Whiteout

Honestly, Pumpkin didn’t get ponies who drank their whiskey neat.

Of course, the ponies who did would claim it made perfect sense. It preserves the taste!, they might crow, probably while tightening their neckties and writing letters to the local newspaper editor about how mares simply weren’t physically strong enough to work construction jobs. Never mind the fact that the taste of whiskey straight from the bottle was mostly just “a ball of fire punching you in the throat,” and a splash of melted ice dulled the alcohol’s burn enough that you could actually tell what flavor was hidden underneath. It wasn’t really about the taste, she had to assume, but rather the feeling—the tough, stiff pain of a real stallion’s drink.

She swirled the ice cubes in her glass, watched them bounce against each other, and then took a slow savoring sip of the amber haze they were suspended within. Delicious, and silky-smooth. Pain, in her opinion, was overrated.

But then again, she usually wasn’t the one looking for it. And she usually preferred to give rather than receive: drinks, treats, and sometimes other things.

She swallowed, then set her glass on the table next to the plushy armchair she’d perched on. Across the room from her, lit by a smattering of candles and a tiny pinprick of an ember burning at the end of an incense stick, a canopied bed stood neatly made between a pair of matching nightstands.

And atop the bed, held spread-eagled by velvet-lined pleather straps, a frighteningly powerful, possibly immortal alicorn lied blindfolded and gently shuddering, breathing slowly and heavily through a flexible rubber ball gag. Over the soft sounds of the mare shifting over the silk sheets, Pumpkin could just barely hear the buzz of the small, smooth crystal she’d left her partner with when she’d gone to fix her drink. With one magical charge, it could last for hours, and it had been going for half of one already, vibrating invisibly inside the struggling mare—not fast enough to let her climax, but certainly enough to overwhelm her in every other way.

Flurry could’ve freed herself any time she wanted to, of course. The “magic-dampening” ring slipped over her horn was just a mundane hunk of metal, and the straps around her legs could be loosened with a simple spell or just by letting them go slack for a bit. But this, as Pumpkin knew so well, was about the feeling: of being trapped, out of control, fully at another pony’s mercy.

And oh, did she so enjoy being merciful.

“You comfy?” Pumpkin called across the room in a syrupy-sweet tone. Her partner for the night said something in return that her gag mangled into a vaguely affirmative grunt. The straps flexed, but stayed in place. No red or yellow sparks from her horn, and no rhythmic taps on the bedsheets. They could continue.

Pumpkin stood, relishing a bit in how tightly her outfit hugged her chest and flanks. She’d shied away from the classic pleather-and-latex dominatrix look when she’d first started doing this—experimenting years ago with a high school sweetheart, who she still kept in touch with in figurative and literal terms. She’d thought it was silly and cliché, and to be fair, it kind of was. But now that she was more experienced, it just gave her that extra zip that made her feel irresistible and her partners feel extraordinary.

Plus, on a selfish level, this crotchless get-up made her ass look fantastic.

Slowly, her hooves clacking audibly across the crystalline floor, Pumpkin approached the bed and, with practiced fluidity, climbed on top of it. Flurry shuddered as she felt the mattress sag under Pumpkin’s weight, the straps quivering like strummed guitar strings as the shorter mare positioned herself directly overtop of her—her right hind hoof centered between the alicorn’s hips, barely an inch away from her brazenly exposed sex, so close Pumpkin could feel the desperate heat radiating from within.

“I can see why my brother likes you,” Pumpkin said softly, stroking her hoof gently along the ridge of Flurry’s jaw. Flurry turned her head towards the contact, mewling behind her gag. “You are a pretty little thing. And so needy too.”

Like most of the things Pumpkin said in situations like this, that was a playful exaggeration of a pretty obvious truth. She’d honestly been expecting a harder sell at Cadance’s impromptu party earlier, even with Pound notably absent. But as it turned out, all it took was a few shared minutes, a lingering lustful glance, and a tiny nip on the tip of Flurry’s ear as she whispered where they could go to continue their conversation. Not that Pumpkin was complaining. Eager partners made her role so much easier to play, and more fun.

