Mistress of subtlety

by Cackling Moron

Rating: teen
Tags: Human, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Luna, Princess Celestia
Length: 3662

Local deity attempts to communicate amorous intentions to receptive, oblivious human

Bill (local human) and Celestia (local horse) are very close friends. Very, very close. So close it's gratingly obvious that they both plainly want to be even closer still, but despite Celestia's best efforts Bill remains utterly incapable of grasping that this is the direction that they both want it to go in.

Her latest scheme is more direct than those before it, but can it hope to work?

Published 2020-07-02 08:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-07-02 08:30:01 UTC

The scintillatingly sweet, sultry, sophisticated science of sensual seduction

Author's Note

Bawdy sex comedy! Only without any actual sex. Just oblique references to it and heavy inference of it. What the BBFC might deign to call 'suggestive themes'. Certainly nothing worth throwing a tag on for!

It's rated T! That's enough!

Also, unrelated, briefly considered having the human here be the same guy from the Treed story but then decided not to do that, because I didn't want to. Continuity is for the birds, endless, unrelated one-shots are the true way.

The scintillatingly sweet, sultry, sophisticated science of sensual seduction

At some point - it’s not especially important which point - Princess Luna was looking for Princess Celestia, to tell her something.

Her wanderings eventually took her to Celestia’s bedroom, as she hadn’t been in evidence anywhere else, and without knocking she opened the door and wandered right on in. Formality had long-ago ceased to exist between the two of them for things like this. That, and the opportunities for catching one another in compromising positions increased dramatically if you didn’t knock first, and that was funny.

And this was what happened here, though in a confusing way more than a funny one.

Whatever Luna had been meaning to ask evaporated instantly from her brain at the sight which greeted her: Celestia, rolling about on the floor, making a complete hash out of putting on a sock onto one of her hind legs.

She had already managed to put on three others - and one or two other minor items of clothing - but this last one was seeming to present something of an obstacle, for whatever reason, and just wasn’t cooperating.

Luna stared, then snapped out of it.

“What are you doing, sister?” She asked.

“Putting clothes on,” Celestia said without missing a beat, brow knotted in concentration, tongue poking out just a little bit.

That she was using two hooves and magic and still only barely making headway was impressive, from a certain point of view, and Luna watched silently for a moment, not offering to help. Celestia grunted and rolled onto her side in frustration.

“That much I was able to puzzle out. I was simply curious as to why,” Luna said, once the moment of silent watching had passed.

“So I can take them off again!” Celestia said, making the tiniest bit of progress, perhaps an inch. Luna’s eyes narrowed.

“...you’re being obtuse,” she said.

“No, sorry, just distracted. Ack, socks! Haven’t worn socks in years, were they always this tricky? Hang on…”

Contorting, folding and exerting Celestia poured her efforts into this final sock, bending every one of her considerable years of experience in just about every area imaginable towards the singular task of getting it properly up her leg.

When this didn’t work she removed it, rolled it up, and tried again. This worked.

”Aha!” She declared in triumph, beaming at her now uniformly sock-clad legs and giving them a celebratory waggle before taking the easy way out and simply teleporting upright again. She looked very satisfied with herself, if a little flustered from all the effort.

“I assume the reason for this is compelling,” Luna said.

“Oh it’ll make perfect sense once I explain it to you,” Celestia said, trotting over to her bed on which was strewn a profusion of articles of clothing over which she looked, clearly picking what to put on next. She settled on a turtleneck, a wonderfully thick and chunky one.

Levitating it up before her - expression still triumphant - she gazed at the garment a moment before looking over at her sister, still standing, still waiting for an explanation.

“You know Bill?” Celestia asked. Luna blinked.

“Bill the human? Your friend, Bill? The man who is plainly, deeply besotted with you and who has plainly been deeply besotted with you for years but who has spent those years studiously managing to avoid picking up on the numerous, blatant signals you’ve given that you yourself are rather fond of him in turn? The signals that you’d rather like to graduate this very close, intimate friendship to something even closer and more intimate? That Bill?” She asked.

“That’s the one,” Celestia said, shoving the turtleneck over her head.

Luna felt like sighing, but didn’t, sighing only on the inside.

Bill the human. Travelling tap salesman. Semi-regular fixture in and around the palace, those times when his travelling brought him back towards this neck of the woods. Inexplicably good friend of Princess Celestia from almost the first time they’d met. A man blatantly smitten with her but also so staunchly of the opinion that they were merely very, very good friends that he could handily dismiss all evidence that it might run just a smidgen deeper.

That Bill.

