“It’s always something, isn’t it?” Vapor Trail mumbled to herself, plucking another wet, gooey chunk of cloud from between her feathers. She already had a bunk to straighten up before heading home, and she couldn’t even take a proper shower after a grueling week of training and tests taking a toll on her body.
And what a week it had been. The Wonderbolt Academy would have been enough on its own, regardless of her relationship with Sky Stinger being thrown open the way it had been under royal scrutiny. Still, all’s well that ends well, she supposed.
She grinned as she flossed a towel between her damp feathers. Perhaps it should be All’s well that ends better.
Her bag sat by the door, adorned with a shining golden badge reflected through the mirror. A lead pony. All the time she had spent happily boosting Sky, and now she had a golden symbol of her own potential. She really owed Princess Twilight and Rainbow Dash a lot for what they did. The badge itself was more than she had ever hoped to get before arriving at the Academy, but even that didn’t compare that to getting the weight off her heart by keeping secrets from her friend.
Hanging up her towel to dry, she hoped Sky wouldn’t mind waiting for her a bit longer. The last thing she needed was Spitfire chasing her down back home for an unkempt bed. Or having some penalty in mind the next time she and Sky came up for training. Vapor didn’t put either option past her. At least it was the last time she had to make the bed. Plus, she was alone in the dorm.
Vapor Trail took advantage of that fact and fished her headphones out of her saddlebags. All the other trainees may have cleared out, but Sapphire Shores could always keep her company. She swished her tail along with the opening beats of “Get Your Pony On,” bending down to snatch the ruler from under the bed and used its flat side to start smoothing out the bottom sheet covering her mattress.
The first chorus passed before she was satisfied, and she dropped her pillow back into position exactly three eighths of an inch away from the headboard, just like every other bunk in the dorm. The covers were next, and she pulled the first sheet off the floor. Her forehooves pulled it into place while her hips rocked back and forth to the music. She measured between sheet and pillow, nodded, and walked around to straighten the other side as the song faded out.
A guitar strum kicked off the next track--acoustic and soft, but enough to freeze her in place. she let out a noise that became unintelligible, jaw starting to slacken. This one. She had forgotten about it. The guitar played another note, and she held her breath.
“If we spent just one night under the sky...”
She bowed her warming cheeks to the floor. Husky, breathless, each word of Sapphire’s voice strained with an emotion threatening to burst forth, the guitar pleading alongside her. Every time with this song, Vapor could never understand how a mare could sound like that. Even now she could only stand and wait for the next wave of longing to wash over her.
“Sharing our song, oh, the stars know you’re mine...”
Vapor closed her eyes and let the music pull her away. Sapphire sang of the days of old, a stallion and mare with no shelter from the night’s chill but themselves, sang of a hill of soft grass to share. But Vapor landed on a cloud instead. A cloud would be nicer. Softer. Up in the sky with the stars themselves and away from prying eyes. They’d be together with no one else to distract them, or no one else to impress, no need to put on any kind of act.
Just together.
Sapphire faded out, and the guitar strummed one final tone that lingered until it too fell into silence. She grinned, the sound of her hoof tapping three times on the floor dulled by the quiet buds stuffed in her ears. And she threw her head back, mane whipping through the air, and her cry joined Sapphire Shores’.
“I want to feel your heartbeat!”
The music flared to life--kinetic and wild--and Vapor Trail threw herself into it. She leapt forward and swept her foreleg along the sheet, twirling around to strike a pose peering across the mattress. The line of the sheet looked straight enough, so she sauntered back to the foot of the bed and grabbed the thin blanket. She tossed it up and watched it flutter down.
Shimmying her shoulders, humming along to the words, she lashed her tail over the blanket with every step to straighten out the wrinkles. That side of the bed done, she slid her hooves backwards, spun to the other side, and did the same thing. “Oh,” she joined in, “I’m begging for you, and I know you want me too!”
She had left the ruler on the other side. Oh well. She still had her things in the bathroom to gather, then she could make that one last check on her way out. Maybe she could play the song one more time before she packed her headphones away too. She strutted over, swayed her flanks to the rhythm every step of the way. And when she opened the door, Sky Stinger smirked over her shoulder from the mirror.
Vapor couldn’t remember collapsing to the floor, but there she found herself, hooves pressed firmly on her head as if she could force herself through the enchanted hardwood floor and escape into the clouds below.
Her eyes were playing tricks on her. That was it. She was lost in her little fantasy, and she saw what was in her heart. That was all it was.
