The Long And Short Of It

Nocturnal Pike was happily enjoying the fruits of her labors. The two of them may have only woken up about an hour or so ago but, seeing as it's the weekend, she and Anon had decided to pass the time in a time honored winter tradition: lying on the couch and snuggling.

Anon had found himself sandwiched between herself and the couch, while she’d pressed herself as deep into his fuzz as she could go. After he’d become slightly addicted to hay, there was actually a lot of fuzz to snuggle into. She’d be a fool to complain about it though, because she remembered what many mares had forgotten: unicorns are the tribe of the mountains, and mountains get cold. Cold mountains means fuzzy coats, and Anon had fuzzed up with a vengeance.

Letting out a contented ‘hm,’ Pike snuggled further into Anon’s soft, soft grip.

‘Ahhh yes, truly this moment is perfect…’

‘...perfect to spring my trap!’

“So Anon, last night, what did you mean by ‘what is a beta?’”

She smiled evilly as she felt his body against her back go ramrod stiff. Last night he’d gotten away with avoiding the question by pretending to already be asleep by the time she’d gotten home (she’d spotted him when he opened his eyes when he’d thought she wasn’t looking).

But here, now? She had him pinned.

Literally.

Smiling smugly to herself, Pike settled in and waited for an answer.

‘...’

‘Aaaaany time now.’

‘...’

‘Any time.’

‘...’

‘Ok, so that’s how it's going to be.’

Spinning around to face him directly, she gave him an accusatory poke right in the chest. “Come on Anon, you seriously don’t know what a beta is!? How!? I’ve even told you about my family before!”

His eyes briefly searched for a way out, but eventually he let out a resigned sigh, understanding that he needed to confront this. “Ok, this is going to sound kind of mean... but I really thought that was just a thing your family did.”

‘What!?’

“Why would you think that?”

Realizing he’d said something wrong, an increasingly nervous look blossomed on his face. “W-well you always talked about how your family were very ‘orthodox believers of Luna’! So I just figured you were like Mormons!”

Deciding that was enough snuggling—for this was a serious discussion—, Pike fully extracted herself from his forelegs in order to hop off the couch and stand up to her full height, giving him a glare the whole time. A glare that he instantly caught the meaning of.

“Right, you don’t know what a Mormon is. Okay, fact is I never actually expected somepony else to ask to be in our relationship.” He’d spoken with finality, but that raised a whole lot more questions than it offered answers.

Did that mean that in his culture, monogamy was the norm? How!? Did they have some magical cure that evened out the ratio of stallions to mares born?

No, there was a much more plausible answer here.

He was bucking with her.

‘Can’t he play it straight with me for once?’

“You know, Anon, I’m kind of getting sick of this.” She didn’t like the look of worry that showed up on his face, but it at least proved she was getting through to him.

He rapidly sat up, and Pike could hear the quiver in his voice. “Wh-what do you mean hon? Sick of what?”

She sighed, exasperated. “Every time we start talking about your home, it gets to the point where you either stonewall me, or just tell me a bold faced lie.”

“I’m not lying—!”

“Then how is it possible for a pony to come from a culture where herding is unheard of? Did your country somehow solve the gender ratio issue?”

“N-no....”

It was around then Pike realized her voice had unintentionally been steadily getting louder. “Then how the heck could a culture of ponies survive if they’re monogamous!?”

“BECAUSE WE’RE NOT PONIES!”

The two of them sat in mutually stunned silence.

‘...What?’

Anon's mouth hung open in shock. “We- I’m not..."

His breath shuddered. "...Oh God.”

Pike had been caught completely off guard. Sure, she could’ve just assumed he was still lying, but... the look on his face...

Terror. Pure, undiluted terror.

Like he’d just said something that shouldn’t be said at all costs.

As she tried to scrounge up some sort of response, he croaked out a pleading whisper. For the first time she'd ever known him, he wasn't bold or confident; he was timid and afraid.

“P-please don’t leave me.”

He’d started shaking, and tears were flowing freely from his eyes.

It cut right to her heart.

