Venture Into Dark

by Buster Knutt Reborn

Rating: mature
Tags: Alternate Universe, Anthro, Nightmare Moon, Porn, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Fetish, Sex, Twilight Sparkle, Profanity
Length: 5274

Nightmare Moon gets a hold of Dusk after years of biding her time in shadow. Her plans for the little Alicorn are soon revealed in a rather... explicit way

Nightmare Moon gets a hold of Dusk after years of biding her time in shadow. Her plans for the little Alicorn are soon revealed in a rather... explicit way.

Kinks: R63, Size Difference, Enormous Male Endowments, Femdom, Breast Worship, Lactation, Anallingus, Excessive Cum, Borderline-Hyper Cum Inflation

An anonymous commission. If you're interested in a commission of your own, take a look here for details.

Cover art done by Chrysalisdraws on Derpibooru.

Published 2021-03-15 09:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-03-15 09:10:01 UTC

Her Humble Abode

"Ah!" came the pained exclamation from the lavender Alicorn.

His hand retracted immediately, pain sprinting up from his injured finger as he felt the blood begin to run down it.

"What the fuck was..." he muttered under his breath, examining his injury before looking at the bookshelf before him.

The large tome that was half-removed from the ancient wooden object wasn't the culprit, but a tilt of his head identified what appeared to be a stray, rusted nail pierced through the shelf above it.

"Even the bookcases in here are lethal," he grumbled, using a brief flash of magic to heal his wound before reaching for the tome a second time, making sure to avoid the nail.

With his brief brush with death over, he added the book to the stack he carried in his lithe, toned arms before heading back over to the large oak table he'd used as somewhat of a basecamp since arriving here.

"Right, that is..." he began, setting the books in his grasp down on the table and checking the cover for the name of his most recent acquisition. "'Matters Maleficarium' by Twisted Needle, 'Demonology and the Path to Power' by King Red-Eye, and 'Necromantic Destiny' by Mother Macabre out of the..."

He trailed off for a brief moment, eyes narrowing as he stared down at the cover of the necromancy book. He picked it up once again, wiping the dust off the front cover and noticing something he hadn't beforehand: the entire title. The book he was holding wasn't 'Necromantic Destiny', but instead 'Necromantic Desire'. Having never heard of this title before, he flipped it open to a random page and browsed through a handful of passages.

"This is a zombie smut novel," he stated in surprise, moreso to himself than any higher power.

He blinked blankly a handful of times before simply casting the book aside with a weary sigh.

"I'm definitely gonna ask Luna about that one when I get back," he swore. "I've gotta see what excuse she comes up with. In the meantime, though, let's go find the right book and get the hell out of the Everfree."

With his mental checklist recited, Dusk headed back over to the section he'd grabbed the lovely porn book from. With a spring in his step and an eager whistle from his soft lips, he padded over to the bookshelf he'd been at not five minutes ago. As he rounded the corner again, however, something caught his attention. Not a physical something, not an ethereal one... just... something.

He froze in place, a chill running down his spine as he whirled around. The library he stood in was many things. Ancient, enormous, ominous... but one thing he'd made sure of before setting up shop here was that it was empty. No traps, no curses, no ancient presences. Nothing of the sort. He'd used every trick at his disposal to make sure Nightmare Moon hadn't left any nasty surprises for the poor bastard who wandered in here.

The castle had been unoccupied since she'd returned and fought him and his friends. He'd never made a habit to come back here besides today, but he knew there was nothing sinister when he entered... but that was a while ago. The Everfree hid many secrets and many more dangers. Whatever was giving him this spine-chilling feeling, whatever made his blood chill in his veins could just as easily followed him here. Or it could be completely unaware Dusk was here at all, and it had simply made this place it's residence in the years it had been abandoned.

Shaking his head, clearing his thoughts, he snapped back to the present. Hiding in his mind and going over theories wouldn't do anything. The books weren't in his hand and he hated to leave them, but he wasn't risking tangling with whatever the hell had wandered in here. The Everfree was mysterious and unbound by the same rules of the rest of the world, and he wasn't about to be the first to discover some abomination immune to magic.

With a snap of his fingers, he attempted to teleport out of the room and back to the safety of his castle... only for the spell to spark, flare up, and fizzle out with no effect.

