The Day Shift

Chapters

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Intermission 1
Chapter 5

Chapter 1

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound of the clock on the wall was incessant, and each passing second only increased my anxiety. Anything would help at this point, I’d been in here for over an hour. The dull sounds of ponies discussing Celestia-knows-what in heated tones filtered in from beyond the walls, murmuring just below an audible level. Part of me said to try and listen in, push my ear to the door and see if I could make out what they were saying. However, the memory of the burly stallions who had unceremoniously thrown me in here remained fresh in my mind. Getting caught with an ear to the door wouldn’t look good for me.

So, with little else to do, I waited. And grumbled. My skill at grumbling was astute enough that it could almost be my special talent, one beautifully nurtured and refined through years of suffering as a street sweeper.The key was to start with a murmur and just hold everything that was annoying you in the front of your mind until it naturally slipped into a venomous stream of consciousness.

“...already behind on my schedule and now the guard drags me in here for a couple of hours, probably illegally…”

The door swung upon and I, nobly and stoically, squawked and fell out of my chair only to quickly scramble back up into it, heeding the commands of the stallions to stay put. I looked over the back of the seat to see the heavy, utilitarian door that was the portal to this similarly uninspired office open, revealing an incredibly striking mare. Striking because of her athletic, toned form and aggressively beautiful facial features, and striking because she walked with a feline grace that made me assume she could kick me through the solid walls of this Royal Guard outpost without breaking a sweat. If that wasn’t enough to make me nervous, a bad mood was pouring off of her like a cloud, and my grumbling suddenly felt like a match next to a bonfire as her seething took on a nigh-physical form.

Her fur was a dark purple, the darkest mare I’d ever seen, with a muted red mane maintained in a mohawk that trailed back, carefully out of her eyes, presumably in case she needed to beat the shit out of any small yellow stallions who happened to give her lip. Counterbalancing this dark coloration was the bright blue of her eyes, regarding me with immense disdain. Other than her vicious vision, I couldn’t help but notice the scar across her eye and the shattered horn. I’d heard of the few unicorns who lost their horn choosing to keep it carefully tucked away, but she instead wore it proudly, making sure nothing hid it from view.

It wasn’t polite to stare. Also she scared me, so I turned around and sat down, feeling my heart beat a bit quicker. I wasn’t hyperventilating. Was I hyperventilating? Oh god, I could feel myself hyperventilating. Stay calm, First Prize, stay calm.
She strode in her careful, confident manner behind the desk that filled up most of the too-small office, taking a seat behind it and laying down a manilla folder. “First Prize,” she said in the flat tones of a mare who is officially At The End of Her Rope and Would Appreciate a Little Space. “Street Sweeper for Neighagra Falls. Is this correct?”

“It’s a temporary position while I get some bits together for-”

“I’m not here to question your undoubtedly abysmal life choices,” she interrupted. Ouch. “I’m Captain Tempest Shadow and I’m here to safely deliver you to your new position as Prince Consort for Princess Celestia.” She said it quickly and formally, like reading off a new company policy regarding snack breaks on the job.

I blinked. I looked around.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Tempest sighed and looked it over again once more. “Sun and stars I swear this is a prank...” at me, more than to me. “But I’ve rechecked it four times and everything is in perfect order. Right down to legal citations.”

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

“Maybe Celestia herself is pranking me? I’m willing to bet she holds a grudge longer than Twilight does… But given how much of a tizzy this has caused back at Canterlot I doubt she’d go through through this much trouble just to say ‘Fuck you Tempest.’.”

“So, wait, this is serious?”

“Hm?” She looked back up at me again and shuffled around a couple of pieces of paper, a small red spark popping off of her horn as she read through one with particular care. “Well, until I’m given cause to believe otherwise, yes. I’ll be taking you to Canterlot posthaste.”

“What?” Surprise overwhelmed me, with its old friend anxiety quickly falling in behind. “I can’t go to Canterlot! I’ve got a shift tomorrow and rent’s due at the end of the week!”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “You’re a street sweeper.”

“It’s an important job! They’re counting on me!”

“I’m sure.” The way she said it implied that she was not, in fact, sure. “Well, I’ll assign one of my stallions to fill in for you. Then, I’ll arrange for a small stipend to pay your rent until Princess Celestia comes to her senses and repeals this order.”

So… It probably was just some kind of stupid joke. Pick some random stallion off the street and order her goon to come pick him up, only to laugh at her and tell her she takes things too seriously… I wasn’t about to be part of that game! I had rights! Dignity, dammit!

“I won’t go!” I said with a voice that was supposed to be confident but came across more like a colt who refused vehemently to finish his peas. “You can’t make me!”

“As matter of fact, I can,” she said, standing up and crossing over to the door. She knocked on it twice, and the sounds of hooves scampering to attention was audible on the other side. “As it so happens, the constitution has some very strange bylaws regarding this exact circumstance. I do wonder who could have put those in there.” She said sarcastically, not even bothering to look at me.

I stood up and stretched out my wings, flapping a few times before a leaped up and over the chair, landing behind the strange guardsmare. She looked down at me (a full head over my height) bemusedly, as if questioning my shaky show of defiance.

“You can’t make me!” I demanded. “I won’t let you!”

She turned to face me, and with a smile that was more predator than joyful, stared me down. A few blue sparks shot off her horn before a full-fledged crackle of magenta magical electricity surrounded it in a halo of light, intense enough that I could feel my fur stand on end.

“Will you, now?” She asked, a sing-song crooning edge to her voice.

Chapter 2

If there was a height at which pegasi would become nauseous, the carriage had endeavored to find it, though it may have had more to do with the current state that I found myself in and less to do with the fact that we were flying. It was… Comfortable, but there was just something unsettling about having your forelegs, hindlegs, and wings clamped together in runic steel cuffs.

I was staring daggers at Tempest Shadow, who stood up near the front and had not yet noticed either my silent treatment or my blistering stare. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to talk anyway. I needed to sort out my thoughts on the matter.
Most stallions would call me crazy, being this upset about the whole ordeal, and I had to admit that there was already a certain appeal to the concept. Every stallion thought about it. I imagine a lot of mares did, too. Princess Celestia was hot. There was even a fairly large, low-key grey market for unsavory materials involving her. Not that I would know anything about that.

Still, that was hardly the whole issue. The real problem I found myself bumping against was the sheer abruptness of the whole thing. Weren’t you supposed to like, vet these sorts of positions, compare options, interview the potential applicants, and decide which one you liked best? That notion was a little bit disconcerting. I didn’t have any illusions about winning a competition on stallionhood, and as a result the whole thing felt a bit like a scam.
Well, seething at her wasn’t helping. I guessed I might as well try talking. “Hey, uh, Tempest Shadow?”

“Captain. Captain Tempest Shadow.” She said without looking away from the front of the carriage. There was something behind the edge in her tone, but it was a bit harder to decipher.

“Captain Tempest Shadow,” I said with a conciliatory nod, nearly falling over as the metal bonds unbalanced me. “How did I end up getting chosen for this… illustrious position?”

“Magic.”

I paused. That seemed like the sort of thing you would elaborate on, but she seemed content to leave it there. “Like, a wizard or uh-”

She glared back at me with a dagger’s edge, but her expression softened when she saw the state I was in, and her horn fizzled again. With a click, the steel bonds came apart and fell to the ground. As they fell apart, I slumped into a more comfortable position and began to rub at the patches where my fur was matted down, massaging them back to full fluff.

“I just… mostly don’t know,” she said, sounding more defeated than anything else. “I used to lead armies, command respect, destroy kingdoms…”

“What was that last o-”

“And now I got given an order to abduct some colt and drag him to Princess Celestia to be a sex slave!”

“I, um, w-what?”

“Oh piss off. It's not like you’re not jazzed about the whole deal, since if this isn’t a big run-around you get to stick your dick in your beloved princess of the sun.”

“I’m… Kind of scared.”

That left her quiet, leaving for a moment only the whistle of wind as we flew at breakneck speeds towards Canterlot. The looming city of the mountain slowly fille our view as we got ever closer to the castle, the princess, and whatever lay in wait.

“What? Why would you be scared?” She asked, sitting back against the railing. “All you’re being asked to do is sex.”

“I, um…” I rubbed at the back of my head and tried to look away at anything, looking over the side at the ground passing below like some kind of teen novel protagonist. “I’m not exactly prime stallion material.”

“I’ve noticed.” She said flatly, eyes flicking up and down my body briefly.

I winced at that. “I’m, like, super short.”

She raised an eyebrow at this. “I think most stallions are shorter than her.”

“But like, I’m not even average height! You’d think she’d want someone at least closer to her. I’m tiny in comparison! I’ll need a stepladder to give her a kiss on the cheek!”

“Whatever the particular magic she used to select you was, “ Tempest said with a coy smoothness, “I’m sure it handled mundane concerns such as height.” Something seemed to be making her feel better… maybe it was the capacity to display calm superiority in the face of an obviously panicking colt. Er, stallion. “Hang on now, we’re about to begin our final descent.”

I nodded, wings flaring out as I prepared myself to begin to fall, an instinctive response that had something to do with my ability to sense change in altitude. I don’t know how a non-pegasus could handle flying in one of these chariots: I was freaking out a little bit even knowing that I could probably handle an overturn without dying. Yet, Tempest seemed as calm as ever, unflappable while the golden magical craft began to swoop down towards the castle on the edge of the mountain, ready to dock and deliver the cargo. Which, I suppose, was me.

Down below the illustrious spires were more secure cargo docks carved straight into the mountain, and I could see a steady stream of trade goods funneling in and out of the cavern, the pulse of Canterlot. But we weren’t angling for there: a separate dock hung at the base of the castle, designed specifically to handle important traffic for the castle.

These were some impressive flyers. I noted that they didn’t look like most royal guards you heard or saw in promotions or pamphlets. One of them was a mare with a green coat and a grey mane, while the other was a stallion with a white coat and a sweeping yellow mane, both of them clad in light armor and moving gracefully as we swooped in, a well-executed controlled dive. It could be hell to maintain speed and direction, and it barely felt like we were going down, much less the near-total freefall our angle implied.

And with an artful grace and practiced coordination, the pair angled us down onto the platform without so much as an errant jolt, landing us smooth as silk. We came to a stop next to a crowd of ponies ready to move in. Within seconds they swarmed the carriage, collecting a few items off the back and inspecting the vehicle, while a pink unicorn stepped up to converse with Tempest. More than one glance was shot over in my direction, and I mostly sat there as the buzz was around me, but not interacting with me.

I must have been looking particularly like a fish out of water, because eventually a hoof tapped on my shoulder. I looked over to see a stallion of remarkable size. He had to be my size and half again, with a broad, even musculature and a calm, easy grace. In short, he was the ideal of stallionhood and I found myself feeling a obviously lacking in comparison. And yet, even with his grey coat, black mane, and practically glowing yellow eyes, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit calmer around him, just looking at him.

“Hello there!” He said in a rich, deep voice. “I suppose you’d be First Prize, eh? Lucky stallion.” He gave me a gentle nudge with his elbow, and I felt like I was supposed to say something in response, but the best I could manage was a weak smile that was breaking at the edges. He stared at me for a few seconds more, then sighed and patted me on the shoulder again.
“Look, I know you’ve got a lot of bullshit heading your way, so let me get ahead on this. I’ve been assigned to be your bodyguard and liaison. My name is Rock Solid, and I am. To you? I don’t have a rank. I’m on your side alone.”

Slowly, the tension eased out of me, a mixture of his genuine statement and his calming atmosphere. Frankly, a huge chunk of it was just that I needed someone like him, and I could project onto him whatever part he felt short of his goal. “Hah…” I said, a gasp of air flowing out of me along with the word. “...thanks, Rock. Nice to meet you, I’m First Prize. This is… this is a lot.”

“Really? I was expecting total excitement,” he said, gesturing towards the literal red carpet. I had to stop and consider it for a second. With the, uh, aggressive treatment that the Captain had given me, I wasn’t quite expecting that.
Slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn’t likely going to be kept in the dungeon most of the time. Sure, a gilded cage was still a cage but… Prince Consort did mean Prince. The enormity of it all started to hit me at once, and I was shaky on my way out of the carriage, leaving Rock Solid to grab me before I face planted onto the carpet dramatically.

“Woah, hey there,” he said. “I always figured pegasi handled heights better than the rest of us.” He gently set me down on my hooves and I flared my wings out, flapping a couple of times to help me get my bearings again.

“Normally I can,” I say. “Physical heights. Not social heights.”

He boomed out a laugh, a rolling and boisterous sound that nearly knocked me over again as he laughed at my stupid joke. “It wasn’t that funny,” I protested, but he was having a hard time calming himself down with the aftershocks. If he weren’t so naturally genuine, I’d have a hard time believing he meant it.

“Come on, Sir Laughs-a-Lot,” he said, starting down the carpet. “You’re late, and we have a doctor’s appointment to get you to. Celestia’s expecting you in an hour, and we need you ready.”

“Huh?” I asked, plodding along after him, ears still ringing. “I’m not hurt… I don’t think I’m hurt. Maybe just my pride.” I idly checked over myself while he shook his head.

“Nah, more of a check-up and a physical. Need to make sure you’re ship-shape in Trottingham fashion.” He explained as he started off, pausing to make sure I was following.

“And… if I’m not?”

He snorted. “Are you always this much of a downer?” We trudged through the castle, and as we started inside, it became apparent that the castle was big. Like, really big. Big enough that it had multiple streams of traffic weaving into and out of each other, pegasi flying through the air, even the occasional (very clean) cart being towed through the gleaming marble hallways and artful columns. It was, after all, more than just the abode of the Princesses: it was the head of government for most of Equestria.

