A smiling Twilight Sparkle crested the peak of a round, green, dew-covered hill beneath a cloudless star-studded sky, the moon shining brightly overhead. The happy Unicorn was carrying a notepad, lawn chair, a length of tarp, a basket of food and what appeared to be a gem-covered salad strainer with massive holes cut into the bottom.

“Perfect visibility. Nopony around for miles.” Twilight spoke to nopony in particular, laying out the tarp with her magic. “Excellent night for looking at the stars, eh Pinkie? Uh, Pinkie?”

“Whoa! Whoa! Whaaaaaaa!” A series of thuds greeted the Unicorn’s ears ending in a groan.

“Pinkie! Are you alright?” Twilight slid down the hill and offered her garishly pink friend a hoof up.

Pinkie’s baby-blue irises rattled around inside her eyes before refocusing themselves and she giggled. “Not a worry, Twilight. My ears broke my fall!” She gave her prodigious pinnae a wiggle, covered in fluffy pink fur across their length; dipping one more than the other nearly sent her tipping over on her side. “Whoopsy! I almost went for an oopsy again!”

Twilight giggled into her hoof. They’d only known each other for less than a year but long enough for the intellectual Unicorn to develop a fascination with her that had started from a total lack of comprehending Pinkie’s bubbly, hyper-extroverted personality and seeming disregard for all manner of rules: physics, logic, and scheduled obligations. She seemed to be little more than a chaotic jumble of vaguely partyish impulses coalesced into the living embodiment of all things loud and obnoxious, and Twilight had asked herself more than once why in the name of all things harmonious they’d ever ended up hanging out together.

That all changed, ironically, at the lowest point in their history as friends.

Driven by an obsession to understand the source of her uncanny ability to predict the future utilizing body twitches and simple intuition, Twilight had driven herself to the brink of insanity by following Pinkie everywhere she went to study and spy on her, all while the unknowable forces of the universe seemed to conspire against her to preserve their secrets.

Her pride broken, along with several of her bones, Twilight was forced to admit her loss and accept that her current understanding of science and magic didn’t have all the answers. Despite all the pain she’d gone through and never getting a satisfactory answer from her friend on how her illogical abilities worked, she gained something ultimately much more valuable than knowledge — respect. Respect that only grew over time, nurtured by their every interaction as adventurers, defending the wild frontier of Ponyville from all manner of calamity.

Respect that was slowly blossoming into love.

It was that respect for her friend she’d dismissed as lacking understanding that had changed her destiny forever. The experience had ultimately changed her, transforming her from a sheltered introvert trying to derive ultimate knowledge and purpose from data points and magical theory to the leader her circle of friends could look to for support.

Twilight was never big on understanding feelings much less on explaining them to others, particularly when she had to divide her attention between five friends. She needed a reason to talk to Pinkie about her growing desire to take their relationship to a higher level when one presented itself.

Acting on a request from Pinkie herself, Twilight had created a portable anatomy enhancer device, an energy blaster powered by arcane crystals and tipped by a bundle of tangled wire, all of which allowed for more enhanced use of particular receptors in Pinkie Pie’s body she used when predicting the future — most of which turned out to be concentrated in her ears.

Of course, getting Pinkie to agree to a time and place to meet and test out the new advice wasn’t the same as getting Pinkie to stop what she was doing and actually show up. But being the accomplished spellcaster she was, Twilight was able to teleport back and pry her away from playing with Cake Twins; it helped that it was after hours at Sugarcube Corner and their parents were more than happy to look after their own foals.

“Let me help you up the hill this time. But how is your reception right now? Did the fall affect it?”

“Nope! I still got a full one-hundred and eighty degrees range on both of these babies and I intend to use it!” Pinkie clopped her hooves determinedly before deploying her ears out to their sides like a pair of stabilizing wings and trotted full speed up the hill, leaving Twilight half-wondering if she could glide with them in that configuration.

