The Esoteric Rites of Darkness

by Cynewulf

Rating: mature
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Main 6, Romance, Princess Luna, Drama, Sex
Length: 7526

Twilight has secrets that she prefers be kept that way.

Twilight has secrets that she prefers be kept that way.

Luna, however, is already aware. And when Twilight's desires and fantasies begin to intrude upon her peace of mind, the Night's Sovereign steps in to offer Twilight what she perhaps most desperately needs: a safe way to experiment. For what happens in dreams, it's said, stays there. Maybe.

Art by backlash91 his DA account
Contains or will contain: Various things that generally fall under the broad umbrella of BDSM. Specifically: bondage, impact play, power exchange, pet play, etc.
Part of the Monophysite Quartet. Celestia Isn't Real, Ageless, Or Celestia Plays Dice With the Universe, Have You Considered My Servant, Twilight?

Published 2016-06-15 03:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-01-07 00:14:04 UTC

An Invitation In the Darkness

Clocks marked the boundaries of hours because without them time is an illusion or a metaphor to describe undemarcated Experience. Twilight knew this somewhere beneath her conscious thought. It is what drove her mounting frustration with the noise. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. No, not mounting. Beside her bookishness there is at least a small bit of her that remembers the Sparkles were once a noble house. Tick. Tock. She refused to be lured into passion by something as mundane as a clock.

Tick.

Tock.

Sleep eluded her and she was both resentful of it and ashamed of the irrationality of being resentful of it. Why should she resent a concept? It was not as if she had lost much by the difficulty. No, if anything she enjoyed the deep night. She’d gotten some long overdue reading done. Gotten a week ahead on her reports and paperwork. Had much needed time to herself.

The little fireplace in her study flared and Twilight eagerly grabbed the scroll that emerged in her magic’s hold.

The other good thing about her recent bouts with insomnia? Chess with Luna.

She opened the scroll and read the move for Luna’s turn at the top of the missive as she walked over to the little side table in her study. She carefully mirrored Luna’s own board and then considered the board for a few minutes. Yes, her plan was more or less intact. She made her own move and sent her answer before noticing that there was more than a simple direction in the message.

I have quite enjoyed matching wits with you, Twilight Sparkle. I am curious, however, as to what the youngest of the realm’s Princesses is doing at such late hours these last few nights. Consider myself interested professionally, being that I am mistress of more than mere darkness.

Twilight’s brow furrowed.

She wrote another message and threw it into the little sending fire. No need to wake Spike just to spend the night sending chess moves. The little guy needed his sleep.

It’s nothing. Just a bit of insomnia.

And it was, wasn’t it? Late nights where she wore herself out with books or idle thoughts until sleep came, late but always it came. Books and idle thoughts… Peculiar thoughts. Thoughts that would not leave, no matter what arguments Twilight brought against them.

That was an interesting thing she had noticed about herself over time, how peculiar her thoughts grew once the sun retreated. It wasn’t if there was any sudden shift. It was simply… some things which were unthinkable at noon were all too thinkable around midnight. An image that horrified at noon, one that might repulse her with its affront to decency, suddenly seemed less awful and more palatable. Very palatable.

She swallowed and returned to Hippolyta in Furs. It was an absolutely idiotic thing to be reading at the moment, if she were honest. She would only fuel these thoughts. And yet.

Every page compelled her onward. She licked her lips and continued--

“Be then my slave, and know what it means to be delivered into the hooves of a mare.”

--and smirked softly to herself. There was something about the book that evoked in her feelings and expressions which the Twilight of the daytime would find alien. She remembered standing before the mirror one night and imagining herself there also, herself twinned, as one watched and one… performed. The half-feigned fear, the delicious uncertainty, on the face of one and predatory smile of the other.

Somewhere on the liminal boundary between fillyhood and adulthood, Twilight had found herself drawn to strange things. Specifically, the idea of having a pony at her mercy. No, more than that, the idea of a pony who would offer themselves to her mercy. Of course, inquisitive as she was, there had been an investigation of sorts into the why, but there had never been a satisfying answer. The idea had just refused to be examined.

Well. Examined in a more scientific way. She spent plenty of time examining the idea of a beautiful mare beneath her hooves in other ways, in the small hours of the night. And as she grew older? Sometimes they came off-white and well-spoken, or brightly colored and flying and brash, until she tamed them. And then the next morning she would feel strange in their company and resolve not to think such things again. She would burn with shame because it was so indecent.