“I bet you’re like this all the time,” Pumpkin went on, leaning down so her breath tickled Flurry’s twitching nose. “I bet all the boys and girls back home treat you like royalty.” She shifted closer, whispering in her partner’s ear. “But we know better, don’t we?”

Flurry whimpered and nodded. Pumpkin could tell her eyes were squeezed shut behind her blindfold. She smiled, and shifted her hind hoof, and sighed with satisfaction as Flurry jolted and her juices spread over Pumpkin’s neatly trimmed fetlock.

“Is this what you want, little Princess?” Pumpkin purred. “You want me to make you feel good?”

“Hmmmmmfph…”

“Hmm.” Pumpkin kept her hind hoof perfectly still, bracing it against the mattress so it didn’t move even as Flurry thrusted herself against it. “But what about me? Shouldn’t I get to feel good too?”

“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm!”

“I’m not sure I believe you,” Pumpkin said—and as she moved her hind hoof away, she lit her horn and slipped a tendril of magic inside Flurry, drawing the still-vibrating crystal out of her along with a pitiful moan. She held it aloft between them for a moment, letting Flurry’s intoxicating scent wash over them both, then deactivated it and put it aside.

“You were enjoying yourself up here while I was gone,” she said, suddenly stern. “Even though I told you to wait. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Even if she hadn’t been gagged, Flurry probably couldn’t have answered aloud. Pumpkin knew exactly what she was feeling right now—minute after endless minute of ever-growing, tortuous stimulation, cruelly torn away from her in seconds. So long as she kept up the act, kept her balanced right on a knife’s edge, Pumpkin could do anything to her she wanted.

She lowered herself onto Flurry, brushing her own aching lower lips against Flurry’s sopping-wet ones, hearing her partner and prey’s strangled squeak as each microscopic movement of Pumpkin’s thighs sent shockwaves of pleasure racing through both their bodies. The straps stretched as every muscle in Flurry’s body went rigid. The poor girl was ready to burst.

And she would. Eventually. Once Pumpkin got what she wanted.

“You know what I think?” Pumpkin murmured, grinding a bit harder, chewing on her lip as sparks flitted through her stomach and hips. “I think it’s all an act. I think you’ve been acting so long you’ve forgotten what the truth feels like. And I’m gonna pull it out of you.” She walked her forehooves up Flurry’s chest, until she reached Flurry’s drool-soaked bottom lip and gave it a playful tweak. “One. Inch. At. A time.”

Flurry fell back into the bed, her breath coming in shallow gulps through her nose. Pumpkin slid her hoof down Flurry’s cheek, caressing the strap that held the gag inside her mouth. “But I’m not gonna do it for free,” she added, smirking. “You’re gonna make it worth my while.”

With a flick of her magic, she undid the strap and pulled the gag free of Flurry’s mouth. As the alicorn panted and squirmed, Pumpkin pulled herself up towards the mare’s head, leaving a thin trail of arousal along Flurry’s torso from her pelvis all the way to her sternum. Finally, she reached her destination, and she straddled Flurry’s head as she lowered herself a bit further.

“First things fir–”

She had barely begun speaking when Flurry attacked her, punching the carefully crafted wordplay right out of her mouth.

Pumpkin had been eaten out by more than a few ponies, and she was generally of the opinion that enthusiasm, while certainly appreciated, was a poor substitute for skill. Right now, though, Flurry was an outlier in every sense of the word—slavishly bathing Pumpkin’s pussy in saliva, worshiping every centimeter of rapidly moistening skin, straining against her bonds to dig her muzzle deeper and knead her lips and tongue harder into everything she could reach.

“Hah… e-eager to please,” Pumpkin managed to say after a moment or two. “I like that in a mare. You…”

Flurry found purchase around her clitoris and flicked her tongue rapidly over it, and any thought of finishing her sentence vanished from Pumpkin’s mind. Enthusiastic and skilled—a wonderfully disorienting combo. Not for the first time in her life, Pumpkin regretted not hitting on the Princess at a party sooner.