The thuds she heard under the song were just the bass that she accidentally turned up when she fell down. No, they weren’t footsteps. There wasn’t anything to worry about.
One of her earplugs yanked away. “You’ve been hiding more from me than I thought.”
She tore her face away from her hooves. “Y-you’re one to talk about hiding! How long were you spying on me?”
Sky rocked back, that smirk gone for one merciful moment, but he quickly brought it back. “Long enough, and I am so glad I did.” He reached down to help her stand, but she slapped his hoof away. “Sheesh! What’s gotten into you lately? I never knew we kept secrets from each other, and now you’re just baring it all, huh? Shaking your ass like--”
“I was not--!”
“I want to feel your heartbeat!”
Vapor Trail ripped her last earbud out and flung the whole system across the floor. She plunged back under her hooves.
Sky took another step forward. “Sorry.”
She peered one eye over her impromptu mask to see his hoof stretched out again, smirk banished. She sighed, and reached out to him. “Don’t do it again.”
“If you insist,” he said as he pulled her up. “It was just surprising, you know? You don’t ever cut loose like that.” His grin returned. “It wasn’t a bad show, either.”
Vapor Trail sucked her teeth, but averted her eyes to hide her face. However, her eyes settled on their hooves entwined together. She flushed even more. “Y-you don’t just watch a mare when she’s alone!” She tried to feign her colored face as anger by glaring at him, but it failed to break his composure. “I... I can cut loose whenever I want! I’ve been feeling good. It felt good getting through tryouts.”
Sky quirked an eyebrow. “Is that all?”
“Um...” She stared into his eyes, hoping hers were just as still and calm as the pools she was seeing. Staring contests were never her strength. “It felt good. I wanted this, and I got it. I liked that feeling.”
The mischievous smile lingered on his face like it had been carved there. “And you helping me break all those records never gave you that kind of satisfaction, huh?”
She blinked first, but he refused to end the game there. Still he gazed at her, and his hoof still lingered on hers. She stole another glance at them together, and the heat remained in her cheeks. “What... what do you mean?”
“I mean I had some time to think over lunch, and it looks like you did some thinking too. He’s a lucky stallion whoever made a girl like you dance like that over him. Don’t suppose I know him?”
Her lips trembled, and his carefree grin transformed to the triumphant smirk she had seen in the mirror--and so many other times, like a hat stashed away in a saddlebag to put on whenever he wanted it. That stupid, beautiful smirk that had always told her everything she needed to know. For years, all she had wanted to see was that smirk. All that had mattered was that smirk. His confidence. His happiness.
Now he had the gall to turn that smirk on her. She bit down on her lips to still them. That hollow look of his wouldn’t sway her anymore. No, it was her time for happiness. Not for his sake, but for hers.
What she wanted for herself.
She pounced forward, devouring that smirk with her lips and snapping her hooves around Sky’s head. A note of surprise entered her mouth, but she pushed her tongue through it, eyes clenched shut. She knew what he looked like. She was through just looking.
It was... hot. He was warm and wet with the greasy taste of chili from the mess hall. She could feel his nerves, his muscles tense under her touch, but he made no move to join her.
Vapor broke the kiss and leaned back. She panted for breath with an open mouth, waiting for Sky to take his turn. Hoping he would. Praying he would. She couldn’t bear to open her eyes until he did. His teasing, holding onto her hoof like that, she couldn’t have misread the moment. She couldn’t have.
“I think I like this side of you,” he said. His voice sounded so different, so small and low and soft, that she had to open her eyes to make sure he was still so close. He brushed a hoof through her mane and rested it on the back of her head. “I had you right beside me this whole time, and you never told me?”
She grinned wide enough to bare her teeth. “You’ve never had me.”
He growled playfully and crouched, wrapping his legs around her and lifting her up with one powerful flap of his wings.
Vapor Trail bounced on her mattress, and Sky darted after her. But she raised a hoof to stop him at the edge of the bed. Scooting herself around to lie on it properly, she took a breath and waved him forward. Sky wasted no more time, driving her head deep into her pillow with another hard kiss.
She welcomed him into her mouth with only token resistance. The sensations of his touch nearly had her paralyzed anyway. His hooves swarmed over her body--hooking around her hind legs, running up her flanks, exploring her, playing with her like they had never had a chance to before--until they found and pinned her hooves down. They broke apart again, and she smiled up at her Sky, knew the glow in his eyes, shared the heavy pace of his breathing. She wanted this. Had wanted him for years, and now just days removed from the brink of losing him, she finally understood him. He wanted her too.
