The Great and P-Powerful

...FOR SPARTAAAAAA...

The lone cry echoed through the castle’s cavernous interior, reverberating through the empty hallways, past the abandoned bedrooms, and into the cluttered kitchen. It went through the foyer and past the thrones room, carrying with it the wave of rattling and clattering stones, shifting pebbles, and dusting floors.

Books shook, vials jangled, scrolled unravelled, and the crystalline lattice of the throne room’s chandelier chimed with the thundering applause of something heavy, goliath-like, meeting an unstoppable, immovable, force.

Beneath all of these sounds, Trixie Lulamoon froze in her tracks.

Her heart was pounding, racing in her chest. Her teeth were gritted, frozen with a grimace. She was expecting the worst as the wave of discord passed through her body and had to keep herself from making a sound.

Even the slightest peep, even a chirp, she feared, would alert sompony to her intrusion. She bit her lip and held her tongue.

Her whole body shivered, expecting, waiting for the moment she hoped would never come, but as the seconds ticked by and the castle’s motions settled, slowly silence returned to the dimly-lit room.

The chimes subsided, as did her racing heart, and the tiny refractive shards of the sun’s light danced and flickered, alighting as a million pinpricks that eventually, exhaustively, became calm.

Trixie held her breath a moment longer. Her ears were perked and trained to the air, her spine coiled like a carefully machined spring as she waited, listened, and waited further. She remained like that for what felt like forever as her magic slowly flickered out of the corners of her vision.

The fatigue was starting to catch up with her, but she knew she’d almost made it. Starlight wouldn’t be here for hours—her calculations were flawless, her planning impeccable. All she had to do was get into position and… wait.

She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves. “Okay, Trixie,” she whispered, “It was nothing. Just a tremor, is all. Now all I have to do is be... very...”

Slowly, she lifted her hooves, and started to creep her way forwards. Levitating the black box up and out of her saddlebags, she set it underneath the table for a moment, began undoing the latches as she levitated the contents out and into the light.
She carefully side-stepped the first chair, a hulking goliath with a rainbow bolt and cloud plastered against the headrest as her eyes plastered themselves to the stained glass door.

Between the door over her shoulder, or the furniture-based obstacle course she was currently navigating, her gaze never settled between the two as she levitated the straps and began to lower them into position.

“All I have to be is very… very...Quiet.”

~ ~ ~

Starlight grumbled silently to herself as she went from one drawer to the next, keeping a careful tally in the back of her mind of where she had been and where she was about to go—though that tally was starting to get well into the double-digits. After hours of searching the first floor, going from room to room, routing through every nook and cranny, her legs and horn were beginning to ache with fatigue, heavy from the effort of walking the length of the castle’s ground floor for Celestia-knows how many times now.

It had to have been nearly a hundred.

Okay, maybe not a hundred—probably just two times—but it felt like she had walked the place a hundred times, and so far they hadn’t found any signs of Twilight, nor any indication or where, or why, she had gone. It was almost like she’d vanished out of existence—here one moment, gone the next. There wasn’t any indication of a teleportation, at least not within the last twenty-four hours—There was plenty of residue of both hers and Twilight’s, as well as a few other unicorns she couldn’t identify, but none of it pointed to her teleporting away.

So what could it have been?

Her eyes scanned over the drawer, picking through the various contents. Nothing of interest—just a broken quill, half a dozen inkpots and some blank parchment—yellowed and creased by the effects of frequent use—just like every other drawer she’d looked into.

A disintegration spell? No, that was unlikely. It would take more than a powerful unicorn’s magic to violate the laws of matter conservation, and she highly doubted that Twilight would have disintegrated herself... probably.

Plus whoever would have done it would have had to be here to clean up the messy aftermath, so that—

Starlight cupped her hoof over her mouth, silencing a yawn that threatened to make her eyes water. Her train of thought lost, Starlight blinked and looked up, then around, glancing towards the end of the passageway where light filtered in through the foyer. Judging by how bright it was getting outside, it must have been well past midday by now, and the effects of missing nearly a full night’s worth of sleep were starting to catch up to her.

