Valentine

Chapters

Chapter 1 : The Cane Which Craved Soft Meat
Chapter 2 : Imperial Bathrooms
Chapter 3 : The One Who Whispered I Love You
Chapter 4 : The Night Which Turned White
Chapter 5 : The Mare Who Wished To Be A Stallion
Chapter 6 : She Who Fell So High
Chapter 7 : She Who Cried In Pain
Chapter 8 : The Mare Who Cost So Much
Chapter 9 : The Asylum
Chapter 10 : He Who Was Fueling Passions

Chapter 1 : The Cane Which Craved Soft Meat

Dear diary,

I can't wait anymore to tell you about this afternoon. As we were out in the streets of Canterlot, I managed to escape the Governess' attention and as "he" had promised, "he" was waiting for me near the fountain which is on the square. You will never guess what he gave me... Lily flowers ! We barely know each other, yet he already knows what my favourite flowers are !

When he rested his head against mine, I felt my heart beating at the rate of a galloping horse. I think... Dear diary, I think I fell in love. How wonderful ! My heart bleeds at the thought of having to wait a whole week to see him again.

I must leave you now, dear diary and confident. The Governess is calling us for dinner.

Your faithful penholder,

VALENTINE.

"Did you write that, Valentine ?" asked the Governess calmly, walking slowly and noisily around the young white and pink mare who was called Valentine. Were those texts born from your quill?"

"They were written by me", she replied, lowering her head; she was standing alone at the center of the dim and cold room which was the Governess'. "Those are my thoughts alright, that I have written down in this diary, day by day."

The Governess, an old unicorn grey like a rock, chose pages from the little notebook at random and read them absently, making comments about what she was seeing. "And you saw a stallion, my dear little Valentine. You saw a stallion by escaping from our attention, when you knew it was forbidden, didn't you ?"

"But I..."

"SILENCE !" the Governess cut her short. She threw the diary in the roaring fire of the chimney; out of the corner of her eye, Valentine witnessed her faithful confident, whole months of her own life, disintegrate to become stardust and fly to the skies. "You will not need it anymore; after all, you are not a filly anymore. Only fillies do such futilities, don't you agree ?"

The young and white unicorn nodded sadly, remaining silent; the Governess took a long and thin bamboo cane on her desk, and got closer to her resident. "You disobeyed, Valentine, she said while grazing the white and tender flank with the tip of her stick; at the contact, Valentine jumped. "You disobeyed, and and you deserve a correction for that. Lift your tail."

Valentine swallowed and clenched her teeth; she had better obey without discussing, she thought while exposing the bottom of her frail body.

"I hope it will teach you a lesson for the future", the Governess lectured her while rising the stick with her magic; the first blow banged, making the white filly cry out in pain and it left an ugly red mark on her pale bottom. A naughty filly is condemned to end up in the street. And you would not want to end up in the street, would you ?"

An other wave of hurtful pain tensed Valentine up when the second bang came, exactly at the same place as the first one; tears in her eyes, the young mare bit her lips in order not to scream, and put up with the assaults of the cane on her posterior, one after the other.

The Governess had hit her hard, with sharp-cut thwacks, where the flesh was already cut into; thin flows of blood drew red streams all along the tearful Valentine's shivering legs. She was downcast with pain and shame. "I hope I taught you a lesson, dear Valentine. Now, go; it is time you get washed and get back to your room. Take care not to wander from the straight and narrow, for you know what will await you if you ramble again."

Valentine got out of the Governess' room, staring silently at the ground at her feet; her bottom was in pain, and she was now limping. She got back to her fillies' boarding school's room in this poor state. She shared the room with three other residents; it was late, and all of her roommates already seemed soundly asleep.

Pretty Clouds boarding school was as old an institution as Canterlot, which owed it a large proportion of his inhabitants' education. This building had a great history and was immense, pierced through with tiny windows. The entrance was blocked with a gigantic gate, or rather the exit, which was only opened for the start of the new school year and for Christmas, which was the only day when the well-off fillies could eat dinner anywhere out of the common room with their family. Education followed proven principles which were known to be very effective, such as the carrot, the lack of carrot and blowing pupils with a stick. Benefits of classic literature cultivated the minds, recipes got the dextrous hooves ready for their wives' lives to come and heavy rules books carried with the tip of the leg during hours while kneeling down upon the old stones of the yard taught those soft muscles the strength necessary to sweep in an honorable household. That's how this century's mares were shaped, thus making the lost fillies disappear. They became soft wives, letting their childhood get forgotten forever.

Valentine Plot opened the door to her room with extreme care so she wouldn't risk waking up her roommates and undergoing their mockeries. Her four hooves barely touched the ground, and she walked with the grace of a feather brushing paper while she was heading towards her bead. Valentine Plot was beautiful. Her light figure gleamed in the moonbeam that went through the bars, following the curves of her hips. She stopped a moment to take a peek outside, watching the slow fall of the snowflakes on the other side of the window and the lights of Canterlot which broke through the winter's mist. Perhaps He was there and was watching her. But if it was the case, in such a cold, he wouldn't stay there for long. Why did the rules have to be so sharp ? Christmas was coming already, the last one she would spend at the boarding school where she had already stayed for too long. Only one more year, and she would be free at last. Free to be together with someone she wouldn't like, someone her family would choose for her, free to end up her life as a submitted wive, or to end up in the street, the choice was hers to make. She held back a tear and in the dark, cleaned her hurt thighs with an old piece of rag that was lying on the ground, and finally, got herself up into her bed painfully.

"Hey ! Psst ! Hey !"

Valentine made her snorings noiser in order not to have to answer back to the troublesome person bothering her, whoever that might be.

"Hey, frog eater ! Hey, psst ! *cough cough* *snrrrrrt* Heeeey !"

It was the prick. Oh no, not her. A light appeared in the dark, made dim by the gigantic walls of the room. The white mare closed her eyes, but it was too late. The one who had lit up the candle had seen Valentine was awoken.

"Turn this off, or we'll both be punished", whispered Valentine.

The other mare was blue-coated and sluggishly slumped on the top of her bunk bed. She looked Valentine up and down with an amused stare. Whistle Wishes, for it was her name, slowly let herself flow to one of the bed's feet and got closer to Valentine with light steps.

"How are you, Plot? I told you that romantic relationships always begin with passionate letters and always ends up with a pain inside your ass, hahaha!"

"Let her be, Whistle Wishes, said Misty form under her sheets. Nobody has ever wanted you and nobody has ever written to you. You're just jealous, that's all."

The blue unicorn gazed at where the voice came from, taken aback. Then she went with a feline discretion to a bed, where someone quickly hid herself under the sheets, and she gave a few hooves shot at random.

"And you, Sluthooves... she said as she was heading back towards the white unicorn. You have nothing to do here. You are a pain for this boarding school, for its residents, for the whole society. You will end up in the street, like a peasant, and nobody will ever want you. You're not even pretty", she spat out of anger. Valentine's back leg ended the conversation, under the shocked stare of the Governess, who was finishing her patrol. Their eyes met, Valentine, panicked, yelled something nobody understood, and the bamboo stick fell again onto her, with an amazing strength.

"This dirty filly is a pain."

The Governess was finishing her tea while one of the boarding school's employees was sweeping the polished wood, nodding absently.

"She's dreaming, she's not listening. She is seeing a stallion. But good grace, what did we do to deserve that?! Let the dogs out tonight. This filthy little fanatic filly. If that was to be known, what a scandal it would be!

She's just like a weed growing between the stones in this yard. Such old and aged stones... and she's corrupting them. She's growing more and more and will carry the others along with her. She's only to be cut off, and thrown away."

The Governess stopped. She thought she had seen something walk before the half-closed door, something as light as cotton.

It was the end of her pause. She finished drinking her tea, took the bell and headed towards the exit.

At the end of the corridor, a white unicorn was watching her, sitting on the ground.

You spinster. I'm not a weed.

I am a flower.

Fleur de Lys.

Chapter 2 : Imperial Bathrooms

Today had been the day of sewing courses; every mare from a good family had to perfectly master this art, otherwise they would be taken for ungentle and inconsiderate mares. They spent hours learning to sew running stitches and cross stitches, and sticking needles into their hooves, flooded by the criticism and recriminations of the foul-mouthed old nag who took care of those lessons. Those hours could bore even the sharpest of minds, so when the bell rang to end the school day, Valentine headed hastily towards the bathroom, hurried to relax and to momentarily leave those two days behind her.

The boarding school had a vast collective shower with a white-tiled floor and was neatly kept, worthy of the prestigious establishment that was Pretty Clouds boarding school; however, ten showers weren't enough for the twenty-five fillies who lived there, especially at rush hours. At those times, the place generally became a tight and noisy meeting place where the last rumours about a resident and random mockeries about the Governess flowed; all of which was often punctuated with improper fondlings and the slamming of a wet towel on a lost croup. But at the time Valentine went in, there was no one, which caused her to sigh in relief, thinking she could finally be at peace.

