she could do to him that would stop him, and all he needed was eye contact or one bite to take her. He wasn’t sure whether he’d rather turn her to a thrall, or just eat her soul, but he was warming to the latter. The trouble with a thrall Dash was that she’d run amok in his defense at the first sign of trouble. That was why he doubted she’d come with fire: she didn’t think ahead enough. A thrall Dash would just terrorize Ponyville and bring trouble down onto him, and he’d laid a lot of careful groundwork for stepping into control of the town effectively.

That required making thralls of sensible, respected ponies who’d do as they were told. Mayor Mare, for instance. Possibly Applejack, if losing Dash didn’t just break her completely. Granny Smith would be a useful capture, for she was both influential and unthreatening.

Snowy continued to scratch the delighted foal’s ear, and little Dursaa cooed.

Rarity might be a useful thrall, thought Snowy. She had incredible self-control, and her years of living a secret kinky double life proved she could keep secrets and play a role. It might be necessary to eat her kid Sweetie Belle: there had been times when she’d looked at him and seemed to be trying to guess his secret. Snowy hadn’t liked that one bit. All that time grooming Hollyhock and putting the plan in motion, and to have some little unicorn filly studying him as if she was reading him a little too deeply: not nice, not nice at all. She’d have to go, just on suspicion of being too clever. She seemed like a pegasus-crazed teen hormone monster when she was with Scootaloo, but that didn’t preclude her being observant in inconvenient ways.

Scootaloo would probably sign up for thralldom if Rainbow Dash did it. Of course, Dash had to be eaten, but interestingly, that desire to please might make Scootaloo the thrall that Dash could never be. Scootaloo did stop and think, sometimes. When you were a thrall, that was the whole problem with you: you couldn’t think outside the box of your sire. Scootaloo would be a fine thrall. Probably a decent lay, too, for an old immortal vampire who’d missed out on a lot of pleasures.

It was possible Dash had to be temporarily thralled to catch Northern Spy. Then he could thrall them both, put them in separate rooms, and eat their souls separately. There was no sense in risking trouble. He didn’t think you could even break out of thralldom with that much provocation, but he would take no chances. Or… could he bite them both, one fang to each, and eat both their souls simultaneously? They’d probably love that. No, that was crazy… plus, maintaining multiple thralls was going to be a serious problem. He'd gained some insight into that while he served Hollyhock. It was easy to imagine the heights of jealousy he'd have experienced if there had been another thrall serving Hollyhock. Snowy frowned, considering ways to manage that situation. Thrall Dash just to get Scootaloo, turn on Dash immediately before the two could destroy each other competing for him, fuck and use Scootaloo until she brought in a better class of thrall and then eat her soul? She was so small he'd probably be hungry an hour later.

Was that a sound? No. He was miles away from Ponyville.

The really tricky part would be putting up a good front for when Twilight Sparkle and her uni-slut Trixie came back to Ponyville. There was no telling when that’d happen, for they were off on some vacation, and even when they were around they spent a lot of time hob-nobbing with the Princesses in Canterlot. It would take careful handling, to get those clever unicorns thralled. Everything had to be just right and he’d also have to be working with other thralls to distract them, and he’d absolutely have to get them separately, and he had a suspicion that thralling one would make the other more wary. They might be able to communicate via magic. Certainly if they tried to mage-meld, the game would be up. Ideally, he’d thrall one and then keep her in sight of the other, acting normally, while he got ready to pounce the second unicorn.

But he’d need both, because he needed Trixie as lookout while he made thrall Twilight sit on the face of his next victim, distracting her sight, scent and hearing through layers of soft lavender unicorn rump long enough for him to get fangs into the throat of Princess Celestia…

There was a rapping at the door. Snowy Hocks jumped up, flinging little Dursaa out of his lap.

“Who’s there?” he called, fretfully. Steady, he thought. Opportunity, as well as danger, knocks unexpectedly.

“Don’t be frightened!” came the voice. “I’m Numeric Essence. I need to ask for your help with something…”

Secret Agent Sweetie Drops skulked through the darkened bushes. Rather well, she thought: since being caught by Rainbow Dash, she’d left the Portable Disguise home, and concentrated on the sneaking part, and her sneak factor was improving. She’d snuck up to Rarity without detection, and had even remained hidden in bushes while Pinkie Pie and some kids had come through playing a game of some kind. Perhaps not, for Pinkie had been in bad shape, a real mess. Sweetie Drops made a mental note to mention the incident in her next report to Princess Celestia: Pinkie Pie was becoming very unhappy and upset, which didn’t bode well for the town, or even the basic fabric of reality.

She shook off the passing frown and fretfulness, because Pinkie Pie wasn’t here, and she had a job to do. Sweetie Drops was nothing if not faithful, and in her judgement as a secret agent Pinkie was a constant disruptive factor but not hostile. A hidden changeling operating inside Ponyville, on the other hand: that was dangerous.

She wondered for the hundredth time what it disguised itself as, and whether it had to be a pony foal to match its mass. And, for the two hundredth time, she wondered why it had come to peek at her just when she was emerging from her secret agent basement. Was it spying on her as much as she was spying on it? Why hadn’t it been disguised?

These were big questions for a little pony (and, furthermore, an intrinsically sweet and kind little pony) to tackle, so Sweetie Drops shrugged and dismissed them again. She would report to Princess Celestia when she had more information, and the Princess would know what to do. That was what Princesses were for.

She continued to practice what she was for, and snuck further into the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.

Sweetie Drops was working from a theory she’d had. When she’d seen the changeling child, the shock had been almost too great to register clues. The operative word there was ‘almost’. Though she’d been staring into its uncanny eyes, part of her peripheral vision had been picking up a glint of color, that off-purple-brown also known as ‘puce’, lower to the ground. When it fled, she thought the clue was lost, but there was the tiniest scrap of peculiar material. At first, Sweetie Drops thought it was some gross changeling bodily secretion, but then she remembered where she’d seen that color before. There was a kind of mushroom that grew only at certain spots in the Everfree Forest. The changeling had brushed up against one such mushroom, and a bit of mushroom had scraped off into one of the holes on its legs, and that’s what she had seen in her peripheral vision.

And so, Sweetie Drops had been staking out that area. To make things more difficult, there were several spots where these mushrooms grew, and she had limited time to stake out the Everfree Forest in the first place: Mayor Mare had been worrying about her, fretting when she came home late, and Sweetie Drops struggled to get in her Secret Agent time and had to spy on each spot in turn, looking for other clues.

They stubbornly refused to show themselves, but Secret Agent Sweetie Drops was a stubborn mare herself, and didn’t give up easily. Not when justice and the safety of Ponyville was at stake. So she’d taken to slipping out in the middle of the night just to get her sneak on, and searching the Everfree by moonlight. Her eyes were very good, but they had to be. It stretched her secret agent training to the limits, and yet she made some progress.

Nose to the ground, she crept along, in uncanny silence. It was slow going, but every hoof had to be placed with care for good sneaking, and her intent study of the forest floor also helped her quiet progress. She avoided stepping on sticks or leaves, but she wasn’t searching mainly for those things. She searched for hoofprints.

Not just any hoofprints, either. Sweetie Drops had another theory. She’d seen certain marks in the forest that might be another clue. They resembled the hoofprints of a pony child, but there was one curious thing about them: there was a sharply defined edge to the hoof, a crispness to the toe as it transitioned to the outer wall, as if a farrier had carved it to a razor’s edge.

And no pony could maintain such a hoof for long while trotting over dirt and cobble and gravel and things… but the chitinous unnatural hoof of a changeling might well stay sharp and crisp despite the natural wear of the ground. She hadn’t time to study the young changeling’s hooves when it stared at her, for she could only look into its eyes in horror.

Still, here and there across the Everfree, she’d seen the tracks of that subtly different hoof and she’d studied the indentations in the earth, and had become sure of what she’d seen. Somewhere out there was a creature like a small pony that had a hoof with sharp, chiseled edges, and Sweetie Drops was ready to bet that it matched her quarry.

As she began to make her way around an enormous tree, she heard a curious noise just in front of her, and she froze instantly, not even taking a breath. It was an odd little dry chitinous noise… not unlike the rustle of an insectile wing against a carapace.

She was silent, utterly silent. There was another rustle. Sweetie Drops was no fool. Not for her, a random heedless pouncing. She didn’t even have her Portable Disguise on! Instead, just as silently, she began to back away around the tree. She’d lull it into a sense of security, and trail it back to its lair.

As she was slinking backwards without a sound, her full attention extended out before her and around the expanse of stolid treetrunk toward her lurking quarry… Sweetie Drops bonked her butt into the changeling child’s butt, for it had attempted to do the exact same thing in hopes of taking HER by surprise. And they’d met in the moonlit dark, each sneaking backwards around the same tree.

The changeling let out a screech and Sweetie Drops squealed ‘EEEE!’ as they both whirled to look at each other, shocked. Quick as a wink, the changeling spread its iridescent wings and made to leap into the air and flee her presence.

But the thing about Secret Agents, especially ones named Sweetie Drops, is that they can be quicker than a wink when it really, really counts.

Sweetie leapt and tackled the creature to the ground, pinning it with forehooves against its wing shanks, and arching her neck way back in case it bit at her vulnerable throat, and she held it down as it struggled.

“I am Secret Agent Sweetie Drops, Celestial Security,” she declared, “and you are under arrest! Don’t try to get away or it will be the worse for you!”

She bared her teeth, bracing herself for a fierce attack and wondering how she was going to get a savage changeling back to Ponyville. Where would you even put it? Obviously Rarity’s pleasure dungeon, she thought dismissively, but how do you get it there without anypony seeing it? And how do you disguise lacerations of the forelegs and pretend nothing’s happened?

Sweetie Drops was gritting her teeth and trying not to look at the carnage so hard, that it took her a moment to notice the total lack of carnage. She opened one eye, confused, and looked down at her prisoner.

The little changeling gazed up at her with a quivering lip that pouted up against the scary fangs, its luminous pale-blue eyes glistening…

“…bwaaaaaaahhh!”

Sweetie Drops stared down, her ears splayed back in a look of disconcerted amazement, as the terrible monster bawled like a baby.

“No, really,” she said, more gently. “I really am a secret agent and you really are under arrest. Don’t cry, the Princess is merciful and ponies aren’t so angry. I mean, unless you’ve been eating them. Have you been eating up ponies?”

The creature shook its head frantically, tears flying this way and that.

“Well, good!” said Sweetie Drops encouragingly. “See? It’s not so bad. Being under arrest, I mean. It’s a nice arrest, with ponies! Well, one pony, anyway: me, Secret Agent Sweetie Drops! I’m a very good secret agent, too! We’re not going to hurt you, we just have to ask you some questions.” She blinked. “Wait. Before I say that, I can’t help but notice I’m pinning you down by standing on your wings. Does that hurt?”

The little changeling nodded desperately, its lip quivering against the little fangs.

Sweetie Drops gasped. “Oh no! I’m sorry, I was just capturing you! I’ll stop it right a… now wait a second,” she said, catching herself. There were times she had to resist being her kindly Sweetie Drops self, and be a Secret Agent instead. She frowned at the changeling. “Do you promise that if I let your wings go, you’ll be good? I captured you fair and square and you’re under arrest. That means you have to do as I say, or you get thrown in pony jail!”

The changeling nodded again, its weird glowing eyes pleading with her for mercy.

Sweetie Drops sighed in relief. “Yay! Now remember, you promised.”

She shifted her weight back, and released the changeling’s wings, with part of her well trained secret-agent mind suggesting that she was doing a silly, neigh, a very silly thing. But innate nature was tough to resist, and before she knew it she was standing over the little creature, gazing into its eyes and saying, “There, is that better?”

The little changeling responded by not biting her nearest leg off, followed by not even slightly tearing out her throat, and topped it off with an amazing performance of not running away.

Instead, it pouted, trying to rub its wing bases with one chitinous, hole-pocked hoof.

“Awww!” cried Sweetie Drops, and reached out. The changeling made an odd trilling noise and shut its eyes as she rubbed the hurt wings with a gentle hoof. “Poor little thing!” she cooed. “I… now wait a minute! Are you doing that to try and eat love from me?”

The glowing blue eyes flew wide, guiltily, and then the little creature pouted fiercely and shook its head, crouching a little lower like a scolded foal.

“Good,” said Sweetie Drops. “Unless you’re going to starve or something—that probably doesn’t count and we can’t blame you for that. You don’t look that skinny for a changeling, though. I’m almost sure you eating love is bad behavior for a prisoner. Maybe not for a baby prisoner? Oh well. Princess Celestia will know what to do.”

The little changeling gulped, but still didn’t try to flee. It seemed to consider itself a prisoner too, and seemed resigned to its fate. It sighed a gentle sigh as Sweetie Drops carefully rubbed its little wings again, to be sure it hadn’t taken any lasting harm.

“Thank you for being a good prisoner,” Sweetie Drops informed it. “I’m sure that will help when the Princess decides what to do with you.”

The little changeling nodded sadly, and looked up to her, awaiting further instructions.

“We’ll start by questioning you,” said Sweetie Drops. “Can you talk? Nothing difficult or scary, we just have to know if there are any other changelings in Ponyville to catch.”

“…gack!” said the little changeling. Its voice was noticeably raspy, but still unmistakably cute and foalish.

Sweetie Drops bounced excitedly. “Gak, you say? So you can talk! I need names and cutie marks and the outline of your whole organization! This could be an amazing breakthrough, the Princess will be so proud! Good baby, good changeling! Sooo… what’s the pony name of this Gak you speak of?”

The changeling clamped its mouth tightly shut, and gave her a dirty look.

Sweetie Drops frowned. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re my prisoner, it’s only fair that I get to ask you questions. You don’t like those questions, huh? Maybe there’s some pony in Ponyville that’s a little weird, different from other ponies, because he or she IS different from other ponies because he’s a changeling too! Or she. Is that why you’re protecting them?”

The little changeling’s lip was quivering again, but it still refused to speak.

“Gak, huh?” said Sweetie Drops. “Oh well, no accounting for stupid names. Maybe it sounds nicer if you’re a changeling. I warn you, you’re under arrest, and it would be ever so much nicer if you’d just answer my questions! We’re not going to hurt your confederate, I promise. So who is it? Should we be looking for a pony who’s really unimportant, like the flower ponies? Or a ordinary sort of pony like Caramel? Or is it a really strong dependable pony… like Applejack? Oh goodness, Rainbow Dash would be so upset. Or… is it Pinkie Pie you’re trying to protect? Pinkie Pie, who’s always been a bit strange?”

No expression crossed the face of the little changeling. It looked away, studying the treetops as if they were truly fascinating.

Sweetie Drops stared fiercely at her little prisoner, who ignored her.

“A hard case, huh?” she said, and it crouched a bit lower in alarm, but Sweetie Drops was already thinking beyond the remark. She had no backup, out here. It would be a while before she could turn to Princess Celestia for aid, and for the time being she had a recalcitrant but nonviolent changeling prisoner who wouldn’t talk but seemed otherwise compliant. What to do?

Firstly, Princess Celestia would never be happy with her for terrorizing the little creature. She felt pretty sure the Princess wouldn’t be cross about her pinning it down by its wings, but now that it was cooperating she couldn’t justify bullying it, even to get information. It just wasn’t a ponylike thing to do… or at least, it wasn’t a Princess Celestia thing to do, which worked out the same if you lived in Ponyville. Being a meanie was out. She had no wish to be that way anyhow.

Thinking harder, Sweetie Drops hit upon bribery. Not with money, no, but the Princess always did say that she, Sweetie Drops, was a wonderfully loving and sweet pony. That was most of the challenge with living as ‘Bon Bon’; concealing her true loving nature. Well… why not use that on the prisoner? Surely her Sweetie Drops nature meant her love was like irresistible candy, more delicious than anypony’s! She squinted at the little changeling. It definitely wasn’t a starving baby changeling. Something was feeding it, or it was feeding on something. Pinkie Pie, maybe? That might explain both a chubby changeling and Pinkie’s recent downturn. She frowned at her prisoner, trying to work out its secret.

Sensing her change in mood, it peered up at her with extra pout and a bit of lipquiver and the big glisteny eyes, plainly frightened.

Sweetie Drops put her plan into action.

“Awww!” she cooed. “Don’t be that way, Agent Sweetie was just thinking about something. Don’t worry. It’s time to feed the prisoner! Won’t that be nice? We’ll give you some extra yummy love until you feel all better, and then we can talk about things once we’re friends… wait, what? Oh sweet Celestia, now what?”

The little changeling was shaking its head with great determination.

“Oh come on,” protested Sweetie Drops, “what’s the matter with that? We’re just feeding the prisoner. You’re supposed to eat love, that’s what you do! What, do you think I’m going to run out? Don’t be silly! Now come on. What cute eyes you’ve got, and you’re being so nice and cooperative, and such pretty wings. Here comes the choo choo train! Mmmmm… mm?”

The changeling had crossed its little forelegs. It turned up its nose, looked away, pouted, and in every way put across the idea of ‘I’m not hungry, and even if I was I wouldn’t eat from YOU’ without using words.

“Hmmm,” said Sweetie Drops.

She studied her prisoner. It looked sad, but determined. Almost noble? For whatever reason, she now had a little changeling child (assuming they didn’t just come in all sizes) on a hunger strike.

“It surely can’t be right to hurt you,” said Sweetie Drops. “Princess Celestia would never want that. And you’re being super nice.”

The changeling seemed to shrink in upon itself at the mention of hurting, but still kept silent and didn’t try to leave.

“We have to check things out,” said Sweetie Drops apologetically, “because changelings can be evil! You know, hurting ponies, pretending to be ponies in order to eat love, taking over countries. You do understand that? We’re allowed to be concerned about it, honey, we’re just taking care of ourselves!”

The little changeling reached, then exceeded, maximum overpout.

“You won’t talk,” mused Sweetie Drops. “You won’t eat. But other than that you’re cooperating. Are you sure you have a confederate named Gak? Or maybe I’m not being fair and that was just a changeling baby noise?”

The little changeling did not respond in any way, and had no more pout to give for its country.

“You’re not evil,” said Sweetie Drops.

Lipquiver.

“If you’re evil, then Celestia’s a donkey,” said Sweetie Drops. “I swear she’ll agree with me as soon as she sees you. What are you doing that’s evil, anyway? Even if you’re eating pony love, I bet we can find a better way for you to do it, and you’re just a baby. You’re NOT evil, whatever you are.”

The little changeling peered up at her, uncertainly.

“You’re still under arrest. Can you walk?” said Sweetie Drops, looking hectically around for possible observers.

The changeling blinked.

“We’re going to a special place,” said Sweetie Drops. “You’ll see. Thank goodness it’s deep in the middle of the night, I’m not sure how I’m going to get you through Ponyville. It helps that you’re so dark. Can you make your eyes not glow?”

The changeling pouted again, and obediently narrrowed its eyes to slits.

“Okay, creepy,” said Sweetie Drops, “just saying…”

The luminous blue orbs flew open again, then filled with tears.

“No no! It’s okay!” soothed Sweetie Drops. “Try it again. I’m sorry! That was just right. Or you could close your eyes completely, and I’ll guide you by that little, uh, fin on your head?”

The changeling sniffled, and the next thing Sweetie knew, it had done exactly that. Its eyes were shut tight, and it stood and inclined its little head toward her, waiting to be dragged about by the headfin… or to stumble blindly in whatever direction she liked, completely trusting her guidance.

Sweetie Drops took a deep breath.

“I’m gonna get you home safe, little changeling child,” she vowed, “and by that I mean: we’re going to my house. We’re going to sneak past my marefriend before she wakes up, she mustn’t see you. We’re going to go down into my secret agent special basement, which is the coolest place ever, you’ll love it…”

She gave the little creature a hug, and shook it gently.

“And once I have you down there,” she said, “I swear that no pony is going to hurt you, no matter who you’ve been snacking on. I’m going to call in Princess Celestia, and we’re going to figure out some way I can keep you. It won’t be the first secret I keep, I promise you that.”

The luminous eyes opened, and looked up at her questioningly.

“Trust me, it won’t be hard to feed you,” said Sweetie Drops, with a playful nudge. She gulped. “The part that worries me is, how I’m gonna hide you, and how we’re gonna get you safely into my basement without anypony discovering what I’ve done…”

Snowy Hocks stared warily at Numeric Essence, his mouth tightly shut.

She stood in the doorway. “May I come in? I fear this door is in some disrepair. I have a more important thing to talk about, though…”

“Mm,” said Snowy. He gulped. He, too, had an important thing to try, and the time had suddenly come. It was going to be crucial to learn whether he could exert mild hypnosis without it being noticed.

This was the perfect test case, though it was tougher than he’d have liked. This pony, Numeric Essence, was a fearsomely clever winged unicorn, who’d nearly turned into an alicorn through sheer unicorn cleverness. If he could fool her, he could fool anypony.

The task was simple: don’t let her see the fangs, and talk normally.

Snowy stepped back a pace, but not too far. He glanced quickly at the little zebragasus foal, but the kid was still dazed from the more powerful Stare he’d applied. He looked back at Numeric Essence, bracing himself.

“Fine,” he said, while his mind thrummed ‘DON’T SEE THE FANGS’ at her, and he waited, waited to see if he’d have to kill her then and there. She couldn’t get away and tell anypony about him, so it was success or death. Or, for him, success AND death, both at once.

Numeric Essence frowned for a moment, as if she’d forgotten something… and then stepped into his makeshift lair, trustingly.

Snowy smiled so hard his face hurt. Things were going to plan.

“Thank you,” said Essence. “I must ask a favor. Or, er, not a favor exactly… it’s to help you. Well, not specifically you. But if this works…”

“What’s the matter, Numeric Essence?” asked Snowy, prudently avoiding words that’d show his fangs again. “Not me?”

Essence brightened. “Well, that depends on how you frame things. Contextualizing things is so important! That’s really the problem I faced with the townsponies. If they could just understand that there needs to be a first earth pony before I can consider the spell properly tested… oh, did I explain that? I think you fled before my formal proposal.”

"What proposal?"

"To enchant every pony in Ponyville with a special spell, a beacon spell! Oh, I'm no good at explaining this, but I must try. I'm almost sure it won't kill an earth pony immediately upon casting, but there has to be an earth pony test subject before I can be sure of that. It's for a good purpose. Did I mention the good purpose?"

Snowy had a pretty good idea of her purpose, had no idea how her beacon spell would work if its first trial was on an actual vampire, and had no intention of finding out. “No way! A spell? No spells!”

Essence’s ears were back in dismay. “Oh, please! It’s a statistical matter. I understand you can’t picture this beacon spell as helping you, because there’s the danger of a first casting on a previously untested type of pony, and then even if it works you can’t benefit from it because it only activates if the evil monster kills you. It’s possible that the rocks exemption, the ‘rocks fall and everypony dies’ exemption is making it more dangerous but I really don’t think it is. They were very clear in their brief about the spell parameters they needed! There hasn’t been any problem before, so please, will you be my first earth pony target?”

“What’s a rocks exemption?” asked Snowy, still directing a steady stream of low-level ‘NO FANGS HERE’ thought into her mind as best he could.

“That’s not important,” protested Numeric Essence, “it’s not something I can redesign for now, that would involve restructuring all the networks of forces! It’s more about avoiding false positives than anything else. But don’t you see? This spell might not seem like it can protect you, but if you serve as my very first test subject, I can get other earth ponies to undergo the procedure! With you as an example, maybe I could persuade all the earth ponies to carry this spell, and if that becomes known we could have something akin to herd immunity! Or what you might call ‘detente’, a state where the evil monster knows the chances of sounding the alarm are very high. Does that make sense? Please say it does!”

Snowy shook his head, glowering. “Nope! No spells here!”

Essence tried once more to convince him. “I understand it’s frightening to you earth ponies. But it’s so very important! If I can convince you and then other earth ponies to carry this spell then all ponydom might be protected by this magic alarm from predation by evil monsters! Again, if they know a beacon will go off, they won’t feel safe attacking. It’s much easier to convince unicorns of this sort of thing as we are at home with magic…”

“Which ones?” demanded Snowy, staring hard at her, tight-lipped.

“I’m sorry?” said Essence.

“Which unicorns did you do?” repeated Snowy, who didn’t feel at all safe at the prospect of random ponies carrying a beacon spell that would betray his attacks.

Numeric Essence blinked. “Well, that’s the frustrating part because I would have to say none of them. It’s a categorization error, as I’ve been trying to explain…”

“Pegasi,” demanded Snowy, stepping closer. “How many?”

Essence took a step back, and bit her lip. “Well, none. There’s a reason I’m targeting earth ponies first, Snowy. I’ve just got to get your cooperation, because you can serve as an example to others. Earth ponies in Ponyville outnumber the other types so I can make more headway when I start by doing the earth ponies, which is why…”

Snowy Hocks stamped the rickety floor, with a loud bang of his hoof against the floorboards. “How many? How many earth ponies have you done, and which ones?”

Numeric Essence’s gaze pleaded with him. “You’ll be the first, Snowy Hocks. Please. For the sake of ponykind and the protection of Ponyville.”

He dropped his head, limp with relief. “Heh! Heh. I’ll be th’ first, she says. Heh!”

“So can I…”

“NO!” barked Snowy, and she froze.

“I’m sorry,” said Essence carefully. Something felt wrong, but she couldn’t pin it down. She’d have it in a moment, she thought. “I didn’t mean to offend you. All I can do is ask, and I’ll remind you again of the concept of herd immunity: though it doesn’t map perfectly to this situation, nevertheless I see a parallel. One earth pony with this spell doesn’t help himself. But a whole Ponyville entirely filled with earth ponies and pegasi and unicorns all of whom carry the beacon spell, surely you must see how different that would be. No evil monster could survive in that environment, and we need a volunteer to show the earth ponies it’s safe to use on them, and please can that be you?”

She trembled with yearning and a strange, uncanny fear, as Snowy Hocks glowered at the ground.

Except… he was laughing, shaking his head, still looking down at his own hooves.

“You’ll never find an earth pony to go along with that pointy-head unicorn crap,” he stated.

Essence scuffed the floor with a forehoof. “On the contrary,” she said, “the emergency is great and I think I’ll eventually persuade one and hoped it would be you…”

“No, you don’t understand,“ he said, and his head snapped up, and suddenly she found herself unable to look away from the burning, hypnotic eyes.

He smiled, and fangs glinted. Oh, she thought, and could not move. Another category error.

“I mean that literally,” said Snowy Hocks, or what had been Snowy Hocks. “You’ll never find an earth pony for the brief rest of your life. And you’ve not found one now, for I am no longer an earth pony. Goodbye, Numeric Essence.”

He walked sedately over to her, staring deep into her eyes and compelling her to be still and unresisting, and that creepy mouth opened again, the fangs glinting in the weak light of his crappy fire.

“Thank you for telling me you’ve completely failed. I appreciate that. You’re right, it would put a real damper on my plans if I had to run the risk of biting some stupid enchanted pony. I’ll bet it wouldn’t have triggered if I made everypony thralls… or maybe it would have, and that would’ve been funny. Vampire Rainbow Dash, zooming around with a big beacon stuck to her, and then getting burned alive. Ha! But some ponies make good thralls and some… well, a vampire’s gotta eat.”

She couldn’t move, or speak, as he came closer and closer, staring right into her eyes.

“Did you think it was going to work?” said Snowy. “I wonder if I’m going to become even smarter, from eating the soul of such an intelligent unicorn. I’m quite looking forward to that. You’re probably the smartest unicorn in Ponyville, aren’t you?”

With an enormous effort, Numeric Essence struggled to respond, and Snowy’s vampire senses picked up on her desperate will.

“Famous last words?” he suggested, playfully… and then, though she still couldn’t move or even twitch a feather on her incongruous unicorn wings, she could speak.

She gulped.

“The definition of…”

“Oh, SHUT up!” said Snowy, and bit deeply into her throat, draining volition, blood, and soul with ravenous gluttony.

Little Dursaa watched dully, still hypnotized, at the tableau, the soft gulping noises, the grinding of Essence’s teeth as she felt her life-force brutally ripped out of her.

It wasn’t taking very long, but it was a purely unforeseen agony. Physical pain was one thing, mental suffering held its own terrors for Numeric Essence, but this was somehow worse. It felt like evisceration but of the spirit—evisceration of hope. There was a horrible finality to it, a sensation like one’s flesh was converting to rot or dust. No new force came in to animate the standing corpse that was more and more of Numeric Essence. She balanced on pillars of meat, held up by the willpower of her devourer, and as he drained her of everything she was, he played one final grisly trick.

Snowy Hocks released Essence’s lungs and throat and voice, the better to hear her reaction as he devoured the lifeforce of her treasured brain and unicorn horn. And for fun he released her largely useless wings that had never developed enough to grant her flight away from her tormentor.

The wings thrashed, bristled… the lungs heaved in a great panicky breath… and Numeric Essence screamed. She screamed a wild, whinnying cry of horror as the vampire drained the life and spirit from her horn and then her mind, a speck of awareness trapped inside a rapidly shrivelling pony brain, life being replaced by necrosis and void. And Snowy Hocks savored the strength and intelligence flooding into him, savored it so much that he couldn’t torture the winged unicorn any longer, and his fangs and dark magic gulped down the last shreds of Numeric Essence’s mind even as her wings flailed helplessly.

Snowy Hocks panted, his fangs still sunk deeply into her throat as she stood a brainless hulk, swaying gently on pure reflex action and the residual life of her body… and then he exerted his vampireness and took all the rest of her from lungs to wings to guts to hooves. And Numeric Essence, neither an earth pony nor a unicorn nor a pegasus since her magic had begun to strive for greatness… died.

And, as she did, a radiant beam of light burst from her heart skyward, showing their location to everyone in Ponyville.

She’d bravely cast it on herself first of all, and had remained unharmed despite the dangerousness of the spell, but of course a sample size of one was almost useless…

Almost.

Snowy’s face fell. Little Dursaa peered dully up at him, as the corpse of Numeric Essence crumpled to the floor.

“Bitch,” said Snowy, knowing full well he could have asked her. She’d been about to fucking tell him. ‘Definition’, indeed.

He wouldn’t run yet. They’d be arriving at staggered intervals depending on how quick they were, and that was another opportunity. Time to feed again, and not let anything get away alive that could identify him. The plan could still be salvaged. It was just moving faster than anticipated. Time to pick off some more ponies, one by one. Each in their own special ways… and some ways would have to be very special indeed.

One way even involved the zebragasus colt. Snowy gathered his little hostage to him with a glance. It was a hell of a gamble, but then wasn’t everything?

Tensely, the newly empowered Snowy Hocks waited. He was pretty sure which pony in Ponyville was quickest, and it wasn’t a pony with wings.

Not that far away, two pony faces turned toward the shaft of sparkling illumination.

“That’s it! That’s the beacon! Numeric Essence did it!” cried Northern Spy, thrilled.

“Good,” said Pinkie. “I thought she might. And I thought this day might come, too.” She sighed one last sigh, carefully, not wanting to lose her best weapons to grief.

“Now, now, we gotta go now, hurry!” screamed Northern Spy, jumping up and down.

“In a moment!” cautioned Pinkie Pie, and Spy hesitated, and Pinkie pounced on that little box she’d made.

Her hoof slammed down on the red button labelled ‘This Way To The Egress’, and the whole world shuddered… and then, while the beacon still lit up the pre-dawn sky, Northern Spy couldn’t move one inch toward it no matter how hard she tried. She could only move across and away. She stared, betrayed, at Puzzle Plot and that eerie little smug smile, at the only pony in Ponyville who was able to walk towards the danger. Her… and one other. And no intruders, not even superheroes. Pinkie’s powers had arranged for that, and Spy had helped her do it, only to be outwitted in the end.

Then, Pinkie Pie began to walk calmly off to meet her doom, while the Green Streak raged behind her.

A Closer Walk

“Whoa!” squeaked Pinkie. “Hey, Fluttershy, form up! I think we can take her!”

Hina forced herself a step further, biting her lip, tears leaking from her eyes.

“Are you the monster I seek?” she demanded… but her voice shook dreadfully, as she said it.

“That depends on what you’re up to,” chirped Pinkie, her mane threatening to foof out once more. “Fluttershy here has seen better days, but she’s pretty good at monstrosity, especially in bed…”

“Pinkie,” warned Fluttershy.

“Now me on the other hoof,” continued Pinkie, “I keep having to learn new stuff about being a monster, and some of it is super duper ooper disconcerting! And apparently I’m pretty good at monstrosity too, I just hadda give it up. But if it’s monster ponies you want, I think I can come up with a little more mojo in the tank for ya…”

“Pinkie!” said Fluttershy, poking her with a hoof.

Pinkie Pie continued to stare right at the oncoming Kirin, who continued to struggle forward. “And also, I probably oughta say that if you FUCKING DARE TO HURT HER you’re not gonna BELIEVE the monstrosity you’re gonna…”

“PINKIE!” yelled Fluttershy, her ears back in alarm.

Pinkie Pie blinked, and turned to her beloved. “What?”

“Look at her, just look at her,” said Fluttershy. “She’s terrified!”

Pinkie blinked again, startled, and looked back at the slow-motion Kirin, trying to see past the glare of that incandescent horn. She squinted, studied eyes and trembling lower lip, saw the tears and the terrible strain. Pinkie gulped.

“Whoa,” she said. “What’s this about, Kiri-butt?”

Hina only whimpered, and continued doggedly to force herself forward.

“Is this something you did, Pinkie Pie? She’s stuck, she can barely move,” said Fluttershy.

“She’s not s’posed to be able to move at ALL!”

“Hmph!” said Fluttershy disapprovingly, and got up.

“Hey, be careful, Fluttershy! She’s some kind of weird magic thing full of attitude and all thinking she knows best…”

Fluttershy turned. “And we’ve seen enough of that, haven’t we?” she scolded. “Takes one to know one!” With a flounce of her feeble and thinning tail, she walked over to the struggling Kirin, whose eyes were screwed shut in desperate effort.

Hina’s eyes flew open. What appeared to be an elderly yellow granny-goat, with a pink mane and little fangs, was booping her gently on the nose with a gaunt pony hoof.

“Excuse me,” said Fluttershy, “but you should think about things and not act hastily, please. And definitely not kill or hurt anything, because we’ve sort of fixed it ourselves. Okay?”

Hina stared, astonished.

Fluttershy added, “And I’m not sure what’s blocking you, but please stop struggling so hard. You’ll hurt yourself with all that straining!”

Hina’s jaw dropped, though she did stop struggling.

Fluttershy pouted, her lower lip squishing against the cute little fangs. “Well… it’s true!”

Hina gulped. She took a deep breath, and then she said, “What are you?”

Fluttershy smiled, and her smile lit the room. “That’s a much nicer question! Thank you, that’s a good way to not act hastily. I’m Fluttershy. I’m a nice vampire. And also very weak now. But we killed the evil thing—don’t worry, we’re safe. There’s no danger anymore, other than maybe from you.”

Hina’s hocks were trembling. Her wide eyes panned over to Pinkie. “What are you?”

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “She’s Pinkie Pie. It’s rather complicated to explain…”

“HI!” said Pinkie loudly, making Hina jump. Her mane and tail floofed out in apparent satisfaction at the harmless joke. She smirked at the hapless Kirin, reached into her mane and pulled out a little box with a red button labelled “This Way To The Egress”, which she squinted at. “Now, before you go any further, do you mind answering a few important questions about how you’re able to resist a perfectly good plot device? Nothing but me, Fluttershy, and the murderer which I thought was also gonna be Fluttershy, can avoid the plot device! You’re clearly moving forward rather than being totally stuck. I think that counts as speeding! If there are any more violations such as a left-hoofed turn into a scaly thing without signalling, or reckless endangerment of vamponies, you could be fined…”

“Pinkie!” interrupted Fluttershy. She trotted over, and gave the manic earth pony a hug. “Breathe, Pinkie. Calm down. That’s a good girl. You don’t have to be all crazy and weird now.”

“But it helps!” chirped Pinkie, one eye twitching.

“Shhh! Do it my way. Okay, honey?” entreated Fluttershy.

Pinkie drooped. She looked into Fluttershy’s eyes, still so warm and forgiving in the little old vampony face. There was no power left in there for a Stare, but it seemed she didn’t need one.

“Okay,” said Pinkie Pie. “I was only trying to keep you safe.”

“I am safe,” said Fluttershy. “Thanks to you.” She gave Pinkie a little kiss on the nose.

Hina, unable to approach them, stared in confusion. “You two are such strange creatures. And the stink of evil is so strong in here… yet it does not come from you!”

“Oh,” said Fluttershy, “I’m sorry, I’m afraid that’s our fault. It’s dreadful, isn’t it? That was a pony called Snowy Hocks. He was trying to destroy us and do many other mean things besides, but we beat him. I smelled that before, when us ponies threw the other wicked vampire pony into the bonfire.”

Hina was still looking around. “Oh, no! Over there? At the base of the bright light? Another pony lies there!”

“What, little Dursaa?” asked Fluttershy. Hearing her voice, the tiny zebragasus colt trotted over to inspect Hina.

Pinkie blinked. She stared at little Dursaa, then at her box with the button, then at little Dursaa again. “Hmmmm… interesting.”

“No, the other one!” cried Hina. “Go to help her, please hurry!”

“Oh!” squeaked Fluttershy. “You mean… oh, dear! Oh, Miss Kirin, I’m so sorry. You must be so disappointed in us! I recognize her. That’s Numeric Essence, and I think she must have finally ended up casting her beacon spell on herself! The poor thing! I knew meanie Snowy must have killed somepony to set off that beacon, Rainbow Dash explained how it would activate if the evil monster killed a pony. I’m so sorry, Miss Kirin, I think she must be dead!”

Hina was staring at the sad winged unicorn corpse. Pinkie was staring at little Dursaa, who smiled as he looked back at her. His expression was delight at finally gaining her attention. Her expression was a veiled but burgeoning fascination, as she looked at the only creature in Ponyville who seemed as able to ignore the Plot Device as herself, Fluttershy and Snowy, its unanticipated yet intended target. Even Hina was nearly unable to get closer despite all her Kirin power, and yet there the colt was, unaffected.

“Well, look at you,” breathed Pinkie. “You didn’t get that from Mister Stripey.”

Little Dursaa smiled wider.

“That charred hulk killed this victim?” said Hina. “What happened to him?”

Fluttershy blushed, and scuffed the floor with a hoof. “But I told you. I’m a vampire. We got in a sort of vampire fight. I thought he was going to destroy me as well, and I wasn’t afraid because what am I if I can’t rescue my friends? But Pinkie was here and she, um, she didn’t like him at all. And so we burned him up, and also sort of exploded him too. I’m sorry, but I feel he was intending to be so mean that there was no other way. He talked about how he ate poor Essence’s soul, and I could see she was dead so it was true, and he was trying very hard to kill me. I wouldn’t have hurt him except for all that.”

Hina gulped. “Eating of the soul. Vampiric murder. And you would not have hurt him? One destroys vampires!”

“Pinkie, stay!” ordered Fluttershy firmly, not even looking. “I mean it, be good!”

“Are you sure, Flutterbutter?” demanded Pinkie.

“Yes, I am,” said Fluttershy, and addressed Hina again. “I told you, if he wasn’t hurting ponies and trying to kill me, of course I wouldn’t have hurt him. That’s just how I am. I know I’m also a vampire, but I’m not like he was. And me and Pinkie killed him while he was trying to kill us, but it’s not only about having a reason or feeling threatened. I felt threatened about things before I ever saw him. I was terrified of you just to hear about you, because I thought you were another big meanie and only wanted to kill me. And sometimes, I felt so bad about myself that it seemed like that should happen… but I had to fight Snowy and we won, and I gave up so much power doing that…”

Fluttershy gulped, as Hina just stared. “Miss Kirin, I’m not afraid of you anymore. There’s very little left of me now. I’ve done something that might be awful and might be wonderful: I gave up almost everything to kill a monster that tried to hurt those I love. I’ll never know if there was a better way to deal with that. I wish there was, but it seems not very likely…”

“Why are you telling me this?” said Hina.

“Because,” said Fluttershy, “the way you came in here, it looked just like all the scary things I most feared about you. I was afraid because I thought creatures like you just came and killed monsters like me. Once, I thought a griffin lady was an evil monster and I jumped on her and beat her up and bit her, and it turned out to be a terrible thing to do… it got fixed up, but I felt even worse! I felt threatened then too.”

“I don’t understand,” said Hina. The little vampony monster seemed to be talking on endlessly, stalling, avoiding something. She kept turning towards Hina, shying away again, talking and talking. Though she said she wasn’t afraid, she was holding something back.

“I didn’t either,” said Fluttershy. “But now I understand a little better, I think. This time I wasn’t mixed up. This time it was a real monster… and we beat him, but it wasn’t about being all proud and happy, it wasn’t about feeling threatened and waiting for the monster to attack. It wasn’t planned out, it didn’t save everypony, it was just about what we had to do when nice didn’t cut it anymore. And I thought the same thing with the griffin lady, but then I was so sure I couldn’t be wrong. And this time…”

“Flutty-nutty,” said Pinkie Pie, “I’m not following any of this. You think you should have let that jerkface go?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No. I’m remembering the way Gilda jumped on that guard pony, and the way Snowy ate Numeric Essence’s soul and was trying to hurt you, and I’m looking at this Kirin who scared me so much… she could still try to hurt me because I’m a vampire, or if I ever meet another Kirin maybe they’ll hurt me. She’s all lit up and she’s scaley like a dragon and I remember how worked up and sure of myself I felt when I was ready to jump on Gilda, and maybe she feels like that right now. And I could feel threatened too, and all this could go on and on, but…”

“Fluttershy,” said Pinkie warningly.

“Shh!” said Fluttershy. “I just need to do one thing.”

She walked right up to the astonished, baffled Kirin.

“If this goes wrong I forgive you in advance,” said Fluttershy. “I understand how you are, and it might not work. But this is how I want to be.”

“FLUTTERSHY!” shrieked Pinkie, but it was too late. Fluttershy had reared up with a flap of her feeble old wings, and hugged the Kirin.

Pinkie dashed over to the pair, with little Dursaa close behind, but couldn’t get closer because the Kirin and vampony had become a sort of star of radiant energy. Hina’s mane flared and roared blindingly, with flames of light that reached right out to Pinkie’s horrified face, without hurting her. She squinted, trying to make out what was happening.

In the midst of the radiance, Fluttershy nuzzled Hina’s cheek with her own, her eyes closed serenely.

