As the days grow cooler and crisper, I fall in love with myself all over again, learning how to fight, and how to move. The sergeant tries her best to make things miserable, but it’s just so amazing how I’m blossoming into a whole new pony, practically. I’m moving faster, kicking harder, and it just feels so good to get out there and really push myself. I don’t feel like I have to hold back with the sergeant. I’m supposed to fail and get chewed out in her mind, so I don’t have to worry whether I succeed or not. Every time she ups the ante, I can’t help but feel the thrill of challenge, that I could push myself and impress her, and impress everyone, and impress myself, yet she’ll still treat me as the same old green recruit by the name of Meadowsweet.

I never felt that good about myself before. I think it’s a pony thing, but I can’t be sure of that, because I never did anything like this as a human. I was always hearing horror stories of the military and of boot camps and psychological torture, so I never even thought about getting into it. I was never all that fat, but I was never all that strong, or healthy either. Couldn’t take a lot of travelling. I feel as if I was exhausted all the time back then, just from doing a whole lot of nothing.

Now I’m strong, and sleek, and outright glowing in the mirror when I get up before dawn for the morning exercises. I think that’s just pregnancy, though I’m definitely not showing any sort of baby bump back there yet, so I can’t be more than six months from conception. But I look healthy, and feel healthy, and... I suppose my diet has something to do with it. I haven’t eaten much of anything sugary or fattening in the last half a year or so, and there were some packaged cookies here but... I honestly found the potato chips far more alluring. Even chips are few and far between though, and much better are the deer that my fellow uh... ponies have been taking down in packs of three or four. Whether you’re a pony or not, hamburgers taste like lard cakes compared to the nutty, musky, hearty strips of meat they get off of those beasts.

...actually, being a pony might have something to do with it.

I really don’t know what to think of ponies though, if we’re hunting deer in packs. Or would that be herds? I can’t believe we’re hunting in herds. Or whatever you call it. Not herds though. Anything but herds.

“It’s really amazing,” Brian tells me, when the green pegasus with blue hair isn’t busy with flying drills, or whatever the pegasuses do. She managed to get her hands on some genuine MRI scans of a pony. Because that’s the first thing that makes sense to do when you get elecricity back up, right? The military brought them here for our pony technology research stuff, and Brian was really happy to be able to see them. High resolution scans of bones, and even internal organs. It’s... kind of unsettling to look at, because they really do look like weird horse bones.

“This is the digestive system,” Brian says, tapping a hoof on the bluish vaguely intestiny sort of shadows, “It’s actually more convoluted in earth ponies, which makes sense given how you can tolerate hay better. But there’s a functional cecum in every one of us. Overall, our digestive systems remind me more of deer than anything, which makes sense given our small size. The erh... hunting doesn’t makes a single lick of sense, but the rest of it seems sensible.”

“What about our uhm, reproductive system?” I ask uneasily.

She taps another shadowy part, saying amiably, “This’s mine, not the male reproductive system of course. It shows I’m uhm, early on in my pregnancy if pregnant at all. I think they have an ultrasound device that some mares are using to um... check. That’s the most reliable way to do it.”

“I don’t really need to,” I tell her, “Even if it’s only a 10% chance, you do it enough times, and...”

Blushing, Brian says, “7 times. Is when your chances are higher than 50%. I calculated it once.”

“Maybe I’ll do it sometime,” I say, “But I... have had sex much more than seven times. It’s pretty impossible I wouldn’t be...”

“Yes, of course...” Brian says, looking to the diagram unhappily.

“It’s cool how you get to finally study this stuff now that we have stuff to x-ray ponies with and stuff,” I tell her with a warm smile, “You haven’t been able to do anything but think about this for a while.”

“It’s incredible,” she repeats, happily scrunching her forelegs to her chest, “I’m just glad we’re so... sensible on the inside! This magic flight is just crazy, but anatomically I kind of... make sense.”

Curiously, I ask, “Where do your wing bones attach?”

“There’s a second lobe on each shoulder blade,” she replies, stretching out a green, feathery wing. “The muscles seem to attach around the mid-back area, and around the belly. My mid-back area feels kind of like an upper-back area, because of the extra musculature.”

“Huh, like here?” I ask curiously, laying my hoof across her back, while Brian spreads both her wings, and muscles in her back flex beneath my touch.

“Yep, see?” she says after a few times extending and folding her wings. Brian walks out from under my hoof as she says, “It makes as much sense as it could make sense. I just think it’s really cool how I have sort of... second shoulders in there.”

“I’m not even sure I have first shoulders,” I say, waggling a foreleg in the air, “My shoulders just don’t... shoulder. They like... bend toward the front of me and don’t move.

“That’s true for mine too,” Brian admits, “It’s an evolutionary adaptation to make quadrupeds more stable at running. What’s weird about our kind of ponies is how you can un-lock the shoulders. The x-rays are pretty clear. It’s kind of like how horse legs lock, except more, and for our shoulders. You know how you can pull your arms out, when you need to?”

I sit on my haunches and do so, looking over my upper leg, while asking her, “Yeah, so...?”

“So... shoulders!” she says, pointing at my...

“Oh huh, I can rotate my shoulders like this,” I say bemusedly, and when I stand up they... slide into place and won’t move again.

“There’s got to be a reason Twilight Sparkle’s species is sapient,” Brian says excitedly, spreading her wings and swooping up into the air. “Maybe our forelegs are grasping appendages, like some sort of pony, raccoon hybrids!” she calls out, turning loops up there.

“Pony raccoon bird hybrids, in your case,” I point out, standing up on all fours as I watch the restless pegasus above me, not exactly with envy, but I definitely feel more stuck on the ground like this.

“It’s so arbitrary when you think about it,” she replies, gliding past me upside down, “And yet something about it feels so deliberate.”

“Twilight deliberately turned us into this,” I have to point out in unamusement.

“Touché,” she admits, fluttering down to perch lightly on my back. It’s weird. Pegasi are weird.

Brian and I can talk about that evil mare’s plans all we want, but there has been no sign of Twilight Sparkle anywhere near us, or anywhere at all. No more humans turned into ponies. Not one bit of news of her. It’s like she never even existed, except for the fact that we’re all ponies.

At least I think there’s no news of her. It’s hard to get news with only basic television broadcasting restored. That itself was a huge challenge, since with all the nation’s televisions set up to use cable, it’s a lot more infrastructure than just tuning in on the rabbit ears. Expensive, high maintenance equipment, to make sure we aren’t just watching the broadcast for free. There were a lot of things making money out of nothing like this, that just stopped being workable when everyone in the world woke up without opposable thumbs, and now we all have to figure out how to go back to doing it the easy way.