Even with the slight amount of rest she’d gotten on the train, she’d still been awake for... Had it really been a whole twenty-four hours?

Starlight sighed as she pushed the second drawer closed, more gently this time. The wood made a welcome “click” as it gently settled back into the closed position, and she took a moment to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.

A certain part of her was begging to give up, to call it a night and to drag her broken body up those stairs to the warm embrace of her own bed—Hay, here bedroom was right there. Literally. She was only a few feet away from the stairwell. If she was quiet and moved quickly, nopony would notice if she were to just disappear up there and not be seen for any hour, just one, maybe two.

Even the red carpet was looking especially comfortable right now, with it’s soft bristles that compressed and parted under her hooves with each step—She did a tiny slow trot in place, letting her hooves rest just long enough on the carpet for her to enjoy the sensation of it, like walking on a cloud.

Starlight’s head drooped and she slammed her face into the desk, rattling it and sending a stack of books flying as she dropped to her haunches in front of the slab of mahogany. “Uuuuugh...” she groaned, languid.

In the back of her mind she imagined herself doing an imitation of Rarity’s famous fainting couch routine, though it was too much effort for her. She instead settled for slumping further against the desk, letting her face smoosh into the wooden surface as she let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “This is going...” She inhaled. The scent of fresh parchment and dry wood filled her nostrils. “...Nowhere,” finally she exhaled, letting the words tumble from her tongue.

Her right hoof brushed against something, and there was the short shhhhh-thud as another stack of books tumbled to the ground at her side, and then silence punctuated only by the distant chanting of Twilight’s fans outside and the monotonous clack-clack-clack of an unseen clock.

The castle itself seemed to be alive to Starlight. It breathed with her. Inhaling, exhaling, creaking with the melancholy rumble that only a stone goliath could. If only she could remain here—Starlight’s eyes drifted closed as she found herself getting more comfortable, pulling her tail close as she pressed her rump against the cooling sensation of the castle’s marbled floors, falling deeper into her dream’s warming embrace.

If she were to stay here, not move at all, she could almost imagine she was back in the warm embrace of her own bed. Her worries would start to melt away, lost in the snuggled up deep sleep within the velvety embrace of her pegasus feather duvet, nestled between throw pillows the likes of which only a princess could afford, and with the scent of...sandalwood teasing her nostrils.

A distant click, like the latching of a door, threatened to bring her back to reality, like the clop-clop-clop of hooves. Her ears simply flicked at the intrusive noise, as if to shoo it away, and let her be in her moment of relaxation.

The scent of sandalwood filled her senses, and the creaking of wood—the constant motion and the rumbling of wheels against the rough roads. She was brought back, to another time, another place—

The small, dark abode of Trixie’s cabin was the perfect place to have a sleepover, Starlight thought. It had everything you would have wanted, and a few things... not so wanted, like the constant clattering of pans; the repeated, gnarled, strangled shrieks of wooden hinges just barely holding their own; old cardboard boxes and wooden crates shuffling and shifting in the darkness, and the constant swinging of the hammock that had Starlight lying motionless, wide awake, staring into the inky blackness and waiting for Luna to have mercy on her for her sins.

Her eyes were beginning to sting, so she involuntarily blinked, and rolled onto her side. Struggling against the swinging motion of the scratchy hammock, she grunted and groaned as she did, and once again, tried to go to sleep.

The weight in the hammock shifted under the force of another pony’s weight, and two fuzzy blue ears poked up from below, followed by the dimly-lit visage of a night cap and pyjama-clad magician as Trixie put her weight on the side of Starlight’s hammock. She had a weary smile and bags under her eyes as she said: “Is everything alright?”

Starlight kicked against the end of the hammock, trying to fight against it to get herself facing her friend more directly, but she eventually gave up and sighed. “It’s this—“ she grit her teeth, “—Celestia-damned hammock, Trixie. I can’t sleep.”

