My hoof connects and it’s all over. The pegasus goes tumbling mid-flight, and scrapes the ground as he sinks into the snow. Only his elbow pads get scraped up though, sliding on them across the ground to a grinding halt.

“Go Meadowsweet!” Lucy cheers from the bleachers. Both of my forehooves slowly connect with my own face. We’re in the pegasus training area today, a somewhat larger cleared out space than the unicorn area, with just enough room for a flying pegasus to manuver... mostly. Lucy is sitting on the unused truck we affectionately refer to as “the bleachers” and cheering me on for some reason.

“Could you possibly go find something else to do?!” I call out to Lucy in exasperation.

“That’s the spirit!” Lucy says, hopping happily on the hood of the truck in a manner suspiciously remniscent of a certain pink party pony who shall not be mentioned in polite company.

“No, that was really good,” the orange pegasus stallion whom I toppled says as he comes striding up. Various forms of uncomfortable padding adorn his and my body, which is good for me, at least. “I didn’t see it coming at all,” he continues, “You should try faking out your movements more.”

“Yeah it just seems kind of... sneaky,” I tell him with a wince. Before he can protest, I stammer, “Not–not that I wouldn’t do it to Twilight Sparkle! I know I should focus on that more, and I’m trying to. I just don’t know.”

“Well, good job, still,” he says, patting my back with a wing. Ouch.

With a phony smile, I tell him, “Hey, after losing the last 7 matches, I had to succeed at some point, right?”

“Goooo Meadowsweet!”

I think my bruises have bruises.

Let it not be said that I’m an extremely good fighter. I’m pretty good against unicorns, off and on against earth ponies, but pegasi continue to flummox me. Impossible to track, difficult to hide from, I keep finding myself a sitting duck in any open sort of sparring situation. About the only way I could consistently beat them is if I played dirty, like kicked snow in their eyes.

Of course when they’re required to stay on the ground, I win more often, uh... sort of. You’d think disabling a pegasus’s wings would be easy with how most of the wing is feathers, but most of the wing is feathers. When they’re stuck on the ground, they spread their wings as you engage with them; flap them right in your face, all big, fluffy and confusing. It’s practically impossible to get ahold of them because the feathers slip through just about anything, and have no resistance to tell you even grabbed one. Then you end up accidentally sticking your whole leg through a wing, where the feathers catch your arm and... yeah. I’ve gotten pinned more than once, with my arm trapped in one wing, while their other wing just sort of slapped on top of my face so I couldn’t see, or smell. Wings are OP.

I guess it’s a sort of rock paper scissors thing. Earth ponies can flummox unicorns pretty easy, at least earth ponies with any familiarity with that unicorn’s spells. A lot of my sneaky not-really-powers seem to act to counter some sort of unicorn’s spell, at least. Pegasi don’t share that adaptability though, and they’re big colorful targets up in the air, those who aren’t white as clouds or blue as the sky that is. So unicorns can just zap them every time. But of course, once a pegasus is up in the air, there is not much an earth pony can do to stop them, much less defeat them.

Bat ponies, for all their scariness, kind of get the worst of all worlds. Something that would’ve just ruffled through the feathers of a pegasus’s wing will scratch that of a bat pony. Not that we’re engaging in anything risky of damage to anyone’s wings. They just can’t fight with wings spread, and keep them tight to their sides until they’re up in the air and ready to fly. So no wing buffetting to speak of. They’re a little bit resistent to unicorn stunning techniques, but they don’t speed up as much, or as quickly as pegasi do. They still remain somehow more agile in the air, and can twist and turn to avoid obstacles and other ponies. So they can get defeated by all three, but have some advantages over the other three tribes, like the campfire lighting thing, or the catlike pupils... which make seeing in the dark easier. I say “easier” because with our gigantic eyes it’s pretty impossible not to see, even in low light conditions.

That’s my experience, at least, sparring with mostly trained military people who’ve been unceremoniously dumped into weird bodies they don’t even know how to walk with. I’m a decent fighter for a civilian, but I’m guessing my time spent fighting with Twilight Sparkle helped a lot with that. She was someone actually trained by Equestria, while all they’re getting here is some cryptic morse code advice from Equestria. Against a native Equestrian, it would end very quickly and messily for all of us I think, regardless of what tribe they were in. But I take what I can get.

And Crystal can’t... hide it anymore.

I mean, none of us can really hide “it” at all, because we’re still all going around naked for the most part. The few humans among us can’t exactly sew cute little pony outfits for all of the rest of us. It’d be too warm with all this fur anyway. Being unable to hide her pussy is not Crystal’s only problem though.

She’s a sort of greenish blue pegasus, with a mane of green and blue stripes, and pretty purple eyes. I don’t really know her, except seeing her kicking ass in the flying exercises above my head. She’s kind of been... skipping exercises though, I hear from Brian, and pretty much avoiding others. I try to approach her once and she just flies away, and what am I supposed to do about that?

Well, eventually I just sneak up on her, and introduce myself, saying “Hi! You’re Crystal right? No wait don’t fly away! I just wanted to introduce myself!”

Crystal hovers a moment, then drops heavily to the frozen ground with a crunch.

“You probably know me,” I say sheepishly, “After everyone made me give those stupid speeches. I’m Meadowsweet, though.”

“Well uh, pleased to... I mean we’ve been living together, so... yeah,” Crystal says, her high alto tinted with dissatisfied confusion, and her wings slightly spread in an odd way, as she faces me head on. “So... hi. If you didn’t want anything, I guess you can... you know, whatever.”

“Brian was telling me—” I say hastily as she tries to take off again, “...about you,” I continue cautiously, as Crystal returns warily to four hooves, “She’s worried that you’ve been skipping exercises, and avoiding people. I uh... had to sneak up on you, sorry. I’m kind of good at that.”

“Y-you sure are, heh. I didn’t even...” Crystal says with a half smile, “Glad you’re on our side.”