We took a few of the larger hallways first, and I found myself a little staggered by the sheer quantity of ponies who were milling about. Rock gathered more attention than I did, me being a relative unknown at this point and him being a head above most other stallions. More than a few of the glances were mares who’s eyes lingered on his flanks just a moment too long for it to be truly chaste.

Eventually, we ducked into a much quieter part of the castle, two more typical Royal Guards standing at attention. They let us past with a scrutinizing glance, the classic ‘I’ve got my eye on you’ gaze, but there was a definite respect for Rock that kept them from doing anything more than scowling. Here, the hallways seemed smaller and more sparsely populated, there was only the odd maid or servant bustling around, and everything had a much more cozy feel to it. Carpet and wood, warmer tones, calming pictures as opposed to the grandiose portraits over most of the castle.

“The Princess’ personal apartments,” Rock said by way of explanation. “She needs someplace that’s more homely than the ‘life writ large’ that’s most of the castle, I suppose. You’ve got your appointments set up here.”

He lead me into a room that was distinctly out of step with the rest of the apartments. At first glance you would swear it was a storage room of some sort, but a few details stuck out. Large arcanotech devices had been hauled in here, probably by a few stallions like Rock. Beyond that, a rough medical cot had been placed. A couple of mares were waiting around, one of them with thick, square glasses and a lab coat while the other was wearing a nurses’ cap.

The doctor, I presumed, locked eyes with me as I entered the room. She was slightly taller than average and thin, with a blue coat and a curly grey mane. She seemed to be slightly older and a little bit tired, but there was a keenness behind the eyes that shone through. The nurse seemed about as nervous as I did, slightly shorter than the average mare (though that still left her with an inch on me), and her deep red coat was matched with a grey-blue mane.

“First Prize?” The doctor asked, looking over at Rock Solid, who gave her a casual grin and stepped aside to reveal me, which had to be something of a letdown, and indeed her expression fell a little bit going from him to me. “Ah. Well, we need to complete your medical examination before we can send you to get scrubbed.”

“Scrubbed?” I said, shakily stepping forward and glancing over at Rock, who gave me a reassuring wink as I stepped over to the makeshift medical set-up. “Like, fur shaved and given a cone?”

“Nothing quite so drastic,” the doctor assured me, checking over a couple of notes while the Nurse prepared a couple of devices.

“Step here, please,” the nurse said, guiding me onto a flat, square surface with a tower-like ruler, while the doctor stepped up, her horn glowing as she moved around a few levers and dials.

“Hmmm. Light and short,” she said, scribbling down a few notes. “Maybe consider a diet to help him bulk up-”

“It won’t help,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve tried everything. Diet, exercise, potion supplements… Nothing.”

“Hm…” The doctor said, looking me over and producing a long, white stick, with which she jabbed at my ass, getting a squawk out of me as I moved back in surprise. “Silver mane, dandelion coat…”

“Yellow coat!” I protested.

“Dandelion,” she said insistently. “Hm.. Nurse, induce arousal.”

“I’m sorry, wh-” I asked, before being cut off by the sudden presence of the nurse, her lips pressing into mine, soft and firm, a strange and surprising sensation that left a thrill of heat pulsing through my body. My wings abruptly flared out and I felt a similar reaction happening between my legs. I could feel my shaft begin to slide out of its sheath while the nurse pressed on even further, her tongue sliding past my lips. I was vaguely aware that I was a dead-fish, but I was still in a bit of shock. Prior to today, the most I’d had was holding hooves with an ex-marefriend, so the idea that a mare would be willing to jump on me like this…

My eyes focused and I could see her going full force, eyes squeezed shut and one of her hooves coming up to rest on my haunches, wandering down and up my wings, sending shocks of sensation down the stiff limbs as she let her hooftip wander among the feathers.

The doctor cleared her throat. “Nurse. NURSE.” She rolled her eyes and her horn glowed, forcibly scooting the nurse back a few inches and releasing the kiss with an audible pop. The nurse’s face flushed and she looked away.

“Um, sorry Doctor.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the doctor said drily as she held up a tape measure. “He’s plenty erect, at least.” The tape measure quickly went to my hind-quarters, more magic quickly restraining me as I began to squirm, and I felt the cool, flexible tape up against my dick.

“Hm…” The doctor said, examining the tape measure. “About half a standard deviation below average. Without accounting for height and weight.” She added the last part to cut off my protest, so I was forced to simply fume while she reduced my entire being into a few discrete data points. “Well, I don’t see anything to delay the process. Assuming we’re absolutely sure the spell got the right stallion, we can send him along to for the final cleaning and prep.”

“Ma’am?” The nurse said, smiling at me nervously, an obvious twitch to one side of her mouth. “Maybe we should test, for, uh, volume?” She looked down between my legs pointedly, until I shifted my sitting position so she couldn’t stare at me any longer. This was not a reaction I was used to.

The doctor seemed to have been expecting it. “I think we should let our Princess, Employer, and Sovereign Leader of our Country have the first go, no matter how good he’s supposed to be,” she said.

Oh… Huh. I guess I hadn’t considered the motivation. I guess Prince Consort does come with a pretty hefty dose of caché. That was immediately washed out as I realized that meant that Princess Celestia was mostly likely going to be expecting a god in the bed… And I had never even tried before.

The latter was most likely obvious, because I quickly felt the reassuring hoof of Rock Solid resting on my haunch. “Alright bud,” he said. “Once last stop before you get to meet, uh, her.” I nodded, taking a deep, calming breath to try and keep myself calm. I staggered to my hooves and followed Rock Solid, who took me through a couple of doors and into a bathroom. It was about the size of my previous apartment, with an alicorn-sized tub and a shower to match, plus an open air window with the slightest hint of magical interference leaving the image a little bit fuzzy. Other than that, there was a large bathroom counter, and a smaller one perpendicular to it. In the middle of the room, a massage table had been set up, with a small stand full of oils and salves sitting next to it.

Sorting through the concoctions was a tall mare with a seafoam green coat and turquoise mane, poking through the various substances she had brought along She was head and shoulders above me, with a sturdy musculature that was padded out slightly by a comfortable layer of fat that seemed to shake generously with every movement. She looked up at me and had an expression enthusiastic enough to sour my mood again.

She didn’t give me a chance to consider running away though. In a few great strides the earth pony had grabbed me in a single hoof, pulling me into her chest and the fluffy fur that clung there. “Oh, I’m so glad to meet you!” She said with a glowing tone. “You’re the new consort? First Prize? Oh, I’m going to be delighted to work on you.”

It seemed like everyone knew me already… I wriggled to try and get free, but she was strong as a yak, and big enough that I was hanging without a chance at leverage, wings pressed up against my back. “Hello,” I wheezed out, having a bit of trouble breathing. “First Prize. Can’t breathe.”

She looked horrified for a moment, and quickly deposited me onto the table next to her, where I flopped for a second. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m just your new personal stylist, Seaweed Wrap! Well, I advise Princess Celestia, not that she normally needs it. But I’m here to take care of all of your needs… Style-wise, anyway.” She tossed a hoof. “Right now, I’m supposed to give you the works, getting you ready to meet Celly for the first time?” With another look at her, I did notice the white neck-band and hair-tie that marked her as a trained spa pony. Apparently a pretty good one, if Princess Celestia kept her on as a consultant, but a more bitter part of me wondered if her size had more to do with it than skill.

Harmony decided to punish me for my bitter thoughts, and she displayed ample ability as she produced oils and flipped me onto my front. Her glistening, oiled hooved sliding down my wings and into the small of the back where they connected, a gentle pressure that set my wings rigid again and the rest of my body into what I can only describe as ‘forceful relaxation’. I’m fairly sure I made a sound somewhere in the neighborhood of ‘guuuuuhhhhh’.

Wrap could only giggle at my response and her other hoof got into the action, slathering oils into my fur and quickly starting to rub them in, a tingling sensation spreading everywhere her hooves did. “I don’t mean to brag,” she bragged, “but I’m perhaps the single most skilled masseuse in the kingdom. That’s more than just the oils, I’m pushing just a little bit of magic through my hooves with every touch.”

“You seem to be enjoying it,” she teased, and let a single hoof dreft down to touch me between the legs. I hadn’t even noticed how hard I was, but as soon as she touched me there, it shot through my body like a fire. “Ah… Any other day and I’d be sure to take care of that,” she said, sounding disappointed. “But we’re running late on time and I’d better leave that for Celly.”

That said, she continued to rub me down… With one hoof. The other, almost absent-mindedly, trailed up and down my shaft with the point of her hoof, humming happily while she did so. Still, I was getting the massage and rub-down I apparently needed, but the need in me was quickly building into a fire, and I wriggled underneath her touch, only kept from flopping off the bed entirely by the strength of her hoof and some instinctive fear for the grip she had on my private parts.

Eventually, I was totally oiled up, and I figured we were done, only for her to squeeze me against herself and walk, this time over to the bathtub. With a great, heaving step she pulled both of us over to the warm, rose-scented water where we sank down. I nearly didn’t catch my breath in time, but she had that eventuality covered as well, quickly spinning so that she was beneath me and holding me so my head was above water while both of her hooves now crawled all over my body, sliding up my legs, massaging my wings, pushing up against my chest. It was only through an almighty force of will I didn’t blow my load, since I was relaxed and elevated and practically in another state of existence, gurgling and whimpering as the strong, confident touch of the mare worked me over and over.

I’m not sure how long that took. It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour, clutched tight to the bosom of the large, beautiful mare while she hummed and worked me over, finally pulling me out of the bath and setting upon me with a towel, rubbing me up and down until my coat poofed and my wings finally returned to a more flexible posture.

Finally came a comb, which she used in her mouth to flatten out my coat and leave it at a silky sheen I don’t think it’d ever been at before. I felt soft and calm, like I was glowing all over, and I couldn’t keep a grin off of my face. Eventually she was done, and the calming sensation of a strong, gentle mare working over me floated away, leaving me wanting for more while I lay there, blissfully dreaming. Blearily, I considered that I had absolutely been wrong about her, and I had never been happier to be so wrong.

She smiled down at me, patting my mane and lifting me up, gently setting me down on my hooves and keeping me secure while my wits gradually returned. “Don’t worry, we can try that again with a little bit more fun next time.” She gave me a wink and pushed me off in the direction of one more door. I started off towards it, then shot a look back at Rock Solid, wondering if he was going to follow.

He held up a hoof. “Oh, I’d better not,” he said, then gave me a reassuring wink. “I’ll be waiting out here, don’t worry.” I felt myself filled with sudden realization, and in spite of total body relaxation, there was a creeping sense of dread as I pushed through the large, wooden door. The hinges were well-oiled, and the door drifted open easily.

The room was large, and most of the north-facing well was filled with a giant window that looked down upon the bustling city of Canterlot, light streaming through and illuminating the whole room. It was filled with reds and golds, with the occasional highlight of sky blue. There was a sitting-room area, a raised dais with a wall filled with books, tables that had various crafts and items on it, a small kitchenette just to the side of the bathroom exit, and something I would looked like a board-room, right out of a corporate office. Next to the window, with a series of shades pulled down was a truly massive bed. It had to be fifteen by fifteen feet, with rich red blankets and a large canopy. With a nervous gulp, I headed over towards the last.

She wasn’t here… not yet. That meant I should probably be in position to meet her… I flapped my wings and fluttered onto the bed, and sat on my belly, facing the door. I considered trying a more alluring position, but the thought of her coming in and me contorting myself in an attempt to look sexy was more than my overburdened mind could handle right now. I was waiting for maybe a minute, my mind running through dozens of awful scenarios, things that would certainly make it go wrong. And then, with a click, the door began to open.

Chapter 3

The door opened, and Celestia came in.

That’s the bare bones of it. The raw fact. But it failed to capture any of the truth. It's hard to consider where to begin. The room felt brighter. I’m not sure that there was actually more light in the room, just that there was a glow in the apartment that hadn’t been there a second before.

She moved with confidence. It wasn’t a casual grace or an easy calm. It wasn’t a projection or a trick. She simply emitted enough unflappable confidence that everyone else felt like they were simply pretending and only she had any idea what she was up to. She looked over everything like it was all falling into place exactly as she expected it, even when she was surprised, like when she glanced over and saw me sitting on her bed.

She was beautiful. My mind had a hard time comprehending it. Everypony sees pictures of her, hears stories, a lot of ponies get a chance to see her from a distance, but nothing can compare to a simple view of her up close. Her fur was a pristine white, and there was nary a blot or a mark anywhere on it, just a perfect field of fur, sleek white with the barest hints of fluff near her chest and fetlocks. Her entire form was long, graceful curves that flowed into each other, leaving her with a liquid grace that made her seem like a work of art with every step. Her eyes were a radiant pink that passed over everything like a breeze, taking in details with long, easy sweeps of vision. Her mane was a kaleidoscope of color, flowing and flashing with colors of countless hues as it cascaded off her back.

I was staring. I was aware of the fact that I was staring but I couldn’t stop myself. My mouth hung agog as she moved to me, eyes fixing on me from a distant and pouring over ever detail. She wore a simple smile, and I felt myself frozen with fear, anticipation, enjoyment… It was a rainbow of emotions and I felt myself trapped by every single one of them.