She turned the faucet on, letting the burning hot water jet turning her white mane and her tail into a pack of wet hair that trailed on the ground. The bruises from the day before were almost healed up already; she barely felt them now. Valentine used her unicorn magic to rub a soap bar on her back, then on her long and thin white legs; she started to wash her belly, then naturally started to go down to her thighs. When the soap got between the two soft protuberances of her lower abdomen, Valentine shivered and she thought about the stallion that got her heart. She wanted to pull herself together, but she was already constrained by a guilty desire; the comings and goings of the soap between her udders got quicker, which made her frail tits hard; Valentine panted now. "Oh, Casaneighva...", she squealed, before stopping right in her tracks.

"Go on, don't stop", gently ordered the blue filly who had just appeared in the collective showers' entrance along with her two inseparable acolytes. "You're so cute when you're in such a state."

A wet sound was heard. The sound of a soap bar falling on the floor. "What are you... doing here, Whistle Wishes?", bitterly asked Valentine, who was ashamed because she had been caught in the act.

"Me?", she replied, taken aback. "Why, I'm here to shower of course. This bathroom is public, isn't it ?"

Ill at ease, Valentine didn't answer back; she had just remembered why she always came in this place only when it was crowded. It was to avoid being caught in such a ridiculous way.

"You know", Whistle Wished went on while approaching her victim, walking in a way that made her hips draw eights in the air, "everyone is talking about your Casaneighva, but nobody has ever seen him. It is very selfish of you, Valentine. And selfishness is usually highly frowned upon in boarding schools."

"...He is mine...", Valentine replied, trying to control her voice; it wasn't an easy task, for she was sure her rival was plotting something : she had left one of her buddies at the entrance as herself and the remaining filly were now in front of her. "Do you want one too? Well go get one yourselves!", ended Valentine.

"Such violence in your speech."

Whistle Wishes's voice came from behind her.

"All I'm asking for is some tenderness, some affection from a male... All those years I've passed in this prison have fanned the flame of my desire... and hearing you talking about your love affair, your romantic relationship... turns me on."

Valentine shrieked when two front legs enclosed her hips by surprise; the filly who accompanied her molester immediately warned Valentine : "Stay still! If you make any noise, we will tell the Governess something about you... and you know she will believe us, she's got an eye on you."

"Oh, by Carnation... how I'd love to be a stallion!", Whistle Wishes exclaimed. She was now making violent in and out movements with her hips, mimicking a sexual act on her tetanised victim with a passion she could not have been faking. "Now tell me, Valentine..."

Deaf to her aggressor's voice, Valentine was giving quick frightened glances at the entrance, under the cold stare of the filly who was standing guard. She prayed that someone would come in and put an end to this humiliation. When she saw the soap bar flying in the air, carried by a shiny halo, she got panicked and started to struggle, uselessly begging Whistle Wishes to stop. The latter reminded Valentine she was in a dominating position by violently pulling her victim's hips towards her. "... Is your dear Casaneighva as big as... THAT?"

Valentine yelped when something long, smooth, cold and hard brutally penetrated her; at that moment, the filly who was still at the entrance tried to catch her molester's attention. "Wishes, someone's coming!"

"Crap!", the aggressor blast out. The three fillies immediately ran away. The bathroom had emptied in one second, but Valentine remained there, her legs shivering, a sharp pain between her kidneys.

"Valentine, are you... are you okay?", asked her friend Misty who had just come in, a towel hanging on her back.

"Y-yeah, I'm okay. I'll be going now."

The white unicorn took the newcomer's towel to quickly dry herself up and went out of the room with a unsure footing as she threw the bath towel back on Misty's spine. The latter watched her leave without understanding a single thing of what was going on.

While going out the bathroom, Valentine walked past a window. She was thinking more about the irritation on her frail vaginal mucosa than about the beautiful winter night that spread her dark coat upon the inner garden. However, she thought she had seen something from the corner of her eye, so she came back on her steps; she carefully watched through the window and she saw him. How had he managed to get in there? Valentine didn't know and didn't care about that; he was the thing she desired the most in such a terrible day. She smiled and waved to him. He waved back.

"Valentine, what are you...", said the Governess' voice; Valentine let out a yelp and quickly got away from the window, caught in the act.

The Governess understood straight away and rushed to the window, pushing the young filly. She carefully peered into the darkness.

There was nothing outside but snowflakes, flying along with the wind until they died on the immaculated snow blanket.

"What in...", started the old mare while turning back towards the place where Valentine stood a few seconds before.

Of course, the filly had taken this chance to run away.

Chapter 3 : The One Who Whispered I Love You

She could not go out. The Governess had the night rules reinforced and any opening to the outside would be under higher surveillance. Even when you wanted to go to the toilets, you had to be accompanied. But since when had she managed to go out anyway? Since the high authority of Pretty Clouds boarding school had read Valentine's rough diary, they had doubts.

During that time, Valentine Plot was waiting. Hidden in the chimney conduit of the last stairs, covered in soot, hooves stuck against the precariously put bricks, Valentine Plot was waiting for the deadly itching between her legs to go away. But the burning the soap had made was getting worse every minute, and her muscles were beginning to tire. She had to make a decision, quick. If she chose to go back down, the stallion who was hiding in the garden would eventually go away; but she really wanted to tell him what had happened. Those words they had exchanged, those memories written down in this notebook, everything had flown away in the clouds. And it was not too late to go and dust off in the bathroom, and hope to get back to bed in silence.

She accidentally coughed, then tried to hold it back. Going back down was out of question. Valentine Plot clenched her teeth, dragged her hooves on, thus making her joints crunch, and went slowly up towards the fresh air coming from above her. Just ten meters more, and she would be free at last. It was not the first time she did this; she was starting to know the most efficient creeping moves. When the visitor outside and she would trade their virginity, he would remember the show, she promised to herself. Slowly heading towards the nocturnal light that seeped out from under the metallic roof of the chimney cap, she pictured her hardened and healed up bottom muscles brushing against his male body, his penis gently slipping between her legs, her tension becoming extreme. In her fantasy, blood suddenly formed in droplets from between the two lines on her croup. The blood ran along her tighs, and her reverie immediately stopped when she almost hit the stone pipe with her head. She would very likely have a very bad time for escaping like that when the Governess would fall on her.

"She's telling us tales."

Sitting in the armchair in her room, sunk in the seatback, the Gouverness, her eyes burning from tiredness, kept turning over the events of the day. Valentine was not in her bed. Valentine was nowhere to be found, not even outside. She had probably found a good place to hide and would sulk there for a few hours, then she would be in her bed the next morning. She would be reprimanded, for form's sake, and everything would be back to normal.

"We may have miscontrued her. It was only romance."

The Gouverness was talking to nothing in particular. But it was her way to keep turning over things, and if someone had been in the room with her, they would have thought it was a strange habit, but the principle of speaking alone justly implies that the speaker is alone.

This boarding school had been here for centuries. It was renowned to be the best in all of Equestria, also the most expensive. Passions were left at the school's door, and thus from the very beginning. Of course, times were changing, but the perversion of the modern era would never go through the main entrance. The Governess was old, but she was still fit, and as long as the would be able to take care of it, the boarding school and its boarders would fit the mould. The Governess spit in resentment, but quickly got ashamed of what she had just done. Tomorrow, everything would be sorted out.

Valentine Plot came out of the chimney, let herself fall in the soft snow and shivered with cold. Before her eyes, on the spotless white carpet that followed the horizontal part of the roof, the moon threw her very peculiar and unique coloru. The same colour as her coat's. Far off, Canterlot still shone with many windows lights. Even farer off, the country was asleep. The panorama she could see from the roof of Pretty Clouds boarding school was the most beautiful in the world.

The unicorn clumsily went down one of the slopes between two windows, skipped to a gutter and let herself fall. The squached bush covered in snow that was here absorbed her fall once more, and Valentine thought she should find another one soon. She lay down in the snow and lavishly rolled in it, leaving a black crater all around her. Then, without a sound, she headed towards the shadow produced by the outer wall, walking around a pond that had already proven useful to her when she was sneaking out of the school in summer. Nobody could see her, for she was too far away, and her coat merged with the snow. Nobody would see them. In the shade of the garden hut, she saw something moving. Slowly, the shape of the stallion appeared in the light, coming closer to her. Her mouth sticked to his ear.

"You are here..."

Valentine Plot coiled herself around him. She had a lump in her throat. The memories of these meetings that were in her diary... destroyed. The painful punishment and the mockeries of her roommates weighted heavy upon her heart.