Silence ensued, and Starlight tensed up, watching the darkened form of Trixie. Had she said something wrong? She hoped not.

“It’s only a few more nights to Ponyville,” Trixie said. Her ears weren’t visible, but Starlight could tell by the tone of her voice that was concerned. “...Are you sure—” She was cut off as the caravan hit a particularly large stone, sending the both of them swaying and jostling in the night.

Trixie swallowed, and the moment was filled with a pregnant silence as Starlight held her breath, waiting for what her friend was about to say.

At long last, she said, in a low voice, a whisper: “What if we slept... t-together...”

A lump formed in Starlight’s throat, and with it a sudden burning of her cheeks that she was grateful the darkness could hide. She didn’t get a chance to protest, though, as Trixie continued. “The Grrrreat and P-P—” She paused, and corrected, “I have been sleeping in these hammocks for a long time,” Trixie said, “Surely I can show you the... uh, ropes.”

Starlight’s mouth opened. She could feel the butterflies forming in her stomach, and her blush spreading to her ears. She wanted to say no, but the only words that would leave her mouth were, “...Yes.”

Trixie leveraged her weight against the side of the hammock and Starlight shimmied sideways to make room for the other mare as she slid in beside her. The hammock wasn’t nearly big enough for two ponies at once, and the claustrophobic spacing forced their bodies to press close against either other.

The downy texture of Trixie’s pyjamas was warm against her chest and Trixie’s fur was as soft as a cloud. Starlight’s eyes were as wide as dinner plates as she watched Trixie snuggle up against her, their bellies touching and their legs intertwined—her breathing was coming in short pants, warming the air between them and she could smell the sandalwood sawdust in Trixie’s mane.

“There,” Trixie said, smiling. “Isn’t that a lot better?”

Starlight’s heart was still racing, but as she got used to the new situation... “Yes.” She felt her leg twitch, and Trixie cupped a forearm over Starlight, gently stroking her back. “This is much better.”

~ ~ ~

She was shuddered awake by the slam of a door, and the clap-clap-clap of hooves as somepony came trotting down the passage behind her. Starlight’s eyes fluttered open, and she was welcomed to the close-up image of a wooden desk, and what felt like the beginnings of a crick in her neck.

She adjusted her hooves to get leverage and slowly lifted her head from the desk, clicking several vertebrae as she went, and leaving a string of saliva connecting her lips to the small puddle that had formed in front of her. “Uh, wha—“

Her eyes were still adjusting to the light—Had the sun moved?—and she lethargically wiped the spittle from her lip across the back of her foreleg, leaving a long trail of slightly damp fur.

Over her shoulder, a familiar stallion’s voice piped up, pricking Starlight’s ears. “Um...” he said, drawing her attention—As Starlight turned, Chocolate Ganaché slowly came into view, a stack of books cupped under his shoulder and a raised eyebrow as he looked down at Starlight, perplexed. “...Did I interrupt something?”

“Am I... interrupting something?”

Starlight tilted her head, at first not really getting what he was referring to. Had she been doing something important before she fell asleep? Her last memory before waking up had been about searching for something, but that couldn’t be what he was asking about now.

“Wh-Why?”

She hazarded a guess, first thinking of the puddle of drool she had left behind on the table—she checked the backs of her hooves just to be sure, and wiped her mouth with the other. It wasn’t at all necessary: her mouth was all clean.

So what was it?

Starlight stood. She was about to ask Chocolate what he meant when her hind fetlock dragged against something wet on the ground—that was strange. Had she really drooled that m—

Starlight froze, mortification painting its way across her face as the realisation dawned on her.

Th-That wasn’t drool, was it?

She glanced to Chocolate, who had averted his eyes and was trying his best to keep his nose pointed in the opposite direction. He was also blushing something fierce and was using the books as a kind of barrier to hide the rest of his body from her vision, but she couldn’t mistake the slight bulge that was forming between his legs as his sheath parted and a third limb slowly began to make its presence known.