“Normally,” she said with a voice that was smooth, deep, careful, loving. “My guests wait for me in the sitting room, but I can see that you’re feeling particularly eager to begin, hm?” She climbed onto the bed and sat down next to me, fixing me with a scrutinizing gaze and maintaining the easy smile. In spite of her relaxed air, I felt as though she was picking me apart with a simple look.

Naturally, I remained calm and composed and began sputtering like a foal. “I'm not…” I said. “I wasn’t… I didn’t mean…”

She laughed, a peal of joyous laughter that immediately made me freeze. Embarrassment, delirium, and stress overwhelmed me and I swooned slightly as I stared at her. She smelled nice… She had probably taken off whatever perfume she had been wearing, and a slightly sweet, earthy tone was all that remained.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she said. “You seem a little bit shaken up. It was probably a mistake to send Fizzlepop.”

“Fizzlepop?”

Celestia paused and considered. “Goodness, is she still going by that ridiculous name Tempest Shadow?” She gave the name as much faux-grandiosity and doom as she could manage, waggling her hooves in an imitation of a fireside story. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, but her name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. It's a much nicer name, anyway, and I do wish she’d go by it, but I think she’s scared about not being taken seriously.”

“That’d be the day,” I mumbled. “I think I’d be scared of her if her name was Loving Suction.” I paused and froze as I looked up at the Princess, who fixed me with a disapproving gaze. I’d ruined it. Minutes into my tenure and already I’d

“Loving Suction?” She asked, unable to keep the trace elements of a giggle out of her tone. “I see somepony keeps up with their Playpony.? For a stallion your age, those sorts of magazines will rot your mind.” She gave me a wink and I began to calm down a bit, though part of me was still on high alert.

“Oh, you must be so nervous,” she continued, and reached out a hoof to gingerly push part of my mane out of my face. “You can’t be much older than… 20?”

“Nineteen,” I confessed miserably.

“Nineteen,” she said, murmuring the words thoughtfully. “Hm… The magic chose a young one.” She noticed my confusion. “Given the sheer number of subjects I have, this time in the choosing I had to opt for some magical guidance,” she explained. “There weren’t any strapping young war heroes lying about this time, and I haven’t had much time to expand my social circle, so I enlisted Twilight and Cadance in order to craft a spell that could help me find the ideal candidate.”

“And it chose… me.” I said flatly, a distinct lack of belief filtering through.my voice. “I don’t have much of a resumé. Unless you desperately need your hallways swept.”

Celestia tapped her chin, looking upward thoughtfully. “Well, my maids have been getting lax lately..” She noted, then gave me a playful grin when she saw my reaction. “Don’t worry about it,” she said teasingly. “I’m not asking you to have faith in the grand machinations of a spell you don’t understand. I’m asking you to have faith in me. I’ve had three consorts before you. I don’t require them all that often, but they’ve all been unique souls. One of them was a goofball who spent all her time playing games and we still worked it out. One of them was a grumpy soldier who spent every minute he wasn’t with me working. You will find your part to play, I promise you.”

And she did, in her seemingly magic way, manage to ease a lot of the tension. I nodded simply, though my brain was hard at work. “Well, um. My name is First Prize. I grew up in Neighagra Falls, and my cutie mark is, uh…” I always felt self-conscious about this bit. “Being valuable.”

“Oh? I don’t believe I’ve ever come across a cutie mark like that. How did you earn it?”

I could feel my cheeks burning. “I, um, uh, got bullied at school because I was a poor flier and, um…”I looked away, trying not to meet her eyes. “Realized my own self-worth.” It always sounded dumb as hell when I tried to explain it, but Celestia didn’t seem so much as condescending about the whole thing.

“Interesting,” she said simply. She gently placed her hoof on my haunch and let it drift down my back to my flank, where it rested next to my cutie mark, a medal with a blue ribbon. From there, she let the tip slowly rotate on my flank, somewhat thoughtlessly as she considered it.

There was a brief pause in conversation before I cleared my throat and spoke up. “Um, ma’am? Uh, Princess… Your Royal Highness.”

“Celestia,” She said simply and curtly. “We can discuss nicknames or titles if and when necessary.”
I nodded. “Celestia… Celestia.” I rolled the name around on my tongue, earning a delighted smile from her as I did so. “I was wondering how we were going to handle my, uh, duties.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “As I said, my consorts find their own purposes in their own due ti-”

“Sex.” I said, a bit more loudly. The silence was deafening. “Um. I meant, uh…”

She giggled again, but this time her eyes held a touch of hunger as she watched me. She let her hoof slide towards my back, moving slowly up towards the small of my back, the joint where my back met my wings.

“Well,” she said. “There’s a few things we should address on that pont. First and foremost, I don’t want you to worry about it whatsoever. I’m a very patient mare and I can wait for your comfort on absolutely everything. Now if we stretch into the months than we can start to create a better plan for it than that, but that’s a long time away.”

“You mean, um, if I don’t feel comfortable doing it?”

She nodded. “Or if you’re concerned about my pleasure. There will be an adjustment period and a…” She chewed her words around, trying to find the right phrasing for what she was going to say. “A tutorial period.”

I tried to sort out what she meant. “Oh. You’re expecting me to suck.”

“Well, the opposite is sort of the pro-” she noticed the look on my face and cut off what she was thinking. “I don’t expect you to be a maestro of the erotic arts. At least not at first…”

I couldn’t help but smile, though I’m sure it looked goofy as hell, brain struggling to put together exactly what she was saying. “You’re going, to, uh, teach me?”

“Well, it would be WILDLY unfair for me to expect any stallion to immediately stand up to my highest standards,” she said, giving me a playful wink. “So I figure that I owe you a little bit of schooling if I expect you to pleasure me.”

I couldn’t help myself, and at that I began giggling a little bit, nervous at the sudden realization of what she intended of me. “Right, yeah, uh, I guess that would be my job.”

She moved her other hoof to gently pat me on the head, carefully pulling me close to her, until I was right up against her side, barrel to barrel, and she flared out one of her large wings and gently laid it over me. This close, I realized she wasn’t entirely pure white… a distinct pink hue was ever so slightly laid at the edge of her fur. It made her seem warmer somehow, though part of that was also just that she was very warm… Warmer by far than a normal pony would be. “Eventually,” she said. “But I think you’ll find that by that point, you’ll be enjoying it as much as I will. And you’ll be rather excellent with other mares, too, should you have the wit to transfer the lessons.”

“Other mares…” I mumbled. I hadn’t even considered that. I thought back to the nurse who seemed practically giddy at the thought of ‘examining’ me. I guess that even being called the Consort to Celestia was high praise in and of itself.

She nodded. “They can be an educational experience. Plus, I’m sure my staff would remember how wise and benevolent their ruler is if they had access to an adorable little stallion such as yourself.”

My goofy grin intensified. “I’m, um, not sure most ponies are attracted to stallions like me…”

She snorted. “You may find that opinion to be quickly proven wrong. Which does remind me… I’d best get ahead of the competition.” She stood up and walked in a small circle to turn to face me. She was tall, and imposing. Especially from my vantage point, and as she used her magic to roll me onto my back, so I was belly up before her, looking down at me with a power that I could practically feel pulsing against my fur.

“I’m going to ruin other mares for you.”

She didn’t waste so much as a second after that, and she pushed in to kiss me, a powerful press that I couldn’t really contest, stunned as I was. Her lips were warm and flexible, and she knew how to use them, enfolding me in a surprisingly tender kiss for how passionate and powerful it was. She was plainly and totally superior to me, yet she treated me with a level of care that a master artisan would use on a sculpture.

Eventually, she pulled away.I was fully aflush, my face red from one side to another, and I let out a soft “oh” as I looked at her, already longing for something more. Celestia herself had the lightest hint of a flush across her features, and a totally self-satisfied smile. She knew she had me. Sun and Stars did she ever have me.

“Of course,” she said coyly. “That’s only if you’re interested… I wouldn’t want to push you past what you’re comfortable with.” I nodded as fiercely as I could, my mane bobbing back and forth as I silently begged her for more. She simply stared at me, quirking her head to the side. “Now First Prize, you should know how important express and enthusiastic consent is,” she said in a serious tone that was only slightly ruined by the barest trace of a smile gracing the edge of her lips. “I’m going to need a verbal answer.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Yes!” I practically shouted. “Yes! Please, more!” I was all but hollering at the top of my lungs, and I briefly looked over at the door the bathroom, where I realized that Rock Solid and Seaweed were probably still there.

Celestia rolled her eyes as she took another step forward, closer, over me. “Let them hear you beg for it,” she said smirking, leaning down again. “You’ll be making much louder noises by the end anyway.” She pressed another kiss against my lips, this time shorter and then she moved down to the tip of my chest, then down to the middle of my stomach and then down to my sheathe, where she gave another nip of kiss. In mere seconds I was already starting to slide out, half-erect from her careful ministrations, which she wasn’t about to let up on.

Part of me was struck with a sudden terror as I realized how quickly it was happening, a surge of anxiety while her tongue snaked up the underside of my shaft, her tongue flattening out to press against the entirety of its bottom, rolling up with enough slow deliberation that I was squirming slightly from below while she worked. Also slowly enough that I was looking away in a distinct shame as she finished, since she could finally see my total length.

She immediately noticed something was wrong, tilting her head to the side. “Are you alright, my Consort? Do we need to stop.” I mumbled something, and she leaned in to hear.”Once more, if you would?” Her ears flicked attentively.

“Sorry it's not very big,” I muttered, and she paused, leaning back as though observing my cock again. I felt her scrutinizing gaze and that same well of shame rolled over me.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” she said as her hoof come to rest alongside my cock, gently stroking it with the soft frog underneath her hoof. “It’s a marvelous size!” I looked at her incredulously. I was distinctly undersized. She snorted, and for once I felt her growing a bit impatient. “Stallions.” She muttered. “Treat it like it's the most important thing… not a single damn mare has ever cared…”

Her horn began to glow, and I could feel the crackling tingle of its energy, like the gentlest of magical currents spreading over the surface of my entire body, my fur suddenly touched by arcane sensation. “Very well!” She said, like a teacher announcing that a pop quiz was in order. “Since this is obviously going to be an issue…”

And without any more warning than that, my groin was suddenly encompassed with a bright light that matched the one from her horn. The sensation was intense. It was like arousal, but when my shaft began to twitch and pulse, it just didn’t stop. More and more it increased, and I felt like I was holding back an impossibly powerful orgasm, or like something was holding it back from me, and my entire body went rigid as I struggled and failed to handle the waves of pleasure that were coursing through me. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I let loose a powerful groan.

The whole time, Celestia was looking at me intently, a smile creeping onto her face and then growing wider and wider as she considered her work. She licked her lips appreciatively as she stared at her own work, until all at once her horn suddenly stopped glowing, her work done.

I was gasping for air done, laying there entirely exhausted, and my crotch numb with pleasure. My wings were rigid behind me, and with a grunt I sat up to see what she had done. My dick was… almost twice the size it had been before. I stared at it with disbelief as my newfound monster sat there twitching eagerly,, while Celestia moved in to get a closer look herself.

She gave the tip a gentle kiss and I couldn’t hold back a contented ‘aaaaah’. Fuck, it was tingling. Celestia let out a sigh of overwhelming pride as she used her tongue to deftly lick up a small bead of pre-cum glistening at the top. “You’ll be sensitive for a while,” she said. “The price of doing business, I’m afraid, but eventually I’m sure you’ll get the handle of it. Now you have a masterpiece hanging between your legs.”

“It’s… um…” I said, staring at it, a bit awestruck. “Great.” The words felt lame, utterly unsuited to the magnitude of what she had done, and Celestia seemed to agree.

“Some stallions,” she said with a good-natured teasing to her voice. “Don’t know what they want, even when they have it.” She moved down quickly and hovered over the flare of my shaft, which was pulsing at her very presence, and she studied it with an academic intensity. Drifting down past it, she let the fur of her cheek rub against the side of it. Soft, velvety… It tickled just a little bit, but the real danger was the sudden explosion of sensation rolling out across my shaft. It must have been that newfound sensitivity she was talking about, but in seconds I was squirming under the sensation.

“Oh come now,” Celestia said, still taunting me, repeating the feat as she moved back up to the top of my shaft, cheek just close enough that I felt it dancing on the edge of sensation. “You’re going to need to toughen up.” She leaned in to kiss the head of my shaft once more before pressing her lips more firmly against my cock. Then, she opened her mouth ever so slightly, just enough to take the tip in her mouth. The feeling already was too much, but she was far from finished.

Down she went. She took her time, slow and methodical. Down an inch, then the questing sensation of her tongue as it looped around, exploring each new patch of real estate as she travelled down and down. She took such care with the process that she must have been mapping it in her head, and it was impressive how she managed to take the whole thing, inch after inch without so much as gagging or wincing. She simply pushed and paused and pushed and paused… The medial ring was no more than an extra second of work and with careful consideration. It was less than a minute before she had the entirety of my shaft carefully nuzzled in her mouth and throat, her eyes having now flicked up to look at me and observe my reactions.

In a single, slow motion, she pulled back, pressing down her lips to massage me as she did so until she finally slid off of my length with a gentle ‘pop’. Then, without much ado, she pushed on again, but this time with much less hesitation. With a single, smooth motion she closed her mouth around me and then forced herself down, in less than a second eclipsing the entirety of my cock. I let loose a cry of sheer sensation and my cock twitched, ready to cum… But found that it couldn’t. I was panting heavily, my vision swimming as I tried to get eyes on the problem. I stared down at Celestia, staring back up at me, those luminous eyes gazing right through me.