“Wait for me!” Twilight had just made it to the top when she slipped on a wet stone and lurched backward ominously. With a sudden twitch of ears, Pinkie anticipated it, reaching out with her hoof and catching her just in time to spare her friend a long, grass-smeared trip to the bottom.

“Whew! Thanks, Pinkie! Who’d have guessed that your Pinkie Sense would end up saving me a trip to the hospital in the end rather than causing it?”

Pinkie’s ears drooped until they were nearly touching the ground beneath them. “I’m really sorry about what almost happened to you, Twilight. I’m still not entirely sure how my Pinkie Sense works! Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not! It’s almost like it has a mind of its own!”

Twilight gave a half-smile, half grimace, giving a nervous glance to the sky which was thankfully free of meteors, anvils, or Pegasi moving vans. Aside from Pinkie and the equipment Twilight had carried up the hill, there was only a lone tree; its leaves rustling gently in the humid breeze that promised a scheduled rainfall later the next day.

“I think I’ve figured out that so long as I acknowledge its existence but don’t try to discover its secrets, it won’t try to murder me in the most gruesome way imaginable,” Twilight snarked. “But even within those parameters, there’s still so much for me to learn!”

“Oh, Twilight! You’re always trying to figure out little old me!” Pinkie waved a bashful hoof at her friend. “I’m not here to learn anything! I just want to have fun with my friends like you!”

Twilight felt her body warm with the sincerity of Pinkie’s words. She’d decided long ago that Pinkie was an enigma wrapped in a riddle, but not a threat to her understanding of an ordered and sane universe. There was only the task of discovering where to place her odd abilities in the field of scientific understanding. From there, the socially inexperienced Unicorn’s mind quickly fast-forwarded to rather more entangled experiments.

She was going to be alone for hours out on a hill with a mare she was growing to pine for with all the tools at her disposal to experience something completely new — push the boundaries of ignorance back just a little bit further and progress Equinity toward a brighter future. And if all else failed and she failed yet again to make headway with Pinkie… there was always progressing the advancement of their relationship and with any luck, the two could bring each other to orgasm… for science.

The idea had been growing in Twilight’s mind for weeks now. At first, it was an unexpected, curious whim — but soon she found herself looking for a way to bring their deepening relationship to a new, exciting level. Twilight grinned, winking at her friend. Put the other mare at ease and put yourself in a position to bargain, just like the books say! “You know, Pinkie...” Twilight said conspiratorially, “... there’s no reason the two of us can’t have what we want. We’ll do my little experiment now and we can do whatever ‘fun’ you want later — as friends!”

Pinkie eyed her friend skeptically, withdrawing a bubble-pipe from her curly mane and sticking it in her mouth. Complete silence broken only by a stream of rainbow-colored bubbles dragged on before she finally stashed the pipe back in her hair. “Alright, Twilight. You’ve got yourself a deal!’

She grasped Twilight by the hoof and gave her an awkward, pump-handle hoofshake. Twilight cringed slightly, finding the gesture as off-putting as when her other Earth Pony friend, Applejack, had first tried it on her upon her arrival to Ponyville a year earlier. She supposed shaking hooves with Earth Ponies was just going to be an uncomfortable experience to her and offensive to her sensibilities no matter what.

“Excellent!” Twilight quickly broke contact and added Pinkie's name to the “do not shake’ list of which Applejack was the charter member. It was a small miracle she’d gotten Pinkie out at night in the middle of nowhere, and it was to no surprise whatsoever that the notoriously flaky party pony would need to renegotiate a deal she’d agreed to just an hour earlier. “Now all that remains is to test the full range of your abilities and maybe figure out a way to use them! If we can learn more about them, we can use them to foresee threats and hopefully keep Ponyville from being destroyed… again!”