"You don't need words..."

Valentine wrapped her neck around his, leaving tears on it. She opened her mouth to say something, but she only managed to sob. This boarding school was a deadly jail, and the flame of the feelings that had been inside her from the beginning and that had never faded would either burn her up or be put out. She had lived all her childhood here, but the end was drawing near too slowly.

"Kiss me..."

Her barely healed up wounds on her bottom ached, and Valentine held her head high back.

"Tell me..."

The unicorn approached her lips of an infinite lightness.

"That you love me", she whispered to the night.

"Valentine ?", said someone behind her.

The mare felt her heart stop.

"That uptight girl sure takes a lot of time to pee", mumbled Whistle Wishes from the bottom of her bed.

"She likely went peeing outside to meet Sluthooves ! Hahaha !", sniggered an other unicorn.

"Oh my god", Whistle Wishes let out while appearing from under her sheets. She went down the ladder and to the window, and watched afar. There was nothing, just the wind lifting the snow.

Whistle Wishes had a doubt. Sluthooves's bed was empty, but nobody expected her to come back before morning. Misty's one was cold. She had gone to the bathroom, but even with the worst constipation possible, it wouldn't have lasted that long.

"Stop thinking you are her", said Twilight Twinkle without moving at all.

"What do you mean?", scornfully asked the mare who was still standing in front of the window.

"She is was you desire the most, isn't she?", asked Twilight Twinkle, watching her quietly. "A secret lover. Tenderness, stolen kises. Caresses. You crave all that, don't you?"

Whistle Wishes came closer to her, tilted her head against hers and whispered in a threatening voice :

"I don't crave... anything... like that."

"But you're all red."

Whistle Wishes bit her lips and stepped back, feeling uncomfortable. The following moment, mad with anger, she stamped the bed's occupant with her hooves. Twilight Twinkle shielded herself while yelping, while the rest of the school's boarders were trying to part them and to hold the aggressor back. The Governess entered the room with much din, holding her stick, and yelled at everyone to calm them down. Light appeared, the bamboo stick hit at random, and it's only when every filly was hiding in a corner that the old mare saw that Misty's bed was empty.

"Where did she go?", the Governess sharply asked, poiting at the empty bed.

Nobody answered.

"To the bathroom", suddenly dared saying someone, breaking the silence.

"I do hope it is true", mumbled the Governess in a tone that didn't show much hope. She went to the window, and saw this wasn't true. Misty was outside. And Valentine Plot was fighting with her.

Valentine turned around and jumped when she saw Misty, all black.

"You? How did you get here?", she asked in panick.

The stallion was gone.

"By going through the chimney... who were you talking to?", asked Misty.

"Go away!", barked the unicorn, who glanced in anguish at the outer wall, fearing to see her lover go over it, and that Misty could see him too.

"Valentine, what were you doing all alone?", shyly insisted the fearful mare.

The unicorn jumed on the filly who had just destroyed her night. She wanted to kill her, to make her pay for the frustration she felt because of this captive life. With each hit of her hooves on Misty's thorax or soft neck, with each yell of pain from the filly, Valentine felt an orgasm coming, no matter how many awkward hooves kicks she got in return, that tear off tufts from her impeccable white coat which was now nothing but a memory. They rolled in the snow, surrounded by the steam of their hard and tense bodies, and Misty, who was more than weak, defended herself more and more savagely, making clouds with each of her inspirations, clouds that mixed with those Valentine made. Misty too hit to avenge herself of all the humilations she had to put up with in this life she had spent between those iced walls; she stroke without restraint, and for the first time in her life, she felt truly alive.

The unicorn rolled in a corner and didn't move again. Misty let herself fall on the ground. The snow was melting around her, and she was savoring this moment of exhaustion and of satisfied revenge. Far off, doors smashed and steps came closer at top speed. They would be punished without mercy, but it wasn't important anymore to her. She had won something priceless. She stepped closer to Valentine, tapped her with her hoof so she would stand up on her feet again, and suddenly saw there was something wrong.

Her teeth clenched, her gaze lost, Valentine shook and her teeth were chattering. She was bathed in tears and moaned. Her hooves were scraping the snow as if they were looking for a ground they couldn't find. Misty got frightened, and while two monitors took her to part her from Valentine, she saw a sordid glow of madness in the eye of the unicorn lying on the ground.

"Wait!", she begged.

"Shut up, you insolent pony!", ordered one of the boarding school's employees.

"She's got a problem!", she screamed, trying to free herself.

"Don't ill-treat her!"

"Leave her alone!"

"Come in my office, both of you!", said the Governess, tense with rage. "Each one against a wall, without a blanket, and you will spend the night there. We will talk about all that tomorrow, and you will understand what pain is. Never such a thing has been seen in this boarding school."

"There was no one here...", whispered Misty, but her words got lost in the wind.

Chapter 4 : The Night Which Turned White

Solidly tied to robust oakwood crosses, the two fillies were getting ready to spend the night in the cold and gloomy room of the Governess; physical abuses were commonplace at Pretty Clouds boarding school, and the next day, they would probably have a go at the whole set of ill treatments possible there. Cramps were already biting their limbs, and the cold combined with their uncomfortable position seemed to have stopped time around them.

Both Misty and Valentine looked miserable; their coats were ruffled and stained with red in some places; their manes were full of all sorts of various debris, absolute packs of knots which were impossible to untangle and would probably have to be shaven the next day.

"Y-you b-bitch !" sobbed Valentine. "To think I thought you were my friend and you SCREWED EVERYTHING !!"

Misty didn't reply; she thought about the whole scene over and over, trying to understand what exactly had happened, to find some kind of hookline to hold on to. Valentine hurled abuse at her, in the grip of a terrible sorrow tinged with rage, but the violet filly didn't manage to believe it all; Valentine was her friend, of course. They had spent their childhood together in this boarding school; she, the shy and withdrawn filly the bigger ones took pleasure in threatening, had found a comrade who liked her for who she was, and the two of them had stood against the hardships of the boarding school life; as for Valentine, she had stopped being afraid of the dark and suffering from the solitude thanks to Misty's presence. Their relationship had lasted this way for long years.

Then, several weeks ago, Valentine had met this stallion, thus breaking a good load of the school's rules; she had told Mistly right away, with the excited tone a young filly can have after discovering love, and she had not stopped telling her about all of their secret meetings ever since. Misty had turned out to be very fond of any little detail, and though the thought of seeing Valentine succumb to the natural cycle of a filly's life sometimes made her heart sink, she felt genuinely happy for her friend, and wished all the best of luck for her.

But that night, she had met the stallion who made Valentine's head spin. Misty had a retch everytime she used this expression; years of shared life and joys that alternated with all sorts of sorrows and immediately follwed by comfort, all of this was faltering, ready to collapse and only maintained still by the grey area that stood in the middle of what had happened in the garden.

Her best friend was in love with a stallion who didn't exist... or who could as well have been hiding, and have a black coat on his whole body and a white coat on his legs, or possess the power to merge in his environment... that would have explained his presence in the garden, in spite of all the risks.

"...Valentine?", she ventured, before swallowing with great difficulty. She would have paid a fortune not to have to clear the doubts away, and to go on hoping Valentine was totally sane in her mind and that it was her, Misty, who didn't understand it all. "Tell me about him. I beg you, Valentine, you know I didn't want to..."

"Do you want to steal him for me, now ?", Valentine hiccuped with rage. "Wasn't it enough for you to make him run away? You... you slut !"

Leaving the insult aside, Misty went on. "We had a pact, Valentine. Can you remember it? Nobody steals the other's partner. How did you meet him?"

"Go to hell ! I don't know if I can trust you anymore."

Misty felt as if she had just been slapped on the muzzle. She remained still and mute for a few seconds, as if hit. "What did you... just say ?", she asked, detaching every word from the other.

"You can go to...", Valentine began; she understood only too late that she had excited Misty's rage, and that the violet filly's reactions were now unpredictable.

"WHAT ? We've been knowing each other for years, and you dare claiming that you're questioning our mutual trust?!", she yelled, pulling on her ties as she were trying to break them. "You're going to throw me away like a used up sock, and let everything down for this... ghost ? You've got a serious issue, Valentine ! Now, stop your whining business at once and ANSWER ME !"

Valentine calmed down on the spot. She had never seen her friend in this state, and it frightened her a lot. "Mi... Misty?"

"HIS NAME ! HIS HOMELAND ! HIS COAT'S COLOUR ! HURRY !", screamed the violet filly, panting.

"He's w-white, he has a gold-coloured mane, he's a unicorn from Canterlot, and his name is... He..."

Misty got her head back up. "What's his name ? Valentine, answer me, I beg you!"