“That’s it…” Pumpkin sighed, letting herself settle onto Flurry’s muzzle, humping against her mouth as the mare fanatically serviced her. “Just like that… good girl…”

Flurry groaned, and craned her neck, and thrust her tongue as deep into Pumpkin as she could, circling her opening, stretching it wider. Her blindfold had slipped a bit, and looking down at her, Pumpkin could see that her eyes were squeezed shut like someone had squirted soap into them. Or maybe not soap, exactly. She was doing an excellent job so far, enough that her chin and cheeks had gone from dampened to soaked in the space of sixty seconds.

Dropping all pretense, Pumpkin braced her forehooves against the bed’s headboard and clamped her thighs around Flurry’s head, trapping the bound mare’s mouth against her pussy, leaving her just the tiniest gap to suck in air through her nose. Flurry’s tongue was forced flat against her captor’s clit, and she made the most of the opportunity, licking and rubbing and sucking in equal measure on the little nub and on every crease and fold of saturated skin around it. If every mare she’d been with could eat pussy like this, Pumpkin decided, she’d never work another day at the Corner again.

Within minutes, Pumpkin felt her peak approaching, and she let Flurry know with a heavy hump against her nose and an involuntary sigh that became an uncontrolled moan. Flurry redoubled her efforts, sealing her lips around Pumpkin’s pussy, switching from flicks of her tongue to indulgent slaps, coaxing her closer and closer with servile determination.

Pumpkin’s hooves fell to Flurry’s head, and her horn bounced off the headboard, and she grit her teeth and groaned as she rocketed into a climax that left her at a loss for thoughts, let alone words. Her pussy convulsed around Flurry’s outstretched tongue, showering it with fluids that dribbled from the corners of Flurry’s mouth and dripped decadently onto the rumpled bedsheets.

Even as Pumpkin started to come down, Flurry kept going, deluging her in licks and love bites until she very nearly came a second time right on the heels of the first. She only stopped when Pumpkin lifted herself away from her, and only after waggling her tongue against empty air for a moment as the tendons in her neck bulged, desperate for just one more taste of her partner’s satisfaction.

“There… now isn’t that better?” Pumpkin sighed as she backed away from Flurry’s head, placing each trembling hoof carefully so she didn’t step on her as she repositioned. “Doesn’t it feel nice, thinking of someone else before yourself?”

Flurry worked her jaw and ran her tongue over her lips, and only realized after a few seconds that her gag wasn’t going back on. “Yeeees…”

Pumpkin put some bite back into her next words. “Yes what?”

Another moment, and then Flurry remembered what they’d discussed earlier. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered.

“Good girl,” Pumpkin crooned as she lowered herself again onto Flurry, this time straddling her belly. “I think you’ve earned yourself a reward.”

Flurry shuddered between Pumpkin’s hind legs, and let out a quavering sigh as she felt Pumpkin’s magic wrap around one of the straps holding her forelegs. Instead of releasing her right away, though, Pumpkin stopped and hummed to herself.

“On second thought… that was just one lesson,” Pumpkin mused, tugging gently on the strap and twisting Flurry’s body just enough for a muscle or two to uncomfortably stretch. “And the only way to really teach somepony a lesson is…”

Pumpkin looked down, and saw Flurry watching her from underneath her crooked blindfold. She put on an evil smile, took the blindfold in her magic, and cinched it tight around Flurry’s head before continuing.

“Repetition.”

Pumpkin stood and hopped off the bed, taking Flurry’s straps in her magic again once she turned back around to face her. “Don’t get any ideas about running off now,” Pumpkin said, her voice still sweet but tinged with a terrible sharpness. “You do exactly what I tell you, or I’ll be very disappointed. And I don’t think either of us wants that, do we?”

Cheeks reddened and still shining with moisture, Flurry mutely shook her head. Pumpkin nodded, deftly undid the knots on both straps attached to Flurry’s forelegs, then did the same with the ones for her hinds. Flurry collapsed onto the bed, completely limp, shaking with the effort of remaining perfectly still until Pumpkin ordered her to do otherwise.