Pinkie grinned, a squeal escaping her lips as she pronked happily. “And then we can throw an early saving-the-town party without even having to save it! Imagine, Twily! Pretty soon none of us will ever have to save anypony again and we can just throw non-stop parties for all the saving we never had to do!”

“Oh yes…” Twilight couldn’t help but vividly imagine the possibilities: Alcoholic cider flowing; Pinkie’s mane straightening out into a soft curtain of sinfully straight luscious locks of free-flowing hair as the night wore on. Fortified by liquid courage, Twilight would surely be in a position to explain her affection, however unlikely, for her Earth Pony friend. And she’d surely hear her out? Pinkie was, if nothing else, a very tolerant mare who’d be willing to give her a chance! And all else failing, she’d still be drunk enough to think it’s a good idea!

Twilight internally squeed and congratulated herself for her own genius.

She could imagine it now, her ‘research’ would start with light-kissing and back rubs before quickly progressing to burying her muzzle in her friend’s enormous pink cleavage and giving her round, firm teats the tongue-bathing they deserved! The pair would then put every single sex toy in Twilight’s laboratory — which she owned strictly for science— to work on each other until the break of dawn.

Perhaps they might even dare to indulge in a little ear exploration?

Scratch that, a lot of ear exploration!

She blinked at her own increasingly lurid thoughts, surprised not so much at the direction they had gone as the tangent they had rather sharply veered off on. But that doesn’t make any sense, it’s an EAR! Ears aren’t sexual! Twilight reminded herself, but couldn’t shake the strangely compelling fantasy; the shame of her forbidden desires hitting her anew and replacing her resolve with some confusion.

Maybe this was just too soon, then? Maybe she should wait until she had a better frame of mind and understanding of why she felt this way? And maybe, in the meantime, she could settle for asking Pinkie out on a date? Even aside from her incomprehensible ear obsession, the idea of doing anything sexual with her Earth Pony friend seemed so much easier in fantasy than reality: she’d prefer a rematch with the hydra to seducing her.

In truth, Twilight felt unworthy of her, especially after treating her as little more than a lab specimen for her powers — could she ever live down the fact she’d nearly gotten herself killed for simply refusing to accept her friend’s unorthodox magical abilities? And what if Pinkie rejected her advances because of it?

Stuffing her own fears and doubts as far down into her as she could, Twilight magically grabbed her friend by the shoulders and lay her down on the tarp. “Curb your enthusiasm, Pinkie! There is science to be done!” she reminded herself along with her friend, setting up her instruments as much for distraction as anything analytical.

“Okie dokie Lokie!” Pinkie instantly agreed, watching in only idle interest as Twilight began to ready her equipment.

Within a minute, she was ready. “So all that’s left, is… this!” Without further ceremony, Twilight picked up the odd salad strainer device and carefully slipped it down onto Pinkie’s fluffy head of hair, only barely managing to thread her oversized equine satellite dishes through the gap. Twilight checked the screen, the crystal readout registering an active and stable link with Pinkie’s brain with a pair of flashing amber lights.

“Success! Now Pinkie, I just want you to turn your ears to the sky and try to pick up something. It doesn’t matter what, just anything at all no matter how insignificant that might be happening to anypony... anywhere.”

Pinkie Pie rubbed her chin. “Hmm… This is going to be a toughie! It’s not so much picking up one pony’s signal but separating all the signals out there. My ears are so sensitive, now!” She wiggled them again, immediately drawing Twilight’s attention, and then blinked. “Oh! I am picking up something!” she announced.

“Really? What?” Twilight instantly turned her full attention on her again, only for her eyes to wander back up to her twitching ears, one of which pivoted back and forth a couple of times before locking briefly but directly on Twilight herself!

The barest of smiles broke out on Pinkie’s lips as her ears lingered on Twilight for just a moment before resuming their radar-like motion.