So there might very well have been news of Twilight Sparkle, but even the military’s eyes and ears are very limited, and false sightings abound in a world determined to find somepony to hold accountable for all this.

That wink—er—that teleportation process is something I pay very close attention to. Because Twilight Sparkle’s big thing was winking. If we could master that, we might have one leg up on her. That’s not even going into how revolutionary it is to be able to wink. Walls, locks, safes, those all don’t work if you can teleport. You wink out, outside, then wink in, inside. Just the thought that someone could teleport a bomb into your stronghold makes me feel uneasy. What if someone could... you know, teleport only your vital organs, about twenty feet to the right?

And so, thanks to my foolish curiosity, I stand there before a dozen unicorns, preparing to meet my doom. “Well I wouldn’t say no,” I say nervously, “But you know, I’m just a little worried it might only be killing me, and creating a copy of me.”

“For our sake I hope it’s not,” says a friend of Lucy’s named Marie, maybe a little unsympathetically. A brown haired, green furred unicorn, looking very smart in how she levitates that clipboard and pen, she rolls her eyes and drawls “We’ve all teleported ourselves at least once!”

I... huh. “I guess you couldn’t die, then,” I admit to her with a weak smile, “Something has to be there to bring you back, after all.”

“I swear it’s just moving into a weird... place except not,” she says hopefully, “And we’ve teleported animals and they came out fine!”

“Yeah that... sure must have been tricky catching them alive,” I say with a shaky laugh.

“Not with a stunning spell,” she says, giving me a look. Oh, right. Unicorns don’t have to use their teeth.

“So how’s this gonna work?” I ask, ignoring her look and totally not blushing, “You’re just gonna... teleport me somewhere?”

“Just a few feet,” Marie says, “From this spot, over to that spot over there.” She indicates where a chalk X has been drawn on the asphalt of what was once a parking lot, back when this facility used to be a sawmill.

“And I just stand here, and um... think happy thoughts?” I ask, looking down at the other white X I’m standing over.

“Just don’t make any sudden movements, and try to relax,” she assures me, “And uh... let us know if it starts causing any pain.”

“Alright, then, fire away,” I say with an awkward smile, kicking a foreleg under the other one. I’m gonna die, aren’t I.

Marie’s not the first to do it. It’s their most promising unicorn, whose name I don’t catch, who’s teleported the biggest stuff the farthest. A brown haired purple mare lowers her head to point her horn at me, and the green aura of her magic... woah.

“I-it doesn’t hurt, but wow, I can actually feel that,” I say, lifting that foreleg to look at the prickly green light crawling up it. Sort of like a bunch of tiny little constant static shocks, just enough to tingle. I can’t see it climb up my neck, or cover my face, and it isn’t visible from the inside, but the horn of the fiercely concentrating unicorn is glowing brightly, and I’m pretty sure I’m entirely glowing, when I wave and say, “Uh... see you on the other side!” The green light gets really visible, blinding out everything else.

Then things get weird.

It happens so quickly, I’m already seeing the second green flash as I... slip together, try to walk forward and stagger on my hooves. “Wow, that was... weird!” I say as the others trot up to me with worry. Lifting my head and looking around at the unicorns, I ask, “So, all the... parts of me are still there, right? I didn’t get a second head or anything?”

Their response is to stick a thermometer into my mouth and start attaching sensors to the previously shaved spots on my skin. Yeah... my skin is also pink under this yellow fur, for what it’s worth. But the monitors and tests and such demonstrate nothing awry, and my temperature is 100.7 degrees, which is actually kind of on the cool side for pony standards apparently, but normal for me. Honestly I think they just use the thermometer to keep me mute, so I stop yammering on about my experience while they test my vitals.

The enforced muteation gives me a chance to think about what happened at least. For something that passed in the blink of an eye, there sure was a lot happening! They take out the thermometer, and I immediately chatter, “You’re right, it was like moving into a weird place! And it just kept repeating but smaller and... what are those things where it looks the same no matter how close you look at it?”

“Fractals!” Marie declares in triumph, looking up from the hovering clipboard she was scribbling on, “Of course! That explains how the infinite recursion takes place in a finite magic field.”

“Yeah, fractals. It was fractals,” I agree in relief, as they’re pulling the sensors off of me, “It was just dividing space smaller and smaller around me, and I can’t call it rotating, but I just... flipped through that, like a playing card!”

“You could see that?” she queries in shock, “It always just looked like a really confusing flash of light, to me!”

“Not with my eyes,” I correct her, “When all those short distances become uh... infinite? It happened so fast, so I couldn’t really get a good feel for it.”

I then get to be teleported by about six eager unicorns, joyous in their newfound abilities, and curious as to what I’m actually experiencing. The sixth one screws up, obviously, because the fractal... spatial thing gets too close to me and kind of jams up against me, becoming really hot, really fast.

“Holy heck!” I squeal as I wink in, rolling on the tarmac trying to put out the smoking patches on my fur. Thankfully one of them knows a cooling spell, so I get the pleasant experience of feeling like I got dunked in ice water that was somehow totally dry.

“Sorry! Sorry!” the blue and green unicorn mare declares in shock, galloping up as the icy sensation cools me off, “It was really hard to... to do something that big! I swear I teleported a rabbit without anything going wrong!”

I think I cough soot, when I smile weakly at her and say, “Alright, so add a maximum mass limitation to your notes, and please...” I stand up level with her saying sympathetically, “Please don’t do that again.”

“I–I should’ve stopped,” she says, ears going down, “It was just... I knew I was having trouble, I should’ve stopped.”

“But you wanted to push yourself,” I reply, putting a hoof on her shoulder. Oh uh... yeah the fur on my arm’s looking a little more singed than usual. Hope that won’t need to be shaved, but I don’t think there’s any actual burns.

“And you did it!” I persist encouragingly, taking my singed leg back gingerly, “You teleported me just as good as everyone else! You just need to put a little more redundancy in the third ring, where you subdivide the perspective.”

Blushing, she looks away saying, “Yeah I... oh,” then she stops blushing and looks at me again a little surprised, saying, “I guess I could try that?”

I really don’t understand these looks I get sometimes.

When I’m not busy getting teleported, Blaze has been pulling me aside to just... talk. I’ve been trying to help her with her vocabulary as much as I can, and talking about her thoughts and feelings regarding her adult... activities. She tells me about her old school, and which pony she thinks her friends are from back there. I tell her about friendship and magic, and she really seems to like that. And sometimes she just has to be held, and stroked while she tells me how scared she is, and how she has to do grownup things like mopping floors and how she doesn’t know what to do when people expect her to make decisions.

