After I explained how things had gone wrong and there wasn't much to do except ride it out, Twilight and Moondancer went home, and Derpy and Trixie joined me and Celestia in bed. I was out cold soon after.

Some time in the middle of the night, I felt an urge to get up and stretch my legs. So I very carefully disentangled myself from the pile of boobs and limbs around me – slipping my enlarged cock from the arms of Trixie who was clinging to it like a body pillow – and stepped off the four-poster bed.

My feet landed in a field of stars.

I was dreaming.

With a chuckle, I looked around at the beautiful starry mindscape. I wondered why I wasn't dreaming of anything more specific these days. Maybe knowing that dreams were a real magical place in this world got me lucid a lot more often? I was certainly due for a stress dream, with everything I'd been through. Maybe Luna was protecting me from those. That was nice of her.

♪ Myyyyyy Little Ponyyyyyy... ♫

I laughed again. Yeah, this whole night definitely felt like the conclusion to a season of... the show...

An icy chill of panic took hold of my heart.

I had never told anyone else that I recognized all these ponies from the TV show back home. I had no way to explain that. Nor why I was in a sexual parody of that universe. It was irrelevant to my future, anyway, because I had been in the middle of watching Season 5 and I already had confirmation that we were past that. So I had been planning to take that secret to the grave.

But in a dream... Luna...!

I whipped my head around, looking frantically for the source of the outro music. I had to shut it off! I wasn't exactly thinking rationally, but that was my rationale.

Some ways out from the four-posted bed across the field of stars, there was a door standing freely. I ran towards it; the music got louder. I recognized the door as I got close – it was my bedroom door, from back on Earth. My computer was probably in there, with all the media I remembered from home. I had to shut the video off!

I slammed the door open.

Princess Luna, sitting at my computer, jumped. "Ahh!"

I stared. Sure enough, inside was a hazy recreation of my room back home. The part that was clearest was my old computer desk. The cheap dirty card table, the two bargain-bin widescreen monitors, the ten-year-old Windows desktop sitting on the floor beside it, the rolling office chair bought at a thrift store... Exactly as I remembered.

Luna, Princess Luna, the princess herself, was sitting awkwardly in my chair that was too small for her. With a wired Xbox controller in her hands.

On one monitor was a Windows Media Player window, where the My Little Pony credits were rolling. Next to that window was a web browser with Derpibooru as the active tab. On the other monitor was a game window with an item menu visible that, after a moment, I recognized as Dark Souls.

While I was staring and Luna was staring back at me, the Dark Souls character on the screen got waylaid by a barrage of poison arrow out of the darkness, too fast for the character to move out of the way. "Oh, shoot!" Luna reflexively cursed as the words 'YOU DIED' filled the screen in red.

I slowly raised my hand to my mouth, closed my eyes, and let out a long, quiet groan deep in my throat.

Luna swallowed awkwardly and then stood up very slowly out of my chair. Fixing me an uneasy grin, she said, "Worry not, I am not the real Luna, this is just a figment... of your... You're not buying this, are you?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my eyes. "How long?"

"Um... How long what?" Luna replied, feigning ignorance.

"Have you told anyone?"

"Well..."

I balled my hands into fists. "Luna. Have you been using MY brain, and all my memories of home and all its media, as your own personal entertainment system FOR A WHOLE MONTH?!"

It wasn't easy for a nine-foot regal alicorn to look cowed, but my outburst managed it. She flinched back a step, stared at me like a deer frozen in the headlights, and then finally said, "...Only three weeks..."

I stepped aside and pointed towards the bedroom door. "Out."

Luna immediately started for the door, but she protested. "I haven't told anyone about the entertainment program. Your secret is–"

"You were spying on my dreams and you didn't even report this important info?!"

She put her hands up as she ducked under the doorframe and turned around to face me. "Look, I only, ah, use it during my dream-duty breaks. It's been really helpful–"

I let out a huff of air through my nostrils. "We are going to talk about this later. But for now, you are grounded, young lady."

Luna's eyes widened in outrage. "'Young la–' You are– Thou art NOT my dad!"

"WELL MAYBE YOU NEED ONE!!" SLAM!

I slumped against the closed bedroom door and sighed.

"Fffuuucking ponies..."

Author's Note

Thank you very much for reading my second adult novel.

Pascal will (probably) return (eventually) in Universal Acceptance: Spring Break.

For now, I need a break and later a palate cleanser of some sort. Just some different kind of story that isn't UA.

With this, I've told the big stories in this world I really wanted/needed to get out there. I've still got more ideas, but Avatar had the really big important ones I felt a sequel needed to explore. I originally intended Avatar to be more slice-of-life, but there was a lot more drama left to resolve than I expected. Spring Break will eventually be my attempt to get more slice-of-life in Ponyville; we'll see how that goes.

At this point, I've been writing Universal Acceptance off and on for almost five years. Through some of the hardest mental, social, and financial events of my life so far. Going forward, I reserve the right to burn out or focus on myself without making writing smut a top priority. I've told the big important stories in this world I wanted to tell. I'm not cut out to write smut as my day job.

But it's still been fun, and barring something life-threatening I'll return to write some more in this world. I hope you've all enjoyed it too.

• AuNaturale