Adding in Chocolate’s arousal only caused Starlight’s own excitement—and her nervousness—to grow with it, stronger with every millimetre of stallionhood that she could peek from between his legs.

Oh Celestia, had she really done that to him? Her cheeks began to tinge red, her heart racing as the realisation of what had happened slowly set in. The flashes of various images from her dreams, fuzzy and obscure, but very much alluring to a hidden meaning flashed through her mind.

That all-too-familiar smell pricked at her nostrils as the room slowly began to fill anew with the faintest whiffs of candyfloss: the sweet mixture of both sweet and tangy, like the smell of a mare in heat, and the scent of a stallion’s arousal hung in the air just strong enough to be noticed by any passersby.

“O-Oh my Celestia—” Starlight gasped, snapping out of her stupor the moment she realised where she was, and what was happening. She covered her mouth with her hooves and recoiled away from Chocolate, clamping her tail tight over her marehood—just the faintest touch sent a shiver of arousal through her nethers, and up her spine, but she bit her lip, and pushed it to the back of her mind. “No, no, no-no-no- NO,“ she shouted and whispered, all the while trying to wrap her head around the situation.

She was tired, she fell asleep, she was drooling on the table, and then—and then—Adding to that the wetness on her fetlocks and the awkward position she must have been in, the whole situation only seemed to look all the worse...

“No, no, no, no-no-no—” She immediately side-stepped the stallion, trying to avoid his gaze, in an attempt to extricate herself from the situation. “Th-Th—This is not what it looks like!” She was definitely not masturbating. “I—I would never, not—and in public, and—”

She glanced around, looking for an escape. Something, anything that could drag her away from this awkward situation immediately.

Her reactions only seemed to make things worse as Chocolate started to snicker, and then laugh.

The books were dropped to the ground and Starlight redoubled her efforts, waving both hooves as she dropped to her haunches, tearing up as her face burned brighter and redder than ever. “Celestia—“ she swore, “I’m serious!” Yey more laughter. “I—I must have fallen asleep, a-and—and—I must have, and my mouth—and then I was—and it—”

As she continued trying to explain, Chocolate’s laughing only became harder, until he was practically hollering with tears at the corners of his eyes. He waved a hoof, begging her to stop. “No, please, stop—” Chocolate clasped at the side of his barrel as he wheezed. Struggling to catch his breath, he stepped closer to Starlight, still with a wide grin on his face. “I-It’s okay,” he said, between gasps for breath.

He paused, trying to catch his breath, and Starlight was left watching, flabbergasted as Chocolate slowly wound down from the high-pitched giggling of a colt fresh out of school to the low, trombone he-he-he-rumph of that same colt's father. “Wh—” She tilted her head. “What do y—“

He raised a hoof for her to be silent, and then said, still slightly winded, but with the widest grin on his face. “Just... Tell me one thing: were you thinking of him?”

Starlight’s heart jumped into her chest. She had to pause as her memories suddenly flashed back to that dream. The image of her cuddling against Trixie’s sleeping form, their bellies pressed against one another, and their hooves gently cupped over each other’s barrels like the way she imagined two lovers would. Their tails intertwined, and, and...

The room started getting hot again and Starlight’s blush made a brief return. She brushed the end of her mane out of her eyes and gently coaxed it back into position as she averted her eyes, looking to the ground long enough for the momentary heat to subside. She could have sworn she felt another, tiny, trickling bead of moisture make its way down the inside of her legs as she spoke, “...m...maybe.”

Another chuckle escaped Chocolate’s lips, but he was otherwise composed again as he ran a hoof through his mane—straightening his own demeanour. The wide grin was replaced with a slightly more refrained, thin smile as he approached Starlight and settled down at her side.

She stiffened at the momentary contact—a glance between his legs revealed that much like his stint of laughter, his stallionhood too had subsided. A shame, she thought.

