I was a bundle of nerves as we crossed the portal. I couldn’t believe what was about to happen. Out of reflex, I stepped to the side as I cleared the portal, my mane settling to one side and I lit my horn to adjust my glasses out of habit.
Sunset exited a moment later, giving her wings a fluff and rolling her neck. She looked at me and smiled, a blush covering her face as well.
“Well, there are two rather nervous fillies,” a voice said off to the side. I turned to see Princess Cadence slowly walking over, a small filly by her side. She smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“Sunshine, Sunshine,” she started.
“Ladybugs awake, Clap your hooves,” I continued.
“And give a little shake!” We finished, joined in by the young Flurry Heart, her resonant giggles a reminder of my own Flurry back home. I nuzzled the Princess of Love, knowing her preference of not being bowed to by friends and family outside of the court.
“I never get tired of seeing that,” Sunset said. “It’s so…”
“Heartwarming?” I suggested.
“Goofy,” she countered. “In a good way. You’ll probably pass it on to our kids, won’t you?”
That brought the nerves back up, but I was saved from comment by the Empress of the Crystal Empire.
“I’ll show you to the chief egghead in charge of research,” she said, grinned mischievously.
I frowned as we walked down the corridors.
“You mean you have more than one pony researching this for us?”
“Naturally,” she said, pushing a door open with her magic, revealing the Princess Twilight and Starlight Glimmer beyond, comparing notes before a large table with beakers, flasks, and the predictable stack of books off to one side.
“I couldn’t get her to stop when you told us you two were ready,” Cadence said as we walked in.
“So, in short,” Twilight said. “This should provide two total effects. There is, however, one small caveat.”
“What’s that?” Sunset asked.
“Unless our calculations are off,” Starlight said. “It will only work once on you. One pregnancy per pony. That doesn’t count against the possibilities of twins, but once you bear, it’s very likely you won't be able to bear again afterward.”
My heart fell a little. I felt a flow of warmth fill my mind.
It’s still viable, you know, Sunset said. We’ll take turns. Besides, do we really want to be outnumbered by our kids, considering what kind of lives we lead?
I smiled, nodding. “So, what else do we need to know?”
“Well,” Twilight said, removing her goggles as she turned off a burner. “The first effect it produces is a slight change to your natural cycles. You will be pulled into sync within a few hours, regardless of when your last heat was.”
I opened my mouth to correct the terminology but felt Sunset’s hoof cover my mouth.
“It’s better if you don’t interrupt, in my experience,” she said with a cheeky grin.
“Now, once you've been put into sync with each other,” Twilight continued as though nothing had happened. “It will trigger a change in the ova cells of the one that didn’t drink the potion intended for the one to carry the foal, making them act as a fertilizing agent instead of their normal function.” She pointed at the other vial sitting on the table. “It may, ah, cause a few minor…um, physical alterations.”
Sunset’s surprise rippled through the bond. “Excuse me?” she whispered.
Twilight blushed. “Well,” she said, the nervousness evident on her face. “The two cells have to meet somehow, and well…um…”
Starlight stepped forward, rolling her eyes. “It was the natural order of things, and we couldn’t find a way around it,” she said. “But it’s formed of your magic and temporary only.”
I shifted, Sunset’s uncertainty starting to reverberate off mine. “Anything else we should know?” I asked pointedly.
“Well, yes,” Twilight said, taking a clipboard from Starlight’s aura. “The gestation period may be affected, more so in Sunset’s case than yours. There is a very present possibility that you’ll both carry longer than humans but not quite as long as ponies.”
I nodded. That had been something we had figured in our own little what-if sessions. “And?”
“You have to drink the potions here,” the Princess of Friendship said. “I took them across the mirror and the transition neutralized the active magic in the solution.”
I shifted, my nervousness now overtaking Sunsets. I remembered her description of estrus and I didn’t exactly want to go through a pony’s heat cycle or wish it upon my wife.
Cadence seemed to pick up on my uneasiness and smiled.
“It’s easier on a married mare,” she whispered to me. “Trust me.”
I blushed a bright red, feeling my ears fold back against my head.
Sunset cleared her throat.
“Are you sure that we have to just drink them here?” she asked. “The portal won’t cancel the effects out if we drink here and return to the apartment across the mirror?”
“This is all untested science,” Twilight said. “There are a lot of variables that we can’t test, obviously.” She smiled reassuringly. “But if you’ve got a better idea, I’m all for it.”