“I’m familiar,” Luna said through only slightly gritted teeth, rubbing her temple with a hoof as she began to get an inkling of what might be happening here.

This was going to be another of her sister’s schemes to break through to him and get him to realise the mutual-ness of their romantic interest. The latest in a rather long line, none of which had enjoyed success (obviously, otherwise the line wouldn’t have been that long).

Luna had seen several of these schemes being put into action in person (in horseon?), had been present at the planning of some others and had certainly provided a shoulder to wail on most of the times that they’d fallen through.

At first it had been quite funny, then quite sad, now eventually just a bit annoying, frankly.

Quite why Celestia hadn’t just told him that she was infatuated with him as he was with her was anyone’s guess. Luna had asked her this much and more than once, to boot, but the answer had just been several variations on how being straightforward just wasn’t the done thing. Infuriatingly, Cadence - when Luna had brought it up to her - agreed. It made no sense!

Once, Luna had taken things into her own hooves and had had a banner painted with the message:

“Bill. Celestia would like for you to take her in a manly fashion. This is not a joke.”

This banner she had then had hung in his guest room while he’d been asleep, so he’d woken up to find it hanging opposite him, the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. Pretty unequivocal, she’d thought. Not the sort of thing that left a lot of room for interpretation, she’d thought.

He had thought it was a joke. He’d complimented Luna greatly on it.

She’d given up at that point, and decided to just leave them to it.

They deserved each other, for better or for worse.

“He told me about a game humans have been known to play called ‘strip poker’, which is poker but there is stripping of garments involved,” Celestia said as she struggled her way through the jumper, apparently managing to get lost inside it somewhere.

“The clue, it transpires, was in the name,” Luna said, watching, still not offering to help. “What is the reason for this stripping?” She asked.

Celestia’s head finally popped out of the jumper with a gasp. With that done getting her legs through the sleeves was much easier.

“Unclear. But! From what he told me it is often a prelude to sauciness,” she said, fussing to get her mane back into some semblance of order. Magic waftiness was of limited defensive use against static electricity, it seemed. .

“Is that so?” Luna asked, raising a raking eyebrow.

“Oh yes! Almost without fail. Seems like something of a ritual. I suppose maybe that’s the reason for the stripping? Must be symbolic of something for humans. I’ll have him explain it to Twilight in depth at some point, she can write a paper on it, that’ll keep her out of trouble for a bit. But later!”

Moving back to the bed she started sifting through the pile, presumably to find something for her bottom half. As she sifted, she kept on explaining her grand plan:

“I shall invite him to play this game - this game which is almost entirely nothing but suggestiveness piled up on top of suggestiveness! - I will lose, I will strip off these clothes as per the pre-sauciness ritual, he will finally understand what I have been trying to get him to understand for years and then things will, um, will reach their natural conclusion from there,” she said, frowning at a bit of clothing she didn’t immediately recognise then, on recognising it, discounting it and setting it aside.

“The sauciness?” Luna asked, for clarity on what constituted the natural conclusion.

“The sauciness, yes,” Celestia said.

The word was beginning to lose its meaning at this point, Luna felt.

“So this is foolproof?” She asked. Celestia, beaming, nodded.

“Heavy-duty foolproof! For the heaviest-duty of fools!” She said.

“So, Bill then?” Luna asked, sweetly.

Celestia pouted.

“Rude. But yes, him. Even he should be able to read between the lines on this one!”

“Like he was going to read between the lines when you ‘accidentally’ booked that room for the two of you with only the one bed?” Luna asked.

“Well…”

A pleasant night, if a wasted one by the standards of what Celestia had hoped to achieve.

Luna had another:

“Or that time when the heating in his guest room ‘broke’ and your graciously, personally provided him with warmth for the duration of the night?”

“I mean…”

Celestia had felt sure that one would have at least worked a little bit. It had not.

And of course, as per universal rules outlining things that come in threes, Luna had saved the heftiest of examples for last:

“Or possibly the time that one Hearts and Hooves day - a day which according to Bill himself just-so happens to coincide with a human event of a similar nature with similarly blatant romantic overtones - when you went out of your way to personally prepare his favourite meal which you then served to him by candlelight, a gesture he took as entirely platonic?”

Celestia’s expression was very flat.

“Did you come in here just to poke holes in my hopes and dreams?” She asked.

“Yes,” Luna said.

Celestia humphed, then got back to sifting the clothes.

“Well congratulations. Still, I remain quietly confident. This is the one, I think! After it works flawlessly and I’ve succeeded and the sauciness happens I shall come and I shall gloat at you. Once I can walk in a straight line again, obviously,” She said with a wink over her shoulder.