The thing about shame was that it built over time if you held on to it, and it became something else. Where others might find that the feeling warned them off such behavior, her unease had only served to make her ever more powerful fantasies seem more appealing. It was the forbidden fruit which tasted sweetest upon the vine, after all. A slightly embarrassing daydream about a beautiful friend was just that, slightly embarrassing. But the idea of that being shameful and secret?

And so on. Again and again. Vexing, to be sure, but always private and hidden. And perhaps she was projecting, a bit. No, not projecting. What was it called? She was too hard on herself.

She was drawn back into the roiling of the book again. Severe Look, caught again in the baleful sight of--

Another move. She almost growled as she looked up, but then forgot her irritation. Perhaps it was better this way. She could perhaps send a slightly longer letter, spread out the reply. It might be just what she needed. A little bit of time. She knew what came next. It was not the first time she had read this brief novella in the late hours of the night.

Knight to c-4.

Now, let us speak honestly, young Twilight. I am mistress of many things, as you know. The glorious night. Shadows. Dreams. Desires. Yes, you will pause, but it was true in the old days.

Do you avoid sleep, or does it avoid you? I begin to think perhaps it is mostly the former. Tell me, Twilight Sparkle, what you hope to accomplish by this.

Twilight sighed. That was the problem of trying both to sink into lust and trying to distract oneself from it. Either would be fine, but being of two minds was intolerable.

She marked her place in the book and retrieved yet another bit of stationary. She wrote.

I just have things on my mind. It’s nothing world-shattering, I promise. Just… some issues. Personal baggage. It really is nothing.

She levitated the letter back and watched it burn in the sending fire.

She did not return to her reading. She realized that she hadn’t made a move, but before she could return to the board Twilight was struck by an odd realization. What had Luna’s letter said, exactly? She turned back to it. That was it. Desire. What an odd thing to bring up. Especially to Twilight. What could--

She pushed away from her desk with a sudden stab of fear.

Certainly not. Hadn’t Luna once told her that she rarely ventured into dreams except where there was need? What need would she have to interfere in… in those dreams? In the ones that, yes, she was avoiding. The ones that had started up again. Except now they had a specific object, didn’t they? Those old fantasies, dreams and imaginations before the mirror and between her sheets and on the couch late at night when she was alone.

Twilight swallowed and shook her head. Nonsense. Luna didn’t--

Another missive. She snagged it and tore it open.

Let us cease this dance. Would you kindly open your window?

Twilight sat still as could be, reading those two sentences over and over. She shivered and stood. With automatic skill she opened the window and let in the night, and then she waited. A few minutes passed in utter silence apart from the slight crackling of her forgotten fire. She did not look at the window but stood beside her desk focusing on the shadows that the fire cast. It was dark. Not totally so, but mostly. There was a lamp on her desk. Candles unlit here and there, more for smell and ambience than for light. The fire. Dancing lights on the walls. Anything but the window.

She heard the rush of wings and took a deep breath.

“Hello, Princess Luna.”

“I shall refer to you by your title if you refer to me by mine, friend.”

Twilight smirked, again automatically. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“That they do.”

Luna strode into her vision. She was, as always, beautiful. Absolutely stunning. Even diminished as she had been when first Twilight had laid eyes on her, her first thought had been--Stars, but she is beautiful. Had it been those wide, expressive eyes? Perhaps. The way she curled in on herself, near tears? That picture had bothered her for awhile, in more ways than one. It had a realism about it that her fantasies of a tamed and submissive Rainbow Dash had lacked, a certain truth of feeling--

No stop it. There had to be a hard line between this disease of her mind and the waking world. Left to herself in the unhappy hours after midnight, her thoughts grew strange.

Luna had always been stunning. She was still, and Twilight quailed before her stern look. She sat on her haunches in front of the desk. Her starry mane billowed with no wind to move it. This was a creature of darkness in her element, and Twilight felt for a moment like a rabbit caught in a vice. It was a nice feeling. It was also a very unwelcome one.

“What brings you here this late?” Twilight asked.

Luna raised an eyebrow. “Did I not express my desire to move beyond games? Let me be frank with you. I’ve seen your dreams. I know what you want.”

Twilight did not panic. She did not deny anything. She cocked her head to the side and she lied. “I’m not sure I understand what you mean.”

Luna’s glory seemed to flare. Her face hardened. “Speak not your deceptions to me, young Twilight! Wouldst thou presume to slip past Us with thy casual mockeries of Our power?”

“I-I don’t know what you me--”

“If thou… If you were to dream,” she began again, intensely but quieter now, “then we would know. Not details, without need or cause, but we have felt more dreams than could ever be counted in the most simple of ways. You cannot hide from us in the Aether.”