"You don't hope to leave me so soon, do you?" a mysterious, unearthly voiced asked from behind him.

Panic rocketed through his body almost as fast as the pain did half a second later. A shot to the back of his head, hitting him harder than he'd ever been hit before, sent him careening across the room. He slammed into one of the bookcases hard enough to shatter it into splinters. Books and wood fragments flew everywhere, the only thing preventing Dusk from being a skin-sack of gravel at this point being his enhanced Alicorn body.

Pains and aches sprang up all over his body, eyes lashing around to the source of the voice. His eyes hadn't the time to focus on whatever it was before the presence blasted across the room. It sounded like an approaching tornado for the shortest of seconds, a dark abyss closing in around him and a tightness clamping down around his throat.

"It's good to see you again, my little pony," came a sinister chuckle.

Dusk's eyes finally focused in on the darkness surrounding him, catching the ethereal glow of haunting eyes and sharp fangs, bared in a sinister grin. Like a hunter staring at it's next meal, the eyes of a beast he'd long thought he'd defeated bore directly into his very soul. Fear had no place in Dusk's mind here, neither did pain, confusion, or distress.

Anger was the sole emotion filling his system, his eyes narrowing viciously as he stared down at the creature that hoisted him into the air.

"You," he spat furiously.

"Now, now... is that any way to greet such an old, dear friend?" asked the towering, enormous form of Nightmare Moon.

Arrogance flowed off her like water over the edge of a fall, everything from her eyes, to her maw, to her posture sang the song of an overconfident presence certain of their victory. He was dropped from their grip, slamming hard into the floor before being pinned to the cold stone by a colder steel boot slamming into his chest. The monster snapped her fingers, summoning glowing blue binds on Dusk's wrists, ankles, and horn. He could feel his magic being sapped from him immediately, the strength leaving his being and reducing him to an exhausted pile of flesh.

"We don't want you running off too quickly, do we?" she asked with a sinister chuckle. "Not before we've had our fun..."

"If you're going to torture me, can you spare me the monologue?" he growled. "I've dealt with more than enough of your kind at this point and have grown beyond bored with the grandstanding."

"My, my... developed into quite the wrought piece of iron since we last met, haven't you?" she giggled, her boot trailing down from his chest to his stomach, then crossing down over the bridge of his belt to his groin. "Nice and hard, aren't you?"

Dusk grunted through gritted teeth as she applied pressure to his crotch, the hard bottom of her boot squeezing uncomfortably on the length contained in his pants.

"How are you back?" he demanded. "I got rid of you. Made sure of that."

"Evidently not, no?" she smirked. "You removed me, Dusk, nothing more. An effective method at the time, but the issue with displacement over destruction is that they always have a chance to find their way back to what they want..."

Dusk's eyes widened in shock briefly, watching Nightmare's boot disappear in a rain of sparks and be replaced with her bare foot. The once-cruel grinding of her boot had been replaced with a much gentler, massaging touch. The pain was replaced with pleasure, and it had quite the effect on the much smaller immortal. Blood began to flow to his groin, his body ignoring his hatred for the mare before him and running entirely on instinct and instinct alone.

"And when I returned, what I wanted was you, and several others, dead at my feet..." she explained. "After all, why would I not? You were responsible for my removal, temporary as it may have been... but I still feel such actions deserve just punishments, no?"

He didn't respond.

"But then I got to thinking... why waste such a cute little specimen like you?" she smiled, a gesture bordering so close on genuine affection that it made his skin crawl. "Sure, I could parade your corpse around on a pike alongside the bodies of everyone else on my list... but where's the net benefit from that? What do I gain from petty vengeance in the long-run?"

Dusk grunted uncomfortable as his own clothing disappeared, crumbling into sparks the same way Nightmare's single boot had. It left him naked and unsettled on the cold stone, the low temperature biting into his skin as the evil monarch continued to massage his now-revealed and enormous length.

"Great empires sprout from one well-planted seed... and I figured I could use you for that in a more than literal way," she chuckled, getting down onto her hands and knees and crawling on top of Dusk.

Her enormous form pinned him to the ground, weight he couldn't hope to lift himself without his magic. The two feet of difference between him and the seven and a half foot monster that lay atop him carried more weight than it should, as did the armour.