“It’s not that great,” I grumble, “But yeah I’m glad I can be useful.”

An awkward silence falls, in which she won’t meet my eyes.

“So... is everything alright?” I ask, giving her a sideways look.

Crystal’s ears very briefly dip downward, and she asks tensely, “You used to be a guy, right?”

I think my relieved smile does the talking for me, but I still tell her, “Yup! It’s no big deal though. Might as well act like a girl as long as I look the part.”

That makes Crystal blush oddly enough, and the green and blue pegasus asks shyly, “So... did you... ever start wanting to get pregnant? Like actually want it?”

“I uh... only when I’m... in the process of... I mean having... you know, sex?” I say hesitantly, not sure how to answer such a personal question without sticking my foot in my mouth. I’m going to stick my foot in my mouth, aren’t I.

“No I mean, did you ever really want it?” she asks persistently, leaning towards me, “Like right now if you could... be pregnant, would you?”

“It’s not like I have any choice about it now,” I grumble entirely too cutely. My expression turns to worry as I ask, “Why? Did a stallion have... sex with you?”

Crystal gives me a look. Uggggggh.

“You could say that,” she says enigmatically, then folds her wings and turns slightly sideways, so that I can see... oh. Oh.

“You’re showing,” I say numbly, at the small, but noticeable swelling in the green pony’s flank. It can’t be fat, because we don’t have enough food to pig out on, and the rest of her isn’t fat, so it could only be...

“N-no one else is!” Crystal says in blushing frustration, hiding her belly with a wing again, “I look like the only girl who... who is such a girl, she just went and...”

“...had sex with a stallion,” I finish for her.

Crystal stops fluffing her wings angrily, and sinks sadly back to herself. Herself and... a little more. “I didn’t even wanna,” she says lamely, “At first. But after we started doing it, I just started... it started making me think about things.”

“Is the stallion here with you?” I ask cautiously.

Crystal shakes her head. “No, he left pretty early on,” she says, “But I definitely deserved... to get pregnant back then.”

“You really enjoyed it,” I suggest quietly.

“I really enjoyed it,” she says in wide-eyed emphasis. “You don’t even know. It was better than any...”

“No, I know,” I say to the suddenly blushingly silent pegasus, giving her a reassuring smile, “We just... feel like being girls, now.”

“Y-yeah, we do,” she says, with a nervous giggle, “Even though you were a guy, it just sorta feels amazing. So that’s why...” Crystal lifts her wing and slides the feathers along her bump, “...this.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” I say with sadly turned down ears and tail, “Sorry you have to... be like this.”

“Well I don’t mind being like this,” she says perkily, “It’s just I’m the only one.”

“You don’t?” I ask in surprise, “You mean you want to be pregnant?”

“Well—no—but...” she says, scrunching, “It’s just...”

“No, no it’s fine if you do, I’m just surprised,” I hastily assure her, with friendly up-turned ears, “Most people don’t want to be pregnant. It’s... kind of cool that you do. Since you are.”

Her smile of relief is telling enough, but she turns her body more sideways to show me, saying excitedly, “It’s just so cool! That’s a pony! Inside me! I’m growing a real pony, just by standing here!”

“It is cool!” I say, looking with wonder and fear at her bulge, “I was starting to wonder if our bodies even could do that.”

“Well they can,” Crystal says, biting her lip and adding, “And I’ve been eating a lot, and working hard to grow a pony in me, and I’m doing it! Y-you want to touch it? You totally can.”

“Oh, could I?” I ask, stepping forward towards her.

“Yeah, go ahead,” she says, even lifting her wing out of the way.

Curling my foreleg around her green belly, it’s strikingly firm, and round.

“It feels really good to... rub,” she says hesitantly, “Or whatever you know.”

“Like this?” I ask, stroking along her wispier furred belly.

“Like a massage,” she says uncertainly, “N-never mind, it’s stupid.”

Well I try lifting her up in my arm so to speak, and she immediately sinks against me, a satisfied groan escaping her. Her wing tries to fold on my head, but she lays it across my back then, while I use firmer palpation to... soften her belly up, I guess. It really does feel tight, though I’m not sure if that’s tight muscles, or pressure from within.

“Thanks, it just gets kinda achy sometimes,” she says in a quite satisfied tone after I’m done exploring her slightly pregnant belly. “It was amazing enough when we turned into ponies,” Crystal says, fluttering to stand separate from me again, “But my body can grow a pony. I can grow into a pony. It’s like I’m turning into two ponies, one out here and one in... here,” she wing pats her flank again. “And all I have to do is just eat, and I just grow like that.”

“It is pretty... weird,” I tell her, and at her look I add, “But in a good way! I mean it’s really great you’re actually happy with it. Aren’t you worried about giving birth?”

Her ears tilt down a little. “Yeah,” Crystal says, looking off into the distance, “Is it weird if I kind of... want to give birth, sometimes?”

“Oh no, I uh...” I don’t know how to say this politely! “Sorry I don’t mean to be crude, but I um f-fantasize about that sometimes, too.”

“It’s like... it’s a muscle right?” Crystal says, heedless of my hemming and hawwing, settling on her haunches and looking down at her slight bulge, “I can just imagine it squeezing down really hard n’ stuff, and stretching uh.”

She looks at me worriedly, before admitting, “As weird as it is having a vagina, it feels really good to stretch ‘em.”

“Oh, I know, I imagine that too,” I tell her, leaning forward with interest, “Where it stretches you, but from the inside it’d be so...”

“Incredible,” she finishes with a wistful sigh. “I know it’ll be really... hard, but to see a pony coming out of there, my pony baby, I just wanna...” Crossing her eyes and frowning, she puzzles over her words, before declaring, “Stretch the hell out around her and just have her like squeeze outta me.”

“God, yes,” I say, sinking my head. “Vaginas are so sensitive, but sometimes you just wanna... freaking abuse the darn thing. I guess it’s instinct.”