Then, the Kirin had backed away, and Fluttershy stood, a little smile on her face. She took a deep breath, though she didn’t need one… and let it out in a quiet little ‘yay!’

Hina’s face was indescribable. “How can such things be? How can a creature like you be full of love?!?”

“I choose to be,” said Fluttershy. “Oh, yay! It worked! I really can be nice deep down inside! I was awful scared but I feel so much better!”

“But how?” wailed Hina. “You really are a vampire, I could feel it plain! Everything I know is wrong!”

Fluttershy tenderly booped her nose again. “No, silly! Maybe some things. Maybe a lot of vampires are big meanies. Gilda wasn’t… well, not much. Little Northern Spy wasn’t, she was just a foal and got excited sometimes. If you’d hurt her, they wouldn’t have been able to cure her.” She winced. “But if we hadn’t burned up Snowy Hocks, he’d have eaten up both me and Pinkie, and I don’t know if you’re strong enough to beat that. I mean, I had a lot of vampire force before, and Pinkie is… special.”

Hina glanced nervously at Pinkie, and got a toothy grin in return. She looked back at Fluttershy, piteously uncertain, her entire face and body wreathed in troutlike scales, evidence of her defensiveness. Yet, apart from Pinkie Pie, there was nothing frightening…

“Pinkie, please blink,” said Fluttershy wearily.

Pinkie glanced embarrassedly at Fluttershy. “Sorry!” She let the grin lower in wattage, and blinked like a normal pony, and griped, “You know me too well, Flutterbutt!”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy to Hina. “She’s only trying to protect me, in her way. But you’re not going to hurt me, are you, Miss Kirin?”

Hina just stared and stared at the little vampony. At first, Fluttershy and Pinkie fretted, as she seemed frozen in tension and dismay: but then, they saw those gleaming scales beginning to recede from Hina’s body. And then they saw the tears.

Hina’s lip quivered like that of a very little Kirin, as she gazed in wonder at Fluttershy and wept at the sheer beauty and rarity of what she saw.

“You are real,” she said.

Fluttershy pouted, her lip sticking out against the little fangs. “That much is true, anyhow. Oh, don’t look at me that way, I mostly just want you not to kill me. I know I haven’t always been extra clear on that part, but now that I’m weak and helpless I feel like I could be really nice from now on, and it would be mean and unkind to hurt me now that I’m harmless…”

“You are beautiful!” added Hina.

“Oh, my,” said Fluttershy. “Um… I’ve already had enough trouble from amorous lesbian ponies, thank you. Is it okay if we’re just friends?”

“Hold me again, please?” said Hina. “I have a precious gift I know I must give to you.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry! I mean… oh, ferrets and griffins! Are you sure? I’m not sure I’m up to it.”

Pinkie was smiling again. “I like her better already! Tell me how good she was, after. I might want to try!”

“Oh, pooh!” said Fluttershy, despairingly. “All right. Please be gentle, Miss Kirin, and if this is how your people make friends, all right then…”

She walked over to the panting, besotted Kirin, reared, and hugged her again.

Hina’s mane flared up insanely, so bright that Pinkie couldn’t look directly at it, but this time there was something more. Hina nuzzled Fluttershy’s cheek right back, and said, “Breathe deeply for me.”

“That’s okay,” said Fluttershy, “I really don’t have to, I’m not an alive pony…”

“Breathe, vampire!” commanded Hina, her eyes closed in Neighponnese concentration.

“Okay, okay! Don’t make it sound like hurty words!” retorted Fluttershy, and she took in a deep breath, her little old face buried in brightly glowing Kirin mane.

Hina gritted her teeth, and her horn flared blindingly.

“Ow!” said Pinkie Pie, squinting. “What was that ab…”

“OH MY!” gasped Fluttershy.

Hina stepped back, her mane dimming from its intense radiance. She panted, and seemed to be wincing, yet she smiled, her lip quivering with strong sentiment.

Fluttershy stood, just barely. She wobbled, gazing at nothing, her mouth hanging open, her eyes unfocussed. “Oh my…” she repeated. “Oh my!”

Pinkie began to smile again. “No way. Me next! Hey, Fluttershy!” she called, but Fluttershy wasn’t answering her.

Still wobbling, almost reeling, Fluttershy began to laugh. Her gentle, joyous laughter rang out, and she looked around at Hina and Pinkie and smiling little Dursaa like they were the most beautiful things ever.

Pinkie blinked. “Wait a minute. I sensed that you were gonna do that! What’s so funny? I never understood why that was. You laughing, I mean. Did it feel that good? I didn’t see her touch you anywhere good…”

“Yes, it’s about good,” said Hina. She winced again, and Fluttershy saw it.

“Oh, you poor thing!” she said. “You shouldn’t have! Here, I’ll hug you again and you take it right back, it was wonderful but I’ll be all right, I promise…”

She approached Hina, but the Kirin shied away this time, crying “Nay, nay, stop! Never shall I begrudge this! Don’t be ungrateful!”

“But there’s grateful,” argued Fluttershy, “and there’s just not right! Hold still, I don’t know how to do this but I insist…”

They both stopped. Pinkie had stamped a hoof, and was glaring at them.

“What’s the big deal? It’s not nice to give stuff if you didn’t bring enough for everypony…”

“You don’t understand,” protested Hina. “That is not appropriate!”

“It wasn’t a sex thing!” insisted Fluttershy.

Pinkie glared harder, and the two cowered back abashedly.

“What did she DO?”

Fluttershy gulped. “Um. You know how my heart is a cold dead thing and the cold just seeps through my whole body and I can never be warm again because I’m dead and don’t have a soul, just vampire-ness? I maybe didn’t tell you about it. I kind of didn’t tell anypony about it because I didn’t want them to worry about things they couldn’t help. It’s so cold, inside.”

Pinkie’s face fell. “Aw… but your heart’s still good, Fluttershy! It’s the most loving heart ever, even if it doesn’t have to beat and, and feels cold inside you, like until forever and ever…”

Just as Pinkie’s eyes began to tear up, as she began to imagine what her beloved Fluttershy had been feeling, she saw the quivery grateful smile that was growing on the little vampony’s face.

“Not anymore,” said Fluttershy, and trotted in place for just a moment, overwhelmed with joy and glee.

Pinkie’s jaw dropped.

“I gave up my soul,” said Hina, wearing the same sort of smile. “Just a tiny piece. Most of it remains. But a spark of Kirin soul… lives within this vampony.”

“It’s so WARM!” squeed Fluttershy, trotting again. Little Dursaa bounded around her, flapping and squeaking delightedly.

“What does it do?” said Pinkie.

“That,” said Hina. “Nothing more.”

Fluttershy composed herself. “I don’t know how to explain it, Pinkie. It’s been so long since I felt anything like it. You didn’t give too much, Miss Kirin? Promise you can spare it if you really mean to give it for good.”

“Call me Hina-rin,” said Hina. “And it is indeed for good. You must have been very cold! It didn’t seem like that much.”

“You winced and made faces and it looked like it hurt,” objected Fluttershy.

Hina sighed, still looking a bit haggard. Her voice became less singsong and formal. “You try tearing off a piece of your own soul with your magic and sticking it in someone else!”

“I would,” retorted Fluttershy. “How is it done? Now that I know it’s possible maybe I can rescue other vampires that way! I’m sure I don’t need all this warm.”

Hina tried to walk to her, but the plot device blocked her more than ever, once her agitation had subsided. Seeing this, Fluttershy trotted over and allowed the Kirin to hug her again.

“You can’t do that,” said Hina gently. “It’s only for you. Because that’s just what you would do… I’m sure you would try, but you are not Kirin, your powers of self-creation are not as vast as those of the Kirin. Love in other ways.”

“Self-creation?” said Fluttershy, puzzled.

Hina blushed, harder and harder, looking away.

“Miss Hina-rin,” said Fluttershy, “why are you able to do that with your soul, and why did you call it self-creation?”

More blushing, but Hina hugged Fluttershy even closer.

Pinkie, frowning, twitched an ear. Her eyes flew wide, and she sat down on her pink rump with a thump, narrowly missing little Dursaa. “Oh, for FUCK’S SAKE!”

“Pinkie?” squeaked Fluttershy, alarmed.

“EVERYPONY ends up impregnating Fluttershy!” lamented Pinkie. “She’s the town garden plot for everypony to seed! Even Kirin can’t resist it!”

And after a look of shock, Hina, Fluttershy and Pinkie all burst into laughter, and Pinkie joined the hug.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “it makes her happy and that’s the best thing. She loves it. I impregnated her first though! This little tyke proves it! Did you know, I did her wing both times? It’s like my job or something!”

Fluttershy snuggled her. “Of course, dear Pinkie.” She turned to Hina. “Really? Is it really true? Am I going to give birth to a Kirin? At least the horn wouldn’t hurt so much. I mean, horn stub. Or do you even have those as foals?”

Hina hugged tighter. “No, no! It doesn’t work that way. I’m sorry, you are misled! Were I with another Kirin, that is how we would do it. Maybe someday I will. I didn’t know if it would work, didn’t know if it would bring peace and joy to you as you deserve. I only sensed your terrible cold and lack of soul, and how brave and good you were in the face of it, and as embarrassing as it was, I had to try. Do not tell! It is very scandalous…”

“Ooooh,” said Pinkie. “You’re a virgin, Kiri-poo?”

Hina was still scarlet with embarrassment, and couldn’t answer. Fluttershy cuffed her earth pony compatriot, and turned to Hina.

“Don’t worry,” she said gently. “I won’t tell. I’m so very honored! I promise I’ll live up to it. Or, well… okay, let me try to put it nicely without fussing about being dead and all. Hina-rin, I will cherish your warmth. It’ll help me stay good, and I will carry it with me wherever I go.” She kissed the Kirin, her eyes glowing with love and gratitude.

“Yes you will,” muttered Hina. She still trembled, emotionally overexposed. “You probably don’t have to keep it a secret. I would need to admit what I had done, another Kirin would recognize it if we… if.”

Fluttershy hugged her tighter. “You will! You will, and I can tell it will mean ever so much to you. It’ll be okay. I just know you’ll meet another Kirin and he’ll love you as much as I do for your generosity and kindness.”

“And for keeping Fluttershy warm forever with Kirin-souly-spooge,” added Pinkie helpfully. She blinked. “Hey. If that’s how it works, does boy Kirin spooge keep you warm inside too?”

Hina blinked, startled. “W-why, as a matter of fact…”

“Pinkie!” chided Fluttershy. “You’ve embarrassed her enough! We need to start dealing with things here, it’s getting light out and ponies will wonder where we are.”

Pinkie was lost in thought. “Or if you got a boy Kirin to jack off into, like, a hot water bottle, would it be like a forever cozy booty warmer? Except if it broke it would be all hot and sticky, ew. Or…”

“Hush, Pinkie,” said Fluttershy. “Let’s try to deal with poor Essence, and bring little Dursaa home.”

Hina, whose blush was subsiding, seemed eager to help. “I think I can move away from this place, just not toward it right now! Can I go find some ponies? Maybe this strange spell will break.”

“Oh, yes,” said Fluttershy. “I think that’s a Pinkie thing. You should go and alert the ponies and I’ll have her turn it off.”

Pinkie blinked, and blinked again, as thoughts derailed her mind. “Go find ponies? Wait, you think you have to go GET help? Watch this, Kiri-poo.”

Pinkie smugly produced the mysterious little box with the button on it, and with a flourish, unpressed the button. It popped back out again, and she counted, “Three, two…”

Smash! A blue streak and a green streak whooshed in and knocked over a wall of the house, which collapsed, letting in the light of dawn to mingle with the brilliant light of the beacon. Rainbow Dash had been first, but mostly because she’d been able to fly over the Everfree Forest and Northern Spy’d gone straight through it, leaving a trail of flying shrubbery and scattered foliage.

“Pinkie! Fluttershy! Hina! We’re here!” cried Dash. “What should we… wait, why are you smiling? What the heck happened to YOU? Why’s the Kirin blushing?”

“Um,” said Fluttershy, scuffing her hoof on the floor. Hina re-blushed.

“You had a KIRIN ORGY and didn’t invite me?” accused Rainbow Dash. “And it does that to you?! And I thought she didn’t like mares!”

“Mom!” called Northern Spy, nearing the beacon. Hearing her tone, Dash forgot about Kirin orgies and inexplicably old but happy vamponies.

“Oh gosh. That’s Numeric Essence! She did it, this is the beacon! And that’s…”

“Snowy Hocks,” confirmed Fluttershy. “What’s left of him.”

“He was the big baddie!” added Pinkie. “But we got him!” She sagged, watching Northern Spy. “But yeah, it was too late for Numeric Essence. That’s how we knew he was so bad.”

Thundering hooves of all sizes approached, and into the collapsing house galloped Applejack and Apple Bloom. Behind them followed Oakback, and then Big Macintosh.

“What’s the b… aw, horseapples,” said Applejack helplessly, watching Spy and Dash trying to lift Numeric Essence. “Ah wondered who she talked into it.”

More galloping hooves approached. Little Dursaa looked up sharply, and squeed. As Zecora and Dursaa appeared, he gave a flying leap and met them halfway with a resounding “DA!”.

“We came as fast as we could run,” panted Zecora. “What is the crime that has been d…” The words left her. She’d seen Fluttershy.

Fluttershy pouted. “I know what it looks like, but I promise I’m okay. In fact I’m better than ever. I, um… sort of burned up nearly all of my vampire nature fighting Snowy Hocks. That’s him over there, he almost got us but me and Pinkie destroyed him.”

“Ya don’t say,” said Applejack, and took off her hat.

“I’m much weaker now but I like it,” said Fluttershy. “It feels good.” She darted a glance at Hina, but didn’t explain further. “Anyway, this is the real me after the fight. I think Zecora can probably alter the mane and tail extensions so I’ll still look like the pegasus Fluttershy everypony knows, okay?”

Zecora gulped, and her brow furrowed in concentration. “It seems to be a minor change… though this condition’s very strange.”

Fluttershy frowned. “I told you, this is just how I am after all that vampire power’s taken away. If I was a mortal pony I’d have ended up looking like this eventually, I’ll have you know. I’ve been through this with Pinkie Pie, are you really going to turn up your nose at me and need me to wear a disguise?”

“Folks in Ponyville might need a lil’ adjusting…” began Apple Bloom.

“Sh,” suggested Applejack, gently. “She din’t mean you.”

Zecora glanced back and forth between Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, her ears back. Her countenance showed her conflict: though she loved Fluttershy, it seemed she also loved curvy mare pussy: she craved round flank and could not lie.

Dursaa drank in the sight of Fluttershy, as if she hadn’t changed at all.

“Do you still love me?” challenged Fluttershy.

Zecora dropped her gaze. “Of course, dear horse.” She pouted, and shot another glance at Pinkie.

“Good,” said Fluttershy.

“That’s right,” added Pinkie defiantly, “cos if you don’t…” She trailed off. As Dursaa and Zecora went to hug Fluttershy, it was plain to see they loved her as much as she did. Zecora did dart another glance at her, an oddly sulky and grumpy look that set off Pinkie’s gay-dar with uncommon ferocity, but then turned to snuggle her newly geriatric vampony with real tenderness. And through a layer of other zebra, for Dursaa hadn’t hesitated and he was wrapping Fluttershy in a fervent embrace.

“Huh,” said Pinkie to herself. Then, she eeped, for little Dursaa had scampered over and was snuggling her. She regarded him, her ears quirked to the sides, and she said, “Isn’t there a hug you need to be part of, kiddo?”

He didn’t let go.

“Oh size and shape changing mad pink horse,” called Zecora, “you too can join this hug, of course…”

“Beat ‘cha to it,” replied Pinkie, without any real malice. “And that’s not very good rhyming but I guess you’re kind of distracted, huh?” She looked back at little Dursaa. “Go on, your family awaits.”

Little Dursaa snuggled tighter.

Pinkie softened. She hugged him. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to come back. I guess you know who I am, after all.”

Little Dursaa screwed up his face in concentration.

“Pie!” he chirped.

“Told you,” said Fluttershy and, oddly, Zecora—as Pinkie cuddled her prodigal foal, herself without words.

“We gotta get Essie out of here,” said Apple Bloom. “I reckon we kin leave them pieces of Snowy. Damn, it stinks.”

“What if I carry her?” said Applejack.

“You and Rainbow,” said Apple Bloom. “No, better: Oakback and Big Macintosh. Come on, you big lugs! She ain’t gonna bite you, pore thing.”

Dash looked relieved, ruffling her wings. She’d been fussing over Essence’s body, unable to carry the winged unicorn in her forelegs but not wanting her draped over those cerulean wings.

“Can somepony carry me?” asked Fluttershy. “I don’t think I can run anymore and I might get tired, because I’m so weak.”

She blinked at the assembled gazes. “What?”

“You’re smiling,” pointed out Applejack.

Fluttershy smiled even more beatifically. “I’m harmless.”

Pinkie rolled her eyes fondly. “Just what you always wanted, to be weak and helpless. Come on, Flodgercodger, let’s get you home. Dursaa will carry you.”

“Come on, Oakback, Big Macintosh,” ordered Apple Bloom. “Press together, that’s the way. This here’s a hero pony, walk slowly. Carry her to the east field.”

“Y’mean…” said Applejack.

“That’s right,” said Apple Bloom. “Where we got Fern Gully restin’ himself. You know we’re gonna do a lil’ ceremony for him.”

Apple Bloom’s voice caught, just for a moment. She gulped, and bravely carried on.

“I reckon now th’ ceremony is doubled.”

Applejack hugged her, and the procession set out for Ponyville in the gradually brightening dawn.

Across the dawn sky came Princesses and their consorts, greeted by another Princess and her consort and their foals. Twilight rode Celestia, Trixie Chaos, as they flew in to graceful landings on the highest spires of Canterlot.

“Hurrah!” cried Luna, in Royal Canterlot voice. “Welcome home! Did Neighpon smile upon your presence?”

“Yay!” called Lyra. “The Princess is back! I mean the other Princess!”

“Be careful, dear sister!” called Luna, as Celestia trotted to a halt on the parapet. “Mind your step!”

“Thank you, sister,” said Celestia. “And indeed Neighpon smiled upon us. Some parts more than others,” she added, with a grumpy look at Chaos, “and there were some moments of exquisite beauty…”

“Some were both!” said Trixie, hopping off Chaos’s back… and tumbling onto the stones, safely behind the parapet.

“Jackie!” scolded Luna, fretfully, for the royal fillies were in evidence and Lyra’s filly, Earthpony Applejack, had herself fallen over in a fit of giggly laughter.

“Trixie is fine!” said Trixie hastily. “Don’t worry, a little low humor never hurt anypony…”

“It’s not that!” said Lyra. She turned to her foal. “This is what we were trying to explain! There are safe places, and not so safe places, and though Princesses have wings…”

Chaos nuzzled Celestia. “I’m sorry again. But it was beautiful, you know. And that little pony must be famous now. I can still see the afterimage of that glorious spurt that took out the wall. So responsive!”

Precious Gift, Luna’s earth pony filly, came from around Luna and began to run toward Celestia and Chaos, her tiny legs pounding the stones of the parapet. She seemed intent on a running tackle-hug, and was so tiny that they bore no risk of being knocked over the edge, and so adorable that nopony could fault her for such rambunctiousness. Her lovely huge blue eyes shone with delight, contrasting with her luminous spring-green coat, heavily scuffed and marked with dust and dirt…

A flash of lilac surrounded her forehoof as it came down, and little Presh tumbled to the rocky parapet floor.

“JACKIE!” squealed Luna and Lyra, together.

Precious Gift rose awkwardly to her hooves, her lip quivering… and with a tiny wail, flung herself into Chaos’s embrace to be cuddled and comforted.

Earthpony Applejack giggled… her horn, already oversized on a unicorn child, still emitting a telltale lilac glow.

Trixie’s eyes widened. “Trixie thought something grabbed her hoof. Wow! That had the strength of Twilight!”

Twilight, in turn, was greeting Luna and Lyra. “It was so wonderful! So beautiful, and Trixie got to sit under a cherry tree, and the Kirin let me have a book to take home which is more up-to-date than the ones I had! Um, I can’t show you now, but when the kids go to bed I will. You won’t believe some of the illustrations! Chaos is going to try to do some of it.” She glanced warily at Chaos. “Are you sure you won’t make the, uh, juice too hot?”

“Oh, Twilight!” protested Chaos. “I had it too, remember?”

Celestia twitched. “That was the most terrifying half hour I’ve ever, EVER spent…”

“I was good!” insisted Chaos. “I may say, he made it easy to be. Mmmm! Best diplomatic relations ever. Of course he wasn’t to know that I was mentally taking notes.”

“When you weren’t coming so hard your eyes rolled up in your head,” teased Trixie.

“I think I figured it out, though,” said Chaos with satisfaction. “I shall never scorn Kirin again. Ironic that they call that orderly.”

“He moved like a dancer,” said Twilight, “everything in perfect control and harmony.” She smirked. “It’s you that got disorderly and couldn’t stand up three minutes in.”

Chaos lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you going wobbly seconds later. I think you were holding out just to show off. Why did they have us facing each other?”

Celestia tsked. “As good as Kirin are, I think that was nothing more than them showing off to each other! I’m sure I don’t begrudge them that. I’d have gone wobbly too, but the beard tickled my ear. And I kept expecting Chaos to disgrace us.” She stuck her tongue out at Chaos.

“I’m so glad you had a wonderful time!” cried Lyra. She turned to her filly. “As for you, Jackie, listen! Two of these ponies have wings, but two don’t, and we are high up in the air! And I know you can lift your half-sister, but you’ve got to behave! We can’t wait until you do something really mean, you need to pay attention now before you hurt somepony! Look at Presh, she’s covered in scuffs and scratches, and see here? These are rocks, Jackie! Not smooth floors! You just hurt Presh by doing that!”

Earthpony Applejack, Lyra’s unicorn foal, pouted and looked chastened.

“How long has she been tripping ponies?” asked Celestia.

“Probably a little before you left,” admitted Lyra. “Presh kept falling, and she’d been getting better at galloping but we couldn’t figure out why she was suddenly getting worse again. Then we caught Jackie at it, and that’s when she started to go for us, and the palace servants besides…”

“Oh, dear,” said Celestia. “And how is Ponyville?”

Luna blinked. “Do you know, I haven’t checked. I’ve been so tired minding a precociously powerful unicorn filly all day—plus, you know, just spending all my time with Lyra and the kids—that I’ve rather been neglecting my dream work.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” reassured Celestia.

“Oh, yes. If there was any trouble it would be showing up in pony nightmares, perhaps in a veiled form. It’s still so early in the morning, I’ll just drop into dreamspace for a moment and have a l… l… uhhh.”

Luna, staring off into space as she mystically checked in on pony dreams, went rigid with shock. Her face took on a cartoony look of dismay, and then her jaw began to drop, lower and lower and lower.

“Guh,” said Princess Luna, intelligently.

But Celestia and Chaos were already gone, flying frantically over Ponyville with Twilight and Trixie once more astride their alicorn steeds, four pairs of eyes trying to spot the danger.

Hina marched at the head of the procession, showing an obvious sense of ceremony. She pranced, her luminous fetlocks swirling, wearing a grave frown with her chin lifted, and her horn glowing brightly.

It wasn’t to light the way: the dawn did that fairly well. As the ponies neared the Apples’ fields, Hina’s magic took water vapor from the air, and gave the parade a series of rainbow arches over their path.

The arches lifted high, for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy flew in solemn procession just after Hina. Then came Big Macintosh and Oakback bearing their fallen comrade, and then the rest of the Apple family minus Dash but plus Pinkie. Silver had turned up as well, and exploring ponies drawn by the beacon in the forest had joined the procession.

At times, Dash and Fluttershy had led the way, because they seemed to know what to do. To Hina’s surprise, the parade had first gone into town, around the town hall, and back out toward the Apples’ fields. As it did, pony after pony joined the procession, solemnly joining to trudge with downcast eyes. If they were startled at the sight of Fluttershy, they didn’t consider it as important as the parade.

Hina was puzzled at one thing.

When Celestia and Chaos had swooped out of the sky, bearing Twilight and Trixie, the ponies had merely shushed them. One look at the body of Essence was enough to shock the royals and their consorts, but the Ponyville royalty hadn’t joined Hina at the front. With only a token protest by a confused Twilight Sparkle, they had taken up the rear, trudging along with the earth ponies.

Hina listened as hard as she could to the whispered conversations between the Princesses and the earth pony, Applejack.

“Thankee, your Highness,” said Applejack.

“Of course,” whispered Celestia. “But what has happened, dear faithful Applejack?” She cuddled Twilight to her with a vast white wing, for both she and Twilight were crying openly.

“Near as I can tell,” said Applejack quietly, “we kilt off th’ last evil monster. I’m sorry, Princess, we got some vampires, much worse’n last time.”

“Oh, no!”

“Yep,” confirmed Applejack. “Started with Hollyhock. Looks like he was in cahoots with ol’ Snowy Hocks. Hollyhock, he attacked Fern Gully…”

“Made him a thrall?” demanded Celestia. “A vampire slave?”

“Worse’n that,” said Applejack, “kilt him and et up his soul. We’re goin’ to him now, bringin’ Essence, dear Essie.”

“Where is he?” said Celestia. “I will not stand idly by and…”

“Whoa,” said Applejack. “We caught Hollyhock tryin’ to attack Derpy. Oakback there, actually both of ‘em including Big Macintosh, dragged him into the bonfire an’ no more Hollyhock. Turns out he had made Snowy a thrall and Snowy’s an ol’ schemin’ bastard, but Numeric Essence there, she figured out a way to catch him.” She sighed. “It all happened so fast. You couldn’ta known, Princess. Anyhoof, now it’s over.”

Hina’s ear quirked as she heard Princess Celestia inquire, “And of the visiting Kirin, who is honoring your dead with rainbows? And Rainbow, I see. And whatever’s happened to poor Fluttershy?”

“Funny about that, she likes it,” replied Applejack. “You never saw such a happy vampony. If I ain’t mistaken, it’s Fluttershy and Pinkie who kilt Snowy and saved the day.”

“And the Kirin?” pressed Celestia.

Hina’s heart wilted to hear Applejack’s reply of, “Hah! ‘Bout as much use as tits on a boar hog. We tried to perk her up with pony fuckin’ but I reckon she’s best left to decoratin’ Essence’s walk with rainbows.”

“And Rainbow,” suggested Celestia.

“Yeah,” said Applejack. “I guess that ain’t so bad. Essie deserves it. We’re almost there so I’mma ask you to give us some space.”

“Of course,” said Celestia, and fell back with Twilight, Trixie and Chaos.

There was a little dais made of hay bales, and a deep hole, and the body of Fern Gully wrapped in a shroud. Big Macintosh and Oakback laid Numeric Essence’s body next to Fern Gully’s.

Hina crept quietly over to join the Princesses. “I am so sorry…”

“Shh,” said Celestia, eyes glistening but looking out proudly over her ponies anyhow. “They did all they could: be at peace. You cannot rescue every pony or cure every ill.”

“May I sit here?” whispered Fluttershy. “They won’t need me for this part, and afterward I’ll go with Dursaa.”

Celestia nodded, scanning the pony crowd but seeing no undue attention being paid the little vampony. All eyes were on Apple Bloom as she headed to the dais.

“I just wish I could have…” began Hina.

“I said SHH!” hissed Celestia, and the Kirin froze. Celestia took a breath, blinked away tears, and explained, “This is for them. Do not interfere, prithee.”

Around the back of the crowd came Princess Luna, Lyra, and their foals. This time there was no mischief. Luna looked somber.

Softly, Chaos murmured, “I could bring them to life again, but since they’re soulless…”

“Don’t,” responded both Fluttershy and Celestia, and Chaos nodded sadly and didn’t press further.

Twilight sobbed, under Celestia’s wing. Celestia hesitated, and then reached out with a forehoof to cuddle Hina, the Kirin.

“We all have limitations,” she whispered. “Let these good ponies honor their loss. It is their way.”

Hina looked woeful and nodded. Then, she let out a faint squeak, for her mane had flared up: but it was only Fluttershy, cuddling her with a comforting, batty, vampony wing.

“Well, here we are,” said Apple Bloom, in a loud, clear voice.

The assembled ponies, nearly all Ponyville, murmured and then waited.

“This here winged unicorn, she’s prob’ly saved us all,” said Apple Bloom. “And of course, here’s Fern Gully. He was a clumsy fella, but he had a good heart on him. Miss Essence, now, she was a funny critter and a thinkin’ fool but in the end we saw plain, that she laid down her life for us. Still don’t know what that beacon stuff was about, but she done it, as you kin see.”

She took a breath. “What’s more, while we’re gonna be silent for our loved and lost ponies, I will ask you for another moment for two other ponies: I mean Hollyhock an’ Snowy Hocks. Some of you know how they went to th’ bad, and we won’t abide that, but all the same there was a time they was good… or at least, they had the chance to be, same chance any of us has got. We can’t bury ‘em out past the east field, but y’all be merciful to their memory. They were ponies too, once.”

Quiet sobs showed how the crowd of ponies was expressing its feelings. As one, Ponyville was letting itself feel its loss.

Apple Bloom hung her head. “Fern Gully, Numeric Essence… also Hollyhock an’ Snowy Hocks… we lived with you an’ we knew you and you’ll stay with us. We will carry on th’ spirit of you, and we mourn you now. Walk closely among our hearts, an’ may peace be with you.”

All the ponies paused, for second after second.

“All right,” said Apple Bloom, lifting her head. “Boys? You know what ta do.”

“I ain’t sure she’s gonna fit,” protested Oakback. “Ah dug that for Fern Gully. Ain’t right to cramp ‘em, and we only got one shroud.”

Big Macintosh cleared his throat. “Apple Bloom? Uh… need digging?”

Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. Big Macintosh? Go slow, big brother. No dirt fountains here.”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh, and he headed over next to the deep hole and effortlessly began excavating a second one.

Apple Bloom turned to Oakback. “As far as th’ shroud, Essie wouldn’t hold it against us, and you know we gotta go through this part proper-like. I won’t have no runnin’ around just to get a shroud for poor Essie, nor suggestin’ we love her any the less for lack of preparin’, so unless you go… g…”

She trailed off. A new face was approaching.

Precious Gift, foal of Princess Luna and tiny normal earth pony filly, had come along with her family. She’d been staring and staring at Numeric Essence, whom she’d met in Canterlot. She didn’t understand a lot of what was happening.

But she’d brought her little blanket, because it was a cold morning, and it was this she dragged over, its corner in her teeth, and offered to Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom gulped. Her eyes filled with tears, and then she screwed them shut and wiped the tears away for just one more moment.

“Thank you, lil’ Presh,” she said. “I do believe she would appreciate that.”

Few were able to clearly see, through tears, the farm ponies tenderly wrapping their lost companions in shrouds, lowering them into their graves, covering them with earth. It seemed not a very thorough job, like the plan was to return later and complete the burial. The farm ponies returned to the group, and all turned to Apple Bloom, who waited with her head hanging low.

Apple Bloom took a deep breath, then another. The crowd stirred.

Apple Bloom lifted her head, and a spark was in her gaze.

“Their bodies rest,” she called out challengingly. “Now… let their spirits rise!”

Celestia’s eyes widened. “Oh my. Um… Twilight, Hina-rin, I must ask you not to react to anything you might see here…”

Twilight sniffled, and peeked out from under Celestia’s wing. “What? The ponies are just hugging. Poor Essence!”

They were indeed. There was also kissing, tearful kissing. Nuzzling. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had gone over to hug Apple Bloom. They guided her over to where Diamond Tiara waited. And, Silver Spoon. And Featherweight… and all six began to drift off to a far corner of the field.

Applejack came over, tearful, and hugged Princess Celestia. “Aw, thank you for being here with us! It’s been a while since we sent a pony off on their way.”

“I remember,” said Celestia.

“Rainbow!” called Applejack. She smiled sadly at her Princess. “Yeah you do. You din’t attend my mother’s send-off, but all the same you helped, din'cha?”

“If I understand things,” said Princess Celestia, “this is… restrained? For Ponyville?”

Mayor Mare was looking around fretfully, not finding somepony. Beside her, Braeburn was hugging Lily, and went to hug Big Macintosh, but he was staring forlornly at Hina and didn’t respond. Then, the other flower ponies converged on Braeburn and Caramel, and the five headed back into town.

“It’s for Essie,” explained Applejack. “Mind you, Fern Gully, he was an innocent sort of boy, but I reckon it’s about Essie, mostly. They don’t want to distress her.”

Other groups were heading back to town, pressing close together, with much kissing and hugging. Dawn continued to break, warming the field.

“What is this?” asked Hina, her eyes wide.

“It’s our way,” said Applejack simply, as Rainbow Dash flew over and embraced her.

Fluttershy, seeing Big Macintosh’s distress, went over to him. He cringed back from her changed appearance, and she pouted but gave him a hug anyway… and, seeing Cheerilee hovering nearby, patted him on the butt and said, “Go on. I’ll be fine.”

Still peeking at Hina, Big Macintosh let Cheerilee lead him back to Ponyville. Fluttershy looked around, and spotted Dursaa and Zecora, and headed their direction.

Hina was watching Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who were still hugging… except, Applejack kept delicately nuzzling Dash’s wing.

“Give me a minute,” said Dash.

“No rush, sugarcube,” said Applejack, placidly.

“Are these ponies… love-making?” asked Hina, watching all the little groups disperse. “The way they touch each other… the emanations…”

“Thank you for being understanding,” said Princess Celestia. “That’s a fine way to put it.”

Twilight peeked out from under her wing, wide-eyed. “They are, aren’t they?”

“They don’t need us for this,” said Celestia gently. “Only each other. They’re remembering love doesn’t die.”

Rainbow Dash chuckled, though there was a sob in there too. “It’s definitely for Essie. They know… we all do… that she wasn’t too wild. They’re going off to be private, but yeah—pretty much.”

“What if the dead pony was wild?” asked Twilight.

“Heh, heh…” chuckled Applejack. “You missed Applesauce.”

“Your mother,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Yeah,” said Applejack.

“What did she do?” said Twilight.

Applejack winced. “She died, dammit. Ain’t so much what she did. We all knew what she was like. Well, I got to tell you: that was one hell of an evenin’ and no mistake. Everypony jumped on each other right there, soon as we let her spirit rise. It’s what she would’ve done, and what she’d have wanted. And there I was, still a young filly and takin’ over the farm… thank goodness for Princess Celestia, is all I can say.”

“I thought you said she wasn’t there?” suggested Twilight, her ears perking forward.

“No, I mean the next day when she had to use healing magic on my cooter,” explained Applejack.

“That freaked me out!” said Rainbow Dash.

Twilight paled. “Wait a minute. Since you were the new Boss Mare… all the farm stallions took it in turns to fuck you? Until they injured you? Ponyville IS crazy!”

“No, no!” protested Applejack. “It’s a special time, not like usual. And damn right, I winked at everypony: it helped distract me an’ I’m Applesauce’s daughter, after all. Not one of em was fixin’ to harm me, not even them girthy fellas. It was when I went around and did ‘em all again, this time with me on top. I rode them boys into th’ ground until they begged for mercy, but I did need the Princess’s care the next mornin’.”

“It was well you came to me in time,” said Celestia somberly. “You’d sustained serious injury, Applejack.”

“The next mornin’, every last farm pony answered to me,” said Applejack. “It’s what Applesauce would’ve wanted.”

Rainbow Dash hugged her. “You’re better off now. That’s, like, something I would do!”

“Did,” corrected Applejack. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you workin’ the same crowd!” She blushed. “Never told ya, Dashie… but I kept myself goin’ by ogling you.”

That got her a pegasus kiss. “Want some more? I think that’s probably when I started really noticing you, too. It’s funny, we never talk about those times because it’s too special and important, but a lot happens, doesn’t it?”

“I hope they don’t hit the salt and cider too hard, it’s early in the morning and we still got work to do,” said Applejack.

“Shh,” said Dash, “one thing at a time.” And she led Applejack gently off, her wings coyly lifted, the coverts folded: less a picture of raging pegasus libido, and more an image of utter sensual devotion to her love.

Hina watched them go, and then glanced off into the distance where Cheerilee had led Big Macintosh. She sighed. “They… don’t need help learning love.”

Celestia hesitated, words on her lips.

Hina spotted it. “Princess? I feel you. What do you withhold? Surely it must be wisdom?”

“It is,” admitted Celestia. “Forgive me… but you do them a disservice.”

“How is that?” asked Hina.

“Have you not learned as much from them?”

Hina stared at Princess Celestia, startled. She thought of her experiences. She looked toward Ponyville again, toward the wonderful red farm stallion. She remembered the love they’d shared… and the call of home, that tore them apart. He could not go with her, and she could not remain. And yet she’d turned around when she saw the beacon in the sky, and fought to defend the lovely ponies… only to wind up useless, rescuing nopony, helping nothing.

She saw Fluttershy, nuzzling the larger of the two zebras she stood with.

…or perhaps not quite as useless as all that.

Hina shook herself. “Yes, Princess: I have.”

“Will you stay with us longer?” said Celestia. She glanced nervously at Chaos. “Possibly not in Canterlot with us, I’m not sure I can promise the hospitality you might have come to expect…”

“No,” said Hina. “I chose to leave here.”

Celestia let out an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. Diplomacy was sometimes wearying. “I see. When shall you depart?”

“Late last night,” said Hina.

And, before she could change her mind, she hugged the nice Princess, smiled in the direction of the strange kind vampire pony she’d helped, and once more set out on a bridge of mists, resolutely not looking in the direction of Big Macintosh. They watched her go, and eventually she was lost to sight.

“I still think it would be fun to try her out on a nice wriggly tentacle,” said Chaos speculatively. “Or perhaps an eggbeater?”

Celestia sighed with relief. “Thank you for not suggesting it, dear,” she said. “We are returning home to Canterlot. Trixie?”

“Yes?” said Trixie.

“Can you come along? Chaos doubtless needs to blow off some steam.”

“Yay!”

Under the trees, Fluttershy nuzzled Dursaa, and began to head back home. Zecora, sniffing at her flank, brow still knit in puzzlement as she wrapped her head around the newly old vampony’s condition, began to follow.

Some distance away, Pinkie Pie hesitated, moving the same direction and then stopping, uncertain.

Zecora saw the motion. She looked straight at Pinkie, impassively, and the pink earth pony froze.

The zebra mare jerked her head in the direction of Fluttershy’s house, and flirted with her tail.

Pinkie’s eyes widened. Then, as the special zebra herd began to fade off into the trees, she trotted up to the edge of the forest.

A zebra foreleg emerged from the bushes, and firmly pulled her in. The peculiar herd headed off through the forest.

Over in the corner of the field, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and Featherweight continued their negotiations.

“Ah tole you,” said Apple Bloom, “Scootaloo will be back in a moment with a surprise or two!”

Silver Spoon yawned. “Not as good as mine, I’ll bet,” she said.

“Oh, Spoonie,” chided Diamond Tiara. “Always lacking imagination.”

“Better than lacking…” began Silver Spoon, but then she squeaked in surprise. Scootaloo had arrived as quickly as she’d left. Silver Spoon smirked. “Didn’t want to miss out?”

“Here, Apple Bloom!” called Scootaloo, and flipped a small metal cylinder into the air.

Two little clinks rang out, as Scootaloo and Apple Bloom grabbed magic bits in their teeth. Then, both reared to face Silver Spoon, balancing on their hind legs.

“Oh! Oh my!” squeaked that filly.

Diamond Tiara snickered. “That’s right! That one’s for me, and that one’s for Sweetie Belle.”

“Except,” said Sweetie Belle, “we also switch them around because we can.”

“So, where you must content yourself with your little bitty camerapony colt,” said Diamond Tiara, “we use magic to engage in debaucheries of all sorts!”

“M’st sorts,” said Apple Bloom, through the bit. “Tiara l’kes me th’s way, she ain’t very b’g either as a girl or a b’y.”

“Is th’t why you like her so m’ch?” said Scootaloo. “Me and Sw’tie sw’ch off!”

Apple Bloom spat her bit out. “Sure! Y’all never did respect that. My sweetie’s got the most snappin’ cooter in town, Ah’ll have you know.”

As Diamond blushed happily, Scootaloo spat her bit out and retorted, “Well, MY Sweetie has a dick that’ll make you explode!”

“So we’ll hook ‘em up,” suggested Apple Bloom, “and see who snaps or pops. Okay?”

“That leaves one bit,” said Scootaloo. “I wouldn’t say it on most days… but I always wondered what it would be like with Silver Spoon.”

“Oooooh!” said Sweetie Belle. “Is it because you like how beautiful and feminine I am and Silver Spoon is kind of like that in her own way?”

Silver Spoon rolled her eyes. “Humble, too!”

Scootaloo blinked. “No, actually you’re not humble at all. You’re, like, totally a prissy princess so I always imagined, you know, scootering over all punky and tough, and getting bossy, and you’d be all haughty but then you’d swish your tail aside and me, I mean boy me, would just ram it in and you’d love it but you wouldn’t admit it so I’d have to, you know, fuck you and fuck you and keep fucking you until you came so hard you couldn’t stand up…”

“Eee!” squealed Sweetie Belle, enthralled as always by debauchery and scene-making.

“Sweetie can watch,” said Scootaloo pugnaciously. “Come on, you know that’s super hot. Me and Sweetie, screwing the daylights out of you and Diamond Tiara. I bet you used to fantasize about it when you were bullies.”

“Yes,” said Diamond Tiara immediately. Silver Spoon gasped, and looked at her old cohort, and caught a wicked side-eyed glance. Diamond Tiara said, “I never admitted it even to you… but isn’t that right, Spoonie? When we started to become mares, and thought that way about everything?”

Silver Spoon licked her lips, tense. “Mmmmmaybe…”

“I’ll risk Sweetie,” murmured Diamond Tiara, “but you have to get ravaged by Scootaloo. It’s only fair. It’s a special day, do you want to send Numeric Essence off in style or not?”

Sweetie cleared her throat, and the others turned to her.

“Let’s not get TOO sceney,” she said. “I mean, yes it’s very exciting but Diamond Tiara is right, it is a special day. And we’re honoring ponies we loved, or at least played chess with. And she really wasn’t a sceney type. We should be more nice. I’m going to need to be very gentle with you, Diamond Tiara, if you’re as tight as Apple Bloom says you are.”

“And I’ll…” began Scootaloo.