“What dreams have you seen?” It tumbled out of her in a rush. Her legs felt a little weak. Her face burned. Three dozen images flashed before her eyes and she saw… she saw things she would rather her friends and family not see unadulterated.

There was a pause. Some of the fire in Luna’s eyes died away and she smiled. If anything, her annoyance had become something almost sultry. Twilight tried very hard not to think of it as such. She also failed.

“What dreams,” she echoed. “My, what dreams you have.”

Twilight swallowed.

“Oh. Those dreams.”

“Yes. Those.”

Twilight took a deep breath. Then another. “All of them?”

She was already calculating just how much damage there would be. Luna would want to know what these strange urges

“Many of them. And to forestall your inevitable question: I was not merely snooping on your unshielded and private thoughts. You all but shouted your desires at me. In fact, the first time, I was so caught off guard that I rushed into your dreaming blind, thinking you had been calling for my aid. I found that you were decidedly not doing so only afterwards.”

“I… which one?”

“Rarity.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.” Luna began to move about her office. Only now did Twilight notice that her fire had gone out. The lamp on her desk was on, but now it was alone. Luna had faded back into the shadows, and perhaps that was right. Twilight felt hunted. Cornered. “One could say that I grow weary of your aetheric shouting, young Princess, but that would be dishonest of me to speak. No, I am here because I am utterly delighted in what I have found in you.”

“Delighted?”

What tone was this? Soft, and yet it promised. Her eyes glittered in the dark like stars. “Yes. Absolutely delighted. I have found a kindred spirit. It has been far, far too long. Tell me, do you know much of the secrets of my court? Have they been unearthed by the long years?”

“No,” Twilight said. “I mean, I gather they haven’t. All I found was--”

“Records,” Luna said, and chuckled. “Good, I did my work well, then.”

“Your… work?”

“What if I told you that these… dreams of yours, especially the ones that I know you fabricated artificially, were not so foreign to me? That I, in fact, presided over the rites that were their precursor in a more heroic age? Hm? I had been wondering how the secret arts of love had progressed in my absence, but I had not yet sought out likeminded individuals. And here you have fallen onto my back midflight, as it were.”

“You… You’re talking about…” Twilight shook her head. “We’re talking about the same dreams, right?”

“The one I stepped into involved a rather fascinating spectacle. Rarity had a suppressor on her horn, of course. Eyes blindfolded. A bit in her mouth… I thought the hogtie was a bit crude, but isn’t that part of the merriment of it? I confess I stayed awhile. I did so enjoy the music she made for us both--and, for that matter, I found myself strangely moved to see your delight in her abandonment. Even in your dreams you cared. I trust you do not mind.”

Twilight shivered. Part of her wanted to be horrified.

The rest of her, the majority of her, was remembering that exact scene. That exact sight. Rarity, helpless on her bed, the strange and intoxicating mixture of ecstasy and worry in those beautiful, expressive eyes. How they had shone! The dismay had not all been feigned, but beneath it the comfort of an ultimate safety, that this space was a fantastic one...

It had been a long dream.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t think I do,” she said evenly. The idea of Luna watching invisibly all the while… no, she’d called her there, apparently. Accidentally, yes, but still. She would deal with that later.

“But, I had planned to keep silent a bit longer,” Luna continued. Her glittering eyes moved now, back and forth. Twilight watched them. “Just a time to watch and be sure. There were, even in my days, young mares and young bucks who played at such things but had not the stomach or the heart for true indulgence… no, true commitment to the art, and to another pony. Or several. I wished to be sure before I approached you. And then I saw your last dream. I tasted its artificial air, acrid on my tongue, knew you had crafted this one with the crude lore my sister’s lone rule produced. I saw her. Mind you, only for a second. But…”

“I wasn’t sure. I had started worrying about whether or not you would notice dreams I tampered with using Sign Weaver’s Theorem.” Twilight bit her lower lip. “But I wanted to do it anyway.”

“And would you still like to? What if I told you that I could arrange for such a thing, hm?”

“I… I guess you could, couldn’t you?” Twilight said softly. “Something not created by me would be… would be much better, I think. My versions were so predictable. They never felt satisfying.”

She saw it immediately. The vision, the one that precipitated all others. Herself. And… Celestia. And Luna could make that, couldn’t she? She could create such a thing perfectly with centuries of eye for detail.

Night’s soveriegn lady hummed. “Satisfying… no, it would not be, would it? Shall I play my hand so early?” Before Twilight could ask, she cast a spell.