Her face hovered just over his, her glowing, ethereal mane consuming and embracing him, allowing him to look nowhere else nor see any other sights than her.

"When you were but a mere unicorn, I vowed to use you as a puppet. A source of entertainment I'd dance around on my strings to help topple my sister's worthless kingdom," she explained. "But now... now you're something special. Now you carry the same blood, the same bone, and same gristle that makes you exactly what I need in a sire. It seems spending years restoring my strength and waiting for the perfect moment has paid off, Dusk Shine, as when you were once a mere plaything, you're not the perfect fit for my most precious possession..."

The evil queen closed the gap between the two of them, her plump lips pressing against his. She was cold to the touch, like the cool night air, and it sent an intoxicating rush throughout Dusk's body, from head to toe. Her kiss deepened, her enormous, powerful tongue sliding into Dusk's maw regardless of his protests.

She touched his chest, strong fingers working his nubile, toned torso, adoring his body with gentle and loving caresses. She giggled quietly as she forced the stallion to swallow her tongue. He could go nowhere, do nothing, and stood no chance against the evil queen, and they both knew it. The arrogance continued to ooze from her body, even as she broke away from him. Her enormous tongue dripped into onto Dusk's open maw, over a foot of powerful, glowing-blue oral muscle pouring heat onto her newest toy.

Dusk panted quietly, an infection of lust coursing through his veins and clouding his judgement. His cock, heavy and oversized, throbbed between his legs. Erect and strong enough to stand up unsupported, it slapped against Nightmare's armoured back, throbbing with each beat of Dusk's powerful heart.

She giggled once again, a sound so innocent perverted by her callous evil, as she sat up straight on his stomach. With a roll of her shoulders, her own clothing disappeared. A rain of sparks and stardust gave way to her body and... Dusk couldn't avert his eyes.

He'd never seen nor imagined Nightmare Moon without her armour, but he'd had expectations. Scars, bones, boils, blights, slights, and all other manner of visually disgusting things. He expected her to be a rotten, barely-held together monster, possessing a physique and appearance as vicious and disgusting as her personality. But he was oh-so wrong...

Underneath the cold steel and tanned leather, underneath the armour of a tyrannical dictator... was beauty the likes of which he'd never seen before. This wasn't Luna, he knew for a fact it wasn't. The real Lunar Monarch sat peacefully in her home castle, serving and protecting her people, and yet... the body was shared. Of course, Nightmare was larger and darker, but... every curve, every muscle, every inch of Luna's beautiful, goddess-like body was on full-display under the light of the tyrant's glowing mane.

She was beauty beyond measure and with no competition. Neither Luna, nor Cadance, nor Celestia held a candle to the form before him, the sight alone spawning a hunger within Dusk the likes of which he'd never experienced. Her enormous breasts, her wide birthing hips, her enormous ass, her toned and shaped physique. Everything about her was impossible to compare and impossible to look away from.

A smirk, dark and evil, crossed across Nightmare's beautiful maw, her hands running up through her mane and splaying it out. The sea of stars splashed wider around her, the lights contained within swirling and mixing like gems in a whirlpool's powerful current. She cocked her head, pursing her plump lips as she looked down on him. His maw was agape, open wide and eager for her attention, and so she provided it.

Two fingers were placed into Dusk's mouth, rubbing circles on the flat of his tongue as the beautiful beast stared down at him, ever-focused and unblinking. She spoke in a low, commanding tone, as if preaching an inarguable truth nothing in the world could hope to counter.

"You belong to me, Dusk Shine. All you are, all you were, and all you shall ever be is mine," she spoke to him calmly. "Your body, your soul, and your seed shall be given whenever and wherever I demand it, and you shall not even humour refusing me. Do you understand?"

He wanted to disagree. He wanted to spit in her face, slap her across the mouth, and bolt for the hills. Do and say anything to get away from the filthy creature that dared speak to him as if she had any control in this world, and yet... he couldn't. His mouth would not move to say those denials, his hands were bound to the cold stone, and his legs would not carry him away from her whether they could or not.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Dusk nodded slowly, entranced by her beauty and commanding presence.

"Do you love your Queen?" she asked quietly.

"Of course, Your Majesty," he nodded.

"Will you prove it?" she questioned, turning her nose up at him as she spoke.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he nodded a second time.

"How?" came the third question.