As she began to pull away, the issue became more obvious: a glowing band of light that had formed tight around the base of my shaft. I poked at it gingerly. It sent a rippling tingle around the length of the ring, but didn’t budge from its location. A small smile on my face, I looked up at Celestia. “A cock ring?”

“Inexperience is an opportunity, not a flaw,” she responded back with a cool grace, one of her hooves coming up to cup my balls, eyeing them thoughtfully. “But I don’t see why an itchy trigger hoof should ruin our fun.”

This actually put me a little bit at ease… So much of my attention had been focused on not ruining things too quickly that I hadn’t been focusing on enjoying myself. With that out of the way, I felt my head clear just a little bit… Well, as clear as it could get considering I had an itching pulse in my brain that desperately needed that release. A sort of relaxation of the body but not of the balls.

And with that it became abundantly clear that I was being a little bit selfish about this whole thing… “Princ- Ma’a-” Her dead-serious looks cut me off in the middle of the honorifics, and I paused, collected myself, and forced myself to relax. “Celestia,” I said. “Could I try, um, eating you out?”

She looked a bit surprised, but pleased at the offer. “Ah… I was intending to lavish you with comfort this time,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to lay back and let me pamper you?”

I gave her a wry grin. “Shouldn’t I earn that kind of treatment?” I asked. Carefully, I rolled over onto my stomach and got up to my legs, beginning to circle around to the rear of her. She lay down, barrel sideways against the sheets, legs trailing off, and flicked her long, flowing, ethereal tail to the side.

“Feel free to explore,” she said. “I expect you will soon be intimately familiar with the regions thereabout, and don’t be concerned about asking for instruction.”

I nodded and finished my walk around and found myself staring at what could only be described as the most magnificent ass ever.

Gently, I reached out and poked it. The harder tip of my hoof sank into it, and I felt the slightest twinge of her moving under the sensation, and I felt myself throbbing as I stared rather intently. Switching my grip, I moved my hoof to let my frog slide across the surface of her rear, soft fur and soft flesh squishing underneath my touch.

My chest tightened and I realized I wasn’t breathing, a mistake I corrected with an awkward cough. “I see somepony is enjoying himself already.” Celestia giggled, giving her rump a little shake, transfixing me with the sight of it moving back and forth… back and forth…

I snapped back to focus and gave her a nod. “It’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous,” I said, half-dazed with arousal and appreciation for her beauty. Finally, though, I needed to focus on the real prize. I let my hoof trail down her dock, past her anus and to her slit, puffy and slightly wet with need and arousal. I leaned in and gave it a look, a little bit bashful but also searching for more information. This was, after all, my first time seeing one up close… The tip of my hoof traced around the outside of her lips, a little thicker than I thought. That set off a reaction, even the barest touch getting some motion out of her. Then there was the clit, sticking out at the bottom, already engorged, and popping in and out as I let my hoof drift over her edges.

“Are all mares this sensitive?” I asked, an honest question. I didn’t really have any way of knowing…

Celestia lifted her head up until I could see her in profile, a single eye ponderously focusing on me. The pink tones in her fur seemed slightly more pronounced… or maybe she was a little more flush from me poking and prodding at her.
“I’m having a little bit of trouble resisting the urge to take a seat upon your face until I am properly sated,” she said, her tone as polite as ever. Maybe there was a bit more edge to it. “So mayhaps you should reconsider teasing me overmuch?”

I nodded, deciding that tormenting an overheated sun goddess was probably not the best idea, and quickly moved in to try… Something. Traditionally, I figured, you were supposed to lick it. I let my tongue out and looked for a second, awkwardly. No time for that, I stowed the anxietic concoction of emotions brewing in my gut and leaned in, pressing my tongue against the bottom of her slit, near the clit, and slowly started to flatten my tongue, trailing up the length of her slit. My tongue folded around her clit at the bottom, dragging against it until it winked once more, sliding into her body while my tongue moved past it and kept my headed twisted at a sideways angle in order to better follow the trail of her entrance.

“Mmmmmm,” Celestia said, visible relaxing, a tension easing out of her I hadn’t quite noticed before. The entire room felt a little bit warmer, and I could see her thigh muscles twitching as I continued. “A little bit faster, maybe? Deeper, too.”

Part of me was tempted to make a quip and ask who was doing what here, but I was doing this to learn, after all. I gave her a sharp nod, but realized that she couldn’t see me, obscured as my figure was by her glorious butt, and so instead I simply did what she asked.

Deep, faster. I started with the latter first, running my tongue up her faster, faster… Two long swipes, starting to get a metallic, slightly sweet tang on my tongue as I went. Maybe with a hint of strawberry? Each time I did, I could sense the rising tension in her entire body. I figure I’d need to learn to interpret that kind of body language, it would probably be an important component of my job. So I paid attention, watching the rise and fall of her chest, the slight hitch as my tongue flicked over her nub, the slight shiver as I started to push in a little bit.

Deeper was next. I let my tongue push in a bit harder, splitting the lower lips just a touch and getting a flood of that tangy, slightly sweet taste. I found myself getting caught up in it. One of my hoof came to rest on her flank as I angled my head to get a better line of attack, pushing in further until my snoot was beginning to push inside of her. My neck was going to be sore for hours, but this was all worth it. With my hoof where it was, I was learning to gauge her reaction. The slightest motion as she breathed, the shudders, the shifts as she moved. With a bit more practice I could probably use it as a barometer to figure out whatever she was feeling at any point.

More and more I fell into the task until it became a touch more mechanical. Adjust, lick, gauge reaction. Adjust, lick, gauge reaction. It was… fun. The stress was so much lower than the rocky start, and holy shit I was having sex with Celestia. And she seemed to be enjoying herself too! It was remarkable how sensitive she was. I had wondered if after a thousand years everything just faded into a blur and everything would be boring, but she was clearly restraining herself from kicking, muscles in her thighs tensing powerfully.

Eventually, she made it known, and with a brilliant yellow glow, I found myself encapsulate in the gentle warm pulse of her magic. I was surprised with how careful it was… A lot of unicorns had no such delicacy, and the touch of their magic was almost grating or came with a painful pressure to it.

“You have performed... Excellently for a first time.” Celestia said, slowly standing up. There was a definite shakiness to it, and I felt quite a bit smug. She moved to stand over me while the magic carefully shifted my position until I was on my back and my limbs were carefully spread out. So consumed by my pussy-eating had I been that I hadn’t even how rock hard I was, leaving my cock straining against the magical constraints around it and my head flaring. A drop of pre-cum was glistening at the top, and I was hard as I’ve ever been, painfully so.

“Now,” she said. “For the final phase of your first performance, I will happily take control,” she said, and slowly lowered herself down. The magic enfolding my cock twitched and carefully adjusted me until she finally came down to take it deep inside of her.

As far as my limited knowledge of sexual etiquette stretched (mostly gleaned from various pornographic materials and the nonsensical boastings of my friends) this was generally not the way you handled these sorts of things, but if her intent was to flood me with an impossible degree of pleasure, it worked. I barely noticed her considerable weight slamming onto my pelvis, since in that same powerful drop she took the entirety of my length inside of her. In a single second I went from being bare and exposed to feeling my entire shaft gripped and encased. It was warm, it was wet, and I felt like there was an impossible pressure over every inch of it.

My legs tensed, my wings pulsed as they immediately flared out as much as they could, and my back arched and the raw sensation rolled through me. I have no illusions that I would absolutely have blown my load if the cock ring wasn’t firmly keeping that in check. As it was, I could still feel my balls clench, and I grit my teeth, trying to focus in spite of the fresh roll over my head of pleasure. My cock felt all the more sensitive, but that was only the first gambit. Celestia sighed with relish, her hooves on either side of my head, letting a trill of her magic go down my chest. “Maybe the resizing was a good idea,” she said, before slowly lifting up her hips. “Perfunctory, but I always enjoy creating my own toys.”

Funny how quick things become normal: the second she lifted up, the lower half of my shaft was begging to be put back in. Celestia was taking her sweet time, and I began to squirm lightly. “Patience,” she chided. “I may act domineering but without great care I’m afraid I would probably hurt you very badly.”

She was large and strong, and I had no doubts that she was telling me the truth. “I’m trying,” I said. I tried to make it sound earnest, but it came out as a squeak, and my hips were reflexively bucking even as I willed them to stay put.

“You’re doing an excellent job,” she assured me, this time using her hoof to glide down my chest affectionately, half-lidded eyes and a delicate smile. Her wings flared out as she used them to steady herself. They were large, and graceful, each feather flowing into the next in a beautiful mosaic. “Performing better than I would have expected… I believe you will make an excellent partner.” And then, she rocked back down forward. This time, it was more slowly, an almost gentle edge to it. My lower half was screaming in both pleasure and pain, similar to all the levers on a device being pulled all at once by the pure amount of things that she was demanding that I feel all at once, so her taking it gently was not something I was about to protest.

And this time, I could think about the sensation with more care. I could feel her lower lips sliding down my length. She was tight, tight enough that there was an ocean of difference between being in her and being out of her, tight enough that she even had to use an extra touch of force to take my medial ring in as she went. I was gasping for breath by the time she reached the base of my shaft, and both of us had started sweating at this point. Celestia’s composure was better than mine, but I could tell she was close, herself. A product of my oral ministrations and this current exercise.

Again I was struck with how sensitive she was… It made me curious. “H-How long?” I asked. “I mean, um, how long has it been since you last…” I trailed off.

“A hundred years,” She said with an almost awkward smile. A smile calculated to be a little bit awkward. “Give or take. I’ve been quite busy. With the new princesses around, figured I could take some time to relax.”

I nodded. That tracked… She had probably been looking for a consort because it been such a long time. Celestia looked down at me with that same smile and continued to crank up her pace. Her face was flush, and a small strand of mane had slipped away from the rest of the ethereal mass and was hanging down in front of her face as though it were slightly unkempt. Her expression was kindly but hungry. I’d almost call it desperate, focused in on me like I was the most perfect thing in the world, and I’m sure my expression echoed something of the same.

And she kept going. It was as though she was trying to find the perfect pace, moving from fast to slow, then a bit faster, a bit slower… Careful bounce after careful bounce until she settled on a nice, even pace, just enough so that at the peak of every bounce I wanted more but wasn’t desperate for it. And with some semblance of sanity restored to me, I realized I shouldn’t simply lie there, waiting for her to ravish me. I let my hooves come to gently rest on her hooves, which drew a quick glance but no admonishment from the princess atop me. From there, I waited until her descent and began to slightly thrust upwards until her descent forced me back onto the bed, hopefully enough to give her that extra ‘oomph’ on every thrust.

There was an art to it, something I hadn’t yet mastered. With the right angle I could get much more of a reaction, but between the constant motion, my own hazy distraction, and my lack of experience in pleasing her I was struggling simply to rotate my hips a bit to make sure she got the extra bit of friction that I could give her.

If she was upset with my subpar performance, she didn’t show it. She rolled her own hips in response to mine, staring at me and gasping at the thrust of each bounce. The flush, slightly pink, slightly red, was all the more obvious now and her own breathing was laboured enough to match my own. The tension was building and I knew it couldn’t be much longer.

Taking a bit of initiative, I let my hoof slid up to her back, straining and leaning forward in the process. Once my hoof was at the small of her back, I gently pulled her forward. She seemed surprised and was stiff for a second, but, with a bit of a dubious stare, slowly leaned forward. And down until she was laying on top of me. I hadn’t remembered how tall she was… She was on top of me and my head was buried in her chest floof. There was an awkward pause where we both stopped for a moment, and I mumbled into her chest floof.

She giggled. It was a delightful, high sound, and I couldn’t restrain a nervous laugh myself. It helped to have a sense of humor, I guessed… This could all be very awkward after all, and there was nothing to be done but to be ready to laugh about it. She snorted a couple more times and then rocked a couple of times before rolling over entirely until I was laying on top of her altogether. “Thanks,” I said, gently patting her chest a couple of times. “Didn’t think that one through.”

“Indeed,” she said, that smile still on her face. “Now please, continue.” I nodded and slipped back a little bit until I had better leverage, wings flapping a couple of times as I worked out the stiffness and used it to control myself a little bit more. From there, I let the tips of my hooves touch the slightly-bunched-up blankets and the mattress beneath. I shifted back, then forth, back and forth, back and forth. The flight motion was surprisingly difficult, and without prior experience I was a little bit sloppy. The rhythm was choppy but with the added benefit of Celestia and the mattress as leverage I managed to work it out (and in and out and in and out). This once, I let speed and enthusiasm overwhelm attention to detail and technique, unable to think clearly enough to put an emphasis on anything else.

It worked. My hips slammed against her rear again and again, and Celestia let herself fall back. This time, I was treated to her wings flaring out, her back arching in pleasure, and a litany of moans that I can only fairly describe as heavenly. Patches of pink started at her cheeks but stretched down to her chest and across the lines of her wings to the very tips of her feathers. Louder… Louder… And then finally, with a single crescendo her legs locked behind me and she pulled in, forcing my hips flush with her as her tunnel convulsed and pulsed around my shaft. I could feel her fluids slip out and splash against my front as the magic around my cock dissipated. With nothing stopping me, I came. A single orgasm with Celestia would have been the most intense I had ever felt, but instead I was left with three or four that had build up, all coming out at once. I must have been locked there for minutes as my shaft twitched and sprayed. And sprayed. Again and again, my balls clenching almost painfully, my hips unable to stop their small thrusting motions as I lay there, trapped in a high of pleasure unlike anything I had ever known.