There was only the tiniest spark along her horn to light her up in the inky black, and then Twilight found she could no longer feel the floor. Panic wedged its way into the forefront of her mind, and she flailed.

But something--somepony--caught her. She was wrapped up tightly in a firm embrace, gentle in that it did not hurt, vicelike in that she knew immediately there was no escape. Her panic died immediately and was replaced with a feeling of safety. This was Luna. She knew it was Luna, only Luna would have caught her.

And so it was Luna, for she spoke now in Twilight’s ear as the darkness shaped itself into new shapes. “You are not dreaming. Yet. But I have decided to lay my full design before you, as recompense for your earlier deed.”

Twilight saw… herself. She paced her study. She poked at books. She scribbled on paper and then tore her notes to shreds or wadded them up and tried to sink yet another trashball in the basket. She missed. Again. Hours and hours.

Time moved on. Her usual features seemed to go slack with time. Her eyes were not bright. She looked, it seemed, as exhausted and unwell as she felt.

“Perhaps you can begin to understand,” Luna was saying. “This cannot stand. Something is eating away at you, and instead of meeting your foe head on as a Princess should you have simply given it power over you and waited the day of your demise. Why, it is almost blasphemous that a mare of your stature would be brought low by nothing more than her own mind at war with itself. Truly, it is a sad sight. I want to help you.”

“Help?”

“Help. I offer you the aid of… a safe place. I recognize some of this turmoil--I know some of these frustrations. Speak plainly: for all of your dreaming, have you laid with another mare?”

Twilight was grateful she couldn’t raise her hoof to smack herself across the face, for her own sake. “For the love of Celestia, really?”

“Tis but a question.”

“Oh Song and Stars, yes. Yes, technically.”

“Technically?”

“It was…” she grumbled the rest.

“Unsatisfying?” Luna asked, mirroring her earlier thought.

“I guess.”

“Hm. But not for… ah. So it is not merely that. There are a few ailments I find lurking in you. The first is that you have desires of various sorts that are harmful. Not because they are wicked but because you have made them monsters by your own fretting. Is it truly such a sin in this time to find one’s friends beautiful? Your thoughts have been chaste for the most part, have they not? Outside of the small hours of our night…”

“This cannot be a conversation I am having.”

Luna chuckled. “It is very much happening. Now, moving beyond your own unfounded worries over yourself… there are other things. My proposal is that you cease this worrisome trend of self-flagellation and instead explore these images. These thoughts you’ve had, these dreams… yes, I know they concern you. Some of them rightly so.”

Twilight wanted to hide. “Luna, I can’t just--”

But she was shushed into a sullen silence. “Listen to me first, friend. Explore them. All of them, from the ecstatic to the grim, under my aegis. I will be with you when you desire me to be, and my protection shall be yours regardless. Nothing can hurt you this way. Nothing will happen but that you shall see yourself reflected and be able to understand. Do you truly think that you can grow without first facing yourself?”

Twilight had no answer. She hung limply, watching the beleaguered image of herself continue to avoid sleeping or thinking, trying to focus on…

On anything that wasn’t her libidinous daydreams. “It’s alright? I mean… I know you probably won’t tell anyone, but it’s not going to… to bleed over, will it? There’s feeling freer and more at home in one’s skin and then there is radically changing behavior out of the blue. Can I really indulge my fantasy without becoming a different pony? I like being the pony I am.”

“Only if you wish to change,” Luna said. “I certainly will not force change upon you. For that matter, I will offer you a sign of grace. I had planned to offer this regardless, but hear me now: when you are within a dream crafted by my touch, you shall find a pendant upon your neck on a silver chain in the shape of the waning moon. If you feel that you are in danger, that you have been driven beyond a place where you can feel comfortable or at the very least safe, then you would simply crush it into the ground with your hoof. Destroy my sigil in some way, and then the dream shall end immediately. There is no need to worry about some sort of corruption, but if you ever felt that the fantasy has gone too far…”

“It’s a safeword. I guess? Except one that I don’t need to be able to speak to use. I’m assuming you would probably be designing things that no matter what, I would have a way to use it? And now that I’m thinking about it and rambling already, there’s probably something a little cathartic about being able to smash it.”

“Yes.”

Twilight swallowed nervously. She hadn’t expected this, never this, not in a million years. She felt hot all over, as if any moment might see her slick with anxious sweat. But it was true, and the more she considered Luna’s words she found them without much room for her to maneuver out of the trap. She was running herself ragged with recriminations over private fantasies. She had always wanted to experience so many things, and when she was too shy to pursue those desires it left her frustrated and feeling weak. The frustration fueled further desire… it was a cycle. An unfortunate one.