“Not like I have any choice about giving birth, right?” Crystal says with a nervous smile, “So it’s okay if I wanna do the whole thing, like even give birth?”

“Yeah, I just wish we didn’t all have to do it,” I grumble, lifting a leg to eye my own flank for any... swelling back there.

“Maybe we’ll be lucky, and I really am the only one?” Crystal offers hopefully.

I have to laugh, groaning, “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

It takes Crystal a while to work up to letting everypony see what’s happening to her, but I think I help break the ice at least. Seeing Crystal just standing there, or flying above me, just growing a foal in her, there is something incredible and beautiful about it, but that means this is real. It means I’m going to do that. I feel fine now, and she actually seems okay with a baby in her, but... there’s a baby inside me, and inside us all who had sex. How are we going to deal with that? There’s no way we all can get an abortion any time soon. What’s giving birth going to be like? Am I going to... love my child? I don’t even know them! I just don’t know how to feel about all this.

Our herd continues to train and learn, and hunt, and even farm, a little, even out here in the wilderness. The fall has fallen swiftly to winter though, so our days of growing food are pretty much over. No matter how good you are at it, there’s no growing plants in thick snow and subzero temperatures, so it’s pretty clear we’re going to have to get by on what food we’ve managed to acquire so far.

It’s alright though. The humans—who I still haven’t really got to know very well—can drive us to places to commandeer supplies, and we haven’t yet been snowed in so badly a four-wheel drive can’t get through it. The apartments we live in aren’t too well insulated I imagine, but they’re nicely heated, and they will shield us from the wind and snow. The main laboratory building itself is very sturdy, and large enough for all of us to fit in, if some truly crazy weather comes blowing through.

Oh and as for stockpiling, there is all this hay. We’d been gathering the stuff in preparation for winter, and now that it’s here, anyone can just go and take some to put in their apartment and munch on with their friends. It’s quite soothing, and our digestion at least seems slow enough to get some energy out of it. I certainly know it doesn’t resemble hay coming out the other end!

The filly known as Major General Carey only drove in recently, and hasn’t been with us this entire time. Not sure where she came from this time, but she made sure to bring supplies, including a bunch of honest-to-gosh actual not-a-dream beef jerky, and I really can’t complain about that. There’s enough for all of us, a little at least, and it goes really good with hay.

It snowed pretty heavily last night, enough to leave an inch or so to start melting in the sunny morning. It’s definitely getting colder, and I’m certainly glad for a full body fur coat. Looking at myself in the mirror, I think my fur might actually be getting thicker. I don’t think horses have winter coats, though, so why would my little ponies?

It’s definitely true we’re not in Ainsworth anymore. That town was outright toasty compared to here. It’s almost as if we were right back in Minnesota, considering how cold and snowy it’s been getting. I try not to make a habit of guessing though. The less I know of our location, the less I can blab about it to Twilight, either from some magical influence she has on me, or just me being an idiot.

Our training and research continues on. The general tries her best to maintain top security, but it’s only a matter of time at this point. They need our help to experiment with what they’re learning from that portal, and we can’t do that unless we know what that is.

Then one frozen November, the gloves come off. Or would they be boots? Either way, the Major General looks disgruntled, as the filly named Doctor Peterson stands before us in their assembly hall / lecture building. (Not the sort of thing you’d expect to see in a military installation!)

“Alright everyone, it’s time we shared some of our research findings with you,” she states clearly, “Classified or not, we certainly can’t do this without your help, so I trust you all were listening to the general’s speech on the consequences of revealing this classified information...”

Maybe somebody was listening to the general’s very impassioned speech about classified information, maybe. But we’re all listening now. Dr. Peterson lays out her best attempt to explain what we’re going to do. Apparently the portal to Equestria has similar properties to a teleportation in-progress, and by sort of teleporting from a nearby generated space, we should be able to stabilize the wormhole enough to increase its aperture.

It kind of makes sense, too! You just do the thing where you shove space in between two flat plates to make them stick together, despite the growing gap in between them. So the plates kind of pull towards each other as if they were touching, but you can even walk between them. Then unicorns attach their teleportation to that pully connection between them, and do the teleport thingy on the wormhole and it... expands.

I may be really bad at explaining things, but it is kind of obvious, given the fact that the portal’s more of a pinch than a cylinder, that needs to have a non... space thing in the middle of it. A four dimensional thing could make a whole sphere, but a three dimensional magic... thing could press them together flatly like a pinch and... yeah I am definitely bad at explaining things.

It doesn’t exactly keep me up at night to think that we might be secretly being manipulated by some master plan of Twilight’s to make everything even worse, but it probably would be, if I wasn’t so tired of worrying about that stuff. General Carey’s obviously keeping secrets from us, and she goes to mysterious locations. Is it to contact Twilight Sparkle in her new secret lair? Whoever has a high enough security clearance isn’t allowed to say specifics, but at least Artemis and Dr. Peterson seem completely unconcerned.

“There is absolutely nothing we’re telling Equestria that could possibly benefit Twilight Sparkle,” the brown and blue bat pony named Artemis tells me, after I express my worries to him for like the millionth time. “I’ll be quite honest, that Princess Celestia doesn’t seem concerned with Twilight, so much as helping us get better from what Twilight’s done to us. I can’t talk specifics, but Celestia’s aid has been immeasurably helpful in integrating the manifolds of Twilight Sparkle with a greater universal panoply.”

I’m going to pretend I understood any of that last part.

“I only wish we could just tell the princess about our problem,” Artemis sighs, “It’s wonderful to be learning so much from her, but all this spy stuff is... well, I suppose it is what I signed up for.”