He put a hoof over her shoulder, and looked Starlight in the eyes, taking a short moment before stating his follow-up question: “...and do you still love him?”

This answer came more quickly than the last, easier, perhaps. “Yes.”

“Then that’s all I really need to know,” he said. His voice lowered to whisper and Starlight felt a shiver run through her spine when he spoke in that deep and chocolatey smooth tone. “It’s perfectly natural for you to have... dreams about your loved ones,” he said, “especially when it’s a new flame like yours.”

“R-Really?” Starlight’s heart fluttered. Her head was swimming with a mixture of feelings, of confusion, of relief, and so many others she couldn’t quite describe. It was like being a school-filly again, having just sat down at the desk immediately opposite to her crush. Her chest was growing tight as she took in the warmth of his fur, the friendly demeanour. She couldn’t help but inch closer towards it, drawn in like a magnet. “Y-You’re not mad?”

Chocolate’s ears flattened and he shook his head. “Celestia no—” His mouth scrunched and he leaned closer, almost conspiratorially so—Starlight had to hold herself back from inhaling his scent. The smell of freshly-baked lindors invaded her senses. “Can you keep a secret?

Starlight’s head jerked, nodding quickly. “I’ve...” His voice lowered, barely a whisper. Starlight felt herself leaning closer just to hear—straining her ears as his breath brushed hot against her cheeks. “...I’ve done the same.” He said, “A long time ago.”

Starlight’s breathing hitched. “R-Really?”

He simply nodded, retreating away to a slightly less... intimate distance. “But you have to promise you won’t tell anypony, okay?”

“O-Of course...” she muttered, breathlessly.

Chocolate smiled.

The gesture alone was enough to send shivers up her spine. The room was starting to get hot and Starlight’s breathing had quickened somewhat as she looked at this handsome, oh, so kind and understanding, soft, perfect gentleman of a stallion.

It made her feel different. Not like how she was with Trixie, but... something else, something that made her smile beside herself with happiness.

The moment didn’t last long, though, as Chocolate’s expression quickly changed to something else, another matter drawing his thoughts. As his smile turned into a frown, and a look of worry crept its way across his features, Starlight felt her own happiness begin to slip. Her smile vanished, and moving almost on instinct, Starlight reached to put a hoof on his shoulder, to comfort her stallion.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s just...” Chocolate glanced away, averting his eyes from her as he pulled the stack of books closer. Starlight’s eye followed his hooves as they gripped around the top book, and carefully lifted it up to hold aloft between them.

Chocolate wasn’t looking at her, but just down at the book. His expression was turning grim with worry as his brow furrowed—drawing Starlight’s attention to the tiny tome.

All being honest, she couldn’t quite see what was so special about it. It was just a small red book, barely larger than a journal. Its spine was bound with a thin gold filament weaved to form a criss-cross pattern along the book’s length, and the cover looked to be made from the bark of a redwood tree that gave it that distinctive red glow.

Overall, the tiny thing couldn’t have held more than fifty pages, and yet, the way Chocolate was holding it, she couldn’t help but shake the sensations that there was something familiar about it, that she’d seen a book almost like that one once before.

“I’ve been thinking...” Chocolate squeezed the book one more time before handing it over to Starlight, the cover facing down.

Again, looking even closer, it didn’t seem all that out of the ordinary. Starlight let the book hang in her magical aura for a second before lowering it down to a comfortable height so she could grasp it in her own hooves.

The cover was rough and the pages were soft. They had a little bit of give to them as it bent in her grasp, but then, turning it over, it revealed a sight that made Starlight’s heart stop.

It was bright and clear on the front cover, emblazoned with the charcoal-like grey of a stone press: the clear rough outline of an equality sign. Below it were etched the two words she thought she would never read again.

Sam Equalitatus

She knew what the full title would have been: Sam Equalitatus – Alike We Stand, but it had either been truncated in an attempt to make it shorter, easier to memorise, or because of a misunderstanding between the townsponies operating the printing press. Either way, that was the title they had been left with. A distant memory, a reminder from a life she would much rather forget.

