Joanamac headed out to do her work, but she had company. Fancy trailed after her, unasked for. "You should have told me. I've been speaking with... your other half. They didn't mention this."

Big Mac flicked her ears back. "Sorry. We're different ponies, remember? Not tryin' to think too much 'bout the other. Love 'em, no doubt, but they got their life and ah got mine."

"Certainly... Certainly." Fancy kept at her side as she worked, watching her and her trees, perhaps more trees than Joanamac would have wanted. "Pardon my asking..."

Joanamac quirked up an ear. "This is about mah change, ain't it?"

"Well... yes..." Fancy sat on his haunches. "If it doesn't offend?"

If she said yes, she felt sure Fancy would drop it. He was proper like that... But she didn't want to shut him down, not like that... "Ah'm a lady. Ah got that, uh... one part..."

"I see, but not the... other part... Does that mean you're... functional, or not?" He tapped his forehooves together in nervous fretting. "Please don't take offense."

From what she had been told, she'd pieced together that 'other part' was part of how a stallion gathered the magic they needed to light a fire in a mare. She didn't have those. She was sterile. In theory, they had mentioned a temporary spell could be cast to fix that on a temporary basis? "Ah'm 'functional', um... but ain't no foals comin' 'less ah get help." She turned to Fancy. "Don't 'magine that affects you any."

"Certainly not." Fancy rubbed his darkened cheeks. "I am a stallion, and happy that way. Only magic most unnatural could cause me to have worries of that nature." He coughed into a hoof softly. "But a stallion can still enjoy things... the act, if you will... No foals will result." He cycled his hooves in the air. "Nothing preventing you from partaking, in theory, I gather? Perhaps?"

Completely distracted from her tree-tending duties, Joanamac came to a halt. "Uh..." She turned to Fancy slowly. "Ah still... never tried that... Ah don't... rightly know?" She rubbed at her cheek with the flat of a hoof. "Um... should be able ta? Got all... the parts?" She began to color softly. "But ah'm a mare! Why ya worried 'bout how ah would do stallion things?"

Fancy squirmed in place, words driven clear of him for a time. Joanamac hiked a brow at the quiet stallion. "Go on... Ah'm listenin'."

"You see..." He stood up slowly. "I like them... large. Big is another fine word." He waved over Joanamac's form. "Which you happen to be."

Joanamac's recovered face dipped rapidly into red. "Nope!" she barked with the skill of her old quiet days. "Um, sorry... Sorry... This is... Ya got Orchard Blossom. Ain't she enough?"

Fancy lowered his ears, looking properly ashamed. "I mean no disloyalty to Orchard Blossom. I was given to beleive that we, Ochard Blossom and you. Me and Sugar Belle, were in an open relationship, at least among us four. If you are not interested, consider it a resolved matter. I have no interest in pressing where I am not welcome, ma'am."

"Good..." She went back to walking down the row of apple trees, casting careful eyes over each one at a time. "Look. It's not that ah don't like ya... Um... I've.... I've..." She huffed, trying to marshall herself with mixed success. "Ah know you're a right gentle stallion... Um, mean that literal-like, not a 'polite' stallion, which ya are too! Um... Ah mean when yer with Orchard Blossom, ya always..." Joanamac went quiet, tending the trees that were so much less complicated.

Fancy followed sedately at a small distance, giving her space to think. "Am I making things... unpleasant? Perhaps I should go."

"No!" She whirled on him. "Don't be... Look, it's not that." She awkwardly squirmed a moment. "Yer not wrong. We did say that. So yer not cheatin'. Yer not doin' nothin' wrong. But ah'm a mare!" She huffed at Fancy. "An' ah want to be one. Which means ah don't wanna be thinkin' hard 'bout not mare things. Get it?"

Fancy nodded slowly. "I... understand, but... Please, forgive my questions... But was that... intentional?" He inclined his head at Joanamac's back end. "Or was that an accident?"

Joanamac sighed gently. "Weren't no accident..." She came closer to Fancy. "It was Sugar Belle's idea... She wanted to be able to... She wanted the world outta me, an' ah didn't turn her down. So she got a marefriend that can... do it all fer her. She's puttin' up with a lot out of me... Um... felt like a fair trade."

"I see..." Fancy nodded slowly, considering the idea. "But what of you? Are you happy? It is your body, in the end. The, uh... idea was to make you happier in it, was it not?"

Joanamac colored, but it was a gentle hue, not an angry thing. "Look..." She sighed gently. "Ah feel awkward sayin' it, but yes. Yes, ah'm... happy with it. Ah'm happy with what ah can do with it... Ah'm happy to be a mare." She stomped a hoof suddenly, the ground shaking with the force. "An' those two things are powerful awkward together. Am ah a mare or not? What kinda mare thinks these things?"

Fancy reached for her shoulder, resting a hoof on it. "This kind of mare." He smiled gently. "The kind that loves her girlfriend enough to do that. You. It isn't about what a 'mare' thinks. It's about what you think. Don't misunderstand me, I understand full well the pressures of societal expectations." He brought the hoof back to cough into it. "Dreadful thing, at times."

Joana inclined her head. Fancy, speaking poorly of social norms? "Ya alright?"