“Turn over on your belly.”

Flurry complied, though not without a bit of difficulty. Her body didn’t seem to want to obey Pumpkin, even though her mind sorely did. Finally, she got herself turned over like she’d been told, legs gathered underneath her, tail raised instinctively in case Pumpkin wanted access to her dripping-wet cunt.

“Stand up.”

Unsteadily, Flurry raised herself onto her hooves.

“Spread your legs.”

She did. A droplet of arousal beaded at the bottom of her pussy, dangling from her clit, stretching lazily towards the mattress until it detached and splashed down with a faintly detectable plop.

“Stay right there,” Pumpkin whispered, stroking Flurry along the goosebumps on the back of her neck. “I’ll just be a moment.”

Pumpkin already had what she needed ready nearby, and she knew how to efficiently put it in place. First, a pair of manacles—metal on the outside, velvet and feathery stuffing on the inside—to clamp around the alicorn’s forehooves. Then, a metal bar—capped on each end with similarly softened cuffs—to slot between her hind legs, forcing them apart even if she’d wanted to squeeze them closed. Finally, an elastic band with two adjustable loops, one which Pumpkin fastened around the base of Flurry’s tail and another she slipped over the alicorn’s horn. Once tightened to Pumpkin’s satisfaction, it forced Flurry’s chin up and pulled her tail almost all the way over her back, leaving her rear end hopelessly and whorishly exposed.

“There we are,” Pumpkin said once she’d finished. “All dressed up. How’s that feel?”

“F-Fine, ma’am,” Flurry said, though those weren’t the words Pumpkin cared about hearing. What she cared about was Flurry saying, “yellow,” “red,” or “stop”—and she didn’t. Good to go.

“Liar,” Pumpkin crooned, brushing her hoof along Flurry’s barrel towards her thigh. “It feels amazing, doesn’t it? It feels right. To be told what to do, how to feel… treated like the whore you are.”

Flurry’s breath left her in a rush. She bit her lip, blushed an even deeper red, and nodded—her tail hiking up even further as she did.

“Of course it does,” Pumpkin continued. “It’s simple. You can’t mess it up. It feels good… and that’s what’s important. That’s all you should think about, right?”

As Pumpkin silently picked up her next tool of the trade with her magic, she saw Flurry’s pussy wink out of the corner of her eye—swollen with desire, pulsing and gaping for another pony’s touch. But, Pumpkin decided with an unseen scowl, Flurry hadn’t earned that. Not yet, anyway.

“So why do you keep thinking about him?”

Flurry stiffened. Pumpkin paused in place, listened and watched and waited for a signal to stop. Moments dragged into seconds. No signal came. Pumpkin kept going.

“Is it because he talks to you like a pony, instead of a Princess? Is it because when you’re with him, you feel like you might be a good pony? Is it because he knows who you are… or because he doesn’t?”

Flurry didn’t answer. Pumpkin didn’t need her to. She lifted the item she’d picked up before—a perfectly straight cane about the length of her foreleg, wrapped in black pleather and tipped with a tiny flat piece of wood that looked like a miniaturized canoe paddle. She tapped the end of the crop against Flurry’s flank and then dragged it slowly across her mark, swirling it through the soft fuzz overtop.

“What if he saw you like this?” Pumpkin angled the crop a bit, sliding it around the curve of Flurry’s thigh and into the gap between her leg and her groin, teasing closer and closer to her pussy without quite making contact. “Or at a nightclub, drunk and high and suffocating under the weight of your unquenchable ego? What if he found out how much you love all of it, how powerful it makes you feel, how quickly and easily you use other ponies to get what you, and only you, want?”

Flurry twitched as the crop slid across her pubic bone, from one thigh to the other, still not touching her quite where her body wanted. If her mind felt differently about it, she didn’t say so.

“And even if he did see you like this, even if he liked you like this… you wouldn’t want him to, would you? He doesn’t deserve you—a shallow, power-hungry slut, who’d get bored with him eventually, who’d hurt him just like she hurts everypony else who cares about her.”