Valentine seemed to seek the name; she searched for it for a long time. Much too long a time for a simple name.

Misty's saw her vision become all blurry.

In the common bedroom, all the fillies were lying down, and nobody could sleep. A fight between the school's walls was a phenomenon rare enough to leave its mark on the minds, and nobody ignored the links that bonded Misty and Valentine. Everyone brooded over the scene and the last days in silence, still searching for answers; and the rare attempts to discuss about it all fell flat.

Lying face downward on her bed, Whistle Wishes was the only one who didn't try to understand; she was aware that they had not enough hints to do so, and beside making vain speculations, her comrades would not manage to get any solid fact out of that.

Misty's words haunted her mind : "Nobody has ever wanted you", "nobody has ever written to you". Whistle Wishes lowered her gaze; what did she know about it, eh, had she ever checked her mail ? And of course she would end up meeting someone. She just needed time, that was all.

Valentine wasn't there anymore to crystallize her hatred, her envy and her resentment, and it got on her nerves; she feared that she could develop some harmful ideas. Whistle Wishes seeked someone else to hate, and had to face the facts : there was nobody left in the boarding school who hadn't been hated be her. The antisocial filly had already had to face this exact situation : it was hatred shortage. Since there was no one around to hate, she would have to hate herself, and draw the inexhaustible resources of hatred she held within from her own person.

While she was hating herself with passion, pushing her hatred to such incredible extents that it caused her to make small grimaces of disgust and other moanings, a sentence came to her mind at the same time her gaze met the locked drawer of Valentine's sideboard. Nobody has ever written to you, eh ?

"Hey girls...", she simpered with a little sly tone about her voice that her roommates knew well. "How about having a look at our dear frog eater's passionate mail ?"

"Hmmm... tired."

"Don't feel like it."

"Leave her alone, it's not funny."

Those bitches, thought Whistle Wishes, who realized she really, really wanted to have a loveletter in her hooves. "Come on, it's the ideal occasion, she's not here !", she went on with a diabolical chuckle.

"Go to bed, Wishes..."

She jumped on the floor. "Who said this ?!"

The culprit did not gave themselves up.

Mad with fury, Whistle Wishes rushed towards where the extravagant suposedly were, seized a filly by the scruff of the neck, the latter letting out small frightened shrieks, and spat to her face : "You're going to help me opening that drawer or I'll beat your ugly face up with my hooves, got that ?"

Her interlocutor saw that she wasn't joking and quickly nodded. The next moment, they were searching Valentine's piece of furniture for a key.

After having found nothing for a few instants, Whistle Wishes lost patience, and tried to force the lock without success; it was certainly protected with unicorn magic. However, nothing could stop the blue unicorn. "Draw back."

An electric blue light invaded the room while Whistle Wishes's horn played its role of magic catalyst and gave birth to ever growing spacing forces within the drawer.

A draught arose in the room and the temperature went down a bit while the unicorn showed her powers, her forehead soaked with a dazzling sparkle and her mane lifted by some invisible force; her magic was one of her rare qualities, and she held on to it as best as she chould, often training on the sly in order not to loose that talent. Around her, the fillies who had chickened out were watching the show in awe, while the drawer made creaking noises which were growing louder and louder.

Then it exploded, flooding its papers on the floor; Whistle Wishes fell on her hooves, exhausted and sweating but proud to have done it; the drawer that would resist her wasn't born yet !

"C'mon, read us one !", one of her comrades enjoined her.

A wide smile on her face, Whistle Wishes grabbed an enveloppe, took its content out, and looked surprised; she threw it away and tried with another one, without success either.

"What are you doing, Whistle Wishes ? C'mon, hurry up!"

But the blue unicorn's eyes went quickly from a letter to another, and she seemed to understand less and less. "What is this... bloody mess?!", she yelled.

Stamped letters, covered in passionate kissing traces, and paper wavy in spots where tears had flooded; letters neatly sorted out according to their dates, locked up in this drawer as if nobody else should read them; except that there was nothing written down on the paper. All of the envelops contained blank sheets.

Whistle Wishes stood up straight abruptly and rummaged with a lot of gesticulation in Valentine's papers. She found a corrected dictation test, perfect, as usual. The writing on it was the same as the one used to write down the address on the letters.

Then, attracted here by the mess, the Governess appeared. She saw at once the blank papers spread out on the ground, Whistle Wishes who was emptying Valentine's drawers with a terrible vigor that seemed to be more like panick. The blue filly had watched the Governess for a moment when she entered the room, then had resumed her frenetic rummaging, and the old mare, when taking out her stick, finally decided to wonder if the issue wasn't exceeding the mere stupidity of a handful of fillies going through their puberty.

Chapter 5 : The Mare Who Wished To Be A Stallion

Whistle Wishes yelped when she felt the flexible stick slap on her flank. Not willing to get more of it, she ran to den in a corner, sliding on the ground; but the Governess was far from being done with her and seeing this, the young unicorn threw herself at her hooves and grabbed her foreleg, imploring her.

"Let go off me, you little insolent brat ! And recieve your punishment like a dignified filly!" the Governed cried while shaking her leg as if she had wanted to get rid of a piece of adhesive tape.

"But stoooooooooooop," whined Whistle Wishes, still solidly clung to the leg. "Valentine is the one who's got an issue, punish her, not meee..."

"Yes, I already know that," replied the mare, grousing. "She was punished for having had a row with Misty."

"No !" moaned the filly. "I opened her drawer, I read her letters ! And..."

"Yes, I understood that too, thank you very much. It is a very serious misconduct, and I think you will be punished accordingly. Right now, even."

"But... but..." the unicorn's eyes filled with tears.

"So, are you going to follow me, or do I have to drag you along to my office like an hideous shoe?" the Governess said, getting somewhat impatient.

Whistle Wishes got up, sobbing, and followed the Governess' step. She glanced behind her. On top of a bunk-bed, a filly gave her a cruel smile and stuck her tongue out; the one just underneath her whispered something to her neighbour who shook with laugher and shot an amused glance at her; another one showed her her plot and mimicked a to-and-fro movement, her tongue also stuck out, a mocking grimace on her face. She had always been the queen of the dormitory and she had now become the buffoon around here. Intimidating people is what she knew how to do best, but having been rendered powerless once had been enough to dissipate the aura of fear she diffused. Whistle Wishes turned back over and thought about all the things she would have to go through during the rest of her stay here. She let out an apprehensive hiccough in spite of herself. It never occured to her that what happened to her was only justice, that every filly in this room had a good reason to bear a grudge against her and to torment her in the worst way possible; at that moment, she was far too busy worrying about her leather skin.

With her head hung low, she entered the Governess' office and an Arctict cold made her shiver right away. She sneezed, opened her eyes, and saw the two other fillies tied to the wall.

"You?" she exclaimed, but she was barely surprised at all. They only let out a sigh of spite for an answer.

"Quite so, you three are the worst ponies this House has even known, and I am fairly sure that spending a night together will encourage you to behave in a more fitting way." While speaking, the Governess tied solidly Whistle Wishes to the last wooden cross. "This is only in your own benefit, believe me. Good night, ladies." She slammed the door shut, making the furniture tremble and dust fall in thick and irritant clouds.

A deadly silence fell upon the room, broken from time to time by a sneeze or the sound of the leather strips grinding on the fur. Not that they did not have anything to tell eachother; but they were all exhausted, Whistle Wishes in particular, whose head was spinning a little. Eventually, despite their incomfortable positions, they fell asleep in an hour.

Whistle Wishes had been sleeping dreamlessly for two hours now when a strange sensation progessively woke her up. The sensation gradually became more and more precise as she was going out of her dizziness; an itching, both irritating and pleasant, in this very particular place of the male anatomy. Already almost woken up, she realised her limb itched her.

Then she REALLY realised it.

Whistle Wishes jumped and checked her crotch, squinting to see it better. It was dark, but there was no doubt about the nature of this prominence between her back legs; she wriggled about from left to right and felt two heavy items dangling and banging against her skin within her tighs. "Holy Celestia, I've got the whole set," she thought. She bit the inside of her cheek, terrified by the idea of waking up from a dream. But the pain and blood she felt in her mouth were more than real. "It's magic, there's nothing to explain," answered the rest of her mind.

Truly happy for the first time of her filly's life, the unicorn used her magic to relieve her itching, moaning with pleasure like a possessed filly, her tongue out and her eyes rolled upwards. She played with her new toy without a pause, sexual climaxes following eachother, overlaying the expensive carpet of the office with whitish and sticky secretions, struggling to retain her screams of pleasure.