It was the memory of a mare she wished she could have left to die in the icy caverns atop that mountain eons ago, but that only raised more questions. Ideas and scenarios that flashed through Starlight’s mind all at once.

Why does he have this? How did he find it? Could there be others? She could have sworn she’d destroyed every last copy in existence.

Starlight’s mind was still racing through all the options, all the different ways that one of her books could have slipped through the cracks—it was like a sieve. There were millions of ways they could have gone missing, but she had counted them. She, herself, had stood guard at the bonfire the night they burned every last copy of that forsaken book. She had to have destroyed it.

But then how was it here?

“I think it’s time to admit that this was never going to work out between us.”

Chocolate’s words struck like a sledgehammer to the spine. Starlight’s breathing caught on a lump in her throat as she tensed up suddenly, squeezing the book in her grasp.

He simply looked back at her with a soft, neutral expression—something hard to read, nearly impossible to discern, but yet filled with knowing and understanding.

Had he read it? The first inklings of doubt started to creep into Starlight’s might. It hadn’t even occurred to her yet what Chocolate would do. A tiny voice in the back of Starlight’s head was telling her to run, to get away, to hide and never be seen or heard from again.

Her whole body was starting to shiver as the room went from warm to a deep, icy, cold, fathomless depth, and yet Chocolate’s words continued.

“We’ve been searching the castle for hours,” he said, cutting through the dim silence of her thoughts. Wh-What was he—“Starlight, I don’t think we’re going to find the Princess here.”

The world crumbled beneath her as Starlight reeled from the confused feelings inside her. Between the shock of finding out one of her most shameful creations—a remnant of her time in Our Town—was right here in front of her and now, Chocolate was—that he knew—What was he saying? What was he implying? That Twilight would just up and leave them there? That she would just abandon her duties without so much as a note, or a letter, or any kind of message to indicate to them where she could have gone!?

“What do you mean?”

The words came out harsher than she had intended—Starlight almost shocked herself with how suddenly she had snapped—but it still had the desired effect as Chocolate recoiled, holding his hooves up as if to defend himself. “I—I mean,” he stuttered, “She could just be late”—

Horseapples. There was no way she could be intentionally late. This was Twilight Sparkle we were talking about. She was practically the Princess of Punctuality. Her favourite sex toy had an atomic clock, for Luna’s sake! If anything, that would make her even more on time!

—“Or there was something else that came up which would need her attention. Princesses do have a lot of responsibilities, after all.”

“This was her responsibilities,” Starlight hissed under her breath. She was sure Chocolate hadn’t heard her, but she knew it was true. Twilight would never miss the opportunity to meet new ponies and solve their friendship problems in an environment where the fate of Equestria was not hanging in the balance. That was the entire point of her starting these in the first place.

“But...”

Starlight’s ears perked. She glanced up, snapped out of her thoughts and realised that she’d been grinding her teeth. The book was starting to look a little bent, so she carefully set it down on the ground beside her, one ear still tuned to Chocolate’s words as he spoke.

He was staring at her. No. He was smiling.

“But?” she said.

Chocolate reached out and wiped the tear from where it was welling at the corner of Starlight’s left cheek. He then held his hoof there, caressing her cheek like he would to comfort a young foal, all while he shifted his body closer to hers.

The whole thing felt so surreal, like they were poised on a precipice, ready to take the leap—or a plunge—into a much darker depth. The whole thing caused her heart to flutter and her body to shake with anticipation as Chocolate gazed into her eyes.

“But?”

She said again, and Chocolate smiled as he said, “Maybe this was the Princess’ plan all along...” The hoof was removed from her cheek. With it, the moment passed, but the butterflies persisted. “Maybe she knew we were coming and wanted us to work out our issues by ourselves.”

Starlight cracked a smile. She started to shake her head—“N-no, you give her—” She was silenced by a hoof to her lips.