Finally, after untold eternities, her legs relaxed and I slumped backwards, gasping for air as I slid out of Celestia, my shaft quickly going limp and sliding back into my sheathe. I felt an emptiness mixed with a warmth, a bizarre mixture of sensations that I could only barely perceive through a thick layer of ecstasy. Eventually, I felt Celestia’s magic grab me and carefully pull me up and closer to her. Two strong forelegs pulled me into her, and I found myself flush with her, naturally folding my neck into hers.

“That was…” I started to say, but found myself unable to articulate what it was. “Thank you, Celestia.”

“I know a thing or two,” she said, sounding sleepy and content, practically purring in her tone. “But you performed admirably. You’ll be a fantastic consort, just you wait.”

And with that, the two of us slowly drifted into the most profoundly relaxing afternoon nap imaginably. Presumably, there was still a world ticking its way around us, but for all I cared, it could have simply ceased to exist as I drifted off in the hooves of the goddess.

Chapter 4

I figure it was about an hour and a half later that I eventually woke up, yawning and stirring awake. My eyes shot open, and I panicked for a second as I saw the luminous eyes of Celestia staring back at me. With a yelp and some wriggling around she pressed her hoof into my back, a gentle aid to calm me down. Eventually, I remembered what was happening and eased off a little.

“That’s… going to take some getting used to,” I wheezed. “Not a bad sight to wake up to, though.”

She smiled and nodded. “I will not be terribly offended if you decide to keep your own chambers tonight,” she said as she slowly got to her hooves. “One of my former consorts made use of their own chambers on and off for the entirety of their career, simply a quirk of their personality.” She paused and looked over at me, and for the space of a second I saw what might have been nervousness. “That is… if you want the job.”

I blinked. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might be able to simply not take the job. For that matter, as soon as the actual reality of the position came to mind, the idea of just stopping and going back to continue being a street sweeper seemed absolutely ridiculous in comparison. “Of course I want the job!” I said, rolling to my hooves and practically leaping up. “I’d have to be crazy!”

A nearly invisible tension evaporated from the princess and she nodded. “Excellent. Normally there would be a trial period of about three months, but I think I have your measure. With that, and a bit of faith in Twilight and Cadance’s magic, I’ll have Raven begin preparations immediately.”

“Preparations?” I asked, running my hooves through my mane idly.

“The wedding,” Celestia said.

I stopped, frozen still in my place. Made sense when I thought about it. Putting the Prince in Prince Consort, after all… Still, though, I was going to be married to Princess Celestia.

“...huh.” I said. “I, uh, yeah.”

She looked at me with dull amusement. “That’s a rather quick turnaround from ecstatic excitement to cold hooves.”

I looked up at her quickly and rapidly shook my head. “No no! I mean, of course I want to, it's just, uh, not how I thought…”

She laughed again and put up a hoof in a ‘woah, easy’ gesture. “Don’t worry, I know its a bit strange. Not every stallion even gets married, not since monogamy was in fashion.I mostly consider it a formality as a necessary part of establishing you in the position. You don’t have to do much more than show up on the day and let me show you off to all the foreign leaders.”

“So I’m going to be a trophy husband? That’s a bit… on the snout.”

She gave me a faux-disapproving look at my pun. “Well, what were you expecting with a cutie mark like yours? Precious stallion that you are, now I must lock you away in my most secure vault so errant mares don’t come swooping out of the sky to grab you.”

That got a snort out of me, trying to imagine dozens of mares swarming all over me. “I guess now I’m an idle noble… I’m going to need to find something to do to occupy my time.”

“Speaking of which,” Celestia said, standing up with a reluctant sigh. “I suppose I’d best get back to the business of managing the country itself.”

“Boooo,” I said with good-natured humor. “We could just like, lie here for a few hours. Talk a bit, get to know each other. Maybe have sex again.” I thought absentmindedly. It had been a lot of work, but hot damn if it wasn’t worth it. Wait, did I say that last part out loud?

The suggestion gave Celestia a brief pause. After a moment, she shook her head. After another, she shook her head again and finally got up to her hooves. “Tempting,” she said with a sigh. “But I only reserved an hour for this and we have already used that up and then some. However, my duties officially end at 8 pm every day, after which I think dinner sounds lovely.”

In spite of how much had happened today, it was only about two in the afternoon. My mind boggled at how high the sun was still in the sky as I looked out over the shining city of Canterlot. For now, I felt content to lie in bed, basking in Celestia’s glory. With amazing efficiency, she selected accoutrements from her nightstand, quickly freshening up her mane and coat, then grabbed her regalia from a table next to the front door. Finally, she opened the door and started out, pausing for a single playful look back at me before she regretfully pulled the door closed behind her.

The door closed with a bang, and I was left sitting on the bed, the covers slightly crumpled around me. Since eight o’clock that morning I’d been harried and rushed, and now I wasn’t sure what to feel. There was a residual aftershock of worry, but I could push that down with a practiced hoof. I had probably done fine, she had told me not to worry, she seemed perfectly willing to go through with the wedding.

A wedding… My parents would be delighted, even if it meant that grandchildren probably weren’t on the table. Were they? I’d have to ask Celestia.Then I tried to imagine how that conversation would go, and my face flushed red all over again. It occured to me I probably didn’t need to do anything. I could just lay in bed for the rest of day. It was plenty comfortable, the sun shone over me, and I had, apparently, the rest of my life to sort out what exactly I wanted to do.

But then again, that was the kind of thinking that would leave me sorting things out on later and later dates until eventually I was just laying about the castle uselessly. There would be some ponies who were simply content to be a fucktoy for the Princess (and my brain immediately began to consider why the fate seemed like a bad idea), but I knew that if I had been chosen for a reason, I needed to figure out what it was. I had something special to offer Celestia, and I wasn’t just going to let that potential sit and rot.

With that in mind a new confidence bubbled up and I pulled myself up, a grin rolling over my face, and I flapped my wings, flying through the room and over to the bathroom. First things first, I’d need a shower. Just a quick one, then I could link up with Rock and…

The doors swung open and my entire train of thought was derailed as I was greeted with the sight of Rock Solid mounted atop Seaweed in perfect profile. His hips slammed up against her rear with an aggressive, rhythmic motion, and semi-muted grunts and groans were coming from both of them as he worked at her and she moved back against him. Her eyes were unfocused, staring out into space, and her tongue lolled out while his expression was instead screwed up in concentration, eyes closed and teeth gritted. Neither of them noticed me, and for a second I questioned if I should simply go back into the room and give them a moment to finish. It was a distant thought, though, as my eyes were stuck, glued to display in front of me. Impressive, and a little bit arousing. My eyes were locked on the center of the action and the impressive thrusts that Rock was using. His hooves glided over her rear, adjusting her hips and using her body as leverage to pull himself up. Meanwhile, he was constantly searching for a better angle, altering his entry every few seconds. His ears quivered as he listened to her noises, attuned to her as he tried to fuck her senseless.

Eventually, Seaweed’s eyes, still not entirely focused, drifted over to see me. Her entire head swiveled instantly to look at me and a look of embarrassed horror washed over her. She used a rear leg to tap Rock, and then tap him again when he didn’t respond. Eventually, he opened his eyes to look at her, although he didn’t yet stop thrusting until he followed his gaze to look over at me while I simply stood there, slack-jawed and staring, and then he immediately froze… balls-deep inside of her.

“Uh, hey First!” He grinned with his usual cheery tone, albeit a little bit frazzled. There was a long, awkward pause. “Did… Did you want to join us?” He looked down at Seaweed. “Would that be okay with you?”

She looked back at him and shrugged, but I shook my head as my faculties returned to me. “Um, uh, can we, uh, switch places?” I asked. “If that’s okay, I need to shower. .”

Another long, awkward pause commenced before Rock slowly slid back and off of Seaweed. The two of them looked at each other, all of us thoroughly embarrassed, and the two of them sheepishly made their way past me and into Celestia’s bedchambers. The ‘walk of shame’ wasn’t helped at all by Rock sporting a sopping wet erection that was true to his name as he went, gingerly shutting the doors behind him and flashing me an extraordinary grin as the two disappeared.

I took a deep, calming breath. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, it was easy to see that my face was a deep red pretty much all over. With a grunt, I pushed it out of my mind, forcing myself over to the shower. Seaweed had clearly taken some time cleaning it out, leaving it spotless. It was big enough that I had to fly over the lip of the tub, and nearly came to a crashing stop as the slick bottom of the tub provided little enough purchase.

Luckily, once I was situated the shower itself was pretty nice. For one thing, it was appropriately massive, but with a convenient secondary set of knobs underneath the more alicorn-sized options up above. I guess it would be pretty bad if they couldn’t manage a bathroom that had enough space and hot water for the sovereign ruler of the nation.

The water was hot and I practically collapsed under both the cascade of hot water and the resulting release of stress. This day was a constant rollercoaster. Something would wind me up, then something would calm me down, rinse and repeat ad nauseam. Maybe I should just take the rest of the day off.

I still wasn’t sure what to do when I got out of the shower, scrambling over the side with all hooves and gently floundering onto the ground. There was an artful tower of towels off to the side and I fluttered off to grab one off the top. I began to floof up immediately as I dried off, an obnoxious pattern that had been in the works since I was a colt. Groping around on the currently-stocked large shelf, I found some kind of comb and yanked it down. Finally, I started to comb down my mane and wandered back over to the door to Celestia’s room. This time, I was sure to press my ear against the door and make sure there weren’t any groans, moans, or… slapping before I entered the room.

In the sitting room atop a red velvet couch, Rock and Seaweed were chatting amicably, lounging a bit closer to each other than was appropriate. Rock looked up at waved at me as I entered. If he had any lingering embarrassment over me catching him amid a round with Seaweed, he had a poker face of epic proportions.

I gave him a wave back, temporarily stashing the comb in my mane before I trotted over to the two of them and took a seat in a larger chair, angling over to look at them.

“Hey, First!” He said. “Sorry about, uh, that,” he gestured back over to the bathroom, and I could feel my face heat up again. Dammit, I was a fucking Consort now. I should have thicker skin about this sort of stuff. “It had been a while and well, Seaweed and I got a little distracted.

“It’s fine,” I said, trying for confidence but sounding a little bit more harried than anything else. “Uh, yeah. I don’t mind. You guys can have sex if you want to. Anytime.” And then I over-corrected, offering to let them screw whenever they wanted. Classic, First.

He snorted amiably and nodded. “Excellent, good to hear. I’ll try not to run off with any mares when you’re being savaged by bandits. But anyway, you’ve now handled the entirety of your itinerary for the day. What’re we gonna do next boss?”

I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t call me boss,” I said. I cringed as I realized that although I didn’t know much about rank, I was going to get a lot of it. Better get out ahead of this one. “To you? I don’t have a title.”

In his usual style, Rock let out a laugh that was way too vigorous for my dumb joke, devolving into chortle and snorts while Seaweed looked at him incredulously. Eventually, she stood up. “With your leave, si- uh, First.” She gave me a polite nod. “I’ll be in the castle spa. We have two new recruits I need to train today, so I’d best get to it.”

“Best of luck, Seaweed!” I said, giving her a wave. Then, as she left, I looked over at Rock with a note of surprise. “The castle has its own spa?”

He nodded. “Right next to the Zebrican restaurant in the business wing.”

I looked at him, awestruck. “There’s an entire wing for businesses? How many are there?”

He quirked his head to the side. “Less than two hundred, more than one? We need to have a place for anyone who needs nearly anything to get it in the castle. If we have a Griffish ambassador, then we need a place they can stop in to get a scrap of meat, or if a Zebra needs some goods for their potion-crafting.”

I rubbed at my forehead, realizing that this castle was my new home, one way bigger than I had exer expected. “I don’t know where anything is…” My ears quirked up and I looked up at Rock Solid with a grin. “I need something fun to do anyway… Why don’t you show me around the castle?”

Rock nodded delightedly. “Sounds awesome! I was kind of a castle rat myself, so this place has been my home since I was born.”

“Your entire life in the castle…” I said, chewing over that. “Like a miniature city, huh?.”

“Bigger than entire towns!” He said cheerfully. “Used to be bigger than Ponvyille before Princess Twilight took over. C’mon, let's get started!”

I fluttered down off the chair and followed Rock as we headed out of Celestia’s bedroom, through some kind of antechamber, and back into her apartments. Rock pointed a hoof at a smaller door down the hallway. “There’s where your room is, for as long as you keep it,” he said. “It’s a little bit utilitarian at the moment but we can get furniture in there to suit your whims. We were gonna base it on your room back in Neighagra Falls but, uh…”

“Most of my furniture looks like it was fished out of a dumpster?” I asked drily, and Rock nodded. “Yeah, cozy enough but I’ve never particularly cared about how anything looked. I guess I’ll probably need to at least have it look good. Just make sure it’s… Comfortable.”

He gave me a brief, casual salute. “Can do. I’ll pass the word along once we’re in the bureaucratic wing.” He lead us out of the apartments and back over towards the massive stream of traffic in the larger hallway. “This is the residential wing,” he explained. “They’re still called wings, but only a couple of them are like, actual wings. Old-school naming convention from when this place was less complicated. A lot changes in a thousand years.”

“Anyway,” he said, pushing us through the crowds with a practiced confidence combined with the muscle mass to make himself unignorable. The bright gold of the royal guard probably helped with matters too. Any guards seemed to be ducking and weaving with a great deal more ease. “Residential wing, closest to the carriage platform back there. Any long-term residents also stay here, plus the premium apartments for hoity-toity nobles,” he gave a humorous elbow and a conspiratorial grin. “And for VIP guests.”