Twilight could just make out the slightest aberration in Pinkie’s facial expression, the barest hint of her inner prankster rising to the surface, but the allure of long, fuzzy softness was too great to complete the mental circuit. “Pinkie…?” she prompted again, mildly disconcerted by the strange sense and certainty she’d just been scanned. Did she just pick up something… from ME?

“Oh! Um… I’m picking up something, but it’s kind of fuzzy… in fact, it’s really hard to make out! So you know, I might need a little signal boost!” Pinkie reached into her mane and pulled out a small bottle. “Here, Twilight! Use this on me!”

“What is…” Twilight reeled from the shock of seeing her unrequited love using her floofy mane as a saddlebag before turning her attention to the bottle. “Pinkie, is this vanilla extract?”

Pinkie looked at her friend in stunned disbelief. “Well, of course, silly! What kind of baker would I be if I didn’t keep a bottle on me at all times? Twilight, the need to bake a cake can hit a filly at all hours of the day!” She waved her ears once and then spread them wide, as if in offering.

Twilight looked back at her friend in stunned silence — during what precious few moments she could tear her eyes away from Pinkie’s enormous ears. Just keep her talking, Twilight. Just keep her talking until something makes sense! she reminded herself. “And you think this will help?” she asked, realizing only then how dry her mouth had gotten.

“Why wouldn’t it? It’s never failed to improve the taste of whatever I’ve made, so why wouldn’t it boost my Pinkie Sense, too? Just put a coat of it all over my ears and I’ll be able to pick up traffic from the entire Twisting Nether! You’ll see!” Pinkie nodded to herself in agreement as she pointed up at the night sky.

Despite her legs going momentarily weak at the thought of getting to touch and rub the entire length of Pinkie’s incredibly long ears, Twilight arched an eyebrow at the surprising phrase. “The Twisting Nether? What do you know about the source of all thaumic energy?”

“I know it’s where all the demons live, Twilight!” Pinkie’s smile dropped for just a moment as her eyes grew unfocused and distant. “And it’s also the home of the Thestral Highborne colonists; space marines who’ve dedicated their lives to keeping them from enslaving us all!” Pinkie looked back up her friend, slightly fearful.

Twilight’s jaw dropped, her aural fantasies briefly forgotten. “Pinkie! I had no idea you’ve studied the ancient religious texts of the Highborne or how in Equestria you managed to find time to study them but never mind that! I just want to know how is… vanilla going to help us?” she decided she had to ask despite the chance Pinkie would change her mind and withdraw her offer, also deciding not to inquire what a space marine was. One mystery at a time, Twilight...

She gave a girly giggle, her good humor instantly restored. “Don’t be silly, Twi! It’s not going to help the space colonists! Well, unless they get hungry and need me to bake a cake!” Pinkie gasped. “Omigosh! Omigosh! Twilight, do you think Celestia will let me send cakes into outer space? There are sooo~ many Thestral colonists and soldiers fighting on the front lines going without their birthday party!”

“Ugh!” Twilight brought a hoof to her face, finding her cheeks hot, not just from growing arousal but exasperation, wondering again how anypony could be so incredibly alluring yet so incomprehensibly annoying all at the same time. “Fine! I’ll coat your ears! Just let me get a hoofkerchief and…” Twilight’s tail began to flag wildly behind her and her heart began to race as the thought of not just touching but nibbling on Pinkie’s vanilla-scented ears added fresh fuel to her suddenly fierce fantasy. “I-I’ll put it on you.”

“Yay, Twilight! Just… don’t forget to work it in deep and hard! I want to feel everything~!” Pinkie hung on the last word with calculated lewdness. Or did Twilight just imagine it? “So don’t be shy about it!”

Twilight’s face burned as if she’d just downed a bottle of Neighican tequila — her nethers began to churn. Nothing about what was happening seemed right — it wasn’t that she was inexperienced; she’d helped other fillies out with their estrus growing up, even being as introverted as she was. She’d even fantasized about her brother during the height of her own heats.