This took Luna a second of thought to properly grasp and once it hit her her face twisted.

“You are disgusting.”

Celestia seemed to take this as something of a compliment and gave a wiggle.

“Just taking all the built up sauciness into account. We’ve got a lot of time to make up for,” she said. Luna’s face twisted further and she stuck her tongue out.

“Bleurgh…”

But Celestia wasn’t done:

“A lot of pent up...energy, you might say.”

Luna turned on the spot and started walking.

“I am leaving. When you require moral support later after this falls through I shall be asleep. Do not wake me up,” she said.

“Okay, but I think the ecstatic screaming might-”

The door slammed, perhaps harder than it needed to.

-

After Luna left, Celestia put the finishing touches onto her outfit - the outfit specifically put together and put on with the express intent of being removed. Once happy that she had enough layers to provide sufficient ‘ammunition’ for the ritual - as it were - and not so many that she looked ridiculous she sent somepony to go and find Bill, who was somewhere, and tell him he was required.

While that was going on she set the room up. The game was to take place in her bedroom, at a table right at the foot of her bed, in fact. The reasoning being that this way there would be less distance to cover once the plan worked - sensible enough thinking, Celestia felt. They’d wasted quite enough time as it was.

Not long later there came a polite knock at the door.

“Come in!” Celestia called, hoping to keep the giddiness out of her voice.

The door opened a little and in poked Bill’s head. He peered about. Despite having been in her bedroom on several occasions he still held a certain level of reluctance about entering without direct instructions to do so. His eyes fell on Celestia and his face lit up.

“Ah, hello. You said you wanted me?”

She had been very clear on what words the message was to contain.

“I do, yes. Come in, come in,” she said, beckoning. He finally entered, still tentative, only just noticing how dressed up she was and stopping in his tracks briefly as the sight scrambled his brain. This was a response Celestia found immensely gratifying.

Bill, now within proper conversation range, gestured to her in a general sense.

“I like the new look, looks very cosy and comfortable. And those socks look, well, ah…”

He trailed off and went quiet, mouth hanging just ever-so-slightly open as he failed to arrive at wherever he’d been heading towards with that one, instead just goggling dumbly. Celestia relished this, and giggled when he finally snapped out of it.

“Sorry, miles away. What were we talking about?” He asked.

“I was saying that I wanted to try out one of those games you told me about the other day,” she said. This wasn’t what they’d been saying but this got her to the point quicker. Bill looked perplexed - he told her about a lot of things, hard to keep track sometimes.

“Which one?” He asked.

“Strip poker,” she said, smiling, eyes flashing, looking all at once rather...hungry? Bill was momentarily taken aback.

“Strip po- ah, hence the clothes, I get you, cunning. Um, sure! Why not? Game for a laugh, that’s me. And what’s a little mutual nudity between friends, eh? I should warn you though I’m extraordinarily bad at poker,” he said.

Celestia, whose plan relied primarily on losing, let her smile become a smirk.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be worse…”

And so it was, and so it began and it was at this point that a flaw appeared in Celestia’s plan.

Bill was awful, awfulat poker.

He had led by saying just as much and Celestia had briefly thrilled at the prospect that he was setting up to hustle her and she’d lose even more quickly and the plan would work even more perfectly, but no, he hadn’t been lying, he was truly appalling.

At certain points it wasn’t even clear whether he knew how to play at all and was just playing cards at random and pretending he knew what he was doing.

In fact, it went somewhat beyond being just bad at the game, it was as though he had been provided some supernatural gift to be actively anti-good, like he sucked up badness from the air itself. Others playing found themselves suddenly better just from being in the same game as Bill. What would have been losing hands for them miraculously became good.

Or so Celestia was starting to think. She couldn’t come up with another explanation for why it was so difficult to lose her clothes to him. Even actively trying to throw the game resulted in him disrobing before she managed to, sitting across the table from her sans-shirt within the space of basically no time at all.

Which was kind of a win in her book, sort of, but hadn’t been she’d been driving at. Would it still work that way? Did it matter which party lost when it came to unlocking the sauciness? She’d kind of gone into it assuming she was the one who had to lose, but was that the case? She wasn’t sure.

Still, her losing had kind of been the intention and so that was what she stuck with, doing her best to fight against his astonishingly, unnaturally bad poker skills and throw the game in spite of the difficulties involved.

He still lost first, somehow, eventually ending up sat in nothing but a bemused smile across from a partially-stripped Celestia. Shaking his head and chuckling to himself he lay his cards on the table.