"However you want me to," he responded.

Nightmare Moon tilted her head slightly, lips pursed in thought as she did so. Without another word, she moved herself. Raising her large, enormous body from it's pinning position and instead into a crouch. She positioned her backside over Dusk's face, reaching back and spreading the large, mountainous cheeks of her ass and resting her tight, twitching ring against his muzzle.

"Go ahead, Dusk Shine," she ordered. "Love me."

Without hesitation, he did as ordered. His tongue snaked from between his lips, wet and eager, dragging across her tight asshole and spreading thick, hot spit over her. The Monarch bit her lip, swallowing down a moan as Dusk's oral muscle worked on her. She rolled her shoulders as he did so, unknotting her muscle and allowing herself to relax. She pressed more of her weight down onto him, leaning back and allowing her cheeks to almost swallow his head.

Her unrivalled rear was heaven for her newest acquisition, thick, dense, and black as the night sky. Another sigh escaped her lungs as she felt Dusk's tongue run across her hole for the second time. The lick was harder, more desperate than before. He was drooling something vicious, that much she could tell from the thickness and the sheer amount of saliva he lovingly coated her hole with.

Her fingers dug into the stone beside the two of them, nails as sharp as swords and as tough as steel digging into the stone with a crack. Dusk picked up the pace with his adoration, lap after lap of his wet tongue against Nightmare Moon's twitching asshole driving the lust higher and higher in both of them. Her eyes drifted downwards, staring at the enormous, throbbing cock that refused to remain still against Dusk's stomach.

The size of it was almost obscene. A enormous purple pillar easily the size of a foreleg, eighteen inches long and easily ten inches around. It slapped and thumped against his belly time and again, leaking fluid onto his toned, girlish stomach like a broken faucet. His balls were just as impressive, each one easily the size of a large orange and struggling to be contained by his leathery sack. Full and eager to blow, it seemed, and yet no attention was being paid to either of them.

She licked her lips silently, her mind envisioning that colossal cock sliding over her maw, her plump lips going taut around it's throbbing heat, and her neck struggling to house it's ridiculous size. The thought excited her more and more, her lust and desire growing for it second after second until she could stand it no longer. Without a word, she leaned forward, lowering herself down to his crotch and wrapping a hand around the base of his throbbing prick.

"You have loved me, Dusk," she spoke, placing a gentle kiss on the leaking tip of his monster. "And so I shall love you."

With that, she swallowed his length. A spasm so violent it might have been mistaken for a seizure rocked Dusk's body as Nightmare Moon throated his entire length without batting an eyelid. Her maw was as wet and warm, as tight and as clinging as any pussy he'd ever experienced. She suckled around the base, hands rolling and toying with his enormous balls, as she gently bobbed her head. He, whether or instinct or intention, bucked his hips forward ever-so-slightly, eager to fuck her throat like the pussy it felt like.

She swirled her tongue around his length, an oral muscle even as large as hers struggling to keep up with Dusk's unsightly size. She adored it though, as he adored her. The taste, the texture, the heat, the sensation. She hadn't touched cock in a millennia. Even in the years she hid away in the wilds and the darkness, her base urges had been left unsated. Now was the time to rectify that, and rectify it with a shining example of his gender.

Dusk was everything she needed in a partner right now... and she'd turn him into everything he needed as a king. She ran her mouth and her tongue up his quivering shaft, able to feel the tension and the closeness of the stallion's orgasm approaching from the shake in his cock and his in his thighs.

She smirked to herself as best she could around his length, pride and ego swelling up her in enormous chest once more as her skills worked wonders on the quivering little Alicorn. Her efforts doubled, eager to make him pop like a bottle of celebratory champagne. Her own excitement was nothing to scoff at, either. The little princeling was talented with his tongue, having pushed his muscle deep into her caverns and slathered it with hot saliva.

She grinded her back end against his maw, feeling his wet tongue touch her deepest reaches and groaning down his length. The vibration seemed to be a little bit too much for the squirming little Alicorn to handle, as with that and several more long, powerful sucks, Nightmare sent him careening over the edge of an orgasm.