He then rolls over on his back, from within the huge tub of water that Artemis is bathing in. I say huge because it’s a normal bathtub and (sigh) ponies are small. But it’s hard to find time to hang out with the busy bat pony, so I take advantage of the fact that he kind of talks with me until we amble into his apartment, and he enlists my help in filling up the tub. The water’s cold, but not a huge deal for ponies I suppose. So here I am perched, reared up on the edge of the tub, while Artemis is getting enviously clean.

“What can’t you tell Princess Celestia about?” I ask curiously, then twitch my ears self -critically and clarify, “You don’t have to tell me if it’s classified of course. I didn’t even know we had a problem we couldn’t tell her about!”

Artemis lifts his head up and gives me a look. “The problem of turning every human being on the planet into a pony?” he says dryly.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I grumble, glancing away, “That.”

“All they ever say to her is that there is a rogue agent turning people into ponies!” Artemis whines, flopping back again and winging through the water. “We’re getting advice on turning back, and apprehending Twilight Sparkle, but we need to know how to live as ponies. How they even have a civilization at all, without opposable thumbs!”

“I guess the military is just being careful,” I tell him warily, “For all we know, everypony in Equestria is as bad as Twilight.”

“I find that hard to believe,” he laughs bitterly, “It’d be hard to form a civilization without opposable thumbs, but downright impossible if everyone was that awful.”

“Well... people aren’t that awful by themselves usually, on our side,” I say, trailing a hoof in the water, “So whoever made her that way, they’re probably in Equestria somewhere.”

“It’s probably not any worse than our world,” Artemis says, splashing up to my side, “Lots of crazed monsters come out of just normal human society.”

“Sometimes I wonder about that,” I reply with flat ears, “When people go bad, there’s always something wrong with... their upbringing. Is it really normal society, if it’s an abnormal society inside our society that’s creating monsters?”

“I have to admit abnormal societal elements cannot count as normal,” Artemis points out wryly, “Hey, you wanna climb in? You’re smelling pretty... ehm...”

“Oh, yeah,” I blush, well aware of how I’m smelling. Like Dusty, specifically. And dust. I am a very dirty pony. And also a very dirty pony. Rearing up from holding the lip of tub, I spring over the edge, sliding forelegs first into the water.

With a shock of cold water, I’m submerged. I pop my head out, hind hooves vaguely touching the bathtub floor as my tail spreads out in a plume of soft green hairs behind me, and the water gets a lot dirtier. I can feel the smells of me and others, and just general stickiness slipping off me already. “Thanks!” I tell him in relief, lifting a foreleg to push my bangs out of my eyes.

“No problem,” the drenched bat pony says, affectionately pressing his nose to mine. We swim together and splash each other, and I slap his face with my wet tail totally on accident. I think the best thing about baths is I don’t have to smell him, but I can still be in close quarters with a stallion. Not that I have been feeling any special compulsion to follow a stallion’s scent lately. This pregnancy really is keeping my libido under control, even if I’m so not ready for the end result of it. But swimming is just... neutral territory, as far as pony love goes, I guess. Just one way I’ve managed to find to curtail Artemis’s need to mount me, cum inside me, and fall head over heels in love with me.

Another one of those ways is a good friend of mine: a green pegasus scientist by the name of Brian.

Go figure, Brian and Artemis hit it off really well, just as I’d suspected. Brian’s smart, but not too smart, so she’s basically following his line of thinking like a puppy. Artemis is acting like someone who’s lived most of his life not so much surrounded by puppies, but surrounded by retarded ferrets who can’t follow his train of thought at all. This student/teacher thing just pops up between them, since Brian is technically a grad student, and Artemis is technically a professor (albeit a research professor).

But I kind of didn’t warn Artemis about Brian’s terrible love life, and didn’t warn Brian that Artemis was... married. So we’re all talking together, and I’m trying to think of a way to bring any of that up without ruining things between them, when Brian says,

“So you’re saying that since a weak interaction can change the flavor of an elementary particle, then collecting the probability transition vector of those interactions into this matrix explains charge parity violation which is why we need five quarks?”

I’m... honestly kind of lost at the point that they get talking about particles of particles. I sucked at linear algebra. All I can really tell is that “charge parity violation” is the reason there’s less antimatter than matter.

But Artemis says, “Yes, but the natural CP violations of the weak force don’t explain the exotic particles emitted during the teleportation events which turn the whole standard model on its head!”

“Oh, so you need to change the parameterization,” Brian says, looking at the chalkboard. Did I mention we’re in the chalkboard room. “To...”

“Not sure about that part,” Artemis says, heading up to it himself, “We have no way to measure it at the moment. But it would explain how a horn at room temperature could emit Cherenkov radiation.”

“I just don’t understand why Cherenkov radiation is always blue,” Brian says, looking from chalkboard to batpony.

“Well I... I actually have... no idea why it would be that particular wavelength,” he says in puzzlement, turning to her, “I think it depends on the refractive index, but... I’d have to go look it up.”

With a laugh and a smile, Brian says, “I guess even you don’t know everything.”

“You know more than I’ll ever know about biological mechanisms,” he says with a bit of a blush. I think they’re going to... oh no. I think they’re going to kiss!

Artemis and Brian lean forward and kiss, and... I–I probably shouldn’t have taught Artemis about the whole turning your snout thing, because it works great. Their eyes slip closed, and they push closer together, breathing hotly through their noses as they kiss passionately.

They gaze into each others eyes as they part lips, then they both look at me in a total panic. “I–I—I” I stammer, “No complaints from me! You know what I get up to,” lift hoof, nervous laugh, I should have told them. “Artemis is... I’m sorry Brian, Artemis is...”

“I’m... married,” Artemis tells her very reluctantly.

Brian stares at him in horror and then her eyes flood with tears as she trembles and says, “It’s not fair...” t

Then she screams at him “It’s not fair!!”, then just runs full tilt past me and out the door, hurling herself up into the air and soaring off into the snowy sky.

“I–I need to tell you,” I say to the shocked Artemis, “I don’t know what to do I need to tell you!”