Their bodies were so close together, Starlight could practically feel Chocolate’s heartbeat between them. He whispered, letting his hoof fall and press into her chest, holding her there. “I need you to know that you can trust me, Starlight, and to do that I want to be honest with you.”

“Honest with me?” she asked. Her heart skipped a beat. “About what?”

“Do you remember on the train where we met? I explained to you why I was coming to Ponyville, and I said that it was because of my wife, Cream Heart.”

“Chocolate, you don’t have to—“

Chocolate raised his voice, cutting her off. “But I want to,” then his voice lowered again, almost whispering the last word, “Starlight.”

It was like electricity in the air. Starlight could do nothing but listen, her mouth halfway between open and closed. Was she really going to do this? Just let Chocolate reveal everything to her, a complete stranger?

He picked up her hooves in his own and held them between them, the only thing separating their chests as Starlight’s breathing quickened, returning to its previous pace. His voice came in a steady whisper. “Cream and I, w-we broke up a long time ago. Years, in fact, and I blame myself for everything that happened.”

“It can’t have been your fault, though?”

“But it was. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me. I couldn’t give her the care and attention that she deserved, and then we grew apart. We got into a fight about”—His expression changed, twisted into one of disdain, of regret, and of pain. Chocolate practically spat the words as he said, “All because of that Tartarus-damned fucking chocolate factory.

“We had a son together,” he continued, “and she took him with her and moved to Ponyville. I guess—” A tiny sob rocked chocolate’s chest and he paused for a moment.

The beginnings of tears started to form in the corners of his eyes and Starlight reached out—hesitant at first. “I’m so sorry...” she began, as she wiped the tear away from Chocolate’s cheek.

He immediately grabbed onto her hoof, letting a sniffle escape him as he looked into Starlight’s eyes. She didn’t have the power in her to pull it away, so Starlight stayed her hoof a moment longer.

A second passed between them as Chocolate composed himself, and he sniffed, letting her hoof go, wiping his own tears this time. “I guess that if I followed her here we could have patched it up with the Princess’ help...”

“You still have a chance. Just because today didn’t—“

“No.” Chocolate grabbed ahold of Starlight’s hooves, squeezing them tightly as he stared deeply into her eyes—Starlight’s heart jumped at the motion, her heart racing as she was stared down by this stallion.

Her eyes widened as he leaned closer—one part of her noting how he suddenly seemed larger than her, stronger, and—and—A familiar tingle was spreading from between her thighs as he spoke his next words.

“I’m not going to pursue her anymore,” His voice was soft, tender, but commanding a type of strength she couldn’t quite place. “That all changed when I met you, Starlight.

“When I saw you on that train, how sad you were, how abandoned and downtrodden, I could see a little bit of myself in you, Starlight. I saw how troubled you were. I knew what you must be going through, and so I made a choice.”

“Chocolate, I—“

“I want to be there for you, Starlight, like I couldn’t be there for her. I want you to know that you can trust me.”

“Chocolate, I—“ Starlight’s throat had gone dry. It took her two, three—on the fourth swallow, her tongue was starting to feel less like sandpaper and more like a feather duster. Even now, her loins were screaming at her to say ‘yes, oh fuck yes’ but another part of her knew she couldn’t—she mustn’t.

What would Trixie say? What would Chocolate do if he found out that she was a...

“Chocolate, I—I don’t thi—“

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM

A percussive thumping jolted them both out of the moment as the wall behind them shook and cracked. There was the loud tumbling of heavy furniture and what almost sounded like a mare cursing every Princess under the moon.

Chocolate’s eyes were wide as dinner plates, as were hers, as they both shared a startled glance towards the wall directly in front of them—just in time to see a picture frame shunt off its nail and shatter to the floor.

“What was—”

“Oh buck—“ Starlight swore as she stumbled to her hooves, shouting as her hooves grappled with the carpets to get a proper traction. “That was in the thrones room!”