“Oh no,” said Silver Spoon hastily.

“Huh?”

“I like the ravage,” said Spoonie. She gulped. “Just… like… that. Just like you described it.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened, then narrowed in predatory glee.

“Wait!” said Sweetie. “That leaves Apple Bloom without a bit, and she only gets Featherweight!”

Every eye turned to Featherweight, who blushed at being surrounded with such eager, aggressive fillies, some with dicks.

Rubbing against her pipsqueak boyfriend, Silver Spoon flirted her tail in his face. “You have your surprises, yes, but I have mine!” She continued for a while, and then smirked especially at Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom.

“Under there,” she suggested. “Go on, look!”

“Oh sweet Celestia!” squeaked Sweetie Belle. “How is that even possible? It’s bigger than the one I get!”

“Yeehaw!” proclaimed Apple Bloom, and the rest was squelches.

Didn't She Ramble

You’d have to be crazy to try and smuggle a changeling child into Ponyville in broad daylight. Or, you’d have to be daring. You’d have to notice all of Ponyville was turning out for a Ponyville funeral, complete with celebration of life afterwards. You’d have to risk somepony noticing when you didn’t show up for the ceremony, and you’d have to make a break for it when all Ponyville was distracted, all in hopes of getting your changeling child safely into your secret lair, unseen.

Only Secret Agent Sweetie Drops was that daring.

Unfortunately, it also looked like Secret Agent Sweetie Drops had been crazy to try it.

She lurked in a bush, shielding the changeling from view with her body, rehearsing possible excuses if she were spotted. Ponyville being Ponyville, thought Sweetie Drops, she could probably claim she was fucking somebody in the bush: except, were she spotted she’d have to pretend to be Bon Bon, and it was out of character for Bon Bon to do that. Also, Ponyville being Ponyville, her discoverer might want to join in.

The funeral had run far too short, and something had gone wrong—rather than celebrate life and pleasure out in a big happy gathering of ponies, they’d all dispersed. From the sound of things, thought Sweetie Drops, the ponies were in fact still intending to go and celebrate each others’ bodies and aliveness: the trouble was, they were all wandering through town nuzzling and kissing each other. They seemed so distracted that it was almost worth it to sneak the rest of the way, but one look at a changeling and you knew.

Sweetie Drops blinked. She was being an idiot, wasn’t she?

“How about changing into some pony or other?” she suggested. “Then we can go to my place without being captured.”

The little changeling looked at her, stuck out its lower lip and shook its head vehemently. Sweetie laid her ears back in confusion. Was it because it had been captured already, by her? A form of resistance? Or, since she’d seen it in changeling form before, did it refuse to mimic pony form for some other reason? Or was it simply too little to know how?

The changeling offered no explanation: it just sat there, not trying to escape, but cooperating no more than necessary.

Sweetie Drops sighed, and peeked out of the bush for the tenth time. Eventually there’d be an opportunity to head for her secret lair. They’d get there, even if they had to hide in a dozen bushes along the way.

Sweetie Belle whimpered.

That, however, was nothing compared to Diamond Tiara’s reactions.

Diamond gritted her teeth, and made a keening noise, hugging Apple Bloom tightly. She was hyperventilating, her ears laid back hard in alarm.

Across from her, Apple Bloom presented a perfect mirror image.

“Ow!” whined Featherweight.

“Guys,” pleaded Sweetie, “just g’ve up, okay? Th’s is dumb and y’ll hurt yourselves! Or us!”

“Naw!” panted Apple Bloom. Shuddering, she tried to push herself a little farther onto Featherweight. “Ha! Ah’m winnin’!”

Diamond’s eyes flashed, and she hissed, “Oh no—you—won’t!” and pressed still more heavily onto Sweetie Belle’s bit-induced erection.

The trouble had begun when, by arrangement, Sweetie and Featherweight had sat facing each other, horsecocks aloft. The idea was for Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara to lower themselves onto the stiffened erections and cuddle while being balled by their unaccustomed lovers. The horsecocks were hard, the mares in question were aroused and wetly winking, and all seemed good to go.

The first problem was obvious. Diamond boasted an exceptionally tight little pink pussy, something Apple Bloom loved greatly. However, Sweetie Belle was considerably bulkier, and just didn’t fit.

The second problem was similar. Silver Spoon had kept Featherweight all to herself. There turned out to be a reason for this. The tiny pegasus photographer somehow managed to produce a cock much bigger than his legs, a real shocker that was bigger than what Sweetie had. Apple Bloom wasn’t built like Diamond, but the relative girths amounted to the same basic problem.

The third problem was neither Sweetie’s nor Featherweight’s fault.

As they tried to position themselves, Diamond had told Apple Bloom, “I bet you I’ll be first to take it all the way!”

And so, the die was cast. The Boss and Business Manager of Sweet Apple Acres (and devoted mates and lovers to each other) had locked gazes… and before Sweetie Belle or Featherweight could object, both lusty young mares had shoved fiercely down and promptly got stuck.

Visual inspection of both tautly distended bellies showed that Sweetie’s bit-induced flare tended to swell out more, at least to start. On the other hoof, Featherweight was a small treetrunk transfixing Apple Bloom. Diamond probably couldn’t pull free no matter what she did (barring release of the bit from Sweetie’s mouth, which she adamantly refused to allow Sweetie to do) but Apple Bloom wouldn’t, even if she could.

And both young mares kept shuddering, tensing up, and pinching their stallions unmercifully.

“Yeep!” cried Featherweight. “Help! Silver Spoon!”

Sweetie rolled her eyes. “Maybe you can leave her a message?”

Inches away, Silver Spoon stuck her ass in the air and pounded the ground with a forehoof, whooping and howling. “YES! UHHH YES! MORE! LIKE THAT! KEEP GOING! AHHH! AIIIGH!”

Scootaloo, the cause of her enthusiasm, gritted her teeth on her magic bit. Her back ached, and her wings were sore from maintaining her semi-hovering position, but her pride was at stake. She wasn’t nearly as well hung as Featherweight, but she’d taken on Silver Spoon as a challenge: the roleplay of punky-skate-pony fucking a prissy princess was exciting, plus she figured she could make up for her less monstrous size with technique and sexy attitude. She guessed that little Featherweight probably didn’t have the moves she had, plus as a magic bit user, she could obviously keep it going for longer.

The experiment was shockingly successful.

Silver Spoon shrieked like a griffin going to war. It had taken only a few minutes of expert thrusting and g-spot targeting and clit-massaging with a free forehoof, to reduce the elegant little princess-pony to writhing, squalling jelly. What Scootaloo hadn’t bargained on was the stamina. She’d come twice in Silver Spoon. Spoon had come… probably less than a hundred times, though it was hard to count. It only seemed to make her hornier. She just wouldn’t stop, screaming for more at the top of her prim little lungs. It was a turn-on, very much a great development from the original game, but Scootaloo knew that without a magic bit, she’d have been finished much sooner.

“Augh!” wailed Featherweight. “Make her stop pinching me!”

Sweetie winced, her ears back, and privately thought Featherweight what her mother Rarity apparently deemed a ‘lightweight’. The thought gave her an idea. “H’ve you got a s’feword?”

“What?” whined Featherweight.

“A safew’rd! You kn’w, a sp’cial word that means st’p!” explained Sweetie.

Featherweight’s expression combined dismay and incomprehension. “No! What’s that?”

Sweetie sighed, and winced again as Diamond pressed herself a bit further and then cramped up. “G’ys? F’therweight says st’p!”

“All righty,” hissed Apple Bloom through her teeth.

“Oh, g’d…”

“AFTER I win!” added Apple Bloom, and wriggled her hips, pushing downward onto Featherweight’s giant boner with determination.

“Aaaa! Mommy!” squeaked Featherweight.

Sweetie frowned. “D’nt say that, you might m’ke them sad,” she began, and then realized any change in the fiercely competing young fillies’ mood might count as an improvement.

Her eyes widened, as a Sweetie Idea came to her.

“F’therweight! I kn’w how to fix th’s. On three, go f’r their clitorises!”

“What?” said Featherweight.

“D’nt you know what a clit is?” demanded Sweetie.

“No!” wailed Featherweight. “Is it a camera part?”

Sweetie rolled her eyes, which directed them over to where Scootaloo was trying to finish off Silver Spoon using just such a technique: balling her with sensuous hip motions, with her hoof busily twiddling Spoon’s clit.

“OH FUCK CELESTIA AARRHGGGLLLGHH AHHH! AHH!” was Silver Spoon’s tireless, unending opinion on the new tricks she’d been shown.

Sweetie Belle shook her head, and returned her attention to Featherweight. “B’y, are you l’cky you met us!”

“What?!?”

“N’ver mind,” soothed Sweetie. “Do wh’t I do and it’ll s’n be over.”

Featherweight wasn’t clever in the ways of mares: he was becoming a great connoisseur of fellatio, but Silver Spoon’s demands upon him hadn’t been imaginative. It hadn’t occurred to her to seek more when her tiny and outlandishly hung lover stood ready to penetrate her anytime she asked. Plus, he tended not to be able to reach around and between her legs, and his attention was usually on flying to support his weight while entering her, as he was a bit too small to just mount his importunate marefriend.

However, he was desperate for help, so he watched carefully as Sweetie Belle reached around Diamond with her hoof. He matched her motion with his own, reaching down and fondling Apple Bloom’s perky nipples, for he did know mares kept their boobs there.

Apple Bloom moaned sweetly… but Diamond Tiara let out a throaty yowl like a half-tame griffin, her whole body shuddering.

“No,” counseled Sweetie Belle, “f’rther.”

He explored, feeling Apple Bloom spread her legs a bit wider to accomodate his inquisitive little hoof, and then right where his cock entered her body he felt something, some sort of nubbin or feature between her legs, right at the top of her vagina… stretched out and squished flat by his bulk transfixing her.

As he touched it, it tensed and poked out under his hoof, and he felt Apple Bloom shiver.

“Y’s!” encouraged Sweetie. “R’dy? One… two…”

Featherweight gulped. Suddenly, this idea seemed like it might be a very bad one. He glanced over at his Silver Spoon, who was pounding the ground with a forehoof again in transports of erotic frenzy, and he looked back at Sweetie in expectant horror.

“Three!”

Sweetie’s and Featherweight’s hooves began ferociously masturbating Diamond Tiara and Apple Bloom, even as the two rivals tried to race to the bottom of their respective horsecocks, heedless of comfort or decency.

Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara had just a moment to gaze, shocked, at each other. Then each drew a deep breath, and they grabbed each other in a frantic hug, race forgotten.

“EEEEEE!”

“Gaah!” squawked Featherweight. “It does that?”

Sweetie grinned wickedly around the bit in her teeth, nuzzling Diamond’s side as she worked away on her clit. “Yeah!”

Apple Bloom writhed uncoordinatedly, emitting shrieks and howls.

“But…” protested Featherweight, his ears back, though he dutifully masturbated his new mare just like Sweetie’d shown him.

“WH’T?” demanded Sweetie, exasperated beyond patience.

“It’s… making me harder…”

Sweetie stopped for a moment. It was true. They’d outmaneuvered the dickracing mares, but she too was stimulated by Diamond’s frantic, lewd writhing. She could spit out her bit. Featherweight could do no such thing. Sweetie could literally see his flare within Apple Bloom’s belly, just as he could watch her Sweetiecock’s motions inside hysterical Diamond.

Sweetie set her jaw, determinedly.

“S’rves them r’ght,” she decreed. “Let’s finish together, th’n wait for Sc’taloo to be d’ne.”

Featherweight watched wide-eyed as Sweetie continued to masturbate Diamond, and joined in, his hoof steadily pleasuring Apple Bloom. First Apple Bloom, then Diamond, squalled and gushed slippery fluids, and this helped. It also helped that both young mares, their bodies ravaged beyond belief, clung to each other and shook with shared orgasm, their climaxes loosening some of their cramps and tightnesses.

Unfortunately, every new frontier in terms of melting Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara was met by building arousal in Featherweight and Sweetie Belle. Sweetie’s ears laid back again. She couldn’t help but notice Diamond sweating, shaking, driven beyond her orgiastic trance with each swelling of Sweetie’s bit-induced cock. From the feel of it, Diamond had such a little pussy. It was barely standing the pressure.

Across from Diamond, she saw terror in Apple Bloom’s eyes, and the ridge that represented Featherweight’s flare seemed more clearly defined than before.

They had to finish, quick.

Sweetie made a little prayer, though she wasn’t sure whether it was to Celestia or to Rarity… and she awkwardly shifted a hind hoof, sneaking it over between Featherweight’s legs… and as she redoubled her masturbating of Diamond she gently nuzzled Featherweight’s absurdly tiny balls with that hoof.

His wings shot straight out with a palpable ‘pomf!’

And then, with shared grunts of ‘GHHH!’, Featherweight and Sweetie Belle came, their bodies unleashing giant throbs of horsecome.

Apple Bloom shrieked, staring into space. Diamond Tiara made a tormented keening sound. So intense were their death-grips on the enormous horsecocks penetrating them, that Featherweight and Sweetie did not technically unleash horsecome into their lovers. Instead, the pressure just built, blocked from emergence, as the two penis-racers bore down and squeezed shut each penis with raw muscle power alone.

Muscle power that still couldn’t forever resist the carnal force of, on the one hoof, a pubescent pegasus colt, and on the other hoof a magic bit wielding unicorn filly… who was seriously turned on by extremeness.

Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara clung frantically to each other, and simultaneously lost their battle to compress the incompressible… and both screamed with pleasure-pain as they felt themselves stretched that last tiny bit, just enough to unsquish the horsecocks and spray hot stallion juice deeply inside them.

Sweetie gasped in relief, and a part of her curious, perverse, and innocent mind delighted in Bloom and Tiara’s shrieks. Her ear identified the music in them, the stark beauty of carnal intensity such as she’d never seen or heard, the soulful overtones that didn’t quite fracture and shatter, that resonated and told her that yes: to the best of her knowledge, this was ‘scening’ and they’d made it through and out the other side having experienced one pony hell of a ride. It all made sense at last. She’d finally done it, this had to be it, ‘scening’! Possibly too much for everyday sex… no, certainly way too much for everyday sex! Very special indeed! Apple Bloom and Diamond would need to recover… but as Sweetie’s body was shuddered with heavy throbs and gushes of horsecome through her artificial stallionhood, she knew their daring plan had worked…

Sweetie’s ears perked up. Fracture. Shatter! The voices were going sour!

She gasped, and looked at Featherweight, and then she saw the problem. Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara had no strength left to lift themselves, and were sagging onto the monstrous erections from their own bodies’ weight—and still trapped by stiffened flares—and now, inflated by steadily increasing flow of pony-spooge!

“L’ft them!” she begged Featherweight. He’d gone dreamy-eyed, pumping come into Apple Bloom as her pussy got the cramp forcibly stretched out of it, but hadn’t considered the implications of being stuck underneath her, unable to step back and pop free.

Together, Sweetie and Featherweight seized their respective lovers, and heaved them upwards on the combined forces of determined pony forelegs, centrally inserted hydraulic cannons, and the pressures of a body full of spooge.

With a double spludge and two piercing screams, Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara popped off their stallions and horsecome spewed everywhere, drenching Featherweight, Sweetie, and the disbelieving ground all around them. The Boss Mare and Business Manager collapsed on top of their stallions, stunned, wrecked, sated, shocked, and spent.

Sweetie Belle panted. It had been so close! She let her bit fall, and the giant Sweetiecock shrank away, and half the spooge evaporated into nothingness. She hugged Diamond, worriedly. She looked over to see how Scootaloo was doing.

“AHHHH! YES! MORE! NNNNGHHHIEEEE! CEL! ESTI! AAAAAAAAAAH!”

Scootaloo was visibly shaking, wobbling, tears leaking from her eyes as she gritted her teeth on the bit, maintaining her hard-on through the fifth straight orgasm, a puddle of excess magic-semen between Silver Spoon’s spread legs.

Silver Spoon reeled and quivered all over like spastic jelly as Scootaloo masturbated her clit and balled her tirelessly, and the formerly elegant princess-pony drooled with pleasure and somehow kept herself standing through the seven hundred and thirty-eighth straight orgasm. Her glasses were askew, and one lens was cracked. Her braid was half undone and resembled the unkempt mane of some jungle beast. Her voice was completely hoarse, and her vulva was swollen and pink like that of a maddened ferret, and she didn’t let up the tiniest amount.

“FUCK ME HARDER! AAAGHHH!”

Sweetie dragged herself over, and smacked Scootaloo’s leg with a hoof. Scootaloo glanced back, startled, and her eyes were reddened with fatigue and the sweat that ran down her determined face.

“Stop,” said Sweetie.

“NO! NOT STOP! AAAHHH! AGAIN! DO THE THING WITH YOUR HOOF! OH CELESTIA!”

Diamond Tiara, her lower half stricken by excessive fucking to the point where she couldn’t walk, dragged herself over as well. “Yes. Stop! Scootaloo, look at yourself!”

“Look at her!” marveled Apple Bloom, staring in awe at Silver Spoon. Wincing, she stepped over Featherweight. He’d fallen asleep, his half-limp monstrous erection sprawling across the grass. “They’re right, Scootaloo. Whoa there!”

Silver Spoon shrieked. “NO! I’LL DIE! NEVER, THIS CAN’T EVER, DON’T STOP…”

Scootaloo, tears streaming down her face, withdrew her hoof stiffly like her whole body was one big muscle cramp. She staggered back, her pegasus cock popping out of Spoon’s swollen vulva with a juicy splork. She dropped the bit on the ground and her head dropped as well, exhaustedly, and she tottered for a moment and then collapsed, heaving great shuddering breaths. Sweetie Belle wriggled over to embrace her valiant marefriend, and the two cuddled.

Undaunted, the last mare standing, Silver Spoon also heaved deep breaths, and vented them in desperate command.

“NO! SOMEPONY! ANYPONY! MORE! YOU CAN’T STOP! I… I…”

Diamond Tiara dragged herself closer, lifted her head… and blew against Silver Spoon’s trembling flank.

With a scream, Spoon toppled over in a heap, and could not move from that sprawl. Every limb was slackened, her jaw dangled limp against the grass, and she lay boneless in the field and wept bitterly, for it was over.

Diamond, exerting all the energy she had left, dragged herself still nearer… and gave the puddled grey pony a hug, then a little kiss.

“You’ve done well, Spoonie,” she said. “That was glorious. I’m sorry it took me this long to get back in touch.”

Spoon pouted tearfully, and stuck out her lower lip.

“We’ll show you how to do more of this,” promised Diamond. She thought, and amended herself. “We’ll show Featherweight how to do this. Okay?”

Spoon glowered weakly, then gave a little nod.

Apple Bloom staggered over as well, and nuzzled up to Diamond. Diamond bent, and gave Silver Spoon another kiss, right on the muzzle.

“I’m proud of you, Spoon,” she said. “You’re still a leader. That was amazing…”

“Pegasus abuse if ya ask me,” snorted Apple Bloom.

Diamond cuffed her beloved. “Shh. You’re one to talk.”

“Oh. Right… heh, forgot about that.”

Diamond turned back to Silver Spoon. “You’re amazing. But now… sleepy bye?”

Spoon made a face, but her eyes were steadily losing focus… and then, her body exhausted, her brain nearly melting out her ears from ceaseless, debilitating orgasm, Silver Spoon went peacefully to sleep.

“Sweetie?” called Apple Bloom quietly. “Ah think me and you ended up the sole walkin’ survivors of this here celebration of livin'. Help me place Featherweight with Silver Spoon, so they can cuddle. We’ll teach him those tricks later, or as many of ‘em as he kin learn. And then we stand well back!”

“Awww, can’t I watch from real close?” protested Sweetie Belle, but all the same she helped Apple Bloom arrange Featherweight with his valiant lover.

Then, for good measure, they all snuggled up around the pair, and took a nap in the field, for it was such a fine morning.

Braeburn turned aside and trotted anxiously over to where Big Macintosh stood with his head hanging low.

“Princess! Aw, don’t cry? Ah know this is a sad day, but we are remindin’ ourselves about love! Come on with me, Princess. I got some ideas I’m gonna try.”

Big Macintosh shook his head. “Naw…”

Braeburn hugged him, glancing back to where the flower ponies and Caramel walked. “You musta loved her, huh? Ah kin see why, that Numeric Essence was a sure ‘nuff nice pony for all the buzzin-headedness. But let me tell you a secret, you kin come with us and still honor her memory because we won’t be needing your stud pony services.” He glanced again, and whispered, “Won’t even be gettin’ my dick wet, you’ll see. I thought mebbe afterwards, you might oblige?”

Big Macintosh gave Braeburn a very complicated look. It combined sadness, shame, sulking, annoyance, dignity, even heroism… but his words were much simpler.

“Not her,” he said.

Braeburn boggled for a moment, and then his eyes widened. He remembered what Big Macintosh had been asked to do, and his jaw dangled in amazement as he considered the idea that Big Macintosh had, in fact, done it. Who knew that Kirin were so… roomy?

“Dang,” he said in quiet awe. “Well, good for you, Princess. Ah’ll tell you right now, I don’t know how ya managed it. Seemed like a crazy notion to me. I don’t care how perty her mane an’ fetlocks swirl, or that funny tail with the tuft on the end, I woulda guessed you could never tap that skinny lil’ ass. Really?”

Big Macintosh looked down, turning away, a tear dripping down his cheek.

Braeburn hastened to make amends. “Ah’m sorry! That sounded terrible, Ah am no gentleman pony, what am I thinking? Nothin’ wrong with it. She’s a grown, uh, somethin’, and a lovely perty creature, and Ah am in no way complainin’. Plus she’s smart, an’ lively, and, um, brave. Well, she’d have to be, ain’t I right? Which is not to say there’s anything wrong with it! Why, I myself would love to sneak some sausage into that crazy tiny lil’ kirin-cooter. She must really like you. Ah swear to you, I spent a fair amount of time ogling her pussy on account of I wasn’t sure it worked in the usual way or fit real horses so her story din’t make a lick of sense, and I never caught her winkin’ at anypony at all, ever. Not even once. Musta been just you! Prob’ly why I din’t make a move or nothin’, well that an’ there ain’t enough tape in all Equestria to keep that lil’ thing from explodin’ if I were ta…”

“Please don’t,” said Big Macintosh.

“Aw, Princess,” said Braeburn, helplessly. “Ah’m sorry. It’s that bad?”

Big Macintosh just hung his head, looking tragically at Braeburn.

Braeburn sighed, and gave his Princess a tender kiss. “Ah’m so sorry, Princess.”

Then, he glanced behind him, and his ears laid back as he saw Lily, Daisy and Roseluck entering Lily’s house, with Caramel.

“Aw, horseapples,” he said.

Big Macintosh shook off a bit of his woe, and gave Braeburn a questioning look.

Braeburn gulped.

“Ah WILL be back,” he vowed. “That’s a promise. An’ you can come with me, but if I don’t git trottin’ right now… ahh, horseapples!”

And with that, the town’s cowpony and resident coitus specialist whirled and galloped off, as fast as he could, to the door of Lily’s house. In no way had the little group of ponies seemed unwelcoming, but they’d shut the door behind themselves, and this seemed to drive Braeburn wild with anxiety.

Big Macintosh watched him go, even took a few steps to follow… but then he turned aside. He would walk quietly to a nice hill, one where he could look East. He would lay down, cry a little, and then he’d gaze to the East and think of Neighpon.

Braeburn would doubtless know where to find him, and one curious thing about Braeburn was this: for all his lusty cowpony debauchery, he still knew how to be alone and with somepony else at the same time. Big Macintosh reckoned Braeburn would be back with him before long, and they could watch the sunset.

He walked quietly off, leaving Ponyville to its own devices for a while.

Braeburn galloped up to the door, and pulled up short, gathering his composure. Time was of the essence, but it wouldn’t do to seem panicky. He took a few deep breaths, calmed himself, and then drew open the door and stepped in, closing it behind him.

He was in luck: or, rather, he was right to take a moment and settle down. His charges weren’t jumping all over each other and ruining everything. They were milling about, sniffing and nuzzling but obviously too nervous to begin.

Braeburn gave Caramel, Lily, Daisy and Roseluck a smile as big as all the prairie.

“Ladies an’ gentlepony,” he said, “this here’s a celebration that will BE a celebration. An’ I think we know why, don’t we?”

Roseluck blushed fiercely. She tried to look down, but couldn’t stop fidgeting and staring at Caramel.

Seeing this, Caramel blushed just as hard, and immediately dropped a boner, and then Rose really couldn’t look away.

“You said we were making Rosie pregnant!” cried Daisy excitedly. Lily gave a little shriek, and fainted at the thought.

Braeburn’s eyes were a little wild. “Whoa, whoa there! Now, how we’re gonna go about this here procedure…”

“He’s going to jump on me!” squealed Roseluck. “And RAM his cock up my pussy all the way! Really hard!”

This time, Daisy screamed and fainted, as Lily groggily got to her hooves.

“Wait!” snapped Braeburn, and his voice rang with authority. “Not so fast! Think it through, Roseluck! An’ jes what do you reckon would happen if he was dernfool enough to do that?”

“Uh…” said Roseluck, her eyes nearly crossing with desire. She imagined it to herself… and wobbled at just the thought, reeling, her eyes rolling back in her head.

“Steady, darlin’!” commanded Braeburn. “Everypony, settle down! Steady, Rosie! There’s a danged good reason I got y’all here and asked you to follow my lead. Rosie honey, do you remember the other night, when we were hittin’ the cider? Just after I busted a nut in Daisy’s face and we settled her comfortable-like until she woke up? Remember what you told me?”

Daisy was up again, untroubled by Braeburn’s tale. She’d never been able to suck him off and not faint, because he came so violently and got so big, yet she still loved doing it and he was happy to oblige. She blinked cutely and asked, “Rose? You never told me there was a secret! You told him a secret?”

Lily squealed and fainted, but only for a moment. She stirred, and then looked puzzled. “But… that wasn’t much of a secret!”

“Pow’ful important, though,” said Braeburn. He cleared his throat. “Ah’ll tell you all now, about Roseluck’s heart’s desire. We are here to fulfill it. Miss Roseluck wants to git herself fucked by Mister Caramel here. She wants to take him all th’ way. She’s fixin’ to ride his stallionhood to th’ last stop, and she’s gonna have him bust a nut in her fine sweet pony pussy, an’ she'll get drenched in horsecome and made one hundred per cent PA-REGNANT by our Mister Caramel, stallion extraordinaire…”

All three mares squeed and staggered, the magnitude of the concept almost laying them out then and there.

“…WITHOUT faintin’!” concluded Braeburn, triumphantly.

Daisy’s and Caramel’s jaws dropped. Their eyes got as wide as Lily’s.

“How?” squeaked Daisy.

“Why?” squeaked Caramel.

Braeburn lowered his voice. “Well, now, Ah’ll tell you why, Mister Caramel. I know you two love each other. I know y’all lit up when I said I could help you git pregnant, an’ that’s no lie. But I also know why she tole me that. This is Rose’s dream, Mister Caramel, and I need you to do exactly as Ah say, no matter how excited you get, and we’ll make that dream a reality for dear Rosie… an’ for you.”

Caramel gulped. “But… you didn’t answer me. Why? She always faints. All the flower ponies faint.”

Braeburn’s eyes simmered, and his wicked grin flickered about his muzzle entrancingly.

“Because she don’t just want you balls-deep up her cute lil’ coozie. An’ she don’t just want you blowin’ a load into her lil’ pony womb. She wants to remember… and savor… Every. Last. Moment.”

Daisy and Lily wobbled, overwhelmed by the romance and earnestness of that admission. Daisy even plopped down onto her rump, hyperventilating. The notion seemed to amaze her.

Caramel’s cock immediately swung forward, going stiff so fast it nearly pomfed like a pegasus wing from excitement alone.

And if Braeburn’s eyes simmered, Roseluck’s sultry eyes seethed. Though she was still bashful and prone to fainting at the least shock, it was plain that Braeburn had exaggerated nothing.

“So, as you kin see,” said Braeburn calmly, “we got to do things a certain way. Ah’m speaking especially to you, Mister Caramel, but I expect our dear flower ponies to listen as well, on account of they kin set each other off by mistake. To be perfectly honest, girls, I’ll consider it a victory if just dear lil’ Rosie gets her dream, but I ain’t above going for broke and takin’ it to the limit.”

“What does that mean?” asked Lily.

“Ain’t makin’ no promises,” said Braeburn, “but I do believe that if we do this just right, you and Daisy can watch Rosie bein’ come in and all three of you can remain conscious, and remember the moment that Roseluck got knocked the fuck up! By THAT boner, right there!”

Daisy squealed, and fell over in a faint.

Braeburn didn’t even twitch. “Which jes’ goes to show you,” he said, “how NOT to do it. So, first of all: no yellin’. No jumpin’ around, no sudden movements. No squealin’. Ah will not even raise my derned voice again, nor will I wave my hat nor cry yeehaw. There’s a time an’ a place for that, and on other occasions we kin have more fun gittin’ rowdy, cos’ there won’t be so much to miss. This time? Take a deep breath. If you want, we kin all yell ‘yay!’ together, on account of that’s the last yellin’ any of you will do until we’re good an’ done.”

“Really?” said Daisy, who’d gotten back up.

“Huh?”

“Can we really all yell ‘yay’?” said Daisy.

Braeburn studied her. “Don’t see why not, if you promise that’s the only time. Ah was seriously considering leavin’ you two out, or sendin’ off for some gags and bridles and hoofcuffs from Rarity’s late-night business. This is important and I won’t stand for y’all messin’ it up. Do you promise that’s the last yellin’ or squealin’ you’ll do, until we’re finished?”

Lily and Daisy nodded frantically, their eyes pleading with him.

“All righty then,” said Braeburn. “Jes’ this once… give us a ‘yay’.”

“YAAAYYY!”

Braeburn blinked in shock. Four pairs of pony eyes drank him in, eager and trusting and filled with love, totally in his sway. It hadn’t been just Daisy and Lily: Rose had joined them, and Caramel was louder than any of the flower ponies, and they’d rattled the windows with it, but not one flower pony had fainted.

They kept staring, hanging on his every word, completely obedient.

“Dang,” said Braeburn quietly, as the silence stretched out. “This jes’ might work.”

Roseluck quivered, her eyes locked with Caramel’s. He quivered too: or at least, his hard-on did. He, on the other hoof, looked scared to move.

“Like this,” said Braeburn, and he lay on his back on Roseluck’s bed. “Come over here, Rosie. Get on me.”

Daisy squealed. “You’re going to fuck her first! But…”

She froze, for Braeburn’s eyes were stern.

“No, I ain’t,” he said. “An’ keep your dang voice down. You’ll see. C’mere, Rosie, an’ trust me more’n this silly filly does.”

Roseluck drifted over, unsteadily, tripping over her own hooves in sheer distractedness. She blinked, and gave a little moan. Braeburn was turgid, his impressive stallionhood trying to peek out of its sheath.

“Don’t fret,” he soothed. “Best get settled quick. And a lil’ bit sideways, okay? Or maybe that won’t work, ‘scuse me…”

As Roseluck’s eyes widened, another few inches of Braeburn slithered out of his sheath, but he reached out a forehoof and dressed his whole swelling horse-hood to the side, even as it emerged.

“Git on me now,” ordered Braeburn, “Ah know what I’m doin’.”

Gulping, trembling, Roseluck clambered onto the bed and went belly to belly with Braeburn. Her pussy immediately went into a frenzy of winking, but she stayed quiet as Braeburn reached up, hugged her, and curled his fine strong cowpony hind legs back to either side of her quivering body. His position suggested he was the mare, and Rose was the stallion between his legs. This didn’t seem to worry him at all.

“Now, Mister Caramel, I do b’leeve we’re ready for ya. You know what to do. Please mount your mare at yer earliest convenience, before she git too excited and pop off without ya,” said Braeburn.

Caramel’s eyes were wide, but they were fixed on Rose’s pussy, that madly winking, glistening, dripping pony Nirvana. He trotted forward, hopped onto the bed with jaunty eagerness, and reared, mounting on Rose’s rump excitedly. He drew his hips back, began to make exploratory thrusts, felt and heard a gloriously juicy squelch as he found her vagina and began to plunge…

Braeburn’s rear hooves caught him in the crook of his hips, stopping him with irresistible force, and held him right where he was. It hadn’t been a kick or a buck: the cowpony had deftly interposed his hooves, and just blocked the thrust, effortlessly.

Caramel leaned over in astonishment and looked down, and Braeburn grinned up at him.

“You know what ta do… but this is HOW ya do.”

With that, Braeburn eased off the pressure, and Caramel, wide-eyed, followed his lead, hips tenderly swinging forth guided by cowpony hooves. The experience was so disconcerting, that it took him a moment to remember what it was for.

It didn’t take him long to be reminded. Lily and Daisy stared from behind him like they were watching miracles and wonders, and then he felt soft roundness against his crotch and realized his whole cock felt deliciously warm and slippery… and he realised he’d gone to the hilt in Rosie, real gentle and slow, and was so off-balance by Braeburn’s weird behavior that he’d barely noticed.

Roseluck most certainly had.

Squeezed cozily between Braeburn and Caramel, keeping resolutely silent no matter what, Rose’s brain had exploded with pleasure from the first squelchy poke… and she’d never felt anything, anything to compare with the sensation of Caramel slurping so sedately and relentlessly into her. It split her wide with the girth of his horsecock, sounded her to depths she’d never had touched, yet calm and slow with a control she’d never imagined. She felt like she was in the forelegs of a stallion fit to master her, ride her anywhere, any way he chose, and her body melted down into complete surrender, juicy slickness surging forth to greet his every delightful move.

In fact, she was in the forelegs of two stallions at once, and the cock was all Caramel but the moves were pure Braeburn.

Braeburn felt his own cock shove eagerly out, along Roseluck’s trembling side, and grinned to himself. Now, if he was screwing a sturdier mare, this’d be good time to give her a lil’ ol’ buck and shake her up. But it was a special occasion, so of course he…

Roseluck shuddered hard, and clenched. Caramel, his nostrils flaring, yanked his hips back, and went to plunge hungrily back to her depths.

Braeburn’s hooves flicked out again, and caught him, and the cowpony whacked Caramel on the shoulder with a hoof.

“Whoa there!” he commanded, holding Caramel at bay.

Caramel panted, his eyes rolling. “Sorry…”

“Nature do call, don’t she?” quipped Braeburn. “All right, nice and easy… back in.”

Rose’s whole body shook as Braeburn guided Caramel’s hips. She made plaintive whimpering noises, her eyes rolling back in her head, as Caramel’s hard-on slid deeper and deeper into her body, coming to rest where it had been, seemingly pressing her eager frantic womb.

“Don’t thump,” advised Braeburn. “On the one hoof, that can hurt ‘em. When it don’t hurt ‘em, it gives ‘em such a jolt that she’ll faint for sure. An’ that’s fun but that ain’t what we’re here for…”

Roseluck’s eyes weren’t rolling back anymore. She was still panting, moaning, louder and louder. She wasn’t looking Braeburn in the eye, no. She was staring somewhat lower. Braeburn followed her gaze to see his own enormous penis, so stiff it was glossy, throbbing cheerfully right against her trembling side. Roseluck couldn’t stop staring, and it was obvious the sight was exciting her. It seemed she was reacting like she was being fucked by two horsecocks, the one sunk to her depths and throbbing tightly in her juicy confines, the other one insouciantly flaring out right there where she could watch. Rose began to squeal and shake, overstimulated by the sensory surround and multiple sensations…

“Aw shit,” blurted Braeburn. “Uhh… Lily? Kin ya…”

Both Lily and Daisy reacted as one. Daisy rushed forward to one side of the coupling (or tripling) ponies, and began talking to Rose. “Good girl! It’s okay, calm down, you’re beautiful, we can do this…”

Lily took the other side, and Braeburn’s face was transformed with smiles, relief, and a hint of wicked naughtiness. Lily had rushed over and hid his cock from Rose’s view… with her entire foreleg.

Braeburn throbbed at the contact, and swelled an inch and a half further, oozing a bit of precome. Lily adjusted her foreleg’s position, with only a minor wobble of near-fainting.

“Thankee,” said Braeburn, and he meant it. “I’ll try not to tease ya. Keep holdin’ that there, less’n you got a blanket. Or we kin put a lil’ hat on it and call it my little helper?”

Lily’s lip quivered, and her gaze pleaded. Over him, Roseluck shook and moaned.

“Sorry,” said Braeburn. “Thanks again. Let’s do this.”

Caramel peered down at him. “Uhh! She’s… wow!” Roseluck’s tail thrashed against his crotch, and her lovely rump wriggled feverishly against him.

“Steady,” counseled Braeburn, his ears laid back in concentration. “Listen… you might be able ta do a little nudgin’. Go careful.”

Caramel gave it a try. Roseluck bucked under him, wailing.

“Oh gosh!” cried Caramel, as her vagina convulsed upon him in a brutally powerful orgasm. “Uhhh!”

“Whoa!” demanded Braeburn. “Hold! She’s out.”

“Oh, no!” squeaked Daisy, horrified.

“Sh! Don’t yell. Ah thought we might get some of this. Caramel? Hold still and keep thinkin’ of what that felt like. But not too much! Ah will kick your flank if you bust off too soon. Rosie?” cooed the cowpony. “Oh, Rosie? Come back, Rosie…”

Rose’s eyelids flickered. For a moment, she stared uncomprehending… and then she glanced to either side, her face all fear and tragedy.

“Naw,” said Braeburn firmly. “You hear that? Naw, he din’t. Now you stay with us, Rosie!”

Roseluck’s lip quivered desperately. Her expression bore mute testament to how much she wanted her dream, and her sudden realization of how ambitious it really was. If she couldn’t even withstand her OWN orgasm without fainting…

“Stay strong,” commanded Braeburn. He reached up and caressed her cheek, wiping away a tear. “You kin do this, honey. We best move along.”

Lily swayed, Braeburn’s cock throbbing under her foreleg. “How?” she asked, plainitively. “I’m never going to stand it when you come, Braeburn. It’s gonna bounce off the headboard and spray all over Rosie and she’ll be out too…”

“Sh!” said Braeburn, as Roseluck whimpered at the prospect. He gritted his teeth. “Don’t you, DON’T you dare, don’t you let it go…” he hissed, his eyes squeezed shut in fearsome determination. Then he opened them, to see all four wildly aroused ponies staring right at him.

“Mister Caramel?” said Braeburn calmly. “You’re in position, tucked right up in there. Don’t you move… but cast your mind back to how that felt. And think an’ think an’ THINK it. Rose, hold on!”

And Braeburn held his breath, and he fiercely held back his own explosive cumshot, and he watched, for there was nothing more he could do for them.

Rose’s eyes went wide, in perfect silence. Caramel was doing what Braeburn asked. That hardened horsecock wasn’t plunging within her, oh no. But it was palpably stiffening. It swelled hungrily inside her, taking her breath away, filling her with mingled excitement and panic and even though he wasn’t thrusting…

“uh! Uh! Uh! Ah! AH!”

Rose began crying out, unable to control herself, her eyes open wide and full of alarm as orgasm stole upon her and began shaking her like a toy in the jaws of a Diamond Dog. She clung desperately to awareness as the surges and spasms built…

A wild staccato squelching, barely audible over her panicked cries, emerged from between her shuddering rump and Caramel’s immobile crotch. He wasn’t thrusting, but her orgasm built until she was spasming so hard she was jerking him off, her vagina convulsing insanely on him as she fought to stay conscious.

Caramel, his body stiff, his mouth hanging open in a soundless cry of amazement, raised his unseeing eyes to the ceiling. He clung to Rose as she spasmed, and from under her, Braeburn hugged both of them, petting first Caramel and then Roseluck with gentle, encouraging touches.

Rose’s eyes began to cross.

“GUH!” grunted Caramel…

And Roseluck squealed “EEEH!” as she felt Caramel’s earth pony semen gush fiercely through that swollen horseboner, splatter against her cervix, and then with ceaseless urgent pumping into her virgin womb where it sloshed stickily about, palpably there, more and more of it with each stallion-spasm.

“Guh! Uhh! Nhh! UNNH! Ughh! Bluh! Buh…”

Braeburn grinned. There was nothin’ lovelier nor sillier than a stallion blowin’ an extra hard load. Some of them had looked like a real bucketful, if Braeburn was any judge of gushers. Caramel’s tongue dangled foolishly, his eyes unfocused. He’d be fine. Braeburn glanced hastily back at the three mares against him…

Roseluck stared resolutely at the wall, very much aware, and her face was wreathed in the smile of an angel, an expression of unimaginable joy and gratitude such as Braeburn had never seen: not even from his own best efforts. Of course, he thought, this was going to have to count as his best effort yet, or he was a donkey. She so obviously felt it, every last moment.

To the sides, Lily and Daisy gazed upon her like the angel’s filly lackeys, nearly blubbering with joy, speechless. They hadn’t fainted, either.

Furtively, Braeburn lifted his hind hooves, and placed them against Caramel’s hips once more. Not because the dazed, sated stallion seemed likely to buck: just as insurance. It would be sacrilege to break this spell. Along the same lines, he gritted his teeth and tightened up his nethers, refusing himself an orgasm despite the insanely potent waves of pleasure totally surrounding and lifting him until he felt like he’d had a bucket of salt, a gallon of cider, and a swift kick to the head.

He’d have a chance to bust his nuts some other time. For now… he had, they all had, won the grandest prize imaginable.

Roseluck still stared at infinity, eyes wide and aware, even as her head gradually settled onto Braeburn’s chest. Tenderly, Lily and Daisy nuzzled closer, both of them crying with joy. Over all of them, Caramel drooled onto Rosie’s mane, caught himself, looked embarrassed, and then sagged too, not trying to dismount, just allowing his body to soften and melt onto theirs, the hard intrusion into Rose’s fertile softness beginning to subside, his gift to her obviously still felt deep within her most precious depths.

Braeburn sighed with deep satisfaction.

“An’ that,” he breathed, so gently, “is how we keep love alive…”

And they didn’t sleep, except for Caramel. Braeburn lay with the three flower ponies for minute after minute, basking with them in the joy of wakened dreams.

Roseluck nuzzled Caramel’s sleeping face.

“Next time,” she purred sweetly, “I want to be banged like Rainbow Dash…”

Braeburn snorted with laughter. “Mares!”

At the door of Fluttershy’s cottage, Pinkie Pie hesitated, lifting a forehoof, shying away.