Sky pecked her lips once, twice, and peppered her cheek down to her neck. The first gentle brushes of his kiss drew her giggles, and then a nip at her throat jolted her senses. Pinned as he had her, Vapor only closed her eyes and tilted her head back, exposing herself to Sky’s care. His soft bites teased her flesh, each one followed by a massaging lick of his tongue to soothe her coat back into shape.
A hard kiss at the base of her neck snapped her out of her stupor. She writhed on the sheets, twisting, turning, trying to rub every inch of herself she could against him, to make him feel something like she was feeling. Her muscles purred with the effort as if she were waking from the longest slumber she had known.
He shifted himself and clamped his hind legs on one of hers. She let out a groan, but he soon rocked himself back and forth, grinding on top of her.
She felt him for the first time there on her leg, his stallionhood. Not full grown yet, but the spark of feeling it was more than she expected. This was real. Of course it was real, of course she always knew he was a stallion, but the primal weight of it pressed against her. He was her stallion. She was his mare. Together. The expectation finally brought a pleased coo to her lips.
Sky trembled and looked back into her eyes. “More of that.”
“More of that?” She smiled down to him. “Is that what you need? Well... make it happen.”
His hooves let go of her and trailed down her chest. “You smell like you just took a shower.” He shot them out to spread her wings, bringing another yip out of her. “And you never were very thorough afterwards.”
Vapor stroked his mane as he took the first of her feathers in his mouth. She felt its tug arc across the muscles in her chest, joined by his hoof stroking the length of her other wing. She hummed a note of contentment, and Sky jerked the next feather. Yelping, she tried to glare at him, but Sky just spat away a chunk of cloud, and his tongue danced in the small gap between the two.
She arched her back with a cry, and his stallionhood twitched on her leg in response. Sky granted her wordless wish and carried on--keeping her guessing between the roughness of his hoof, the pressure of his bite to join his lips and tongue. Each different touch and sensation played across her breast, and her heart raced just below it all. What he started in her wings soon flew through her veins, and the heat built in her chest spread out until she felt a drop of it seep out from between her legs.
Closing her eyes, Vapor sang her full-throated pleasure to him. Every touch he gave her added a note to her song, and every note let her feel him growing against her. And the more he grew, the more her legs struggled under him, trying to drag her down the sheets, closer to where he waited for her. She was so warm inside. Her face, her legs, her body were so warm she feared losing all sense of the world. But still she sang.
Sky cut her off with a kiss. His hind legs shifted to push hers apart.
She held her breath.
Sky adjusted himself, readjusted, and one more time until she felt his pressure against her folds. Her breath left her in a rush.
The noise caught his attention, and he turned a gentle look to her.
She tried to flash a reassuring smile and nodded.
The first thrust forced the air back out of her again. She opened her mouth in a silent scream, blinded by the stars flashing in her eyes. She felt him withdraw, but before she could protest, he drove back into her deeper than before.
Vapor found her voice in a shaky moan. She threw her legs around him--hind legs locked around his barrel, and fore legs pulling him down to her. Sky nuzzled her neck. She felt his gasps blow along her hairs, heard the scratching tone, but he held himself still for her.
She closed her eyes and tried to adjust. He was inside. He was inside, and he was like a brand of fire with the heat she felt at their union. She squeezed herself around him, but his hardness refused to yield to her pressure. So she squeezed tighter. Sky grunted, but he waited patiently. “More...”
He obliged, sliding himself out inch by pleasured inch, but the empty feeling that he left just gave room for the flame inside of her to spread. “Blasted thunder, you’re slick. How long have you waited for this?” He slammed back into her.
She answered with another song, fell into the wordless dance Sky performed with her body. Vapor could do little but hold on tight and hope to pull him in even deeper with every thrust. His muscles rippled under his coat for her to feel, a rhythm like a tornado she dare not leap into, but one that swept her away all the same.
“Let go,” he wheezed. “Let go of my shoulders. I’ve got an idea.”
She hesitated, and Sky seized the distraction to push himself up and out of her grip. A sudden chill struck her where he had been and brought forth a low whinny. Holding her forelegs to herself, she begged Sky to return with her eyes, but he just wrapped his hooves around her flanks. He jerked her up, arching her back so that she could see herself, see all the way up to the few inches of him that connected their bodies, glistened with the coating of her love.
Sky’s next thrust sent a new wave of pleasure coursing through her, a new pressure against her inner walls. She gasped and threw her forelegs back out to brace herself, tightening her grip around his barrel with her hind legs further. Another, slower, stroke of his hips played with this new angle. Their eyes met, and with a shared grin, Sky pumped himself faster than ever.