“I think that’s me done, I’m afraid,” he said looking down at his lap and shaking his head faux-sadly.

Celestia was so worn down from the effort of having tried to lose she was close to panting, but she still glowed with delight at the way things had worked out. According to how he’d explained the game to her the other day this was probably a perfectly acceptable way of things having worked out. At least one of them was now naked, having started out as not-naked!

This was it! This was finally it!

She beamed at Bill as he smiled dopily at her. She then very, very deliberately turned to look behind her, at the bed, before looking back to Bill again and raising her eyebrows, equally deliberately.

His smile flickered, just for a second, but then seemed to hoik itself up.

“Well now, out of the two of us I’m the one in the buff! What a turnaround. Suppose it was about time, eh? Just to be fair. Still, want to go again?” He asked.

Celestia’s face fell.

“Go again? Go again?!”

Even the immortal have limits to their patience, it turned out. Wailing to herself Celestia collapsed forward over the table, scattering cards. From beneath a voluminous pile of gently-wafting mane there came further wailing, the sounds of clear frustration.

Bill sat awkwardly, nakedly.

“Um...are you okay there?” He asked.

Mane frazzled by the stress Celestia looked up at him.

“This was supposed to be foolproof! You explained how it worked to me! How can it not work when it goes exactly how you said it was meant to?!” She asked, appalled.

Bill frowned. He did remember explaining the game to her - in jest, mainly - and focusing on its transparently erotic overtones, but he couldn’t understand how those applied here. Them being such good friends (and nothing more, sadly) made it a joke, and nothing, you know, raunchy.

Surely.

“If I didn’t know any better, Celly, I’d say this was some scheme of yours to get us both unclothed in the same room - your bedroom, no less! - at the same time, alone,” he said, chuckling again, this time in a doomed attempt to lighten the mood. When he glanced at her he found her just staring at him in disbelief.

“Yes! That was exactly the idea!” She said, borderline-despairingly.

“It was?”

“Yes!”

“...why?”

“Because I want you! In the most sweaty, breathless, euphemistic way possible! The way I’ve wanted you for years! The way everyone knows you want me! The way I’ve been trying to convey is what we both want!”

“We do? You have?”

“Look at what I was wearing! Look at what I’m still wearing!” She said, gesturing first to the scattered bits of her clothing about the place and then reaching back to twang the elastic on the knickers she’d managed to wriggle into. “I put pants on! Exclusively so you could get in them!”

“Oh,” Bill said, sheepishly. It was never fun being yelled at, even less fun being yelled at while naked. You never knew what to do with your hands.

“Is this getting through to you at all?!”

“Well, assuming this isn’t another joke like that banner Luna made…” Bill mumbled, scratching his neck (a nervous habit) and looking away briefly before tentatively looking back Celestia’s way, to check if things had become clearer. In a manner of speaking, they had.

Twang.

Underpants landed on his face.

A moment of silence.

“...alright,” he said, removing the underpants with as much gravitas as he could muster - a surprising amount, given what he was doing. “Okay, alright. Just never thought you felt the same way I did and do but, well, I think that maybe it’s time I should start making it up to you for missing it, then, and-”

He’d got as far as drawing breath to keep speaking when Celestia vaulted the table and launched herself at him.

-

Later, some time later, Luna had something else to tell Celestia and once again entered her room without knocking, this time thankfully finding her sister not doing anything untoward and instead simply lying on her bed, reading something and humming happily to herself.

Luna drew breath to ask what she was going to ask and then stopped as something snagged her attention, something small, something so small she’d noticed but wasn’t sure what it was yet.

Then she got it.

“Is that a new bed?” She asked.

Celestia flicked a page, all delicate-like.

“It is,” she said.

Luna squinted. It really was. Not wildly different but definitely new.

“What happened to the old bed?”

“It broke,” Celestia said, grinning wolfishly. “We broke it.”

Again, Luna did not immediately cotton onto what Celestia was driving at here, mostly because it was provided entirely without context. Celestia often liked to think of doing this as being like lighting a fuse.

“Broke? How did you - oh. Oh! Oh that’s - stop grinning like that!”

Closing her book (after marking her place, obviously), Celestia lent closer towards her sister, as though about to deliver a particularly sensitive revelation, and whispered:

“I’ll let you in on a secret: this is actually the new, new bed. This one is sturdier than the first new one. Much sturdier.”

Celestia then rocked side-to-side a few times. Squeak squeak squeak. She frowned.

“Still squeaks though. Surprised you slept through it all, honestly,” she said.

Luna was already heading out the door, ignoring the continued squeaking behind her.

“I am leaving.”