I nodded. “So you live around here?”

“Oh, I got upgraded to a special room right next to yours today!” he said. “So I can intercede on your behalf should some evil assassin attempt to slay our fair Prince Consort.” He mussed up my mane, and I couldn’t stifle a bit of a giggle at that before I swatted his hoof away.

“Alright, alright,” I said, nearly stepping away before I realized that being too far outside of his radius o’ bulk would mean getting trampled by the oncoming stampede of traffic. “Huh. What if I’m attacked while I’m with Princess Celestia?”

He gave me a flat look, then one side of his mouth quirked up. “I imagine your attacker would be flung halfway to Trottingham or the sun before they got a chance to regret their poor decision-making.”

Oh. That was a stupid question. “Right… Has there ever been any assassination attempts in the castle?”

“Nope! Well, maybe a hooffull, but they don’t tend to get very far. We have great information ops around here, and more royal guards than you can shake a stick at. You’d have to be pretty dumb to attempt something of that ilk. And to pull it off? Don’t even get me started.”

I nodded, and we continued walking down the superhighway before we took a turn, waiting for the gap after a carriage to sneak on through. The flow of ponies lessened somewhat, though it was still more people than I usually saw in an entire day. “We’re entering the bureaucratic wing,” he explained. “Less interesting, but still pretty important.”

He pulled us into a door and into a spacious office with a large window overseeing the Canterlot skyline. Bright tans and beiges made it a somewhat bland but comfortable sight. Behind the desk sat a meek unicorn mare, white coat and black mane. Black, thick-rimmed glasses were contrasted by a white collar hanging around her neck and a red kerchief hanging off of it. She looked up at us and gave a dutiful smile. “Can I help you?”

“This is Raven,” Rock said, gesturing towards her. “She’s Princess Celestia’s secretary-”

“Scribe,” Raven said, voice light and almost dainty, but with a surprising firmness behind it. “I am a scribe, not a secretary.”

Rock looked a little bit nervous. “Right, uh, forgive me ma’am. Scribe. Raven is Princess Celestia’s scribe. If you have any bureaucratic concerns, you can discuss them with her and she’ll get them sorted out right quick.”

Raven nodded politely, giving me a smile. “You’re the new Prince Consort?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure how the technicalities work out… There’s going to be a marriage.”

“The Prince Consort-in-Waiting is afforded the same rights, powers, and privileges of the Prince Consort,” Raven said assuredly, reaching into the desk of her immaculate desk and pulling out a piece of paper and hoofing it over. I took and was delighted to see a layman’s explanation of the whole process. “Once you were selected and, uh, acquired for the purpose, you became, for all legal intents and purposes, the Prince Consort. And sir, if I may be so bold, I am queen bitch of the dogpile around here.”

I blinked at her. “Um. Excuse me?”

“The bureaucratic wing is a hellscape of unimaginable proportions. Organizational violence is the name of the game. Every two-bit whore with a pen thinks they can muscle their way through here,” Raven continued, her tone not shifting at all from the polite and dutiful tone. “But you need to know what you’re doing. I’m in your corner, as long as your interests align with Princess Celestia. You need something, you go through me. But don’t expect me to haul your ass out of the fire if you try to make it on your own.”

I simply stared at her for a long moment. “Um. Yes ma’am.”

“There’s no need for that, you technically outrank me,” Raven said. “I’m just a lowly scribe, after all. Now, what did you need?”

I struggled to remember for a moment. “Furniture. I need furnishings for my new room.”

“Style? When would you like them? Any other specifications?”

“Uh… I’ll probably be staying in the room tonight, so tonight? Is that possible?”

Raven rolled her eyes at me. “Please.”

“Alright, okay, cool, thanks,” I said, chattering a bit nervously, giving her an uneasy grin. “Um. Nothing too fancy. Just like, comfortable? Relaxed?”

Raven had a piece of paper down quickly and scribbled out a few lines, then wheeled her chair over to some sort of tube on the wall. She put the paper in a canister, pressed a few buttons. With a low gasp, the tube sputtered to life and sucked the canister away. “You’ve got it!” She said cheerfully. “Anything you need, just let me know.”

I nodded distantly, and I was very happy as Rock gently guided me out of the office and back into the hallway. “I think she likes you,” he said at least.

I gave him a look. “How can you tell?” The skepticism in my voice was obvious. The mare was inscrutable.

“I dunno,” he said with a shrug. “She gets super weird a lot of the time, but this time it was a… happy weird!”

I maintained my skeptical look as we worked our way down the halls. On either side were doors with names like “Department of Agriculture Division” and other titles. Most of them were rather banal. “I’ll take your word for it,” I finally said. “Is there anything else interesting in this part of the castle?”

“The bursar,” he said with a wry grin. “But you don’t have to worry about money, the Princess has seen to that.”

“Huh… Really?”

“Yup! You’ve been extended a line of credit from the crown itself, giving you restricted access to the treasury itself! I’m sure that if you were to try and abuse it that would be revoked pretty quick, but as it stands, you’ve got enough for pretty much anything you’d ever want.”

I considered this. “My life is a little bit stupid, isn’t it?”

“Little bit, yeah.”

We plodded our way through the remainder of the bureaucratic wing. By the time we were done, the stream of ponies had devolved in pockets of ponies standing in small groups and chatting. Occasionally one or two of them had a pile of paperwork or an official-looking briefcase. Then as we left the formal, organized hallway and entered a larger pavilion with marble floors, they had food or shop bags.

“Shopping wing?” I guessed idly, looking up at the ascending tiers. Three floors in total, each with shops ringing around them, as well as the occasional cart or standing vendor.

“Now you’re getting it! Sort of a mall, I suppose. Not nearly the biggest shopping center in Canterlot mind, but it gets the job done.” Rock pointed up at the highest ring. “If you’re looking for anything Pegasus specific, they put it up there. He paused and quirked his head to the side. “What’s it like, sleeping on a cloud?”

I wrinkled my snout. “Sleeping on a cloud? I sleep on a bed.” We looked at each other for a long, slightly awkward second. “Aaaaanyway,” I continued. “I’m kind of hungry… I guess I haven’t eaten yet today. Maybe we should get something to eat?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’ll change our route up. We’ll stop by the royal cafeteria and the royal kitchens, get you some proper grub.”

I nodded as we took a right turn and started off into a hallway that ascended somewhat. I figured it was towards the center of the castle. Heh. I supposed that made the kitchens the very literal heart of the castle.

“Say, why have a food court at all if there’s a royal cafeteria and kitchens?”

“Eh, that’s a bit complicated. Either you believe that certain retailers can specialize in their craft and do a better job than the more generalized workforce of the castle could manage, and so the Princesses worked together in order to provide them a place in the castle they could be recognized. Or you believe that a few years back Bearer Rarity wanted a boutique in the castle and bullied Twilight into making it happen. Which would of course be scandalous and treasonous.”

“...and what do you believe?”

Rock shrugged. “A little of Column A of, little of Column B.” With that, we were in what was undoubtedly a cafeteria, my dreary high school days floating back to me in a blur. Linoleum white tile, too-bright lights, and shining chrome stations that doled out food to ponies who stepped along in bored-looking lines. Unlike your average high school cafeteria, however, the food didn’t look like a biohazard.

In just a few moments, we were sitting at our table and had a hearty chef’s salad with various fixins. Rock’s tray was piled many times higher than mine, but I had little difficulty believing he’d be able to devour the whole head of lettuce that had been placed in front of him.

“Say, Rock,” I said, deciding to broach the question I’d been wondering the whole day. “Why don’t you look like the other Royal Guards?”

“Hm?” Rock solid, then finishing the bite of salad he was munching on. “There are plenty of guardsponies who look like me. Or a little bit. Most of them aren’t as big.”

“No, I mean, uh…” I pointed at him and waved my hoof up and down. “White coat, pegasus, blue mane…”

He paused and snorted, which evolved into a chuckle he only managed to restrain with some difficulty. “You mean the dress guard? You know most of them don’t actually look like that, right?”

I paused, a little dumbfounded. “They… don’t?”

He laughed more obviously at this. “Sun and stars, no! Most of them are mares!” I must have looked particularly awestruck because he laughed even harder at that, booming out loud enough we got a few looks while he smacked his hoof on the table. “What, did you think we just had a few thousand white pegasus stallions laying around who no one objected to us putting in the line of duty?”

I flushed a little bit. I hadn’t actually considered it. Mares outnumbering stallions three to one, I suppose it made a sort of sense…

“Then why do they look like that?”

“Traditional and illusions,” Rock said in between bites of his salad. “See, it's easy to forget but Equestria has been around for more than a thousand years. We have a lot of weird little quirks. Apparently like the ability to shanghai random mares and stallions into sexual servitude in a way that elevates them to the highest rank of nobility possible. Way back in the day stallions were treated as like, super valuable. So the ability to have a bunch of stallions, pretty ones, hanging around you was like, the hottest shit.”

I nodded. “So, if you had a court mage, you would just enchant the armor to make everypony who wore it look like they were a stallion. A very handsome stallion.”

“Yup. That’s why they don’t react much, either. Enchantment is easy enough, but mapping complex emotional patterns is much harder. These days it's sort a uniform. Only the bigwigs get out of it.”

“So… you’re important?”

“Wouldn’t have assigned me to one of the most high-priority positions in the castle if I wasn’t.” He flashed me a cocky smile. “C’mon, two more stops and we’re good.”

I nodded and we finished up our salads with relish. Once we were done, Rock lead us out through one of the three large doors, this time to the north. Things quickly became different than any other wing of the castle. There were always the occasional guards to direct traffic, answer queries, or prevent kerfuffles, but quickly that become groups of two or three paying a good deal more attention. A few of them clutched halberds and stood in front of a doorway. More than one gave me an almost accusatory glance, to which the only proper response was to roll my eyes.

“The military wing?”

“Defense wing, officially,” Rock said. “Don’t worry about them. They just have a bit of trouble around people who aren’t part of the family.”

“That seems a bit counterproductive.” I say, looking over at the guards, one of whom glared back at me. Not really harshly enough to mean anything by it. Most likely they were just bored.

“So you want me to announce you as the Prince Consort?”

“Sun and stars, no,” I said, horrified. “Over the top ass-kissing would be way worse than this.” I paused for a moment. “Maybe if one of them starts to act rude.”

Rock stopped in front of one door that seemed particularly well guarded and gave it a knock, nodding at the guards standing in front of it. A placard on the wall declared it to be the office of one Shining Armor.

“Prince General Shining Armor?” I asked incredulously. “We’re just gonna… drop in?”

“Well… uh…” Rock said, shrugging. “You’re a Prince now, he’s a Prince. I figure you two should get to know each other, right?”

I stared at Rock. “Right now? Did you think about this at all?”

“Well, it did seem like a good idea at the time--”

He was saved from needing to answer by the door opening to reveal the powerful form of Shining Armor, once Captain of the Royal Guard and now the General of the Combined Armed Forces of Equestria. He was taller than average but not huge, with a definite tone and bulk to his muscle. With a bit of curiosity, I noted that he was actually built for endurance, not strength, a classic channeler physique if I’d ever seen one. He was also starting to get the first wisps of grey in his mane, a few wrinkles around the eyes. At my best guess, he was mid-forties, somewhere in that range. As he opened the door, he looked at Rock with a familiar smile, then his eyes darted over to me. Confusion, then recognition.

“First Prize!” He said, offering a hoof with bemusement. His voice had a mellow, friendly tone to it. Not quite Rock’s booming baritone, but definitely in the deeper register. “You can call me Shining.”

I nodded dumbly and took the hoof, giving it a solid shake .”Uh, yeah. You can call me First, I suppose. Is that, the, um, protocol here?”

He snorted and waggled his hoof in a ‘meh’ gesture. “Prince to Prince, Consort to General. Twily could probably dig some ancient tome on the proper form of address, but I don’t give half a shit about that. Might be worth reading up on if it comes up in some kind of formal setting, but unless you’re one of my guard, you can just call me Shining.”

He opened the door wide and waved his foreleg. “Come on in. I’ve got a few minutes before my next appointment.”

Shining’s office had a definite ‘lived in’ feeling, appropriate for someone who had been the head of the guard for over a decade of dedicated service. Carefully maintained, mind you, but the couches that he lead us to were definitely worn to just the right level of comfort, the walls were a more comfortable rose color than the drab olive I had come to think of with most of the offices in the castle, and there were quite a few pictures on the wall. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and their daughter, Princess Flurry Heart. Family paintings and a few of Princess Cadance or Flurry Heart Solo. The latter seemed to be in her late teens now by my best judgement, with a fierce look in her eye and more than one painting of her using a sword or with one at her side.

Shining procured a few bottles of cider and passed them over to us. “Sweet Apple Acres,” he said with smug satisfaction. “Not a better bottle anywhere. I buy up as much of their stuff as I can and save it for special occasions.”

I popped the top off, giving him a grateful smile before I pulled back a small sip of the cider, and my mouth is awash with the pure undiluted essence of APPLE. There’s the slightly sour taste worked in, but so expertly crafted a brew as it is, it only manages to enhance the flavor, and before I realize it I’ve taken two long draws off the bottle before I come up for air.

“Sun and stars, you weren’t kidding…” I say with a delighted grin. I was about to tip it back for another draw before a magenta magical aura gripped the bottle gently, keeping me from taking another drain.

“You might want to take it easy on that,” Shining Armor warned. “They have a, uh, pretty high alcohol content.”