Vapor’s stomach rolled like the tides of the ocean under his command. She thrashed on the bed, dragging and pushing her forelegs along the sheets, squirming about to stumble across some new position--some new spark of fun--for Sky to give her. Sky rewarded her efforts without fail. She was scarcely able to take a single breath before she cried it out all over again. And still Sky went faster.
He started to sway to and fro and thrusting back in with wild force to recover. His very eyes failed to focus on her, or much of anything with the smoldering desire they had shared moments ago gone from his face. Even when she called his name he showed no reaction other than to lean over her. And still he labored on to please her until he at last tottered over.
She slapped her hooves to his chest before he toppled on to her, and they sank deep into him with his mass draped over them. And she gasped.
The frog on the underside of her hoof had found his heart. She had felt the sharp pain of a rock stuck in her foot before, felt the thunderous vibrations of a storm cloud shake her to the core. Her stallion now raced against her, pounded through her--she could almost hear its power like a drum beating on and on without end. All for her. Because of her. She couldn’t help but smile, but knew it had to end. He couldn’t last much longer. Not at that rate.
Sky’s lip curled up, and he threw his head back. The first of his hot spurts shot into her, and her moans joined his.
More and more came after, each burst she hoped would be the one that would wash away the burning inside of her, but none did. She let him collapse over her, snaked her hooves around his shoulders to pull him closer, cooed in his ear until her was utterly spent and gasping for air.
It wasn’t enough. She squirmed about as if the lewd sloshing of what was already inside could finish what was started. “S-Sky,” she whimpered. “I need more.”
He groaned a haggard breath.
“Sky...” She clenched around his retreating member. “Please. Please. I need more.”
He pushed himself up and made one more stroke into her, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the same. She just didn’t feel the same ferocity and passion behind him. And then he withdrew completely.
Mewling, unwrapping her hind legs from around his barrel, she jerked her pelvis up like he had done with his hooves, trying one last fruitless time to capture his stimulation. She sank back down with a whine.
“Easy,” Sky whispered. His leg slid under her, and he sat her up to cradle against his chest. His other hoof drifted down to her groin. “I’ve got you.”
The rough edge traced along her folds, followed by the prickling hairs of his ankle. She buried her face in his coat and begged him not to tease her. Muffled as it was, she seemed to get through to him, and he prodded the bend of his foot into her, trailing down until he tickled her enlarged clitoris.
Her hind legs shot out of their own accord and squeezed together to trap his hoof there, though he made no move to retreat. Something bubbled up from his touch, stoked to life by his brushes against her vulnerable nub and forced deeper into her when he pressed her again and again.
She screamed into him. Beat by torturous heartbeat it continued until Vapor Trail was ready to beg for it to stop--one way or another. She tried to wrestle away, but Sky held her firm and gave her the merciless ecstasy she had asked for.
Finally she could bear no more and latched her teeth on to him, eyes clenched shut with one last scream as she came. Her fire, her pleasure all burst forth; the pressure his touch had built up washed away along with any sense of relief its obliteration brought. Wave after wave of bliss crashed over her and through her, coated both her legs and Sky’s hoof, until there was nothing left of her but a shell of a mare lying limp in her stallion’s embrace, able to do nothing but breathe in his scent.
Sky nuzzled her neck and planted kisses up to nibble on her ear. “Ow.”
“Um...” She licked him in return, trying to soothe over whatever damage she did. “Sorry. But thank you. That was...”
“Just the first time. Get used to this.”
She peered up and beamed at him. “I’ll hold you to that.” Sky held her smile with one of his own and made no effort to let her go. She sighed, closed her eyes, and nuzzled his chest as she said what she knew had to happen. “I still need to pack. And we need to fix the bed again too.”
“Maybe another shower too, huh? I don’t think there’s any rain clouds on the way home.” He tugged her off the bed with him, helping her stand straight. “You good?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m fine.” She took a few slow, shaky steps forward on jelly-like legs. Some fluids--hers, his, probably both--dripped audibly to the hardwood floor. She blushed under his snickers. “L-let’s hurry up, shall we?”
“If you say so. We could always--” He frowned. “Did you get that stuff by the door?”
She looked and spotted a pair of mops and buckets waiting for them. “No...”
They walked over, and Sky tried the handle. “That’s... uh...” He slammed his shoulder into the door. “That’s locked from the outside.”
Vapor spotted a slip of paper wrapped around one of the mop handles. She removed it, and Sky looked over her shoulder.
Spotless.
She sighed. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