Perhaps she could break it. If she could just… taste. Just a taste, and then she could put all of this strange, weird obsession behind her and just be normal. No more daydreams about bindings, no idle and indecent thoughts. Just… calm again. Or something.

And, if she were honest--if honesty was what she was going to commit to, with herself--she was a little turned on thinking about what Luna might craft for her. The slightest touch of Luna, still covering her, clutching her as she sat into that darkness peering, was electric. The touch of any pony was electric, interesting, but Luna was something she knew so little about. She was a great question mark. Twilight had always found mystery enticing. So, she took a deep breath, and said--

“I’ll do it.”

Author's Note

So, that happened.

This is the first and stranger half of the experiment.

Twilight will not always be a reliable narrator.

Have fun!

First Night: Flowers For the Blind

They did not begin that night.

In fact, all that happened that night was that Luna left an excited, bewildered, and slightly nervous Twilight to her rest. She insisted on it, even. Twilight needed sleep, and Luna promised her in a hasty note sent from her own court that she would ensure her friend had a restful night.

And she did, wonder of wonders. She had laid down in her large new bed expecting to toss and turn and was dead asleep in seconds.

Twilight woke the next morning with an abundance of energy, the kind of waking that makes one feel that suddenly the world is a place to be plundered. Coffee seemed excessive, and for the first time in a long time she found herself skipping caffeine altogether and plunging right into the day. Paperwork flew by. Appointments were made. Reports were written and reviewed. She even had time to banter with Spike as he came and went, trying to keep up with her energy.

She’d forgotten all about Luna until late in the afternoon.

It began, amusingly, much like their last conversation had. Twilight, having effectively finished with work through the next day, had just sat down in her study with tea when the letter arrived.

Or, rather, she found it already there waiting for her when she sat. Twilight stopped dead in mid-sip when it caught her eye, as if Luna herself might casually stroll through the door. She didn’t, of course. Twilight was alone. Spike was downstairs, cooking, and she hadn’t seen him in half an hour.

She bit her lip as she set the cup down and eyed the letter. It just kept… being there. Waiting. So, of course, she quickly grabbed it up with her magic and tore it open.

To Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Magic and Protector of the Central Plains,

I hope this missive finds you well. I penned it shortly after you retired, but put it on a delay, that you might not be disturbed in your duties. If you are still working this late, then I will be quite put out with you for filling my wonderful night with the gross and brash business of the day.

Now that that is over with!

You have not forgotten what I said to you, I hope. The dream that you will receive tonight, unless you choose now to cry off from this enterprise, has already been crafted. I have put quite a bit of thought not only on what you said, but on what you did not say. I have seen this species of anxiety before, and it is…

Well. I would say that it is easily cured, but the truth is that much relies upon you, Twilight. I can and I shall provide you with the forum and opportunity to explore new things, but what you make of them is ultimately your own choice.

In case you have forgotten, you will wear my sign within the Dreaming. It will cling to you, by and by, and will not be easily parted from your person. If you wish to leave the Dream, if something upsets or troubles you at all, you need only destroy it and I shall free you from my creation. It will not offend me (neither the destruction nor the retreat) and I shall not presume to intrude upon your reasons if you do not wish it.

So, I have reminded you of that… and of our talk. (It was not the strangest I had that night, but I will tell you of the other conversation another time perhaps.) If you wish to bow out, merely write me back in our usual fashion, and I shall not speak of any of this again until you do so. Otherwise?

Why, you need only sleep.

Luna

Twilight read the letter twice.

Then, carefully and with as much calm as she could manage, she placed it in her desk. And then immediately, frantically dug it out and unfurled it. Her eyes ran over the page again, and she bit her lower lip.

No, if she merely put it in her desk like any other letter she would not sleep well. It would be there, waiting, existing, easy for any passing pony or dragon babe to open and read on a whim. If they read there would be questions. Several questions. Several open-ended questions that would certainly lead to other questions, and then—

And then the paper incinerated and Twilight felt a bit safer. That had been a reasonable response.

She rose, then sat again, then fidgeted with her tea cup, then drank a bit of tea, and then sat back.

It was going to be a long wait ‘till bed.

In the manner of dreams, the beginnings were murky. Events do not proceed, but simply are. One did not come into a place but had always been there, and the world was not a line but a ray.