I spy on her once, just to make sure she’s okay, and she really does look like a scared kid, there belly up on the edge of the bed, asking Strider if she looks ‘sexy.’ Of course he says yes, but y’know, you’re never entirely sure. So Blaze tenses up as he plants his forelegs to either side of her, his hips in between her spread legs with his erect shaft nestling right into her folds. Her breathing turns to moans as she stares at him sliding into her, and I can hear it, albeit muffled from where I’m peeking in through the window here.

That’s when the magic happens. Blaze’s anxiety fades, with his smooth, rolling red furred hips sliding that gleaming shaft in and out of her. Planting her forelegs on the bed to lean her hips back into his fucking, eyes sliding half closed, the orange mare stops trying to look cute, and starts caring only about breeding. Her tongue comes out as her panting grows huskier, more urgent. In the end she lifts one forehoof to lay it on her belly, right where he’s fucking her in there, growling at him hungrily, not fearfully, that he’s gonna do it. Strider pushes deep and just hunches over, holding his hips to her. She doesn’t make any noise, just watches her furry orange pelvis as it happens in there.

I don’t see Candy or Susan in the room, so I guess it was just those two this time. Strider says something muffled then, and Blaze responds excited now not frightened in any way, something like “... felt so good ... semen into ... belly is full of boy now.” Maybe I should warn her to say man, or male, instead of boy, so they don’t find out that she’s ten. They hug then, and she says something about how much she loves him and wants to have a baby. He says he’s scared of having a baby, but she consoles him, promising she’ll take good care of them and that he doesn’t need to worry, and something about it being a cute pony.

I should feel horrible for letting something so evil happen. I should feel horrible for spying on them, but it’s just so beautiful seeing it happen to her, seeing it happen to him, seeing how much they love each other. I lay on the edge of Dusty’s bed the next time, just like Blaze, on the hope that someone sees me looking like that. That’s not a vain hope, as Lucy’s there, stroking my belly as I tell her in adoration how Dusty’s seed is rushing up in there. I want Blaze to have her baby foal. I want to be like Blaze, even though I’m scared of having a foal myself. It’s scary and dangerous, and probably a terrible idea, but how can anyone living properly ever experience something as wonderful?

“Miss Meadowsweet?” a pegasus asks from above. I look up and...

Oh.

No, it’s not a pegasus. It’s a... human.

His uniformed body towers over me in ways I’m acutely aware of. “They’re preparing for another dialog with Equestria,” the human—I mean—he says, with an... expression on his flat face. “Dr. Peterson said you wanted to observe?”

“Oh! Yes,” I declare, scrambling to my hooves from where I was sitting on my belly. I’m standing before him on... four hooves, and... he’s... not. His short feet are broad, sideways against the floor, only two of them holding him up, as if he were a constantly reared up... bear or something. Ugh, why am I so different?

“Just uh... lead the way, mister...?” I tell him with an uneasy smile up to the man.

“Sergeant Roberts,” he says, sort of... angrily? As if he was gonna flatten out his ears and lash his tail, except he hasn’t... got those. “Though I’m mostly just the man with hands these days.”

“Oh, right, hands!” I say nosing curiously at his—he jerks his hand away, and I realize what I’m doing. Blushing, I back up, saying, “Sorry, it’s just I have to do everything with my... nose these days.”

“It’s no problem... miss,” he says, with a definite delay in the ‘miss’ part. There’s something... ugly about his words. Too... polite? I don’t know. Oh god, maybe he thinks I’m a pervert for... doing the thing that practically everybody knows I do now. “Of course you don’t want to actually shake my hand,” he grumbles irritably.

“No I can um...” I sit back on my haunches, until my feet are as flat to the floor as his. Reaching out a foreleg, I say, “Pleased to meet you mister...” and he wraps his huge, bony flesh fingers around my entire hoof u-uh...

“Roberts,” he reminds me, politely shaking my hoof and then letting me go.

“Right, Sergeant Roberts, sorry,” I say, planting that hoof and trying not to freak out or anything, because whatever Twilight did to me, I’m not gonna let her get away with it!

“Lead on, then,” I state carefully, standing and walking past him, brushing his legs with my tail to make sure of... something. And wait, why am I in front, if he’s leading? I look back and the human—I mean Sergeant Roberts starts to swing his long legs, moving steadily forward past me.

I have to resist the urge to trot up ahead of him again. He knows the way, so why would I want to be in front? I just feel... antsy with him walking in front of me. I can’t explain it.

“I think Twilight made us nervous of humans, or... something,” I tell him, ambling alongside the lumbering black clothed beast. Maybe if he wasn’t so big, but Jesus Christ is he big.

“Oh of course you’d think it’s all Twilight’s fault,” he says dryly. Wait, what?

“No, it... m-maybe it’s my fault?” I say uneasily, tiptoeing around beside him, looking up at the stoic expression on the uniformed man. “I just haven’t really been around hands for quite a while.”

“Yeah, your whole life,” he says... again, kind of meanly? He startles then, and looks down to me adding, “Your whole... pony life I mean. After you got ...transformed from humans.”

I look up at him worriedly. “Is everything alright?” I ask, “I didn’t mean to offend you. It is kind of sad how I can’t even really act human anymore. It must be so... scary.”

“It must be?” he asks suspiciously, as I stare toward the laboratory we’re approaching way over there.

“The people you know, who got turned into ponies,” I say with sinking ears, “They try to be themselves, but we can’t even think like we used to. How could you tell we didn’t just... replace the people you love, like some sort of cute bodysnatchers?”

The man stops in his tracks, making me stumble forward a few steps. “Why would you say that?” he asks nervously. I think it’s nervously. Staring down at me like some kind of predator.

Looking up again at the... man who’s staring at me, I say, “You know Brian? She’s a pegasus, and she’s really good with biology, but that... scares her. She’s so scared that maybe we’re just... ponies who got tricked into thinking we used to be human, and the real Brian is...” I swallow nervously, “...gone.”

He stares at me for another moment, before looking forward again and starting to swing his long two legs in a walk again. “That might be a concern for some,” he says neutrally.

“I can’t imagine when it happened though,” I say as we arrive at the laboratory, “I was perfectly human, then I just sort of collapsed into a pony.”

“Collapsed into a pony,” he says skeptically, holding the door open for me to enter.

I walk inside, and he follows me down a hallway, as I say, “Yeah you know, like when they transform?”

“I was several hundred feet underground at the time, so I didn’t actually see that,” he remarks dryly. “Just came up top, and there were a bunch of ponies lying around.”