She expected the usual powerful spurt of a stallion's orgasm to paint her maw with seed... and what she got was a volley of cannon fire that hit the roof of her mouth so hard that it knocked her off his tip. Cum exploded from Dusk's throbbing shaft at an almost-unsafe speed, blasting several metres into the air before raining down on the both of them. Jet after jet of his ivory seed continued to fire and slop down on top of the Dark Monarch.

The sound it made when it splashed onto the cold stone was enough to send a shiver of arousal down her spine. Something about it, the thickness, the potency... the smell. It awakened a long-dormant drive inside her, the need to be held down and bred as any mare should and needed to be. She licked her lips as she continued to watch the spray, imagining and desiring that yoghurt-thick ichor pouring into the deepest reaches of her womb and seeding her with the first in a line that would grow until the end of days.

She sat up like a bolt, not just righting her position but getting to her feet. Dusk, coated in sweat and panting like a marathon runner, eyed her in confusion. He seemed almost gone from this plane of existence at that point, his eyes hazed over and dreary, yet a smile full of satisfaction and devotion on his face as his torrential orgasm finally came to an end.

Nightmare's breath caught in her throat as she once again inhaled the musky scent of his thick, titanic load. Licking her lips once more, she snapped her fingers and caused Dusk's bindings to vanish into the ether. He sat up and rubbed his wrists, staring at her with a confused look on his face as she made no moves to restrain him in any other way.

Instead, she simply lowered herself down onto her knees once more and held her arms out to him. The gesture held warmth and love, her fingers curling, encouraging him to come towards her. He, whether through lust-induced madness or beauty-addled stupidity, did as he was told. He got to his feet, wasting his chance to bolt into the hills and far away from this place, and instead ambled over to Nightmare Moon.

She embraced him once more, wrapping her strong arms around his lithe and small frame, before pulling him into yet another wet kiss. Their lips locked, tongues thrashing and wrestling with one another, as their heat and desire mixed and swilled to dangerous levels. The Monarch needed his seed as bad as he needed her touch, a matrimony of silent and unspoken union between them as she took hold of him.

She lowered him back down onto his knees, straddling his waist and pressing his enormous cock against her stomach. He'd ravage her insides, that much she could tell. Even as small as he was, even as much as she towered over him, his cock could touch her cleavage from where he rested, and all that length was to be contained inside her eager womb. A shiver of desire rand down her once more, positioning herself, positioning him at her entrance and gently grinding her wet lips against the throbbing tip of his length.

"Are you ready, my little pony?" she asked, gently stroking his cheek with her thumb, eyes boring deep into his soul.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he nodded weakly.

"Good. Seed your Queen. Satisfy me like no other," she ordered in a firm, commanding voice.

With that, she lowered herself down once more. Inch after inch disappeared inside her, Dusk's mighty girth being a challenge she had to work for at this point. Whether from years of inexperience or from simply not being used, her current body struggled to accommodate him, even as wet and as eager as she was. The stallion fared no better, having to grab hold of her wide birthing hips and force himself into her cove. His medial ring was a fight to even get her lips around, as thick as an iron ring and just as solid.

They locked eyes once more as Luna slammed herself down onto him, her entire weight ploughing into Dusk's fall frame as her enormous, sweat-coated breasts pressed into Dusk's face. If the stallion wasn't already addled and gone by that point, the texture of her tits, the scent of her sweat, would've locked his sense away for eons to come. He lapped at her bust, tasting the salty flavouring her enormous chest held. His mouth worked it's way around them, gently kissing and lapping at her obsidian tits, his mouth eventually finding her nipple while his right hand found her other tit.

"That's it..." Nightmare Moon groaned quietly, finally getting the last of him inside her whilst he fondled her breasts. "Adore me..."

He began to drink from her bountiful breasts, the motherly gift all female Alicorn possessed coming into play. Nightmare had made no plans for this, never expecting her milk to be partaken of by anyone other than the foal she'd bear with Dusk... and yet she felt no need to protest. No need to push him back or make him stop. The eager stallion gulped down her milk, warmed and sugared by her body's magic, perfect for a foal to enjoy. It made her ego swell ever-further, that every part of her body could drive a stallion wild, that she could make them desire all she had to offer.

She used her strong, powerful thighs to ride his cock to the best of her abilities. She felt his length twitch and pulse inside her, his shaft just as eager to fill her up just as she was to be filled. She could already feel the weight of his pre-cum in her womb. Fluid thick and plentiful enough to be confused for a month's worth of orgasms from any other race in Equestria. No creature did size and virility the same way stallions did.

