The Long And Short Of It

'Strut left, right, foreleg cross, inviting glance, quarter-turn and—'

With a loud WHUD, Pike fell face-first onto the floor.

"...Pike?"

When she didn’t respond, Anonymous shrieked as panic set in. "Pike!? Oh shit oh fuck oh shit oh fuck oh shit"

'This is bad. This is really REALLY bad.'

As Anonymous started frantically trotting in place, Silken Evening just un-flattened her ears and rolled her eyes. “Quit your fretting and quiet down colt, she’ll be fine.”

Anon was quite insistently NOT doing that, because Pike had just FUCKING COLLAPSED IN FRONT OF HIM! “What do we do? What do we do?! Do we need to get her to the hospital?? Oh God what if she hit her head when she fell? I don’t know anything about pony head trauma!”

‘Oh God, It’s all my fault.’

He recognized that he’d been pushing Pike toward something, but he didn’t think that something was unconsciousness!

‘I can’t believe I overdid it. What if her little heart gave out!? What if-’

“Hey, HEY! Snap out of it!”

‘Wha- oh!’

At that point, he realized that Silken was trying to get his attention. Turning to look at her, she’d taken on the hard stare of someone taking charge of the situation. “Listen, I need you to help me move her. Let’s get her onto the sales counter and I can check her over.”

‘Yeah, that... that makes sense.’

“On it.”

Without further ado, Anon lifted Pike up in his magic. Silken looked like she was going to protest something, but before she could get the words out, he’d already drifted Pike over and set her down. He thought he could hear Silken mutter, “Strong magic for a colt.” But he’d already tuned her out as he ran over to Pike’s side.

“Wake up wake up wake up!” He would’ve been shaking her if he wasn’t terrified of hurting her.

Silken approached shortly after, and made a show of checking Pike over. “Listen, this happens every once in a while. You were just too lewd for the poor mare to handle.” She reached behind the counter, pulled out a small candy, and immediately popped it in Pike’s mouth. “She’ll come out of it, you just got to give her a little time, and some sugar.”

‘Ok... Ok.’

She’d spoken with the finality of someone who knew what they were talking about, so Anon supposed he’d just have to defer to her judgement.

“So you’re saying this is a normal thing?”

Silken shrugged. “Not normal as in ‘it happens every day’, but every once in a while, yeah.” In a surprising change of pace, she positively beamed. “Always a bit of a treat when it happens though, it's the ultimate symbol of my mastery of the craft. She must look at you, what, thousands of times a day? But my clothes made you look so good that a simple catwalk strut knocked her right off her hooves—literally!”

Anon could feel his face scrunch at that. Sure, she wasn’t obviously wrong, per say… And if this really wasn’t a big deal, then he had to concede that it was fine. But it still kind of struck him as odd.

“Say, want me to ring you up while she’s out? Doubt you’ll be trying anything else on today.”

He waved his hoof to decline. “No, if there’s really nothing to do but wait, I might as well check out the non-sex things that caught my eye.” Like that little apron he spotted in the far corner. He and Pike were scheduled for a cooking class, after all!

Silken shrugged. “Suit yourself. Been a long time since anypony’s taken advantage of the ‘and assorted garments’ section; be my guest.”

‘W-where am I...?’

‘What’s... what’s going on....?’

‘I remember... I remember...’

‘SOCKS!’

Shooting up in place, Nocturnal Pike found herself lying on a sales counter.

No, not a sales counter, the sales counter!

“Oh, you’re up.”

Turning her head to the side, Pike spotted her, that shopkeeper. “Where’s...?”

The shopkeeper, (*Silken Evening*, she recalled) smirked. “Your coltfriend? After I convinced him you were alright, he went to look at my assorted garments.”

Well, that was good news, at least. Pike wasn’t sure if she could take any more socks right then. She sighed wearily. “I don’t suppose I got lucky and no customers came in while I was out?”

Silken shook her head. “Nah, I closed the shop as soon as your coltfriend agreed to let me help. Figured seeing your face would be worth the few lost sales.” At that, the proprietor looked down at Pike, giving her a smile that was borderline predatory. “It totally was.”

The thestral scooted back just a little bit, just to put some distance between them. That was certainly not the answer she was expecting, but she supposed she shouldn’t look a gift whorse in the balls. Knowing her luck with emaresculation, her entire squad would've walked in the door otherwise.

Speaking of emaresculation, Luna above how humiliating! She couldn’t believe she’d passed out like a horny schoolfilly! Oh what would Anon say?

Wait... Anon was there! What did Anon say!?

Trying to keep her embarrassment buried for the sake of her marely pride, and not entirely succeeding, Pike stammered a question. “How, ahem, how did Anon take it?”

Silken let out a tart chuckle at that. “Sweet Celestia, I thought he was going to have a panic attack!”

Pike blinked. “Really?”

“No manure. I’ve never heard a stallion scream louder than when you fell over! For a second I thought I was going to have to deal with two unconscious ponies!”