“Well, you sort of collapse into a blobby weird sort of thing,” I tell him, as he pauses to punch in the code on a password locked door, with his weird finger things. “But I could still see, and hear a little. And feel.”

The door opens, and once again he lets me in first, following after it swings closed.

“Your fur just starts growing in like crazy, and everything else is all weird ripply colors too,” I tell him, “I couldn’t tell when it was happening to me, but you sort of... shrink into your limbs and pony shape and such. My sister could move her wings, even when they were still forming. You start feeling like you can move your arms and legs again, and then you’re just a pony lying there, really confused.”

“...we’re here,” he says neutrally, stopping at the door into the lab.

“I’m just trying to say,” I say hastily, butting up against the side of his leg, “There wasn’t anywhere I could’ve died in there. I just fell down, felt weird, got up on hooves barely, and saw a pony in the mirror.”

“Well of course you don’t think you replaced a human who died,” he replies crossly, “That’s what you’re programmed to think!”

“I... can’t deny that,” I say with a frustrated stomp, “But I mean all my memories could be totally fake then, and maybe there never even was a human called Meadows—”

...

“...called Anton,” I tell him evenly. “And maybe he did die and I replaced him instantly, but Twilight Sparkle did that, not me. I’d never do that to anyone, and if I could, I’d save Anton’s life, t-though maybe not if I had to die, but I just dunno what to tell my friend, and she’s not even a human! She’s one of... of us. Whatever we are.”

He actually laughs at that last sentence, saying, “Hell I don’t know. Anyway, you have permission to enter.”

Sergeant Roberts lets me into the main laboratory, a room full of ponies, electronic monitoring equipment, and a great glass window on one wall, the experimentation chamber beyond it.

One of the ponies, a deep green bat pony with a shock of brown hair immediately recognizes me. “Ah, Meadowsweet!” Artemis declares, trotting up to me. “Thank you, Sergeant Roberts,” he says politely to my large companion.

“Yes sir,” Sergeant Roberts says politely, “I’ll be in the lounge if you need me.”

“Alright,” Artemis says cautiously, and Roberts sods off, while Dr. Peterson also walks up to me, the little blue and pink unicorn filly chirping happily, “Art here says you wanted to see how we were communicating with Equestria. We’re about to have a scheduled meeting so to speak, where they’re gonna be waiting on the other side so they can read our message.”

“Sure,” I reply, as Sergeant Roberts makes his way out of the room, “How do you send messages to them? Is there a wire, or...?”

“Check it out,” the filly says, climbing up on a bench that’s scooted up against the window. Dr. Peterson presses her nose to the glass with a light tink of her little bitty horn joining it, and I look over her at a darkened chamber, with a pedestal on it, and a glowing red bead shining on whatever’s on the pedestal.

“That’s the original tape,” she explains in a loud whisper, “That somehow has a wormhole to another universe punched in it. What we’ve done is point a laser beam at the anomalous point of origin, and by pulsing the beam, we can send them messages in Morse code.”

Sighing and drooping her tail a little, the unicorn filly settles on her haunches on the bench, looks up at me and says, “They don’t have any computers, obviously, otherwise we could send pictures and documents back and forth. As advanced as they are in magic, I fear, from what we’ve learned, that their technology is quite primitive.”

“Well, they don’t have opposable thumbs so...” I say, giving her a swift shrug of my tail.

Dr. Peterson laughs brightly at that, saying, “That’s certainly true! I think their magic must be itself some form of biotechnology, that we humans with our grasping appendages never developed. But I have to admit grasping appendages aren’t nearly as much of a problem, if we keep our intelligence. Most of us have still been able to at least operate the equipment, even if it’s sometimes a matter of hunt and peck.”

She purses her lips then, gazing down again at the laser, and I have to resist the urge to nuzzle at the ears on her round little head. So... adorable. I wonder if she’d ever consider wearing pigtails.

Of course the government has to ruin everything. “What’s she doing here?” a strident voice declares, as Major General Carey struts in, with an entourage. The purple haired, pink furred unicorn filly gives me an irritated look and doesn’t even speak to me when she says, “Get her out of here.”

One of the uh, entourage ponies moves towards me but before I can scramble out faster than you can say “Yes sir!” to a cute little filly, Dr. Peterson steps up and states with ear-quirked confusion, “This is Meadowsweet. She wanted to see the—”

“These are class-i-fied negotiations!” the major states insistently, and she actually has to pronounce the syllables classified like some kind of school kid that is so adorable, “And she doesn’t have any security clearances.”

“What’s she going to do, leak Equestrian secrets to the Russians?” Dr. Peterson asks irritably, and before the two little unicorn fillies can angrily confront each other, horn to cute little horn, I shout,

“It’s fine, really! I just wanted to see the um, setup, sorry! You can keep your messages secret! It probably doesn’t concern me anyway, and I can just trust whatever you say they said, right?”

The pink filly general looks at me with cautious suspicion, then says, “R... right.”

“Why do the Equestrians get to know more of our secrets than a United States citizen?!” Dr. Peterson declares vehemently.

“That’s enough Dr. Peterson,” I snap irritably. Her ears go down, but I’m already disappointed at not getting to see it, so why’s she trying to keep stringing me out like this? “I already said I was leaving. You don’t need to... escort me.” I look uneasily at the general’s entourage as I say this, then I just... leave.

Snorting an entirely too cute huff, I stride stiffly out of the room, pulling the door closed with my tail, standing in the hall before I relax, sighing. “It’s always something,” I mutter, sulking my way out of the laboratory, where I find a handful of foals busily playing in the snow laughing and rolling balls of snow along the ground, a sharp contrast to those few furious fighting foals within. Seeing that gets my mood up a little, and it’s not like I needed to know those secrets anyway. They’re the government. They take care of that stuff. I head over to see if those foals would let me play with them, and only wonder about what’s going on in there a little teeny bit.

I still don’t know what Daredevil likes so much about me, but it’s wonderful how she can hold me so steadily in that strength of hers, yet touch me so gently between my legs, until I’m writhing in her arms, kicking in the air as my womanhood takes me and fills we with wonder. It actually doesn’t happen a lot though. Sometimes we’re just touching each other then just... holding each other, and sometimes we even drift off to sleep. It’s definitely not as urgent as back when I still needed... someone to impregnate me. But Daredevil’s not pregnant, so she’s gotta be feeling horny, and there’s no way I can give her what she needs. So that’s why I should have seen this coming.