Before he could say another word, she launched herself straight back into his forehooves, which he wrapped around her without a second thought. She’d expected him to start sobbing, but he seemingly wouldn't allow it. He just sat there, holding her tightly with heaving breaths and squeezing her just a little more with every exhale. But, eventually the dam broke, and she could feel a few hot tears fall onto her withers and streak through her coat as he quietly wept.

Eventually, Pike pulled back just enough to look him in his tear streaked eyes, and gave him a reassuring smile. “Why don’t you start at the beginning, Anon?”

Nocturnal Pike had been sitting with Anon on the couch for awhile now, letting the stallion tell her his life story. Not the abridged one he usually gave, but the whole thing.

“...and that's the long and short of it; that’s when we met at the bar,” he concluded.

Sitting there, Pike had to admit it was quite a fantastical tale. At first, she honestly didn’t believe him. However, the longer he talked, the more things started to make sense: his bizarre homeland, his unpony mannerisms, the extremely strange circumstances of his arrival, and that weird story Celestia told; it was all starting to come together.

And, if she gave it some honest thought… was it really that unusual of a thing to happen, compared to the kind of stuff that went down in Equestria every day? Compared to his homeland though, the events of his life were totally unheard of. They didn’t have demons, or chaos gods. The absolute strangest thing that could happen to one of his people, would seem extremely mundane to a pony.

‘No wonder he was so terrified of telling me.’

If Pike had been sent to his world and turned into a ‘human’, nothing good would have come of telling anypony.

It was a fear that Anon clearly still held. Despite how many times she’d stepped in to reassure him that she wouldn’t leave him and that she believed him, he was still the picture of anxiety. He kept shooting furtive glances her way, and his posture was strangely hunched, almost as if he wanted to curl up into a ball. Another remnant of his past life, she supposed. Hoping to assuage that at least a bit, she rested a hoof on his shoulder to comfort the stallion as best she could.

“Anon, you should have just told me.”

He sighed sadly. “I know, I know. I was just so scared. What if it drove you away? What if you got mad that I waited so long to tell you? What if you just thought I was insane?” His eyes fell to the floor. “T-there’s so many things that could have gone wrong, I-I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

One might wonder why he was so forthcoming about this information if he’d been so terrified of the truth coming out, but in hindsight the answer was obvious. “But despite that, you didn’t want to live a lie. So you always told me just enough of the truth.”

He solemnly nodded his head. “Yeah. I wanted you to know about my real family and my real culture, but not to know I was a freak, you know?”

She wordlessly wrapped him in another hug. After a little while he let out another, shuddering breath that sent shivers through his whole body.

Pike held him closer. “You’re not a freak Anon, you're perfect.”

He only responded by holding her tighter, but she knew what he meant.

After letting him rest his chin on her head for a few minutes, Pike pulled away. “Alright, enough moping around. Today’s an important day! Let’s go out, and get some ingredients for our big celebratory dinner tonight.”

Anon looks confused at her statement, and he was visibly trying to puzzle out what day it was. “W-why is today important again?”

She grinned. “It’s the day you admitted to your fillyfriend you’re actually an alien! If that isn’t a big relationship milestone, I don’t know what is.”

With that little joke, Pike finally broke through his somber mood, and he let out a little laugh that warmed her heart. “Yeah, hehe I guess so. I love you, Pike.”

“I love you too, Anon.”

The day passed by quickly after that, as the two of them found comfort in each other’s company. Thankfully, by the time Pike and Anon had returned from their errands, Anon had almost entirely returned to his normal, jovial self.
He was practically bouncing around the kitchen while the two of them did food prep. All the while, the excited stallion kept telling one story after another as he recalled new things to share about his home. They’d apparently even gone to their moon!

‘Mare, I’d sure like to go to the moon…’

‘...and then to the sun so I can beat the crap out of it!’

“Ingredients: chopped!” called Anon.

Turning away from her dough, Nocturnal Pike saw that it was as he said. “Great! Get those blended and we’ll be on our way to some marinara sauce!”

The meal the two of them had settled on was a stuffed crust pizza—homemade, this time. Anon was busy making the sauce, and she was busy kneading the dough. If the recipe book she’d read was right, she needed to get the consistency to about—

Ding Dong!

