I just sat there and stared as the table was covered in adult accessories. Packets of lube in a rainbow of different coloured packages, a box labelled “bullet vibe,” what I recognized to be a strap on dildo, two sets of some sort of rubber coated grippers connected by a chain, and a pink collar made out of either rubber or vinyl, complete with a leash ring.

“James, are you aware of the meaning of this item?” Luna asked, lifting the white mass of straps in her magic and unfolding it in front of us. It was an extremely elaborate bridle, I could tell that much by its resemblance to what I had delivered to Sonata. However where Sonata’s was elegant, this one was as flamboyant as all get out. It had what looked like small gems all over the upper straps, with a shaded fringe along the top one. The straps that were meant to run under the muzzle and head were lined with bells that chimed as Luna turned the item from side to side.

“I don’t have a clue, Princess,” I said, trying to control a rising anger inside of me by the realization I was being manipulated, yet again. “Why don’t you tell me what it is.”

“It’s a Saddle Arabian marriage bridle,” Luna said, her cheeks colouring slightly. “In Saddle Arabian culture, the bride and groom exchange bridles. During the ceremony reins are attached, linking the bridles and the ponies wearing them together as one. This is a stallion’s bridle.”

“Of course it is,” I growled out, gritting my teeth and both Luna and Derpy’s ears went back as my rage blew past my ability to keep it under wraps.

“What’s wrong?” Derpy asked, eyes wide in both surprise and fear. Fear both of, and for me.

Can’t you see it?” I demanded, as both mares looked from me, to the stuff on the table, to each other. “Some… asshole is playing with us. Playing with me, and I’ve had enough!” I could literally feel the steam coming out of my ears I was so mad, and I stalked out the door and into the early evening before I could cause any damage.

A few ponies tried to approach me as I walked along only to be repulsed by my glower, and the string of curses I was muttering under my breath. When I was thirteen, I’d read the “Letter from the Zaporozhian Cossacks” and I’d been impressed with the fact that curses didn’t all have to be four-letter words. From that point on in my life I’ve been interested in sharp comments and snarky retorts, to the point where I’d built up a fairly impressive line of curses. I’d gotten up to “swallower of sheep shit shakes,” when Luna finally caught up to me.

“James, what is wrong?” Luna asked, landing beside me with a worried look on her muzzle. “What is it about those items that has angered you so?”

“Go away,” I growled at her, as I reached the edge of town. There was a little stream there that should be a good place to find my mellow again. At the very least I could go soak my head until I cooled down.

“You will speak to me now, stallion,” Luna said, freezing me in my tracks as she gripped me with her magic.

“Let GO,” I shouted at her, squirming uselessly against her grip. “Please Luna, just let me go.”

“Tell me why at least,” Luna said, and I could see that her face held more concern than anger towards me.

“Because I need to calm down before I talk about this,” I said, reigning myself in just enough to think rationally. “If I don’t, I’m going to say things that will hurt two people I really like, and I don’t want to do that. Just let me go, and I promise I’ll come back in a bit. I… just. Just let me go for now.”

“Your word as a member of the Lunar Herd?” Luna asked, cocking a suspicious eyebrow at me. “Do not make me chase you down.”

“My word on it,” I said to her, nodding. “Just give me a couple of hours, okay?”

“I will hold thee to thy word,” Luna said, setting me back down and releasing me from her magical vice-grip. “I will await thee, with fair Derpy at her home.”

I nodded and stalked off, wanting to just get away so I could smash something. It took me awhile but I finally found a patch of stream near a pond, and spent a good chunk of time venting my anger on a fallen log and kicking rocks into the pond. By the time I could think clearly again the log was essentially long splinters, and every rock for about twenty feet around had been tossed into the pond, with prejudice.

“Wow,” said a female voice from behind me, “and they call me a pony with a bad attitude.”

“Who the hell are you?” I asked spinning around and trying to spot the speaker in the gloom of the early evening.

“Easy there, fella,” said a pony, coming around a tree to face me. She was a small cute unicorn, with fur so brown it was almost black, shot through with orange highlights that matched her mane, tail and the feathers of her wings. Something twigged at me about that but I couldn’t quite place it, so I decided to cover myself with some well placed aggression.

“Like I said,” I growled, taking an aggressive stance. “Who the hell are you?”

