In all of his short life, Gosling had never known such cavernous emptiness within himself. His legs still ached, still quivered, still spasmed, and his stomach was almost too tender to touch. Like so many others, he had flown too close to the sun and had been burned for his efforts. Not that he minded—indeed, this experience had been an eye opener for him—and torrid thoughts lurked deep within his brain, feverish fantasies of what other new encounters awaited. When he recovered, he would have to challenge her dominance again just to explore the consequences.

Celestia had been a fertility goddess, after all, in another life, another time.

Which brought to mind a question that his brain demanded be asked: “Sunshine, how did you learn how to do what you just did?”

“That was magic born of necessity,” she replied and her voice sounded drowsy. “Sleep now, Little Spoon.”

“How was that a necessity?” He felt Celestia’s warm body snuggled against his back and in bed, this position in particular showed just how much she dwarfed him. She was big, she was intimidating, she was ancient, she was the Big Spoon, and he loved her more than words could say.

“Diet, poor health, disease... those were hard times, Gosling, and it was difficult for stallions to ejaculate. Luna and I both had to help them, sometimes. Posing as fertility goddesses, we used magic to coax out every precious drop and we brought the tribes back from the very brink of extinction.”

Stretching out his neck, Gosling searched for a cool spot on the pillow to rest his cheek. When he strayed a little too far, Celestia pulled him back, no doubt desiring him to remain close. One foreleg shifted his body with an almost maternal gentleness. Had Gosling more of a presence of mind, he might have marvelled at how somepony so strong could also be so gentle.

“Why can’t I ever snuggle up against your back?” Gosling asked, filling the dark bedroom with his words.

“Because you are the little spoon,” she replied, and then she let out a mighty yawn that could challenge any dragon’s. “And because I don’t want to wake up in the morning with something poking me in the middle of my back. You’re too little… there is no comfortable place for you.”

Bothered by this answer, Gosling squirmed and thrashed in bed until he had rolled over onto his back, and he turned his head until he was almost snoot to snoot with the big white mare beside him. His body felt like lead and his efforts to move caused considerable pain. At least it was a good pain, the pain of accomplishment. He lay there a moment, breathing in the air she exhaled, which smelled like hot cinnamon toothpaste and sort of burned the delicate skin just past his nostrils.

“The things you’ve seen.” These words came out much sleepier than Gosling would have liked. “All of that history. The rise and fall of nations. Triumphant successes and spectacular failures. I wish I could know even a tiny fraction of what you remember.”

“If I give you a tidbit of history, will you go to sleep?” Celestia asked in a sweet, sleepy voice. “The time to raise the sun is mere hours from now.”

“I don’t want to hear the hot buttery pony story.” Though he didn’t wish to admit it, his eyelids felt heavy. Being this warm, this exhausted, this empty, he wanted to go to sleep and then wake up to a hearty breakfast. Now on his back, he didn’t feel the pressing need to find a cool place on the pillow for his cheek.

Celestia’s hoof moved beneath the heavy comforter and the edge of it came to rest against Gosling’s neck. She began to make slow, lazy circles with it, over and over in the same spot, and this worked out a tired, worn out whicker from the supine pegasus. If she kept this up, Gosling knew that he would lose the battle against sleep, and he would tumble into Luna’s realm.

“There is a story of the most impressive success that was also a failure,” Celestia began, and she kicked out her hind legs, stretching them to get herself more comfortable. The whole bed creaked when she shifted her bulk, and settled the rotund bulk of her foal-filled stomach in a position that was a little kinder to her spine. “There was once an immigrant pony from Fancy that produced a garlic flavoured toothpaste—”

“Really?” Gosling’s eyes flew wide open in the dark. “Are you pulling my wing?”

“Little Spoon, be quiet, and let me tell my tale.”

“Big Spoon, your tales are often half myth, if you can forgive me for saying so.”

This coaxed a big husky chuckle out of Celestia, that made the whole bed shake. Gosling’s innards weren’t prepared for this sudden movement, and everything throbbed as a reminder to keep the bed still, or else. The hoof making pleasant little circles against his neck never faltered, never slowed, and with the pain in his groin, her light touch gave Gosling goose bumps all over. The contrasting sensations filled his body with shivery tingles.

“This pony from Fancy,” Celestia said, while doing nothing to defend her reputation, “he was convinced that garlic flavoured toothpaste would be the next big thing. The next great innovation. He was convinced that ponies would love the taste of garlic flavoured toothpaste so much that there would be a revolution in dental hygiene. Because he loved the flavour of garlic so much, he assumed that all ponies shared this trait.”

