A Change in Strategy

Scarlet Ember closed the door to her shop and let out a long, long breath through the nose.

What was that? She asked herself, pacing around the shelves of her small store and busily doing small tasks in order to try to calm herself down.

Was Stratus flirting with me? Right after we just met? But she seemed so... innocent while Ink and Pinky were there!

Scarlet's Place was quite a cozy little space. Constructed of sturdy oak wood with a few gold leaf accents. She had paintings up from artists around the town, each with a little price tag in case one caught a customer's eye. The whole place had a series of forest green rugs so that it almost seemed that you hadn't left outside at all. She liked to keep the lights relatively dim to go along with the warm, homey atmosphere, but each shelf did have a lamp to aid in seeing prices.

Scarlet slid to the floor somewhere near the salt section at the front of the store and groaned.

There was a problem she was ignoring. More than whether or not the new mare in town was flirting with her. It's that she liked that Stratus was flirting with her. She had never, not once in her whole life, had a crush on another mare. Sure, she could appreciate beauty and femininity as well as any stallion could, but it had all been purely academic.

What that mare did to her was anything but.

"Celestia, why now?" Scarlet muttered to herself, "Is it because of Chaser? Because she's a pegasus too, is that what it's come to?"

She rubbed her eyes with her hooves, thinking back to the party. At first she'd practically stormed in, none too happy about having new competition literally next door. But then Stratus had just been so nice, like her own little ray of sunshine. And you'd think Scarlet would be used to that considering where she lived, but it felt like more than just your every day "How do you do?" kind of nice. Every time Stratus would look into her eyes, Scarlet could feel the other mare's interest, her desire to know who Scarlet was and learn all of the little things that made her happy.

Celestia, was she projecting? There's no way she could have gotten all of that from three hours of conversation.

Scarlet felt slightly feverish, and she realized that her heart was pounding in her throat.

"No!" She said suddenly, standing bolt upright, "No, I am not some filly with her first ever crush!"

She set her jaw and went about her nightly routine in a perfectly reasonable and ordinary manner. She ate a quick salad, brushed her teeth, and settled down to tend to her little bonsai tree that Ink had gotten her for her birthday last year. The poor thing wasn't doing too hot. She was trying to make sure that the branches with the healthiest leaves kept growing, but the things were darn stubborn when they wanted to die. Even with her earth pony's green hoof she was going to have to get a reference book or something...

I wonder if Stratus knows anything about these? she mused idly while examining the small tree, The girl certainly seems well traveled. Definitely exercises too, with how slim she was. Looked like some kind of super-model. And that coat...

With a jolt Scarlet realized what she was doing. She shook her head vigorously to clear it of any thoughts of Stratus Fairweather and looked at the clock on the wall. It was a little early to be going to bed, but she clearly just needed to sleep and calm down. Maybe tomorrow, with a fresh outlook, things would be a little more clear!

She started to get into bed when a dampness on her tail caught her attention.

She groaned out loud again and smacked a hoof to her head. Unbelievable! Had Stratus noticed? Celestia's sake, she was practically dripping!

Hurriedly she scooted into her bathroom. It was small by necessity, lined with white tiles, a mirror, and a frosted glass shower. It was probably one of the most modern things in the whole building. She quickly got the shower up to temperature and waited, front hooves crossed impatiently, while the water heated up. She stepped in and tired to wash the, erm, affected area off... but that presented a problem.

She shivered and bit her lip, crossing her back legs as warm water slid down the folds of her sex.

Oh, Celestia, this is not helping, she thought, slightly panicked.

She stood there in the shower, letting the water drip down the smooth contours of her ass, feeling it slide ticklishly down to her back hooves. Slowly, and purposefully not thinking about what she was doing, she turned and sat down, back legs splayed out to let the water run directly onto her puffy slit.

She breathed deeply, eyes closed, as a hoof slowly made its way to the hood where her engorged clit sat. She rubbed at it gently, squeaking and shuffling as tiny pulses of pleasure rolled through her hips.

Stallions, think of stallions, she thought to herself, big, buff, golden... smells like a... field of flowers... tracing her hoof down my- no!

Her eyes snapped open and she pulled herself out of her trance. She turned the shower off, jumped out, and made sure she was thoroughly dry before heading to bed. She kept her hooves firmly at her sides, and didn't let any thoughts cross her mind at all! She was a rock, a temple!

Sleep found her surprisingly easily, and she drifted into a restless, fitful slumber...

The party was going great and Scarlet sat across a table from Stratus laughing over a glass of wine. The bottle near them seemed almost empty, and they were both a little drunk. Scarlet leaned forward and rested a cheek on her hoof, staring dreamily at the other mare. That gorgeous golden coat, those eyes like velvet flame. Celestia above, they did such things to her.

Vaguely she thought that something might be wrong. She needed to go somewhere didn't she? Or, was there anypony else around? She wasn't sure she cared to take her eyes off of Stratus in order to find out.

The lovely pegasus across from her was saying something, but Scarlet wasn't really paying attention. She just watched those full, plush lips form perfect o's and thought about what it would feel like if she...