She had BEEN that door, and the windows, and the wall. She’d delighted in panicking the zebras: she’d have panicked Fluttershy if she could, but there was nothing she could do that would frighten the vampire pegasus. It was like her straight-mare unavailability rendered her immune to Pinkie’s gift of madness, alarm, and disruption.

Pinkie looked back, into Zecora’s impassive stripey face. The zebra mare gazed solemnly into Pinkie’s imploring eyes. If there was a forgiveness there, it wasn’t some sort of pony forgiveness, of hugs and tears and promises. Zecora waited, withholding judgement or blame, unhurried… to see what Pinkie Pie would do.

Fluttershy’s gaunt little frame pushed past the two. “Hmph! I told you to come to my place and have sex with me, what’s the matter with you?” she said, petulantly.

Zecora’s gaze visibly flicked from Pinkie’s fretful eyes, to Fluttershy’s goatlike, seemingly elderly ass as the vampegasus walked into her cottage. Zecora’s lips tightened, but before any other expression could register, she was looking at Pinkie again. Her head was held high, as Pinkie peered anxiously at her and wondered if Zecora blamed her for the changes. Should she have done more, somehow interceded and prevented this? How?

As if reading Pinkie’s unspoken distress, Zecora shut her eyes for a moment, and lowered her head. She looked again at Pinkie with a less judgemental gaze, and she gave a little jerk with her head, a gesture. In, she suggested. In.

Pinkie Pie backed up, bumped the door, gave a little whinny of startlement, whirled and trotted obediently into the cottage, as Fluttershy had asked.

Behind her, Zecora’s gaze flicked unerringly to the jounce and ripple of Pinkie Pie’s plush posterior. Her expression didn’t change, but she followed very close behind.

Fluttershy had already trotted upstairs, Dursaa in hot pursuit. Pinkie saw him heading into the bedroom, his big weighty zebra cock already swinging forward. She recoiled, then glanced in apparent fright at Zecora. It seemed that Pinkie Pie, having abandoned her dominant and reality-ignoring behavior, was left with little idea of what would be considered okay. Was cringing away from a huge throbbing zebra cock okay in this household? She didn’t seem to know.

Zecora’s zebra sternness had always done battle with Pinkie wackiness. It now reigned unopposed. Pinkie’s lip quivered as she looked to Zecora for some sort of clue.

“Don’t worry, we won’t insist you withstand any stallion outburst,” said Zecora. “We’ll just ensure that our pegasus is content, first.”

She turned and headed up the stairs with a calm, unhurried gait. Pinkie trailed after, peering around her stripey rump, her eyes big as if she was creeping into a haunted house.

In certain ways, she might as well have been.

Dursaa balanced himself, trying to mount Fluttershy without placing any weight on her since she seemed both feeble and fragile. His monumental zebra cock swung under him, prodding his vampegasus lover in awkward places.

Fluttershy squealed. “Eeeeee! Would you get it together? You know how to do this! Will you just jump on already? Oh, Zecora, Pinkie, thank goodness! Help! This big oaf has forgotten how… eeee! to fuck!”

Pinkie’s face twisted in a pitiable frown of dismay, but Zecora didn’t hesitate. “Hold still!” she commanded, and reached out a steadying hoof. “Husband dear: it goes HERE.”

Dursaa, cooperatively, pressed his hips forward. There wasn’t so much of a squelch, but all the same, his penis shoved firmly against Fluttershy’s narrowed, seemingly elderly vulva, and then popped in.

“UNNNHHH!” moaned Fluttershy, her wings springing erect.

Both Zecora and Pinkie regarded the sight with differing degrees of dismay. Fluttershy’s bones weren’t any different than they had been, but her lack of plush meant that Dursaa’s girth seemed still more exaggerated. He was gentle as he pressed deeper, to another moan from Fluttershy and the wriggling of her diminished haunches, but all the same, it seemed worrying.

Zecora muttered, “I shall begin work on those extensions tomorrow…”

Dursaa’s eyes closed, and he nuzzled the top of Fluttershy’s head, and then the shank of her upraised wing. To him, it seemed, nothing could possibly be wrong.

Zecora caught Pinkie’s expression out of the corner of her eye, and her ears laid back. Hastily, she moved to interpose her stripey body between Pinkie’s shellshocked eyes and the coupling pair. She bent nearer.

“Pinkie?”

Pinkie let out a whimper. From behind Zecora, the beginnings of a juicy, gentle rhythm began to emerge.

Zecora lost no time. She began nudging Pinkie away from the scene, back down the stairs. “Pinkie, walk with me. This you should not see… at least not now, at any rate. It seems too much, you’d better wait.”

Pinkie allowed herself to be coaxed down the stairs, into the living room, in front of the couch facing the wall she’d replaced with herself. She struggled to explain. “No, no, it’s okay, by which I mean it’s not okay at all but I know this is what Fluttershy always loved best, I want the right thing for her, I can h…hear how happy she is…”

Zecora’s ears laid back again, as a lewd pegasus yowl wafted down from upstairs. “You think so? Surely there’s no doubt. A deaf pony could work that out.” She winced at something, but turned her attention to Pinkie.

“I’m s…sorry…” quavered Pinkie. “I shouldn’t even be here…”

“Pinkie.”

Pinkie Pie blinked. “Yes?”

“You should.”

Pinkie wrinkled her brow. “That didn’t rhyme.”

Zecora sighed. “Would that I had granted you the respect of private talk long ago!”

“Well, that rhymed even less!” said Pinkie. “Unless you’re working up to some kind of really long, complicated…”

“Pinkie.”

“Okay, that would be a really cheap rhyme, even if I did spend an episode in a mirror pool rhyming myself with myself,” said Pinkie, distracted, her eyes tracking random thoughts and associations.

Zecora leaned in, and kissed her on the lips, and Pinkie stopped raving.

“Both of us find some dismay in what’s happened to Fluttershy,” admitted Zecora. “You have never enjoyed her love of stallions, and I… am troubled by her new condition.”

“I’m sorry!” said Pinkie. “We tried to kill the monster but it was too hard! I could have tried to help sooner but I’m not sure how much difference it would’ve made…”

“No, no!” protested Zecora. “We rejoice in your shared victory. It’s not that I mean. I have needs, and I think I have been a fool…”

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Oh! That! We used to… I remember, now. I’m sorry! Lie on the couch and I, I’ll try to get back into it…”

Zecora stamped the floor, and Pinkie fell silent, cringing back at the haughty zebra glare. Somehow she couldn’t do anything right! Her eyes teared up, but then Zecora was leaning forward, nuzzling her with surprising gentleness.

“Please don’t do that,” said Zecora gently. “Please. What I wish of you is not so hard. I have never seen such a hasty pony! Cannot you rest? Do you understand so little? Do you understand ME so little, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie gulped. Her lip quivered. And then she asked a question she’d never once asked Zecora, never asked Fluttershy: a question she’d never dared ask anypony because the answer could have been ‘nothing’.

“What do you want from me?” asked Pinkie Pie.

Zecora’s eyes glinted warmly, somehow, a fire and an embrace balanced within them.

“Relax and be soft,” she said. “I like it. And… allow me my fill. Of this.”

Pinkie blinked, puzzled. “Of what?”

And then she backed up, as Zecora advanced. Backed up until she bumped the couch, and the zebra enchantress kept right on smiling and advancing. And Pinkie flumphed right back onto the couch, her legs in the air, and Zecora’s smile widened…

With a little sigh of satisfaction, Zecora buried her face between Pinkie’s voluptuous thighs and just nuzzled, glorying in the billows of plump pink pony before her. Rubbing tender pony breasts, wiggling her entire face against the pudgy softness of Pinkie’s inner thighs. Prodding Pinkie’s quivery, billowy vulva with her dark grey nose, those heavy earrings dangling and cold against Pinkie’s flesh, the bold and alarming manestyle highlighting those huge, intense, aqua eyes.

Pinkie gazed down in astonishment, speechless.

Zecora smirked up at her, raised a hoof, and spanked the side of Pinkie’s pudgy, cake-induced flank. A ripple of squidgy softness coursed through Pinkie’s relaxed leg, across her ample vulva, into the other leg where it wobbled over the other side of her ass, and then rippled right back again.

Pinkie had done that once, exactly once, with Fluttershy while Fluttershy was pregnant with Rock Candy and being fed fudge by her earth pony paramour at every available opportunity. Fluttershy hadn’t understood, and Pinkie had slept on the couch that night, and not until Fluttershy had returned to her preferred shape had she felt herself again. Though the secretly vampiric pegasus had bountiful curves, she’d never gloried in them, always picturing herself as the gangly little pegasus filly she’d once been.

Zecora’s smirk grew more inflamed as she gazed lustfully up into Pinkie’s widening eyes.

Horses for courses, it would appear.

And then, she’d dived back into the supple fields of Pinkie laid quiveringly out before her, a feast for more than just the tongue… and Pinkie was at first too stunned to respond, particularly as Zecora resumed nuzzling her whole squishy groin area in obvious delight, rather than zero in on clit or even vaginal folds. No, Zecora admired all the soft rounded Pinkie rolls and folds, blossoms of pony pudge so tender and delicious…

“AHH!” squeaked Pinkie.

…and proved it, by cramming her whole face into Pinkie’s crotch, her hungry tongue exploring deep into the many-layered softness of Pinkie’s tender vagina.

Pinkie writhed, but not to get away: just galvanized by the sensation. How could anything else crave her body the way those lusty pegasi had, so long ago? Nopony else had ever shown such enthusiasm. Why hadn’t Zecora said anything about this?

Oh, right, thought Pinkie: it might have something to do with flinging the hapless zebra over and going full Pinkie inside Zecora’s stripey muscular pussy until she couldn’t walk. And of course she hadn’t asked, because why would anypony crave an ordinary and rather pudgy earth pony so hotly?

Zecora snarled with pleasure, suckled on Pinkie’s clit, kneaded her unresisting body with firm zebra hooves, and went back to eating soft yielding pussy like it was a special candy.

Her lusty delight was impossible not to believe. Pinkie squirmed again, more weakly, her whole psyche demanding that she switch positions and earn her keep and give better than she got. Zecora wasn’t having any of that, and didn’t let up for a moment, her eyes transfixing Pinkie, juice dripping from the edges of her grin. And then she’d shoved her whole face in there again, her tongue reaching surprisingly deep, but not like some sort of stunt: merely the natural result of wallowing in mare with shameless, heedless glee.

Pinkie Pie melted back against the couch like she’d never done, surrendering completely… and squealed at the ceiling, melting down into a twitching, shuddering ponypuddle in an orgasm that didn’t just pop like a party cannon and turn itself to returning the favor. Not even with her beloved pegasi patrol had she come so hard, for pegasi were no match for an aroused, excited earth pony wanting to flip them over and go cupcakes on their pretty vaginas. Nopony had ever made Pinkie Pie lie back and endure cunnilingus for more than a few seconds. Or interceded when Pinkie’s natural response to an orgasm was to immediately and gratefully turn the tables, stop coming herself, and promptly give twelve times the orgasms to her marefriends. The only pegasus who could possibly have done it would’ve been Rainbow Dash, and Dash never argued about receiving twelve times the orgasms she gave. It had all seemed fair at the time.

Zecora was a powerful, excited, intimidating zebra mare, and bigger than Pinkie, and Pinkie had been ready to tolerate something new and different for a change.

Or for a few seconds.

Or for a few minutes…

Zecora gulped, her eye twitching, and looked up, ears quirked in concern. Pinkie had been shrieking and squealing until she was hoarse, and had convulsed gloriously until she could convulse no more. Zecora liked that even better, for she’d gone even more squishy when exhausted past the ability to spasm forcefully—and so Zecora had kept right on going, trusting in earth pony stamina to protect her crazy pink pussy-feast from harm. But when Pinkie’s screams of ecstacy gave way to feeble croaks of ecstacy, Zecora came to her senses. Lifting her head, she gazed with concern on her tongueiwork, wondering if she’d broken Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie, limp beyond all comprehension, gazed up at Zecora in stunned awe.

“…why?” she croaked.

Zecora blushed, and scuffed a forehoof on the floor.

“I love fat mares, I cannot lie.”

Pinkie’s mind appeared blown, but some coherent thought seemed to pull itself together, the unruffled pink brow wrinkling in thought, then smoothing in an earnest, imploring gaze.

“Don’t ever leave me!” she begged. “Don’t make me be alone!”

Tears were in Zecora’s eyes. She scooched forward, and embraced Pinkie’s limp, sated body.

“Never,” she promised. “We will work things out, if ever we find conflict and sadness again. You will not be excluded. This, I vow.”

Pinkie sobbed, clinging to Zecora, happy and overwhelmed like she’d never, ever been.

Zecora sighed, content.

“Our Zebra herds are rarely only three,” she said. “The others doubtless will agree with me.”

The little, sulky voice drifted down from upstairs, as if voicing some objection or concern. “Um…”

Zecora’s eyes shot wide. She stared at Pinkie like a zebra madmare, then at the stairwell. She gritted her teeth. “Our Fluttershy’s not always kind. But damned if she will change my mind!”

“No!” squeaked Fluttershy’s voice. “I heard what you did to Pinkie, good for you! It figures she just needed zebra sex, I swear by it! But, um… we have a little problem, or sort of a big problem?”

Zecora’s and Pinkie’s eyes met.

Before she knew it, Zecora was trotting up the stairs… and somehow, behind her, staggered Pinkie Pie. That earth pony stamina was really something, thought Zecora approvingly… and then, she came into the bedroom, and clattered to a halt, staring.

Fluttershy and Dursaa were in exactly the same position, perhaps with Dursaa wedged a little deeper into the vampony’s pussy. Fluttershy pouted out from under him, lying on her back with her legs splayed obscenely around his massive body.

But there was nothing juicy about their coupling. Shy had run dry, her eager arousal not able to lubricate that vast an erection. They’d slowed down, and got stuck.

“If it isn’t too much trouble,” said Fluttershy, “could you… you know.”

Zecora stared at their plight, then turned. “I’ll get the butter, darling Flutter.”

“Yay!”

Pinkie’s jaw dropped. “Wait, what?”

“My darling loves a zebra much,” said Dursaa embarrassedly, “but sometimes her grasp exceeds her gush…”

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “Butter? Oh, no. No no. You gotta be kidding. One side.”

Zecora gasped. “But… Pinkie Pie, is this not unthinkable horror for you? Do not spoil the pleasure I’ve given, by grossing yourself out!”

Pinkie laughed.

“Silly Zecora!” she said, and winked a merry blue eye. “Helping others isn’t bad. Maybe gross? But,” she said and whispered to Zecora, “I’ve done this before. In the first book, long ago. Trust me.”

“The first what?” said Zecora, but Pinkie was determinedly wobbling forward on her unsteady, sex-weakened hooves.

“So dry there's not even any donut frosting,” she said, with mingled relief and disapproval. “Big Stripey, when that thing goes off, don’t point it at me, okay?”

Fluttershy was staring in disbelief. “I don’t see why you can’t just go and get some butter like we always use. Then you can just YEEEEE!”

Pinkie’s tongue lovingly caressed her tiny nub of a clitoris, where it was squished against Dursaa’s shaft, and then slathered the shank of that stallionhood in saliva.

It tasted like skin and pussy, which was about the least surprising observation ever, thought Pinkie Pie. The surprising part was how much less alarming the thing was, when it obviously wasn’t replacing you in the eyes of the mares you loved. It was just Dursaa’s special thing, and Dursaa in turn was Fluttershy’s special thing, but not her only special thing. She had others, as Pinkie well knew.

She could feel Dursaa trying to shift himself inside Fluttershy, and she smirked, knowing he didn’t have the secret to that magic trick. She did.

Pinkie half-shut her eyes, and concentrated wholly on licking and making love to that little bitty nub called a Fluttershy’s clitoris, something Shy hadn’t even known she had until Pinkie had revealed it to her. It was literally the same as ever, though so much else about Shy had changed in their battle against Snowy Hocks. Her clit remained tiny, hidden… and sensitive. It responded enthusiastically to nearby thrustings.

But Pinkie Pie knew how to coax it out, and caress the hidden jewel with an expert tongue. It took dexterity, and coordination, and skill… but the rewards were great.

Fluttershy went rigid, with a croaking noise and wide, shocked eyes. Her lean little ass tensed around the oversized stallionhood wedged in her vagina. With tender slurping sounds, Pinkie continued to lick her clitoris, as Zecora watched enthralled.

“Uhh! UHH! EEEEEEE!”

Fluttershy bucked under Dursaa, and suddenly Pinkie’d jumped backward, and a whole new juicy-wet glisten coated Dursaa’s cock, and it was free to plunge and with obscene slurping sounds it did just that…

Fluttershy yowled a lewd song of orgasm, clinging to her husband, and the squirting marely orgasm she’d experienced was kicked up into the stratosphere by Dursaa roaring and plunging to her depths and spurting copious gouts of zebracome. Panting, sweating, he drew his erection back to make room, and Fluttershy writhed and wailed sweetly in still more orgasm as his issue inflated her with its zebra-standard volume.

“Told you I could do it,” said Pinkie smugly. Zecora kissed her, and watched Dursaa and Shy subside.

Dursaa sagged, his mighty head lowering, his mighty cock softening and withdrawing. A flood of spooge poured out of Fluttershy, accompanied by a sultry vampony moan.

Zecora looked at Pinkie with respect. “You do know how to be one of a herd, pink pussy-pie. I have been most unfair.”

Pinkie’s eyes were also sultry, as she looked back at Zecora. “Very unfair. I can’t even walk. Mmm.”

“You walked up here!” objected Zecora.

“Doesn’t count, it was an emergency,” said Pinkie. “Now I can’t walk back down…”

“Oh, shut up and snuggle me!” demanded Fluttershy. “That was wonderful!”

Earth pony and zebra eyes met, in shared amusement. Loving a pegasus could be exhausting. Loving a vampire pegasus… was probably best done in teams.

“Are you comfortable snuggling a sticky Fluttershy?” asked Zecora, politely.

Rather than answer, Pinkie just wobbled forward and embraced Shy as well as she could, on one side. Zecora went on the other side and did likewise. And Fluttershy was dutifully hidden from view, little old granny-goat vampony body completely surrounded by loving herd members (and herd members’ members), warmed by two zebras, an earth pony mare, and a lot of love.

And something else, besides: a gift un-looked for.

“Ooooh!” marvelled Pinkie. “Fluttershy, you know what? You’re warming US!”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and snuggled, her smile radiant.

“Uh-huh!”

Pinkie nestled against her true love… and some bonus loves of different varieties… and marvelled at her second chance.

Sweetie Drops knew she’d only get one chance. She peered out of the bush, scouting for stray ponies, and her heart gave a grinding extra thump as she realized the click of the Sugarcube Corner door, behind Mr. and Mrs. Cake, had meant the departure of the last pony in sight. The streets were clear; but for how long? There was no telling. All she knew was, Ponyville wouldn’t stay that way. How long did the average stallion take to squirt and dismount? She cursed her lesbian ways and vowed to spy on more straight couples, and not just Fluttershy.

Every nerve ending twanged and shrieked, as she prodded her captive out of the bush with fierce nuzzles and little kisses. It was so cute! But it had to run, with her, before they were spotted.

Sneaking through town, her eyes scanning the windows for onlookers, her ears anxiously picking up a rich spectrum of squeals and moans. It seemed all Ponyville preferred to celebrate Essence and Fern Gully in privacy. It also seemed they found their departed kindred well worth celebrating.

Up the Ponyville street, shielding the little changeling from view with her own body, successfully making it all the way to her house where it was safe. Rushing in the door, slamming it behind them, locking it, sharing an unguarded hug of sheer relief (for the changeling seemed to understand its danger) and then scampering, like two children, out of the room and around the corner into the corridor that held her escape chute and the secret lair. Sweetie Drops’ eyes sang with delight and relief as she looked back at her new friend, trustingly following her to a lasting safety in the depths of her concealed secret agent basement. She turned to look where she was going…

And smacked straight into Mayor Mare herself, coming the other way with an anxious look that turned to utter shock as she saw her lover’s strange companion. Sweetie gasped, horrified. The little changeling froze in its tracks, panicking, not daring even to look at Mayor Mare, well and truly trapped with nowhere at all to run.

“Can I try that again?” said Sweetie Drops, futilely. “You weren’t supposed to see us.”

All Masks Dropped

Sweetie Drops cringed back, trying to figure out how to talk herself out of the predicament.

“Hey, look, over there!” she cried, but it didn’t work. Mayor Mare continued to stand in front of her, frozen in horror, staring.

Only a few feet separated Sweetie Drops and her charge from safety, but it might as well have been miles.

“Um,” said Sweetie Drops. “This is a crazy dream, okay? It’s me, Bon Bon, and if you close your eyes and shake your tail and don’t pay attention to any noises or funny things happening for the next four seconds, you’ll wake up with everything normal and me giving you a kiss…”

Lying wasn’t working as well as usual.

“Did you think you saw a changeling?” said Sweetie Drops. “Oh, my poor Mayor Mare! Why, I don’t see anything, and I’m definitely Bon Bon just like before, and there’s definitely not anything trembling against my leg. You must have a fever, or a cold, or some other sort of ailment that leads to seeing things that don’t exist! Also there was never a secret spy lair.”

Mayor Mare gulped. She wasn’t staring at Sweetie Drops, she was staring at the changeling fugitive, and Sweetie Drops didn’t like that one bit. It was making the little cutie shake like a leaf. She rallied.

“Look into my eyes,” said Sweetie Drops. “You’re growing sleepy, very sleepy…”

Mayor Mare didn’t look the least bit sleepy. She looked appalled. Still, she said nothing.

Sweetie Drops, out of brilliant secret agent tactics, snapped.

“OKAAY!” she whinnied, bursting into tears. “I give! This isn’t an optical illusion or you having a dream! It’s a real live baby changeling, but I’m keeping it, and you can’t stop me!”

Mayor Mare’s horror only increased, and still she didn’t move a muscle or make a sound.

Sweetie Drops whirled, and hugged the little changeling. “I know we’re supposed to be frightened of them but this one’s totally different! It won’t even eat love when I try to feed it, and it can’t turn into ponies or doesn’t want to, and it’s totally peaceful and I found it when I was working on the Case of the Mysterious Changeling At The Wedding, which is my job, so there!”

Slowly, Mayor Mare’s jaw began to drop, there being no other way to express her incredulity and dismay.

Sweetie Drops realized she had given herself away, and threw all her cards on the table in desperation. “And I know I’m supposed to be Bon Bon but even that is a lie because I’m Celestial Secret Agent Sweetie Drops, with a secret spy lair and everything, and I’m here to help the Princess take care of Ponyville! And not only that, I know she will back me up and let me keep the baby changeling in my secret lair because it’s a nice changeling and deserves our understanding and never hurt anypony! And you might think it’s not my place to say that ‘cos I’m only Bon Bon but I swear it’s not true, I’m a very smart and loyal secret agent and spy which is how come I know Celestia will listen to me when I tell her it’s okay, because the truth is… the truth is…”

Mayor Mare looked about ready to cry.

Sweetie Drops gulped.

“I’m so sorry, Mayor Mare,” she said, clinging to the trembling little changeling. “This must be so hard to understand. I swear I love you. That won’t ever change, ever…”

She took a deep breath, and said it.

“But the truth is, I’ve been leading a total secret life all this time.”

Mayor Mare gulped, her lip quivering piteously.

“Me too,” she said.

A green glowing flash lit the hallway, starting at her hooves and zipping up to her head, and Mayor Mare stood revealed in her full-grown changeling form.

Sweetie’s jaw dropped, the fading light still reflecting in her astonished eyes. “Guh,” she said.

“MOMMM!” shrieked the little changeling, and yanked free of Sweetie’s embrace, galloping tearfully into the waiting hug of its mother.

Sweetie plunked back onto her pony posterior, and gawked at the adorable tableau. The baby changeling sobbed and hiccupped, comforted by its Mom. And the grown-up adult changeling cuddled it tenderly, sitting there where her beloved Mayor Mare had been… but it didn’t look at the baby, for all that its touch spoke of love.

It just kept gazing at Sweetie, sitting there where ‘Bon Bon’ had been… and its deep, cool, glowing blue eyes glistened with tears, and not just that: their yearning softness spoke of love, and a kind of surrender.

Sweetie took a breath.

“Who are you?”

“Mayor Mare,” said the changeling. “Always. For you…”

The little changeling let out a wail, and hiccupped again. For the first time, the changeling Mom dropped her gaze. “Oh, Kevin! It’s okay, Kevin. We’re still here. Nopony is hurting us, it’s okay…”

Sweetie’s jaw had dropped again. “Kevin?!”

“It’s a nice name,” said the changeling defensively. “Don’t judge.”

Sweetie rose, and stepped closer. “You sound like Mayor Mare! And you talk like Mayor Mare.”

“I AM Mayor Mare!” protested Mayor Mare. “That’s my name now! I take care of things for the ponies.”

“What happened to the original Mayor Mare?” challenged Sweetie.

That got her a pout and a grumpy look. “Well, what happened to the original Bon Bon?”

“There wasn’t one!” said Sweetie Drops. “I just made it up and came to town and… oh. Really?”

“I am Mayor Mare,” said Mayor Mare. “I confess it’s not imaginative. Mayor because that was my fondest aspiration, and Mare because I proposed to live as a mare in every way while I helped ponies. It was a good plan. Is, I mean. I don’t know what you’re going to do now, but I couldn’t bear it any longer. I love you, Bon Bon, and seeing you protecting little Kevin, I loved you more than ever.”

“Sweetie Drops,” corrected Sweetie Drops.

“At least I stuck to one name,” retorted Mayor Mare. She winced. “I’m sorry. It really is still you, isn’t it? You even look sort of cranky, though I could always tell that was just your way.”

Sweetie pouted. “Oh, phoo! Yes, I am a little cranky. Here’s the thing, Mayor Mare. It’s just me here, but I love and respect Princess Celestia, and I’ll have to report to her eventually. Don’t be afraid: I know she is kind. But I still must know one thing. Are you here so that you and your child can feed on love from Ponyville?”

Mayor Mare looked her straight in the eye, with an expression Sweetie had never imagined a changeling could wear. It was a look of calm serenity, joy… and a quiet pride.

“No,” said Mayor Mare. “I thrive by GIVING love to all Ponyville. Including you… my love.”

Sweetie Drops sat back. “Keep talking. I see it, but I can hardly believe it.”

Mayor Mare took a deep breath, her insectile wings rustling dryly with nervousness, but her jaw set in determination. “At first I couldn’t believe it, either. It seems a lifetime ago… well, it is. Ponies are so cute! I couldn’t hurt them. And I didn’t want trouble, and I hid. It was madness, especially since I had a larva with me.”

“Erm… ew?” said Sweetie Drops.

That got her a grumpy look. “Kevin, to you. I won’t expect you to understand. Anyhow his carapace is lovely now. The point is, I just couldn’t prey any longer. So I hid, and stayed close to the dear sweet ponies, and I set out to starve with honor. And I tried to hasten the process by loving them with all my dorsal vessel.”

Sweetie Drops blinked.

“Heart, to you,” said Mayor Mare. “We’re sort of a bag of goo in a shell: it’s hard to explain to mammals.”

“You can explain that later,” said Sweetie Drops. “What happened, Mayor Mare?”

Mayor Mare’s eyes softened into a grateful gaze. “Something wonderful, Bon B… Sweetie. Something wonderful. Maybe I do need to explain a little about changelings? The dorsal vessel pumps our goo to the top, and then it sort of flows over our organs and sustains them. There’s no specific direction required, it just has to circulate.”

“But how does that…” began Sweetie Drops, and then her jaw dropped and her eyes went wider than they’d ever gone. “YOU MEAN?”

“I do,” said Mayor Mare with quiet certainty. “I am living proof, and I’m teaching Kevin the same thing. A changeling can survive just as well by loving others. It’s the flow, the circulation that matters, not the direction. It has all been worth it, every last second. I know the truth now to the core of my thorax, and if we survive, one day I and my child will change the world.”

Sweetie gawked at the serene, benevolent changeling that was Mayor Mare, and then her emotions overwhelmed her. “EEEEE!” she squealed, rushed forward and snuggled the smiling bugpony, her little pony heart going pitter-pat. “Eeee, I love you so much! That is so awesome!”

Mayor Mare gave a little, ecstatic sigh, and tenderly stroked Sweetie’s mane with a holey, chitinous hoof.

Then, Sweetie blinked. “Now wait a minute! Wait just one second.”

“Which?” asked Mayor Mare, the luminous blue eyes blinking.

“Sh! No, I mean… that can’t be true! It can’t be true because I love you so much! I’m loving you more right now, so how can you possibly not be eating any of that if it’s a flow? I mean, it’s not hurting me, but wait a minute! What you say CAN’T be true.” She poked experimentally at Mayor Mare’s slim, translucent green belly.

“Oh, phoo,” said Mayor Mare, embarrassedly, with a toss of her antennae. “I won’t be fool enough to deny it. Your love is delicious. And yes, I give it right back, but I can’t prove my story by you, darling, not in a million years. However! You’ve not thought things through, dear Agent Sweetie. What, precisely, do I do in Ponyville?”

Sweetie frowned. “You’re Mayor Mare. It’s amazing to think of it now, but even before I came to town you were Mayor. Since you’ve always been a changeling, that means you got love before you ever met me, perhaps from your job. But that makes no sense at all because… oh!”

Mayor Mare nodded solemnly. “You’ve got it. I’m their Mayor, and all day long ponies come to me with troubles and problems and expect my help. Ever since we were together, it’s frustrated you that they don’t express more gratitude, don’t love me for what I do for them. That’s the nature of politics, I’m afraid, you only meet them when they’re cross with you. But do you see? Every day I do my best to help guide the ponies, even if they’re ungrateful or cross… because I love them. And I never fail to love them… because that keeps me alive and well.”

Sweetie Drops gawked at her wonderful Mayor Mare again, stars in her eyes. It all added up, and it was so beautiful, inside and out.

Mayor Mare scuffed a bug hoof on the floor embarrassedly. “Rather ponylike, in fact, which is something I enjoy about it. And yes, you’re different, but you’re my mate. I’ve indulged, there’s nothing so wrong with that. It all balances out, and one can hardly be blamed, after a week of bread and water, if one is enthusiastic for… sweets.”

“Oh, wow,” said Sweetie Drops. “The Princess is going to be so happy! She loves making peace… and she loves creatures like you!”

“And I love you,” said Mayor Mare, “but also, I’m so grateful! Now I don’t have to hide Kevin from you. I promise, I’m teaching him to love others and not to become copies of ponies. It’s actually a lot harder to make up a pony out of your head, but I’ve become so used to being Mayor Mare that it’s no trouble anymore. Little Kevin will eventually invent a pony to be, but I can’t tell you how happy I am that you could accept him just as he was. He’s my little squishgrub, yes he is!”

Sweetie’s ears were quirked sideways at the odd terms of endearment, but she smiled. She did chide the Mayor, “It doesn’t go both ways, though!”

The luminous blue eyes blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“All I mean is, I tried to feed him out in the Everfree Forest and he wouldn’t let me! Maybe he doesn’t trust me?”

Kevin’s cute little blue glowy eyes blinked at her, as Mayor Changeling hastened to explain.

“He was just being good! It shows he respects you as a pony. I asked him not to eat love around Ponyville, and it seems he has been good to his chkktrxxtvv.”

“Say what?” gawked Sweetie Drops.

“Changeling talk,” said the Mayor dismissively. “He can’t really talk pony yet, but he’s getting better. Yes you are!”

“Well, now that we’re all friends,” said Sweetie, “do I get to feed him? I told him I would and it’s like I’m not keeping my promise.”

“Awww!” said Mayor Mare. “Just a moment…”

She whispered some weird sounding crackly noises to Kevin, whose eyes widened. Then, he turned to Sweetie, eyes still wide, lower lip poking out in a chitinous pout, looking as vulnerable as a lost kitten, if kittens had black shiny carapaces.

“Go on,” said Mayor Mare. “I told him it was okay.”

Sweetie Drops gave a little squee, nuzzled Kevin’s nose, and drank in those big cute baby changeling eyes, admiring the little cutie who was so good and nice and kind.

Kevin made a little trilling sound, closing his eyes for a moment and wriggling with pleasure, the most adorable baby bugpony in Ponyville or anywhere else. Sweetie squeed again, overwhelmed with the cuteness. Kevin’s eyes flicked open, went wide and startled…

“Hurrrk!”

Kevin barfed rainbows and glowy ethereal stuff all over the floor.

Mayor Mare bopped Sweetie with a holey hoof. “Not so much! He’s not used to how sweet and strong yours is. Poor baby!”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Sweetie Drops.

“It’s okay,” said Mayor Mare, “it will dissipate. And he will adjust, I promise.” She nuzzled her chastened Sweetie Drops. “You know he’s been getting it secondhoof, all this time.”

Sweetie Drops snuggled against her cozy new bugfamily, and let out a little sigh of contentment.

Princess Celestia was going to be so proud!

“What’s the matter, Big Macintosh?” asked Octavia, politely.

“Nothin’,” replied the morose farm-pony.

Octavia regarded him skeptically, then turned back to her companion. “But, Scratchie, make up your mind! Do you want to go, or don’t you? It’s been ages since I’ve been on tour, and it sounds delightful.”

“Oh, it is,” moaned Vinyl Scratch, “it’s a whole other world! That’s the exact problem!”

“Explain,” ordered Octavia. “You can’t be thinking there’s a language barrier? She spoke pony quite well, though there was something odd about her diction I haven’t worked out.”

“Count the syllables,” retorted Vinyl. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Oh my gaawwwwwd Tavi, I want to go to Neighpon as much as you do! Seeing Hina-rin just filled me with homesickness.”

“Do you think my composing will offend them?” asked Octavia. “I make no apology for my subject matter, but if I am honest I must admit my work is… visceral. If you’re telling me Neighpon would object to being lovingly ravaged with musical penis…”

“Oh, no, no, that’s why it would be such a good tour! Um, it might be best for you to open for me,” suggested Vinyl. “Not because your music is in any way less good! But because ponies dance all night to my music. And do other things… you’ll see! You would be the perfect warm-up or inspiration. I’d like to get some records made of your playing so I can DJ you in there on top of the beat and make it a whole combined experience.”

Octavia squeed demurely, and gave a little trot in place, her body exploding in a spectacular display of jiggle and wiggle and ripple and wobble. Then, she controlled her enthusiasm, and gave Vinyl a look.

“It sounds wonderful. So, what EVER is the problem, Vinyl Scratch? Or, perhaps I should say, whatever is the problem, DJ Pon-3? You want to do this as much as I do.”

Scratch pouted. “Protocol. It’s not like Ponyville. It’s more formal. You know how you carry your cello around? And I carry my decks? Of course you do, you remember when Lyra visited us, you were charmed when she helped me carry the decks home. Tavi, that wouldn’t be okay in Neighpon. Things are done a certain way there.”

“How do you mean, Scratchie?” asked Octavia. “I don’t see a problem with making friends. And of course I can carry my cello, how would I perform if I couldn’t?”

“You’d have another pony carry it for you, because you are a gifted musician worthy of respect and special treatment,” said Vinyl. “It would be a great honor for the pony carrying, and they’d take more care of it than you yourself do. It’d be a pony who understood your instrument is like a person or an extension of you, and to fail in hospitality to you and your instrument would bring shame upon the entire town and be a disgrace.”

“Oh, come on,” snorted Octavia. “It’s no trouble.”

“No, really!” protested Vinyl Scratch. “And same with my decks! And I don’t know about you, Tavi, but as much as I love Neighpon I’m not having a different stranger pony carry my decks at each gig. It’s not that they would hurt the decks, even! It’s… it just feels icky, ya know? I can’t do it. So I can’t tour Neighpon, because they wouldn’t be happy if I was seen carrying my decks like a roadie, but I don’t know a single Neighpon roadie…”

“I begin to see your concern,” said Octavia thoughtfully. “My cello would tolerate it for love of me and our great works together, but it does seem rude.”

“And, and…” said Vinyl Scratch helplessly, “they’re Ponyville decks, you know? I think they’d get homesick and I don’t want strangers touching them, especially not a new stranger in each town! And how could I find a Ponyville roadie who was ready to drop everything and go on a tour of Neighpon? There isn’t even such a thing as a Ponyville roadie!”

“Ahem?!” came a deep voice.

The two musical ponies turned their heads to see a strange sight: Big Macintosh, trotting in place, his lip quivering with yearning, a wordless plea in his eyes. He looked completely frantic.

“Did you say… Neighpon?” he blurted, his voice quavering even to say the magic word.

Octavia glanced at DJ Pon-3, and lifted one elegant eyebrow…

They’d put Kevin to bed in the secret spy lair: like any small child given sweets, he’d buzzed around madly for a while and then crashed. In his case that was literal, but the principle was the same.

Shades drawn, Sweetie Drops and Mayor Mare got to know each other all over again.

“So…” said Sweetie Drops, narrowing her eyes lovingly as she gave her changeling lover a nose-nuzzle. “Tell me…”

“I’ll tell you to give it a rest!” protested Mayor Mare. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be over-plump with love when you live in a carapace? I swear, you like me better now than you did before. I’m loving you back as hard as I can, but I just can’t keep up!”

Sweetie nickered. “Poor sweet bugpony. I always did want excitement and strange things. And go ahead and try, but you’ll never love as hard as an earth pony mare in love.”

“I’ll throw up, like Kevin did,” threatened Mayor Mare. “All over you. So there!”

“Then I will be nearly as beautiful as you,” replied Sweetie Drops. “Until it dissipates. But I’ll make more. No, I mean… Tell me why you ran away.”

Mayor Mare blinked her lovely internally glowing eyes. “I beg your pardon, dear?”

“The day the Kirin came to town,” explained Sweetie. “You didn’t run away from the Kirin. But you ran away from the magic bit. Why? I wasn’t there to see it, but I can make some guesses. What exactly were you thinking… ‘Mayor Mare’?”

Mayor Mare took a deep breath. “Oooooh. You’re good.”

That made Sweetie Drops squee and trot in place with delight, but right away she returned to her questioning. “What happened? I bet I can tell you. Back when I was with Lyra, we had one of those, and I know what they do. What happened to YOU related to a magic bit? Is it something that, if I’d been there, I would’ve been onto you?”

Mayor Mare hung her head. “Oh, gosh. Secret Agent Sweetie, thank goodness you love us, because I think you probably would’ve figured it out then and there. I’ll never forget that day. Twilight and Trixie Lulamoon had just offended the Kirin, and that frightened me. I wondered if an angry Kirin would cast about for wickedness and find me hiding in plain sight as a pony. And then, Trixie tossed me the magic bit… me! And, fool that I am, I caught it in my teeth.”

“No!” squealed Sweetie, entranced.

“Oh, yes. And it’s not what it did… you’ll remember, I first noticed you when you’d used a magic bit on Lyra and she’d blown a hole in your house. I know what they do. You were straddling her still. Remember, I asked if she would volunteer for the Ponyville Defense League?”

“I hope she’s happy,” said Sweetie Drops. “According to Princess Celestia, she is. Huh! It seems like forever ago. I still remember shaking my head and telling her she wasn’t observant.” She shook her head again. “Who knew? Not only were my mysteries far deeper than even a secret romance, but so were yours!”

“So, I grabbed a magic bit,” said Mayor Mare, “and a big horse cock sprang into existence…”

“How big?” pressed Sweetie Drops.

Mayor Mare rolled her eyes. “We’re lesbians, dear, since when is that your concern?”

“Lesbians who can grow our own dildos that have sensation,” corrected Sweetie happily. “What’s not to like about that? We can still do all the other things, silly! So what was it like?”

“I’ll tell you,” scolded Mayor Mare. “I wasn’t finished. A big horse cock sprang into existence… with a GREEN FLASH. Getting the picture, dear secret agent of mine?”

Sweetie’s mouth was an O and her eyes were wide. “Oooooo…” Then, she smirked. “I’d have had you. Green changeling glow? Like an unwanted… transformation? I’ve had one of those bits… well, the use of one. Since when do they glow or flash green? Busted!”

Changelings didn’t blush, but Mayor Mare looked abashed. “Thank goodness I never saw it again. It was just that one time and that’s one time too many!”

This didn’t get the reaction she’d expected. Sweetie Drops looked tragic, and said, “Okay, if you mean it.”

“What?”

“Well, since you hate them and it probably traumatized you…”

“Sweetie Drops, you sneaky little spy pony,” gasped Mayor Mare, “did you steal it from where it lay?”

“Oh, no! No no!” protested Sweetie Drops. “I ended up asking around and getting more of the story. And you know I used to use one with Lyra, and as near as I can tell from the accounts of witnesses, Trixie gave that one to YOU. So I had to track down where it had gone…”

“Really! I assure you, it didn’t traumatize me, except with the fear of terrible exposure. I’ve never even tried having a mare penis, though they seem alarmingly popular in Ponyville. Where had it gone, then?”

“That was a lucky break,” said Sweetie Drops. “It turns out Derpy Hooves had asked for it, and everypony said okay, and she’d trotted off home with her new toy…”

“Oh, dear, you took it from her? Derpy is a sweet thing, and I’m sure she would give it back but that seems awful to ask of her! Please tell me you didn’t force Derpy to return what she’d been given. She doesn’t understand things as well as most ponies…”

“Not exactly. I was worried for just that reason, but Derpy gave it to me quite willingly. Want to hear why? You’ll never forget it once you hear it.”

“I think I had better hear it, then,” said Mayor Mare.

“Remember, Rarity has a magic bit, and they alternate use of that one. More than Lyra was willing to do for me,” grumbled Sweetie Drops, sounding very Bon Bon for a moment. “As soon as I mentioned it, Derpy said, ‘oh yeah you’re super into just mares! Do you want it?’ without any prompting at all.”

Mayor Mare blinked. “Really! Did it not please her, somehow?”

Sweetie giggled. “Derpy said they never used it except for sword fighting.”

“Oh, my!”

“It gets better,” said Sweetie Drops. “Then she told me if you bite two of them at once… let’s just say she became the weirdest boy alicorn ever, until Rarity made her stop. And she told me, Rarity doesn’t want to have two bits in the house ever again, even if it’s funny, so she’d hidden it outside and was that okay?”

“Oh, dear,” said Mayor Mare, looking a bit stunned. “That’s very… royal?”