When she reached cloud nine for the eighth time in one hour, she stopped for a moment, gathering the scattered fragments of her consciousness. She had spent the best hour of her whole existence; but it wasn't enough for her anymore. She got her head up and saw the two fillies fast asleep. She had totally forgotten about them. A grimace of desire distorted her muzzle. But right away, the terrible reality of her captivity fell upon her : she neighed in frustration.

But her terrible sexual appetite had not dulled her intelligence. She seeked with her gaze an item that could come in handy and found the ideal candidate in a paper knife decorated with silver. With great regret, she stopped touching the thing between her legs, and it fell weakly; she redirected her magic on the tool, softly lifted it in the air and brought it by the leather strips, sarting to cut them.

At the beginning, she had to stop every thirty seconds to take care of her marvelous gift, so that it took her a very long time to cut the first strip fully. But as soon as her first hoof was free, she used it to satisfy her need and thus managed to cut all the remaining strips without interruption. Eventually, the last one broke and she fell heavily upon her four legs.

Without losing any time, she drew close to the two sleeping fillies, and chose Valentine after a short hesitation. "But what does it matter?" she thought. "I've got the whole night, everyone will have their turn... their turns..."

With a satisfied smile, the sent the wooden cross on the ground.

Valentine woke up with a jump, a strong pain radiating her whole spine; it took her quite some time to come back to reality, and realising that she was on the ground, tied up, and that on top of her was Whistle Wishes, dominating her with her presence.

"You sicko ! Governess, please help !" she screamed. She felt a cold blade in her neck, and her voice died instantly in her throat. "Wishes... what are you doing ?" she went on, weakly moaning, struggling to keep her bladder under control.

"I'm giving a try to my new toy ! Haha !" She started to laugh like a maniac. On other side of the wall, Misty woke up and started calling for help. "Shut up you idiot !" ordered Whistle Wishes while sticking a cloth curled up in a ball into her mouth.

"Your... what?" whispered Valentine, lifting her eyebrow.

"This!" Whistle Wishes spreaded her legs, proudly revealing... nothing. To Valentine's eyes, her roommate's crotch was as flat as usual, except for two little symetric bulges at the bottom of her belly. She swallowed. If there was something worse than Whistle Wishes during an hormonal crisis, it was certainly a totally mad Whistle Wishes AND during an hormonal crisis.

"Let's not waste any time!" cried the other out with terrifying enthousiasm. "Let's mount!" She placed herself between Valentine's spreaded legs and started to move back and forth, making her imaginary equestrian limb go in and out. "OOOOOH ! YESSSS ! FEELS SO GOOD !" she grumbled.

Valentine clenched her teeth and waited for time to pass. She did not feel a thing of course, no pain, let alone pleasure, nothing but the wet contact of Whistle Wishes's croth against her own from time to time; but the situation was embarrassing and grotesque enough to be unpleasant, over and above the fact that dribble was falling upon her face and into her eyes and that the crazy pony above her was occasionaly spanking her. This torture was brutally interrupted by an heavy crack; the movement stopped, and Whistle Wishes fell flat on her face upon her. Valentine opened her eyes and saw a globe floating in the air, that fell back the next moment on the ground and rolled towards a corner of the room. Misty gave her a look filled with tears and a weak smile. But Valentine did not look back : she was too busy contemplating the sagged body, lifted by a whistling breath, and the broken horn in its middle.

Chapter 6 : She Who Fell So High

Misty moaned through her muzzle. This would probably have sounded like "Valentine! Are you okay?!" if it wasn't for the cloth that blocked her whole oral cavity.

Valentine's situation was indeed very incomfortable: she was lying on the ground, her chest compressed by both the weight of her wooden hindrance and that of the unconscious body of Whistle Wishes who was not, and by far, the most slender of the dormitory's mares. She could feel her former roommate's warm breath against her right ear and she had trouble maintaining her own breathing; before even trying to understand what had happened, she knew she had to free herself first, and quick.

It was no use using force for she was still tightly attached to the wooden cross. Valentine tried to move Wishes aside by pulling her mane with her pony magic; but, since she had never really trained in order to use this talent, her attempts only ended in a few long hair pulled that didn't even help waking the blue filly up. Worse still, Whistle Wishes's horn even fell on the ground, made fragile by the blow she had gotten, because her head had been shaken too much.

"Misty..." she managed to say in a hiccup. "Ack! Help me!"

Panicked, Misty seeked an idea to help, her eyes quickly scanning her surroundings in search of some useful item. The paper knife? too dangerous, her magic skills were not sufficient and the would certainly have cut Valentine's throat by mistake. The globe ? useless. Whistle Wishes's still bleeding horn piece?...

Focused on the item, Misty brought the fragment towards her, making it float before her eyes; at her feet, Valentine was now suffocating, her breath was becoming a death rattle and her face was starting to get blue. Her friend looked at the wall she faced, which had a large blackboard on it. She clenched her teeth while she approached the point of the horn at her contact and thought that of course, it would have been better without any external help. But there are times when one doesn't have a choice. The filly moved the item upon the black and rough surface, pressing hard, and her eyelids wrinkled when a terrible shrill screech tore the night's silence and woke the whole dormitory up.

"What's happening here?! I AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Half awoken and still in her dressing gown, the Governess had suddenly appeared in her room; her haste had changed into sheer bewilderment when she saw the state in which the room was, room that was so clean when she had left it moments ago and that was now a complete mess.

"What happened here?!" she yelled, tearing the cloth out of Misty's mouth. "It's Wishes, Miss, I swear!" she replied, terrified. "She freed herself and started assaulting Valentine, oh, I beg you, free Valentine, she's suffocating!"

The old mare grabed Whistle Wishes's mane by the teeth and strongly pulled her aside before setting Valentine's cross upright; the latter, her eyes rolled upwards and her chest suddenly freed, inhaled noisily and panted to get her breath back; Misty let her head hang down, relieved.

"Get that to the infirmary," the Governess ordered her assistants who had just appeared behind her while showing the unicorn lying on the ground. "As for you..."

Misty made an effort to swallow; Valentine vaguely nodded her head gently while groaning, her eyes blank; her mind was still dark and she barely noticed that the Governess was talking to her.

"Get back to your room," she went on while breaking their bonds; both fillies fell flat in their place with screams of surprise. "We will clear up all of this tomorrow, and be sure that you will not get out of this room before you have given me a credible explanation. NOW OUT!"

Valentine and Misty made off to the dormitory without a murmur; the white filly banged into a wall at the first bend and went on awkwardly zigzaging, under the dismayed gaze of the monitoring team who was taking Whistle Wishes into the sick room.

Whistle Wishes woke up in the morning while both of her last night's roommates were trying to get an incredulous Governess to believe in a story of simulated rape. The omnipresent white light dazzled her at first, and it took her a little moment to remember the place where she was.

Her horn, or rather what was left of it, was wrapped into a thick layer of various compresses, and her nape of the neck was hurting in places; the unicorn was trying to touch these placed with an invisible hand, and naturally, it didn't work; all of her powers were located into the missing part of her frontal appendix. She cursed with rage before remembering that there was a more important appendix; Whistle Wishes put a hoof on her lower abdomen and noticed with pleasure that her precious gift of nature was still here. Driven by a sort of habit, Whistle Wishes stimulated it with the energy of her two forelegs, and in less than a minute she appropriated herself one of these violent discharges of well-being that rolled her eyes upwards, bent her whole body and sent her mind into orbit.

The magic instant over, she let herself fall with happiness on the examination bank that was welcoming her and thought that stallions truly were the luckiest beings in the world, and that heaven had granted her with a great favour; with such an item, she could pee without wetting her delicate tail, reach supreme pleasure whenever she wanted, humiliate fillies and even rape things. It had been years that Whistle Wishes had secretly dreamt of this...to be in the rapist's place.

She went out of the infirmary with an assured step; nobody was around. It was a resting day, and her room was certainly full; all those traitors were going to be reminded who was the boss.

All of her roommated were attending their usual affairs when she entered the room; to get bored, to do their hair in front of a mirror, to get bored even more, to do some exercices to make a good impression, to sleep, and possibly to give torrid cuddles but not that day, nobody was in the mood. They held their heads high when she arrived; some chortled out of contempt while looking her up and down, some got back to their activities, and none seemed happy to see her again. But Whistle Wishes had expected such a reaction, and she was savouring beforehand the smothered exclamations and the impressed commentaries that they would necessarily make when they would finally see the gigantic item that was hanging on the ground as far as her calves under her belly.

"Girls... I've missed you so," she whispered while going through the room, looking all of her fellows up and down with a look full of self-importance.

"Not you," said one of them, getting her neighbour to chuckle.

This was all. Whistle Wishes stopped on her tracks, taken aback; was it even possible that they had...not seen it?

"Well, don't you see anything?!" she exclaimed, trying to draw attention on her.