Pumpkin shifted the crop slightly—prodding Flurry’s labia, pressuring her clit, drawing an utterly pathetic whimper out of her throat. “That’s who you are, isn’t it? Who you’ve always been?”

Flurry’s breath came in halting gasps. Her jaw quivered. She opened her mouth wider, wincing with shameful pleasure.

“Yes…” she squeaked.

Pumpkin set her jaw, glowered, raised the crop…

“Liar,” she growled.

… and brought it down hard.

Flurry shouted, gritting her teeth as her pearly-white bottom began to flush pink and the pain of the blow reverberated through her legs and gut. Her whole body trembled uncontrollably, every muscle clenched, her cheeks and jaw most of all. Pumpkin waited, saying nothing, watching as Flurry’s pussy winked and her thighs strained against the bar spreading them apart—and the moment she saw the alicorn start to relax again, she placed the crop back against her hind, right where she’d struck her before, tensing her up all over again.

“I know exactly who you are,” Pumpkin said, every word laced with venomous displeasure. “I can see right through you. And you know what I see?”

She lifted the crop away—and brought it down, the impact rippling through Flurry’s pillowy, darkening cheeks. Flurry grunted and grimaced, choking back a louder cry with titanic effort.

“I see a mare who’s sensitive.”

She struck Flurry again.

“Romantic.”

And again.

“Even a little introverted.”

And again.

“And most of all, a coward.”

The last blow was the hardest of them all, enough to knock Flurry down onto her chest with a fearful yelp, forelegs bunched awkwardly beneath her, ass raised and shaking and cherry-red. Between her abused cheeks, her cunt clenched and unclenched desperately, drooling and dripping onto the bed beneath her. Pumpkin set the crop aside. It had served its purpose.

“Shallow, power-hungry, spoiled little brat… that isn’t you,” she whispered, softly and sweetly. “It’s the act you put on for ponies who think they know you from a glance and a trashy fantasy. It’s the lie you tell yourself, because the truth might hurt even more.”

Pumpkin climbed onto the bed, positioning herself behind Flurry so she had an unobstructed view of her sopping snatch. She leaned in closer, letting her breath brush against Flurry’s outer lips and the inflamed skin on either side. “And the truth,” she continued, “is that you’re afraid. Of how powerful you could be and aren’t, how ugly you feel no matter how beautiful you look.”

Pumpkin pressed her lips lightly against each darkening blemish that marred Flurry’s rear, kissing away the pain, drawing nearer to Flurry’s labia with every tender peck. “You can’t really be a pony worth loving,” she said between smooches. “Because if you were, he would’ve said so by now. You wouldn’t be here, without him. Without anyone.”

Pumpkin took in a breath, extended her tongue, and dragged it the entire length of Flurry’s quaking cunt—from her stiffened clit along her saturated folds all the way to the wrinkled rim of her asshole. Flurry thanked her with a long, low moan that, as Pumpkin repeated the motion again and again, transitioned into hiccuping half-gasps. It wouldn’t take long at all to make her cum this way—but that wasn’t what Pumpkin wanted to do, and it wasn’t what Flurry needed.

Pumpkin kept going—sucking on Flurry’s clit, spreading her pussy lips, savoring her exquisite natural flavor—until she felt the mare start to tense up, until the rhythmic squeezes of her inner walls around Pumpkin’s tongue got too tight to push past. When she knew Flurry was as close to the edge as she could get without tipping all the way over, she pulled away, scooched back on the bed, and reared up on her hind legs, mounting the half-prostrated alicorn like a stallion as she lit her horn to grab one last implement.

While most of what Pumpkin used in encounters like this had pretty obvious functions, few was quite as blatant as this: a jet-black, foot-long pillar of stiffened silicone, attached to a harness that slipped over the wearer’s stifles and croup to form a pretty close approximation of a real stallion’s cock. At least, Pumpkin assumed it did. She’d never had any intimate experience with the real thing, nor had she ever had any real desire to—but every mare was different, and she’d known almost at first glance that the one underneath her now would cream herself silly all over this particular accessory.