“No no!” I said quickly. “I’m sure it’s fine.” I looked at Sunset. “We’ll stay in Canterlot for the night, just to be safe, yeah?”
She looked into my eyes and nodded. “Sure,” she whispered softly, nuzzling against my neck for a moment.
I ignored the cooing of my old babysitter’s counterpart behind me.
“So,” I said. “Which one is which?”
We looked at the two vials on the table before us. They glowed with a slight rose hue.
“I’m nervous,” I said.
“You’re not the only one,” Sunset said. “This is a big step we’re about to take.”
I shifted again. Sunset looked at me and her face softened, her ears laying down slightly.
“It’s the heat cycle, isn’t it?” she asked.
I nodded, feeling my face turning red under my coat and my ears laying flat against my head. “It sounded horrible when you described it on the cruise,” I said.
“I may have made it out to be something worse than it actually is,” my wife said. “When you get hit, it’s just a feeling of need, stronger than anything you ever felt. But I promise you, I’m here and I’ll help you bear it no matter how hard it gets.” She glanced down. “Just don’t be surprised if I do anything…unusual.”
I raised my eyebrows at that statement, causing her face to flush from amber to orange.
“My last heat before I left through the mirror was…” she shifted nervously. “Intense.”
“Right,” I said. “Like you haven’t been intense before.”
“The scarves and blindfold were your idea, Twilight,” she said, wings spreading slightly in a subconscious motion. “Not my fault in the least.”
“You didn’t complain at the time,” I huffed, feigning an air of annoyance. I stared at the vials again.
“Are we ready for this?” I asked.
“Is anypony truly ready?” Sunset returned. “We’ve had our practice runs with the Flurry Heart of our Cadence and Shining Armor, not to mention helping with Indigo’s cousin when she broke her ankle in July.”
I nodded, looking at the rose-colored liquids, then grabbing the one intended for me in my azure aura and gulped it down. It tasted faintly of licorice and cinnamon and it spread a pleasant warmth down my throat and stomach. I set the empty container on the counter and turned to my wife with a raised eyebrow.
She chuckled and drank her portion as well. Her face screwed up slightly as she did. “Ugh,” she said.
“Don't like the taste?” I asked.
“It’s not bad,” she said. “I just don’t like licorice that much.”
I sat for a moment. “Feel any different.”
“I could stand some water to wash the licorice out of my mouth,” she said. “Goddess, was that much needed?”
“I’m sure they used what they could…” I froze as the warmth in my stomach began to spread, heating up my entire lower abdomen and I felt a sudden rush spike through my nervous system. I heard Sunset gasp at the same time.
“Horseapples,” she growled, sitting down on the floor as a strange smell began to drift in the air. “It’s just as strong as I remember it.”
I felt myself flicking my tail around, another scent starting to mix in the air as the warmth in my abdomen grew into a blaze.
“This is…” I searched for the word as I felt my heart begin to race. “Interesting.”
Sunset took a deep breath and stood, her pupils dilating as she did. “Interesting indeed,” she said, looking at me with an expression I had seen before. “I never found the scent of mare enticing before. But your smell is different, it’s…” she breathed deeply. “Spicy, something desirable.”
I caught myself breathing in the air more rapidly, filling my nose with the smells. I knew that ponies had a more acute olfactory sense than humans from the other times I had crossed over, but this was a completely different experience. This smell was distinctly Sunset, but with a hint of some other flavors that was irresistible to me at the moment. I pressed my body against hers, running my cheek along her neck and shoulders, then nipping at the junction of her wings, feeling her shiver at the sensation.
“You know what the gets you, right?” she whispered huskily.
“Of course,” I replied in a similar voice. “Why do you think I do it?”
Her wings spread, a motion I had never seen before. They reached upwards, the primary feathers spreading out and she pressed her body against me. I felt her head rub against my shoulders and up along my neck, causing the heat I was feeling to blaze a little hotter. I stifled a moan, turning slightly away from her, my tail starting to twitch to the side.
“Sunny,” I breathed. “What is…”
She captured my mouth with hers, the kiss forceful and insisting, more insistent than I had felt before. She looked at me as we broke the kiss.
“Shh,” she said, trailing her horn along mine, an electric shock spearing through me at the sensation of the spirals skipping along each other. She brought her wings down and gently wrapped them around me. “It’s alright, I’m here.”