The filly that was called Twilight Twinkle stared at her for a long time and reached her verdict : "Well, you lost your horn, and that apart, well... you're still as ugly as ever, hihi!"

In one second time, Whistle Wishes was upon her, grabed her mane and pulled her mate's head towards her crotch. "AND WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?" she barked, out of her mind.

"But what is 'this'? let me go, are you crazy or what?!" screamed her victim, trying to get free.

"Can't you see?!" suddenly yelped Whistle Wishes, starting to be in the grip of panick, while other fillies were coming towards her, each one waiting for annother to jump on the blue unicorn.

"I can still see your ridiculously tiny tits, and what should there be here? A PENIS?" squealed Twilight Twinkle, while still trying to free herself from the other's grip; when Whistle Wishes let her go without warning her, she banged into her bed's post.

"Liars! You're making fun of me!"

The hard bangings echoed on the bloody behinds of Valentine and Misty, who swore crying that it was the truth, that Whistle Wishes had freed herself on her own, that she thought she was a stallion and that they had to render her harmless.

Beside herself, the Governess rose her stick, ready to beat them like they had never been beat before, when a panicked filly smashed into the room, without even knocking and yelled : "WHISTLE WISHES BLEW A FUSE!!"

They rushed out of the room to the room that was totally devastated; in a corner, the poor blue unicorn was hiding like a hunted beast, her hair ruffled and covered in wounds, her face marked with long trails of tears, her eyes having lost all reason; when she saw the Governess, her eyes grew wide and she let out a long scream of terror, her hooves scraping the ground to try to escape her presence by pushing more into the nook. The grey mare tried to reason with her, but even the simple understanding of spoken language seemed to have exited her mind, and only a dart soaked in tranquillizer overcame the former dormitory's leader.

"What do we do with her, Miss?"

"This filly had a fit of dementia... Send her to the institute in charge of this kind of case. Not a word to her parents, our establishment's reputation could not bear this kind of affair, and let us pray for her to recover quickly. I do hope... that she's the only one."

Chapter 7 : She Who Cried In Pain

The wind was whistling on the other side of the mist-tinted window of the common room, briging flakes along, pulling them out of the window's edge, and they were disappearing forever. Misty, who was lying under her sheets, was watching Valentine, and Valentine, who was lying under her sheets, was watching the wall. Silence was as heavy as lead, vaguely moves by those who had managed to fall asleep, but the lucid minds couldn't accept what had just happened.

Whistle Wishes was gone, taken away by the doctors after her fit of madness, and everybody knew it was not normal. She was a domineering pony, full of herself, and she behaved that way, but today, she had just lost face to something stronger than her. All fillies feared her, even those who pretented to be her friends. All of them had been rather ill worried after she had gone. Whistle Wishes was gone, and Whistle Wishes would not come back. Her expulsion had been tacitly delivered; a life of strict education had just flown into pieces, and this final refusal had forever closed Pretty Clouds boarding school behind her. Her empty bed, as a threat, was hanging over the whole room, and for most of its occupiers, there was someone who was responsible for all that. Valentine. Valentine the temptress, Valentine the romantic, Valentine the dreamer. Valentine Sluthooves, who had infected the blue mare's heart with her game of seduction, and who had to pay for it all.

Misty still couldn't sleep, and she gazed at Valentine before muffling a shout. The white unicorn was standing in front of her, watching her.

"Come," she whispered.

The corridors were empty. The monitors were certainly exhausted, and anyway, in case of problem, everybody would hear it; the walls transmitted sounds too well. The subtle clacking of hooves' points upon the stone floor and the carpets were merging with the creaking of beams submitted to cold, and no one head the two fillies that had walked alongside the walls until they had got to the last storey's chimney, from where a cold air was blowing. They would block it up soon when they would understand that it was the place she had used to get out from the very beginning. But for the last time, she was about to use it again. Valentine skilfully climbed, often stopping to wait for Misty who had followed without understanding why and who slipped on the narrow stones. When they reached the surface, there was no sign of their previous night's journey, nothing but snow smoothed by wind.

Valentine was watching, and Misty didn't understand.

"He's here."

Misty got scared. There was nothing but emptiness. The squinted eyes of her friend, them, saw, and their pupils were growing wider. She moved forward slowly and she coiled up against something invisible.

"He doesn't like you. You denied him."

Misty's teeth were chattering. It was cold enough; however cold was just an excuse. The white unicorn was gently rubbing her head against the wind, and a shiver ran through her body suddenly. Misty watched the sight, mesmerized. She didn't dare contradicting her friend for fear they would fight again. Valentine's shining and black eyes looked her up and down, with an almost haughty look, seeming to ask for a reaction. Then, Valentine spoke.

"The mind's plains," she whispered, "are so vast. Where reason looses itself, where feelings run free, where dreams die. We were born there. We loose ourselves there. We come back from there. And sometimes, we disappear.

Sometimes, the path forks, and the blind traveller goes on straight ahead, or takes the wrong way. Sometimes, they go round and round and stop on their tracks. The ways lead to abysses or outside. But there never is and end. And reason becomes dream, and dream becomes reason.

Here is the essence of madness.

The runaway spirit will never find its way back and fades into the horizon. And on the other side, a world.

"I don't understand anything..." mumbled Misty.

Valentine was still watching her, and parted from her invisible lover.

"You are still a child."

Her eyes were filled with lassitude, a millennial weariness. The eyes of someone who hasn't seen anymore since long. The eyes of someone who, failing to find what they seek, had started creating it. What could happen behind them ? What were the thoughts of someone who was that tortured ? Misty felt her tears pouring on the snow.

"I don't understand ! What is your problem, Valentine Intrigue ?" she yelled, stamping the snow with her hoof. "Who is that being you're so desperately searching for ?"

Valentine watched behind her, addressing a look to the night.

"Me. And I will never find it here... I've dreamt of magical places. And sunny. I've dreamt of passion, of caresses, I've dreamt of poems. There is no such thing here. The life we will have when we get out will be one of ghosts. Of objects. But my heart will never accept it, for I have seen the dream."

Misty had turned towards the chimney. The stone was old, worn by wind, cracked.

"I've never had any dream," she said. "I've never thought about all this. Nobody ever thinks of me, and I don't think of anybody. I'm well alone."

The wind was sweeping Valentine's mane. She came Misty's side. The snow's turbulences were playing around her body, gliding at full speed around her legs, making circles and spirals and whirls, cut through the wind, like a stallion galloping at the slender unicorn's side.

"You're still a child, Misty."

Valentine moved away a little, lifting her head up as if the wind was caressing her, and she contemplated the wind sweeping away the snow for a long time. Misty recalled their fight, this joust they had had in the snow only a day before. She remembered the tensed muscles, the impacts of hooves on flesh and bones, the pain, the hatred, and this desire of hitting again and again and again until she would fall on the ground with exhaustion.

When heading back towards the chimney, Misty saw the terrible red marks left by law's aegis on her croup, and remembered she had the same ones. Some of these marks would probably never disappear. Forever, that childhood within the boarding school would be reminded to her, like a sentence : You shall live as the others want you to. The high wall surrounding the park had surrounded her life for ages, like an eggshell, and she had never ventured outside. She knew nothing of the outside life. She was still a child, it was true, still naive. Valentine, she, had broken her shell.

"He is my nemesis," said the unicorn while sinking into the dusted conduct, as if she had read her mind. "He is my destructor, and what I'm living for. Passion will both consume us."

Misty was gazing far away. She was still afraid, but the biting taste of a forbidden desire was slowly awakening at the bottom of her throat and her kidneys. The shooting pain of her wounds was lashing through her body, reminding her of her punishment.

The wounds and bruises left by Valentine's hooves recalled the fight.

"You shall live," she whispered. Fear and anxiety came back, but it wasn't quite the same anymore.

The mare started to go down the conduct, hoping not to trip and fall over her friend, who had a solid horn. Before sticking her head out, she breathed in one last time the pure frozen air of the night.

A gust of wind lifted a thin veil of snow and took it along while swirling around far off. Just like the wind, whistling through the stamping hooves of the stallion from her mind's plains.

The way back was without incident, and Misty was able to focus her whole attention to watch not to get too close or far of her psychotic friend, pretending to behave casually. But the truth was that she was starting to be afraid of her friend, maybe even more than of Whistle Wishes, who had always been predictable even through her madness. Celestia only knew what could be a Valentine in a fit of fury like, and Misty did not care for discovering it. But her natural tendency towards compassion forced her to do her best to be at Valentine's side yet, whatever the risks.

A noble choice she soon wish she hadn't done.