“Poor Rarity,” giggled Sweetie Drops. “I can just picture her face. It’s a mercy the other ponies never discovered that. It gives me a healthy respect for Derpy Hooves, mind you: I’m sure she expected both penises to appear in the usual place, which implies she meant to serve Rarity with both of them.” She pondered this. “I daresay if it was like that, Rarity would have let her. However, we have Derpy’s word that the second penis appeared in a completely different place, and in my professional opinion any unicorn would’ve been upset by the spectacle. Rarity’s only scandalous in certain ways. She cultivates the shocking in tightly defined areas. Derpy with two horsecocks between her legs would be a fearsome sight already. Derpy rampant with a… yes, I can well believe Rarity would give way to hysterics and refuse to have two bits in the house, poor thing.”

“And so it is not in her house?” asked Mayor Mare.

“And so it is in mine,” said Sweetie. “Shall I get it?”

Mayor Mare’s luminous blue changeling eyes blinked, and she made a curious little chittering noise in excitement. “What do you want to do?”

By way of answering, Sweetie trotted off to the bedroom, and the entranced changeling followed with little clicks of her holey, chitinous hooves on the floor.

Sweetie Drops nosed into a drawer, and then turned triumphantly, bit in her teeth, grinning as a beefy solid magic mare-cock jutted forth from between her hind legs. “L’dy’s choice!”

“Oh, my!” gasped her changeling lover, just like Mayor Mare would have said it. With a green flash, she turned into the Mayor Mare that Ponyville knew, but then she was drawing back, raising a foreleg, looking worried. “Sweetie?”

“Y’s?”

“I’m a lesbian, Sweetie,” said Mayor Mare. “You know we’ve sometimes played with toys or the dinner vegetables but… Honey, I’m made for licks and kisses, and especially made for giving pleasure to other mares. When I say that I mean it quite literally, as you know. I invented and made Mayor Mare, and I’m a lesbian, and you know I have a cute little excitable fillyish pussy because I made it up out of my own head, expecting it to be used by tongues.” She gulped. “I am not MADE for THAT.”

“Oh,” said Sweetie Drops disappointedly. “Do you w’nt to use it on me?”

“You’re still a mare, though, and I won’t say I’m not tempted,” said Mayor Mare, her eyes wide. “Dear Celestia, is that ever a toy and a half. You have sensation with it? So using it would give you pleasure?”

“V’ry much so,” confirmed Sweetie Drops. “But th’ts okay, r’lly…”

“Wait,” said Mayor Mare. “I am a changeling, after all. I can accomodate this.”

Sweetie Drops blinked. “Wh’t are you going to do? Change? Into what?”

Mayor Mare’s eyes narrowed with a look of wicked glee such as the benevolent mayor pony had never shown, and the changeling’s light glinted in her eyes.

“Anything,” she boasted, proudly.

“Ooo!” squeaked Sweetie through the bit. She trotted in place, the stallionhood bouncing against her belly, and Mayor Mare’s eyes devoured it hungrily, game for a challenge.

The challenge was provided immediately. “An Ursa M’jor!” suggested Sweetie Drops.

“WHAT?”

Sweetie drooped. “W’ll, if I’m so big, that’s m’ch bigger so it wouldn’t h’rt you…”

“That wouldn’t fit in your house!” protested Mayor Mare. “And I can push the size a little but there are limits, Bon B… Sweetie Drops!”

Sweetie considered. “Bon Bon? Y’ know, me? I g’t some sp’ce in mine, I bet I could t’ke this.”

Mayor Mare narrowed her eyes. “Narcissistic much, dearest? Though I suppose that would get around my reservations…”

“R’servations?” asked Sweetie, cock still cheerfully throbbing away under her.

“I don’t want to do existing ponies,” said Mayor Mare. “I consider it rude and too much like the worst aspects of my changeling heritage. But if it’s you, I can hardly say it’s against your will, is it?”

Sweetie thought, hard. “N’t ponies. I kn’w! Be a griffin.”

Mayor Mare’s eyes widened. “Sweetie! You really must be a secret agent. I’ve never heard of a pony growing a dick and fucking a griffin!”

“R’nbow Dash,” countered Sweetie, confidently. “Pl’se?”

“Dear Celestia, you’re serious,” said Mayor Mare.

Sweetie turned, and placed the magic bit gently on her bed, and the bulky marecock withdrew. She turned to her beloved. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. But ever since I reported to the Princess about… I guess you wouldn’t have heard of it. Do you know when the griffin Gilda was visiting the Apples, and townsponies were worried about her?”

“Of course,” said Mayor Mare.

Sweetie sighed dreamily. “I don’t know whether they’d have been more or less worried if they knew the truth. Mayor, that griffin was taking it from both Rainbow Dash AND Applejack! They would bring a bit to where she was, which I believe may have been Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, and go to town. I can’t really prove it, it’s partly deduction and partly the background knowledge you can get if you’re a Celestial Agent and can look things up in the Canterlot Library. Those ponies took to dick like a fish to water, they’re both incredibly butch, or perhaps switch is a better term? And it can’t have been Gilda using it, because griffin penises are smaller and spiny and there was never any sign of abrasion on or in Dash or Applejack. I mean, other than the lacerations.”

Mayor Mare’s face was a mask of dismay. “Oh, Sweetie! It sounds awful!”

Sweetie Drops trotted in place with a squee. “But that’s just it! Talk about adventure! It must have been so good if they really went through with it even after Dash got claw injuries, and I’m sure you wouldn’t rip me up with big claws but logically what that ALSO suggests is that Gilda got off bigtime! When Gilda got arrested, she and Applejack fought to get to each other through a rioting crowd of ponies! So romantic… anyway, I’ve never heard of anything so exciting so would you be a griffin for me? A Mayor Griffin. With a big enough vagina that I can make love to you that way.”

Mayor Mare cringed. “Oh, Sweetie. They’re so fierce! And it would be easier for me to pick one I’ve seen but I don’t want to do that. I’d rather not pick Gilda, even if she… my goodness. She really did that?”

“I got close enough that I could check out her private parts, when they were leading her off to jail!” said Sweetie Drops proudly. “She was all upset and under arrest besides, but she had definitely taken pony dick! It looked kinda stretched and used. Well, it ought to have!”

“What did you mean, lacerations?” demanded Mayor Mare. “Is that what Applejack was talking about when she relinquished her job as Boss Mare? She’d been injured, there was no doubt of that.”

Sweetie’s giddy mood subsided. “Uh, yeah. That’s part of how I know what they were doing.” She sighed, wistfully. “I think it’s too dangerous with a real griffin. Applejack was badly hurt. As near as I can work out, and Princess Celestia’s confirmed some of it, Applejack was belly to belly with her, which brought Gilda’s claws to bear, and when griffins orgasm they can go nuts.”

“Hmmmm,” said Mayor Mare, skeptically.

“I promise, I don’t want to get hurt, Mayor Mare,” said Sweetie Drops, “but I live for excitement and awesomeness, and I’m a highly trained secret agent pony, and I’m telling you, that is the hottest thing ever. Plus, as Bon Bon when I was with Lyra I used a magic bit myself. So I know what it’s like making love to a mare until she loses her mind and flips out… as you saw! And so that’s always been my dream. To be as awesome and daring as Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and fuck a griffin.”

Mayor Mare frowned at her, concern in her gaze. There was a green flash, and she stood again as the changeling, and frowned worse, a look of extreme concentration on her face…

With another green flash, Mayor Mare stood as a pure white griffin with pretty fluffy wings, changeling-blue irises in her eyes, and big fluffy paws.

She lifted a hind paw, splaying the pads, and nothing pointy came out. “I’ll have you know,” she chided, “it was very difficult to think up a declawed griffin girl with a pony-sized vagina, but I love you, so let’s give it a try.”

“Yay!” squeed Sweetie Drops, seized the bit, and romped over with horsecock swinging merrily.

Mayor Mare’s griffin eyes bugged out. “GAHHH!” she yowled, and scrabbled away in a panic. “Wait, wait! Slow dowwwwn!”

Sweetie halted. “I’m s’rry! I j’st… oooh, you’re s’xy!”

Mayor Mare panted, wild-eyed. “There is that… dear me! This body goes weak in the tarsus to be jumped on that way…”

Sweetie Drops blinked. “T’rsus?”

Mayor Mare gathered her wits. “Changeling limbs… on a pony I think you would say wobbly in the hocks. Errrmm. Dear me,” she said, and reached down between her legs. Her tail thrashed, then swished hard to the side and quivered there. “Nnnnhh! Did I say hocks? She’s wobbly in the… Dear me, I had no idea lady griffins were so ravenous!”

“Um… y’y?” suggested Sweetie Drops, holding the bit in her teeth.

The snowy griffin’s tail lashed, and she regarded Sweetie with narrowed, lusty eyes. “Hmmm. I am fairly sure I designed this griffin acceptably.” She shuddered, and touched her feline vagina again, and groaned with satisfaction. “I made her pelvis a little more roomy to handle pony girth,” she said, “so that shouldn’t be a problem. H—how long is that thing?”

Sweetie Drops turned to the side obligingly, reared a little and lifted a foreleg, biting down harder to show her equine length.

The snowy, lissome griffin shuddered all over. “NNNNHH!” she moaned. With an elegant, silken motion, she sprang to all fours, stalking back and forth in a frenzy. “Want!” she meowled, “naow!”

“Y’y!” cheered Sweetie Drops.

“Wait, wait!” protested Mayor Mare. She whirled and presented at Sweetie, and then appeared to do push-ups, hunkering to the floor and then trying to stand on all four legs and then pressing low again. “Aghh! I don’t want to risk belly to belly, but I can’t control her body, it’s sticking her ass in the air like no pony ever would!”

Sweetie had stars in her eyes. “Oooo! H’ld still… wait, you s’d she doesn’t have claws!”

Mayor Mare blinked. “Oh!” she mewed, sprang lithely onto the bed and reclined on her back, squirming lewdly. “Mreowll!”

Sweetie hopped up onto the bed, straddled her. Mayor Birdkitty reached up, fondling Sweetie’s body with griffin talons, her soft hindpaws curling up to wrap around Sweetie’s waist.

She glanced at her forelegs, across fur and then birdy legs and then the daunting talons, and looked up fretfully into Sweetie’s eyes. “Oops.”

“No pr’blem,” said Sweetie Drops, and her hips tenderly pressed forward.

“EYOWWL!” cried Mayor Mare, grabbing Sweetie’s forelegs with her talons, her tail snapping hard to the side and vibrating. Her eyes rolled back in her head as Sweetie Drops’ bulky ponycock squeezed into her awaiting, juicy griffin pussy and began to sensuously push deeper. “GAHH! CELESTIA!”

That slowed Sweetie Drops down. She peered down at the lovely white griffin, into the frantic and lust-crazed blue eyes, and said, “I’d r’ther not do her, please? It doesn’t s’m right. The gr’fin w’ll be fine.”

“No,” panted Mayor Mare, “I mean… rrrhh! Uhhh! ngyAAAH!”

Sweetie studied her beloved. It was magical, though it was so unlike anything she’d have predicted: this was Mayor Mare, but Mayor Mare was a changeling and could become anything, even the most twisted fantasies such as balling griffin pussy. She was such a pretty griffin as her facefeathers bristled out and she ground her beak in climax, that sensuous feline body jerking and shuddering on the end of Sweetie’s marecock, clenching so hotly, predatory muscles spasming in the most exciting manner. Sweetie delivered a few hesitant thrusts, and the griffin lady seemed to explode in carnal fury, gripping her forelegs painfully with those talons.

Mayor Mare fought to speak coherently. “Bon Bon PLEASE! I mean Sweetie!” she wailed, gasping for breath.

“Wh’t?” asked Sweetie, entranced with the strangeness of the experience.

“Not like this!” begged Mayor Mare. “Ahhh! I’m dy! Ing of org! asm!”

“Aww,” said Sweetie through the bit. “It’s s’per sexy. Also ow, y’re claws hurt!”

“Give me something else! To be!” wailed Mayor Mare. “I can’t! Ahhh!”

“Am I too deep?” managed Sweetie, and prodded with her stallionhood experimentally.

Mayor Mare convulsed and let out a paint-peeling shriek, the jolt to her feline cervix blasting her with griffin sexual response: a species peculiarity completely outside her experience or imagination. For just an instant, the griffin body writhed and thrashed, and then there was a burst of green light…

Sweetie stared down, startled. She was very nearly balls-deep in Mayor Changeling, if she’d had balls. It felt like having your cock in warm pudding. Mayor Mare’s glowing blue changeling eyes gazed up at her, vulnerable and surrendering. Her carapace was trembling.

“Oh m’ g’sh,” said Sweetie Drops quietly. “Am I h’rting you? C’n you even do this? I c’n stop.”

Mayor Mare drew a shaky breath. “It’s okay… dear me! Never, ever, did I guess that griffins were so…”

“No, I m’n it!” protested Sweetie Drops. “My COCK is st’ck up you! What do I do?”

Mayor Mare bared her teeth in pleasure. “Ahnnn… don’t stop. How did you think we made larva?”

Sweetie’s ears were laid back against her head. She lifted herself up, and gazed down across Mayor Mare’s changeling body, unsure what she’d even see. She beheld a horsecock inserted into a somewhat less chitinous place between Mayor Mare’s elegant holey legs, some chitin plates tactfully folded to the side to permit this lewd entry, a glisten of weird membranes that were far more translucent than she’d expected.

She tentatively shifted her hips, and nearly dropped her bit right then, for she saw something moving within Mayor Mare’s see-through abdomen. That tender belly area wasn’t just a different color, it was translucent, and she could literally see her cock moving inside her lover in a blurry vague sort of way.

“ERRNNnnnh!” moaned Mayor Mare, and Sweetie felt a very odd sensation. Something inside her changeling amour throbbed, and she felt gelatinous goo circulate against her erection, separated from it by that mysterious membrane.

“Is th’t, uh,” asked Sweetie, “fr’gile?”

Mayor Mare squirmed more sensuously than anything with a carapace ought to squirm. “In the… right places… dear me! Oh beloved! No changeling female has ever, ever done this, not like this, not even wicked greedy Chrysalis ever dared…”

“No,” said Sweetie Drops stubbornly. “I m’n, do I just hold still, or thrust, or what? Is it s’fe for you?”

“Ohhhh!” moaned Mayor Mare. “I don’t care, fuck me, my beloved pony!”

Sweetie frowned. “Answ’r me! Will you break?”

Mayor Mare fixed her with a smouldering look, and Sweetie Drops gasped. Her changeling mate had tensed up and pinched her, unmercifully. It was right where she entered that bugpony body, and deeper inside there was only warm enfolding melting ooze held back by a sturdy membrane, even as she flared out inside her mate. One thing was for sure: with a bite like that, bugpony vagina wasn’t fragile. Sweetie Drops had no idea what ‘in the right places’ meant, but it wasn’t anywhere she could reach.

Once Mayor Mare had unpinched, Sweetie Drops stuck out her lower lip in a pout, wished herself luck in this daring new experiment in cross-species harmony, and began cautiously shifting her hips back and forth.

The reaction was astonishing, and not just because she could watch her hard horsecock through a translucent belly-window.

Mayor Mare jolted, her eyes going wide and frantic. She began to hyperventilate, her chitinous nostrils flaring, and she bared her teeth in a snarl of pleasure, the cute little fangs glinting against the black carapace. The more Sweetie Drops thrust, the more her bugpony lover seemed filled with energy and life.

Sweetie Drops wrinkled her brow, trying to feel through her deeply inserted horsecock whether Mayor Mare’s heart was pounding… or indeed, her ventral vessel, whatever it was they had.

She nearly dropped the bit in shock when she realized that SHE was Mayor Mare’s heart and doing the pounding for her.

There was no mistaking it once you figured out that secret. Mayor Mare had curled her long, lovely legs up under her, the better to let Sweetie penetrate her. The stiff, throbbing horsecock was plunging so deeply into changeling pussy that it thrust up past where that belly panel gave way to hard black shell. The ventral vessel throbbed, but all it really did was stir changeling fluids, circulate the goo inside Mayor Mare’s strange and wonderful body. And it’d been rendered completely irrelevant, because Sweetie Drops’ gentle thrusting was circulating Mayor Mare’s life fluids with a vengeance, churning her with a deep, powerful force completely beyond the normal strength of her buggy heart. Her pulse pounded slowly and irresistibly with the raw force of tireless earth pony hindquarters, driving the piston that sank again and again to the limits of Mayor Mare’s body.

The result was glorious… at least, if you were madly in love with a bugpony.

Mayor Mare reeled, not so much hysterical as galvanized. Her body shook, then vibrated. She seemed to light up from within, or perhaps it was just her eyes: the amount of love she was pouring into Sweetie made the delighted earth pony feel quite drunk, and the more Sweetie churned her inside fluids, the more power she had and the more passionately she wallowed in the joy of her lovemaking. Fragile? The lovely changeling was transfigured, filled with strength, nuzzling Sweetie’s neck with cries of ecstacy, squeezing at her cock in loving, insistent clenches, always right up at the base with very little pressure further in. Then, Mayor Mare began to heat up, and there was pressure in there at last, and Sweetie couldn’t tell if it was because she was going more bulky, or if Mayor Mare was simply filling with energy like a changeling bomb…

Mayor Mare began panting, the luminous eyes locked on Sweetie’s with a strange, passionate yearning, her pussy gripping more eagerly, some peculiar tickling enticing more plunges of pony penis.

Sweetie, sweating and thrilled, gave a little snarl of delight and began fucking her changeling lover in lustful boldness. A weird tight slurping filled the room, as Sweetie Drops began pounding Mayor Mare’s changeling pussy at the tempo of an excited stallion about to blow his load.

Mayor Mare flipped out. She vibrated so hard Sweetie almost couldn’t see her, wings emitting weighty buzzes and lifting the two off the bed, and she began shrieking and raving in her strange buzzcrackle language, her eyes so wide they were shocked circles, so filled with energy that they lit the room like blue lamps. As Sweetie Drops vigorously fucked her, Mayor Mare withstood a climax that seemed enough to char her from the inside out and leave her a cinder, roasted against her own erotic porch light, and it kept going and going as the thrilled changeling surrendered entirely to her body’s pony possession…

Sweetie grunted, “UNH! HH! H! hh!” and screwed her eyes shut as she came. She felt her body throb and gush, blasting magic-induced stallioncome into her beloved Mayor Mare, and she felt Mayor Mare clutch at her with all her gangly legs and her curious pussy, and she heard Mayor Mare scream a beautiful ecstatic scream of sheer pleasure, shaking in Sweetie’s embrace, brought to a climax such as Sweetie had never given her.

Sweetie Drops opened her eyes.

Mayor Mare was gazing straight back, unblinking, her expression speaking of love nearly too great to be borne, a quiveringly intense post-coital glow that seemed to permeate her whole being.

Her lovely luminous blue eyes were positively hazy with orgasmic pleasure. Sweetie’d made her come so hard that she looked dazed, her eyes milky and fogged.

Sweetie Drops blinked.

Mayor Mare’s eyes really were milky and fogged, and it wasn’t just mood. They grew paler by the second, even as the expression melted into further bliss and Mayor Mare’s little tongue dangled to the side, unheeded.

Sweetie’s eyes tracked fearfully down her changeling lover’s body, so fevered and hot, her pulse now taken over by that ventral vessel that circulated her goo.

Through the translucent belly window, Sweetie watched stripes of white lazily circulate, like milk being mixed into coffee in slow motion. There was no horsecome left cooped up in some buggy womb. Mayor Mare’s body had accepted her stallion-load, allowing it to be fired through the membrane of her vagina right up at the end where it was stretched tightest, at the moment of greatest and fiercest coupling. Sweetie Drops had spurted gout after copious gout of horse semen directly into Mayor Mare’s insides, and it now lazily mixed with her goo and circulated past all her organs and had even oozed into her lovely eyes and turned them milky, and possibly half-blind from the opacity.

Sweetie, horrified, looked back up into those eyes.

“Ahhhnn…” moaned Mayor Mare. “How did you think we made larva?”

“Is it hurt’ng you?” said Sweetie in a tiny, frightened voice.

“Ahhhnnn!” crooned Mayor Mare, with a wriggle, and kissed her on the muzzle.

“Can you see?” asked Sweetie.

“I feel you everywhere!” purred Mayor Mare. “Oh beloved! Oh wonderful! Oh my love!”

“No I mean can you SEE?” repeated Sweetie Drops. “Y’r eyes are all funny!”

“It will pass,” said Mayor Mare. “I don’t think this can give me larva. Drone come is clearer.” Her eyes narrowed as she thought, still buzzed from the extraordinary energy burst she’d withstood. “I think it will show in my eyes even as a pony, drat it. They’ll be milky, clouded. Let’s do it again and find out! Obviously it isn’t hurting my vxxtkkbz.”

“Can you SEE?”

Mayor Mare kissed her again. “I don’t care. Not when I can feel like this feels…”

“If I l’t go of this bit,” said Sweetie Drops, “all of the magic horse c’me will disappear. It’s n’t real, so don’t worry, you’ll be able to see then…”

She gasped. Mayor Mare’s bugvagina had clamped down on her cock, and little blunt claws in there had grabbed its shank. Not to hurt it, just to keep it from withdrawing. Certain things about the clarity of that sensation, the tightness of that aperture’s grip, suddenly became revealed. She’d had that in there the whole time and Sweetie had mistaken it for just a tight muscle. It was no sphincter: it kneaded her cockbase as if milking it, and wouldn’t let her go, wrapping around hungrily to cajole further penetration, releasing to permit thrusting. Sweetie Drops had been getting a bugvagina hand job the whole time without knowing it.

Sweetie’s startled eyes met Mayor Mare’s. The changeling’s milky eyes pleaded.

“Not yet!” begged Mayor Mare. “Let it stay. I’m sorry! I can’t help doing that, I should have warned you! My body horrifies you, I know it! Why did I…”

She gasped. Through the fog of pony semen, she saw Sweetie Drops start to grin, and then she felt the horsecock stiffening, expanding despite anything the eager grasp of her pussyclaws could do to hold it. Bursting from her talonlike grip in swelling thickness, still thrust so deeply into her trembling thorax…

Sweetie’s body gave a shudder. In awe and wonder, Mayor Mare felt her pony lover spurt one last glob of ponycome into her, through the weakened membrane and the spot where it’d ruptured, to swirl in joyous merging with her insides. Rather than horrify her Sweetie Drops, her vagina revelation had given the secret agent mare a kinky jolt sufficient for one last comeshot.

She gazed up in wonder, her vision tenderly clouding as her body drank in the alien, opaque seed and circulated it everywhere.

“This is gonna be a v’ry w’nderful r’lationship,” said Sweetie Drops, and snuggled against her changeling queen, bit still firmly between her teeth.

The hillside was quiet. Rainbow Dash circled above it, still feeling blissed out from a glorious sexual rodeo with Applejack that left her pegasus pussy throbbing happily with eager use. They’d seen Essence off in style at the funeral, cried a little for her and for Fern Gully, and then sent a lot of love and pleasure her way afterwards and wished her well.

The hillside was green, dotted with reds and yellows from flowers that grew wherever they pleased, some orange dots, some lilac.

And one pink dot, much larger than a flower.

Rainbow Dash swooped down, and then slowed. It wasn’t like Pinkie to chill out on a hillside, so quietly. She was alone. That could be an okay thing, thought Dash, or it could be bad. Dash still remembered the freaky shit Pinkie had got up to…

She flew down, not to Pinkie directly, but to a spot nearby: and she landed, and walked cautiously over to where Pinkie lay.

Pinkie Pie watched her, eyes big and blue, saying nothing as she approached.

“Uh, hey, Pinkster,” said Dash. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” said Pinkie.

Her voice seemed oddly soft, as if some part of Fluttershy had become part of her. Dash retreated a step in alarm, then gathered her courage and walked closer. If she suddenly became a house, thought Dash, at least the hillside had room for it.

“Hey, thanks for, like, saving Ponyville and stuff?” said Dash. “We’re all grateful that you saved the day. Well, probably not Snowy Hocks. Um! I mean… Nobody blames you for killing Snowy Hocks because he was like the worst and cleverest vampire ever!”

“I know,” said Pinkie. “Fluttershy was right. He was a meanie.”

“So,” said Dash awkwardly, “you’re talking to Fluttershy again? I mean, if you’re not that’s totally okay too! You don’t have to do anything weird to reality, either way is going to be fine with us, I hope it’s not bothering you too badly…”

“I am,” said Pinkie, with a slightly weary look at her old friend. “Things are better. Thank you for asking.”

“So you are okay,” said Dash, in obvious relief. “Um, how much better? Like, have you guys kissed and made up? Or, or other things you’re super good at, which are kind of like kissing except with other lips and a whole lot more intense?”

Pinkie sniffed the air, and her ear flicked. “Dashie, are you coming on to me? You smell good, like you’ve been having fun with Applejack. Are you asking for a sexual workout with my tongue?”

Dash’s wings sprang up. “I am ALWAYS prepared for that, Pinkie Pie!” she grinned.

“But do you want that,” asked Pinkie, “or am I just assuming that’s what you want from me?”

Rainbow Dash’s wings drooped.

“Um…”

Pinkie just kept gazing off into the distance. She spoke without strain, but almost like Rainbow wasn’t even there to hear her.

“I thought Fluttershy needed me,” she said. “I thought Fluttershy was this shy pony girl, easily hurt, somepony I needed to protect and take care of or her heart would be broken and she’d have nothing.”

“Pinkie…” said Rainbow.

“It was me,” said Pinkie softly. “That was me, Dashie, in spite of all the smiling and laughing. It was me. I was the one…”

Rainbow’s face was stricken with dismay, but she had no words for Pinkie: the language of flirtation and rowdy naughtiness wasn’t going to make sense this time.

Pinkie kept talking, quietly, like it didn’t matter all that much anymore. “My Fluttershy never existed, Dashie. She’s a vampire. She’s braver than I thought. And she does love me. I even have a place in her life. Even Zecora wants me for something, especially now. But I was making up ponies to love so that I would never have to look at myself.”

Dash gulped. “Uh… you’re awesome, Pinkie, everypony knows that.”

“Fluttershy didn’t need my love,” said Pinkie. “I didn’t even have the best love for her. I look at that zebra, Dursaa, and for him nothing’s changed, but she doesn’t look like my fantasy mare anymore. That shouldn’t matter but it did. When she rescued me from that scary Snowy Hocks, she wasn’t acting like the shy pegasus pony I imagined, either. The whole time, I was telling myself stories… and stories aren’t real, Dashie.”

Rainbow’s face couldn’t hold any more distress.

“But she saved me anyway,” said Pinkie Pie, “and I helped to save her, too. Dashie? It’s okay, don’t be sad. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m making friends with Zecora, we have some things in common. And I do still love Fluttershy, I promise. Don’t worry, it’s safe to leave me thinking about this. I have an awful lot to think about now, but you can go.”

“Shyeah right!” said Dash. “As if! I have nowhere better to be right now than right here!”

Pinkie glanced at Rainbow, with a knowing look. She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you mean, you’re keeping an eye on the scary pink monster for Ponyville? Because when I get sad and wrong in the head, I’m the biggest bad that ever badded?”

That left Rainbow speechless for a moment. Awkwardly, she began to argue. “Not exactly… hey, you know when Twilight loses her mind, that’s pretty intense too! And when I get messed up, Pinkie, I leave a real blast radius, you know? It’s funny how Ponyville is, you shouldn’t feel bad just ‘cos we have to keep an eye on…”

Rainbow ground to a halt, red in the face.

“It’s true, isn't it,” said Pinkie. “It’s not because I’m the special pony who brings laughter and joy everywhere she goes, who everypony wants to be around, who could never hurt or frighten anypony. I made that story up too. You’re keeping an eye on me because I’m scary and my powers are too strong. Maybe you’re the only pony brave enough to do that, for the good of Ponyville.”

“Aw, Pinkie Pie!” protested Dash, her ears back.

Pinkie considered this. “But that’s not true either, it can’t be. I don’t scare everypony. I never scare Fluttershy, no matter what. She loves me in her way, same as ever. Zecora’s even letting me have some fun, she says it just has to go both ways. I’m learning, Dashie. I don’t have to do freaky things just to earn my place. I have a place, sort of. Ponies don’t have to be scared of me now.”

Rainbow Dash blinked back tears, her lip quivering, as she returned Pinkie’s calm gaze. Cautiously, she lay down beside Pinkie on the hillside, listening to her old sweetheart's every word.

“I’m glad you’re still brave enough to come and see if I’m okay,” said Pinkie. “It means a lot. You can tell the other ponies that I might be a little calmer now. I fit into the world better. I figured some things out and I know where I stand. It feels good, Dashie. I’m real. I love who Fluttershy really is, not just my fantasy of her. I’ve got Chasie to play with, and even Zecora, now, and the little zebra pegasus foal knows who I am. He’s not scared of me at all, and Rock’s feeling a lot better too. He says I’m out of danger. I’m kind of scared, Dashie, but I trust him. And I love all the ponies in this town… and I love you. Even if we mostly show it by breaking beds and wrecking the joint.”

“Aw, Pinkie…”

“It’s all right, Dashie. I don’t mind. We’ve always played like that, I like it. It doesn’t have to be more.”

“Pinkie…”

Pinkie Pie batted her eyelashes, and the clear blue eyes met the tearful ruby ones.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said, “I promise I’ll be okay. Is that enough?”

Dash shook her head.

“I just…” she stammered. “Please don’t be sad, Pinkie Pie? I can’t stand to see you hurting. I love you, too.”

Pinkie gazed at her pugnacious, brave, roughneck pegasus friend: her rowdy Rainbow who never turned down a romp in the sack, who preferred boasting to feelings, who was just as good at putting up a front as she was… but that mask was now dropped, undone by emotion. Rainbow Dash the forever awesome, flying down to check on the latest Ponyville danger, but frozen to the spot by the spectacle of a Pinkie Pie without the defenses they both relied upon so well. Rainbow Dash, her own bluster also abandoned, awkwardly blurting out the tenderness of her generous pegasus heart. Answering truth… with truth.

“Thought you might,” said Pinkie, and snuggled up against dear Dashie’s side without hesitation.

Softly, something new happened. As if given license by Pinkie Pie’s new vulnerability, Rainbow nuzzled her much-loved friend and at first hesitantly, then with growing conviction, reached out not with her foreleg but with her wing: that untouchable, intimate pegasus part which had once been so jealously guarded. And now, after raising a foal and rising above her own fears and insecurities, Rainbow Dash reached out to comfort and could do no less than to extend all of herself for her beloved Pinkie—enfolding her in warm feathers to hide her from the world until she felt brave once more.

Under that fluffy blue pegasus wing, Pinkie nestled: closing her eyes against her grateful tears, sheltered.

Jewels couldn’t have been more precious.

-FIN-

(a Kindle version of Precious can be downloaded here)

Holiday

Just across the hallway of the cozy little pony house, the atmosphere of chaotically strewn records, stained futon and pristinely polished turntables gave way to an empty room with splendidly polished floor and no clutter at all. Instead, the room held a single cello and its counterpart, the equally curvaceous Octavia. Her trim little collar lay on the floor beside the industriously coupling musical pair, for Octavia sought inspiration and she’d let her mane down and gotten naked, the better to grapple with her musical challenges.

Up and down the neck went her greedy hoof, the bow teasing and coaxing strangely sensual moans from the instrument. Octavia meant to convey her joy and bold, mare-ly pleasure in her trusty lover Stout Heart, and she proposed to do this through her cello, for she was an artist of no little merit. She’d become exceedingly famous for her compositions, all of which were dedicated to her stallion’s glorious penis, and they had made her one of the most famous ponies to live in the cozy little pony house.

Second most famous, specifically. Scratchie’s thunderous decks would not be denied.

“Tavi?”

“Yes, Vinyl?” …and neither would Scratchie, it seemed.

“Taaaaavi?” purred the little unicorn pony, playfully.

Octavia narrowed her eyes. “What do you want, Vinyl?”

“It’s super important,” cooed Vinyl Scratch, “so if you’ve got just a minute, I can fill you in on…”

“I am composing,” said Octavia coolly. “Do you not observe? Please, Scratchie.”

The little white unicorn with the rose-colored shades was undaunted. “And since when do I ever interrupt you composing?”

That got her a narrowed-eyed glare. “The day you came and talked me into lending my Stout Heart to a little scrawny blue alicorn who turned out to be Discord calling himself Chaos, I’d been composing. We really must talk about your respect for my creative process. I thought that would be the last of it, yet here you come again.”

Vinyl gulped. “Uh. Yeah. That. Well, if it helps, this time I’m pretty sure she’s not going to be after Stout Heart, or even if she is I can tell he wouldn’t like it and I promise this time you have nothing to worry about, though he must to be crazy not to want this, oh my GAWWWD you have no idea Tavi, I just thought…”

Octavia’s eyes widened. “You are! You are bringing another shameless slut-pony into our house to entertain! As much as I appreciate your cheerful hedonism…”

“Whoa whoa WHOA!” ordered Vinyl Scratch, and Octavia stopped instantly. It had been years since Vinyl’d been seriously angry. The two musical roommates knew each other closer than lovers, just about shared a mind rather than mere eros, and Octavia’s look showed instant contrition. She waited, quietly, as Vinyl grimaced and calmed herself.

Then she asked, softly, “Scratchie? Composing can wait. What did I say, sweetie? I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Vinyl and kissed her on the nose by way of apology. “You couldn’t have known. Please respect my feelings, ‘kay? No S-word. She wouldn’t even be mad, but it hurts my heart.”

Octavia gasped. “You’re in love! Oh, Scratchie, I’d hoped to see this day. I am inspired! I will write you a concerto! My fans will be terribly upset, though, I may have to compose under a pseudonym…”

Vinyl shook her head. “No, it’s not that, Tavi! I barely even know her. We’re so lucky, oh my GAWWWD you have no idea Tavi, I wanted to let you know and maybe it will inspire something in you. I ran all the way here! She can walk on mist and water vapor so she could have beat me here, but she’d never hurry, she’d never ever do anything so ungraceful as hurrying. Tavi, her every motion is like a song. You can watch her arrive in Ponyville! We can both watch!”

“Watch who?” pressed Octavia. “To do what? Scratchie! Breathe, focus! Who is this that’s arriving, why has it excited you so, what is she going to do?”

Vinyl’s ears laid back. “Ah. Well, now you’re embarrassing me, Tavi, ‘cos I talked to her and she’s here for the farm ponies, you know? It’s like sex tourism. Actually that’s exactly what it is, but you need to understand what an honor and gift to the community this is gonna be…”

“Vinyl Scratch!” demanded Octavia. “Who is about to arrive in our beloved Ponyville? Is it this GAWWWD you keep going on about?”

Vinyl shook her head. “Not exactly, but close! It’s Hina-rin! I met Hina-rin on the road and she’s coming HERE!”

“And who, or what, is a Hina-Rin?” retorted Octavia, her ears laid back.

Vinyl Scratch took a deep breath.

“She’s a UNICORN.”

Octavia’s jaw dropped in astonishment, as she gawked at her… unicorn companion.

“Run it by me again,” said Octavia, as the two friends trotted cheerfully toward the Town Square. “I admit you’ve never shown the slightest trace of attitude…” she said, glancing warily about, “by which I mean unicorn attitude. Canterlot attitude, perhaps? You’ve got none. It’s one of your best qualities, Scratchie, and I love you for it. You’re telling me you don’t consider yourself to be a unicorn?”

Vinyl’s eyes gleamed eagerly behind the rose-colored shades. “It’s not exactly that. I can lift my decks just fine, my magic is good.”

“But you’re superstitious about it, you won’t touch other artifact magic!” suggested Octavia.

“Hey, take it easy!” protested Vinyl. “That’s my business, okay? Literally as well as figuratively.”

“I’m just saying that I don’t know any other unicorns with quite your attitude towards magic. You say it’s because you’re Neighponnese?”

“You’ll see,” said Scratch confidently, prancing with high, bouncy, ebullient steps. “I guess you could say I’m a unicorn, what passes for a unicorn around here, though it’s more like… you know that tall nerdy unicorn, never dances or parties, friends with Twilight Sparkle and the Princesses? Called Numeric Essence, very nice and smart, started turning into an alicorn and said no thanks? Calls herself a winged unicorn now, lives here in Ponyville and reads a lot? It’s like that. I’m a magic-horned pony. Or horny pony,” she smirked, poking Octavia on the shoulder as she trotted.

“That,” said Octavia, “we had all noticed.”

Vinyl cackled happily.

“So,” continued Octavia, “if you’re a unicorn but our unicorns are just magic-horned ponies, and our visitor is a unicorn but that’s incredibly different to you, what is she, then? An alicorn? A Princess?”

“Better!” boasted Vinyl Scratch. “She’s Hina-rin, I told you!”

Octavia made a face. “You’ve said that three times and it doesn’t answer my question!”

Vinyl blinked. “Oh. I’m sorry, Tavi, I really did answer… but you’d have to be Neighponnese to understand, which I forgot.”

“Then wh…”

“She’s a Kirin,” explained Vinyl Scratch as they entered the Town Square, and then her eyes lit up in helpless, utter adoration. Octavia followed her gaze, and saw.

Hina walked so softly into the Town Square, an apparition seeming to light even the noonday grass with moonlight. Her head was lifted in benevolent curiosity,  her eyes faintly lit from within by that same moonbeam glow.

Hina-rin, Neighponnese royalty—if even royalty could be said to encompass her. Vinyl’s heart thumped with awe and joy.

Hina-rin hesitated, about to step across some grass. She dipped her head, exhaled a trace of mist through her delicate, precious nostrils.

She stepped, not onto the grass (which revealed, on closer inspection, a sadly bent blade) but onto the mist, and proceeded to walk about an inch above the ground until the injured grass was safely behind her. She continued, and it became obvious that when the Kirin walked on grass, it was in the same manner that she might stand on a living pony: cautiously, with love and care. Indeed, Hina-rin would not thoughtlessly harm so much as a blade of grass, were that grass innocent and good.

Octavia, abashed, kicked at the dirt. Vinyl thwapped her with a hoof. Octavia saw that she’d just scuffed a stray weed, and hastily settled her hooves, hoping it hadn’t been noticed.

“This might be awkward,” she breathed to herself, while Scratchie wore a grin that was part glee and part bashfulness.

The Kirin faced them. Her coat seemed to glisten with iridescent silkiness. At the base of her mane and down her spine, it seemed to be turning into gleaming troutlike scales and back, a flickering of faintly unsettling, eerily powerful magic that continually transformed her. Hina’s mane, too, shimmered and changed like an alicorn’s: sparkling like blue fire, it poured sensually down her neck and across her trim withers, matched by her silky tail and fetlocks—but only the tuft of the tail, for the dock was bare. Even her chin bore signs of the alicorn-like magic-shimmer, which looked odd on what was clearly a female creature. Her slim, deer-like haunches extended elegantly down to dainty cloven hooves, which somehow rested upon the grass without bending it more than a stray, toppled dandelion might.

Octavia couldn’t stop staring at her horn. Unicorn horns were bony and faced forward, like weapons. Hina-rin’s horn curved serenely backwards, and it looked like glacier ice with electricity flickering inside.

The Kirin apparition cleared her throat, those luminous eyes exuding love and acceptance.

“This is Ponyville? Peace be unto you and yours. Any males around?”

Octavia’s jaw dropped. Vinyl thwapped her again.

Hina pouted, even this appearing ravishingly beautiful. “Oh, be kind. I’ve come so darn far. Can’t you cut a mare a break?”

Vinyl bounced in glee, then hastily checked under herself for fear she’d trampled a stray dandelion. “Of course, of course! Oh, Hina-rin, we are blessed by your presence, I’m sure we can hook you up! It’s an honor! Do you want to get it on right away, or see the sights, or have lunch maybe?”

Octavia muttered, “Magic horny pony, eh? She’ll fit right in.” Vinyl thwapped her a third time.

At this, Hina-rin lifted her shimmeringly goateed chin. “Vinyl Scratch! Though this does not feel like it’s evil or bad, why must you thump your neighbor?”

“Aw,” said Vinyl, “it’s just Tavi. She’s my very best friend in all the world and she knows I’m just keeping her from being snarky. You can tell, can’t you? Tavi, Kirin can sense good and evil. She’d be turning all scaly in the presence of evil and the mane and tail and fetlocks get bigger.”

“Does her horn stand erect, too?” said Octavia, her ears back. She ducked another clout from Vinyl’s corrective hoof.

Hina-rin snorted in amusement. “Most certainly not! What do you take me for, dear? A common pony?”

“My point being,” said Vinyl, “since I love you so much, Octavia, I could probably sit on you until you behave, and Hina’s kirin-senses wouldn’t find anything wrong with that. So watch it!” She stuck out her tongue at her friend, and giggled.

Hina pouted. “There’s no sense denying it: your company’s good. This town roils with chaos. My back turns to scales. In your presence, I am soothed.”

Octavia blinked. “Oh! Well, Vinyl and I don’t have hot and cold running stallions at our place, but you’re quite welcome to stay with us if you like. Come this way, you must be starved after your long journey. How far is Neighpon, anyway? I’m sure we still have some hay-cakes left, and we keep a lovely patch of nice fresh gr…”

She ground to a halt, staring at Hina’s hooves, which seemed to float delicately upon the very blades of grass without bending them.

“Oh my,” said Octavia, going pale. “Miss Hina… do you even eat? I’ve just offered you live grass as a snack. What must you think of us?”

Vinyl glanced sidelong at her, and then entreatingly at the Kirin. Hina cleared her throat again.

“You’re lovely ponies. I, too, enjoy grass. Perhaps not at the moment: my energies remain strong. But, thank you!”

Octavia couldn’t stop staring at the barely-bent grass blades Hina stood upon. “But you’re levitating, or something, rather than crush this other grass! You won’t hurt even a blade of grass!”

“Not needlessly, you silly!” laughed Hina, breaking the tension. “You know I can fly!”

Vinyl grinned. “Ha, got you! I know you’re not really flying, Hina-rin. You can stand on the faintest mist or rainbow! You breathed a little mist onto that grass, I saw you!”

“Got me there,” admitted Hina, luminous eyes twinkling.

“She wants to jump on Rainbow?” blinked Octavia. “I suppose with Ponyville’s magic bits, she’d be happy to oblige.”

Vinyl unexpectedly cringed—and replied, “Uh… maybe not so much. She wouldn’t like that, I’m sure of it. Kirin magic is much more refined and sophisticated than unicorn magic. I don’t think that would be a good idea at all.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Hina-rin, perplexed.

