The Long And Short Of It

Nocturnal Pike was on her fifth game now. After the first, the three of them had decided to make a drinking game out of it: every time somepony pulled out a block successfully, the other two would drink. If one of them knocked the tower over though, they had to open and chug an entire bottle. As it stood, Anon was on his tenth bottle and Pike was on her eighth.

All the while, Cut was only on her fourth.

“This, hic, has GOT to get her!” cried Anon.

Pike was inclined to agree. Thanks to a coordinated effort by the two of them, all of the rows within Cut’s reach had been reduced to one block. There was no way she was getting out of this one!

“Yeah, I’d like to see you get out of this one, Paste!” Pike declared, grinning triumphantly.

Cut paid no heed to her taunts though, instead studying the tower in a way that eerily reminded Pike of how she’d look at a crime scene. “Hmmmmmmm.”

Pike heard Anon start lightly stomping his hooves, as he started chanting, “Knock it down! Knock it down!”

Pike didn’t bother vocalizing it, but she was thinking the exact same thing.

Cut said nothing, instead continuing to inspect the tower. “Hmmmmmmm.”

‘Oh come on, what is she doing?’

‘She must be stuck! There’s no way out for her!’

And yet she continued going up and down the rows, repeatedly tapping blocks—

That’s when Pike noticed something. The block on the fifth row, it made a different sound when Cut hit it! She clearly noticed it too, as a massive grin appeared on her face. Then, with precision that would rival the best work of Pike’s finest guardsmares, she tapped the single block that made up the entirety of the fifth row, perfectly knocking it out. As expected, the whole tower above that row began falling, and Anon let out a cheer—a cheer that died when the whole stack landed on the fourth row, still perfectly upright, without so much as a wobble.

Both of their jaws hit the floor.

Anon looked like he wanted to scream. “HOW!?”

Cut, smug as a changeling in a rug, simply hoofed Pike the block. “Put this on the top, please.”

Pike and Anon couldn’t take it anymore. They’d been playing all night now and Cut had won every game!

Every single game!

Chugging the rest of her beer as Pike stared at the remains of the fallen tower, she just didn’t know what went wrong. Honestly, the three of them should have stopped after the eighth game, but both she and Anon had been too proud to quit without winning at least once. However, considering he could barely lift his head off the couch, the two of them probably needed to accept defeat.

“A-a-again!” he slurred from the couch, “B-best seventeen out of uhhh, thirty-three!”

Standing on rather unsteady legs herself, Pike called to him. “Nah, it’s getting pretty late, big guy. We might just have to take this loss.”

Pathetically attempting to lift his head, he feebly cried out, “Neveeeerrrr!”

...Before he promptly fell off the couch. “Waaaaahg!”

Springing into action, Pike leapt across the room to catch him—only to overshoot it and have him land snoot first on top of her.

“AAARG!”
“AAARG!”

Thankfully Anon’s horn had missed Pike entirely, but Cut was instantly by their side nonetheless. “Oh sweet Celestia are the two of you okay?”

‘Oh Luna, I’ve loved having a giant coltfriend every day but this one.’

Not only did his crash landing knock the wind out of her, but now Pike was being smooshed—and not in a sexy way!

“Cut... help...” Thankfully the earth pony heard her, and helped pull Anon up, and more importantly off of, Pike. “Th-thanks...”

Visibly straining herself, Cut braced against Anon, holding him upright. ”Hrrrrng, N-no problem! L-let’s get the two of you into bed.”

At the sound of ‘bed,’ a bit of awareness returned to Anon’s eyes. “Bed... Oh right! Cut, you—you shouldn’t walk home. Too cold, too dark. Sp-spend the night here. We’ve got... Pike, do we got a spare bed?”

Having regained some of her breath, Pike started to drag herself up. “It’s okay. She can, hic, sleep with us.”

Anon was, understandably, shocked by this. “She can!?”

“I can!?” Apparently, so was Cut.

Pike just smiled. Once she had pulled herself to a standing position, the three of them started making their way to the bedroom at a snail’s pace. “Of course! D-didn’t you have platonic cuddle piles back in Amareica?”

Anon got a misty look in his eye, clearly imagining how great a cuddle pile would be. ”No... It does sound nice though...”

Pike, meanwhile, side eyed Cut, hoping her gaze would cut through the haze of intoxication and remind her of the plan. Which, combined with the alcohol pulling her out of her shell, managed to do exactly that. “O-oh right! Yeah, Anon, you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced an E-equestrian perfectly platonic cuddle pile!”