When they entered the dormitory on tiphooves, they knew at once that something wasn't normal. All of the unicorns were awoken and stared at them, as if they were waiting for them to go in. And some beds were empty. "Now!" shouted one of them, and four fillies assaulted them straight away, tying up their legs with sheets and a formidable efficiency. Misty tried to call for help, but she was interrumpted by an apple stuffed into her mouth. Valentine, after a short struggle with her bonds, gave away to her fate, resigned.

"Sorry about ill-treatment, cuties, I know well that you must be fed up with always getting bonded..." chuckled Twilight Twinkle, moving forward with solemn and gracious step, like the one they were taught in Propriety class. "But you do understand well enough that we cannot let you get away through the chimney, as you usually do..."

"What do you want, Twilight ?" spat Valentine out of disdain. "To take it out on us ? To take Whistle Wishes's torch?"

"Oh ! what a dreadful misunderstanding." she went, pretending to be stricken. "No, we will not miss Whistle Wishes..." She grimaced and compulsively lowered her tail to protect her delicate croup. "... but here, in Pretty Clouds's dormitory, we have rules, and one of them clearly states that to cause one of their sisters to be sent into such a dreadful place af Blue Thistles's mental home..." She made a sign to a pale pink unicorn who brought her a bronze candlestick topped with an half-cracked candle. "...will not be tolerated."

Twilight Twinkle's horn was envelopped with a redish aura, and the candle wick suddenly caught fire. "I saw that into one of the Governess's secrets books. It is called the hot wax torture ! During the Witch Hunt, they used it to blind zebras by pouring the wax into their eyes... But since you're still worth more than a zebra, we are just going to pour it on your flanks ! Ha ha ha !" Holding the candlestick between her teeth, she slowly got closer of the two helpless fillies. "Pinchy !" she barked, indicating Misty with her hoof. "Hold her tightly."

"What ?" moaned the pale pink unicorn. "Why me ? I... I don't feel like it..." Twilight Twinkle gave her an annoyed look, and Pinchy pushed Misty upon her flank reluctantly and put herself astride above her, immobilizing her completely.

"I'm forbiding you to hurt her, you foul bitch !" moaned Valentine.

"Quiet Sluthooves !" yelled another unicorn from the top of her bed. "Your turn will come soon !"

Misty was frenetically struggling while giving cries of terror smothered by the fruiterer gag, but Pinchy's hold was too strong for her. Valentine saw her following the wax flow that was slowly pouring from the candlestick with her eyes, and a big drop came off the rest and fell right onto her cutie mark. For two seconds, there was nothing. Valentine only saw apprehension and confusion in her friend's big wet eyes.

Then Misty closed her eyes and let out an heartbreaking and neverending wail of pain. Immediately, Twilight Twinkle went into raptures and hoped on the spot.

"Ha ha ha ! Is it painful ? I knew it ! Serves you right ! Serves you right !" She started again to pour wax on Misty's already sticky flank, causing her to give more yells of pain. After several other minutes or torture, Misty didn't even struggle anymore and contented herself with moaning and sobbing with each new drop, apparently emptied from all energy and willpower.

"Hey, go easy on the wax !" said the unicorn from the top of her bed. "We've only got one candle, and it's already almost totally melted !"

"Damn it ! I got a bit carried away, sorry. I did not want to forget our Sluthooves friend either. She must be really bored..." She and Pinchy got away from Misty's trembling body, who cruled up as much as she could, always tied up. Twilight Twinkle leaned over Valentine and sweetly whispered in her ear : "We have no other apple, so avoid yelling too loudly, please..."

"I won't give you that pleasure !" mumbled the other, not really confident, while Pinchy was fussing to hold her in place, muttering some vague excuses.

"It's late. End this quickly so we can go to bed," yawned another filly, already under her sheets. "As a reminder, we have an arithmetic class tomorrow." She turned away and burried her head into the pillow.

"Yes, yes !" went Twilight Twinkle, irritated by the collective lack of interest for the dormitory's justice. Instead of taking her time and slowly pouring the wax, she poured what was left at once, splashing Valentine's flank on ten good square centimeters.

Valentine felt the heat and readied herself to the unavoidable burning sensation. But nothing came. Nothing but a soft heat that was already starting to dissipate. She slowly opened an eyelid, met Twilight Twinkle's confused gaze, then Misty's one. Her friend gave her an almost imperceptible sign with her head and an impatient wink. Suddenly, Valentine understood. Of course she did not feel a thing : every pony was born covered in a thick leather, and it was not a bit of hardly burning wax that would get beyond this natural protection. Furthermore, her coat was certainly preventing most of the wax to stick to her skin. That Twilight Twinkle was definitely a true idiot. And it was something to take advantage of.

"Aaaaaaarrrgh !" she began in a plaintive tone. "It's burning ! Aaaah ! Why ! Why ? Oh, Celestia, please put a stop for this suffering !" She then looked back at Misty, who rolled her eyes. She suddenly got scared of having exagerated a bit.

" Ahahahaha !" laughed Twilight Twinkle, excited and not very clever. "This is all you deserve ! Hope it teaches you a lesson, Sluthooves !" Valentine and Misty both let out an inward sigh of relief.

"So, will you get to sleep already, by Tarnation ?" yelled a unicorn from her bed.

"Shut up !" She threw the candlestick towards her and it ended its flight into the wall. She then slipped upon her bed, grumbling, while Pinchy was busy undoing the sheets that were holding the two fillies. "Sorry, sorry, hope you're alright..." she whispered, consumed with guilt.

"It's okay, Pinchy. Get back to bed now." said Misty, struggling not to burst out laughing. The two released fillies lay down on their beds and started scraping off the already dried wax, which turned out to be the hardest part of their torture, the hair tearing off in tufts.

"Oh, I'm giving up for tonight." whispered Misty, shaking up a piece of wax stuck to her hoof. "It will go away with a shower. Good night, Valentine."

"Misty..."

"Yes ?" she replied with an already sleepy voice.

"You really are an excellent actress."

Misty smiled, caressing her cutie mark, which showed two theatre masks.

Chapter 8 : The Mare Who Cost So Much

That night, all of Pretty Clouds’s boarders were sitting in the big dining room’s tables of the main building, respectfully listening to the Governess’ lecture that came before every meal, and paying special attention to this one; it was the meal of Heart’s Warming Eve. The venerable mare reminded them how, long ago, the three main races of ponies had put their differences aside and had started living in harmony, in a cycle that their distant parents still perpetrated today, and in which each individual, especially unicorns like them, found some benefit.

"… And let us all remember that without the Pegasi, the food we have here would not exist, and that without the Earth Ponies, it would never have arrived here on this table; and that her Majesty Princess Celestia, goddess of the Sun, be forever thanked for lifting every morning the day star that brings life and warmth upon all of Equestria. Glory to her!"

"Glory to her!" mumbled some fervent fillies, and forty soup spoons simultaneously met forty china plates.

Valentine looked at her plate and saw without a surprise that it was full of nettle-potato soup, and started eating without paying further attention to the rest of the table; next to her, Misty had done the same. There wasn’t a meal in Pretty Clouds where the boarders didn’t eat nettles prepared in any way possible; the reason cited was that is was a luxurious meal that was way better than the usual armful of lucerne the lowest classes of the Equestrian society were satisfied with, and that Pretty Clouds boarding school did its best to offer the most decent food possible to its numerous boarders. Few of those suspected that in reality, it was above all because eating nettles made the coat glossy and its owner incredibly presentable and desirable. Valentine loudly sucked up the content of her spoon and absently listened to the conversation that had started near Misty.

"Say, Misty," muttered Twilight Twinkle. "What is yellow, green and clueless?"

Suspicious, her friend hesitated, and first made sure that there was no risk before answering. "Uh, I don’t know?"

"Come closer," whispered the mare in an almost inaudible voice in in her ear. "I’ll go again : what is yellow, green and clueless?"

"I don…"

"YOUR HEAD!" yelled Twilight Twinkle, grabbing Misty’s neck before plunging her muzzle into the hot soup bowl, triggering a mocking hilarity among her court.

"Twilight…!" protested Valentine, before interrupting herself when she glanced at Misty, who was slowly lifting her head up. For a second, her friend’s iris had turned… incandescent? Had she really seen that?

Twilight Twinkle stood up straight behind Misty and looked Valentine up and down. "No doubt that you’ve got something to say, Valentine Sluthooves?"

"Let… let it drop," sighed Misty, wiping her face with a napkin. "Thanks for your help, but I should be able to endure that alone."

Valentine didn’t know what to say; the best was to get back to her own business, she thought. Twilight Twinkle did the same. After all, playtime was over. She swapped her plate with one of her most docile friends’, and started finishing her meal, totally oblivious to the fact that if the level of inhibition of her new scapegoat had lowered only a bit, Misty would have used her spoon to send her aggressor’s right eye into the middle of the stock.