Before that, though…

“But did you ever let him say it?” she said, rubbing the head of the toy under Flurry’s belly as she stepped into the harness and cinched it tight enough to stay in place during use. “Or did you just fuck him, year after year, always wondering which time would be the last, which mare would be the one to steal his heart and shatter yours?”

With a flex of her hips, Pumpkin slapped the fake dick against Flurry’s abdomen. Flurry let out a muffled groan, her face buried in the bedspread as she arched her back and raised her ass a little bit higher, begging without words for her partner to bury anything she had to give as deep inside her as it would go.

“Maybe you’re right,” Pumpkin said. “Maybe this is better.” She angled her hips back, grasped her quasi-cock in her magic, steered its ever-flared head towards Flurry’s pulsating opening. “Maybe a slut is all you were ever supposed to be.”

With a sticky slap, Pumpkin drove her pelvis into Flurry’s rump, burying the strap-on in her pussy in a single brutal stroke. Flurry squealed as the toy filled her completely—maybe in pain, maybe in delirious pleasure. Before either mare could figure out which, Pumpkin drew the toy back out and slammed it in again, scooting Flurry forward on the bed, forcing another screech out of her and squeezing a spray of natural lubrication out of her cunt and onto the sheets.

“And if that’s true," Pumpkin said, steadily increasing her pace, tweaking her own clit with a spark of magic, “then why worry? Let him be happy without you, and you without him.”

The noises coming from Flurry’s throat began to sound less like orgasmic wails and more like painful groans. Pumpkin fucked her faster—harder. This was it. This was where it all came to a head, one way or another.

“You can do that, right?” Pumpkin said—mockingly, cruelly. “Just let him go.”

Flurry turned her head and pressed her cheek into the mattress. Her face was crumpled. Her cunt spasmed around the lust-soaked toy destroying it.

“Watch him get married without you, have kids without you, grow old and fat and think of you only as what you are: a trashy fantasy.”

Flurry’s blindfold fell off, pushed out of place by the friction of head against the sheets. Her eyes were squeezed shut. She grunted—convulsed—slid closer and closer to what Pumpkin knew would be an earth-shattering climax.

“Stop thinking about him. Stop obsessing over him. Stop wondering what might have been and learn to live with what actually is.”

Flurry let out a noise that sounded almost like a snarl—and Pumpkin threw her whole body weight forward, knocking Flurry’s hind legs out from under her, forcing her flat on her belly as Pumpkin’s hoof pushed her head down and her strapped-on cock plowed into her as fast as her hips could move.

“Is that too hard?” Pumpkin said through gritted teeth—sliding closer and closer herself. “Does that hurt too much?”

Flurry opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it—no insults, no invectives, and no safewords. She was at the edge of her conscious mind. She was ready to explode.

“Then do…something… about it!” Pumpkin roared between colossal, vicious, fully-in-and-out thrusts. “Stop… being… a coward! And stop… fucking… lying!”

Flurry screamed—angry, anguished, overwhelmed—and came, soaking Pumpkin’s hips and thighs, jerking so hard against her bonds that Pumpkin heard the metal creak. The unicorn rode out her climax with her, peaking herself seconds later, smothering Flurry’s body under her own as the alicorn let desperate gulps of air back out as haggard, hoarse growls.

As soon as she got her wits about her, Pumpkin sprang into action—pulling the strap-on out of Flurry’s gaping pussy, unclipping it with her magic as she used her hooves to release Flurry’s legs and horn, tossing all the equipment aside once she’d separated it from the shaking mare laid out before her. Despite all her experience, a pang of fear shot through her. She’d never gone so far—cut quite so deep—with a partner before. She might’ve gone too far.

She sat back, watched Flurry like a hawk, listened to her cough and pant and whimper as she processed what had just happened.

And then her shoulders hitched, her breath caught in her throat—and Flurry began to sob.

Pumpkin moved quickly, crawling up the bed to lie next to Flurry, sweeping the alicorn into her grasp, pulling her head under her chin and stroking her hoof along her sweat-soaked back as the beautiful, broken Princess bawled into her chest. Pumpkin let her cry, shushing her gently, whispering into Flurry’s ear as her tears soaked into her fur

“Ssh-ssh-ssh… you’re okay. It’s over. I’m here. Just let it out.”