“Artifact magic,” explained Vinyl, blushing. “Unicorn pony tricks? Artificial penis?”

At this, Hina surprised them both. She whinnied, and stepped back, scales flickering into existence down her back, and she raised a cloven hoof protectively, which grew extra wisps of iridescent fetlock for her moment of alarm. Then, the defensive reactions faded away, and Hina hastily checked under her hooves and furtively straightened a tuft of stepped-on grass.

“No, though I thank you,” she said. “Really? Holy crap. I hope there are at least a few earth stallions about?”

“There are, there are!” protested Vinyl. “Don’t worry. I understand how Kirin are! I know you’re just looking for some earth pony loving, and who can blame you? That’s one of the best things about Ponyville, and you can tell just from the feel of the place that we’re kind and good ponies you’ll be comfortable around!”

Hina’s lovely ears were laid back slightly. “There’s something to that. Yet I sense evil.”

Octavia frowned. “Are you sure it’s not crazy you sense, Miss Kirin? Sometimes I think my dear Scratchie’s the only one in Ponyville not given to unicorn crazy. And that’s saying nothing of the pegasi, or most of the earth ponies. It’s never boring, I’ll say that much for it.”

“I’m not sure,” said Hina fretfully, but then Kirin and pony eyes alike were drawn to an unexpected sight.

Into the square came Rarity, but not in the usual way. Bearing an expression of extreme exasperation, she scraped along sideways, her horn brightly alight and her forelegs crossed petulantly. Behind her trotted a wall-eyed grey pegasus: her marefriend, Derpy Hooves, who seemed puzzled by the peculiar locomotion but not overly dismayed. Still, she pestered her fretful unicorn beloved. “But if you want to make me a cup of dandelion tea, Rarity, why are you doing that?”

“I tell you, Derpy, I’m not! Some cursed rock has my number. At least we’ll be swimming in gems.”

“But why’d you want to make me tea and then you rushed off sideways? How come you’re sliding around on your butt?”

“Because I haven’t a sled!” retorted Rarity angrily. “And when we’ve returned with the gems, you SHALL have dandelion ginger tea, otherwise those sniffles will become sneezings and you’ll be blowing your nose on my nice silks again!”

“But you give me the nicest silks on purpose, Rarity, when I’m sick!” protested Derpy, both ponies so busy arguing that they didn’t see the visitor.

“Because they’re soft and because I love you,” scolded Rarity, “but I’ve twelve orders to get out and haven’t time to weave new… oh!”

Her sideways progress had dragged her straight over to the little group, and planted her cheek against the Kirin’s silky, elegant butt-cheek. Hina turned her head, an amused smile playing across her muzzle, and inquired, “Treasure-seeking spell?”

Rarity stared back, stricken and blushing, as Derpy Hooves trotted up crying out, “Hello! I’ve never seen you before, you’re pretty! What are you?”

“This is Hina-rin, Derpy,” explained Octavia courteously.

“She’s a Kirin!” added Vinyl Scratch. “Rarity, what were you doing? Were you casting something, searching for valuables?”

Rarity’d backed off a step. “Well! I suppose I needn’t try to break her to bits and dig gems from inside. Hello, Hina-rin, I’ve heard of your kind in Neighpon. We’re honored, I’m sure. What brings you here?”

“Um… earth pony cock,” admitted the Kirin. “It’s just a little vacation, nothing more.”

Rarity blinked. “Do tell! I’m surprised my horn didn’t drag me to your vagina, in that case. Mind you, I’ve no earth pony cock, but all the same I make do rather well.”

“That is a possible outcome, to be sure,” said Hina blithely. “I’ve seen this dragging before. It’s when unicorn magic seeks beauty and riches.”

“It’s a damned nuisance, particularly if it doesn’t bring me gems,” grumbled Rarity. “All the same, I must be grateful, for it’s that which brought me my cutie mark.”

“Oh, those things,” said Hina. “And yes, you should be grateful.”

“For you? Or your visit?” suggested Rarity wryly. “I’ll grant that you’re pretty. I simply must try and mimic your coat in bespoke silk, the shade is exquisite.”

“I will pay my way,” offered Hina. “By that I mean, I seek fun… but I can work, too. I shall hunt down your evil!”

Rarity stiffened. “Come again?”

“This town is troubled,” explained the Kirin. “Much good, yet still some evil. It’s why I encourage you to show some gratitude.”

Vinyl eagerly explained, “Kirin are very sensitive to evil! They can’t abide it, or the needless harming of any living thing. They’re a moral beacon that helps us all aspire to be the best ponies we possibly can be, and it’s a beautiful gift that she’s graced us with her presence!”

“It’s not you I sense, I think,” explained Hina to an increasingly alarmed Rarity. “But evil’s afoot. Is your treasure-seeking, greed? Or entitlement? How good it brought you to me!”

Rarity gulped. The first time she’d been dragged by the horn to treasure, it had heralded the dawning of her cutie mark. In her exultation at this, she’d also laid claim to many things that hadn’t belonged to her: such as premature filly sexuality, and a first claim to the love of her father, and finally… an illegitimate foal, and the near destruction of her life and a decline into exile, masochism and debauchery. She’d nearly forgotten all this, somehow, but looking into the pearly self-luminous eyes of the Kirin, all that guilt came roaring back.

Then, grey feathers obscured her vision, just as tears threatened to do the same. Derpy had sensed her mood, as always.

“Don’t you call Rarity greedy!” protested the devoted pegasus. “Or a tile mount! You’re acting like she’s a bad pony and no way, nuh-uh! You take that back!”

Rarity gave a little shriek and struggled to evade Derpy’s wing-hug. “No, Derpy, please! Perhaps we should quietly go away right now, hmm? I am so sorry to have troubled you, I promise I won’t be greedy and won’t be dragged anywhere by my horn ever again…”

“WHOA!” came a scratchy little voice from above.

Down swooped Rainbow Dash in a prismatic streak. She slammed into the ground in her haste, bounced to her hooves, and trotted forward with a swish of her mane, gawking at the new arrival.

“What the hell are YOU? Wow! Are you, like, an weird unicorn who slept on her horn wrong? Uh, sorry if you didn’t notice but it’s kind of obvious. Horn check, before somepony takes an embarrassing picture and it ends up in the Foal Free Press!” Dash made horn-straightening gestures with a free forehoof, helpfully.

“Rainbow, please!” cried Rarity. “Be careful, don’t say rude things! This is a Kirin, and she’s hunting evil!”

Dash’s eyes bugged out. “Awesome! Can I help? Wait, first… why are you so freaked out, Rarity? She’s incredibly beautiful. You should be excited just to be around something that pretty, not panicking and blushing. Did something happen I don’t know about?”

Rarity blushed worse. “My horn lit up and dragged me across Ponyville and pressed my face to her rump, darling.”

A pause.

“BAAAAAhahahahaha! eep!”

Derpy Hooves wasn’t quite finished. “She didn’t mean it! Even if her horn drags her to valuables, that doesn’t mean she’s a greedy pony, don’t you call my Rarity names! Oh my gosh! Stop laughing, Rainbow Dash!”

“Derpy, no!” begged Rarity, beside herself. “For the love of Celestia, be calm, don’t be hostile to this creature, kirin can be terribly dangerous to the impure…”

A gentle cloven hoof touched her muzzle, a trace of scintillating fetlock wisping across her nose. Rarity’s eyes crossed as she focussed on it, then flicked in a panic to the Kirin’s waiting gaze.

Derpy pouted, sticking out her lower lip. “That’s right. Pet Rarity and be nice, ‘cos she’s… aCHOO!”

Hina blinked. “She’s a ‘unicorn’, surely? Not a choo? OH! Just a moment…”

Before Derpy could resist, the Kirin had loomed, reared… hugged. Derpy’s face was completely immersed in that glimmering, rippling mane, and then it expanded to immerse her whole head as her wings flapped in discombobulation.

“Breathe deeply, dear one,” commanded Hina-rin.

Derpy heaved a deep breath, at least in part from sheer surprise. She drew another, her off foreleg flailing weakly as the Kirin hugged her… and then, she stood in surprise as Hina withdrew.

“You’re welcome,” said Hina-rin, with just a trace of asperity.

Rarity’s eyes were wide, frightened. “What did you do to her?” she demanded.

“I…” began Derpy, and then snuffled. “Oooh! Thank you! How’d you do that?”

Rainbow Dash began to grin even more. “She came to Ponyville just to cure Derpy’s cold? I guess we don’t get a lot of evil around here, and that was it!”

Rarity was glancing back and forth between Rainbow and the Kirin rapidly. She gulped. “I thought you might harm her, or myself, Miss Hina-rin. Derpy is not clever, and I was terrified she’d become too cross with you, but instead you’ve healed her sneezes. That’ll save me some of my finest silks, you’ve no idea, she wads them up in great billows of snot-rag… but never mind that! You’ve been kind to the love of my life. May I ask why? She was being rather argumentative.”

The Kirin’s luminous eyes gazed into Rarity’s. “How could I do otherwise? Your pegasus is the essence of beauty.”

“Brace yourself, Derpy!” quipped Rainbow Dash.

“Huh, what? How come?” protested Derpy.

“She’s totally flirting with you,” teased Dash. “I think she wants to play!”

Rarity ignored them, in part because teasing Derpy Hooves was such a common Ponyville practice and Dash’s teasing of Derpy was never mean-spirited. Instead, Rarity stared deep into Hina’s eyes, searching them. “Derpy’s got a lovely mane, to be sure, and if one gets used to the eyes, she’s quite radiant. I get that. But… one doesn’t necessarily confer such a favor just because one wishes to get rumpy-pumpy, does one? Or possibly it’s just easy for one like you to heal such ailments?”

Hina serenely held Rarity’s questioning gaze. “Your beloved has one of the most beautiful hearts I’ve ever seen.”

Rarity trembled, tearing up. “Oh…”

“I don’t know what worries you,” said the Kirin, “but your beloved’s goodness, and your own, shine forth through all this. Do not fear.”

She gracefully reared and hugged Rarity, in turn. The scintillating mane seemed to pop and sparkle a bit as it enfolded Rarity, but Hina seemed unconcerned by this: it seemed that she was used to ponies with foibles and preferred to celebrate their finer points.

When she released Rarity, the elegant unicorn beamed tearfully for a moment and then burst into noisy, wailing crying.

“HEY!” cried Derpy. “Don’t you make Rarity get all weird and confusing like she used to do!”

She reared and made to confront Hina-rin, but then Rarity had intercepted her, hugging and calming her excitable pegasus and saying, “It’s all right, Derpy! Everything is all right, don’t fret. She likes you, that’s all that matters, she likes you…”

“Ah, Rarity, hon?” suggested Hina. As Rarity looked toward her, the Kirin pouted slightly and lifted her chin. “I feel your complexity. Walk the paths of good. That is all I ask. Your heart is no less exquisite, little pony mare. Be worthy of it!”

Rarity’s face twisted, her expression every bit as complicated as advertised. She smiled tearfully, nodded, and then sobbed, her face racked with earnestness, hugging Derpy tightly, and Derpy hugged her back, understanding none of it but reassured that all was well.

A new voice broke in on the scene.

“Greetings, and welcome to Ponyville, and indeed to Equestria. We’ve had no diplomatic communications with your ponies. Are things well in Neighpon?”

Down the road came Princess Celestia herself, accompanied by a very curious Twilight Sparkle and Trixie. Celestia’s wings flared out unconsciously as if she expected to swoop grandly down upon the scene, and then half-furled as if embarrassed at such grandiosity. Trixie tended to try and playfully tuck herself under Celestia’s wing when that happened, but Twilight had trotted forward even faster and was studying the Kirin in frank fascination.

“You’re right, Princess! It is a kirin, sometimes classed in Canterlot taxonomy as a mist demon. How’d you know?”

“When a locus of magic that powerful comes to town,” said Princess Celestia, “one can’t but notice. Hush, Twilight. Ahem! We greet you, jewel of Neighpon. Does some special occasion bring you to our shores?”

Hina-rin scuffed the grass with a delicate cloven hoof, caught herself, and surreptitiously straightened a blade of grass as Twilight watched entranced. “And I, you, Princess. Nothing so special. We may call it a visit?”

“Indeed we may,” said Celestia. “Is Ponyville to your liking?”

“The beauty and goodness of Ponyville warms my heart,” said Hina-rin, searching Celestia’s eyes. The two seemed to be staring awfully hard at each other.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed, ever so slightly. “Why is my friend Rarity crying, jewel of Neighpon?”

Hina’s eyes widened for a moment, and just for an instant she gave the impression of a young and inexperienced mare confronted by some authority figure. It passed.

“Your friend Rarity is good,” stated Hina-rin, lifting her chin. “I find no flaw in her that good hearts can’t mend. Her sex partner Derpy is sweet beyond all compare.”

“Hah!” crowed Rainbow Dash. “I knew she was hot for Derpy-butt!”

Celestia stayed undistracted by pegasus clamoring. She continued to stare intensely at the Kirin. Images of scales flickered over Hina’s body, as she bore up under the scrutiny, finding Celestia’s attention uncomfortable. Then, she sniffed the air, her curious horn scintillating fiercely for a moment, and her jaw dropped.

“Princess Winged Horned Mare?” she said, wonderingly. “May I inquire if you are a creature of Law?”

Celestia snorted. She glanced at Twilight, who knew. Twilight Sparkle, living a mortal life as a simple unicorn, had briefly shared the world of Alicorns with her Princess, and with Luna, Cadance, and even Discord (who’d turned out to be an Alicorn of Chaos, and very cute as a mare). To most Ponyvilleans, Celestia was Princess of the Sun, but to a select few, she was known as Alicorn of Order. It wasn’t much of a stretch to call that, Law.

“And if I am?” said Celestia guardedly.

Hina squeed in delight and darted forward, wreathed in smiles and that curious magic-goatee. She bowed, then bounced giddily upon the grass, then caught herself and straightened the grass blades again.

“We shall be great friends!” she cried. “No wonder your Ponyville is a place of beauty! Your effect is felt!”

Celestia stamped a hoof, imperiously, and the Kirin quieted.

“You’ve come here and judged Rarity, and Derpy, haven’t you?” pressed Celestia.

Vinyl Scratch trotted over, worriedly. “She liked them! Please, Princess Celestia, it’s a great honor for her to visit us…”

“They are so lovely!” protested Hina-rin. “You have done so well!”

Celestia glanced at Twilight, the unicorn who’d so long ago made her question her tendency to overprotect Ponyville. Twilight gazed back, all curiosity and fearlessness so long as she was with her much-loved Princess. Celestia lowered her head, thinking, then lifted it and studied the Kirin again. She considered her words.

“Miss Kirin.”

“Winged horned mare?” replied Hina, politely.

“I’m Princess Celestia.”

“I am Hina-rin.”

“We are honored, Hina-rin,” said Celestia, solemnly.

“The honor is mine,” replied Hina, formally.

“Is that in one of the books in the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot Library?” demanded Twilight Sparkle. “It sounds really familiar!”

Celestia ignored her. She regarded the Kirin sternly. “Ponyville’s affairs are its business. You won’t find much evil there. Is it that for which you’ve come?”

Hina eeped. “No! Just the horse cock!”

Rainbow Dash fell over laughing. “I like her already!”

“And I like your town!” continued the abashed Kirin. “Your rule of law can remain! I merely visit! I’m sure the evilness won’t get too out of control!”

“See that it doesn’t,” chided Celestia. She hesitated, and added, “Have fun…”

“I’m sure that I will!” insisted Hina, earnestly.

“What was that about a rule of law?” said Twilight.

Hina glanced at her, apparently puzzled that a simple unicorn was questioning her as if equally powerful to the Winged Horned Mare, who was clearly an alicorn and somewhat important. She looked back and forth between the two, glanced at Trixie on Celestia’s other side, came to an entirely accurate conclusion, and promptly answered the Princess’s consort’s question. “My nature is law. I am its sceptre: its judgement. All chaos shall flee before me, lest it be destroyed!”

Celestia’s eyes bugged out. Twilight did a double-take, and then a wicked grin slowly crept over her face.

“Wanna bet?”

“Twilight,” said Celestia, “I think we’d better return to the castle! There are, ah, things to do. Lawful things, you know. Not chaotic in the least.”

“Hey, Rainbow?” smirked Twilight. “I think I like her too. But she’s in for a big shock, and I don’t mean the earth pony stallions.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, and then she started to giggle. “All chaos shall flee before me, huh? Does she like chocolate milk at all?”

Trixie was studying the Kirin thoughtfully. “Princess Celestia? What is that horn made of? It looks so different from a unicorn horn, even an alicorn’s.”

“It is,” said Celestia. “As you can see, the Kirin horn doesn’t point forward like ours. Its physicality is never used at all, and in fact it is very brittle. The substance allows for an amazing transfer of thaumic bandwidth…”

“Is she more powerful than you?” demanded Twilight.

“Ah,” stammered Celestia, “I don’t think this is the time to discuss such things. We should go. One moment, however?”

She walked over to Rarity, who’d settled down but still clung to Derpy. Rarity looked up as her Princess approached.

“Now I understand what had upset you, Rarity,” said Celestia. “Remember, those of us who love you have known you for many years. Of course you have a good heart. So many of you in Ponyville do, and of course our visiting Kirin will love you just as much as we do.” She glanced sharply at Hina-rin, and resumed. “So, be of good cheer! I don’t think there’s anypony in all Ponyville that Miss Hina-rin would not like.”

Rainbow Dash burst in, irrepressibly. “But there’s a certain visiting draconequus who might just blow her m…”

“I SAID,” repeated Celestia, “there’s nopony in Ponyville who’d worry our visiting Kirin in the least, nor will there be, so let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”

Some way down the road, Mayor Mare peered at the gathering, and began trotting over to investigate. “Hello!”

Hina-rin bowed her head. “Yes, Princess Celestia. I see this is your domain.”

Rainbow Dash blinked, and got it. “Oh! Right, don’t mind me, nothing else visiting. We got our earth ponies, a few pegasi, unicorns, nothing else! Unless you count Fl…” she began, and then her eyes bugged out and she stared frantically at Princess Celestia.

Celestia gazed back levelly. “Wouldn’t you say that all our ponies in Ponyville, even the strangest, are deeply good? Perhaps, even, some more than others?”

Dash’s eyes were wide. She glanced at Twilight, who also went wide-eyed and startled. Both looked to Celestia.

“And certain pegasus mares are quite amazingly good and kind and gentle,” said Celestia determinedly, “and will be of no interest to our Kirin visitor. Besides, if I am any judge, she is likely not interested in our PEGASUS ponies, much less the mares. Did you not say, erm, horse cock, Miss Hina?”

Hina nodded. “If I may! So earthy and strong.”

“Oh, my!” said Mayor Mare. “Well, horses for courses, I suppose! What a… well directed visiting dignitary!”

“Aw yeah!” said Rainbow Dash, with a hoof-pump. “Maybe we can set you up with Big Macintosh! He has to be the best stud-pony in all Equestria. Are we gonna send you home with a foal and a big smile? Please say yes!”

Celestia was shaking her head urgently, waving hooves in protest, which puzzled Twilight. Hina, whose attention was on Dash, didn’t notice, but did answer.

“Oh, no, that’s not possible. Far too serious. I could not conceive out here.”

“I happen to know Big Red is all kinds of fertile,” suggested Rainbow Dash, but Hina wasn’t having any of it.

“This is just for fun. Pray don’t insult me?”

“Huh?” blurted Dash.

Princess Celestia cleared her throat. “She’s telling you the truth, Rainbow. I don’t know everything about Kirin, but I do know this: forgive me, Hina, but they’ll pester you until someone explains. Kirin reproduce with, ah, with magemelding. Our earth ponies won’t count: they can’t do that.”

Hina was nodding. “Of course not! No sort of pony. Only a Kirin can kindle life through a mage-meld.”

Mayor Mare was frowning. “Though it’s against my better judgement, if it’s unicorn horngasm you need, I suppose we could send for Lyra. I happen to know that mare can overpower even a… what?”

The Kirin had recoiled, with an expression of outright revulsion. “Did you not hear me? Earth pony only! That is different and piquant. The spurting of unicorns?  Their raw magic force? Didn’t you listen? Kirin mating is magemeld! Weaving a foal through sheer skill! Not this… gross bestial magic-spurting!”

She paused. Vinyl Scratch was blushing and hanging her head, Octavia nuzzling her. Twilight and Trixie looked extremely offended, and Dash looked stunned.

“I suppose it’s fine for them,” admitted Hina grudgingly. “I’m sorry. It’s sensitive. We won’t do anything so… primitive and filthy. Magic’s a song, not a… gush.” She shuddered, elegantly.

Rarity couldn’t be seen: she was burying her face in Derpy’s wings and shaking, and Derpy looked pouty and cross.

“Some of us seem to like it,” objected Trixie. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it!”

“I’ve heard of unicorn crazy,” said Dash, “but are you kidding me? You don’t like doing it the unicorn way? It grosses you out, but you want to take big throbbing earth pony cock and that’s just fine?”

“Don’t judge me!” protested Hina-rin. “It’s my jam!”

“Oh, I get that!” said Dash. “But I’ve got a bunch of unicorn friends here and they’re uncomfortable now, ‘cos it’s like you think they’re icky!”

Hina looked forlorn. “It’s not that! It’s… close and yet not enough? The ravaging of force rather than sweet self-control? I am so sorry. It just seems grotesque. After all, no unicorn can meld like us.”

The words dropped into the waiting silence. Then, a clear voice broke that silence.

“Trixie?” said Twilight. “C’mere.”

Princess Celestia choked. “Oh, now, Twilight… no! Please, can you not… this is NOT diplomacy! Twilight Sparkle!”

Neither unicorn listened. As Hina-rin, the Kirin, looked on in mounting horror, Twilight Sparkle and Trixie Lulamoon concentrated, steadily weaving a glimmering magemeld like they’d done it many times before.

They had.

Hina staggered back aghast, as if they threatened to seize her horn with the magemeld and impregnate her: with another Kirin, this would of course be impossible in the absence of her cooperation, but the shocking obscenity of a unicorn magemeld seemed to break all the rules and the hapless Kirin had no idea what they proposed to do with it.

A small metal rod popped out of the air, and Twilight and Trixie sagged, spent and pleased.

“Here,” said Trixie wryly, and tossed the magic bit toward Mayor Mare’s mouth. Unthinkingly, she caught it, and then her eyes popped as she felt an equine penis surge into existence between her legs, her shape shifting violently to reveal a sudden new appendage in a green glow of unwanted transformation.

Mayor Mare screamed in complete terror and panic, spat the bit out onto the ground, and fled as if all the evils of the Everfree Forest were after her.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” declaimed Princess Celestia. She glowered at the two quietly giggling, incorrigible unicorns, and then she drew a deep breath. “We are so terribly sorry, enjoy your stay, goodbye! Rainbow, Rarity, Octavia, Vinyl, over to you! As for YOU two,” she growled… and then, the alicorn Princess had taken to the air, her horn glowing brightly, the two giggling unicorns dangling by the scruffs of their necks, hooves curled up cutely. They soared up, bound for Canterlot, and soon were lost to sight.

Rainbow stared at the magic bit, lying in the dirt. “Wow. Usually those toys are a lot more popular, just saying…” She glanced over to see Hina-rin, cowering. “Hey. Hey! It’s okay, it’s just Twilight and Trixie being troublemakers, no big deal… hey whoa, what’s the matter?”

She fluttered over to the stricken Kirin, and said, “Can I give you a hug?”

Hina-rin nodded tearfully, and was promptly cuddled by warm pegasus forelegs as Rainbow snuggled her. The scratchy little voice betrayed Dash’s motherly wisdom, always incongruous and yet somehow so persuasive, practiced through continued effort on her own recalcitrant foal. “Now c’mon, what’s the matter, honey? I’m here. Let it out.”

Hina sniffled, and stared dreadfully at the magic bit lying mockingly in the dirt, as if it would bite her. Without turning her head, Dash said, “Rarity? Or Derpy, or somepony? Get that thing outta sight, it’s scaring her.”

“No, no, not really,” protested the Kirin. “It’s just that…” She broke off, giving way to tears again.

“I’ll take it!” offered Derpy. “Those things don’t scare me, they’re fun! Can I have it? I always have to borrow Rarity’s.”

Rarity nodded. “Good thinking, Derpy darling! Bring it home, there’s a good pony. I think we’ll be all right.”

Rainbow was still cuddling Hina-rin, and Vinyl and Octavia approached, Vinyl trembling. “Please, Hina-rin, don’t cry! Did a lot of evil enter the town? Or great chaos? Bad weather?”

“Hey!” objected Dash. “Weather patrol, on the case! You ponies are all like ‘oh, another nice day, ho hum’ but as soon as we pegasi have to bring a thunderhead through or something, it’s like it’s OUR fault…”

She trailed off, because the Kirin’s mane was popping and sparking around her as if her presence suddenly offended it. Hina turned her forlorn face to Dash, and put a gentle cloven hoof to her lips. “I don’t think she’s blaming you. Please calm your anger?”

Rainbow thought for a moment. “I will… if you spit out what’s bothering you. Don’t even try to cover it up, my kid gets like that and if I can outwait her I can outwait you, cutie! Exactly why is Twilight and Trixie being naughty, the worst thing ever? Is it about the magic bit? Those can be kinda scary, but they don’t blow up unless you use them wrong. And don’t you like things to be right? I think you and the bits are on the same side, there!”

Vinyl Scratch frowned. “Is that how those are made? Lyra had one. If I’d only known, I wouldn’t have let it near me at all. What are Twilight and Trixie doing? Are they getting pregnant from that? It’s kinda awful. Yikes!”

“Wait, what? Pregnant?” objected Dash. “The bits totally don’t make you pregnant. Believe me, I’d have noticed!” She boggled for a moment. “Whoa. I’d have, like, a whole herd of little hellions like Northern Spy, my kid. Yikes is right!”

Rarity’s brow was knit. “I think I may have it. Vinyl, you’re Neighponnese and you clearly find Twilight’s more advanced magic studies with melds upsetting. You see it as related to pregnancy, as does our Kirin, and she’s here to… hmmm! Hina-rin, may I ask a rather personal question? I promise you, it is in the service of good.”

Hina looked sad. “As your Princess Horned Winged Mare said, you’ll pester me regardless, so yes. Of course you may, dear.”

Rarity’s ears were slightly angled back at being the recipient of ‘dears and darlings’ rather than the producer of such pleasantries, but she pressed on. “Hina-rin, are you a virgin?”

Vinyl’s, Octavia’s, and Dash’s eyes widened. Hina hesitated, and then she nodded, her eyes tearing up again.

“Oh, darling!” said Rarity, with some satisfaction. “I quite see the problem. Don’t worry, Rarity will ensure you’re not triggered again! It’s so unfair, isn’t it? Our naughty unicorns will stay away and not offend you further. I’m sure Princess Celestia is also acting in your best interest.”

“Slow down,” ordered Rainbow Dash. “What happened?”

Rarity turned to her. “Let’s just say, what Twilight and Trixie did has more significance than you know.” She gulped. “Miss Hina upset me, earlier, for similar reasons. We can be sensitive about intimate acts, especially very personal ones. All that talk of spurting unicorns…” She shuddered. “When I was very young, you might say I sinned. You’ve heard the story, Rainbow, I shan’t re-tell it. Because the act is so significant, it hurt me very deeply that my first experience was… tainted.”

Hina’s mane had begun to sparkle ominously as Rarity got in touch with her youthful misdeeds, but it quieted. Rarity sat impassively, sad-eyed, accepting the reality of her history but transcending it with her everyday choices. Rainbow studied her. She and Applejack had heard the story of Sweetie Belle’s origins.

Rainbow’s eyes widened. Her own memories rose up, unbidden. Even while she cuddled the Kirin, that floating mane flared into a storm of sparks as Rainbow Dash revisited a day that reared up vengefully out of her past, almost forgotten. She’d fought with Applejack, because her pegasus attitudes about bodysex had led to her swishing her prismatic tail aside for Big Macintosh, and it’d come as a brutal shock to the earth pony mare who’d earned Rainbow’s wings forever. Rainbow had flown off, despairing, to remain chaste wing-wise but act out her feelings with some more bodysex, the wildest craziest bodysex she could find. And there had been that one Diamond Dog, out to rendezvous with a lover of his own kind, but willing to experiment…

The storm of glittering energy around Rainbow threatened to obscure her entirely, though the Kirin seemed sunk in gloom.

When that Dog had turned from his fucking to experimentally chew on Rainbow Dash’s wing, it was like her soul had been torn apart in an instant. She hadn’t meant to be unfaithful to Applejack, just to get a lot of body-screwing in. Yet in one incandescent burst of erotic release and guilt, she’d been damned. Her wings weren’t Applejack’s anymore, they were anypony’s—anything’s.

The seething, crackling storm of energies subsided, as Rainbow mastered her guilt. It hadn’t been the Diamond Dog’s fault, he knew no better. Dash hadn’t set out to give her wings to random passersby. It had just been an awful, painful time, and they’d gotten through it, with great determination, forgiveness and love. Dash had even learned to be slightly less wanton with bodysex—or at least to invite Applejack along and involve her in the fun. Complicated, but the right thing to do under the circumstances.

“Listen,” said Rainbow firmly to the mournful Kirin. “I think maybe I understand too. With me, with pegasi, it’s about the wings, you know? Maybe not everypony, I can only speak for myself. Well, I was always extremely awesome with bodysex, but I was a virgin. Nopony had my wings, I didn’t think anypony ever would. And I met Applejack, and one day I gave myself to her. And then there was this other day and s… something bad happened…”

Hina’s mane flared up again, and she trembled, looking miserable as her body reacted to intimations of evil. Dash blinked inside the flare-up, and then spotted the problem.

“Let me correct that,” said Dash. “I DID something with… well, with a Diamond Dog, okay?”

Rarity cringed. “Ew, Rainbow! Honestly!”

“Sh! Yes, exactly, honesty! Can’t you see how her mane was all sparking when I acted like it was just something that happened? And now it’s not when I faced up to me doin’ it?”

Rarity was making a face. “It’s not just that. I’ll have you know Discord once played with me and Derpy, and that was one of the forms he took.” She shuddered. “Such complicated times. He managed to trigger me. I thought I’d murder him, he’d vanished Derpy’s wings and she couldn’t understand.”

“Now who’s making the Kirin’s mane go all sparky?” accused Dash, as a storm of magic nearly obscured her from view.

Rarity’s eyes widened. “Oh my. Yes. We’d better not talk about that, Rainbow.”

Hina trembled. “Is all Ponyville awful?”

The next thing she knew, both Rainbow and Rarity were hugging and soothing her. “Indeed not!” insisted Rarity. “Princess Celestia promised it was a good place, and that nopony would come here that might disturb you with evilness or chaos, isn’t that right, Rainbow?”

“Hoo boy,” managed Rainbow Dash. “I guess we can make an effort! I think you need to keep some rooms in Carousel Boutique locked up for the time being!”

“Sh!” reproved Rarity. “Miss Hina-rin, Rainbow Dash and I have both told you that we’ve had experiences, related to our particular intimate sexualities, that we found disturbing. We can see that you found Twilight and Trixie, doing what they did, disturbing. Pray let me reassure you that they’ve no idea about making anypony pregnant in such a way, in fact I rather doubt they could if they wanted! They are unicorns, like I and Vinyl, and we are made fertile through the tacky magic-gushing you spoke of, and what you saw was NOT anything like Kirin reproduction. We’re sorry you had to see it, but it wasn’t that, it was something else. Making magic toys, nothing more. And Princess Celestia, too, understands your plight, and she removed those silly unicorns before they could offend further.” Rarity made a face. “Which is just as well, as I suspect they might have.”

Rainbow hugged Hina. “It’s okay to be a virgin! It’s okay to want to have a bunch of bodysex ‘cos you’re not ready for such a big thing. As a pegasus I so totally understand!”

“As a pegasus,” scolded Rarity, “you would.”

Hina still looked forlorn, but was glancing back and forth between the two ponies. “I’ve disgraced myself. To carry on in such a ridiculous fashion? I am here to help you all. Well, that and pony cock? I’m here for that too. But surely not to fuss and be a big pain!”

Rainbow hugged her yet again. “We’re here for you, Hina-rin! It’s okay if you’re not amazing all the time. It makes you kinda like us for a change!”

Hina frowned. “This unicorn magemelding? Unthinkable, obscene stunts? And to do so not to create a new life?” She grimaced. “How did I not just explode? Surely the evil must have incinerated me. And yet, there I was. Watching them.”

Rarity gave her a stern look. “It’s not evil to them, Hina.”

“But…”

“No, listen,” reproved Rarity gently. “I saw you. As upset as you were, your magic didn’t react, even though it responded to my and Rainbow’s memories of guilt and bad choices. Your magic didn’t react because it’s not evil for Twilight to do things with Trixie that aren’t your concern. Princess Celestia will keep them from bothering you. Rather your loss, really, but I’ve noticed they spend more and more time at the castle and have come over all royal.”

Rainbow Dash snickered. “You think? All royal what, exactly?”

Rarity went scarlet. “Oh my! I didn’t mean that. Though it may be true all the same!”

“And,” said Rainbow smugly, “that’s not evil either, is it? Not to our Kirin, our Ponyville Kirin. Her mane isn’t even lighting up about it! She’s just a sex-mad virgin trying to get lots of bodysex to distract herself.” She eeped, as Hina booped her nose.

The Kirin was blushing. Oddly, it cast a rosy glow up into her horn, and the glacier-ice look turned more magenta in response. “Kirin are precious! Creatures of special value, beyond the ken of normal pony spirit! We predate all things. Kirin created the cosmos and the Equestria you enjoy!”

Dash was undaunted… and nothing about her smirking, provocative attitude was troubling the Kirin’s magic or moral judgement.

“And you can do all that AND ride a big earth pony cock here in Ponyville! Can’t you?”

Hina’s eyes widened. “I think so…”

“I know so!” exulted Dash. “This is gonna be a lot of fun. Don’t you worry, cute little Hina! We’re gonna show you a good time, aren’t we Rarity?”

“Oh, Rainbow,” chuckled Rarity. “She doesn’t seem to mind, I’ll say that.”

Vinyl Scratch chimed in, cheered by Hina’s rebounding mood. “Hina-rin will rejoice in the pleasure of all good ponies! We are sooooo honored, seriously dude, you have no idea how great this is gonna be!”

Dash was smiling. “I envy the stallions. Can I help warm you up?” She licked her lips, waggling her eyebrows.

Hina, however, wasn’t paying attention. Her horn seethed with internal light, as she thought hard: even her eyes glowed slightly from within. “This is good. Yet it’s not enough… I owe you good ponies more. I should help your Ponyville find its true joy!”

“Not just a joy,” said Rainbow, “more a way of life if ya know what I mean…”

Hina-rin was undaunted. “Yes! Yes, I can! I will help you learn! Just as you ponies helped me!” She took deep breaths, her eyes sparkling. “As a Kirin, I will devote myself to your lives!”

“And ride on a bunch of earth pony cocks?” suggested Rainbow.

Hina, rapt in contemplation of her destiny, nodded. “That as well.”  She gave a happy sigh. “And slay your evil, of course.”

“You oughta let my kid Northern Spy help,” suggested Dash. “Especially now that she’s cured.”

“Cured of what?” asked Hina, curiously.

Rainbow met Rarity’s urgent glance, and gulped.

“Nothin’…”

“Then, can I…” said Discord.

“No!” retorted Princess Celestia.

“Oh, Celly, please?” said Discord. “It sounds like she’d be a barrel of laughs. Very well, if I can’t go see her as Discord and turn her horn to a croissant, and I can’t go to her as my old Starswirl form and fuck her as one of the great stud-stallions of history, can’t I go to her in my natural form as Chaos? You don’t think she can hurt me, do you?”

Celestia sighed, petulantly. “No, Swirlie. Of course not.”

Twilight Sparkle was conferring with Trixie. “Are you sure? Trixie says she’s read some books which say they predate alicorns. And created the world and the Cosmos.”

“Neighponnese books?” suggested Celestia, wryly.

Twilight pouted. “Still… Damn it, Princess, it’s not fair! We want to study her. This book says she’s immortal and breathed all of the Cosmos out as mist under her hooves. We could test her breath. For Cosmos.”

Discord twinkled. “If she tests positive, can we arrest her for being excessively cosmic?”

Princess Celestia scrunched her nose. “I think Ponyville will have to take that risk. Honestly, Twilight, I’m sure they’ll enjoy her company.”

“But she’s an omnipotent superbeing that fights evil! What if she squishes Fluttershy? I never did cure Fluttershy of being a vampire!”

Discord’s eyes widened. “Oh, my.” Then narrowed. “You don’t say… I confess I’d assumed Fluttershy was no part of this, firstly because she’s undead and can’t be killed, and secondly because she’s the farthest thing from evil. Do you think the Kirin’s going to target her? If she does, I feel some very intense Chaos coming on…”

“She won’t,” said Celestia, hastily. “Put it out of your mind. Both because it’ll never happen, and because we’re not that far from Ponyville, you know. I’m worried about you, too, Twilight. Don’t worry about these things. Fluttershy will be fine, and the Kirin will not target her.”

“She won’t target her if her little cloven hooves are anvils!” suggested Discord.

“Swirlie!” argued Princess Celestia. “Listen. You know Fluttershy’s nature. We all do. She’s no threat to the Kirin, won’t even register. On the other hand, YOU are hinting at unleashing murderous vengeance, or at least terrible mischief. Twilight, I’ve literally watched you unleash murderous vengeance, and only Fluttershy’s intercession saved us all. Calm down! I swear, if you two get all worked up, that poor Kirin will sense it all the way out in Ponyville, and she’ll come galloping up here as fast as she can, full of duty to obliterate you for all that murderousness.”

Discord sagged. Twilight pouted, truculently. “And then what? She’s gonna wipe us out? With you, and Chaos, and me and Trixie magemelding, and the Elements of Harmony, and we can call in Cadance for added firepower if she’s not too busy screwing half the palace…”

Celestia sighed. “She’d be snuffed out like a moth in a bonfire, Twilight. I can’t allow that. Kirin are so rare already.”

“But they’re supposed to have created the world!”

Celestia lifted an elegant eyebrow. “And the book says they’re immortal? Who wrote that book? Do my eyes deceive me, or is it written by the great Hayneighhara, gifted yet exceedingly mortal Neighponnese unicorn scholar?”

There was a slight pause.

“Gifted, eh?” said Discord.

Celestia shook her head. “No, Swirlie. I didn’t have him, before you ask. And I didn’t mean that: contemporaries said nothing about his penis, exceptional or otherwise. I meant his writing skill, as you well know. My point being, why don’t you ask someone who was there at the time?”

Twilight clutched the book protectively, as if too fond of its tales to disrupt them, and so it was Trixie who said, “Are Kirin immortal, Princess Celestia?”

The Princess shook her head, sadly.

“Not at all. They’re exceptionally long-lived. The thaumic matrix of their horns allow for an extraordinary bandwidth and intensity of magic, as I said, and they’re rightly proud of this. Neighponnese unicorns have often flirted with worshipping them as Gods, and it’s understandable as they’re not in Tartarus or Elysium but actively walk among the Neighponnese, doing good deeds and casting judgement when called upon to do so. Nothing in Neighpon can stand against an enraged Kirin, certainly.”

“So they are very powerful?” said Twilight. “And this one, she’s powerful?”

“I hadn’t finished,” said Celestia reprovingly. “Their rareness is associated with their mode of reproduction. Please don’t meld in that creature’s presence again: Neighponnese records show evidence that Kirin have destroyed unicorns which learned to magemeld, claiming the unicorns were doing it for evil purposes. It’s unclear whether this was true, or simply a matter of unicorns trying to rise up against their masters, benevolent masters though they may have been. I may say that the history of this guided me when the Lulamoon clan sought to take control of the Sun from me and imprison me, so very long ago. Knowing the sad tale of the Neighponnese magemelders, I used reason and persuaded them to let me continue my duties, and I never had to harm a single talented unicorn.”

“It sounds like those Kirin were evil!” said Twilight.

“Neigh,” said Celestia solemnly. “I am sure in their case, the cabal was. What little I know of it, suggests the worst. It’s possible if the Lulamoons had succeeded, they’d have turned to evil too, and lost control of the Sun and their world. Teams of mortals have great difficulty taking the long view. I don’t blame the Kirin responsible for their choices: I’m sad with them, and in any event they’re long gone now.”

“Dead?” asked Discord.

“I didn’t say that,” replied Celestia. “Probably, but we know so little of their life cycle. They don’t proliferate, plus I’ve observed that when a new one appears, another might turn up missing. Some speculate that there’s an element of the phoenix: we know they magemeld to form a new Kirin, but it’s possible a living Kirin must sacrifice itself to kindle the foal. It’s even possible that each new Kirin is kindled by a magemeld that destroys both parent Kirin, and that’s why they’ve grown so powerful… that in this way, they move on to greater and greater heights of refinement and sophistication, each ‘generation’ inventing a new, smaller and better one and sacrificing itself, until they culminate in one Godlike Kirin who presides over the rekindling of the Universe, with all Equestria just a tiny speck in that vast magical birth.”

Two ponies and one draconequus gawked at her, stunned.

“Is that true?” gasped Trixie, in awe.

“No,” said Princess Celestia. “I met the fellow who made that theory up. He was a very nice Neighponnese unicorn, but he didn’t like alicorns very much and I guess he put me in my place, didn’t he? His fantasy final Kirin is far more impressive than I. People still tell his story, while my own theory that Kirin struggle to master the reproductive magemeld and often don’t succesfully go through with it, has been entirely forgotten. I do think it’s the younger, more impassioned Kirin who manage to do it, and as the older Kirin are venerated, there’s rather a social pressure for them to wait until they’re a few thousand years old and know they’re worthy of continuing their line. And by then, they haven’t got the skills. It is rather impressive that the meld they use always produces a Kirin in the classic sense, but there seems to be a sort of cascading feedback effect so that only deeply noble, pure Kirin can work the spell. And those often have other goals besides sexual intercourse, you know.”

“And younger Kirins are super horny but it stops them from being as noble?” suggested Twilight.