"… calm, composed, according to the Governess, she knows how to clean and cook, how to receive orders and obey without making a fuss… If you’re looking for a wife for your son, this one would perfectly suit, and the charges for her maintenance and her education ‘only’ add up to eighteen thousand bits."

"You’re right, dear friend, but see, something is bothering me with this one, those are the cutie marks… Those theatre masks are so vulgar, and I doubt that my son will agree to be seen with a street entertainer. Do you happen to know if they can be… removed?"

The headmaster of Pretty Clouds’ boarding school, a fat pony who was going grey, was used to deal with the most famous, the richest and the most eccentric of Canterlot. He shook his head. "Alas, your Highness, you know as well as me that they appear during adolescence and that it is very hard to control them… But you seem to look for something prestigious. Would you maybe want to leaf through our catalogue of first rate fillies without appearance flaws, the one we usually keep for the families of royal blood?"

"My soon has reached his majority, and he spends his whole time into his appartements, writing meaningless poems - poetry! - instead of developing his social relations," explained the Baron of the Square of the Meadow of the Ashen Tower and client of the boarding school, "and he is putting the honour of all of lineage at stake! I want this Heart’s Warming Eve to mark a turning point for him and I want him to finally become somebody, so show me the best you’ve got… I’m ready to pay whatever price is necessary."

A few minutes later, the two ponies were leafing through the pages decorated with illuminations of the catalogue called ‘imperial’, one of them bluntly shouting with admiration and with fright too when seeing the space reserved to the accomodation and education fees, and the other one commenting as they went along; then they reached the last pages and the Baron of the Square of the Meadow of the Ashen Tower stopped and stared at one page, staring into space. It was Valentine’s page.

"Ah, Valentine Plot, excellent choice!" began the headmaster. "Ninety six thousand bits, but her coat and her cutie mark will assure anyone a royal aspect…"

"Not that one," his prestigious client interrupted. "The one before, tell me about her!"

The headmaster raised his eyebrows. "Whistle Wishes? She is fine too, but she is a rebel, she is untamable, she is not what you are looking for for your…"

"Let us forget about my son, he is a good-for-nothing," the Baron cut him. "This stature, this presence this… power in her eyes! This is exactly what I was looking for, without being aware of it. She looks like… a queen! And her cutie mark is an empty coat of arms. A rebel, you say? See, I have never really relied on my son to succeed to me. It’s her, and no one else, that I need!"

The headmaster put his hooves together and took his sweetest and most hypocrite voice. "If this filly is the one you are looking for, Baron sir, be assured that we will do what it takes to send her at your home as fast as possible, with a quality service that only a renowned house like ours could offer."

The headmaster had now seen his client to the door; the Baron kept on saying that he was going to make the arrangements to welcome his new guest, that it was marvelous and that he was going to talk about Pretty Clouds to everyone he knew. Now the headmaster was behind his desk, absently going through the ‘imperial’ catalogue, thinking about the one hundred and four thousand bits that had just entered his pockets that afternoon. It was time to light a good cigar. He threw the brochure upon a pile of unsorted letters, various bills, letters for the boarders and a letter without a stamp on which was written in huge capital letters :

To the headmaster

URGENT

From the Governess.

Sunday came. But that Sunday was not a mere holiday. It was also a day of departure, as were all the others last Sundays of the month. All the fillies of the boarding school old enough to be married waited for this day with a mixture of fright and excitation; indeed, few of them really knew the outside world and none the company of a stallion. Of course, they had been taught all the good manners of a mare of high society, and the nights of insomnia at the dormitory and the stories under the sheet had given them an insight of love life. Yet it was only a bunch of theories, and starting practice would be rough.

Everything was done in order to make the ordeal less painful, and lies had a dominant place, for the ‘buying’ process was barely evoked and most fillies naively thought that they had been remarked for their nobility and their beauty by some prince charming, and that they would marry out of love above all. The staff maintained those illusions, but it was far from reality; if the young stallions were also tortured by their teen instincts and were firstly delighted to finally know the joys of copulation, the durability of the marriage only depended on chance. Most of the time, the two matches deserted and each one went to squander their money and whisper sweet nothings in somebody else’s ear while seeing to perpetrate the lineage at the very least.

Nobody was a fool and nobody cared, for it was the way of things in Canterlot; the only strong ties were those of money, and in the end, everyone had benefit from it.

But let’s get back to our fillies. Valentine and Misty had chosen to go for a walk around the huge boarding school’s garden, wearing padded ankle boots and thick wool saddles and scarves. It was cold of course, but it might have been their last day together and they wanted to spend it in private, without any stupid filly to taunt or brutalize them. This ritual repeated each month; they saw to wake up before any other filly, who were too lazy to wake up early on a holiday, exited discreetly to be sure not to be followed, and strolled for two hours in the middle of trees, animals and flowers. They had their breakfast in the bare nature, enjoying lucerne still wet with dew, then digested lying on the grass, talking about everything and nothing, mentioning their common memories and their expectations for the future. But that time, Valentine had decided that things would be a little different.

Valentine knew two things for sure. Firstly, her life here was coming to an end. Through the years, she had become a splendid filly and with a regal appearance, and it was only a matter or weeks before she would be chosen by a rich stallion, and at that moment, she could finally flee to find her beloved. On the opposite, Misty would stay here longer, and even maybe sold at a discount to a penny-pinching or incautious pony. Furthermore, she felt bad for having violently attacked her friend during a fight of which, Valentine Plot, was the sole responsible. She didn’t want to leave a bad impression of herself to her childhood friend, and that was why this little trip had to be unforgettable, if she were to leave the boarding school.

She took a deep breath and rolled on her side, thus pressing against Misty.

"Oh! Valentine… but what are you… Mph!" She didn’t have time to end her sentence, interrupted by Valentine’s mouth against hers. Uncertain at first, Misty passionately gave the kiss back, caressing her back with her feverish hooves. Then, breathless, they moved away from each other, still connected by a thin trickle of saliva.

"Does that… does that mean that you are my girlfriend now?" asked Misty, reddening.

Valentine shook her head, tenderly kissed her forehead and whispered in her ear : "It’s just to make it up to you. And also because I want you to always remember me."

Then she stuck her tongue out, went up along her friend’s forehead until she had reached the base of her horn. Misty jumped a bit, her body shaken with an electric shock. The wet hoop that made Valentine’s lips went down along her horn, and she could not prevent herself from sending her hooves into the air, hitting Valentine’s genitals with her knees. She grunted in an unrefined way while Valentine was speeding up, finding a rhythm.

Then she heard a whine that wasn’t hers. Misty jumped and lift her head up violently, sending her horn at the bottom of Valentine’s throat, who let out a suffocated rumbling and got her mouth off of the horn before vomiting her breakfast onto the grass. Indifferent to her friend’s distress, Misty sprang on a close bush and directly landed upon a pink filly who, caught red-hoofed, didn’t even get the occasion to try to escape.

"Aaaaaaaah! Don’t kill me!" yelled the filly.

"Pinchy!" roared Misty, mad with rage and shame. "What the heck are you doing here?" She glanced at her friend, who was spitting the last wastes of her stomach, and she suddenly fest terribly guilty.

"I was just… snif… trying tu put an end to my sorrow into loneliness… snif… and I heard you and…" Pinchy’s lips started shaking, and she broke out into tears.

Misty sighed. Of course. Barely hidden by a bush, it was bound to happen. Well, it was better that it was her than Twilight Twinkle, or worse, the Governess. She left Pinchy and came crouching near Valentine, who glared at her, and Misty could only avert her gaze, embarrassed. The three unicorns stayed here for a moment, silent, stricken with shame and desperate to have their moment of privacy spoiled that way.

Misty broke the silence and pretended to pay attention to the annoying pink filly. "So, what makes you sad to the point of wandering around alone in the cold?"

Pinchy sighed and hung her head low. "All those fillies in the dormitory only talk about their future princes charming and… and I know that I won’t find any because… snif… I’m ugly and I don’t know how to behave myself and…" She sniffed for the thousand time and fought not to cry. "… and I miss my mum even if it’s her fault I’m like that and…"

Valentine was listening with growing interest. She had indeed heard the staff talk about a unicorn wasn’t pure-blooded, enrolled into the boarding school by her aunt, a poor earth pony of Ponyville, and it was even said that that unicorn suffered from the defects induced by the alcoholism of her commoner of a mother, who had disappeared in mysterious circumstances. A poor excuse for a pony, and it had to ruin the magical moment she had meant to share with Misty. Really…

Far off, a bell rang. Sick at heart, the three fillies left the garden, ready to undergo the terrible hardship that were the departures.

Chapter 9 : The Asylum

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Chapter 10 : He Who Was Fueling Passions

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