So it was that, with no context or preamble, Twilight found herself in mid stride, next to a bed.

It was a bedroom that she found herself in. Her bedroom, to be precise, spacious and empty. Or at least, in the waking world it was more or less empty. Just a bed, a vanity, shelves, a window leading to a balcony. Nothing extraordinary.

But this iteration of her bedroom was not that way at all. The candles, for one, were new. She usually preferred to slink off easily into the dark when it was time to sleep, but the illumination had a sort of haunting effect.

This is a dream, Twilight thought, still mid-step. I’m here. Luna… Luna made this.

Her feeble, experimental attempts at shaping her own dreams had never produced something so vivid, so solid. So detailed! The flames flickered like true flames! The night sky out her window was resplendent! The drapery was even correct.

Grinning, her purpose almost forgotten, Twilight tried using magic. It had always felt off before, not quite right, a victim of her simulacrum’s poor construction. But now it felt natural. No; better. It was not the usual warmth of her own magic that she felt now but a far deeper reservoir. For a moment she wondered if this was closer to what it was to be Luna, to feel thaumic energy as Luna did.

She wanted to try everything, see everything.

But before she could take another step, there was a soft popping that drew her vision towards the door.

A letter flew in, as if carried by a breeze, looping and spiralling until it came to rest gently at her hooves. Twilight looked down at it and blinked, puzzled. It did nothing more. But she did see the Lunar insignia, the crescent moon waxing, emblazoned on the envelope, and so she picked it up in her magic and opened the missive.

It was brief. Very brief.

Dear Twilight, I can feel your enthusiasm from my perch. I will share my arts with you by and by. For now, you ought to turn around.

Twilight blinked again. And that was when she heard it. Or rather, Twilight heard her.

The first sound was the rustling of sheets. The second was a soft moaning of some pony…

Twilight turned quickly.

She was there. A beautiful mare that Twilight recognized instantly as Fleur De Lis. She was propped up, a few pillows supporting her, and her limbs were bound to the bed itself with what looked like rope in the half-light.

She was on her stomach, all but prostrated, tail tied up in a tight bun and accented with a bow. The bonds had forced her legs apart, revealing her sex. Twilight swore, as she stared in a kind of awe, that it glistened in the candle light. She could smell it now, that ever-so-faint sickly sweetness.

Fleur’s head lolled to the side, and only now Twilight saw the kerchief tied around her head. A blindfold, cutting off sight, that most immediate of senses.

Fleur groaned again. “Mistress?”

It took a few seconds for it to register in Twilight’s brain over her own startled libidinous response that Mistress wasn’t just anypony. It was her. It was Twilight Sparkle.

“Mistress? Where are you?”

Twilight blanked. Thoughts simply ceased to come.

Fleur was beautiful. She knew this well. She’d thought it the moment she’d first laid eyes on the mare in Canterlot. Tall, delicate in the way that was no impediment, like a portrait perfect for hanging in some ornate hall.

She licked her lips.

She’s calling for me. She wants me to… Twilight grinned. It was a shaky grin, an unsure grin, but it was what it was. She strolled over to the bed, heart hammering in her chest. She’d been… not ready, but excited. Hell, she was excited now.

“Mistress? I miss your touch…” Fleur’s voice was musical. Different than she’d remembered, yes. Deeper, rougher but not in a way which displeased her. She did not speak like she was in lofty company. She spoke like a mare in urgent need.

Twilight wanted to hear her say more things.

“I’m here, my pet,” she said, stumbling a moment over what exactly to call her. Fleur, just her name? Some nickname or pet name? She was glad, suddenly, for the blindfold, that Fleur couldn’t see her hesitation. That was right, wasn’t it? She only heard the voice. Only Twilight’s voice mattered.

She sat on the edge of the bed, by her newfound pet’s side, and stroked a timid hoof along her back. But Fleur would not see her hesitation, or the way she took a breath before diving into even this harmless contact.

Fleur smiled and made light, pleased sounds as Twilight stroked her back, her shoulders, down towards her flanks. Just feeling, just touching her like this made Twilight bite her lower lip in excitement. She wanted to do more. She wanted to hear Fleur beg and plead and she wanted to hear how happy she was when Twilight gave her what she wanted.

But what? All of her fantasy, and now she had a mare at her mercy, helpless and bound, who wanted her touch so eagerly, and Twilight was too flummoxed to decide what to do with the prize.