Pike could tell he knew something was up but, like the cuddle slut she always knew he was, he gave in. “Hmmmmm, okay. But... but! You two get to fight over who gets to be the little spoon. Cuz I call middle spoon.”

Well that was an easy one! Pike would of cou—

“D-don’t worry Pike, I’ll take this one for the team.”

‘O-oh, right.’

Being the little spoon was ‘unmarely,’ and she wouldn’t want to look unmarely in front of her beta to-be. So with a smile on her face that she absolutely did not feel, Pike turned to Cut.

“Thanks.”

The morning after we left our gang...

Something was strange.

As Cut N. Paste was slowly pulled out of the sweet embrace of sleep, she felt a presence on her snout. What could it be though? She usually didn’t sleep with anything in her bed.

‘Wait... this isn’t my bed.’

As the early morning fog lifted, she remembered where she was. And as she took in a breath through her nose, she knew exactly where she was.

Cut’s eyes shot open in alarm, visually confirming exactly what she’d feared:

In her sleep, she’d shoved her face right into Anon’s balls.

Completely alarmed, a cry escaped her throat before she could stop herself. “aaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

‘Oh Celestia why did I scream!? Now he’s gonna wake up and see that I’m practically motorboating his balls!’

‘Oh no, oh no! He’s never going to want to get in bed with me again!’

Desperate to put some distance between his balls and her face, Cut attempted to throw herself out of bed—only to find herself unable to. Something was holding her in place!

‘Oh no no no no no!’

Looking over her shoulder, she saw something that made her heart stop. Anon was sleep casting! His weird, telekinetic paw things had her pressed up against him!

“Wha? Cut? Are... are you okay?” he mumbled.

‘Oh Celestia he’s coming to! I’ve got to do something!’

Cut strained in his grip. Anon was just a stallion; an earth pony mare like her should be stronger than his sleep telekinesis! But even as she redoubled her efforts, she soon found that this was not the case.

‘Oh no he’s about to open his eyes! PleasePleasePleasePlease—’

While Cut was struggling with all her might to get off the bed, something happened that she’d forgotten to anticipate: as Anon woke up and regained full control of his magic, the telekinesis winked out. Which, of course, resulted in the earth pony launching herself off the side of the bed.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

With a hard thud, Cut landed flank first, the rest of her following quickly behind. As the mare fell in a crumpled heap, she couldn’t help but feel thankful that Pike was so short. If she wasn’t, the bed would probably be much further off the ground, and that would’ve hurt a lot more.

“Oooooooooooooh.” Lying there on her back and moaning in pain, Cut silently prayed she at least hadn’t been caught unintentionally sniffing Anon’s balls. Which, considering he hadn’t started cussing her out like any other colt would, she had to assume she’d gotten away with it.

’Thank bucking goodness.’

If she’d destroyed her one relationship with a colt over something so stupid, she never would’ve forgiven herself. After lying there in pain for a bit, both Anon’s and Pike’s tired and visibly hung-over faces peeked over the side of the bed at her.

Pike, clearly the more sober of the two, spoke first. ”Cut, I heard you fall. Are you alright?”

Cut simply moaned back in response.

Pike frowned in sympathy. “She must have been drunker than I thought.”

Anon chuckled. “Hehe, I’ll say, she’s even wearing one of my bras.”

Panic flooded Cut’s veins.

She only then realized that, lying on her back like this, they had a perfect view of something she never wanted them to see:

Her teats.

Anon seemed a little confused. “I don’t remember having a tan one, though.”

Without wasting another second Cut flipped herself over and stood up, hiding the bra from their sight. “Haha, yeah, last night was crazy!”

While Anon seemed content to believe that, Pike was giving her a look that, combined with all the milk jokes she’d made yesterday, made Cut very afraid. “Go back to bed, hun. I’ll have some aspirin on the table when you wake up.”

He didn’t even respond, instead letting his face drop back onto the bed before starting to snore.

After watching him sleep for a moment, Pike turned to Cut. “Go on and get yourself some O.J., I’ll freshen up and be out to talk to you in a bit.”

Cut N. Paste had done just that.

She was sitting at the table, hunched over and staring into a cup of orange juice she hadn’t even considered drinking from. After all, how could she enjoy juice at a time like this!? Pike knew! Anon may have been too hungover to realize it, but she wasn’t!

‘Oooooh now she’s going to come out here, and tell me I’m a freak and—’

“I’d say that went well, wouldn’t you?”