And Flurry did—all her pent-up anxiety, all her self-deprecating fear, every word left unspoken to a stupid pegasus who was good at cooking, bad at improvising, and meant more to her than a thousand hook-ups or highs or whole kingdoms together ever could. Who she’d wanted for years as something she thought she could never have, and who—bless her stupid heart—wanted her just as badly.

But she wouldn’t have listened if Pumpkin had just told her that. She had to believe it, or at least be furious enough at herself to try—and this was her mother’s idea of how to drag her, cumming and screaming, across that unbreachable mental wall.

Honestly? It wasn’t the weirdest reason Pumpkin had ever hooked up with someone. Though it was pretty close.

“You did so good,” Pumpkin murmured to Flurry as she started to calm down, sealing her words with a tender kiss on the mare’s tear-stained cheek. “I know that was hard. But it feels good now, right?”

Flurry sniffled and rubbed her face with her hoof, squeezing out a few last errant tears. “I… I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I’m scared…”

“Love is terrifying,” Pumpkin softly agreed, “but you deserve it. And you deserve it with Pound.”

Flurry shook her head—but Pumpkin could feel how the mare fought against her body’s instinctive gesture, and see it in the expression her face crumpled into. “What if you’re right?” she whimpered. “What if I get bored with him, or I’m not good enough for him, or–”

“You won’t,” Pumpkin interrupted. “And trust me: you are.”

Flurry settled her head onto the mattress, seemingly deep in thought. Pumpkin smiled, sat up next to her, and stroked her hoof behind Flurry’s ears before swinging herself out of the bed.

“I’m gonna get cleaned up,” she said. “You should too. And once you do… stop by Sugarcube Corner. Come say hi. We’re open late tonight.”

Flurry stayed where she was, and Pumpkin let her rest as she quietly slipped into the attached bathroom. She still wasn’t completely sure this had worked. Flurry still might chicken out—or decide, after all that, to break things off with Pound for good. Either way, Pumpkin supposed, Flurry would make a choice for herself. Which, technically, meant the Princess of Love’s psychotic plan had somehow actually worked.