I was about to deny it, but as I did, I felt a flush of warmth roll over me and a pleasantly light feeling to accompany. “I’m not… Okay, wow,” I said, hoof coming up to steady my head as I had a bit of trouble keeping my balance, wings flaring out to give myself a little bit extra support.

Rock gave a chuckle at my reaction, hoof coming out to pat my back in a soothing fashion. “Hold on there, boss. If it hit you that hard, it should be out of your system just as quickly.”

Shining looked over at my bodyguard. “So, Operative Rock Solid, this is what you got assigned to? Can’t think of a better stallion for the job.”

“Yup!” Rock said cheerfully. “The castle is my home, only makes sense I’d keep this little guy safe whenever he needs it.”

We had a bit of friendly conversation, spending about an hour discussing what had happened over a couple of bottles of cider, then Rock and Shining had a brief conversation about something… military jargon-y. My capacity to understand them quickly evaporated in favor a nice hazy warmth to the world.

So it was in that state that I was led to the door as we exited, only for Shining to tap me on the haunches. Blearily I looked back at him, and gave him a smile to match

“I just need to let you know two little things,” he said, eye glancing over to make sure Rock wasn’t listening in. “First, my wife is probably gonna come onto you at some point. You have fun though, the two of us keep things pretty fast and loose for the most part.”

My mouth worked silently as I tried to comprehend that, but Shining just kept on going.

“The second is my daughter. She’s about your age.” Then, without warning, he grabbed me around the back of my neck and pulled me in, his jovial manner evaporating into a scalding intensity. “If you touch her, I will end you.” I let loose a strangled ‘meep’ and nodded weakly before he finally released me. “Feel free to stop in any time!” He said cheerfully and earnestly, his demeanor returning to his usual easy chill with a distressing speed. “I can always use more stallions to hang out with around here.”

I nodded blearily, but I was unusually silent as I fell into stop with Rock. Rock himself was a lot more well-composed. In all fairness, he was like, twice my sheer size and ten times as athletic, and I found myself staring at his broad, rugged physique as we walked along. Eventually, he looked back at me and smiled. “Prince Shining splits about half his time between here and the Crystal Empire. Still, he’s like a father to the guard. I have no doubt that he’d lay down his life for any of us, so we’re willing to do the same.”

I nodded, mouth still clenched shut as I processed what just happened. However, we then turned the corner and I was immediately delighted. Princess Celestia! Standing not a thousand feet away. There were a couple of stuffy-looking ponies chatting seriously with her while she had her usual perfect, ethereal, knowing, perfect expression.

My mouth started to work before I could even think about it. “PRINCESS CELESTIA!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Y’know, to make sure that she heard me. “HI PRINCESS CELESTIA!”

She froze and looked out over the hallway. Her eyes focused on me. It was rather easy, I was floating over the crowd. To make sure I was easy to see. Rock seemed very distant, looking at me with concern, eyes darting between me and Celestia like he couldn’t decide whether or not tackling me or letting me make an ass out of myself were the better option.

Celestia looked at me, then looked confused. Her mouth moved inaudibly. Then she looked again, like she recognized me from a picture in a book. That was concerning. Why couldn’t she remember me? “IT’S ME,” I tried. “YOUR NEW PRINCE CONSORT?”

Understanding and a bit of nervousness broke into her expression. She gave me a nervous wave and a hoof went to the book of the irritated advisor and quickly began to usher them along quickly. Naturally, I moved to follow, but found myself stopped in my tracks by a tugging on my tail, which a look backwards revealed to be the iron tight grip that Rock had on me.
“Woah there,” he said through his clenched teeth. Yet somehow he still managed to maintain his easy smile. I guessed, sullenly, that he was probably right. After about a minute of struggling to get away while he stood firm as the stone below.

Finally, I settled down and he put a hoof carefully on my back, steadying and guiding me. “How’s about we get you a nice calm place for you to cool off just a little bit?” I nodded, looking back down the hallway where Celestia had escaped down, but unable to see her.

Rock tried to suppress a chuckle at my sullen expression with limited success. “You’re a pretty fast little bugger,” he said. “I might even guess that cutie mark is for racing.”

I snorted. “ guess I can get pretty fast, but like, you can’t just be good, ya gotta be the best. If you don’t have a cutie mark for it, there’s no point in even trying.”

Rock looked at me with an unreadable expression, but gave me a moment to collect my thoughts. He guided us into an outer ring of the castle, a verdant green garden speckled and spotted with flowers of dozens of colors. There was a strange mixture of both growth and restraint, a beauty that belied control, only reluctantly allowing itself to be constrained.

“This doesn’t look like most of the gardens,” I said dully. Earth pony gardening had more of a sense of style and design. It was tamed, domesticated.

“It isn’t,” Rock said with a smile. “This is my personal favorite garden. It doesn’t get trafficked as much. It’s run by a zebra hired from a million miles away.”

“The truth is boring, to be honest,” said a voice from farther off in the garden. “I like your telling of the story best.” Out from behind a plant emerged a zebra mare. She was about typical for her height, just below your usual pony and almost my height exactly. She had the usual array of stripes and a mane of dreads carefully tied back in a green bandana. The mark on her flank suggested plants somehow, but in a more abstract fashion I had some trouble putting a hoof on. While I was looking at her mark, I couldn’t help but notice she had a terribly nice ass.

“I’m pleased to meet the new Consort,” she said, offering a hoof. I took it with a smile and gave it a shake. She smelled like earth and sweat, a pleasant and calming scent. “You seem to be a decent sort. My name is Zayatha, the gardener here. I’m afraid that most tend to steer clear.”

Her voice had a lilting edge to go along with the rhyming, and I found myself needed to pay close attention lest I lose track of what she was saying. “Really? These gardens aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“That’s the problem, when it comes down to it. Ponies fear what they don’t intuit. My gardens are lovely but also strange. Folk around here tend to avoid change.”

I nodded at her, looking serious and thoughtful. “You’re pretty,” I said after a long deliberation.

She laughed at that, a low, throaty chuckle. Rock’s usual, bolder laugh rolled out, and he patted me on the back. “Don’t mind him overmuch,” he told Zayatha. “He can’t hold his cider, and we had a bit too much.” A gave her a goofy grin as if to agree.

She gave an easy calm smile beneath her serene eyes and she gestured us forward. “Could I offer you both a cup of tea? It will help your evening be hangover free.”

“Sure,” I said, getting up to my hooves and swaying a bit. “I’ve never had booze before, or a hangover.” It really was a day for firsts, I thought behind my haze.

The three of us wandered through the dense foliage. She had used her patch of the royal gardens to pack every unique Zebrican plant into the same place that she could, and I found myself in awe of the dozens of plants and flowers that clung to every wall.

“In additional to being pretty,” Zayatha explained as we walked. “I use these components in alchemy.” I nodded, though I must admit I was very distracted by the bob and roll of her hips, leaving her glorious rump bouncing back in forth in a hypnotic infinity symbol. In no time at all we came to a hut built into a denser wall of plants. The door opened into a small hut with a cozy feeling. It was on the small side, but still managed to hold a bunk, a kitchenette, a table, and a door I would assume lead into a bathroom. Each wall had a gorgeous tapestry, featuring zebras in pastoral scenes. Alchemy seemed to be a theme among them: in one zebra held up a potion to repel some snarling beast, in another a zebra collected several plant scraps, and in one a zebra couple took a potion from a wizened sage.

She gestured us towards the table, and Rock and I took a seat while she moved over to the kitchenette. She began to produce various implements and started brewing a pot of tea. While she did so, I stared at her ass. It was a good one. Rock looked a bit perplexed, until he saw what I was looking at. Then he nodded approvingly, and started staring with me.

Zayatha didn’t make much conversation, asking a few questions and more than willing to bask in the answers. The tea was good, but with a strange, biting undertaste that seeped into my head. But by the time it cleared, the drunkenness had dulled to a more manageable form, and she assured me that ‘the pain of the head would not descend, you need not fear when haziness ends.’

I did manage to gather that she was an alchemist hired to be a gardener and physician for the castle, though, and that she had been there for a while. Rock filled me in on the way back that she didn’t have many friends since ponies were skittish around ‘outsiders’ and she did little to dispel the image of ‘the witch living in the woods’. So he stopped by for a social visit every now and then. Heartily I agreed it was a good idea to check in every so often. And not just because she had the second-nicest butt I’d ever seen.

Still, the sun was hanging low by the time that conversation, and so the two of us started back to Celestia’s apartments, where I had promised to spend the evening with her..

“The castle is all abuzz,” Celestia said as the two of us sat in her drawing rooms. “Of the new Prince Consort’s outburst in the military wing.”

We were eating a dinner that had been delivered, fried potatoes with a delicious glaze and a side of pristine flowers that Celestia told me were from her own personal garden. I flushed furiously as I remembered that time. I had been hoping to forget about that, or that maybe she wouldn’t mention it.

“I, uh, was a little bit drunk…” I said, rubbing the back of my head.

“A little?” Celestia said, quirking an eyebrow up, her smile turning predatory. “I hear that you, ah, flew up over the crowd and were barely restrained by your bodyguard.”

I froze like a breezie without wind, face fully flush. “I mean, I um… I…”

She giggled and lifted me in her magic. I was quickly floated over to her and enfolded in a great hug. Her fur was warm and soft and I relaxed into her fur. “Oh, you’re so cute,” she said. “ Let’s just avoid a repeat performance. I do have a bit of an image to take care of, but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with an overly enthusiastic Prince Consort. The opposite might present an even worse image.”

I was reduced to a spluttering mess at this point, and my blush stretched down into my chest. Celestia snorted and looked down at me. “I was honestly delighted,” she said, patting me on the head. “I apologize. I may have gone a bit too far with the teasing.”

“‘T’salright…” I mumbled as I wriggled and slid out of her grasp. She looked at me with a scrutinizing gaze, this time a touch of concern on her face. There was an awkward silence for a moment.

“Your furniture was delivered,” she said. “I presume you’ll be keeping your own quarters for a while?”

I nodded. “For a bit at least… I just need to make sure my head is clear. It’s also been a long time since I shared a room with anyone.”

“A wise decision, in all likelihood,” Celestia said. “Maybe we should have intermittent nights spent together, to see if it is to your liking?”

I nodded, feeling a bit more reserved than before. “That sounds good.” I took another bite of the food, sampling one of the flowers. “I think… I’m gonna go to bed,” I said, giving her a weary smile. “It’s been a long day and I could use a little bit of time alone.”

She nodded and stood up to see me to the door. I paused to look up at her. “Could I maybe give you a kiss?”

She gave me an easy smile. “Of course, my Prince,” and she leaned down. Lips pressed against lips, soft and calm and a felt a light in my heart as I eventually pulled away. “Breakfast tomorrow?”

“Of course!” she smiled, and with one last wave, I trotted out of her room and headed off to bed.

Author's Note

This was initially going to have a sex scene but my editors suggested the story could use a cooling off period, so blame them.

Next scene will be shorter, and a little bit weird.

Intermission 1

The pale moonlight washed over Canterlot Palace. Most ponies were asleep or shuffling off in that direction. The gentle ebb of dreams started to flow over the world like infinite strands of incandescent light that formed an invisible tapestry, reflecting and refracting across the night sky. Guards left their post, and only the barest skeleton of a replacement was put up. This was the most well-defended castle in the most powerful nation in the world. Who would dare attack? Where would the enemy come from?

And yet, a shadow slipped effortlessly through the halls. Gaps in attention, blinks, turns of the head. These were the tiniest of delays necessary for the unseen invader to make their move, to dance past unseen. Their hooves didn’t even leave a whisper, a difficult trick on the marble floors that spanned much of the castle hallways.

The sprawling spiderwebs that were the hallways of the castle's residential wing were an impossible network of foiled sightlines, nooks, crannies. It was through this and impossible skill that the shadow managed to slide past patrols and evade the half-aware glances of sentries. Once, a horn glowed and a particularly astute guard could only fight for a brief moment to stay awake before their eyes fluttered closed and they fell fast asleep.

And into the personal apartments of Princess Celestia crept the quiet figure. Here the attention was dimmed. Who would dare threaten Her Eminence? How would they even know what to take? And still they went deeper, tracing the curved hallway and slowing their path only to pass more carefully by the door of the sun goddess herself. And then finally, the door of the newly appointed Prince Consort.

It was locked, but that was of little consequences. With the tiniest flick of magic the door was unsealed, and the passage unblocked. Inside was a spacious room. The furnishings were simple and comfortable, their plain appearance belying the obvious quality of materials and construction. And sleeping fitfully on the bed was the adorable form of the Prince Consort himself.

Princess Luna smiled to see him, tossing and turning. He would have no trouble sleeping with her.

Chapter 5

Something felt strange. A gentle warmth pulsed through my body, and I felt both curiously tense and at ease at once. I slowly began to emerge from the depths of sleep, as if wading through a field of deep, thick meadowgrass. It was slow going, but eventually I found myself able to open my eyes.

My eyes sluggishly opened to reveal a sky full of infinite stars, formed into gorgeous constellations. Nebulae, comets, and strange planets that looked close enough to reach out and touch. This… wasn’t my room. I jerked myself up onto my haunches, and the shift in perspective revealed Princess Luna. It took me another ten seconds to realize she was also sucking my dick.

Enthusiastically, too. Her head easily bounced up and down the whole length as though it were nothing, head artfully adjusted positions to make it smooth as silk. The warmth and wetness quickly overwhelming me only to be pulled back seconds later. She didn’t even need to pause as I sat up. And as my body realized it was aroused, I felt the sudden need to thrust. Once again, Luna flowed like liquid, refusing to let my errant pushes disrupt her perfect, eager rhythm. The only hint that she had even noticed was a sly smile playing at the edge of her currently-occupied mouth.