“Tell me what??” he asks, staring at me with slits of eyes, “What the hell did I do to her? What the h-hell did I do?”

“S-she used to be a guy, and she didn’t want to be a girl, but she had to,” I tell him, “She met a stallion named Jack and she lost control, and... had sex. But she said he left her crying when she was afraid of getting pregnant. Then he just left her entirely, and went to find his family, but then his friends moved in. They said such horrible things to her. I-it’s not my place to tell you but I don’t know what to do.

“They made her say she wanted it, then teased her for wanting it, then punished her for—for lying when she told him to stop. Then they left, and she ended up with a guy who didn’t talk to her, not a single word. He just kept following her a-and doing her.”

I’m crying now, and maybe Artemis is too but I can’t see clearly, as I tell him, “And the whole time, Brian thought I was innocent, she couldn’t talk to anybody about it and...”

I... I need a moment here. After I feel like I can talk again, I wipe at my eyes with a foreleg, saying, “I knew you’d be perfect for each other but I didn’t know how to... tell you about it. I think that kiss was the first time she’s ever genuinely wanted to be a girl.”

“Can you...” Artemis’s voice does sound shaky as he sits on his haunches before me and I stare at his haunches because I’m scared and— “Can you find her, for me?”

“M-me?” I ask, almost making eye contact in my confusion.

“Yeah, use your earth pony magic?” he says quietly, “Cartoon logic it? She could have gone anywhere, and I don’t want her to d-do anything rash.”

“What do I tell her though?” I ask, “I set her up with the wrong stallion and I should have told you and—”

“Don’t tell her anything, then,” he says, “Tell me where she is, and I’ll... I won’t let something like that happen to her. Not her. I’ll... do whatever I have to.”

“But your wife...” I murmur as he grabs me and I stare into his tear-streaked violet eyes as he shouts,

“Fuck my wife!”

...

“My wife doesn’t... need me,” Artemis says faintly, backing off, “Right now. I need to show Brian she can kiss me and... and be intimate with me, and just have something besides... besides that. Please, Meadowsweet. Just... try?”

“I’ll g-give it a shot,” I tell him, standing unsteadily, “If my stupid weird magic ever works, n-now would be a really good time.”

So I look all over the camp, and I do find her, surprisingly quickly. It can’t be my magic though, because Brian’s just sitting in the back of the shower room and crying. I mean anyone would have found her, right? Well, Artemis and I are together when I approach the showers again, and she’s still in there. It’s a good hiding spot, considering it’s below zero and snowing out here. Nobody’s gonna be thinking of coming and taking a shower any time soon.

“Brian?” I call out as we clop into the uh... girl’s shower room.

“Go away!” she calls out miserably, her voice echoing in the halls.

Beside me, Artemis says in his warmer, deeper voice, “Brian, it’s me Artemis.”

Her sobs choke to a panicked silence, but she doesn’t answer. So Artemis calls out again, “Brian... I need you to kiss me again.”

“W-what?” she says in a lost voice, an unfolding lump by the wall lifting up her head.

“Meadowsweet told me what happened to you,” Artemis said, “I might not be the perfect man, but I won’t be anything like those... did they really tell you that you were a liar, if you... told them to stop?”

“They said I was a liar for... for wanting it,” she protests, “But I couldn’t help it! But I’d have to be a liar, if I said I wanted it, then told them to stop, right?”

“Brian, that just makes you a human being er... metaphorically speaking,” he says, “Please, just... come over here. I won’t let anything like that happen to you again.”

I don’t know if Brian believes him or not, but she stands and... slowly clops over to where we stand in the light. She’s a mess, but... so are the rest of us.

“I am married, but,” Artemis says, “My wife turned into a stallion, and he’s just been putting me off. If I ever met someone like you in college, I... I would have married her. I need someone like you, and you need...someone like me right now. So please. I won’t let you down.”

Brian looks at me.

“O-oh I can leave sorry I—”, I stammer to the green pegasus, hoof up-raised.

“No!” she yelps. Then blinks at me. “No, I...” Brian’s tail goes between her legs, “I don’t... want to do this alone with h-him.” Looking at Artemis guiltily, she says, “No offense.”

“Meadowsweet’s... she heard of the troubles with my wife,” Artemis replies, “And then Meadowsweet and I... h-had sex.”

Brian looks at me with wide eyes as I blush, hiding behind a foreleg. My foreleg is not nearly large enough to hide behind.

“You were... with her, huh,” Brian says faintly.

“She was amazing,” Artemis says passionately, “I’d never been with anybody as a pony before, and then I was, and she was so amazing about it. So anything you and I do, it’s okay if she’s here to help you feel safe.”

Looking between us, Brian says, “I just don’t think I could... she doesn’t need to watch. I just don’t want to freak out around another... stallion, alone.”

“I can look the other way, if you...?” I offer.

“Yeah I’m um...” Brian said with a nervous grin, “It’s just if Artemis kisses me again I wanna... do a lot more than kiss, and you don’t have to... I mean... do you want to see it?”

“...yeah,” I say, weakly.

“Do you want to... be with Artemis too, with me there?” she asks curiously.

“What? No!” I squawk, dropping my hoof to the floor.

Confused, and blushing, Brian says, “Oh I–I didn’t mean any offense it’s just I just suspected ponies were naturally polygynous, and...”

“No, it’s not offensive,” I assure her, “It’s just that I have two stallions in my life! I’m getting more than taken care of!”

“Two stallions is polyandrous,” Brian replies giving me a disbelieveing look, “Polygynous means multiple females. How are you—?”

“Two stallions a-and four mares!” I protest, hotly, “Five mares! I have so many... j-j–just enjoy him. I’m cool with it.”

“She found you, didn’t she?” Artemis asks Brian, “She... set you up to be with me.”

“She... she mentioned that... you might be interested,” Brian says, looking the batpony’s way, “She didn’t say you were married.”