I shivered as her feathers brushed against my coat. I started to turn away again, tilting my body against hers before heading for the stairs. I flicked my tail up against Sunset’s nose before trotting briskly up the stairs.
“Come on,” I said, throwing a wink over my shoulder.
We wound up in the bedroom, both of us on the bed, kissing and nuzzling each other. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep my tail still, and the scent Sunset was giving off was intoxicating. I looked her in the eye.
“I…I think I’m ready,” I whispered. She nodded and kissed me deeply. I shifted on the bed, rolling onto my back and flipping my tail out of the way. Sunset smirked and began to trail kisses along my neck and body. I had a momentary flash of confusion as her head kissed the area between my forelegs and received none of the tingles or flashes of pleasure I was used to until a detached part of my brain reminded me that my anatomy was different.
Sunset reached what would have been my navel and I watched as her wings spread and sighed as they traced the lines of my face. A sudden flash lit my mind up as she wrapped her tongue around one of the sensitive nubs on my lower abdomen, causing my hips to twitch. She stopped, looking at me.
“I’m not sure how this works,” she admitted. “I mean, I know the theory behind it, but…”
Lighting my horn, I gave her head a slight push. The trek she had made down my body hadn’t quenched the desire I was feeling.
“You know what to do, Sunny,” I said. “You know me as well as I know you.”
She grinned as she followed the push, giving me a quick nuzzle before rising up and moving up to kiss me.
“I think this is going to be a little different for both of us,” she said as I felt something press against me, warm and firm. My eyes opened a little wider.
“I forgot about that part,” I whispered, my hips still writhing.
She kissed me and shifted slightly, and I inhaled as I was filled in a way I had never expected. I wrapped my forehooves around her, holding her in place as I tried to get a grip on all the sensations whirling through me right now. The strangeness of the body, the throbbing desire to just let go and ignore the thoughts. Sunset began to withdraw, her face wrapped with an expression I had seen before, though never on her equine face. I put a hoof against her chest.
“Stop for a second,” I said, hating myself the instant I said it. She stopped, reluctantly.
I closed my eyes. “This doesn’t feel right,” I said, and I saw the disappointment in her eyes as she pulled away more. I groaned as I felt the last vestiges of touch pull away.
“Maybe it was too much, too soon,” she began to say before I put a back hoof on her chest, drawing her attention back to me as I flashed her a wicked grin and rolled onto my belly.
“You think too much,” I said. I took the rational parts of my brain and threw them into the deep recesses of my mind and flagged my tail off to the side. “Get over here and finish the job, Sunny.”
I didn’t have to ask twice. As she moved in behind me, her front hooves hooking over my hips, I threw my end of the bond we shared wide open, sharing every thought and sensation with my wife.
I lay there, a goofy smile on my face as the sweat on my coat dried in the cool springtime air. Sunset’s gentle panting as she caught her breath made it even more surreal to me. We had never shared an experience like this before, and sharing it through the bond had allowed me to not only feel everything I was feeling with her, I got to feel how it felt to be in her spot, feeling me wrapped around her. I blushed as I remembered the sounds I made near the end, heard clearly in her memories even though I had only seen a flash of white and came back to an out of breath Sunset leaning aginst me, her wings spread for balance.
“That was intense,” Sunset gasped, a wingtip brushing against my cutie mark, causing my leg to twitch.
“Mm-hmm,” I said, too drained for much cognitive thought. That would have involved dragging my rational mind back up from where I had thrown it. I shifted slightly, flicking my tail back so it rested along her hindquarters. “But so good.”
She chuckled, leaning in to kiss the nape of my neck. “Do you think it worked, though?” she breathed into my ear.
“I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks,” I said, rolling over and pulling her in for a deep kiss.
I waited, holding my breath as I waited for the results. So many times before I had hoped, and the despair I had felt those times had been crushing.
When I saw them, clear as day and matching the previous test I set the stick down and went out to the living room. Sunny was away for some Princess summit, but she had taken Twilight’s copy of the communication book with her. I pulled our copy from the bookshelf and dashed out a quick question.
You know, you never answered me, do you want a colt or a filly? In either case, we should probably start thinking of names.
It worked.
Author's Note
This is the much more cohesive version of a writing exercise I did waiting for the power to come back on the other day. The original draft was horrible and had doubles of each scene as I wasn't sure if I wanted to hold to my usual romance scene or branch into a clop.
You can see which side won.