It wasn’t long after that before I came, a twitch, a clenching sensation, and a wave of exhaustion rolling over my body as my cockhead flared. I collapsed backwards and found that in spite of having just woken up, I was totally exhausted. I flopped backwards onto a pile of pillows and my eyes rolled up towards the ceiling, settling on the sky again. This time, I noticed that the sky didn’t quite seem… right.

It felt too real. The colors were too vivid, the figures slightly blurred and shifting the longer you held your eyes on them. Of course… this was Princess Luna. “Am I dreaming?” I asked, slurring my words as if still half asleep..

There was a glow of magic I could barely see at the bottom of my vision, a tingling sensation in my groin and in a moment I felt… renewed. Rewound? It was hard to tell if my stamina had been refreshed or if she had simply turned back the clock on my arousal. Either way it felt like I was just becoming hard for the first time. In a moment, she was already kissing and pressing her lips up the length of my shaft until once again it was fully hard and pulsing, ready for her to begin once more.

This time, she didn’t bob on it, but the lingering desire in her eyes and the slightest salivation made me suspect she was tempted. Instead, she cupped my balls in her hoof while the other one gently drifted up and down the length, occasionally pausing over the medial ring to trace around the entirety.

“Nothing quite so pedestrian,” she bragged. “Dreams are ephemeral, and there would be no way of making sure that you remember everything I need you to. No, instead you lie here in my personal chambers, infused with dream magic. Quite a work of art if I don’t say so myself and you should be honored at being allowed to see it. So few mortals are allowed.”

I nodded, eyes glancing up and down as I watched her careful attention, swallowing loudly. “Um. What am I doing here?”

Luna let loose a laugh. She slowly stood up and turned around. Her tail was purposefully to one side, giving me a full view of her toned flank, which she pushed back until it was pressing against my erect cock. Carefully, she nestled it in the valley of her perky rear and began to rock back and forth, sliding me across the silky fur of her rear. I let loose a groan, excitement and terror commingling to form one incredibly strange state of mind. Although my groin was feeling fresh and dandy, the rest of my body felt exhausted beyond all belief. My limbs were more like sandbags, and my vision swam as a fresh surge of pleasure was inflicted upon me.

“Mayhaps I find you a delightful little enigma,” she cooed. “And I just had to sort you out. Or, since I am Mistress of Dreams, maybe the exceptionally lewd thoughts were simply too delicious to ignore.”

I was panting and trying to sort out exactly what she was saying, but it was a dim distant echo compared to crashing sensations dominating my thoughts. “I, uh, don’t know how to, uh, think....”

She let loose a triumphant laugh. “So aroused you cannot form a thought? Cannot even stand to move? Truly, I have been proven the most erotic of all mares! None can stand against the Princess of Dreams!”

I felt myself fading in and out of consciousness, but some quiet voice inside told me there was something off about all this. “Not quite as good as Celestia…” I murmured, phantom half-thoughts giving me an intuitive guess at what to say.

The reaction was immediate. Princess Luna stopped what she was doing and I felt her rump leave my groin. My body sighed with relief as I enjoyed a respite fr- oh, well, now she was standing over me. Her face pushed up into mine, her snoot pressing up against me.

“You fool!” She said. “Seven times I have brought you to orgasm, ungrateful wretch! I know for a fact that she has instilled in you only three! That alone shows my superiority! But clearly, your mind cannot comprehend how beautiful and lovely my form is, glorious and bright as the stars above! Now mount me!”

I blinked, exhaustion suddenly clearing from my mind like fog burned away by the sun. “I um, no?”

Luna and I had a moment like the world’s most retarded chess game where neither of us had any idea what we were supposed to do. Luna broke first and turned about, stomping off over to another pile of pillows and plopping down. “Fine!” She said. “Then you can rot in here until you change your mind!”

I rolled onto my feet and shakily got up onto my legs, drained as they were. After standing up, I looked around. The room seemed… deep. More dream magic? “How do I get out of here?”

“You don’t!” Luna said petulantly, head held haughtily. “This is my dream realm and you could not even produce a simple door, much less brave the horrors of your own subconscious to escape!”

“Summon a door?” I asked. “...can I just kind of dream one into existence?”

Luna winced and hit herself on the forehead. “Very well! Mayhaps you have uncovered such a minor secret, but dream-walking is more than simple weaving of that sort! It requires the tenacity and grit to survive the innermost horrors of your own mind! You simply do not have the will to do so!”

I rolled my eyes and focused on a simple wooden door, the idea of one popping into existence just like it was a lucid dream. There was a ripple in the air, and the door I had been imagining shimmered into existence. It was crude compared to the gorgeous vision that the rest of the room was, but hey, it didn’t need to do anything but open.

“What in Equestria could be lurking in my own subconscious that would be scary enough to keep me here with you?” I reached out and pushed the door open. Inside, was an infinite, black plane with no depth of field or horizon. Just an endless, flat expanse. Covered with mares. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. A mathematical infinity of them. And they all looked at me with an intense, hungry look in their eyes and began to move as one, surging towards the door. In a second I had slammed the door shut behind me, and I heard a cascade of thumps as the horny mares tried to get through.

Luna was looking at me now, giggling with haughty glee and a twinkle in her eye. “Your childish fears are your own undoing,” she said. “Such a field as that presents an impassable obstacle! You will have to lie with me now, for what pony could possibly brave such a horror?”

There was a powerful thudding sound. It sounded like the tower of the castle we were in had been struck by a catapult, like an earthquake was thundering through the mountain. And then it happened again. Closer, stronger. I could feel the rolling underneath my own hooves. And then again, and I nearly fell off of my own hooves, flapping my wings and hovering above the ground to maintain my balance. Luna noticed it too and she was up on her own hooves, distinctly not happy. Not the petulant, childish anger of before. Instead, her face was a mask of grim certainty as she stood up, examining the edges of her dreamworld as though watching, waiting for the inevitable attack. Ready for anything.

It was such a startling change it helped me remember that Luna sorta happened to be an Alicorn, one of the immortal and powerful guardians of Harmony itself. And that made what happened next all the more perplexing.

The door I had summoned burst open. Literally burst, exploded into splinters that quickly disassociated from the dreamworld and thus reality, evaporating into puffs of smoke. As the fog cleared, Rock Solid was standing there with a glare in his eyes that faded a little bit upon seeing me.

“First!” He said. “C’mon we need to…” In a moment, there was a flash of purple and Princess Luna was upon him. She jumped up onto his front legs, then artfully spun on a single hoof. Her rear legs lashed out to strike him in the side with a solid buck. A thunderous clang rolled out as she banged against his armor and he was knocked onto his side. He performed a graceful combat roll and was up on his hooves, eyeing Luna up and down. I noticed his armor wasn’t dented at all, nor did he seem particularly winded by being a hit like a freight train.

He moved towards Princess Luna with a charge that belied his size and this time, I could see smoke rising from his hooves as he ran, leaving diluted little grey marks where he touched. Luna stood resolute, a roll of immaterial magic flowing over her, a low and easy posture that obviously looked ready to toss the charging stallion. She could have easily just picked me up in her magic and held me at bay, but with Rock’s combat prowess…

And then, a few feet before collision, Rock jumped. It wasn’t a tackle, though Luna’s stance was definitely looking for one. Instead, Rock aimed all his momentum into his hooves and drove them deep into the ground in front of Luna, sliding into the palace floor like butter. And then with a mighty heave he lifted upwards, a huge chunk of the ground going with him, and that same thin grey color underneath the huge slab of stone as he chucked it. Luna was not expecting this and flew away with the stone as it was unceremoniously thrown by from Rock, a surprised shout rolling out from her and getting quieter and quieter as she was swiftly removed from the premises, spinning out into the expanse.

I stared at the inky darkness that Luna had just been propelled into. I stared at Rock. I stared at the indentation where the floor had been. I was roughly grabbed around the haunch and yanked over towards the door I had created in the dream. The infinite plane of black lay beyond, but in the farthest distance there was a yawning portal of light, a pinprick that we were moving towards rapidly.

“Rock? What the hay is going on?” I asked as he hurried along with me clutched indelicately at his side like a saddlebag.

“I have no idea!” He said, a triumphant crow to his voice. “I was looking for you and found a door and then I just chucked the sun-spotted Princess of the Night!”

“What?” I asked incredulously. “What the hay? Where am I?”

“Uh, Princess Luna’s apartments… kind of,” he said. “It’s complicated. For now…” He grabbed something he was wearing, shifting me to his back while he grabbed and slipped some kind of string around my neck. It was simple, with a wooden frame and a dozen twine threads interlacing into a spiderweb pattern in the middle.

I took a look at it and started to look back at Rock. “What is-”

“Stop asking questions!” Rock said as he aimed a hoofstrike at another mindless mare attempting to latch onto him, seeming a bit more winded now. It took him a solid two strikes to dislodge this hanger on before he could go running towards the glowing patch of light in the distance.

I nodded and simply clutched to his back, hoping to let him move with a minimum of distraction. We surged along, making great time while Rock decked several dozen (hopefully nonexistent) mares and kept us going.

Then, there was a horrible screeching sound and the wall of reality fell away, revealing the void of a night sky. “FIRST PRIZE!” bellowed a solitary figure, pitch black amongst the endless canvas of stars. More than pitch black… Ultra-black, dark enough to consume the light around her. “I WILL HAVE YOU!”

Rock swore. We ran on, but it became harder as the formerly flat ground began to warp and shape underneath his hooves. I’m not sure how he even managed to see it changing, the whole ground was a flat black plane, but he artfully ducked and dodged around hills, cliffs, pits, whatever else the ground shaped itself into.

But we weren’t fast enough, the nightmare of Luna was advancing on us faster than any pegasus I had ever seen. “Shit, shit, shit!” I shouted back. “She’s catching up!”

“Do something!” Rock shouted.

“What? You couldn’t even hurt her and you’re the most badass stallion I know!”

Rock took half a second to look pleased at this, but didn’t have any more time than that to spare. “I dunno! But if she catches up to us…”

This was a nightmare. I frowned. Wait. No. It was a dream… I furrowed my brow and focused on the space in front of me, thinking about a wall. A brick wall! Red bricks! Each descriptor got added on, and with each addition the wall seemed firmer, more secure, more solid. And then in a second, Luna shattered it, continuing forward.

She was the master dreamweaver. She was the ultimate Walker-of-Night. What could I possibly do to stop her?

I then realized I didn’t need to stop her. I just needed to slow her down and speed us up. I summoned up an image of a tidy Neighagra Falls street, etched into my mind by years of sweeping, and in seconds I felt Rock began to move quicker, more assuredly. There was still the odd bulge and warp to the streets, but it definitely wasn’t as bad as before. Then, trailing behind us, a dozen Rock Solids sprang into existence. None of them were quite right, but that was beside the point. En masse they charged at The Princess of the Night. Each of them tried to jump at her and latch on, but as they came close, she swatted at them, using fractions of her attention to reduce them to dust as she advanced mercilessly.

But it was working. We were gaining, ever so slightly. Just a few more moments and we’d be there, we’ll be out, we’ll be free…

“ENOUGH!” Bellowed Luna in a voice loud enough to shatter the remaining Rocks (except for the presumably real one I was riding on). Her horn, outlined against the night sky flashed a brilliant purple, and seething tentacles of starlight shot out. They struck out into the ground like knives into butter,then streaked up and out again, tearing through my dream of the streets and crushing it like wet cardboard. There was a groaning sound at the very edge of my hearing, and with a lurch, a huge chunk of the ground ripped from the dreamscape, tilting us upwards and backwards into the night sky.

I yelped and began flapping my wings, flying as hard as I could. Sadly, I was never particularly strong. At my limit, I still wasn’t doing anything to help Rock. He was a big stallion clad in heavy armor, and no amount of straining was going to let me lift him. Luckily, he had it covered for the most part. His hooves struck into the ground and he used the grip to propel himself upward, scaling the increasing slope that was the chunk of ground.

With one last grunt, he pushed himself up over the ledge, just as the slab began to tilt down over us, and we fell. Once again I tried in vain to slow the fall but between his weight and mywingpower, it just wasn’t happening. He landed on his hooves easily enough, but there was a definite buckle to his legs and he fell to the ground, taking me with him. Both of us were down on the ground, looking at each other. My head and ears rang, and I could see Luna approaching, her tentacles breaking down and consuming the remnants of my creations as she drew closer. Her eyes and mouth were bright shining points of white against the pitch-black form, and she was smiling, smiling.

“Go,” Rock said, forcing himself up to his hooves. Beaten, bruised, but not broken. He turned to look back at Luna. “I’ll… try and hold her off.”

“Rock, I can’t just leave you-”

He gave me a look back, a cocky grin that almost managed to hide how exhausted he was. “That’s my job, dude. Go! I’m not gonna let Celestia think I’m some kind of loser.”

I shot him back a nervous grin and looked back at the door. Just a few feet away, and I could see the hallway outside of it… I nodded and darted out of the door, taking a look back just in time to see the tentacles begin to curl around Rock. He pulled and strained at them, but in the end he just wasn’t strong enough. I hurried to close the door,a heavy purple one with the insignia of Luna on its front. I was in her apartments, at a guess. But the last thing I saw before I finally closed the door was Luna carrying Rock away in her tentacles, glaring over her shoulder as she made off with her consolation prize.