“Look buddy,” the newcomer said, dropping her forequarters low and flaring her wings in a matching display of aggression. “Chill out and calm down, before I have to take you down. I just want to talk.”

That took me a bit by surprise. To date, every pony I had run into had been willing to solve problems with friendship or feelings. Except for Long Strides that is, but that had been dealing with me having to retrain my nerves to my new muscles. A purely physical problem that needed to be solved by physical means. But, here was a pony that was willing, apparently, to give me a good thumping if I didn’t listen to them.

“Okay,” I said, lowering my hackles. “I’ll ‘chill out’ if you tell me who you are.”

“Name’s ‘Pumpkin Spice’,” the newcomer said, lowering her wings and standing up straight, “and don’t say any of the jokes. I’ve heard them all and I’ll give you a good pounding if you try for something original. There aren’t any original jokes, not anymore.”

“Fair enough,” I told the pony, and I decided to rest my pony bones a bit by plopping my butt down on a large flat rock. “I’m James Allens. What did you want to talk about.”

“I know who you are,” Spice snorted, moving over to sit beside me. “Every damn pony knows who you are. What I wanted to talk about is why you’re messing up one of my favorite brooding spots.”

“Found out that something I thought was over and done with is still going on,” I explained, and I found myself liking this blunt spoken pony and her confrontational attitude.

“Vague much?” Spice asked, cocking an eyebrow at me. “That’s like saying you found out water was wet, or that coffee is bitter, or that the night is dark. Gimme details, foal.”

I raised an eyebrow right back at her and the silence stretched out as we tried to stare each other down. I was at a disadvantage however, due to the fact that I’m pretty much hardwired to help women… mares… whatever. So, after about a minute of silence I gave in, and told her the whole story.

I told her about the collar pushing my libido, Luna’s workings on me, Derpy’s friendship and affection, Discord sending me to an adult store for a delivery, Q’s inexplicable gifting of a bridle to me, and now what was basically amounting to an accidental marriage proposal, or at least the next closest thing to it. I finished things up by recounting my storming out and declaring that I refused to be manipulated. Pumpkin Spice sat there for about a minute and then started laughing.

“Not helping,” I said, getting angry again as the laughter went on. “There’s nothing funny about this.”

“Yes, there is,” Spice said, as she reduced herself to snickers. “The fact that you think you can stop somepony from manipulating you at this point is just adorable, and hilarious.”

“Why can’t I stop them?” I demanded, spreading my forelegs wide. “Especially if I can figure out who it is.”

“You idiot. You’re talking about someone who has managed to get the Spirit of Chaos, and the next closest thing to a god to dance to their tune,” Pumpkin Spice said, looking up at me with a bit of a sneer. “What kind of chance do you think you stand compared to them? You’re a piece on somepony’s chessboard, deal with it.”

“Who’s chessboard?” I asked, feeling a little depressed now as I realized the pony beside me was making a very good point.

“Don’t know for sure,” Spice said, rubbing her chin in thought, “but my money is on that old nag, Celestia. Don’t let that friendship facade of hers fool you. She’s been playing with the destiny of Equestria and its ponies for a millennium now. If this is her game, it means you have some quality she wants to breed into ponies. If not, it likely means somepony else is using you as a tool to manipulate Luna directly or Celestia indirectly.”

“Damn,” I said, blinking in surprise. “You got a lot further than I have on this. So, what do I do about it?”

“That white nag has tried to rope me into her schemes more than once before,” Pumpkin Spice said, with a small chuckle. “I’ve dodged her lasso so far. As to what you can do about it, sorry foal, nothing comes for free.”

“Hey, if you know a way that I can fight back against this, I’m all ears,” I said, leaning forward. “Name your price.”

“You’ll do anything?” she asked, to which I nodded. “Fine, hold very still and think of how your relationship with Derpy and Luna makes you feel. Think of nothing but that. Let it be your entire world for the next couple of minutes.”

I did as she asked and pictured the two mares in my mind. I thought of how comforting a presence Derpy had been for me, always being there, always willing to help out. I thought of Luna, and her dark exotic beauty, of how she blended vulnerability and strength into an elegant package that was more than willing to wait for me to be ready for her. I kept picturing them, and as the feelings and emotions filled me I saw Pumpkin Spice’s horn light with a green fire that washed out over me, wrapped around me for a few moments, and then withdrew.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, suddenly feeling very tired and I shook my head to clear the sudden fuzz that filled it.