Fleur being blindfolded didn’t just help hide Twilight’s uncertainty. It also heightened the meaning in each touch. Each contact came without warning, as a sudden rush of sensation, and Twilight loved her cute little gasps of surprise. She would touch some new place, just anywhere at all, and hear Fleur’s breath catch. She could make her do this. She could elicit these small responses and it made her…

“Mistress? How might I serve you? I’ll do anything that you like… I can bear anything my mistress wishes.”

Twilight loved the timbre of that voice. It was the subservient ideal she had always fantasized. It wasn’t like the shadows of ponies in her own experiments in the dreaming. It was warm and alive.

And like that, she felt something, a warmth of her own, in her chest. She grinned again and she hummed, slipping into her part in the play between them. “Anything?” She tried to say it in a suitably sultry way on a last-minute whim. “And… If she told you not to make a single sound, can you keep yourself from crying out? Answer me truthfully.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“If I were to, oh, spank you with my hoof, would you ask me to stop?” She bit her lip again, unable to stop the habitual nervous tick. She wanted to hear her say it, for several reasons. But mostly, Twilight just wanted to indulge. She already saw herself in her mind’s eye, punishing the beautiful rounded flanks underneath her hoof. She wanted to hear Fleur say—

“Yes, mistress; anything that you wish to do.”

“I want you to ask me to spank you,” Twilight said, just managing to keep her voice from betraying her own eagerness, knowing that it sounded stilted and awkward, but she was too eager to care. If she stopped she would lose the feeling. “And I want you to count.”

“Please, mistress. Please spa—ah!”

Twilight had already moved.

She didn’t know how she did it. One second, her hoof rested on Fleur’s soft flank, just above her cutie mark, and the next she had already delivered the first blow. It was loud in the otherwise silent room, a great cannonade-smack and then a sharp cry that was shock mixed with pain and something decidedly aroused as Fleur squirmed for a moment beneath her hoof.

Her foreleg and frog of her hoof stung a bit. But Twilight didn’t care. She was absorbed.

“One!” Fleur cried out.

Twilight hummed approvingly. And then she struck again, her hoof connecting with a hearty slap.

“Louder!”

“Two!”

Was it the sound that fed her growing need? The sensation that snaked up her foreleg? Was it the cute little cries—

“Ah! T-Three!”

—that fed her need? Already she wanted to push a hoof down between her haunches and attend to herself.

“Four!”

She almost reached down. But it occurred to her where she was and she was doing. Why do it herself? She had Fleur right here, and Fleur had a perfectly good mouth, didn’t she? One more, for completion’s sake. She could almost feel Fleur’s tongue already.

“Five!”

“That’s enough,” Twilight said. “You’ve done well. But I have something new you can do for me.”

She slid off the bed for a moment, coming around to Fleur’s head. Twilight mounted the bed, avoiding her pet’s long, slender horn, and positioned herself comfortably against the headboard, legs spread apart. Fleur waited for her, still and ready, and the only sound for a moment was their breathing.

“Show your mistress how much you love to please her. Scoot up.”

Fleur moved until her face was buried between Twilight’s legs, and then Twilight gently nudged her down with just a touch of magic until she felt hot breath right on her sex. She shivered, and opened her mouth to tell Fleur to begin, but her partner needed no encouragement.

Instead, she groaned softly as Fleur’s tongue ran along her folds, weaving back and forth. Twilight felt the edge of teeth on her inner thigh as Fleur gasped for breath open-mouthed and dived back in, buried face-first, and she squeezed her legs around Fleur’s head.

Her pet continued, lapping at her until Twilight’s leghold was beginning to twitch all around her head, and then she moved up, until her tongue swirled around Twilight’s clit and her legs spasmed.

And then Fleur stopped, pulling back slightly. She was probably going to ask some inane question about Twilight being alright, but Twilight didn’t have time for that, so she nudged her head back down in place again.

“More,” she said simply, a little out of breath, tossing aside the careful, fragile manner for just a second. “More, like that—oh, oh right there, just like that—”

Fleur had gone back to making little circles around her clit with soft, muffled moans that drove Twilight crazy. Twilight shivered and gasped as she felt herself growing closer and pushed Fleur’s head harder, grinding the mare’s nose against her sex. Fleur responded by sucking fiercely on her mistress's clit, her moans vibrating the sensitive bud. Twilight tensed up and cried out in pleasure as orgasm overtook her, feeling her body flood with pleasure as her limbs went limp. Fleur eagerly lapped at the juices flowing. Twilight twitched and moaned as Fleur’s actions caused her nose to rub against her clit.