I hear it before I see it. Quiet moans and grunts of ponies mating with each other, except I can hear Dusty and Sue behind the door. Excitement and shock fills my yellow furred face, because I thought I was the only one of us who did that! I thought there was something wrong with me, to want Dusty and Sue both at the same time. But now, I push open the door to my apartment, declaring in wonder, “Lucy! I didn’t think you were gonna do that. This is so incredi—”

There are three ponies in the room besides myself. Sue on one end, doing the actual fucking, while Dusty on the other end takes care of a mare’s oral needs. And to the blue furred earth pony in between them, with a pink and purple mane and tail, I say bemusedly,

“You’re not Lucy...”

“Hey uh, Meadowsweet,” Sue says with a nervous smile, “This is totally what it looks like.”

Between Sue and Dusty, Daredevil stays silent, not even moaning as she looks at me with one frightened eye.

“S-surprise?” Dusty says awkwardly, yet not quite pulling out of the quiet mare’s mouth. “We wanted to tell you but... thought it’d be better just to show you, Daredevil wanted to...”

“She wanted to find out what it’s like to be a mare,” Sue says passionately, hugging Daredevil’s hips to him. “She wanted to... fuck me and Dusty, just like you... all at once.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Daredevil with a flare of disappointment as I edge into the room. “Are you pregnant? I didn’t even get to see a stallion cum inside you the first time! I—I wanted to see it happen to you, but I thought you didn’t want it!”

“This is her first time,” Dusty says passionately, and wait, what? “We just penetrated her,” he says, hugging Daredevil’s purple maned head to his groin, “We wanted to... show you instead of telling you.”

“Oh,” I say in shock, “Oh so...” I watch the two resume fucking her, and it is a beautiful sight. Both big stallions humping powerfully against her, the blue mare with pink and purple hair breathing stiffly through her nose, with her eyes scrunched shut, and her ears flat back um...

“Hold on, this is too much!” I shout in a squirrelly tone, trotting forward. “Isn’t it... kind of overwhelming to just do it all at once?” I ask the doubly fucked Daredevil plaintively.

“She wanted it that way,” Dusty says with a frown. “Wanted her... first time to blow her mind.”

Daredevil has her eyes opened now that the two stopped thrusting, at least. She blushes at the sight of me seeing her though. Doesn’t seem inclined to separate from them, but...

“Yeah, but she can’t even tell you if it’s overwhelming!” I protest, “Has she even had a stallion inside her at all before?”

“Look, she was licking me and I just started... okay fine,” Dusty says gruffly, “It does seem kind of... sketchy, now that I think about... you know how hard it is to think when—!”

He pushes off of Daredevil’s shoulders, leading Daredevil to gasp for air. “Thanks, Meadowsweet,” Dusty grumbles, blushingly.

Daredevil’s panting, “Couldn’t... breathe when he shoved it into me, what the fuck I thought...”

“You can breathe through your nose, but you have to breathe on the out-stroke,” I tell her sheepishly.

Daredevil’s answer is to suck in a shocked breath and stare forward, as Sue begins thrusting into her again, declaring in unbelieving amazement, “I... I have a dick in me!”

“It’s a lot different from anal sex, I’ve been told,” I dazedly relay to her, “You were saving this for... me? You’ve never done this before, and you were saving... vaginal and oral at the same time? ”

“Didn’t think it’d be this... different,” Daredevil says distractedly, bracing against the stallion’s thrusts, sweat trailing down her side despite the relatively cool interior of the apartment we’re in. “I can... feel where he’s gonna...!”

“Y-you’re gonna get pregnant you know,” I warn her helplessly.

“Wannit so bad, ” Daredevil whispers huskily, falling to steady panting, as she and Sue earnestly mate together. Rocking there, just... humping, and it’s Sue, not Dusty! I didn’t even know Daredevil was into Sue! “My belly’s getting... huge like you,” Daredevil murmurs in a daze, “Gonna fucking... birth my fucking foal right inna your vagina. S-sue, Sue. Sue, are you gonna... cum in me?”

“I’m gonna cum so hard,” he rumbles, balls swinging as he prepares to impregnate her. “Your body’s... making me cum in you.”

“Oh god you’re just gonna... squirt it outta there... in me!” Daredevil gasps, “Fucking... slamming your... cum hole inna my cervix...”

“I swear this really was Daredevil’s idea,” Dusty says uneasily beside me, as I sit there bemusedly on my haunches watching the two sink into grunting, huffing, earnest fucking.

“Oh, I believe it,” I tell him distantly, “It’s just... most mares can’t handle that sort of thing.”

“Fuck you I can’t handle it!” Daredevil shouts angrily, humping hard against Sue’s groin, “Shove your dick down my... my throat and I-I’ll swallow it!”

A moment of no noise but grunts and soft slaps, and then Dusty says, “Well you heard the lady, Meadowsweet. Time to fuck her throat with your dick.”

“Seriously?” I ask him dryly.

“Please I can... I can do it...” Daredevil moans yearningly, “I wanna smell him again.”

“I-I didn’t say you couldn’t!” I protest, “Go ahead Dusty, I mean...”

As Dusty moves into position again, I ask Daredevil worriedly, “You really think you can handle it?”

“I can... take anything wimp like you can take...” Daredevil says looking at me with a challenging grin despite Sue’s gleaming cock sliding again and again into her thick rump. Just standing there, being herself, and getting fucked.

Dusty wipes that smile off her face by shoving his dick in it. Just climbs up onto her shoulders and smacks her in the cheek with his erection, and then she’s moaning, and licking it, as Sue fucks her forward into Dusty’s groin.

“You won’t be able to talk pretty soon,” I warn Daredevil as Dusty humps against her, “Anything you want to say before...?”

“I... I’m gonna be a mommy! ” she shouts wetly from under there. “He’s gonna cum in me! Oh god I’m... taking Dusty too unlgh...”

That’s about it for Daredevil’s empassioned speech. I have to thank whoever designed us ponies that Daredevil doesn’t choke on his cock. When you swallow something, you just... swallow it, and Daredevil does so enthusiastically. And I think she’s getting the idea how to breathe now. “Just remember, breathe on the out stroke!” I repeat to her, a longing in me to wrap my own tongue around that penis, as Daredevil is reflexively doing.

I watch for a while in grateful amazement, before telling Daredevil, “Seeing this is incredible, Daredevil... they’re surrounding you!”

Daredevil’s left eye looks at me in adoring affection, she lifts a foreleg in order to give me a hoof’s up, and she still manages to fuck both of them on only three legs!

“They’re... they are kissing,” I relay to her, watching the boys brace on her and press their lips together. “I can never tell when Dusty and Sue start kissing, when they do me, but they are right now. Just using you like a table. I can’t believe you can do this!”