‘Huh, the doorbell?’

Pike wasn't expecting visitors today. However, Anon apparently was, because his face lit up like a Hearthswarming tree. “Oooh! That must be Silken with my package! Perfect timing!”

Happily trotting over to the door, he opened it to reveal that very mare: Silken Evening. “Got what you asked for, Anon.”

Greedly grabbing the box off Silken’s back, Anon’s smile grew tremendously. “You’re a real pal Silk, catch you tomorrow!”

She just gave him a cheeky smile and nodded. “See you then, Anon. Don’t wear ‘em out too quick!”

He just nodded in turn and shut the door, leaving Pike to wonder that the heck Silken had just dropped off. Anon’s statement made it sound like whatever it was would be useful for cooking dinner, but Silken ran a lingerie shop!

Turning her attention from the dough, Pike watched him open the box with rapt attention.

After a few moments, he hoisted the contents into the air. “Ta dah!”

A pair of aprons with matching patterns!

And one was even her size!

And it was.... baby blue?

Looking at Anon’s much larger, pinker apron, it occurred to her exactly what the aprons actually were. Something Anon had clearly missed.

“Check it out, eh? Now we can cook in style!”

‘Aw that’s so sweet of him!’

Not sweet enough to keep Pike from laughing, though.

“Ahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!”

As the mare laughed, the smile slowly fell off Anon’s face. “What’s so funny?”

Forcing her giggles down, she pointed to the smaller apron. “Anon, that’s supposed to be the stallion’s apron.”

He did a double take, looking between himself and the apron. “Huh? But it's so small! It would hardly even fit on a regularly sized stallion.”

Giggles threatening to burst out again, she continued as quickly as she could. “And what kind of shop does Silken run?”

”A sex sh— ooooooooh.” As he looked over to the apron, she saw the recognition flash in his eyes. “So it’s supposed to look skimpy! Aw, well that’s disappointing.”

Holding it up to himself, PIke could tell right away he wouldn’t be able to put it on at all. “Fuck. Here I thought I was being clever when I saw these in her shop a few days ago,” he cursed to himself.

Curious, Pike grabbed it out of his magic and held it up to herself.

‘Huh.’

Well, on the upside for Anon, he’d at least been able to guess her size perfectly. Shame that wearing it would just be so emareculating thou—

Suddenly, it hit her:

Forming in Pike’s head was a vision of herself in the little apron; it perfectly showed off her flanks. She saw herself hopping around the kitchen cooking Anon dinner, and all the while, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

‘I always did like baby blue…’

She shook her head to dismiss those unmarely thoughts, but the blush remained.

‘I couldn’t do that!’

‘It’d be so embarrassing, so... colty.’

‘Better to have him just return the—’

“Let’s keep 'em!” She suddenly declared… and then cringed internally. ‘W-why’d I have to say that?!’ It wasn’t like she’d enjoy prancing around the apartment in a tight little apron!

He glanced at the aprons. “You sure? I mean, won’t it be kind of weird knowing what these actually are?”

He was right, it would be weird. She needed to just tell him to return them; that was the right thing to do, right? As Pike looked at the apron though, she couldn’t help but think to herself...

’Just once. I’ll wear it just once. For him.’

“I-It’ll be fine.” Unable to stop herself, she immediately slid the apron on. It fit just as well as she thought it would. “It's a perfect fit, after all!”

Putting the other on himself, Anon chuckled. “If you’re sure. We’d better make sure not to wear these around company, though.”

Pike’s face started to heat up at the thought, before she promptly stomped those thoughts back down. “Alright, enough dallying. Let’s get back to work, unless we want to eat dinner at midnight.”

Anonymous felt the pizza turned out really well! Every single part of their dinner had been sublime, which was just what he needed after an unexpectedly stressful day. The two of them were once again lounging on the couch, chatting and drinking wine while some dumb movie played on the tv. The conversation has seemingly inevitably drifted back to last night, and all the bizarre events that happened during poker night.

“So that’s what an ‘apealien’ is! You!” Pike said.

Anon grinned. “Hehe, yep. I guess in my moment of panic that just wrenched itself out of some weird part of my psyche.”