But those events and attractions she could at least half-justify, while this was a pair of comically huge, ludicrously proportioned and indecently fuzzy ears! They made Pinkie Pie look like some absurd pink, pronking, rabbit pony! And yet there they were and she couldn’t take her eyes off of them!

Couldn’t stop thinking about them…

Couldn’t stop wanting to touch them...

Behind her, Twilight’s marehood began to wink and drip, giving off the scent of freshly-pressed blackcurrant juice as Pinkie’s ears twitched again and her smile only grew, turning something almost coy.

“Well, I’m waiting!” she called out jovially again. And was there an element of eagerness in her voice?

“R-Right…” Twilight spoke around a hard swallow, trying to take her mind off the ear and back to her work. She reminded herself firmly and repeatedly that it was just an ear, however erotically enticing for its size. She reached what she could with her hoof but had to stop when she got a whiff of her own scent and her horn gave off a series of electric pink sparks that announced her arousal further and briefly lit up the surrounding area. Twilight cringed at their involuntary release — surely she had more self-control than that! — But Pinkie either didn’t notice or gave no sign she had.

Twilight knew she was being silly, but at that moment, she sensed the physical contact between them was sexual in an unspoken but very visceral way, and her body was reacting without considering her well-reasoned counterpoints. Reasoning that she wouldn’t give herself away again if she was channeling a spell, however basic, she poured more vanilla into the rag and started levitating it to work it inside her friend’s ear, coating the cochlear portion with a thin glaze that glowed pearl in the cool moonlight.

It didn’t help that Pinkie kept cooing in her high-pitched, girly voice as Twilight struck her many sensitive — and highly erogenous as she knew from her anatomy books and romance novels alike — Earth Pony pressure points along the entire length and width of her enhanced auricles. A new scent, that of cotton candy, soon made its presence known and began to fill Twilight with nervous excitement, as its source was unmistakable.

Wh-what’s going on here? Does that mean… Pinkie wants me to… to rut with her? Did her enhanced ears enable her Pinkie Sense to pick up on ME? Or is she just being Pinkie? Her mind wandered and raced. I can’t be sure! There’s just no way to know!

And then, as if in response to her frantic thoughts, Pinkie rolled over on her side, her round but firm barrel slapping down against the tarp as she rolled over on her back like a dog, revealing a pair of swollen buckball-sized teats resting lazily against her inner thighs, capped with long, perky nipples — two gorgeous mounds of mammary tissue larger than all of Twilight’s own and other friends’ cleavage put together and just as impossible to ignore as the equally beautiful mare who owned them. The presentation made her mouth water and caused the hoofkerchief to begin to tremble in her magical grasp.

“Oh, Twilight! You are the best ear rubber ever!” Pinkie closed her eyes and bit her inner lip, a growing flush spreading its way across the whole of her face. Her eyes closed to better concentrate on the waves of pleasure crashing over her listing bow, her ears standing to rigid attention as they accepted the sweet scent and stimulation. “It feels so good! Don’t stop now!”

“S-sure…” Twilight’s heart leapt as she saw Pinkie’s marehood twitch eagerly below her, nectar slowly rolling down over and into her pucker before slowly pooling the furless dock at the base of her tail. She nearly lost her hold over the rag which wavered further in her magical grasp as she shot off another flustered scattering of pink and golden stars from the top of her brightly glowing horn.

Oh, thank the Night Pinkie had her eyes closed! But how is she DOING this to me!? Twilight asked even as she involuntarily snuck a hoof between her slick and trembling thighs and took a swipe at her long, throbbing clit before grinding into it, fully convinced in her own ability to stop when it was absolutely necessary and keep her efforts hidden in the meantime.

Probably. Hopefully…

It wasn’t like her friend was going to mind if she noticed anything, surely? Twilight knew Pinkie loved to see other ponies enjoying themselves, even sexually, and she wasn’t ever going to insult a friend for expressing her true self. She was far too open-minded to be put off by such a sincere appreciation for her friend’s feminine beauty!