“My payment,” Pumpkin Spice said, smacking her lips. “It’s not love, but it will do. It will do.”

“Fine, I’ve paid, “ I said, still trying to push away that strange lethargy. “How do I fight back against who ever is pushing my buttons?”

“Short answer, you can’t,” Spice said, holding up a hoof to stop me as I made to interrupt. “Long answer. You can’t fight back directly. You don’t have the connections, the power, or the abilities that whoever is behind all this has. What you do is you slow them down, you delay them, you stretch things out until they make a mistake. Keep your relationship with Derpy and Luna, just slow things down to a crawl. Got it?”

“That’s it?” I asked, surprise and a little anger giving me a boost of energy. “What good is that going to do?”

“It gives you time, you stupid idiot,” Spice said, rolling her eyes at me. “It gives you time to get stronger, to make your own allies and connections so that when whoever is behind this makes their mistake, and they will make one eventually, you will be able to take advantage of it and nail them.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback as I realized that what the dark furred, winged unicorn had said made a lot of sense, and then I realized what had been bugging me about Pumpkin Spice. “Hey, aren’t alicorns the only ones with horns and wings?”

“And that’s my cue to leave,” Pumpkin Spice said, getting up. I made to follow her and keep her from leaving, but for some reason my hooves wouldn’t move. Looking down I saw that they had been glued to the rock I was sitting on by some sort of green goop.

“What the he—” I began to say as Pumpkin Spice’s horn lit again, and a glob of the green goop hit me straight on the muzzle, gluing it shut.

“Sorry about that,” Spice said, running a hoof over my mane. “Another time, I’d love to stay longer and enjoy a protracted meal of you, but not today. Don’t panic though, I have no intention of doing anything else to you… tonight. But seeing as I can’t have you following me or shouting for help, I’ve taken steps to make sure you can’t. The resin will fall apart on its own in about five or ten minutes. Until we meet again, ‘Lunch’.”

The pony then left me in the dark as I struggled to free myself. It was a completely useless effort, as whatever the goop was didn’t budge. As promised though, the crud around my hooves cracked and shattered into splinters after several minutes, and I blasted my way back home as if all the hounds of hell were on my heels. The goop around my muzzle didn’t want to let go though, and it limited the amount of air I was able to take in. By the time I burst through the door my vision was graying out, and I collapsed in a heap at the hooves of a very startled Derpy and Luna.

“James!” both mares cried out at the same time, and a moment later I felt myself lifted onto the table by Derpy while Luna sent crockery flying to make space for my body. Another couple of moments and the goop around my muzzle was ripped away, taking a whole lot of body hair with it, and I sucked down lungfuls of oxygen greedily.

“Don’t try to talk just yet, James,” Luna said, looking down at me with concern while I heard Derpy in the background sending a woken up Dinky back to bed. “The resin on your muzzle tells me what attacked you, but not who. You are safe, so you do not need to say anything until your breathing returns to normal. Understood?”

I nodded and just lay flat on the table, concentrating on breathing in lots of wonderful air in steady lungfuls. After about a minute I started talking, and Luna stopped me simply by putting a wingtip against my nose and shaking her head. I took the hint and kept on focusing on my breathing, while a returned Derpy checked me over for any injuries. It wasn’t until a full minute after my breathing returned to normal that Luna let me tell her what had happened.

“Shaushka,” Luna growled out, after I had told her the tale. “What in Tartarus is that creature doing in all this?”

“Who is Shaushka?” Derpy asked, helping me down off the table. “And is she right? Are all three of us being played with?”

“Shaushka is a changeling queen, and something of a neutral party between Thorax and Chrysalis,” Luna said, helping Derpy sit me into a chair by the table. “Pumpkin Spice is a known alias of hers as she finds it amusing to pose as an alicorn.”

“But she was so small,” I said, in protest as I nodded my thanks to both mares. “I mean, sure she suckered me in with her disguise, but now that I know about her I can kick her flank if I need to.”

“James, you are young, strong and brave, but believe me when I say you stand no chance against her,” Luna said. “She is a changeling queen, with all the power and strength you would expect. More, she is a master of manipulation, to the point where there has never been a report of her using her magic to affect a pony’s mind, because she simply doesn’t need to.”