Daredevil just slams all fours to the ground and her whimpers grow more and more intense, as she stares sightlessly into Dusty’s groin, until Sue shoves deep, holds within Daredevil’s pussy, and announces, “She is cumming hard.”

“Already?!” I squawk in offense.

Daredevil’s eyes have scrunched shut, and she’s quivering there between them, breathing in hot snorts through her nostrils with Dusty’s penis just emerging gleaming from her mouth. At least he knows not to push in so she can breathe like this.

“She was... soaking wet when we got here,” Dusty says, as Daredevil opens her eyes to look up at his groin in utter adoration, “She was ready when Sue... entered her.”

The two start fucking her again, and Sue starts getting more and more intense, just staring forward and rolling smoothly in and out of her. I—I nuzzle Daredevil’s side, then climb up on her back sideways, hanging there reared up on the rocking pony, seeking out Dusty as Sue moans, “Oh god I’m getting close!”

I get Dusty’s attention with a quick kiss, whispering to him urgently, “Dusty, you need to pull out again!”

“What? Why?!” he whines intensely, “I’m almost...!”

“No, no you have to cum in her vagina,” I tell him urgently, “She’s gonna get pregnant! Then it could be yours or Sue’s! You... you both need to...”

“God, you’re right,” Dusty groans harshly, “Can’t just... cum down her throat. Gotta put my... my foal in her.”

He pushes off Daredevil, who gasps for breath again, immediately upon his thick penis sliding out of her. “I felt the—holy crap...” she pants, “Sue’s... the flare is... holy crap it’s sealing me off. He’s... he’s...”

“He’s about to cum,” I tell her admiringly, “Your first time feeling a guy do it inside you.” Sue’s thrusting ceases, so I finish with, “Here he goes. You’re gonna be a mommy now. How’s it feel?”

“It’s... it’s deep and...” she pants, head hunched forward staring at me anxiously, “Is he really gonna make me pregnant? It’s so—hunnnh!”

Her head snaps up and butt pressed to Sue’s pelvis, irises narrowing, Daredevil shouts, “It’s hot! Deeper!” Her eyes grow liquid as she shifts her hips against Sue, exclaiming, “Oh god I can’t stop taking every spurt!”

“Feels pretty good huh,” I tell her in an affectionate sort of melancholy as my friend stares forward, panting at the feeling of Sue’s cum pumping into her vagina, “It’s what our bodies are made for, taking his seed in. Most of it at least. It’s okay if he starts leaking out.”

“Fuck!” Daredevil cries out then, as Sue’s cum starts to pour down between her hind legs, “God damn fuck yes nnnh!”

Standing beside me and looking at the flustered, gasping Daredevil with skepticism, Dusty asks, “Are you sure you can take both me and Sue?”

“Get inside me “ Daredevil growls at him.

She steps forward, giving a thick groan as Sue slides out of her pussy, spurting briefly under her tail. As Sue dismounts, the mare shudders there alone, dripping semen between her legs, sides heaving. She stumbles towards me and the other stallion, drunken with lust, going right under Dusty’s chest and licking all along his shaft, tonguing the hole in the tip of its stiff length, moaning, “Ungh... this’s where you’re gonna start cumming from. Spurting and spurting into me mnnnh...”

“Turn around, I need it in you,” Dusty says tensely, “Unless you wanna swallow it agai—”

Daredevil twists around like a snake, sticking her head and shoulders out between his forelegs, and then walking forward until his penis is slapping against her entrance. “Oh, you’re just... hooking it in there,” she says looking back, more like a giddy schoolgirl than a trained military officer, and then with a quiet but hearty moan, she faces forward.

“Fuck... Dusty...” Daredevil pants, as he sinks into her body, “You’re even thicker than Sue!”

“He’s a tight fit,” Sue warns her, “You should be loose enough by now though.”

“How did I get that monster into my mouth ... mmmmnh!” she declares intensely, then squeals tightly, as Dusty starts fucking her in earnest.

This is almost a perfect situation. If Bubblegum were here, she could kiss with Dusty, while he was losing himself in fucking Daredevil’s hot, slimy vagina. Bubblegum could do it in midair, in fact! But Dusty’s lips remain the only thing unmolested, as Sue starts kissing Daredevil now, and I scoot underneath her and Dusty in order to do the thing.

“Ow, fuck!” Sue declares, jerking back, “Did you just bite me?”

“I... I ah... hahh ahh...!” Daredevil tries desperately to respond.

“I’m doing the thing!” I call out from under her and Dusty.

“Warn me next time!” Sue gripes.

“Sorry!”

The thing isn’t really anything special, mostly just enjoying this fucked mare above me. My chin gets slimy with her and Sue’s fluids, as inches away from me, Dusty’s penis is pistoning in and out of her. I nip at her little blue furred nipples, and suck at them one by one, with my hoof gently palpating her mound right where Dusty’s fucking her, to indirectly push her clitoris more firmly up against that slick, sliding penis. Because Holly did that to me, and we kind of worked out what felt best.

Dusty doesn’t stop fucking her until he cums. Daredevil looks so... calm and confident in the end, just standing there fucking Dusty like she had no other care in the world. Then her eyes widen and she says with a girlish delight, “Oh fuck yes, you’re flaring too.”

Dusty’s thrusts become short and deep, while she coos happily, “Gonna cum in me, huh big guy?” looking back at him with slitted eyes. “Better hurry, Sue’s cum’s getting me pregnant ri’now.” Eyeing him adoringly, the tough blue mare says, “You’re hardly thrusting anymore. Gonna start spurting? Gonna—”

They both groan intensely then, as the base of Dusty’s penis starts pulsing. Gazing at the stallion as semen floods into her womb, Daredevil relates intensely, “Fuck, you’re doing it too. You feel... different, woah. Holy crap, keep f-fucking unh... I hafta take it into me, and get pregnant. Unnnhh,” That last bleating moan is because Dusty starts pouring out between her legs even faster than Sue did.

“Meadowsweet, lookit me,” Daredevil pants, looking at me adoringly for some reason. “Imma fucking double mommy.”

Events proceed naturally, and we’re all soon cuddled around Daredevil. She’s laying her head against my side, while the two stallions sandwich her in between them. “I have no idea how this is going to work,” I say in bemused frustration, “I wasn’t supposed to do anything with Dusty, but then you just do this with Sue and Dusty.”

“I don’t wanna lose you, Meadowsweet,” Dusty says fretfully, “You don’t need a... system or statistics. I don’t want you to find that last... mare for me. I want you to be with me too.”

“Well, I mean,” I say cagily, “Daredevil, do you... want to be with Sue?”

“I wanna be with you, Meadowsweet,” Daredevil says contentedly, “But Sue and Dusty were both awesome. How about we both do them both?”