Pike chuckled to herself, unable to keep a smile off her face. Sure, she felt bad for making him worry, but it was nice to have somepony that cared about her like that.

“For being such a janefilly, you’ve sure got a fretter on your hooves.”

She couldn’t help but laugh again. After all, she was right; for a stallion who took so much pride in his unusual demeanor, he sure could fuss with the best of them.

Deciding that she’d done enough lying around, Pike propped herself up in an attempt to start the process of standing. Only for that process to immediately be halted with a hiss of pain. “Ah! No offense Silken, but isn’t there anything softer you could have laid me out on?” A sales counter wasn’t exactly meant for ponies to lie on after all.

Silken, meanwhile, just gestured to the back of the store. “Yeah, but if I left you to go get it, your colt would have probably dragged you off to the hospital.”

‘Oh Luna that would have been even worse.’

Giving the shopkeep a nod of understanding, Pike turned her attention away from her. If Anon was half as stressed as Silken had claimed, she’d better track him down.

Sitting there and staring at garments to distract himself was only kind-of working. No matter how hard Anon tried to focus on how great the two of them would look prancing about in matching aprons, his mind kept drifting back to Pike’s condition. Even though at this point he knew he really shouldn’t even be worried. After all, the clarity afforded by calming down reminded him of a passage from the very same book that had clued him in to ‘membrane moistening.’ A passage that claimed an aroused mare’s body uses their blood sugar to build up a magical charge that they convert into love magic upon mating. A healthy amount of foreplay would then up their fondness, and in high enough concentrations, even increase fertility!

But too much foreplay and, well…

There go the mare’s blood sugar levels.

‘I’m such an idiot! Why didn't I-’

“Hey Anon.”

Anon was definitely not startled, and he most certainly did not let out an unmanly shout as he whipped around to see:

“Pike! You’re ok!”

“Wha- of course I’m ok! What mare worth her weight in sugar can’t handle a little fainting every now and again?”

Normally, Anon would have commented on how that was the strangest thing he’d ever heard. But he was much too happy that Silken was right to focus on that. So instead, he just sheepishly smiled at his fillyfriend. “I’m glad you’re alright. I-I was pretty freaked out there.”

He rubbed the back of his head, and braced himself to get told off. After all, by his own admission, he’d been the one ‘putting her through the wringer.’ But instead of getting some what-for, all he got was a sad sigh.

“Sorry I passed out on you, and made you worry so much.”

‘Oh no, she’s not taking the fall for this one.’

“No Pike, I’m sorry I pushed you too hard. And don’t you dare say anything else cuz I’m apologizing to you, and that’s that!”

She seemed unconvinced, opening her mouth to argue further. “But I was the one-”

“Ah ah ah, I said that was that!” Turning away from her (and discreetly pulling two aprons off the shelf), he began trotting toward the sales counter.

“No Anon, I should have been able to-”

“I said that was that!”

”You two come back soon! And buy just as much next time you do!”

Anon chuckled and smiled back at Silken, waving goodbye as he stepped out of the store. Today had been a blast (minus the whole Pike blacking-out thing); maybe the three of them should go drinking sometime!

‘Wait... does that mean I made a friend?!’

‘Score!’

Pike spoke up behind him “Alright, no more shopping. We are heading home, and breaking in some of those socks!”

‘Already!?’

Turning his attention over and down to the mare, he immediately told her off. “Pike, no way! These things had you keeled over like, less than thirty minutes ago! We’re waiting at least a day.”

She was having none of that. ”Oh no, buck that! You don’t get to tease me all day and then not let me ride you like a freight train!”

Anon supposed he’d backed himself into a corner there. But to be frank, he was genuinely worried about her. “Okay, okay. But if you pass out again, I don’t care what anyone says, I’m taking you to the hospital. Deal?”

Continuing to keep pace with his trot, Pike’s face scrunched in thought. He’d expected her to answer right away, but she was apparently putting a lot of thought into this. “Hmmmmmm.”

“Oh come on, would it really be that big a deal if I took you to the hospital?”

He immediately received a surprised gasp in response, as if the very question was absurd. “A hospital visit for lewdness induced vertigo? I’d never live it down!”

‘Really? That seems rather extreme.’

Anon snorted. “Well those are my conditions! I’m not risking you getting a blood clot or something. I don’t care what anyone says, fainting multiple times in one day isn’t healthy!”

But it would seem his rant fell on deaf ears, as all that got out of Pike was a groan and an eye roll. “Come on Anon, I thought you were a janefilly!”

“Oh, just say yes, you big baby.”

That got her to stick out her tongue at him! That was new. ”Fine, fine. It’s not like I’m gonna faint again anyway. So let’s hurry it up and get home!”

Pike did, in fact, pass out again. But thankfully (for her), she woke up just as Anon was carrying her down the apartment building’s stairs, and was able, if only just, to talk him out of taking her to the hospital.