“Was she right though, Princess?” Derpy asked again. “Are we being used in some sort of game?”

“The most dangerous thing about Shaushka is that she keeps her bargains,” Luna said, sliding a cup of coffee in front of me, “but she does so in ways that will benefit her. James let her feed from him, and in return she gave him knowledge.”

“So…” I said, trying to phrase things delicately, “your sister really is playing with us? I’m some sort of seed stock for the future of the pony race?” Diplomacy, thy name is not James Allens.

“I doubt it,” Luna said, making a face. “My sister is more than powerful enough to simply force ponies to breed. For many, all it would take is a simple command and they would gladly fling themselves at whomever Celestia requested.”

“The hell you say,” I said, my eyes going wide as my ears went flat against my head. “There is no bucking way I—”

“Peace. Be at ease, our stallion,” Luna said, placatingly. “Just because my sister has the power to do something, does not mean she will actually do it. You have just demonstrated why Shaushka is so dangerous, despite the fact that she has never actually broken any laws.”

“What do you mean, Princess Luna?” Derpy asked, and I could see she was just as angry and scared as I was at the thought of Celestia playing a live action game of Civilization with pony society.

“I mean that she was likely right in that somepony is playing with the emotions and feelings of our stallion. That individual is pushing him into a physical relationship with one or both of us for reasons we as yet cannot fathom,” Luna said, and I found myself impressed at her cold assessment of things. “But all it took was a few sentences from Shaushka, and she had James all but ready to go to war against my sister in a desperate struggle for survival.”

“Well, she did say your sister was behind it,” I said. “Or, at least that she was probably the one behind it.”

“No, James. She did not,” Luna said, correcting me with a little heat in her voice. “She said that for her money she would guess Celestia was behind it. After which she said uncomplimentary things about my sister to make her appear even worse in your eyes. It is the tactic of an emotional manipulator, and you do wear your emotions on your flank.”

“Could she be behind it?” Derpy asked Luna. “Shaushka, that is?”

“Doubtful,” Luna said, and I could see the calculations going on behind her eyes. “It isn’t how she operates. As I said, she prefers to manipulate her prey, much as she did James, instead of using crude force. Also, while it is just barely possible that she might have been able to influence Discord’s actions in some manner, I do not think she could have had an effect on me.”

“Where do we go from here?” I asked, not wanting to point out Luna’s hubris at thinking that she couldn’t have her emotions messed around with by someone even she said as a master of the art.

“We continue as we have,” Luna said, and Derpy and I both exchanged a look at that, which Luna noticed. “Much as I hate to admit it, Shaushka had the right idea. We give the outward appearance of a long, slow courtship. Behind closed doors though we must remain nothing more than good friends.”

“We can do that, Princess,” Derpy said, wrapping a wing around me. “Um, are you okay with that though, James? Not sleeping with me or Luna?”

“Derpy, you are my best friend here. My true companion who has been with me since the beginning and yes, I could see myself building a life here in Equestria with you as my partner,” I began, and Derpy’s blush was spectacular. “And Luna, just so you know. You are my dark angel. The fierce beauty that guards my dreams, and the pony who could show me delights most stallions have no idea even exist.”

“James,” Luna said, colouring also, but not letting it affect her voice, “this is not what I meant by staying as friends.”

“But,” I said, holding up a hoof for emphasis. “We are friends, the best of friends, and while yes, one day we might become more than that, now is not the time. I care for both of you too much to let any of us get pushed into something we aren’t ready for.”

“Friends then,” Derpy said, putting a hoof out toward the center of the table.

“Good friends,” Luna said, putting out her own hoof so that it touched Derpy’s and the two winged mares looked at me.

“Best friends,” I said, completing the link.

Author's Note

No, we never were going to harem territory. Close, but no cigar. There is another destiny awaiting our hero. One that I've foreshadowed in a few places in the previous chapters.

Pumpkin Spice and Shaushka are OCs of two different people, used with permission to give James a kick in the right direction. Things are going to be getting interesting for our hero, very, very soon. Starting, with a trip home.

All glory to the Hypno... I mean my editors: Sandstorm94 and Coyotethetrickster. Soon we will have our revenge, and Deathstalker two.

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