Fancy stood up stiff and tall. "Ma'am. Being proper, at times, is a matter purely of appearance." He rubbed his cheek slowly. "Even discussing what I've already discussed is not 'proper', but I feel confident our words will remain between us. We are still proper ponies for having this discussion, provided it remains our conversaion alone."

Joanamac nodded slowly. "Ah... sure... Yeah. Ah won't tell nopony, promise. Um... 'cept Sugar Belle. She may hear."

Fancy chuckled softly at that. "I accept that possibility. It would be quite improper to insist you hold a secret from your partner. This is hardly a matter of national security. Now..." He began to circle Joanamac. "Before me I see a wondrous example of a mare. She's large in all the ways I would fancy. All the ways I might fancy... She is a mare, there can be no doubt. But she has extra, and that extra is a perk, not a defect, ma'am."

Joanamac felt a stirring. She was responding to his praise, physically. She colored as she felt a mixture of male and female things happening as her body agreed with the praise the stallion was heaping on her. It didn't help that she happened to think he was a handsome stallion she already liked. Shoot, another slice of her was already involved with him! "One thing."

He perked his ears at her sudden demand. "Yes? You have but to speak it, m'lady."

Big Mac shook her back end lightly. "Ah'm a mare... Um, if we... do anythin'... Ah'd want to be with you as a mare first. And that'll take some care."

"Some care?" He inclined his head. "I'm afraid you have me at a loss. If you mean being mindful, you know that's how I am already."

"More than that." She threw a hoof towards her rear half. "The boy parts go through the lady parts. Means you'll have to be extra careful if ya wanna... Do things."

One could see Fancy Pants working out the anatomy being described to him. Boy parts, through girl parts? He frowned with the thought, puzzling it through. "You... appear to be whole?"

"When ya look, you'll see." She walked away from him. "If ya got the guts fer it." She went back to minding the trees, one to the next, as if Fancy had never been there to start.

Fancy followed, but words failed him. He kept trying to speak up, but failing. Words were just refusing to get out of his mouth, so he followed her as she did her work, and he didn't get in the way of it.

"All done." Joanamac nodded with satisfaction. "Yer still here?" It wasn't like she was ever not aware of Fancy's presence. "Ya came all the way... right 'ppreciate the thought, but don't ya got other things ta do?"

Fancy stepped closer on timid hooves. "You are worth the time, m'lady. Is all your work of the day completed?"

"All done?" She flickered her tail. "Why ya ask?"

"They have informed me it is improper to ask a lady for this before she finishes her duties." He arrived behind her, where she couldn't see him. An equine's blind spot. Being there meant having the trust of the other pony, or risked a sudden response. A kick, or a bolt. Either could happen, but Fancy didn't seem worried. She knew he was there, which was a good start. "Joanamac."

"Yeah?" She flickered an ear. Was that the first time he said her new name? "What?"

"May I examine you?" She felt his teeth, not on her rump or side, but he caught her tail and gave the softest pull. "Kindly."

"Um..." She flicked that captured tail with limited effect. "We're in the middle of the open, ya frisky stallion!" Dark in the face, she started forward. "Let's get somewhere a bit more private at least..."

"Where ya been?!" Applejack and Apple Bloom were on the road leading into the orchard. The first was glaring at the latter. "Look, ah'm happy yer alright, but you do that 'gain and ah will tan that hide of yers!"

Fancy glanced at the exchange. "Oh my... Well, we shouldn't get in the way of that." He advanced faster than Joanamac, leading towards the barn. "Let's depart."

Soon, they were safely enclosed in the barn and the smell of hay and stored apples. There was some amount of privacy there, enough for Fancy to gently nuzzle along Joanamac's side, working towards her back slowly. "Will you forgive me if I say you are quite the enchanting figure of a mare?"

Joanamac peeked over her shoulder, watching him explore. It was a request, even if he was asking it indirectly. "I would..." She raised her tail, an answer more clear than any amount of other words she could have said. She was welcoming his continued attention. "But do ya mean it?"

"I am not one to speak falsely," he assured with a huff, then another, but the second was over her delicate portal, tickled by the fine whiskers of his snout. "Now, if I may..." But permission was already given, and he didn't really wait, nuzzling into her back end and opening her with care. It wasn't long before he could see the nature of things. "I see."

Joanamac's ears fell. "You, um... ah'll understand if..."

"Don't be hasty." Fancy raised his hooves to either of her rear cheeks. "You are you sized. You are a sizable mare, no offense. Large in all the right ways... While there is an impedement, I am no... sizable stallion..." He coughed softly. "I prefer to imagine it's more in the way it's used... In either event..." He took a moment to cough into a hoof. "There appears to be room enough."

Joanamac's ears danced on her head. "What? Ya..." She never actually stared at him, down there. She'd felt him though. "Ya felt plenty big to me!"

Fancy smiled with that, prideful in that moment. "It's in how it's used," he repeated with confidence. "Madame.... You are a mare. If you allow me, I will treat you exactly as one." He nuzzled the dock of her tail, nudging it higher. "But only if you would wish it."

Author's Note

Fancy's hot to trot, clearly, but does Joanamac want to partake in this dance?

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