She hugged him closer, a gentle hand at the back of his head as he continued to drink from her bust, milk spilling down his chin in his eagerness to gorge himself on her perfection. She could hear it above all else, the desperate gulping, like a man dying of thirst who'd finally found an oasis. It again boosted her ego, her view of her perfection. Her love adored her, and she adored his devotion to her.

She felt her own orgasm approaching rather quickly. Either her lastability had withered in her years away from her body or her excitement had her coils wound tighter than ever, but she'd cum in a handful of moments from Dusk's god-like length. She gritted her teeth, picking up the pace of her riding. She needed the same kind of force she'd seen before. She needed to wind him up as much as possible so that divine virility could bless her desperate womb with a load that could drown the two of them.

Dusk picked up on the message, his hands moving from her breasts and back to her hips, squeezing down tight on them and using her wide frame for leverage. His balls slapped against the underside of her sweat-and-spit-soaked ass at this point, the sound echoing through the cold and dead air of the library they rutted in. The stallion tackled her to the floor, a plume of anger flaring up inside the tyrant that was soon quelled by the pleasure before she could even protest.

Dusk went hard on her at this point. Harder than she'd ever taken it, harder than she'd ever seen a stallion go, and harder than she thought possible. Her stomach bulged several inches out in front of her, his titanic prick strong enough to overpower her taut muscles and leave a visible impression on her gut. She bit down on her bottom lip, hands running through her star-pool mane as she began to moan.

Gone was the imperial control, the restrained demeanour, and the royal presence. Here was a mare, lost in and devoured in her own lust, begging and pleading to the high heavens to be bred. Her cries echoed off the walls, screams and shouts, promising land, titles, slaves, and whatever else Dusk could ever desire so long as he bred her harder than anything she could even imagine.

Every jet, every drop, and every single sperm cell was to be pumped into her pleading womb or else she'd never feel whole again. She wanted the stallion to give her an orgasm she'd never forget, and he made sure not to disappoint in any way whatsoever. When the time came and Dusk could hold back the flood no longer, he fired into her. The first jet, the first spray of his virile cum, was three times more than most creatures could ejaculate in their entire lives.

Gallons sprayed into Nightmare's cunt, flooding her womb and ballooning her belly in a single spurt. A single spurt of many that would create a flood so large it risked damaging the library. She remained pinned to the floor, her hyper-virile stallion locked into place as his cock twitched and his balls heaved, an impossible amount of cum blasting into her deepest reaches and ballooning her out even further.

She thanked her Alicorn physique for being not just able to survive this, but to enjoy it as well. She was revelling in the weight, the feeling, and the stretching his cum was forcing onto her. Her belly grew larger and larger, bigger than it would at her latest stage of pregnancy. Bigger than twins, triplets, and any number she could fit inside her. More cum poured into her, the orgasm stretching by from seconds to minutes of euphoric bliss as she came again and again. Her cunt clamped down on his cock over and over, spurting lady love all over her miniscule stallion's girlish frame.

She lost track of time as she continued to grow, unsure of whether minutes, hours, or months had passed since Dusk has reached his peak. She felt bloated, heavy, and satisfied by the time he finally tore himself out of her, cum gushing out of her ravaged cunt like a ruptured dam. She remained where she was, pouring more and more of Dusk's ichor out of her as her impossibly-large stomach continued to deflate.

Soon it coated the floor, easily up to the ankles of either of them. It would sink into the stone and wood, forever staining this place with the stench of debaucherous breeding, the likes of which no mortal creatures could achieve. Dusk then collapsed onto his immortal lover, both of them barely clinging to consciousness as their exhausted, sweat-soaked, and heavy bodies weakly crawled into a more comfortable position.

They locked together, eyes focused on nothing in the room other than the beautiful creature directly in front of them. They kissed once more, seeded and sated, destined to be husband and wife, mother and father, ruler and whatever else the world willed them to be. The connection was set in stone, both too addled to think straight or to protest against it, but they knew.

They were bonded from then on and forever more, until the end of days drove them apart. What came after sunrise, they could not say... but as of then and there, all they knew was each other's warmth and each other's embrace. And they were content to stay that way until they had no other choice.