Ears pricked, Gosling waited for the punchline, the gag, the plunge into absurdity so common to Celestia’s stories. He loved her for her stories, her jests, this mare who had survived so much history had embraced the absurd, the preposterous, the risible nonsensical, farcical silliness that was the byproduct of civilisation.

It occurred to Gosling that Celestia had squeezed his seed out of him like toothpaste from a tube.

“Never once did he think about the fact that ponies brushed their teeth to get rid of pungent reeks like garlic and stinky cheeses.” Celestia sighed, a wistful sound in the dark, and the hoof that made little circles against Gosling’s neck drifted to another location, moving down and pressing against the defiant scruffle of his chest fluff. “He followed his dream, and he laboured, and he sacrificed everything to make his dream happen. He worked many jobs, he made a name for himself, he established a reputation, and when the time was right, he borrowed and invested his own fortune into the creation of a toothpaste factory in the city of Fillydelphia.”

The soft, soothing murmur of Celestia’s voice was doing a number on Gosling, and his eyelids grew heavy. The light, affectionate touch of his wife’s hoof against his handsome scruffle somehow caused all of his tight, bunched-up muscles to loosen. The bed was warm, too warm even, and this contributed to an overwhelming sensation of drowsiness.

“The public saw it as a novelty, a gag, a joke… and much to my own surprise, ponies bought the toothpaste. Stores ran out of it and there was a struggle to keep the shelves stocked. This pony believed that he was on the very brink of the dental hygiene revolution that he had dreamed of. His dreams, no doubt, seemed just within his reach. Just like little happy go lucky pegasus foals that think they can fly to the moon somehow. There are always a few that try so hard to achieve this dream, and so too did the pony from Fancy.”

Gosling allowed one eye to close, but not the other. The story was interesting and now, he had to hear it out. Celestia, like a storytelling spider, had trapped him in her web, and he was powerless to resist her now. He stifled a yawn and snuggled a little closer to his mate, delighting in the inviting curves of her body.

“Even I took part in the joke, and left many tubes of this toothpaste in the rooms of my students. Alas, the gag wore off, the joke ceased to be funny, and leaving tubes of garlic toothpaste in the bathroom could only be funny for so long. All of Equestria waited for the next gag novelty… and this pony from Fancy, his dreams were crushed when he realised what had happened.”

“What happened?” Gosling asked, his words slurred from the need for sleep.

“A great failure,” Celestia replied, “as one dream died, crushed, extinguished and smothered. This dream was not to be… but where one dream ended, another began, and this pony from Fancy, he picked up the pieces to see what could be done with them. Rather than quit, rather than give up, he chose to work with what he had… and what he had was the beginnings of a gag empire. From humble beginnings and a silly idea, a mighty empire sprung, and all of Equestria was made a better, funnier place because one little pony dreamed of garlic flavoured toothpaste.”

“That’s actually pretty neat.”

“Yes, Gosling, he brought laughter to millions and became a much-beloved public figure. Fillydelphia grew as a city to support his industry. Even now, long after he is gone, his empire lives on with his sons and his daughters. Tarte Normande Pie dared to dream of garlic flavoured toothpaste, and the world was made better because of it.”

When Gosling went to respond, all that came out was a yawn.

“Goodnight, my beloved silly little pegasus.” With these words came an affectionate kiss upon the cheek.

“Wait…” Gosling struggled against sleep, which threatened to overcome him like a suffocating blanket. “Wait… that name… Tarte Normande Pie… that seems a little off, don’t it? Redundant.”

“Immigration, Gosling.” These soft spoken words tickled Gosling’s ear. “Names were standardised when ponies immigrated.”

The heaviness of his eyelids proved too much to bear, and Gosling began to drift. Like any pegasus, he soared away, adrift among the clouds of slumber, and his wings twitched against his sides. Luna’s realm beckoned, and the last thoughts of his conscious mind were hopes that he would see her, that maybe he could spend time with her, that perhaps they could play beneath the stars in the endless universe of dreams.

Just as he was about to be severed from reality completely, Celestia’s fine, perfect teeth clamped down upon his neck, and his eyelids flew open while he let out a shrill, reverberating nicker of pained surprise. The bite was painful enough to throb, and right away, the skin grew hot, too hot.

“Sorry,” was Celestia’s sweet apology that she whispered into his ear. “Horse moment.”

Author's Note

This is my favourite chapter of this story.

Thank you for reading. Perhaps we’ll do this again sometime.