Taking a sip of his mango wine, he couldn’t help but smile at how lucky he was. How many other ponies—nay, people, would be willing to share drinks with a being from across the universe? Not many, he’d reckon!

“Anything happen after that?” he asked.

Pike shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I was hot on your hooves almost as soon as you left. Oh! I did catch sight of Cut throwing up all over the floor though.”

‘Oh no!’

He felt bad for laughing, but he couldn’t help it. “Ohohoho my God, poor Cut! She’s going to be so strung out tomorrow.”

She was already a nervous wreck most days; this would just make her anxiety even worse. “Jeez, I’ll have invite her over to hang out. No reason to let her worry that she, like, destroyed our friendship or something.”

‘What would we do, though?‘

Cut almost certainly wouldn’t want to drink after last night. As he pondered, his eyes were drawn to the XPONI board game sitting on the shelf. It did get better with more players...

“Speaking of Cut,” chimed in Pike, “I never got an answer out of you about herding.”

She hadn’t. This morning, he’d been both thankful and terrified when the topic shifted.

However, just like before, he couldn’t run forever.

“Honestly... I don’t know. I’m tempted to say ‘fuck it’ and try it out, but it runs so contrary to what my view of a family is, I really don’t know if I’d be actually comfortable with it.”

He sighed involuntarily; he knew that wasn’t what Cut would want to hear. Hell, he could tell from the look on Pike’s face it wasn’t even what she wanted to hear—which was so dissonant from his own expectations that it made his skin crawl a little bit. However, he truly thought this was for the best. So speaking with finality, he told Pike how it is.

“So really, I just need to think this through more. What if I rush in half cocked and find out I just can’t handle it? It’d break Cut’s heart to just be shoved back in the friend zone.”

Nocturnal Pike, while disappointed, understood Anon’s point. She’d always dreamed of being in a large herd, ever since she was a filly, but she didn’t want to force him into something he wasn’t comfortable with. Honestly, knowing what she did now, she was glad he was even considering it.

Sure, monogamists weren’t exactly super common, but they at least existed in her culture. For Anon, this was a whole new avenue he’d never even considered.

“What about you, Pike? How do you feel about Cut joining us? It sounded like she made quite the fool of herself to you.”

To an average pony, Anon would be right. Pike, however, was taught to believe in Luna the orthodox way. Sure, Cut may have been under the influence, and sure, jealousy may have been a major motivation...

But she, a schlubby earth pony, was still willing to stand up to Pike, a trained member of the guard, all to protect Anon. She even knew who Pike was, and almost certainly knew the thestral could kick her flanks if she’d wanted to.

Cut did it anyway.

A show of grit like that would have earned her at least a chance in any herd back in the old days.

“I’m willing to give her a chance; she was willing to stand up for you, after all.” But just as she said that, her eyes were involuntarily dragged over to her apron, currently hung up on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘We’d better make sure not to wear it around company though,’ Anon’s voice echoed in her head.

Pike had always wanted a big herd... but...

What would other mares say if they saw her wearing that?

What would they say about how she acted around Anon? How she wanted to act?

‘Don’t think about it, don’t think about it.’

‘They- they’d make fun of me wouldn’t they!? Oh Luna, what if Anon decides he wants a real mare then!?’

‘Shut up thoughts! I am a real mare!’

All at once, the same nervousness about herding that afflicted Anon had been transferred to Pike. Maybe it was for the best if they stayed mono for now. While Anon figured out if herding was for him, she could work on confronting these strange feelings.

“Whatever you decide Anon, I’ll respect it.”

He beamed. “Aw, thanks hon. I promise I’ll give it some real thought, for you.”

She supposed that’s all she could ask for.

‘Oh hey, you know what would be perfect for this moment? A toast!’

Raising her glass, Pike said exactly what her heart felt. “Anon, monogamy may be for degenerate crystal ponies, but if I had to be degenerate with anypony, it’d be you.”

Still smiling gratefully, he returned the toast. “Awww, thanks honey—” Just as they touched glasses though, a look of confusion passed over his face. “—I think?”

She leaned in and gave him a smooch, laughing all the way. “You know.”