“She also didn’t say it doesn’t matter if I’m married,” Artemis replies stiffly, “You need me now, we’ll work out the details later. Now please, kiss me. And we’ll see what... happens.”

Brian nervously approaches him, saying, “I-I don’t know anything I mean about how to uhm—”

“When you last kissed me it was wonderful,” Artemis says, “I just want you to... give it a shot. I want you to kiss me again, because Greg... didn’t.”

Brian gives him a lost look, as they meet each other’s eyes again, saying, “That was my... my first kiss by the way. W-when we kissed. Last.”

“I... I’m honored,” Artemis says in surprise, though in retrospect considering her past boyfriends maybe it’s not such a surprise. “You just tilt your head a bit so our mouths can join, Meadowsweet showed me a–a little.”

She looks from me to Artemis, then says, “A–all I did was just...” she steps forward, nose-to-nose with him as he turns his head, and their eyes slip closed again as their lips softly press together. A timeless moment, and then they pull apart, Brian’s eyes flutter open again, before she goes in for another kiss. Her tail bobs as she pulls back and kisses him again, putting her hoof on his shoulder to press close to him. The arousal in their scent grows with each kiss. Both breathing through their noses, hey’re still gasping as they part from that kiss.

“Oh...” Brian fusses in confused frustration, her tail bobbing again as she shifts her hind legs somewhat apart, looking up at him, conflicted, “Sorry I... I need...”

Artemis definitely has a wife. It’s like watching an artist. He kisses Brian, under her chin, making her tilt her head up, then trails kisses all the way down her neck and shoulder as she stands there trembling, her scent sharply increasing. I should touch myself or something, but it’s just so beautiful as he turns Brian’s body into a symphony, nibbling at her wings, sliding against her side, nuzzling at the base of her tail to get it bobbing up again.

So I just sit to my belly, not even wanting to touch myself, since it might distract me from what’s happening before me. Nosing under her tail, Artemis says dazedly, “I’ve... never been able to see a pony female this close before.”

“M-meadowsweet?” Brian squeaks, looking my way.

“We weren’t really looking down there, eheh,” I admit, lifting a hind leg.

“It’s so beautiful,” he says in awe, “So different from a human female, but... but this is you, Brian!”

“T-the labia majora prodtrudes a bit more,” she says blushingly, “And of course the clitoris is more i-internal. N–nh...”

Her eyes go distant, as Artemis lays a hoof on her rear, spreading her open. “So strange how our skin is the color of our fur,” Artemis says, “You’re pink on the inside though.”

“P-pigments seem to be some kind of... n-novel dye molecule that grows in... my skin is pink if you... shave my fur, but where I have no fur, the skin remains g-green,” Brian explains, “I-I’m just all green, boring I know.”

Releasing her slit to close again, Artemis asks, “May I kiss you here?” Brian is obviously dying to be kissed right there, and he just asks that, and hovers so close.

“K-kiss?” Brian squeaks, looking back at him, “You mean like... c-cunnilingus?”

Cunniwhatus?

“I have a wife,” Artemis says in amusement for once, “Who taught me a thing or two.”

“N-nobody ever,” Brian admits, facing forward, “I mean t-they say it feels really good but I nevernhhh!”

Brian’s tail jerks up as Artemis presses his snout up right against her little green colored slot. She looks terribly anxious but her anxiety quickly starts to fade as she stares off, murmuring, “Oh, you... you’re just...”

Isn’t long before she’s hunched forward, wings loose, panting for breath. Staring at me with the hunger she feels inside, Brian says, “I want him to... mount me. Feels better and better. It’s making me want it... a... a penis. Meadowsweet, he’s... putting it in me! All the way hnnh in me!”

Parting my gaze from the pleasure drunk Brian, I look down at Artemis, saying, “You can get your tongue past her cervix. Just tease at it until she opens up enough for your to fit. It’s an uh... erogenous zone for ponies.”

“For Earth ponies too!” Brian says tensely, rocking there against his snout, “Our Earth... horses penetrate the... cervix, but not the tongue! He’s—I can’t stop it jerking open it... he... he’s in!”

“Yeah, your uh... cervix clamps down on him then, and you can feel him in your uterus,” I tell the tense mare, staring off into space, “That’s where your baby is right now. He might be able to find it, if it’s big enough.”

“He’s—deeper!” Brian squeaks, wings folding tight, “Keeps putting more—he’s moving in there!”

“He’s probably feeling around for your foal,” I tell her fondly, “I’ve never found anything myself, but it’s fun to do.”

“In my belly...!” Brian declares, leaning back to just feel him in there.

“That’s not your stomach, huh?” I remark to the mare.

“It’s my womb,” she says in awe.

Progressively, Brian goes from panting to again squeaking, “He’s—he’s pulling it out!”

“He needs to put his penis in there instead,” I inform her smugly.

“Oh I... I want it...” Brian says, dazedly. “Out... out... he’s...!” Her head snaps up again and she tells me urgently, “sliding his tongue all around the... hnnh his lips, he’s... I–I think I’m gonna climax!”

“Have you not climaxed yet?” I ask her with a sympathetic squirm in my own nethers.

“No it... nobody ever used their mouth!” Brian says tensely, “Does the—the vagina u-undulate??”

“Does the vagina what?” I ask in confusion.

“P-pulse!” she says, gazing upward, “I can’t... it stopped moving I—”

“Oh, yeah it sort of stops squeezing, when it’s getting ready to go nuts,” I tell her, “You won’t be able to m-move really. You won’t fall over, he’ll... I’ll be there with you.”

“I’m—should be—climaxing!” she squeals in alarm, “How much bigger is ahh ahhh!”

“A lot bigger,” I tell her in delight, as it happens to my friend for the first time, “That’s why you won’t want to climax as much. But every once and a while, it’s incredible!”