“The plural is also Kirin,” corrected Celestia. “I believe that stuck because they are so self-similar: one reason they are known to be such champions of Law is that they’re almost exactly alike. They see things very similarly and are predictable to a fault, depending on the raw power of their magic use and that extraordinary horn to prevail in any dispute, no matter what opponent they may face. The young ones are always painfully aware of the expectations upon them, and I’ve never seen a wicked or rebellious Kirin. I do wonder at times whether there’s an ancestral memory that’s passed on to new Kirin, such as our Ponyville visitor.”

Discord blinked, charmed. “New Kirin? We have a baby Kirin in town?”

“Oh, no! She might be a few hundred years old from the look of it. However,” said Celestia, “that still puts her in the prime of youth: you might say, the awkward years. She’ll enjoy the townsponies, perhaps defend them from some timberwolves or a hydra, and then move on when she feels Neighpon calling. She has responsibilities back at home, of course. She’s on holiday.”

The ponies and draconequus considered this for a while.

Discord said, “It sounds like you know all about them, Celly, and I can see why you like them. Very well. I’ll somehow avoid the temptation of playing with the Kirin, as adorable as the prospect might be. I would like to know one thing, however. Are you sure she’s no danger to Ponyville? I know, it sounds ridiculous to you, but as a representative of Chaos I’m concerned she might rather stifle things.”

“Or, a danger to us?” said Twilight. “You told us to avoid thinking bad thoughts. If she’s an adolescent, does that mean her magic powers are hard to control? I don’t like the sound of those special horns with the amazing thaumic matrix. We can get pretty destructive with just unicorn and alicorn horns, and her horn looked totally freaky and weird. I saw lights in there, I’m sure of it! Are you warning us that the Kirin can be more powerful than you? They sound like they might be Gods!”

“Oh, no,” said Celestia, “they certainly are not. Exotic, yes, perhaps a little full of themselves, terribly serious about their goals in life, but for all that they are just magical creatures like any other. And no, Twilight, the Kirin is not more powerful than I.”

“Good!” said Twilight Sparkle.

On The Case

“Could somepony please explain why Mayor Mare is hiding under my bed?”

Along the road trotted a very cross Bon Bon. She didn’t so much as blink at the presence of Hina. Instead, she glared at all the ponies present, and twice at Rainbow Dash.

“Under what now?” said Dash, caught off balance. “You might not want to be grumpy, we have a Kirin. And we’re even planning to use her, and do I mean use!”

“She’s hiding under my bed,” insisted Bon Bon. “And before you make a joke out of it, yes, I know that usually she’s IN my bed, and we’re quite comfortable with that. She came from this direction. What did you do? I saw Princess Celestia fly away from here, and she hadn’t even told me… I mean, I have no idea what she’s doing in Ponyville at all, much less why that would frighten Mayor Mare! Rarity, you’re probably the most intelligent pony here, you tell me what happened.”

“Everything’s all right,” said Rarity hastily. “There was no danger, Bon Bon, don’t worry. We’re safe. Perhaps even more safe than usual. Is that not so, er, Hina-rin?”

Hina gazed serenely back, and replied, “Of course, little pony mare. I’m not only bound to look after you, I’m honored.”

Rainbow Dash snorted, and when Rarity glared at her, Dash mouthed the word ‘bound’ and tried to suppress giggling as Rarity blushed.

Bon Bon stamped a hoof. “Yes, yes, very nice, but what happened? I asked you what happened and I expect a situational report. You’ve got a Kirin from Neighpon visiting, obviously. She shouldn’t be a threat so what made Mayor Mare run away? If you don’t tell me the truth I’ll…” She caught herself, and she blushed, and scraped at the dirt with a forehoof, apparently realizing how forceful she’d become. “I’ll… cry. So there!”

Hina gasped. “No, don’t cry, little pony! Is this Mayor close to you? Why does her distress upset you so badly?”

Bon Bon’s lip quivered with ostentatious adorableness, and she convincingly portrayed a little earth pony mare flustered beyond all reason by dreadful tragedy. Rarity, seeing this, spoke up.

“I’ll tell her. Calm yourself, Bon Bon! Breathe, that’s the way. Sometimes our flower ponies get like this,” Rarity explained. “Odd, I’ve never seen Bon Bon at a loss in this manner…”

“What happened?” squealed Bon Bon fretfully. Rarity put aside her puzzlement and spoke firmly to her.

“Twilight and Trixie were here. They made one of their magic bits, to offend our Kirin, and Princess Celestia took them away in disgrace.”

Bon Bon had immediately dropped her hysteria and was staring straight at Rarity. “I see. But what does that have to do with Mayor Mare? You’re not telling me everything.”

“Pushy, much?” quipped Rainbow Dash.

Rarity shot her a wry glance. “Miss Bon Bon has been my customer, Rainbow. I would advise you get used to it. Besides, remember the Mayor is her marefriend! She’s got a right to be concerned.”

“Well, she better watch out!” said Dash. “If she’s too much of a jerk, the Kirin might zap her with a lightning bolt… poof! She should be friendlier!”

“She wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed Bon Bon, in a shocked tone rather than a frightened one. The suggestion seemed unthinkable, to her. She turned to Hina. “You wouldn’t dare! I’m a very important pony, you know!”

“Yeah, sure,” soothed Rainbow Dash. “So, you satisfied, Bon Bon?”

Bon Bon withered her with a glance. “No, because Rarity still hasn’t told me what happened to Mayor Mare yet!”

“Oh!” blinked Rarity. “You’re right, darling, my apologies. When they were done making the magic bit, Trixie tossed it to the Mayor playfully. Perhaps she was on edge from entertaining the Kirin and the Princess? I wouldn’t have thought it, but Mayor Mare caught the bit in her teeth, and you know what happened! Ah… you do know what happens? With those?”

Bon Bon looked cranky. “I remind you that I used to see Lyra, before Mayor Mare showed me the true meaning of love. Lyra had one of those stupid bits, and she had me using it on her incessantly. Yes, I know all about Twilight’s magic bit inventions.”

“Trixie’s,” corrected Rarity. “She’s always been rather proud of inventing the first one, though I understand they predate even Trixie.”

“Whatever,” said Bon Bon. “Mayor Mare caught a bit in her mouth, and grew a penis? Is that what you’re telling me? That’s all? What was it like?”

“I thought you were another super lesbian?” challenged Rainbow Dash.

“Please, don’t fight!” begged Vinyl Scratch. “I can’t stand it! Don’t you understand we’re in the presence of Hina-rin? You’re in front of a Kirin and you’re bickering! What’s wrong with you?”

“So what?” grumped Bon Bon. “Rainbow Dash just called me a super lesbian! She’s got a lot of nerve, after all the time she spent trying to get her tongue into Lyra. If only I’d known how that would end up, I’d have dumped her on your doorstep years ago!”

Dash blinked. “Huh. Got me there. I guess it was the cuteness of the unicorn crazy? She’s still pretty, even after foaling. Can’t blame me for wanting a taste.”

Bon Bon made a face. “And I can’t fault Lyra in that way, she was always a real treat. And so high strung! But not observant beyond her facts and figures, of course. There’s such a lot she never figured out. And I guess I must admit to being a super lesbian, but I’m much happier with Mayor Mare. You’re sure that’s all that happened, you just startled her with a random unexpected penis? It must have been a big shock for her.”

“I didn’t!” protested Rainbow Dash. “Trixie did. I remember being pretty surprised, but I guess you’re right, she’s never tried one, has she? I just ignored her ‘cos our guest was upset.”

“Jerk,” sniffed Bon Bon.

“Nooooo!” squealed Vinyl Scratch, jumping forth to confront both ponies. “Be good! You’re insulting our Kirin guest, I told you!”

Hina cleared her throat. Vinyl looked around, peering fretfully over the top of her half-askew sunglasses.

“Stop that, you,” said Hina-rin sternly, narrowing her eyes. “I’m enjoying their by-play. There’s no harm in it. It’s a nice change from Neighpon. Let them be!”

Vinyl reared, kicking the air with a whinny of dismay… and then, she burst into tears, and galloped off down the road.

Rarity gasped. Octavia was already galloping after her beloved best friend, but the cellist was heavier and less athletic, and as a result couldn’t beat Vinyl’s hysterical speed.

“Catch her, please!” decreed Hina-rin, and that was all Rainbow Dash needed to hear.

A blue streak burst from their midst, zipping straight past Octavia, and in mere seconds the Town Square saw its third unicorn dangling in the air with hooves curled up cutely under her. Twilight and Trixie had been giggling, however. Vinyl was sobbing, kicking, and hyperventilating.

“Bring her here!” ordered Hina-rin. Dash, her gaze a question, did so.

“My sweet child,” called the Kirin. “I am so sorry! There, there, dear.”

The other ponies watched with perplexed and disbelieving expressions as Hina-rin enfolded frantic Vinyl in a hug. It seemed to be the right move: Vinyl sobbed and whooped and got the hiccups and hugged Hina back fervently, and Hina didn’t rush her. Octavia came back, panting from her exertion and gawking at the spectacle as her best friend Vinyl shuddered and cried in the Kirin’s forelegs.

Hina glanced up and caught Octavia’s eye. She turned to the little Neighponnese unicorn she cuddled.

“Better now?”

Vinyl nodded, tearfully.

“Dear one, you must go to bed,” insisted Hina solemnly. “Too much excitement! Do this for me, please. Let your friend Octavia take you back home. We’ll meet again tomorrow.”

Vinyl pouted like a filly, but she nodded, eyes big and tearful behind the cool shades. Octavia came forward, her manner gentle, but a certain flash just barely perceptible in her eye.

“I could have done that,” Octavia said, not quite defiantly. “It wouldn’t have been the first time, even. If I’d caught up with her, I’d have helped her, with or without you.”

“But of course,” said the Kirin gently. “And what would you do? To help her?”

A little halfsmile quirked Octavia’s grey muzzle. “Pretty much exactly your prescription,” she admitted. “Scratchie? Come on, honey. Both me and your Kirin say, little unicorn go bedtime now, okay?”

Vinyl sniffled, tried to smile, still trembled. “…kirin!” she managed.

“Yes, yes,” said Octavia, helping her along. “I’m going to make you eat a haycake, too, okay? I saw you, you’ve been silently flipping out this whole time and I wondered if you were going to melt down. Come on honey, tomorrow’s another day. I’ll play you a lullaby on my cello, won’t that be nice?”

The ponies and Kirin watched them until they were out of sight, safely inside Octavia and Vinyl’s shared house. Soon, the faint sounds of a cello wafted through the air.

“That’s lovely,” said Rarity. “Her heart’s in her bow. I see she’s got more themes than just Stout Heart, hmm?”

“That’s got rid of her,” said Hina-rin with a flick of her tail. “Well! Now what?”

“Oh now wait a minute!” protested Rainbow Dash. “That’s Vinyl Scratch! You know, DJ Pon-3? Never mind being a famous DJ-pony, she’s actually really nice, I’ve hung out with her before! What do you mean, rid of her?”

Hina wasn’t offended. “Hung out with her at parties? I know she’s a celebrity, for she told me so.”

“Is there a problem with that?” said Dash.

“May I ask if there were fangirl ponies there with you?” inquired Hina-rin politely.

Dash frowned. “Oh yeah. We kinda laughed at them together. Not in a bad way? Don’t get sparky. It’s just that they were hopeless to hang out with, because… ohhhhh. I think I see where you’re going with this.”

Hina nodded. “Your Vinyl Scratch is Neighponnese, and loves me like the Kirin I am. It’s nice, but… Can’t I hang out with ponies like a regular mare? Well, apart from the great beauty and magic…”

“Whatever,” said Bon Bon, unimpressed. “Nice horn, I’ll say that. Maybe that’s why all the unicorns are flipping out more than usual?”

Rarity drew a breath, preparing to expostulate, and then remembered her little guiltstorm and her turn being cuddled through her emotional tailspin by the nurturing Kirin. She subsided, pouting ferociously, unable to argue the point.

Rainbow Dash snickered. “Well, you came to the right place! Not only can you get laid by well-hung farm ponies, we’ll totally hang out with you like you’re just one of the girls!”

“Apart from the…” began Hina-rin, earnestly.

“You said that already,” interrupted Bon Bon, rolling her eyes—and getting a scandalized, affronted look from the Kirin, who’d not finished her courtly words.

Hina, eyes wide and clearly off balance, struggled to finish her broken sentence in a way that wouldn’t get her more good-natured mockery. It was all too plain that she’d meant to remind them how beautiful and magic she was—that she needed to finish every syllable of her sentence, for some reason—and that she’d be teased if she didn’t come up with some other distinction. Then, her eyes lit up with an idea.

“…beard!” she concluded, and Rainbow Dash cracked up and fell over laughing her little squeaky laugh.

“Leave it at that,” suggested Rarity. “If you try to explain yourself further, she might not be able to breathe! Wait for the eeps to subside, and she’ll be right as rain.”

“Baaahaahahaha! eep! Oh wow. Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, “if you want to be just folks, you HAVE to hang out with my family! The Apple family!”

“I would enjoy that!” said Hina-rin. “Where shall we go, to do this?”

Dash smirked. “You don’t have to go anywhere. Check THIS out. ‘Scuse me for a moment, stay right there!”

As her companions gawked, Rainbow Dash blasted straight up into the air, seeming to accelerate even as she went—and a boom rocked Ponyville, a circular rainbow expanding from its source. Dash wasn’t content with just that, though. They saw her tear into an impossibly tight turn, whirling in a rough circle: it looked like Rainbow was trying to put some feature on the circle, like a flat or reversed spot at the top, such as one might use for drawing a crude picture of an apple. She wasn’t terribly good at it, but even to attempt such a stunt seemed impressive.

More impressive was the result of her fierce whirling. A cyclone formed, and its cone reached down and down, aiming directly for the Town Square and the waiting ponies and Kirin. Just as they began to seriously panic, the cyclone exploded in a great churning of winds. Dash had reversed her course, and was racing back down in a crazy spiral,  disrupting the whirlwind as she went. It broke up in huge bursts of turbulence so intense that lightning crackled between the vapor clouds scudding off in every direction, and then Rainbow Dash dropped to the ground right in the middle of her astonished companions.

She staggered, panting, obviously wrecked, but grinning all the same. “Nine… hhh… eight…”

“What’s the meaning of this, Rainbow Dash?” demanded Rarity. “If you hadn’t broken up that tornado, that you yourself created, it might have harmed the town!”

“You’ll see,” panted Dash. “Three… two…”

Out of the distance, on the road to Sweet Apple Acres, came a distant screeching, accompanied by a cloud of dust that raced closer and closer. The sound dopplered higher and higher as the source of the dust cloud loomed, and then it was upon them, an explosion of speed and dust and shrill warlike shrieking, enough to make every single pony including the Kirin flinch and shy away, though there was no time…

…all but one.

Rainbow Dash, still panting and grinning, held up a hoof… and a sharp clack split the air, and suddenly a tiny green filly was standing there, not even winded, hoof raised from where she’d high-oned her Mom. Northern Spy’s eyes scanned all over Town Square, her teeth gritted in a wild grin to rival her mother’s, and she wore a black cape and a black hood that covered her ears.

“Kirins and gentleponies,” said Rainbow proudly, “introducing the Green Streak, my very own adorable kid. Hey shortstuff! I thought I told you, you don’t need the cape.”

Northern Spy continued to look all around. She frowned. “Where’s the MONSTER? Is this it?” she said, indicating Hina-rin.

“No, no! That’s a friend. I wanted you to meet her. Spy, will you look at your cape? The back edge is all frayed and ripped now. I realize you love it but it can’t stand up to your raw speed, honey. And is that why you just barely made it here in ten seconds flat?”

Little Northern Spy’s eyes widened. “Did so!”

“Yeah, but just barely,” objected Dash, “you can’t take your abilities for granted like that!”

Along the same road, from Sweet Apple Acres, galloped two more ponies: Applejack and Big Macintosh, charging heroically to the rescue. As they saw the gathering of ponies in Town Square, they slowed, and joined the group more calmly. Applejack’s eyes were wide as she looked around for dangers. Big Macintosh’s were wider, though he only looked at the Kirin.

Northern Spy glowered at Dash. “But you didn’t answer me, Mom. Where’s the monster? What’s the danger?”

“Sure I did. There’s no danger. Hi!” said Rainbow Dash brightly. “Hi Applejack, Big Macintosh. I’d like to introduce…”

“You set off the APPLE SIGNAL,” squeaked Spy in outrage, “and there’s NO DANGER? We ought to put you in pony jail! Where’s Mayor Mare, or maybe Twilight, or Princess Celestia? How am I supposed to fight the evil with you when there’s no evil?”

“Pray do not fear, child!” called Hina-rin, earnestly. “I will slay this town’s evil!”

Northern Spy whirled, and gave the Kirin a skeptical look. “Uh-huh. What the fuck are you?”

“Language!” scolded Applejack, clearly ready to ask the same question.

Spy hastily corrected herself. “What the buck are you? A unicorn who ran into a wall too hard?”

“I am Hina-rin. Which is to say, a Kirin. Do you know what a Kirin is, my sweet child?”

“Your sweet WHAT now?” objected Applejack. “Dashie, what’s with th’ freaky visitors?”

Hina blinked. “I’m sorry? Have I said something improper?”

Applejack gazed levelly at her. “Ain’t your sweet child, sugarcube. That’d be mine, and Rainbow’s. I would admit the sweet part, except we know the lil’ scaper too well. Rainbow, what IS all this?”

Rainbow Dash had recovered her breath, and hastened to explain. “She’s some kind of fancy Neighponnese unicorn! Vinyl Scratch was so excited she had to go home and lie down a while, she’s from Neighpon too. Mayor Mare was so excited she ran away screaming! Though that was mostly because of the random magic dick. Check this out: this cutie’s here and she’d like to get it on with some farm ponies! How crazy is that?”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “Aw hell. Please promise this one ain’t gonna turn into a vampire?”

She blinked, startled, as Rainbow Dash put a hoof to her lips in a shushing motion, and then slashed across her throat in a ‘silence or pay the consequences!’ gesture, and shook her head until her mane rustled. Applejack went completely silent, not understanding… but understanding was soon to arrive.

Hina gasped. “I would never turn to that! Are you mad? How essentially evil! Do you not understand the nature of a Kirin? We are creatures of pure good! Radiant, benevolent… roving judges, protectors!”

“Humble, too,” suggested Rarity, wryly. Her ears were back, for she understood the essential problem.

Hina stamped a forehoof with a flare of rippling magic fetlock, and then blushed and tried to cover up the grass blades she’d stomped. “I promise, I will personally fight your evil!”

Northern Spy was studying her. Then she gave a diminutive filly snort. “Nah,” she said.

Hina’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“That’s okay,” said Spy politely. “We got this. Right, Mom?”

Rainbow grinned, a little awkwardly. “That’s right! Thanks anyway, though, Hina-rin?”

Applejack was sticking out her lower lip, truculently. “Don’t you go fightin’ nothin here in Ponyville, Miss Hin-a-rin. We’ll handle such as needs handlin’! You just set back and enjoy your stay, you got NO call to go look for fightin’ around here. Or evil!”

“Eyup,” said Big Macintosh loyally, and Hina’s ear quirked at the bassy rumble of his voice.

The Kirin looked back and forth between the ponies, and realized that every single one shared that opinion. Even Rarity looked determined and self-reliant. Hina’s lip quivered, and her eyes glistened, and then she cried out, “Ah! You’re such brave little ponies! It’s adorable! I could just hug all of you!”

“Well, all righty,” said Applejack, relaxing.

“What?”

“Best idea you’ve had since I got here,” suggested Applejack. “C’mere, you! I ain’t never hugged a Kirin before. Dang, you could use a big stack of haycakes an’ apple butter!”

With a glittery flounce of her mane and a lash of her tufted tail, Hina leapt elegantly forth and hugged Applejack, who snorted in surprise to find her face immersed in that same shimmering mane. She struggled weakly, then drew a deep breath, and vented it with a “My sakes!”

“What is the matter?” inquired Hina.

“Nothin’s the matter,” explained Applejack. “Yer mane’s all tingly!”

“That’s not all that is tingly!” replied the Kirin, enthralled. Rainbow Dash guffawed and fell over laughing again, provoking an exasperated look from Northern Spy.

“Wow, are you ever going to fit in around here!” giggled Dash.

Hina’s eyes widened. “No! Er, I mean… It is not sexual excitement that I speak of!”

“So hug her again,” suggested Dash.

“Nay!” insisted Hina-rin, and Applejack looked mildly disappointed. Hina continued, “Your ponies here are so brave! In Neighpon they rely upon me for much. I’m honored, of course. It’s my privilege to help. But you, here, are so self-reliant and strong!”

Applejack smiled. “I guess we are, ain’t we? Thankee, Miss Kirin. That’s Ponyville for ya!”

“It’s astonishing,” enthused Hina. “You speak of vampires like you’ve seen those monsters!”

Northern Spy piped right up, proudly. “Heck, I was one! And I was BAD-ASS at it, too. Rar!”

All the ponies froze, in a sudden panic. Spy looked around, perplexed. “What? I got better.”

Then, Spy squeaked, for the Kirin was staring at her oddly, moving in closer, that mane billowing out strangely.

“HEY now!” protested Applejack, but even as she said it, Hina pounced. Not to attack, but to hug little Northern Spy with an expression of fierce concentration, that magic mane swirling to enfold Spy.

“LET…” began Rainbow Dash, suddenly right in Hina’s face, but the Kirin was already retreating, completely unafraid of the ponies’ reactions but gravely troubled all the same.

Northern Spy blinked. “What was that for? Do it again, it felt nice!”

Hina gulped. “What strange magic’s this? I thought I would counsel her against such silly lies. There is no stench of undeath in her aura. Yet her mind believes the tale. What is this?”

The ponies glanced back and forth, startled by Hina’s sudden bold action. Rarity cleared her throat. “I suppose you could say it is the truth. We in Ponyville have indeed handled many alarming situations. Applejack and Rainbow’s foal, Northern Spy, is herself an alarming situation more often than not, but all the more when she suffered from vampirism. She did indeed get better, and there’s certainly nothing for you to do about it now, she’s cured.”

“What can possibly cure that?” gasped Hina-rin.

“You’ve seen them,” said Rainbow Dash. “It was Twilight and Trixie, and Princess Celestia helped.”

Hina’s ears were laid back in distress as she grappled with these concepts. She twitched. “Who bit this little pony? Where is the monster? Does it still lurk around here? I will destroy it!”

“No way!” squeaked Spy, outraged. “Don’t you fucking dare, it was Gilda and it was me who bit HER! Leave her alone!”

“What is a GILDA?” cried Hina-rin, prancing in place.

“Hey!” snapped Applejack. “Slow down, y’all, you’re scaring her!” She reared, and hugged Hina back, reassuringly. “Easy now! You ain’t so different from us, are ya? Proper flower pony, you are! It’s okay. Gilda’s a griffin. You best not consider griffins evil or we gonna have words, missy. And Twi and Trixie, they cured Gilda too. Everything’s fine.”

She released the young Kirin, who stared wonderingly at her, still shivering a bit.

“How could unicorns…” she breathed, and then she blinked and made a face. “They didn’t.”

Rarity lifted an eyebrow. “They did. For a creature of ultimate good, you’re not terribly openminded. Yes, I understand Kirin magemeld to reproduce, but even if it shocks you, we Ponyville unicorns can also manage it. Twilight and Trixie can, at any rate. There are also talented unicorns that study in Canterlot who know how to do it. And I may say I sympathize a little with your feelings about Twilight and Trixie magemelding to create sex toys and artificial magic penises, but what is so different between you kindling life and our unicorns rescuing an innocent pony child from vampiric undeath?”

Hina was wide-eyed, speechless. Her lip quivered. Rarity’s calm words had apparently cut deep.

“In fairness,” added Applejack, “they couldn’ta done it without Zecora. She’s a zebra. I guess you could say she’s kind of a shaman? Sha-mare? I heard tell she ain’t supposed to be any such thing off in zebra places, but this is Ponyville an’ we love our Zecora too, so you better not go hunting for evil there.”

Hina trembled. “But… there’s still evil! I am sure of it! Somewhere… buried underneath…”

Bon Bon stamped the ground, drawing everypony’s attention. “What? What do you mean? The foal was cured!”

“Hey!” objected Northern Spy, filly nostrils flaring in outrage at being called a foal.

Bon Bon paid no attention. “The griffin was cured, and is gone. Even Twilight Sparkle’s mad attack on Celestia amounted to nothing. Everything’s accounted for. What do you mean there’s still evil in Ponyville?”

“I just feel…” began Hina, but Applejack trotted right up to her, fixing her with a stern gaze.

“Ah TOLE you, we’ll handle things around here! You jes’ occupy yourself with havin’ your fun on the end of our fine stallions. We don’t want you huntin’ down no evil in these parts, missy! Be told!”

“If she means…” began Bon Bon, but caught herself at a desperate furious glance from Rainbow Dash. It seemed like the word ‘Fluttershy’ hovered in the air, unsaid. The Kirin’s mane stormed and sparkled with the intensity and complexity of the pony feelings that surrounded her. Her face contorted and twisted…

Hina burst into tears. “Bwaaaaaah!”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. She glanced at Rainbow, then at her Spy. “Dang! Awwww…”

The next thing Hina knew, she was being hugged some more, and comforted by the orange earth pony mare with the resolutely good wholesome aura. Then, the blue pegasus with the complicated fretful aura and the underlying laser-like purity of essence joined her, and even the white unicorn with the fiercely complex aura like a paisley pattern of love and guilt. The grumpy earth pony mare with an aura like a sword under a carpet of flower petals and crabapples stamped her hoof, glaring, her essence demanding the truth.

“She said there was still evil,” demanded Bon Bon. “What does she mean, there’s still evil here? Make her answer!”

Rarity turned her head, and skewered Bon Bon with an imperious unicorn glare. “Piss off, darling!”

“Grrrrh!” snarled Bon Bon, and she whirled and galloped back to her house and Mayor Mare.

Rainbow Dash blinked. “I thought she was, like, your loyal customer? So much for that, huh?”

Rarity scrunched her nose. “Feh! She acts like she’s the special agent of Princess Celestia herself! Such a scolding is richly deserved.”

“Shush, you two,” ordered Applejack. “Poor thing! For all that you’re here for some rumpypumpy, you ain’t the most mature Kirin in Neighpon, are ya? I guess this means you’re gonna do like we said, huh?”

Hina nodded, tearfully. “I am no mere foal. But I don’t understand this. You really mean it? No hunting?”

“Aw HELL no!” ordered Applejack. “You leave that to us! You just enjoy yourself, you hear?”

“Do you think she can promise that?” asked Rainbow. “I don’t know how Kirins are. Is she gonna be overwhelmed with like Kirin-lust?”

“Heh, heh, heh…” replied Applejack.

Rainbow smirked. “Not like that! Or maybe like that, but… you know what I mean! You’re just teasing!”

“P’raps I am,” said Applejack. “You know how it is with our lil’ scaper, we get an agreement and then we’re quickly distractin’ so she switches that filly brain over to some other thought. This here pretty an’ ravishing creature is maybe kinda like that. I think she’s gonna be good, so can we get back to the good vibes an’ help her out?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rarity. “Perhaps I can give her a make-over? Or I could, if she weren’t already so lovely. Hmph. We could sing her a song?”

A pink pony head popped unexpectedly out from behind her, as if out of nowhere. “I know songs!”

Rarity shrieked. “Pinkie Pie! Don’t do that, I beg of you! Whatever brings you here so suddenly?”

“The Apple Signal, of course!” said Pinkie brightly. “Rock said I could come along and see what was happening if I let him sneak up and case the joint first!”

Rainbow Dash stared at her. “Sure, why not? Go right ahead. I think you have that backwards, though, because here you are and look around, there’s no sign of your colt Rock C-YAAAH!”

“Hello!” chirped a white colt with pink mane and tail, in a deadpan tone that seemingly didn’t even notice Dash’s startled reaction. He’d turned up right behind her, just to be funny. Rock Candy, also known as the Rock Lobster for reasons nopony could comprehend, was on the scene and ready to team up with the Green Streak to fight all manner of evil and solve the crime, if possible even before it happened. As usual, a twinkle in his eye hinted at his delight in freaking out the grown-ups. What the Green Streak did with sheer speed and power, the Rock Lobster did by surprise and for amusement: both his own, and that of onlookers with the right sense of humor.

“He’s goooood,” mused Pinkie Pie, proudly.

The sudden appearance of an insouciant colt had shaken Hina-rin from her moping. “Hello, little one!” she said. “Who are you?”

Rock looked curiously at her. “I’m Rock Lobster, superhero. I guess there wasn’t an emergency? You’re not exactly an emergency, are you?”

“I am a Kirin,” said Hina gently. “Do you know what Kirin are?”

He studied her, wrinkling his brow in thought. “Well…”

“Then I will tell you,” began Hina, but Rock Candy wasn’t done.

“Apart from the great magical power, you’re here to do stuff with the farm ponies my Mom won’t let me watch,” he said. “You’re going to bring a lot of trouble but do good things, and leave here less dumb than you were when you came. You’ll break… hmm… one heart before you go, and make a lot of flower ponies fall over, and not be sorry at all. I don’t understand that part. How come you’re going to make flower ponies fall over but you’re okay with it?”

All the ponies stared at him in shock, except for Pinkie, his Mom.

“Pinkie Sense,” she said smugly. “Runs in the family. I didn’t understand all that either, but he’s young. And darn right you’re not gonna watch her do her thing, young mister! Gotta love Ponyville. It’s a great place for stuff Rock’s not allowed to watch! We might as well be Fillydelphia if only we had more vats of pudding. Why, ponies come from far and wide to…”

“Hello,” came a new voice, very soft, and Pinkie’s jaw dropped.

“Oh, no. You? Here?!?”

The newcomer cowered. “Mmhm…”

Applejack boggled. “Marble? Marble Pie? Well, I’ll be! Pinkie’s sister, as I live an’ breathe! What brings you to these parts, honey?”

“Mm!” managed Marble, and fell utterly silent, cringing back under Pinkie’s surprisingly aggressive stare.

“Pinkie?” said Applejack. “Pinkie? Pinkie Pie! Snap out of it! What the hay is the matter with you?”

“Nothing!” asserted Pinkie. “Why, everything’s just wonderful here in Ponyville. Especially with my marvelous Rock Candy learning the ways of Pinkie Sense…”

“Marble sense,” offered Marble Pie meekly.

“What did you say?!”

“Mm!” squeaked Marble, blushed, and went silent again.

Pinkie hyperventilated for a moment, and then put on a great big disturbing smile. “Nothing’s the matter and everything’s fine and we don’t need anything ‘cos we’re good just the way we are! And we especially don’t need HER!”

“m!”

Pinkie whirled on her little sister, younger by seconds. “Or is it your creepy destiny thing, Marble? Is this the time you’ve been talking about since we were little? The one time you have sex, and it’s very amazing but scary and you survive it and then creep off home to be a spinster pony, content in the knowledge that, that WHAT are always clopping off over you? It’s not even a real word!”

“…bronies?” whimpered Marble Pie, cowering back a little more.

“That! Is that what you’re up to? Is it this weird new unicorn thing you screw, this weird girl here?” demanded Pinkie, indicating the Kirin, whose mane was flaring up. “Is it her?”

Marble was past even being able to speak, shaking like a leaf, but there was special assistance forthcoming right away. Hina sprang forward, hugged her, and turned to Pinkie. “Noisy pink pony! Do not scold your dear sister. She means you no harm!”

Pinkie wasn’t comforted. “This is MY turf! If anypony’s gonna be spooky with a Sense around here it’s me! Ask her, go on, just ask her. Is it her creepy sex destiny thing?”

“Not this chapter,” managed Marble Pie, to puzzled looks from the surrounding ponies.

“You see? You SEE?” said Pinkie. “What does that even mean? She never stops with that stuff!”

Hina-rin drew Marble closer. “Calm yourself, you’re safe! Sweet little pony. Do you come here to have sex?”

Marble nodded a bashful little nod. “Mmhm…”

“There you are,” soothed the Kirin. “That wasn’t so hard! Calm yourself, pink miscreant. She only wanted to come here and have sex.”

“And warn Pinkie about the evil,” said Marble in a teeny-tiny but clear voice.

Pinkie’s ears laid flat back against her head. “What?”

“Mm!”

Applejack’s ears had perked up, by contrast. “Say that again, honey? This Kirin keeps goin’ on about evil in town.”

Rainbow Dash hovered with thoughtful wingbeats. “Maybe they’re thinking of the same thing? And not just… stuff that doesn’t concern them? That’s two of ‘em now saying it.”

“Hmm,” said Applejack. “Kirin ain’t too specific. See here, Marble, what’s th’ problem?”

Marble whimpered. “I don’t know either! They find out by the end of the next chapter but I don’t see it! I never do see it, I get scared and go back home where it’s safe!”

“Huh,” said Applejack. “Huh. That don’t make sense, Marble, you’re talkin’ Pinkie crazy, except she raves and babbles when she says stuff like that and don’t remember what she said. How come Pinkie ain’t sayin’ this stuff, then? Why just you and the Kirin? Kirin’s supposed to be special good at sensin’ evil. Why not Pinkie Pie?”

Marble directed a gently sulky look at Applejack, and didn’t dare meet Pinkie’s furious gaze at all.

“She’s not sensitive enough…”

“How about,” demanded Pinkie Pie, “you screw this Kirin, if that’s what it is, and go home!”

Marble blinked. “But I don’t have sex with her. It’s him,” she said, and pointed a hoof at Big Macintosh, whose eyes went wide.

“AAAARGHH!” screeched Pinkie Pie.

“m!”

“Easy, there, Pinkster!” urged Rainbow Dash, worriedly.

“No!” raged Pinkie. “No way! If it’s not Rainbow Dash it’s Flutterbuttykins and then Luna and now my baby SISTER? Are you kidding? Is this big bumbling red bozo going to screw EVERY mare in the whole universe? Aaarrggh! No way! I quit! And fuck you, Marble, there’s no evil here, we’ve been through all that! I am outta here!”

With that, Pinkie departed and Rock Candy chased after her, glancing worriedly back at the other ponies. “Mom? Mom! It’s okay, Mom! You’re still a big part of everything, I can tell!”

“That’s just what I’m afraid of!” yelled Pinkie, and continued storming off.

The remaining ponies stared in awe at Marble, who trembled in the Kirin’s embrace.

“Dang,” said Applejack. “You’re more sensitive than Pinkie Pie? At sensin’?”

“Mm-hm,” said Marble faintly.

“What’s it like?” said Applejack.

Marble just trembled. Hina-rin petted her with a delicate cloven hoof. “I believe that is the truth. This one flies close to the edge. Near the cusp of awareness.”

“She’s an oracle pony?” inquired Rarity, fascinated.

“It’d explain a lot,” mused Applejack. “Seems like Pinkie’s a mite jealous. We better make sure our Pinkie Pie’s not feelin’ too hurt by all this. Evil, you say?”

Marble nodded a little nod. “Mm-hm. It’s so bad. I knew Pinkie wouldn’t like it, but I had to come warn her.”

“This might git awkward,” sighed Applejack.

Bon Bon peered under the bed. Mayor Mare was still there. She’d eaten half the apple Bon Bon had rolled under there for her, and then she’d fallen asleep.

There was nothing for it. A report would have to be filed. Duty called.

Bon Bon checked under the bed once more, and Mayor Mare was still asleep. She peered out the window. Nopony was looking. She’d have to risk it.

She trotted over to the hall closet, and three feet beyond it, where the rug lay neatly in the exact middle of the hallway. She set her jaw, reared, clapped her hooves, and did a little shake.

Quietly, the rug zipped off to the side and up the wall, revealing a dark hole that hadn’t been under that rug before.

Bon Bon took a mighty leap, and jumped in. The rug zipped back down off the wall to cover her exit.

Down a chute she went, a grimly serious expression on her face, and she flumphed cozily onto a Double Size Government Horse Pillow, that rotated into place to catch her. Next to it, the modified party cannon that shot her back into the world of her cover story, in a discreet shower of relatively subdued confetti. That would wait until she’d done her duty to Celestia and could be Bon Bon again, unsuspected.

She stood, walked forward through the special dispenser bracket that placed a set of very serious shades over her eyes, and also gave her a sugar lump to snack on for that vital pony energy to pursue her indispensable tasks. She was ready.

Special Agent Sweetie Drops was, as always, on the case.

“Mmm!” was Special Agent Sweetie Drops’ first announcement to her secret lair, and she pranced cutely as she munched on the sugar lump, her eyes closed in bliss behind the shades. Her cover story as Bon Bon was well chosen, but her Fearless Leader knew the candy-related cutie mark really just spoke of her sweet tooth. Celestia had more than once flown her in to Canterlot under cover of night, so the Princesses could team up and cure toothaches brought on by too many candies.

Sweetie Drops would have grown into a plump and round little pony, if not for the grappling hook and life of mystery and intrigue that kept her fit. Indeed, the weakness for candy helped disguise her muscle, and the occasional toothaches helped her stay in character as a bitchy Ponyville small-business mare.

It was useful to sometimes have a temper, for Sweetie Drops had a tendency to fall in love with pretty mares and long for the softer, kinder things: it was why she’d tried to please the mercurial Lyra for so long, and when the unexpectedly young Mayor Mare had begin to entice her with a earnest loving manner and a tenderness Lyra wholly lacked, Special Agent Sweetie Drops had fallen as hard as she’d ever fallen in her whole life. The most difficult thing Sweetie Drops had ever done had been to maintain the cover story, and pretend she was a cranky and arrogant mare conducting a secret affair with the Mayor.

She tried not to show too much of her utter devotion to her Mayoral darling, but she suspected Mayor Mare knew how she felt. That part was okay, and even felt good. What she couldn’t let Mayor Mare guess was the other secret… and her other love.

And that other love wasn’t carnal. You could say it was spiritual, perhaps. She saw it as no less than a sacred duty, and rejoiced to perform it.

Sweetie Drops, Ponyville special agent to Princess Celestia herself!

It had begun even before she’d met Lyra. There was a party that the Princess attended. Not in Ponyville, no, no! Sweetie Drops marvelled at how well she’d integrated into the town of Ponyville, with the aid of Princess Celestia. She’d come from out beyond Mareheim, but sure enough it was easy: a new name, being seen around town looking like she was heading somewhere important, and finally being seen as Bon Bon talking with Princess Celestia, who said that Bon Bon lived in Ponyville as if it was self-evident. It was even true… by the time she said it. Just like that, Bon Bon had always lived in Ponyville.

And in rare secret meetings with Celestia, Princess of the Sun, Sweetie Drops positively bounced with delight and begged to serve her Princess… and her pleas were answered.

First and always was the spying, though Celestia insisted upon calling it observing. Bon Bon must be known as a gossipy, rather mean busybody pony, but must never actually do anything to cause anypony any trouble. Her role was to be a clearing-house for information, privy to all the stories of Ponyville, especially the unfriendly ones. Celestia had told her that this was her big challenge, because she had to convincingly seem mean enough to attract mean-spirited gossip… and that in truth, inside that facade, ‘T-drops’ was as sweet as her cutie mark and sweet tooth.

‘Bon Bon’ had bounced and squeed for five minutes at that, and it had been another five minutes before she could convincingly be ‘Bon Bon’ in public again. Celestia hadn’t minded, and had even said it was important for Sweetie Drops to remember her good heart.

It had been months before Sweetie Drops had learned what that meant.

She’d sent in countless little cards, with her observations and judgements on Ponyvilleans, and Celestia had filed them away in a vast filing system. Sweetie Drops had seen it, once, and Celestia seemed to write just as many notes as she did, reports on all the ponies from seemingly everywhere. Sweetie Drops tried valiantly to contribute her information, remembering always to be kind but clear in judgement. She’d almost always succeeded, though she feared sometimes she’d let personal things affect her. Celestia had notes about Lyra being a thoughtless mare and a menace, and Sweetie Drops knew that stemmed in part from her complaining. She’d even put the ‘thoughtless mare’ part into a report, once, and Celestia had accepted it unquestioningly.

And then, one day, Bon Bon saw Twilight Sparkle walk into Ponyville and move into the Golden Oaks library as a caretaker and librarian, and all became clear.

Sweetie Drops had seen Twilight in Canterlot. She, herself, had a terrible weakness for mares and her gay-dar had always gone off deafeningly when she saw the Princess with her young protege. Sweetie Drops knew that Twilight Sparkle had grown up with Celestia, trained as a special student, and for that reason she’d never argued the matter with Celestia or even mentioned the statuesque alicorn’s obvious crush on her youthful unicorn.

When Celestia had finally given in and begun dating Twilight, ‘T-Drops’ had sighed a huge sigh of relief. It was like the end of an era, though she thought she could still remain useful: for so long she’d been Celestia’s eyes and ears in Ponyville, keeping tabs on everything that could threaten Twilight Sparkle. Sweetie Drops didn’t have to be told. Her little heart warmed to Princess Celestia’s urgent need to protect her protege, her forbidden and encompassing love: if Celestia needed to establish a secret agent just to protect one rather nerdy and bookish young mare, Sweetie Drops thought that the most romantic thing ever.

It had become the scariest thing ever as Twilight grew in power, played with alarming and dangerous magic artifacts, and finally even became a Princess herself and then blew it all up somehow and returned to her original unicorn self. But, finally, Celestia was happy. Twilight was happy, and spent more and more time at the Canterlot palace. And Sweetie Drops’ trusty gaydar told her that Twilight, Trixie the formerly travelling unicorn mage, and Celestia were balling like maniacs, perhaps even including Chaos, the waiflike alicorn who apparently had spent many years as Discord, conducting another tragic broken relationship with Celestia herself, and likewise had made her amends and sorted things out somehow.

Sweetie Drops was very happy for all of them. All the same, duty called. She strapped on her secret agent watch, and set up a stack of cards. A quill lifted in the grip of the watch’s magic, dipped in ink, and T-Drops, Special Agent, began to industriously write her daily reports.

“You’ll have seen the visiting Kirin, from Neighpon,” she began, “but what you might not have seen is what happened after you left. Upon being pressed for an explanation about the evil she claimed was in Ponyville, the Kirin burst into tears and cried until hugged by Applejack, also Rainbow Dash and Rarity. Kirin is more young and inexperienced than the usual Kirin found in Neighpon. Query: we know Fluttershy is a good vampony, by her actions. Is there any chance the Kirin will erroneously target her?”

“In the event of an attack on Fluttershy, I estimate a good eighty percent chance that I can break cover, reveal my identity, and smuggle her out of town. If she weren’t a flying pony (vampire, whatever) I would use the grappling hook to get her out: failing that, we could make use of the Portable Disguise in my secret agent kit. I’ve extracted as much information as I could without giving myself away.”

