“Alright,” Twilight said teasingly. “Lick it as much as you want."
“Yippee!” Pinkie shouted, and started licking Twilight’s horn right away. In the back of her mind, she started counting the number of times so that she could see how good of a deal she had really gotten. One, two… Twilight had made her help clean the entire castle, but it was worth it for this.
And she was still going after a few minutes. “Er…Pinkie, I do still need to catch up on some of my research. Could you maybe wrap it up so that I can concentrate?” Twilight asked.
“Wrap it up?” Pinkie thought. “Wrap it up?!” But she was just getting started! Two hundred sixty-seven, two hundred sixty-eight… “You said that I could lick it ‘as much as I want,’” she replied. “And I want to keep licking it!”
“Fine, but is it alright if I at least…move you out of the way?” Twilight asked.
“What do you mean?” Pinkie asked in return.
“This,” Twilight said, and used her magic to levitate Pinkie to a point at which Pinkie was hovering over her, but still within tongue reach of her horn.
“Sure!” Three hundred forty-eight, three hundred forty-nine. Pinkie continued licking, soon coming to a delightful realization: “It’s even tastier when you’re using magic!” she exclaimed. “It’s like a million grapes all coming together to create the most amazing flavor sensation!”
“Alright, Pinkie. Have fun!” Twilight said. To be honest, she still felt kind of weird having a friend lick her horn like that, but at least it was consensual this time. She wondered how long Pinkie would actually keep it up.
An hour or two passed, and Twilight decided that she had better go run some errands before it got too late. After checking to see whether Pinkie was ready to stop licking her horn yet or not (she wasn’t), she left anyway, bringing Pinkie along with her. Several townsponies looked at the scene in confusion, but Twilight just shrugged and Pinkie just smiled. Eleven thousand eighty-seven, eleven thousand eighty-eight.
The first place that Twilight needed to stop was the post office. Though she would normally just have Spike send letters for her, he was off at some kind of “super-secret” dragon convention or something and wouldn’t be back for a week. In the meantime, she’d have to make do with the ordinary mail service. Not that this was a problem, of course – the Pony Express was very reliable, and very quick. Even though their main mailmare was rather clumsy sometimes, she was still very good at her job.
“Hi, Derpy!” Twilight said to her friend, hoofing over a few pieces of mail.
“Hi, Twilight! Uh…what’s she doing?” she asked, referring of course to Pinkie.
“Oh, I said she could lick my horn ‘as much as she wants,’ and she’s...taking me up on it,” Twilight said, her voice a little forced. It wasn’t really a big deal, but Pinkie was taking this to a much greater extreme than she had expected when she made the offer. Nevertheless, Pinkie had been a big help, and she had to follow through with her promise.
“Yep!” Pinkie said simply. Twelve thousand nine hundred seventy-nine, twelve thousand nine hundred eighty.
“Huh,” Derpy said. “Well, I’ve got to get back to sorting out today’s mail, but it was nice seeing you, Twilight!”
“You, too, Derpy!” Twilight replied happily, and set off toward the next place she needed to visit – Sweet Apple Acres. She was running pretty low on apples at home, and she hadn’t even seen Applejack since yesterday!
“Well, hi, there!” Applejack said. “And…uh…hi, there!” she repeated, directing the second greeting to Pinkie.
“Hi!” Pinkie said, still licking away. Sixteen thousand two, sixteen thousand three.
“How are you doing, Applejack?” Twilight asked.
“Mighty fine, thank you!” Applejack replied, still looking at Pinkie with her head tilted a little to the side. “You know, something about your horn seems a little different, but I can’t quite put my hoof on it…”
“It’s probably just covered in Pinkie’s saliva,” Twilight said, the pitch of her voice rising a little toward the end of the sentence.
“Hmm…” Applejack said. But she didn’t question the situation any further. Sixteen thousand three hundred eight, sixteen thousand three hundred nine.
After picking up more than enough apples – Applejack insisting on throwing in several for free on top of the ones that Twilight was already purchasing – Twilight headed toward her last stop, Rarity’s boutique. She had discovered a tear in one of her dresses a few days ago, and needed to have it mended. She didn’t have any particular reason that she needed the dress at the moment, anyway, but it was better to be safe than to be sorry.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, darling!” Rarity called from the back room of the boutique when Twilight arrived. When she walked out to see Twilight, she paused for a moment, her eyes wide, and then regained her composure. She may have something to say about this later, as friends, but while she was working, she didn’t feel as though it would be appropriate. Twenty thousand six hundred twenty-seven, twenty thousand six hundred twenty-eight.
“Here’s the dress I told you about,” Twilight said, levitating it from her left saddlebag (the one that wasn’t full of apples). It seemed oddly heavy for some reason, but she figured that she must just be tired from carrying Pinkie for so long.
“Let me see…” Rarity said. “Oh, I can have this fixed for you before you know it! It’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”
“There’s no need to rush,” Twilight said. But Rarity insisted.
Finally, Twilight headed back home to her castle. Carrying Pinkie was really starting to take a toll now, and she was actually panting a little from the exertion. “Okay, Pinkie. Are you about done, there?”
“Almost,” Pinkie said. “Just one more minute?” Twenty-four thousand eight hundred ninety-two, twenty-four thousand eight hundred ninety-three...
“Fine,” said Twilight. The minute seemed to pass excruciatingly slowly, and just as she was about to set Pinkie down, it felt like something broke within her mind. Her magic immediately shut down and Pinkie fell onto Twilight's back, causing her to collapse onto her stomach.
“Done!” Pinkie said happily.
“What the…” Twilight said. Then her eyes caught a sliver of something on the ground – the last, almost-completely-gone, thoroughly-licked piece of her horn. “What?!”
Twenty-five thousand.