Acting purely on impulse, she leaned forward on her elbows. There was a crash, and she fell back onto the floor. The cake that had been sitting in between them splattered all over Scarlet's midriff, coating her in a sticky layer of white frosting.

"Oh!" She said, sounding a little slurred, "I'm so sorry, Stratus, I didn't mean to ruin your cake."

"S'okay," Stratus replied, wobbling down from her seat over to the prone mare, "I can clean it up."

Scarlet was... on a bed? It was soft, luxuriously so, much better quality than her own bed... her own bed... why was that so familiar-

She yelped as Stratus licked a long line of icing off from just above Scarlet's clit, all the way to her neck. The earth pony groaned and her eyes fluttered at the sensation.

Stratus' violet eyes looked directly into hers, far more lucid than anything Scarlet felt she could muster. The pegasus leaned in, nibbled gently on Scarlet's ear and said, "Mmmm... delicious..."

"Take me," Scarlet begged in the smallest voice she could, but her desperate cry was only met with a deep sensuous chuckle.

Stratus pushed Scarlet down onto those opulent red sheets that seemed to absorb her limbs into them, and pinned the smaller mare down by her arms.

Stratus gave a very hungry smile, and her eyes gleamed wickedly, "Not until I've finished my cake. It's my party, after all."

She darted down between Scarlet's legs, licking another long line of icing off the mare. Scarlet jerked as heat rose in her chest and face, but with her arms pinned there was nothing she could do but squirm as the other mare used her like a toy.

Celestia, she's so big, Scarlet thought feverishly, breaths coming in short panting gasps. The slow, torturous ministrations continued until not a speck of cream remained anywhere on the toned figure of the earth pony. Her brown eyes gazed desperately up at the golden pegasus straddling her, and Stratus purred, "Do you want me, pet?"

"Y-yes..." she said hoarsely, throat parched from the heat boiling in her veins. Her pussy felt like it was on fire with the need to be touched, and the slow tickling sensation of her arousal leaking from it was nothing short of maddening.

Stratus flared her wings out. Sun and stars, her wingspan was massive. The shadow of them fully encompased Scarlet, and she wriggled in mixed fear and excitement. Stratus' eyes were intense, burning with the same desire that Scarlet felt but far more controlled.

Stratus leaned forward and growled against Scarlet's neck, "Will you serve me, pet?"

Scarlet was at her breaking point. Her body, her mind, her very soul was aflame. She had never been so turned on in her life. At that moment, all other things in the world be damned, she needed this mare.

"Y-yes," she trembled between gasps.

Stratus' eyes flashed, inches from her face, "Yes, what?"

Scarlet knew what she had to do. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted it so badly. Still, the words came thick and hot in her throat, so that the end result was barely more than a strangled whisper, "Yes... Mistress."

A slow smile spread across the face of Stratus Fairweather, and a golden light shone through the feathers of her wings, bathing Scarlet in heat. The other mare slowly lowered her face to plant between the folds of Scarlet's-

CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO!

"Ahhhh!"

Scarlet slammed into wakefulness, actually leaping from her bed in a frontflip and landing hunched on all fours, scattering her blankets about the room. Her breath was quick and ragged, and she lashed around wildly for a few seconds before reality began to set in. She realized it was morning. The whole thing was just a dream, and the alarm clock must have woken her up. A dream... she'd dreamed about... cake? Something to do with a party? It faded quickly from her mind.

She looked at her now bare bed and groaned in dismay. The sheets were absolutely soaked. And, now that she thought about it, so was she. Her hindquarters and inner thighs were drenched with slick juices, and she smelled like she'd been fucking for twelve hours straight. Worst of all, she was still mind-numbingly horny.

That's it, she thought. She stalked over to a bedside cabinet, threw it open furiously, and pulled out a two-pronged dildo from wayyy in the back.

I don't give a shit what I think about, I'm going to rut myself silly before anything else.

She stomped over to her bathroom, and slammed the door shut with a THUMP.

Princess Luna stood on a platform of nothing, surrounded in a sphere by thousands upon thousands of stars. Here, in the realm of dreams where she stood watch, her mane and tale billowed on into infinity, and her horn and eyes shone with a constant silver-blue light.

Hmm... strange, the half-deity thought to herself as she searched among the stars nearest to her, peering into each one in turn. Every dream became a twinkling light here that she could peruse and help guide at her leisure. She had sensed a disturbance from one of these stars. Not the normal black void of a nightmare, but a flickering, a warping. Something had changed a dream, just a little. Something that was not her. But before she could find the thing responsible, it had gone, and the dream had ended. She once again cursed the existence of alarm clocks for cutting short the natural course of pony dreams, often leaving their meanings broken and their owners unfulfilled. But the waking world had, she supposed, always taken precedence over her domain. This was nothing new.

She had not caught the pony whom the flickering dream had belonged to, but she would be watching now. She had only just recently returned to her duties as silent sentinel of the night, and if anypony thought they could encroach on her domain, well... she had a thousand long years of wrath to burn.