“Query: request reassurance about this evil? The Kirin seems very certain of it. Would like a second opinion about Ponyville evil, for I’ve not seen any lately.”

“Continuing the report, Apple Bloom continues to capably run Sweet Apple Acres as Boss Mare. The filly Diamond Tiara is trying to serve as her business manager. This causes conflict with some of the farm ponies, but Apple Bloom seems to like it. They’re young and somewhat reckless: chances that the Bloom/Tiara romantic relationship will cause discipline problems with unrelated farmponies, roughly ten percent. Bloom understands the context of being an authority figure better, but Tiara tends to undermine her without meaning to.”

“Rarity’s relationship with Derpy Hooves continues to serve both of them well: they are often seen together, and Derpy Hooves is proud of the relationship they share. As a result, some ponies such as Rainbow Dash tease Derpy openly. Will watch for signs this is bugging Derpy, but for the time being it seems to give her a sense of belonging. It’s possible I should be watching Rarity for negative reactions, not Derpy: Rarity remains capable of alarming surprises, though her mail-order selling of bondage/domination gear is down roughly twenty percent. It may rebound as winter approaches and ponies spend more time inside. To the best of my knowledge, Rarity continues to hold the opinion that selling sharpened spurs through the mail is ‘too rough for Ponyville’. I continue to watch for changes to this position, as you’ve requested.”

“Dissatisfaction appears to be largely two groups: flower ponies, and farm worker ponies, notably herders such as Silver and Hollyhock. And Pinkie Pie, of course, who’s more tense than ever these days. The flower ponies continue to entertain themselves but Roseluck in particular is often distressed at the special problems they face in breeding with stallions: none of them are really content with their workarounds. The herders are restless and alarmed at something, and perhaps they sense this evil the Kirin keeps going on about.”

“Query: I would really like guidance on the subject of this evil. Things have been as normal as can be since the Donkeys’ wedding, and though there is unrest in the town I haven’t seen anything out of pl”

Special Agent Sweetie Drops froze, for that wasn’t true. She had. It was so strange that she’d reported it to Celestia, and then forgotten it, for there wasn’t a trace of follow-up.

In her mind’s eye, she could still see the beautiful wedding, all the happy ponies, the small group of nervous children… and that one, small, silent changeling sitting off by itself.

Celestia had replied, inquiring whether it had been a friend of the groom: Cranky Doodle Donkey had traveled far and wide, after all. He’d disavowed any knowledge of the thing. It was unclear whether it was a tiny changeling, or a child changeling: it had the same size as a pony child, but that might not mean much. In retrospect it seemed all the more odd: ponies avoided the creature, but not a single pony had panicked or asked questions, because not a single pony was panicking or asking questions. It had been a day for celebration, and all the herd was together with a great feeling of collective safety. Mayor Mare had presided, showing her love for all those present. The guests were a glittering array of notable, capable ponies: the Doctor was there, several expert pegasi from Weather Patrol, Zecora the mare shaman, Big Macintosh… Shining Armor had been there. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had been present!

Literally every powerful and important pony or creature in Equestria had been there. Everywhere you looked, there was another odd stranger, and it seemed not one pony had questioned the inexplicable presence of a changeling at the party. It wasn’t even disguised: it sat politely, watching. And then, when the ceremony was over, Sweetie Drops had looked again, and it was gone, never to be seen in Ponyville again.

OR WAS IT?

Sweetie Drops trembled. What if it never left? How could they have been such fools? It could be anywhere. If it had to assume forms similar to its mass, it could be any pony child, perhaps other creatures such as Spike the dragon. And Spike lived with Twilight Sparkle! That was a staggering security breach right where Princess Celestia was most vulnerable!

That was evil. That was the biggest evil ever! Sweetie Drops hyperventilated for a moment, just about rearing and whinnying in alarm… and then, she gritted her teeth, and grew very serious, deadly serious. Now, more than ever, Celestia needed her. She wasn’t going to fail. She briefly considered wearing the Portable Disguise as a sort of double-fake-out strategy, but it always tickled her nose and she abandoned the idea. Courage would be her only defense. She would find out if the thing had really left, and she would warn Celestia.

Special Agent Sweetie Drops poked a button on her watch, and the note cards poofed away in bursts of tame magic, to find Celestia and be magically sorted into her catalogs of notes. She shed her agent glasses, and tucked them back into the dispenser for next time. The need might strike at any moment.

She trotted determinedly over, and jumped into the modified party cannon, which clicked into place and fired her up through the secret door again, grim-eyed, her forelegs folded, amid a subdued burst of confetti.

Back in the public areas of her cozy house, she galloped over and threw the door open, charging out to sweep the streets with a ferocious glare. There was nothing, nothing at all: her neighborhood was empty. She stared, panting, and still apprehended no monsters or suspicious characters.

She remembered, and Bon Bon whirled and ran back inside to look under her bed. She left the bedroom door hanging open too, and ducked down to check on Mayor Mare.

Mayor Mare stirred. She wore a little halfsmile, enjoying some fond dream, feeling safe under the bed she shared nightly with her beloved. She relaxed, let out a gentle sigh, and as Bon Bon held her breath, her lover began to snore gently.

Second by second, Bon Bon’s heart pounded less wildly. She realized she was staring like a madmare at a happy sleeping pony hiding under a bed. This wasn’t so unusual for Ponyville, and she really had no evidence to support her worst fears. There would be no ravening Changeling sneaking in to devour her beloved, or herself. Bon Bon sagged, her cheek pressing the floor, and told herself everything was going to be okay. There was no evil, no attack, nothing but the gentle snoring of Mayor Mare…

…and the tiny, faint, strange rustling, following her frantic path back into her house.

Unwillingly, she looked behind her, afraid yet somehow sure of what she might see.

On the threshold of her home, peering around the doorframe furtively, was a small black silent chitinous creature, last seen on Ponyville’s special day.

Yellow light gleamed in the emerald-green depths of its eyes for a moment, and then it ducked out of sight, and by the time Special Agent Sweetie Drops had charged to the door and looked frantically around, it was gone.

Traps

Danger had come to Ponyville before, but it had never lit up the pre-dawn sky with a pillar of magic illumination.

One pink pony walked calmly out of the shadowed streets of Ponyville, heading towards the Everfree Forest and the shining beacon of light.

Beyond the outskirts of Ponyville, Hina the Kirin looked up at the beacon, startled. She considered it, turned, and tried to approach it.

She stopped, unable to move herself an inch closer. Away, yes, to the side, yes, but Hina could not get closer to the beacon, as if some giant obstacle impeded her body.

Hina’s eyes narrowed. She frowned, and her curious horn lit with a coruscating radiance, illuminating the countryside around her. She leaned into the block, all of her legs at steep angles to the ground, pushing while exerting her magic.

Nothing.

Her horn got brighter—and brighter—and brighter…

A blue blur cut the air, far from the Everfree. Rainbow Dash had discovered the obstacle right away. While she’d been high in the air, unable to judge distances properly against the darkened ground, she’d powered up to full speed in an attempt to get to the beacon. It had only sent her blasting sideways, glancing off the mysterious obstacle as if it were a titanic sphere of denial. She’d encircled the beacon twice and flown directly to the top of the sphere where the beam of light briefly bathed her in harmless brilliance (and nearly blinded her, not so harmless) and that was in the first fifteen seconds.

From the center of the sphere, where the beacon illuminated a ramshackle house and an unwelcoming stretch of forest clearing, Rainbow Dash was a blur of a speck making futile curlicues in the sky.

Faintly, so faintly, a screaming pegasus warcry filtered in from the far distance. The ever-changing patterns of streak and blur continued, sometimes in darkness, sometimes against the first weak glimmerings of dawn.

Outside, chores forgotten, Applejack leaned into the field of force, even farther than Hina had.

Deep ruts beneath her showed where her hooves had sought for purchase.

Pinkie Pie walked blithely on, deeper into the Everfree Forest: strolling toward the end of the world like it was just another party.

Another pegasus scream drifted faintly through the air, but she paid no attention.

She’d arrived.

Pinkie looked up at the brilliant shaft of light, and squinted. It was coming right through a crappy little abandoned house as if it had either burned through the roof, or had not even paid the slightest attention to physical obstacles.

“Welp,” she said.

Pinkie hopped in the air, clicked her hooves together, and skipped forward and across the small clearing and straight into the door that hung open, and partly off its hinges.

The beam was just as bright inside, and she squinted at the figure silhouetted against it. There was a hint of fangs, as expected. “Well,” she said, “here we are.”

“For now,” came a voice.

Pinkie blinked, and squinted harder.

“YOU’RE not Fluttershy!”

And it wasn’t. Her eyes adjusted. He moved away from the beacon, fiddling with something behind him she couldn’t see, and grinned fangishly at her, looking extremely tense.

“All the same, I’ve been expecting you,” he said.

Pinkie blinked again, with a poingy and rather silly noise that made him flinch. “You’re Snowy Hocks! What’re you doing here? YOU are the big bad?”

“I prefer to think of it as me being the future,” he said, his jaw tight. “Don’t mind this beacon. Think of it as a sort of food delivery system. It’ll bring me thralls and snacks, you know, just the sort of thing a working vampire needs when he’s taking over Ponyville. Do you have a preference? I mean, as to which you’re going to be?”

He chattered this bravely into the face of Pinkie’s creepy, million-watt smile, while his brain frantically calculated scenarios and strategies. He had an extraordinary new clarity of thought, from the soul of Numeric Essence. He knew he’d be needing every bit of it.

“Oh, is that what you think is going to happen?” she said, with a tiny and disturbing giggle. Snowy flinched again. Giggles were very bad news. For Pinkie, they spelled power, and he knew it.

“Of course!” he said, brazening it out. “I’m pleased you turned up. Once I devour your very soul, the others will be a piece of cupcake.” His grin warred with hers. Privately, he thought: keep talking, keep grinning, keep her doing likewise.

“It might take a while,” cooed Pinkie, teasingly. “A super-duper-ooper long while, even. What do you think of THAT?”

“Not necessarily a problem,” countered Snowy. “Why do you say that?”

Pinkie’s smile brightened. Snowy’s smile tightened.

“They won’t come!” taunted Pinkie Pie. “I built and deployed a plot device! It goes ‘whir’. I pushed a button and it stops other ponies from coming here! This wasn’t even supposed to be your death scene, you dummy!”

“It’s yours,” suggested Snowy Hocks.

Pinkie shook her head. “I’m telling you, I made a plot device. I can do that, you know. It’s stopped all the other ponies from interfering. It’s just you and me, bucko! No other ponies for you! It’ll take them forever!”

Snowy gave her a smug little grin. “I’ll wait. Undead, remember?”

Pinkie just shook her head. “Nopeity nopers, stinky-boy. You just walked into the wrong movie. I’m almost sorry for you.”

Snowy tensed. “You think I make a bad villain? If that’s what I am… which I’m not! I’m just here to rule this town. I’ve got big plans, you’ll see. Or rather, you won’t, will you? You’ll be another snack. Probably bad for my fangs, and full of sugar. Shall we begin?”

“It’s not so much about you being a bad villain,” said Pinkie.

“No?”

“No, it’s more about you being extremely good confetti!” chirped Pinkie. Her eye twitched, and Snowy flinched again as she added, “Well, it’ll be kinda sticky. But nopony’s perfect!”

Snowy felt control slipping away from him, and scrambled for some angle to regain it. “Will that hurt?” he asked, at a loss for how to deal with the manic Pinkie.

“Who cares?” she said dismissively. “I’ll forget it by the next episode.”

Snowy rallied, for he thought he saw an opening. “Oh, but it matters! See the unicorn over there? I ate her SOUL. I think it hurt very much. At least, judging by the screams of agony.” Wince, damn you, he thought. Feel. Snap out of this.

“La la laaa!” sang Pinkie. “You suck, sucky McSuckerson! Doing things that don’t bear thinking about, shame on you! I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that! It’s confetti time!”

Snowy glared, and gave her an evil grin. Bingo! he thought. “On the contrary,” he said. “I feel I was right to do so because she meant to destroy me. Call it self-defense. So you see I had no choice. And I’ll remember her terrible screams because, after all, I caused them. I feel being haunted by them is only fair,” he lied. “I can face these things, Pinkie Pie.” He took a breath. “Why can’t you?”

Pinkie seemed more tense. “Are you kidding?” she retorted, tartly. “Listen, buster. I’m not even sure how you got into this story, but this is where you get out of it!”

“Not if you can’t face the reality of what you’re doing,” shot Snowy Hocks, grimly. “I can. What does that make you?”

“Reality, shmeality!” chirped Pinkie Pie, with an extra floof of her mane. “Look, I hate to break it to ya, but take it from Auntie Pinkie. You’re a dumb side character like… you know Fern Gully? You’re like a Fern Gully. Your buddy Hollyhock killed Fern Gully and I’m here to tell ya, nobody cared, they were too busy worrying about my obvious insanity!”

“Are you sure?” countered Snowy.

“I know it’s hard to imagine,” said Pinkie consolingly. “I think you basically shouldn’t worry about it. Only a few thousand words to go and it won’t be your problem anymore! I definitely have my mojo working, and that means you’re the next thing in the outline to check right off! So, would you rather be confetti, or would you rather be streamers? This will be the best murder party ever!”

Snowy glanced around huntedly, careful not to reveal what was hidden behind him. “Did mine count as a murder party? You know, when I sucked Numeric Essence’s blood and devoured her soul REAL SLOW?”

“Watch it,” snapped Pinkie. “Scary pony is MY job right now! It’s like you’re not even paying attention. Get it straight. Or you can be confetti REAL SLOW.”

She tossed her mane, stamped a hoof, and fixed him in a judgemental gaze. Snowy stared back, his undead heart pounding, and nearly wet himself as he saw that giddy merry light creeping back into her eyes. He had seconds, if that.

“LA la l…” she began to sing, carelessly, defiantly.

Snowy made his move.

He twisted and yanked a small form out from behind him, and it was a striped and winged form. Little Dursaa, obviously captive, alive but hypnotized until he was insensible and pliant. Snowy interposed the foal between himself and Pinkie. He took cover behind little Dursaa’s unresisting form. With a flash of fangs, he mimed biting the kid, stopping at the last moment, his eyes spitting defiance, the very image of a wicked evil monster menacing the helpless.

Pinkie sat back on her rump, shocked.

She began to laugh.

“Boy, are you a glutton for punishment!”

“I’m warning you, Pinkie Pie! I have this foal, see?”

“You are just making it so much worse for yourself,” said Pinkie, shaking her head in disbelief. “Go ahead, knock yourself out, kill some more background ponies! It’s not going to help! Have you got, like, no sense of stories at all? Are you totally loco? I’ll be feeding you into a wood chipper instead of a plot device and all the readers will just go yay!” She twitched, as if something about that word bothered her.

“Do you see? See this kid? Recognize him?” demanded Snowy.

“Ha!” cried Pinkie. “Do you expect that to stop me?”

Snowy Hocks sprang his trap.

“No,” he said. “I expect it not to stop you, thanks for asking.”

Pinkie Pie blinked, startled. “What?” she said, off balance.

Snowy sat up, ignoring his danger for one key moment. It all came down to this, one big gamble based on his observations and what he’d been able to deduce of Pinkie’s mad personality.

“Think about it,” he said. “You don’t love this foal. He’s Fluttershy’s child, but you resent those zebras so much that you’ll watch me devour the little tyke, and not even give a shit. He’s not worth saving, to you. Right? Because you hate males, and you hate those zebras, and this is Dursaa’s child. Oh, sorry: colt. Another male. In fact, you want me to kill him, don’t you, Pinkie Pie? Because Dursaa fucked Fluttershy, you don’t mind at all. You’ll just watch me kill Dursaa’s child. He’ll die in agony as I devour his tiny little soul, and you won’t do a thing to stop it, because this is Dursaa’s child. Isn’t that right, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie’s jaw had dropped as he went on and on, mercilessly. She stared at Snowy and the zebra-pegasus foal, and felt the echoes of his words. It was so unfair. SHE was the one who was there to say creepy truths and win the scene. She cast about for an argument, since she could feel to the core of her being that there would be no converting the old vampire to bloody confetti right then, and no sudden outbursts of violence for her to react to: Snowy wasn’t even going to bite little Dursaa at all. It was a trick, a horrible trick. They were obviously both still talking. She searched frantically for some part of his statement to fling in his face, make him a liar, since it was heavy-dialogue time and she had to respond in kind. Something heavy, something dramatic, something to break his assumptions and rock him back on his butt with amazement, turn the scene right around and put him on the defensive for good.

She found one.

“No,” said Pinkie. “He’s mine.” It was true: to a pegasus, the one biting the wing was parent to the spirit, the more intimate bonding. Fluttershy had asked her to do it, and she’d kindled the life that Dursaa had prepared for the world.

As she saw Snowy Hocks’ face light with satisfaction, she knew she’d fucked up.

“Ohhhhh,” he said, with feigned disappointment. “You’re not acting like it. I’ve seen disgust in your face when you look at him. Or at Fluttershy’s husband. Though I suppose you were also Fluttershy’s husband? Once? Too bad you ruined everything.”

Pinkie Pie drew a breath, and tried to bounce back. “Me? Ruin…” she began, but her Sense was going crazy, screaming realities at her. She was about to try and spout off lines from a Pinkie, but it wasn’t her. It was an alternate Pinkie, one of many, one that had more right to the indignation which went with that line. She, Pinkie, really wasn’t entitled to that indignation, because too much of what Snowy said was true. The Sense came pouring in, betraying her, and she had indeed ruined everything.

“I was just outwitting you,” said Snowy Hocks. “It’s what one has to do when faced with the most terrifying thing in Ponyville. More terrifying than a raging griffon, more disturbing than Princess Twilight Sparkle going crazy, more unpredictable and powerful than Discord at his worst. That is, of course, you. I’ve been more afraid of you than anypony else.”

Pinkie reeled, because her Sense confirmed every word. She rallied. “And you should be! You sh… should…”

All the way back in the fourth chapter. Her being so angry with her sister Marble Pie, her infuriating sister with her Sensier-than-thou Sense. And hearing her sister, Marble, saying “I wish you didn’t screw everything up, and end up k…”

Killing.

She was the killer. She was the one behind the horror she’d glimpsed in a vision, and there she was telling vampire Snowy Hocks exactly that, and he was telling her…

As if reading her mind, staring into her eyes as the realizations struck home, Snowy said it. “So you’re the monster here, Pinkie Pie. You’re every bit as willing to see this child murdered as I am, but with far less excuse. Or, rather, your attitude toward the prospect is a genuinely evil thing, more evil than I could ever be, and you’ve allowed yourself that evil like it was a sugary treat. Does it make you feel better? At least I’m seeking power for good reason. It’s worth it, if I can protect the town I grew up in. You protect nothing. I’m rescuing Ponyville from YOU. You’ve been terrifying good ponies for years and never even gave a thought to it, and now you have gone too far, and the giggling, evil Pinkie Pie dies here today.”

Pinkie gulped, as her Sense confirmed that, too. It was the simple truth. A brief vision of Applejack cowering under her hat in terror flashed before her eyes, and Pinkie’s brain shorted out, leaving her speechless.

“Laugh that one off,” said Snowy Hocks, contemptuously.

Pinkie Pie was frozen, and she just stared, gutted… and slowly, her mane sagged and went limp, hanging perfectly straight. It was true. Her Sense confirmed it all. She’d been increasingly the villain for at least a book or more, never admitting it, alienating those she loved and destroying her own love with jealousy until she was no better than a terrifying vampire. She’d set out to murder the pony she loved most, using every special trick she had to do it, convincing herself the murder was right, and it had never been right.

It wasn’t even Fluttershy here with her in the final death scene. It was a tacky old stallion vampire taunting her with his evilness, knowing hers was just as bad.

“So,” said Snowy Hocks. “Do you want me to kill him after I kill you? Or would you like to watch?”

A new voice spoke, from the doorway.

“MEANIE.”

Pinkie, her eyes wide and vulnerable, glanced back at the doorway to see Fluttershy standing there, in full vampony form, like a wraith of vengance. It seemed like the perfect time for a rattle of drums, or a bunch of dramatic close-ups and spooky tension-inducing harmonica music.

Snowy Hocks hadn’t got the memo. As Pinkie looked away, he flung little Dursaa to the side and lunged straight at Pinkie, fangs bared.

The noise Fluttershy made was incredible, a bestial shriek of rage like a maddened griffin, and she charged too, directly at him, locking gazes between vampire and vampire in a double Stare…

The two vampires came to a halt, glaring at each other, and Pinkie scrabbled backward out of their way.

For a moment, it looked like they were going for the dramatic close-ups thing after all. Pinkie squinted, completely out of her depth, doubting everything and feeling helpless.

“Whatcha doing?” she finally said… and then she saw the glowing shafts of light, and fell silent.

Fluttershy snarled. Snowy Hocks bared his teeth. Both trembled with effort. Glowing beams of light steadily brightened, between their glaring eyes.

“Don’t,” rasped Fluttershy.

“I wondered if this would work,” said Snowy Hocks, more normally.

The glow brightened. Fluttershy shuddered, and stamped with a forehoof, redoubling her efforts.

“No, seriously, what are you doing?” said Pinkie Pie.

Snowy didn’t even glance in her direction… but Pinkie gasped, and found she couldn’t move her hooves. All she could do was watch. He hadn’t looked at her, but all the same he was somehow pinning her hooves to the ground.

“Well, thank you, Numeric Essence,” said Snowy Hocks. “I believe that’s from her. The extra power, I mean. Very powerful unicorn. Absorbing those powers was key to my victory.”

The glowing light between the vampires’ eyes redoubled. It was Fluttershy’s turn to gasp. She grimaced in apparent pain, and the glow brightened even more.

“What are you DOING?” shrieked Pinkie Pie.

“I’m killing Fluttershy,” said Snowy. “I didn’t know if this would work though I’ve heard stories about it. Impressive that she instantly matched it. Of course, I’ve devoured the soul of a very powerful unicorn. She hasn’t eaten any souls, and that’s why she’s going to die now.”

“But what is it?” wailed Pinkie, still unable to shift her hooves, rapidly succumbing to hysteria.

“Hate,” said Snowy Hocks. “It’s a very old story my grandmother told. Vampires can hate each other to death with their stares. I think it’ll set her on fire. I have to expend my life-force, or perhaps you’d call it death-force, to do it. Of course, so does she… and she hasn’t got nearly as much, not remotely. I stare at her, she stares at me, and we devour each other with hatred until only one vampire remains. All done with the eyes, dear Pinkie Pie, it’s all in the eyes and the stare.”

“What if she looks away?” said Pinkie Pie.

“Then I kill her instantly,” replied Snowy. “I’m far more powerful, you’re immobilized, and apparently you’ve stopped anypony else from coming here. Thank you for that.”

The light intensified, until it was nearly as bright as the beacon Numeric Essence had made.

“Give up,” said Snowy Hocks to Fluttershy. “Give up now or I’ll kill Pinkie Pie right away after I kill you. I have already defeated her. She can’t even run now, her mane changed style. We both know what that must mean, she’s whipped, just look at her. I could let her exist as a thrall if you only stop fighting and let this happen. Die. Isn’t that what you wanted deep down inside, coward-shy?”

Fluttershy’s voice rasped, tortured, but audible. “It’s burning… both of us. This is… draining… you.”

“It’s draining you worse,” pointed out Snowy. “You’re no match for me. I ate the winged unicorn and you’re going to die now. Give up and I’ll keep both Pinkie and the foal as thralls. In a sense, a little of you will still be with them. Eh?”

“Meanie,” retorted Fluttershy grimly. She shuddered as the light intensified.

The two vampires fell silent, straining as their Stares contended. For seconds, there was no sound… and then, a faint crackling could be heard, like the sound of two vampires beginning to burn from within. Then, Fluttershy whimpered, in obvious agony, but did not look away.

“Stop it!” shrieked Pinkie.

“Even if you kill me…” managed Fluttershy, “you’ll… be weaker, after. You’re going… to die… too.”

Snowy Hocks was sweating. “So are you, but sooner! Why do you have to be so persistent when this can only end one way? All right, final offer. We don’t have to be so wasteful of our selves, damn it. Run away! Run away as your miserable burnt-out self. Take these two, just get out of my sight!”

A bitter smile quirked Fluttershy’s lips, behind the fangs. “Scared…”

“You should be!” retorted Snowy Hocks.

“No, you are…” managed Fluttershy. “Weren’t planning… to spend… so much?”

“If I didn’t have to keep this mare glued to the floor, and the kid stunned,” retorted Snowy with spirit, “you’d be a smoking husk by now. Oh, you don’t think I remembered that? Your little zebra brat isn’t going to come save the day. I’ll have you know I can still destroy you, and they’ll be firmly under my control the whole time. It’ll take longer. It may consume a lot of me, but so what? YOU are going to die right now. Are you seriously going to spend everything you’ve got just to weaken me when that isn’t going to be enough?”

Tears of rage were leaking from Fluttershy’s eyes. “Don’t care. What happens to me… doesn’t matter. I’m not afraid… to die.” She rasped a deep breath, and added, “You… are.”

Pinkie had been watching this exchange helplessly, but this was too much. “Nooo!” she cried. “Let her go! Take me instead! Fluttershy, run!”

“Why?” hissed Fluttershy, bitterly. “Why should I?”

Pinkie gulped, eyes brimming with tears, lip quivering. “Because… I love you. I love you, Fluttershy. That’s the real truth of everything. I’m so sorry, and I love…”

“NO!”

Pinkie gasped. Fluttershy’s fury had suddenly doubled. Snowy grunted, and the beams of light between their eyes escalated until they hurt to look at.

It didn’t stop Fluttershy from talking.

“Don’t fucking love right now! That won’t help!” she snarled. “Hate this old horse, hate him with me, hate him to death! You of all ponies can help me do this. More than anypony else I know!”

Pinkie’s ears were back. “But…”

“Look how… frightened he is… of you,” managed Fluttershy. And indeed, Snowy Hocks looked worried, not happy about the turn things had taken.

“But… laughter… happy…” said Pinkie, appalled at what she was being asked to do. It was utterly and completely the opposite of her usual fey and silly powers, unthinkably alien and un-Pinkie. It was useless, wrong, all that Snowy had accused her of being, everything she had to avoid at all costs, and had always avoided no matter what, forever.

“I’ll tap it. Hate WITH me. Don’t you tell me you can’t,” hissed Fluttershy. Snowy Hocks was past talking, his full effort going into immobilizing Pinkie and little Dursaa while snuffing Fluttershy out. Fluttershy’s body began to smoke lightly.

“But…” moaned Pinkie, desperately not wanting to believe it.

“Don’t you lie to me!”

“B…”

“I know you can,” hissed Fluttershy, and then she too was past speech, curls of smoke rising from her body as she made her ultimate last stand.

“Yeah…” whispered Pinkie Pie, as if to herself.

She turned her head, and looked at Snowy Hocks, his ears back as he poured vampire-force into his deadly task. Her lip curled.

“Yeah,” said Pinkie Pie. “I can.”

Snowy didn’t look away from Fluttershy, for he couldn’t: she was dumping every shred of her existence into his destruction. He couldn’t look at Pinkie Pie. It was just as well he couldn’t, for Pinkie Pie stared at him and her anger, her rage built and built: a lifetime of denial and repression coming forth, eyes burning with withering hatred, lank hair falling across the savagely hateful gaze like some feral beast, and even as the mouth once given to fake smiles and giggles was distorted into a grimace of bared-teeth sheer hatred, a soundless scream of impossible vengeance, face contorting terrifyingly, and Fluttershy tapped into that overflowing well of suppressed rage and directed it and the beam between vampire eyes went brighter and brighter and brighter…

Snowy Hocks screamed. He shrieked, bursting into flame, thrashing, all his resistance crumbling as the wrestling match of raw hate overwhelmed him. He seemed to explode, the brutal assault of the two mares wrecking him instantly, no longer opposed by his titanic evil willpower and dark vampire magic. He fell apart, foul-smelling charred meat that was half ashes and sparks.

Snowy Hocks was dead.

Hysterical, sobbing, Pinkie scrambled over to embrace Fluttershy. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, I’m sorry…”

Panting, Fluttershy let herself be hugged. She was still staring at the grisly charred pile of vampire that had been Snowy Hocks. She drew a few rasping deep breaths, got her heart going again, glared a last glare at the pile…

“Meanie,” Fluttershy declared, and turned her attention to Pinkie, and to little Dursaa, who came staggering groggily over to greet them.

Pinkie sobbed harder as Fluttershy stroked her mane. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I… eep!” She drew back, shocked.

“What?” said Fluttershy, glancing at little Dursaa. He, too, looked puzzled and alarmed, not approaching her at first, then sniffing and wrinkling his little nose at the smell of singed fur.

“Your face…” said Pinkie.

Fluttershy put her hoof up to her face, herself puzzled. Her cheek didn’t seem to be as soft as before, not as full as usual. Then she gasped, noticing the hoof. That, too, was different. It was gaunt, even skeletal. She brushed her mane out of her eyes, and it seemed thinner. She gazed at Pinkie, startled, and saw herself in Pinkie’s huge, tearful eyes.

Pinkie gulped. “He took your whole LIFE,” she said.

Fluttershy couldn’t look away. The reflection wasn’t only shown in Pinkie’s reaction. Pinkie’s pupils were so huge, and the light from the beacon so unforgiving, that she could literally see a small Fluttershy in those wide pony eyes, and it was a Fluttershy she didn’t think she’d ever see. She looked ancient, like some little granny goat of a pony, frail and almost skeletal and all big eyes and scruffy fetlocks. Her mane extensions were left far behind, shed in her flight through the forest as she raced to find the source of the beacon. She was entirely in her natural vampony form, but that form had been utterly changed.

Fluttershy felt within herself for dark vampiric powers, and came up with a blank. Where there had been a lurking inferno of wicked undead energy always trying to get out, and always firmly kept in its place, now there was nothing. No… that wasn’t literally true, she’d have been incinerated herself if it was. She reached deeper, searching where the fires of evil within her had raged, and eventually found no more than an ember of vampire magic, about as threatening as an angry kitten, quite unable to challenge her better nature. That was all that was left. That was how close she’d come to burning up entirely.

Little Dursaa sniffed at her again, confused, and then he made up his mind. He snuggled against her even though Mom wasn’t nearly as soft and cuddly as usual, and he smiled a little smile of security and contentment, and he curled up and began to nap, for he’d had a strange and disorienting day.

Fluttershy looked down at him, and then up into Pinkie Pie’s dismayed gaze, and her gaunt and aged face began to smile wider and wider in spite of the pink pony’s distress.

“You silly!” said Fluttershy, gently. “I didn’t have a life for him to take!”

Pinkie gulped. “I mean…”

Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head. “He took my beauty? My youth? That was fake, Pinkie, I was dead. I still am, as you must know. Isn’t it obvious now?”

Pinkie’s lip quivered. “I mean, he took…”

“No, Pinkie,” corrected Fluttershy. “I gave. And well worth it, I’d say. We beat that meanie! I couldn’t have done it without you. It was a terribly close call, even so.”

Pinkie just kept staring and staring, like she was looking at a ghost. Fluttershy’s eyes narrowed again.

“I’ll have you know, my mane and tail extensions can probably deal with this too,” she said. “I’m not worried that I’ll frighten the ponies in town. I’m sure Zecora can fix it. The illusion can remain. I’ll keep looking like pretty pegasus Fluttershy when I wear the extensions. This is just how I really am from now on. I think it’ll make some things more difficult, and I feel awfully weak, but then I was nearly burned to ashes so it seems ungrateful to object to any of it.”

Pinkie couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop staring at this strange new emaciated, ancient-looking Fluttershy vampony.

Fluttershy stuck out her lower lip against the vampire fangs. She blinked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if I could file these until they’re quite blunt, now. I’m sure they won’t grow back. Yay! Maybe I’ll leave little bitty nubs to remember them by, so long as they’re good and blunt.”

Still, Pinkie stared.

Fluttershy made a face, and stamped a hoof. “Pinkie Pie! Cut it out! You know if I was a mortal pony I would have ended up like this one day! For Celestia’s sake, you’re looking at me like I was something more awful than a raging vampony! I’m not sure I believe what I’m seeing. Was I just a curvy flank, a voluptuous vagina to you? Was it always just the shape of me, your ultimate straight mare with fashion-model looks? Huh? Will you stop STARING?”

Even this didn’t break Pinkie’s trance of horror as she stared at her greatest love, reduced so obviously to the very brink of death.

Fluttershy pouted angrily, and narrowed her eyes one last time. “Do you still love me?”

The truth burst forth.

“YES!” wailed Pinkie, rushing forward to hug Fluttershy, nearly knocking little Dursaa aside, nearly snapping Fluttershy’s frail old bones in the intensity of her frantic embrace.

“Oof!” squeaked Fluttershy, alarmed, but quickly she realized she hadn’t been injured. Barely able to breathe as Pinkie clung to her, she smirked a wry little smirk over Pinkie’s shoulder, half-draped by lank straight-haired pink mane.

“I thought you might,” she said with satisfaction. “Oh, Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie.”

Pinkie sobbed again.

“Shh,” said Fluttershy. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“You were almost DEAD!”

“I keep telling you,” chided Fluttershy, “I am. You mean ‘gone’. Oh, Pinkie! Settle down. We won.”

Little Dursaa blinked in confusion, but it was only Other Mom, the funny pink one who kept leaving all the time and making faces. This time she wasn’t, she was hugging Mom a lot and staying right there!

Pinkie recoiled as the striped, winged colt cuddled up to her, and then glanced guiltily at Fluttershy. Little Dursaa nuzzled her side, yawned, and curled up to nap again.

“I haven’t been a good pony,” said Pinkie.

“Shh,” said Fluttershy. “We won. That’s enough for now.”

“Da!” cooed their baby, as he fell asleep.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes. “He really is going to learn more words, you know, though he’s certainly taking his time about it.”

Pinkie gazed off into space, tragically. “Maybe one day they won’t even be in zebronic!” she quipped, and then she cringed and her eyes filled with tears. “Listen to me, I’m being awful! Even now I’m being a, a… a dick!”

“Yes,” said Fluttershy. “I hoped one day you’d figure that out.”

Pinkie’s lip quivered. “I’m not supposed to be awful. It’s not okay for me to be awful…”

Fluttershy sighed, and cuddled Pinkie to her again. “Shhh.”

Pinkie cried for a while. She didn’t flinch from little Dursaa’s touch again, but she wept bitterly against Fluttershy’s neck, her mane hanging lank and straight the whole time.

Eventually she lifted her head, and looked into Fluttershy’s eyes.

“I thought you were the big evil,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“And why,” said Fluttershy softly, “would you think a thing like that, Pinkie Pie? Be honest.”

Pinkie gulped. “Honest…” she began, and broke off. Fluttershy waited.

“It’s because I can’t stop loving you, but I couldn't have you,” admitted Pinkie. “And it hurts, it hurts how much I want you. I… I drove you away, Fluttershy. I even drove Zecora away.”

Fluttershy nodded. “She can’t help it,” she said. “She always had crushed on me. She’s a little like you that way. Maybe more flexible. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say that…”

“You see?” sniffled Pinkie. “It’s true. I’m no good. Zecora does stuff I just can’t do, for you. I knew all along she had a thing about you. I was so jealous… and I tried so hard…”

“Let’s not talk about them right now,” suggested Fluttershy.

“Because it would hurt my feelings and you never ever hurt anypony’s feelings?” said Pinkie Pie.

Fluttershy frowned.

“Because you were trying too hard,” she admitted, “and it got on my nerves and I stopped trying at all. It’s no wonder you got so bad, Pinkie Pie, since I resented your behavior but almost never said anything about it. I can’t accept responsibility for everything, but I don’t think a constant bath of pissy-shy helped your mood, or even your sanity. I lost patience, took everything we shared for myself and shut you out completely, knowing it would hurt you. I knew you couldn't cope with that. I just didn't care.”

Pinkie’s eyes widened. “What? But you’re the most loving, wonderful pony ever…”

“You just helped me hate a horrible monster to death,” accused Fluttershy. “Don’t you tell me I haven’t got a mean streak. We wouldn’t even be here if I couldn’t hold my own with it.”

Shaken, Pinkie thought back on how that had felt, and gazed over Fluttershy’s shoulder at the twisted corpse of Snowy Hocks.

“You did it out of love,” she said. “Just like I always need to bring love, and laughter, and…”

“Stop it,” said Fluttershy, and Pinkie trailed off. “You know that isn’t true. I did not do it out of love. I do this out of love,” she said, and snuggled Pinkie to demonstrate, scritching little Dursaa’s ear with the tip of a batty wing as she did. “I shouldn’t have let that get so far away from me. It’s bad for everypony when I do.”

Pinkie had gone very quiet. “But if even you can’t be a pony of pure love and kindness…”

“I do all right most of the time,” said Fluttershy. “I try very hard, very very hard. And sometimes, there is a meanie, a dreadful meanie, and nice won’t cut it anymore.”

“And you hate?” said Pinkie in a tiny little voice.

“I do.”

“How do you know if it’s right?”

“I don’t,” said Fluttershy calmly. “That’s why I’m so strict with myself about it. In this case I’m pretty sure I wasn’t wrong. I’ve never seen such an awful meanie as that horrible Snowy Hocks, ever. I’m glad I killed him.”

Pinkie was staring at nothing, looking frightened. “I was so sure you were the big evil. And then it was Snowy Hocks, and he was scary and bad and… and then he explained that, that the real big evil was m… me…”

“I wondered what he’d told you,” said Fluttershy. “You’ve only yourself to blame, but it just goes to show what a meanie he really was.”

“Myself to…” began Pinkie, and couldn’t finish. Fluttershy gave a little sigh.

“You tormented my zebras until I didn’t know what to think,” she explained. “You took it out on little Dursaa here, and he’s your baby as much as he’s mine and Dursaa’s. Ponies in town have been getting more and more frightened of you, and I didn’t know what to do since I wasn’t giving up my family just to please you. I wish I’d been brave enough to say something sooner. We’ve needed to have this conversation for a long time, Pinkie Pie.”

Pinkie stared at her, weeping, completely defenseless.

Fluttershy sighed again. “Oh, Pinkie. Maybe it all worked out somehow. I know it had me so angry that I did amazingly well when I went after meanie Snowy Hocks, and probably if you hadn’t been so awful I wouldn’t have had it in me. But you’ve been so much angrier that it’s quite terrifying, and you know what? In the end you turned it on Snowy, and you burned that fucker to the ground in seconds. I thought you might. No evil monster can hate like you! We saved Ponyville with it, Pinkie Pie, so maybe there’s a time and a place for everything.”

Pinkie’s eyes were so wide. “How can you talk this way, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy pouted, her lip sticking out against the vampire fangs. “Don’t be silly, Pinkie. I’m a vampire. I just TRY to be nice, because I care. You can love and hate, both. I’ve proved that. Don’t you think I’d understand hate and rage and all that nasty stuff? Don’t insult me.”

“But, I’m not a vampire,” said Pinkie weakly.

“So?” retorted the patient, but exasperated, vampony. “Never said you were.”

It got through, somehow. Pinkie gazed into space, distraught. “I… HATED,” she said. “Angry. I’m not the nice pony, always laughing. I had hate, all this time. Evilness…”

“Yes, I know,” said Fluttershy. “Now you finally know how I felt. I’ve had it for years, whether you like to admit it or not. Just like you. Though you really have a special way with it, and that’s me saying so.”

Pinkie gazed at her, totally vulnerable. “How do you LIVE with it?”

Fluttershy could have replied a number of ways, including with yet another reminder that she was a dead vampony and didn’t live at all, but love stirred within her and she didn’t even try to be snarky, or clever. Instead, she gave Pinkie Pie the truest answer from the deepest depths of her unbeating, but undaunted, heart.

“Carefully,” said Fluttershy.

Rather than explain further, she left it at that: and what more could she even say? Fluttershy spoke with gestures since she’d simplified things down to a single word, and she reached out to Pinkie and cradled her long lost, her mismatched, her impossible but indisputable love in a brave and determined embrace.

Every barrier, every wall of denial inside Pinkie gave way as she felt the love and acceptance Fluttershy still had for her in spite of Fluttershy’s completely different life, the family of zebras, the whole straight-mare world Fluttershy had constructed for herself that had seemed to hold no place for her little lesbian… Pinkie Pie relaxed, and lay in Fluttershy’s newly scruffy forelegs, trying for the first time in her life to understand herself. Little Dursaa snuggled against her and she didn’t flinch. Pinkie buried her face in Fluttershy’s thinning, scraggly mane, and tried to wrap her head around this strange new world where she wasn’t perfect, didn’t match it or conquer it, yet was still allowed to exist in it.

Fluttershy shed a tear of gratitude. She still existed too, but was rendered harmless, making everything so much easier. They’d defeated the evil monster and survived, except for poor Numeric Essence, and even she had triumphed with the spell she’d so cherished and wanted to use. She would have been so proud to know the outcome—it was what she would have wanted, to sound the alarm and have ponies save the day. Fluttershy continued to weigh the goods and bads. She’d finally broken through to Pinkie, who would probably be much less awful most of the time. Little Dursaa would get his chance to win her over, the zebras would be happier, perhaps even the damage between Zecora and Pinkie could be mended if Pinkie was willing to learn. Another tear dripped down Fluttershy’s hollowed cheek. Things were going to be okay.

For what seemed like an eternity, they lay there, the vampony serenely contemplating an unfolding life of peace and humbleness, the pink pony struggling to accept the full spectrum of herself that her beloved so easily acknowledged, and the innocent zebra-pegasus foal snuggled up against both of them, sleeping. It seemed like dawn moved too quickly, in their moment of mingled turmoil and calm. They needed more time, but dawn wouldn’t wait. Dawn rushed, speeded, brought day into the decripit cabin with undue haste.

“Um…” said Fluttershy, quietly. She was looking past Pinkie, at that still-open door.

Sparkling light reflected in her eyes. Pinkie turned her head to see the Kirin, Hina, forcing her way toward both of them, the dawn behind her… her body completely wreathed in scales, her face contorted with effort, her mane and tail and fetlocks a crackling storm of energy, and her strange Kirin horn lit up like a small star had come down to Ponyville looking for something evil to burn. Even a plot device could not block Hina’s justice forever.