“You’re okay with the others too, aren’t you?” I ask hopefully, “Holly and Lucy... and Bubblegum and Mira?”

Oh god, I’m going to be able to love all of them!

“Yeah, they uh... they’d do the thing that you do?” Daredevil asks hopefully.

“Daredevil they’re...” I wibble, “They’re going to love you!” hugging her tightly and never letting her go because she needs me and they’re going to love her, and somehow she made everything okay!

After I’m done... falling in love, or whatever, I sit embarassedly separate from Daredevil. Wiping my eyes to clear them of tears, I glance between the glowingly content stallions on either side of the mare.

“I’m sure Holly and Lucy will love you,” Sue says evenly, “And if they’re okay with it, I’m okay with it. And yeah I’m still okay with you being with Dusty too, Meadowsweet, so don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll ask Bubblegum, uh... heh,” Dusty shifts, saying cheekily, “Maybe I’ll wait until I’m doing her to ask. That ought to warm her up to the idea.”

“What about that girl, Mira?” Daredevil asks Dusty curiously, “Is she going to be cool with it?”

The rest of us share a look.

“Oh wow,” Mira says, some time later, fluttering up to a puzzled looking Daredevil after I break the news to my bat pony sister, “That has got to be earth pony endurance!”

On our side of the wormhole, one huge issue seems to be dominating all the others. No one’s really talking about it, but... okay, maybe some people are talking about it.

Okay Brian is talking about it. A lot.

“We’re doomed. That’s just it. The whole world is doomed,” Brian tells me bleakly at lunch, again. “I’m pregnant. You’re pregnant. If even half of us are pregnant, that’s still orders of magnitude higher rate of reproduction than even human beings.”

“So, we’re gonna overpopulate?” I ask with concern, around my own mouthful of slowly chewing hay.

“Humans are already overpopulating!” Brian declares, around nibbling nervously at a seared musky deer steak, “If we’re reproducing ten, twenty, fifty times as fast as humans... we’re a global superpredator. A genuine global superpredator, with no natural predators hunting us. If we can’t control our reproduction, we’re gonna cover the globe in ponies, drive anything made out of meat extinct, then eat each other until we die off!”

“It can’t be like this all around the world,” I say skeptically, from where we squat next to our plates of meat, salty squash and hay. “Most girls in the base here didn’t used to be girls, so we weren’t trained in... not getting pregnant, like real girls were.”

“Isn’t Lucy a real girl?” Brian asks, with a cautious look my way before eating, “I thought she was with your...”

“...thing, yeah,” I admit, sheepishly. “Mira’s pregnant, too, and she used to be a girl. But I don’t know if they’re exceptions. Oh, and also Blaze. Uh.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s our gender change that’s doing this,” Brian says caustically, a bit of squash on the tip of her nose before she licks it off. “I can’t even blame real girls, even if they were taught some secret anti-sex lessons. It’s just so much... harder to resist!”

“Not harder to resist but it’s just... easier to do,” I counter cautiously, “I’ve done stuff that I’d never have the guts to do as a human, even if I was a human girl.”

The green pegasus frowns at that, but looks down at her plate, saying reservedly, “A lack of inhibitions, yes. It just feels so natural to... do these things that should be shameful. We’re bloodthirsty predators, and it doesn’t even bother us. It doesn’t even bother me!”

“I feel bad for Sue and Holly,” I say looking down at my own plate. Couple of scraps left that I can just sort of hoover up. Chewing, I add, “They were vegetarian before all this.”

“Well they’re not now,” Brian declares conclusively, “Though I think not many humans would stay vegetarian without access to beans, eggs, milk...”

“Lots of beans up here, but not much milk,” I agree.

“But back in our original barn, we were stuck with nothing,” Brian replies, “That’s when everyone started going crazy over meat.”

She sighs again, adding, “Crazy over meat, and over getting pregnant. And now we’re all gonna have babies, all 7 billion of us on the planet... well three quarters of that amount, but still.”

“Maybe it’s... not that much?” I try weakly, “Maybe you’re missing something.”

“I can’t imagine how I could possibly miss something,” Brian says bleakly, “I was...” she looks at me, then whispers, “I-it’s kind of hard to miss getting pregnant.”

I start to blush at that, but... we’re the only ones around right now, so I give a little smile instead and say, “It feels pretty good though, doesn’t it?”

Brian blinks, before really blushing and saying “I–I mean yes I suppose it’s just natural—.”

“No, no sorry it was a bad joke,” I say, clearing my throat and looking the other way.

Regarding me, Brian swishes her tail behind her, then says, “It’s okay, you can... I don’t mind if you talk about that stuff. It’s just natural, after all?”

I look up to meet her pale purple eyes, bite my lip, and try asking, “So, how was your first time?”

Brian’s face falls in regret, smiling sadly as she says, “Pretty terrible, actually. I dunno if Jack was a jerk before transforming, but he sure was a jerk, and he just left anyway.”

“Oh, he was one of the ones who...” I say, face falling with sympathy as well.

“Yeah, he left to find his family,” Brian says, droopy tailed, “I think part of it was me. I–I just started crying after he came in me once, because I couldn’t stop getting pregnant, and he just left, he didn’t even care, but then like a day later I was sticking my butt in his face, tempting him to... wanting him to impregnate me.”

“I can see why he’d have an issue with that,” I say critically, “But it’s not your fault. He’s the one making you feel that way in the first place!”

“Well, I wish he stayed,” Brian says resentfully, “Because Richard was just... ugh.”

“Ugh?” I ask cautiously.

“She was a friend of Jack’s at the convention,” Brian tells me, “And she knew a... stallion named Mark who was in on it.”

“In on it?” I ask worriedly.

“Richard turned into a mare, but she... she and Mark liked to force me to consent,” Brian says, flat-eared. “They said they knew what I was doing with Jack, and they’d tell everyone I was just a pregnant... slut, if I didn’t let Mark have me too. Richard never had sex with him in front of me, so I didn’t... know if maybe I was the only one in the whole group having sex.”

“Jesus,” I tell her in shock, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was just being a stupid female, ” Brian says, her eyes shaded in shame, “You know how stupid girls just blame themselves and hide it, a-and I just didn’t want you to feel bad too. If it was only me it was fine but... but anyone else... nobody else should have to deal with people doing... that. You were so... innocent.”

I blink in surprise, as Brian says, “You were just this perfect... you had a wonderful loving relationship, and you didn’t do anything weird you just... got pregnant, and had normal sex, and I didn’t want you to know I was...”