Well, half of it, at least. The rest would come after a shower. And maybe a breath mint.

~~~

Thankfully, Part Two of Operation: PoundHeart was a lot simpler than Part One—and also a lot dumber.

“Wait, you… are you being serious right now?” Pumpkin said, unable to find a less incredulous way of phrasing her sentiments. Pound blinked at her from across the counter, lit from underneath by the Corner’s glowing display case and looking about as idiotic as she’d ever seen a stallion look, which was saying something.

“Why would I not be serious about this?” he bluntly replied. “I’ve gotten a lot of mixed messages.”

“Mixed mess…” Pumpkin clacked her teeth shut and paced in place, trying to keep a bitingly sarcastic remark from escaping her throat. She failed so hard that she ended up adding a dopey approximation of Pound’s voice to her next words. “Gee, a really pretty girl I’ve known for years sucks and fucks me like a repressed filly on prom night every time we’re in the same postal code together. I wonder if she’s into me?”

Pound blushed and glowered at her as he rounded the counter’s end with a dishrag around his neck, making for a booth that had been vacated just as Pumpkin had returned from the Castle. “Maybe she does that with a lot of guys, I dunno,” he mumbled as he started wiping the table down. “I don’t wanna tie her down if it isn’t what she wants.”

“Pound, holy shit,” Pumpkin said. “I love you to death, and you are genuinely a sweet and wonderful guy, but you are like if someone shoved a useless lesbian into a himbo’s body.”

Pound blinked again and furrowed his brow. “What does that even…”

“It means you’re a fucking moron, dude!”

“And this is why I never brought it up with you,” he growled, scrubbing viciously at a hunk of dried icing. “‘Cause I knew you’d just make fun of me.”

“Pound, I’m not…”

Pumpkin sighed. Okay, fair point—she had kind of been making fun of him. For fuck’s sake, though.

“I just thought there was something you were hung up on,” she said. “Like, you thought you weren’t good enough to date a Princess, or it bugged you that she fucked other ponies sometimes. Something I could help with. And I want to help you, because it kills me to see you so happy every time Flurry comes to Ponyville and so miserable every time she leaves.”

Pound moved to the next table and got to wiping without a word. Pumpkin filled the space his silence left behind. “Pound, if that’s seriously it, if you seriously just don’t know if she feels the same way… trust me, I’ve seen girls catch feelings after hook-ups, and Flurry is so, so far beyond that with you.”

“Nice humblebrag,” Pound muttered.

“Oh, please, you’ve stolen more hearts in this town than I’ve had dates,” Pumpkin shot back. “And anyway, that’s what I’m saying! If you asked her to, Flurry would move in with you here, with Mom and Dad literally next door, just to be close to you. She adores you. And you feel the same way about her.”

Pound balled the rag up over a pile of crumbs and braced his forehooves on either side of it, staring at his reflection in the glossy tabletop.

“I know,” he said softly. “I know she does. I’ve known for… I don’t know how long, and I kept telling myself she didn’t, talking myself out of it. I guess I… I didn’t know if I was the only one, y’know? If she liked me enough to go exclusive with me, when she had all these stories about other stuff she’d done, other ponies she’d been with. Maybe other ponies who liked her like I do.”

Pumpkin walked to her brother’s side and squeezed his shoulder. “Pound, everypony on the continent has a crush on Flurry,” she said. “I have a crush on Flurry. But she’s a Princess, bro. If she wanted someone else, she’d go get them. And she never has, and she’s not going to. She’s waiting for you to come get her.”

Pound looked up at her, an odd look on his face. “You have a crush on Flurry?” he asked.

“It’s incredible how much that isn’t the point,” Pumpkin flatly replied.

“All right, fine, won’t ask,” Pound said, before sighing and pushing off the table onto all four hooves. “You really believe that, huh?” he asked, still hesitant but starting to struggle past it.

Pumpkin got ready to reassure her twin again, only to have a knock at the Corner’s locked door take the opportunity from her. Pound glanced at the store’s shuttered windows, then looked back at his sister.

“Doesn’t matter what I believe,” Pumpkin said, before nodding at the door. “You gonna get that?”

Silently, every step taking a little longer than it should have, Pound went to the front of the store, unlocked the door, and pulled it open with the tinkle of a bell overhead. Flurry Heart stood outside alone, mane freshly washed and brushed, still a bit red around the eyes—and, Pumpkin secretly suspected, a few other places as well.

“Hey,” Pound said, the word trembling a bit as it left his throat.

“Hey,” Flurry said, her tone more or less the same. She shifted from hoof to hoof, seeming to fight the urge to run away. She glanced past Pound’s shoulder and caught sight of Pumpkin’s expression. The message within it—now or never, babe—seemed to get through loud and clear.

“Can we talk?” she asked Pound, already bracing for his answer. When it came, it was barely louder than a whisper.

“Yeah…” Pound cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah! Sure. I was… gonna come talk to you, actually.”

Flurry looked at Pumpkin again, who gestured with her head as if to shout, “I am going to lose my fucking mind if you two drag this out any longer,” but in a loving and supportive way. The Princess blinked, nodded, and backed up a step to let Pound outside. The door tinkled again as it swung shut behind him, and then Pumpkin was finally alone.

With a sigh, she rounded the bar and ducked into the cabinet under the register, pulling out a bottle of bourbon Dad had promised not to tell Mom about so long as Pumpkin shared it with him. She filled a paper cup with ice from the soda fountain, gave herself a flirting-with-the-bartender-sized pour, and took a swig that left her grimacing and shuddering. The liquor was still warm, and the ice unmelted—but it would do. Her mission was complete. Probably. It had better be.

Cadance fucking owes me either way, Pumpkin thought as she swallowed away the alcohol’s burn. And when she pays up, I’m bringing the strap-on.