For her rock-hard, rock-farming rump…

For her soft and huggable teats that you just wanted to bury your entire face within…

For her sweet-smelling sensual juices...

And last but hardly least, for her sparkling fathomless blue eyes that Celestia herself, in all her wisdom, would never deny the beauty of.

Twilight then swallowed hard, her sodden femininity soaking her groping hoof, weeping freely onto the ground beneath her as her horn threatened to erupt again, this time with a far more powerful and unmistakable display.

I… really need to stop now before I do something very unscientific!

With great willpower and discipline befitting Celestia’s prize student, Twilight finally extracted her sopping, wet hoof from her marehood, reloaded her rag with the rest of the vanilla and finished her task silently, save for the eager moans and occasional doggie leg kicks of her gloriously well-endowed heartthrob. Each of the latter caused her belly breasts to jiggle enticingly; the twin teats that capped them visibly engorged and briefly causing Twilight’s fantasies to shift from nibbling her ears to suckling each teat in turn.

Until she noticed she was almost completely out of vanilla. A shake of the bottle confirmed about a squirt or two at best remained in the plastic container — she’d been using it so freely and eagerly she’d run almost completely out of it while only halfway through coating her second ear. Twilight bit her lip and looked around guiltily. She slightly frantically double-checked her picnic basket which was pointless because she hadn’t packed any vanilla in there or anywhere else because why in Tartarus would she bring vanilla as a snack?

Pinkie lay still and quiet as Twilight paused her efforts, a rare treat for anypony engaged with her for any length of time. Twilight knew she could ask her if she had another bottle, to which she might reply with a yes or a no but would inevitably lead to a breaking of the moment and a disruption of the perfect harmony they’d somehow attained. And thus, a hopelessly aroused and excited Twilight knew what had to be done… for science, of course!

So while Pinkie wasn’t looking, she ground the hoofkerchief against her sopping wet entrance, soaking the entire rag before squirting the rest of the vanilla over the top of it, masking her scent with that of the extract. Surely Pinkie would never notice! And hopefully neither would her Pinkie Sense, but Twilight trusted in the integrity of her scholarly intentions even as Pinkie’s ears twitched again as if seeking the touch that had been temporarily withdrawn.

Intentions that were only turning her on even more as she realized she was applying her own scented juices to her friend’s exquisitely in lieu of enough vanilla, causing her to fumble the handkerchief slightly.

“Ooooh! Spicy!” Pinkie giggled as she felt the rag reapplied to her ear, leaning it into the hoofkerchief. It dripped from the sheer volume of fluid soaked into it, rolling down into the round cups of her concha like half-thinned honey as Twilight nervously polished her inner auricle to a sparkling shine. “Ooooh… I love it! Keep going!” she further invited, and Twilight did her best to oblige even as she felt ready to faint.

Does she know what I did? Oh, of course, she does! That mare knows everything, even though she has no right to! Twilight was started to suspect Pinkie had picked up on her intentions from the beginning, thanks to the ears Twilight herself had enhanced. But on the increasingly unlikely chance she wasn’t, the helplessly horny Unicorn mare resolved to never admit to what she’d done, though she was almost sure the ‘spiciness’ Pinkie was talking about had nothing to do with Taco Tuesday over at the Hay Bale cafe.

“All finished!” Twilight announced, perhaps a bit too cheerfully as she wet the last of the surface, knowing that even if they did nothing else, she was going to be fantasizing about what she’d just done for many self-pleasuring sessions to come.

Pinkie’s eyes opened, her serene smile transforming to a look of characteristic wild-eyed excitement. “That’s great! Thanks, Twilight! I feel like I should be paying you for the work you did. Somepony’s definitely got a cake in their future! Or maybe a cream pie!”

Author's Note

Thanks to Firesight and Clopficsinthecomments for the help!