“I’d have told you I was peeing in front of Sue,” I tell him frankly, “If it meant you would tell me, or tell someone what they were doing to you!”

“You were peeing in front of Sue?” Brian asks incredulously.

“I-it’s a horse thing,” I tell her with a blush.

“No, it really is a horse thing!” Brian declares, “That’s a thing for ponies, too?”

Blinking at her, I say, “I think so? You’d have to ask um... Holly. She was the one who... knew about how we should do that. W-we hardly even do it anymore though.”

“I would hope so,” Brian says wryly, “But yeah, it’d have been nice to know. Peeing, really?”

“Yeah, just lift my tail and... well it was just on the ground, but...” I say blushingly, “Then he smells it and... likes that, and... then you’re really horny.”

“I’ll have to try that next year,” she muses, “I’d hate to think what it would have been like if Richard knew about that though, or Mark. Or Greg.”

“How many jerk boyfriends have you had? ” I ask in horror.

“Too many,” she groans, “Mark was the worst though.”

“He does sound pretty awful,” I admit.

“It was so creepy,” Brian shuddered, “They made me say I wanted it, every time. Mark would even tease me, until I was begging for it. And as soon as I said yes, he’d just be... on me and in me and I freaked out, but he wouldn’t stop, and I never asked him to stop because when I did, he would stop. ”

“I... kind of understand?” I say cautiously, “It really sounds like you wanted him to stop though, in that situation.”

“No I mean, Mark and Richard would get so disgusted with me if I told him to stop, and Mark would pull out then they’d make me sit there, empty,” Brian says fearfully, “I just had to sit there wanting it while they told me I... I didn’t deserve it, and that I was just a liar and... and worse things too. I knew they were manipulating me, but I just... what was I supposed to do? At least they were...willing.”

I wish I had wings like Brian, so I could wrap them around her, but I lay a foreleg across her back at least. She doesn’t resist as I feel my fur settle against the silken feathers of her folded wing. She leans against me slightly as she says, “So the next time I just... pretended I wanted it, and tried not to freak out, just so he would finish in there and they’d leave me alone. They were okay as long as I... consented. I-I’m so glad that they left after we got to Ainsworth.”

“I dunno what to tell you, Brian,” I tell her softly, “They had no excuse for bullying you. I guess some people are just... screwed up, even as ponies.”

With a slight laugh, Brian pushes away from me, saying, “That was the worst it got, thankfully. Greg was just... weird.”

“What happened with Greg?” I ask concernedly.

“I happened,” Brian said, rolling her eyes. “When Mark and Richard left, I was... I mean we all were going nuts by then, but I thought it was because I no longer had a stallion to... finish in me. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I don’t know. All I know is Greg could smell me, and I could smell him, and, of course I presented for him. How could I not? He was just... out, and I wanted it so bad. I tried to tell him no, but...”

At my sympathetic nod, she says apologetically, “I would have said no if he asked, but once he mounted me, I... well, I wasn’t exactly begging for it, but...” blushing, Brian admits, “Okay maybe I was begging for it a little.”

“Hard not to beg for it, when you start feeling it,” I tell her sympathetically, “It just does things to you, when you feel him in your... vagina. When I start getting penetrated, I can’t even think about anything else.”

“It was all I could think about,” Brian replied morosely, “I didn’t want to move. I asked him to... cum inside me. I just got so hungry for it. And it was so satisfying.”

“But you didn’t want it?” I ask in slight confusion, “I mean, this is a bad thing, right?”

“I wanted it, I just couldn’t control myself!” Brian says with ears tilting back, “S-so I started avoiding him, but...”

“But?” I ask sympathetically.

“But he started following me, and just... kept on doing it,” Brian whimpers, “I let him do it, I mean. I wanted it once he started. I told him how much I loved him and wanted his... his baby in me. And it felt great. Not orgasm, but you know?”

“It definitely feels pretty amazing to me, even without orgasm,” I say thoughtfully, “I usually orgasm though.”

“Maybe that would have helped,” Brian says bleakly, “I kind of broke down later, a little bit. When my estrus went away, and that meant pregnancy. He didn’t care either though. And he wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Did you tell him to leave you alone?” I ask worriedly.

“I told him, kind of,” Brian says uncertainly, “I told him to stop following me because it was going to make me pregnant, since I couldn’t resist... since I wanted him inside me so badly. He just smiled at that, and I told him I was gonna let him do me right now, that I was a fucking girl and I couldn’t stop wanting his baby. Then I turned my ass and...”

Brian scrapes the ground, snorting in frustration. Then she sinks her head and sighs.

“I don’t think he ever talked to me,” Brian says miserably, staring at the ground she scraped, “He would just come up and start having sex with me, and he didn’t need to say anything, b-but he didn’t say anything. I only found out his name was Greg from his friend, who said that Greg knew we were... that females were desperate. S-so I knew it was wrong, and that he was just using me, so I went with Luke, so that Greg would leave me a-alone.”

“...did it work?” I ask.

“Kind of,” she says with a grimace, “Greg didn’t like to... share, maybe? He was just committing to going full horse, I guess, but he didn’t have the guts to fight Luke, so I was... okay. Even if Luke also kind of... used me, but I owed him one, so... it was technically consensual?”

“Doesn’t sound like it was very fun though,” I point out solemnly.

“Yeah, well then Luke... told me I couldn’t go off by without him, because guys were looking at me,” Brian says, lashing her tail all the way to its base, “And I told him I don’t care, and he says as a woman it’s my duty to... and then I didn’t have anyone.”

“Have you ever been with someone who wasn’t a jerk?” I whine softly.

The green pegasus mare just shakes her head sadly.

“Do you wanna be with someone who isn’t a jerk?” I venture.

“I wish I had,” Brian grumbles angrily, looking away from me, “I just ignored my urges. I was a girl, who wanted to be with guys, and I just ignored it. It just built up, until I was so desperate that I went with the first jerk who told me to lift my tail. I should’ve... just had sex with a nice guy, and not tried to avoid them until some asshole forced the issue.”

“It might’ve been nice if you did back then,” I tell her critically, “I wasn’t asking about what you should have done though. I mean now.”

Brian looks at me curiously.

“Would you like a nice guy to be with?” I ask her a little flustered, “Like, now?”

Sighing, Brian looks away and admits, “I think so, but I’ll probably just pick another jerk. I guess I’m really bad at judging guys. I should know exactly how they work, but I don’t, so I can’t really trust myself to try again.”

“...what do you think about bat ponies?” I ask thoughtfully.

Brian turns an ear my way.

Author's Note

Don’t look now, but I think Meadowsweet might be considering shipping Brian with somepony she shouldn’t.