“Need–need–need it...” she says in lust soaked tones. It looks like she’s pretty darn close, so I call over to Artemis,

“Artemis! You need to mount her, now! Climax feels so good with a stallion inside you. She’ll be able to feel her whole vagina just going nuts all around you.”

Artemis pulls his slimy muzzle away from Brian’s entrance, climbing up on her as Brian looks back and whimpers needily, “Hurry! I... I need it!”

“I’ll help,” I say hastily, diving down to where the stallion’s splotchy penis is coming up to Brian’s smooth green furred belly with her little pony teats. I lift that hot staff of meat up to Brian’s pelvis, and her entrance is just gleaming with moisture, the smooth curve of her pelvis ending in that anus and vulva, just begging for a penis.

“You look beautiful, Brian,” I declare in honest awe. Artemis lets me move his penis where I may, so I lift it up saying, “I–I’m gonna put it in you now. There, r-right there, Artemis. Push in... you’re entering her.”

“Stretching mee~!” Brian squeals.

“That’s his penis,” I tell her, standing up beside the mounted pegasus, “It’s just sliding inside you back there.”

“He’s... he’s ...thrusting...” Brian pants, as Artemis heaves his hips against hers, in and out. “I... I’m gonna climax—can’t think...”

“Don’t think, just let it happen,” I tell her, “Let it fill your whole body.” Brian moans, as I tell Artemis, “Push it deep when it hits her. Hold it in so she can squeeze all around your penis.”

“R-roger that,” he says, sweat trailing down his temple as he thrusts.

“I’m—!” Brian squeals in urgency, “It’s–! It’s—!”

“You’re climaxing,” I tell her warmly, as her wings anxiously snap out as if to fly, “It’s beautiful. Every muscle in your body tenses, and you can’t think it feels so good. Y-you’re past the point of no return, there. It won’t end anymore until your vagina starts clenching.”

Brian’s body jerks as everything happens at once. With Brian erupting into shallow gasping breaths, irises tiny, Artemis pushes deep saying, “She’s really... squeezing hard it’s... I’m in.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to do anything but climax anymore,” I assure Brian as she can’t even focus on me, “You’re having an orgasm, so just be this orgasming mare now. That’s what we need you to do.”

That’s what I’d want someone to tell me, at least!

With her panting coming in intense grunts, I know Brian’s just rippling all around Artemis’s cock now. It’s a significant effort, with how freaking strong our vaginas are. Brian settles down slowly, her gasps turning to pants, turning to soft moans of, “Oh... oh god... oh god...”

“You get to just relax from here,” I tell her, half honestly, as Artemis starts thrusting again, “Enjoy yourself and all.”

“I feel so good,” she says in almost disbelief, “He’s moving in me...”

Well I stay close with her, since she needs someone’s comforting presence while she singlemindedly rocks there doing what she needs to do. I need to think of someone else to do this with her though. Again though, I might feel embarassed myself if I had to do that, and just ignore my companion, as Brian’s ignoring me to focus on her breeding. So I tell her, “I love how you’re rocking against me, pushing back to thrust him into you. That’s Artemis sliding inside you... wanting to put his babies inside you. He can feel you in there.”

“I’m... I’m gonna...” Artemis pants, thrusting into her hard, “Cum inside her. Meadowsweet. Just like... you. Gonna... cum...”

“Just focus on having sex with him now,” I murmur to Brian, my heart fluttering worryingly for the amorous bat pony stallion, “That’s what I need you to do now.”

That’s what she does, saying nothing, panting, rocking, staring forward, determinedly fucking him. Brian only cries out when his thrusting changes, lifting her head and exclaiming in joy, “Meadowsweet, I’m a... I’m a bitch!”

“What?” I squeak.

“He... he flared,” she pants, as Artemis tenses atop her, “Can’t pull out till he cums... it’s inevitable now...”

“He... can pull out but...” I admit uncertainly, since it is difficult to do.

“Ah... Artemis!” Brian calls out behind her, “I’m... not pregnant! Put your baby in me! I wannit!”

“You’re not pregnant??” I ask her in a tight whisper.

“The... the... ultrasounds...” she says, “Must’ve... miscarriaged. Oh Meadowsweet, he’s cumming like a dog in me. Imma bitch in heat. Unnh spurt, spurt, spurt I feel it...”

“I-in here, wow...” I say, lifting a foreleg against Brian’s soft green belly.

“S-still! Spurting! Nhh!” she cries out in passion, shifting against me while Artemis’s dick pulses into her back there, and his creamy seed starts leaking out, dripping between her legs.

“A-artemis,” I say looking up to the dull-eyed, panting batpony hunched over my friend, “You look beautiful too. I can see you pumping your seed into her!”

“You... you saw the last of it,” he says quietly, relaxing as he focuses on me, “I can’t ejaculate any more.”

“I got plenty in me,” Brian says indulgently, snugging her tail around his ass, “Gonna have your foal now.”

“Not my puppies?” he asks.

Brian’s ears go down at that and she says nervously, “Heh heh... it’s just o-our sexual response is more like dogs than anything. But I love it. You still are... leaking semen into me just a teeny little bit.”

“I–I suppose,” he said, “Should I... pull out?”

“It’s not exactly analagous to the—” Brian says, looking back at him, and then she murmurs, “I–I can just talk like this?

“Hm?” Artemis asks.

“I can just... talk to you like this?” Brian asks, rhetorically, “You came in me, Artemis! I can talk to you about how the flare is different in our horses, but for you it’s analagous to the knot. Artemis, I still feel your semen inside me. And I can just talk to you, and tell you about how it feels, and you’re... oh god, sorry...”

As Brian is just overcome by emotion, I lay my head over hers, in that sort of horsey cradling. I can’t believe she had such an awful year. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have cried over this. If she hadn’t had all those jerk boyfriends, she wouldn’t have felt like this. She wouldn’t be crying tears of happiness just because she can talk with the stallion doing her. She wouldn’t be this full of gratitude and heartwarm joy and—

Wait, it’s a bad thing that she had those jerk boyfriends, right?