When thought came back to her, Twilight found herself still propped up, with Fleur’s head still between her legs, both of them panting in unison. She tried to formulate some… anything, really, something to say. But nothing seemed appropriate. Until Fleur moved her head just so, and her slender horn rubbed along the inside of Twilight’s thigh so that she shivered.

Twilight decided to stop thinking, just for a moment. She reached out and stroked Fleur’s mane, and said, “You did well. You’ve been a good girl, Fleur, such a good girl.” Fleur responded only with soft, pleased little sounds, and Twilight continued stroking her mane.

Bit by bit, she replayed the dream over in her mind, but with a very different feeling about it. It was a calmer feeling, really. The things that she’d read about and thought about… well, this wasn’t entirely the same, but it was a step. It was farther down the road towards those things than she had gone before, and…

It was nice.

The calmer she became, the harder it was to do much more than continue stroking Fleur’s mane and praising her occasionally, until at last she closed her eyes and hummed, and heard a voice like bells calling her name.

*

“Twilight.”

She stirred, groaning a bit as she turned over in the luxurious bed. It was too early for ponies to be calling her, wasn’t it? Surely they could wait until she’d rolled out onto the floor and found something resembling breakfast before things needed to be signed or looked at or whatever it is… whoever it was wanted. Whose voice had that been? It sounded so familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

Twilight laid still in her bed, not yet opening her eyes, waiting for the voice to repeat itself so she could identify its owner, but there was nothing. Just the normal morning stillness of her own bedchamber and the very distant noise of Ponyville waking up.

When she’d waited long enough, Twilight opened her eyes, hoping for a glimpse of whoever was calling her.

She realized two things, right away. The first was that she was awake, in her own bed, no candles or Lunar letters or any of the trappings of the night. The second was that she was alone, and the rest of the bed where she’d not slept was smooth.

Twilight sat up and looked down at the space beside her, not thinking so much as regarding. Carefully, as if it might change in an instant, she reached out and touched the bed. Somehow, she expected the “dream” around her to shatter and find all of the night’s activities evidenced, but there was nothing. Just her. Just Twilight Sparkle and her vivid, life-like memory.

And, it was a bit sad to wake up alone. But more than that she felt strangely giddy. She’d done it! Or, rather, Luna had done it. And it had been amazing.

It was about this time, laying back with a smile on her face, that she felt the letter on her pillow. A letter. That would mean—

Her magic grabbed the letter and tore it out from beneath her head. It was heavy, too heavy for just paper. Holding it aloft, Twilight saw the Lunar insignia again and eagerly freed the missive from its little formal prison, dropping not only folded stationery but also a small silver crescent moon attached to a chain necklace that plopped rather annoyingly on her chest. She only paused to look down at it for a moment, and then her focus was on the letter itself.

Dear Twilight,

I hope that you feel rested this morning, but more than that I hope that you feel the first taste of true satisfaction. Because what you have done is but a taste, after all. We have much ground to cover yet, and time enough for it all. But for now we have done plenty.

Should you wish to discuss last night, you know when and where to find me. Regardless, I shall be contacting you soon.

I would ask how you fared, but I could feel it from my perch, and I am glad that you were pleased. Remember that you are safe with me.

Also remember, should you wish to do some Dreaming of your own, that I really am only a letter away… Or, if it be too early, you might use my medal. I am sure that an intellect such as yours can ponder out its workings.

Yours,

Luna

Twilight swallowed, and then picked up the medal itself and looked at it. Just a little silver moon, that was all. Silver, or pewter, she always confused the two. It wasn’t as if she adorned herself that regularly, and their old house had utensils made of both.

“From Luna,” she said, turning it over and over. “To, what, get one off in the middle of the day?” Twilight laughed, because it was ridiculous, and made herself comfortable. But she slipped the necklace around her head all the same. Ridiculous, yes, but the touch of the medal on her skin still sent a little thrill on her.

“Maybe I’ll… Mm. Maybe I’ll take you up on that sometime,” she said, yawning, and drifted back to sleep.

Author's Note

Well I did it. Several more chapters to go. Not that I'm super nervous or anything! Or embarrassed. Or trapped in the End-Cold of the Mississippi times hoping that we do not freeze

MaskedFerret jokingly wrote this as a suggestion for what Luna should write in the end of this chapter:

I trust you enjoyed yourself last night? I greatly enjoyed crafting such an experience for you blah blah blah, let me know if you want to continue something somethng, suggestive joke
Love, Luna

P.S. Go hump my sister. She reaaalllyy needs it.

Now!

This story is officially revived again and will be proceeding. Look for more.