Pike’s voice startled Cut upright, causing her to reflexively slam one of her hooves on the underside of the table. Next thing she knew, the glass had gone flying and she was covered head to hoof in orange juice. She didn’t even have the heart to cry out; Cut just hung her head while her face burned with shame.

“Oh, don’t be such a colt,” Pike said as a towel landed on the earth pony’s head. “Here, just dry yourself off.”

She couldn’t bring herself to do that though, and she simply let it fall into her lap.

Her mood was way too crushed to even bother.

‘Sweet Celestia, first Pike sees my teats and now this? Might as well just give up.’

Pike, meanwhile, took a seat across from Cut with her own cup, a pensive look on her face. “Okay Cut, I was planning on waiting to talk to you about this, but it’s clearly freaking you out so let me be upfront with you. I’ve known about your teats this whole time.”

Cut jerked upright at Pike’s statement.

‘What? But... but how?’

‘That doesn’t make any sense! '

‘If she knew I was an ugly bitch why am I even here?’

“Your sister told me about them after the night we first met.”

‘CLOAK? What the BUCK, CLOAK!? How could she!?’

Cut struggled to stop herself from hyperventilating. There must’ve been a reason—Cloak wouldn’t just betray her like that!

“S-she did?”

Pike nodded. “Yeah, she wanted me to understand where you were coming from that night. And it worked.”

‘Oh.’ It sounded like Cut owed her a thank you. Cloak was always better at reading ponies than she was...

She swallowed. “So what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

Cut started tapping her forehooves together nervously. Anon clearly didn’t know or else he’d have undoubtedly commented on it himself. Which meant the next step was obvious, but she almost couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. “...A-are you going to tell Anon?”

“No, no, I’ll leave that to you. You can do it when you’re ready.”

‘Really?’

Letting out the breath she was holding, Cut’s posture relaxed.

‘What a relief.’

“I’m guessing he never told you his actual opinions on big teats?”

Pike’s question threw her for a loop. After all, why would he? Every stallion in Equestria—

Suddenly it hit her. This whole time she’d been thinking of Anon like he was from Equestria.

Anon was not from Equestria.

Cut’s breath hitched, and her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. This was a possibility she’d never even considered! She was feeling something, something she’d never felt before. It was as warm as it was unfamiliar.

‘Hope?’

“W-what’s his opinion on big teats?” she asked breathlessly.

Pike took on a sly grin. “I’ll let you find out for yourself, but let’s just say he has alien tastes.”

Cut didn’t even know what came over her at that point. She’d started panting, and she could feel her heart hammering in her chest. Everything Pike told her led Cut to one inescapable conclusion:

He liked teats.

“I’m telling him right now.” Standing up so fast that her chair was blasted across the room, Cut made ready to sprint to the bedroom...

...Only for Pike to throw herself in front of the earth pony. “Nonono, don’t tell him now! He’s drowsy and hungover, save it for a better moment.”

‘Oh yeah, that makes sense.’

A hungover Anon wouldn’t be able to... appreciate them in his current state.

‘Celestia, the very idea that somepony would appreciate my teats…’

“When should I, then?”

Pike shrugged. “I’m sure the opportunity will come our way soon.”

Cut nodded vigorously. But as she did, that voice inside her head was as quick on the draw as ever. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no way a stallion could ever be interested in those. Pike’s just messing with you, you gullible idiot.’

For once though, Cut ignored that voice. As unbelievable as it seemed that Anon, the gamer colt of her dreams, liked big teats, no pony could ever be so cruel as to play with her hopes like that.

She hoped.

She prayed.

Besides, Pike had a certain look on her face—the same kind of look Cut’s sister had whenever she said something that really brightened up her day.

The look an alpha has when they help out a beta like her.

Cut smiled a bright, if shy smile. “Thanks, Pike, f-for all of this. I-I know I’m probably not your first pick for a herd sister but—”

“Ah-ah-ah! Don’t sell yourself short! Anon thinks the world of you, and my discerning eye can see your potential.”

Despite her desire to not embarrass herself, Cut audibly gasped. “Y-you really think so?”

Pike looked genuinely surprised she asked. “Of course! I already know there’s fire in you, we just need to work on bringing it out.”

‘Wow!’

She’d never had a mare outside of her family tell her that before! If Pike was serious about helping her, and about Anon’s preferences... This could easily be the best thing that had ever happened to her. Cut was NOT bucking this up; she was getting into this herd!

Pike, seemingly reading her mind, immediately shifted gears. “Speaking of working on things, like I said last night went well. But, we should keep up the pressure! Here’s what we’re gonna do...”