For once I didn’t mean to get somebody pregnant. But Brian’s absolutely in love with the idea now, not even slightly frightened at all that she’s pregnant, so I guess she really does love Artemis that much. It’ll only take a few miracles at this point to make it work out between Brian, Artemis and his wife. At least with Brian... occupying Artemis’s time, I don’t have to keep fucking yet another stallion in my life. No promises on his wife. I’m feeling quite happy with Sue and Dusty though, Lucy and Holly are wonderful, Bubblegum and Mira are divine, and me and Daredevil get to be part of all of their lives.

Hard to believe it, but Christmas is coming up again. I don’t usually even have reason to celebrate the season, but then again I haven’t had this many friends before. So I’m greeted with the fresh pine scent, as I walk in the dining room one early November morning, and it looks like someone managed to cut down a tree! It’s perched in a crude planter by the wall, with a few ponies around it adding decorations. A sign next to it says “Add One Decoration each.”

We don’t have any ornaments, but you could’ve fooled me, considering what cool stuff unicorns can do with tin foil, or earth ponies with glass. Oh yeah, glass is... squishy for earth ponies when they handle it right, allowing the sculpting of glass without raising its temperature. Bat ponies have been putting folded paper ornaments on it, and pegasi have been keeping the tree watered and alive. Not to say that’s all everyone’s doing, but that’s what the overall job distribution looks like to me.

The pegasus and bat pony foals who are old enough to fly are really smug, taking care of all the top ornaments themselves. Everyone else who can fly is pretty much letting the foals do it. Because it’s adorable. I spot one of the humans putting an ornament near the top, some sort of photo, but I don’t recognize which one of the humans it is. The photo’s... I mean... it’s a photo of other humans. Probably the guy’s family. I have no idea how I used to distinguish between human beings before. They’re all practically the same color!

Someone makes an actual wreath out of needle covered branches pulled down from the pine trees all around our base. There aren’t any Christmas lights, or candles, but it’s... nice.

The biggest part of the season for us is singing carols, because that’s what ponies do. I’ve never even had the opportunity to sing Christmas carols with others, and now it’s just... easy. It’s hard to resist, even, so why resist? We sing Jingle Bells at training. We sing Deck the Halls at lunch. I sing Silent Night with Sue, Holly and Lucy in our apartment, and then we fall asleep together, not even using the second bed. There won’t be any presents when Christmas comes, but I think it’ll be a wonderful time for us all.

The first time we open a portal, I’m told that I’m supposed to act as a mediator, like the bouncer at a club, except the only thing I kick out is unruly magic. We’re not entirely sure how it works, but Princess Celestia hinted at it, some other earth ponies have had luck, and apparently there is some science involved. We’re far away from the portal to Equestria of course, standing outside in the snow in the unicorn testing area. I wait there, trying to... feel static on my fur or something, not sure exactly what I should be feeling. A mare named Dr. Taylor (first name omitted) repeats that my job is pretty much just hanging around and “being a lightning rod,” as she calls it. So mostly I just wander back and forth, watching with fascination as the unicorns work.

I’m told that the Law of Similarity is the worst kind of hocus pocus, something that seems like it ought to work, but in reality is just total fiction. That used to be what people thought was the case, but I guess it was just convenient to call it fiction before we discovered it. I really hope ponies don’t have the power to make voodoo dolls or something, but what the researchers do is draw two very complex diagrams on two pieces of paper, both identical and unique, and that’s supposed to be important.

Separating the papers to either side of the whole field, the unicorns do work on them, while I help out by making some... portal stabilizing stuff, mostly by slamming some cinder blocks together with my rump, then biting on them to drag them apart, without... separating them. It’s weird. Me and this blue haired earth pony smack cinder blocks together, and every repetition, they get effectively closer, until they’re pulling together so tight, we can’t pull them separate anymore.

That’s what the unicorns... filter their magic into, to draw that attractive force into the space above the diagram. It’s somehow more special than just magnetism, or glue. With both unicorns working in sync at the source and destination, they tell me it’s like pulling two spheres together with telekinesis, until they intersect. Their cross section appears as a circular hole in the air above the diagrams, which expands to the size of about a dime.

Then all hell breaks loose.

The unicorns try to cut off all their magic, but it’s still happening! My blue companion and I are running around frantically in between the portals, but she’s leaving afterimages of herself as she runs toward the... thing, and I fall up into the air to hover in place with something trying to pull me inside out until I kick out to disrupt it. Landing, my tail is in front of my face, because the space I’m in just wrinkled around like that so I slam my hooves to smooth it out. Then the two portals vanish with a pop.

“Oh. Feedback. I see...” a very flustered and disarrayed Artemis says, fluttering down from where he and the rest of the winged ponies fled that crazy shit that kept making my head bigger and smaller. “Perhaps we need to open the portals farther apart.”

“How far apart?” one of the unicorns complains, also one of the science ponies, stomping up to Artemis. “The moon? The nearest solar system? We’re gonna turn the entire planet inside out, at this rate!”

“Well, the Equestrians said they had portals that were several cities separate...” Artemis says weakly, “Maybe we could try... twenty miles?”

Twenty miles is more than enough, it turns out, and with the unicorns straining to turn our cinder block energy into portal energy, something... goes right. The portal has a noticeable hum, deepening as it expands, and through it is... the camp they set up, 20 miles away. Astonished ponies stare back at me, who I only saw much earlier today, before they took the long trek down the road and through the wilderness, to a spot sufficiently far away to test things again. Everyone’s afraid to step through, but Dr. Peterson... she steps through. Others follow, and I gingerly avoid the humming white light that borders the portal, scrunching my eyes shut and just jumping through. I travel 20 miles in a millisecond, just by jumping from one spot to another.

As Artemis tells me later in reverent tones, that’s 11% the speed of light.

Author's Note

Here we go...