Chapters “Good game, girls.” Aloha pushed open the door and let her teammates into the locker room.
“I would have liked winning better,” Lola grumbled.
“It’s a learning curve.” Aloha reached out with her aura and grabbed a towel out of her cubicle as she rounded the corner. “Both in what you can and can’t do, and in working as a team.
“Like, I saw a couple times you could have thrown the ball—”
“Didn’t have a clear shot.”
“Didn’t need a clear shot, I can move the basket, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
“At least they’re not keeping track of the score in exhibition games, so I stay a winning pony.” Cloud Kicker stuck out her tongue. “Catch you in the shower.” She peeled off her vest, tossed in the general direction of her pigeon-hole, shook out her coat and wings, and flew off to the showers.
A clatter of hooves sounded behind them as their competitors came into the locker room.
Lola pulled her jersey over her head as the three newcomers rounded the corner. One of the weird things about the ponies was how the two teams shared a locker room. In her experience, teams would compete both before and after the game, and putting them together anywhere but on the field could lead to disaster.
Ponies got their tempers up, too, but so far it hadn’t amounted to anything more than trash-talk and posturing.
“How the hay do you jump so high?” Yuma Spur sat on her rump and started pulling her jersey over her head.
Lola grinned. “It’s a bunny secret.” She’d dunked on Yuma a couple times, and had intercepted a few throws from their pegasus guard. Neither of those ponies had figured out a good defense for that, and Lola could have capitalized on it. She’d caught on later in the game, but by then they were too many points down to recover.
“We’ll get you next time,” Aloha said. She lit her horn and pulled a bottle of Mane-N-Tail shampoo off the shelf in her cube.
“I’d rather get somebody in my bed.” Yuma looked over at Lola, who’d just slid down her shorts. “You interested?”
“I’ve got a boyfriend.”
Yuma snorted. “It’s not cheating if it’s with a mare.” She flicked her tail and trotted off to the showers.
“It isn’t.” Sweet Biscuit, Aloha’s roommate, had stayed to chat. “Hey, how come you wear so many clothes?”
“Is that another bunny secret?”
“No, it’s just modesty.” She motioned up and down her body. “And I have to keep the girls in check.”
“Seems like you’d get all sweaty.” Aloha, in particular, was covered in lather, especially where her vest had covered.
“Just doesn’t make any sense.”
“They all do it.”
Lola sighed and slid down her panties. “And it’s weird for us that you go around with your junk hanging out, okay? Some of the boys are rather distracted by all the . . .”
“Mares on display?” Aloha flagged her tail, giving Lola an eyeful.
Lola’s cheeks burned red, and she gave the unicorn the finger in response.
“Just look at a stallion if it makes you feel better. Orion’s got a great dick. I think he came off the field before we did, he might still be in the showers.”
“He always likes the one in the far left,” Sweet Biscuit added.
“So long as none of the boys are in there. I don’t know why, it’s not so weird for the locker room to be coed as long as it’s just me and you ponies.” She’d seen Daffy’s dick before and that was a memory she’d rather not have.
•••
By the time she’d gotten her sports bra off, Cloud Kicker had finished her shower. She was in the company of a white stallion whose dick was swinging between his legs; Lola tried not to stare at it and failed.
Aloha bumped her with her muzzle, getting her moving. None of them spoke until they were in the showers.
None of the Tune Squad was in there, to her relief. Not for the first time, she weighed the advantages of picking a shower over in the darkest corner where nobody else was, or staying with her two friends. As usual, she opted for the latter.
“Told you Orion had a nice cock,” Biscuit said as her aura twined around the shower knob.
“I wasn’t looking.”
“You totally were,” Aloha said. “Even I looked.”
Lola turned on the water to her shower, keeping it cool. She needed something to distract her from how this conversation had turned. “So how fast can you unicorns move the basket and still catch a ball?”
“Um.” Aloha stuck her head in the shower spray, letting the water wash into her mane and over her back. “Like, if I’m coordinated with the kicker, if we’ve got signals worked out, I can pick it off around about a quarter of the outer radius. If we don’t, or if it’s a lousy shot, maybe half that, depending on how quick I react or how sloppy the shot is.”
“You throw slower than a kicker kicks,” Sweet Biscuit said. “So there’s more time to line up. Aloha was starting to get good by the time the game ended.”
Lola nodded. “It took me too long to remember that as long as I threw close, she might be able to move the basket so my shot would go in.”
“And we know that for next time. We can practice, too—but usually if you’re past the midfield mark, we should be able to score.”
“Unless they modify the rules again for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, that’s put me at a disadvantage for basketball.” Lola stretched and arched her back—the cold water hadn’t done much to loosen up her muscles but at least it had driven back the horniness.
Or it had , right up until she thought about it again.
“You ponies just can’t dribble.” Rules on ball handling had been changed several times already, to avoid giving anybody a big advantage or disadvantage. Only the pegasi were bipedal enough to have a halfway controlled dribble.
The pegasi could also catch the ball and just fly it to the hoop, necessitating one of the fastest rules changes. They argued that it didn’t count as traveling if their hooves never touched the court, and that was technically true. It did make for a very one-sided game.
Still, she thought that they could work it out. Buckball was balanced for all three types of ponies, taking advantage of their unique skills, and yet it could be played by only one tribe if they chose to: one of the demo teams had been all unicorns, one with a suppressor on her horn, and another with magic gossamer wings.
•••
Aloha perked her ears at the quiet knock on her door. When it came again, she lit her horn and a dejected lagomorph entered. “Lola?”
“I . . . this isn’t a bad time, is it?”
“It’s fine.” Aloha got out of bed and smoothed the covers behind her. “What’s going on?”
“Me and Bugs had a fight.” Lola dropped onto the bed and pulled her legs up. “It was stupid, but I need some time away, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” The ponies’ progressive opinions on housing partners together did have a downside: she didn’t have a dorm room she could retreat to.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Aloha hopped up on the bed she’d recently vacated and nuzzled the bunny. “You can stay here.”
Lola sniffled and wiped her face. “Thanks.”
“I don’t need to go and buck him in the face, do I?”
“No.”
“Use my horn to weld his door lock shut?”
“You can do that?”
Aloha shrugged. “Probably, I’ve never tried. What about spiders? I could put spiders in his room. Does he hate spiders?”
“I don’t know.” Lola giggled. “Would they leave after we make up?”
“Depends on the spider, I guess. I never really thought too much about what a spider wants or where it’s comfortable. Usually they like high corners.” She motioned with a hoof at the corners of her room, where there were indeed some small spider webs. “I think it works out for both of us; we stay out of each other’s way and they eat bugs that might get into the room.”
“It’s probably just me,” Lola said. “Stressful being on a different world.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“With different expectations.” She drummed her fingers on the bed and then leaned up against the wall. “Like, this is going to sound so stupid, and I know I’d regret it if I did it, but my first thought was that I ought to just storm off to some stallion’s room and—
“Sucks being horny and angry.”
Aloha didn’t say anything; she just nuzzled up against Lola’s thigh. After a minute, the rabbit rested her hand on the mare’s back.
“I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.”
“We’re friends and teammates,” the unicorn replied. “Just stay here until you feel better.”
“Thanks.” Lola looked around the room. “Say, where’s Sweet Biscuit?”
“She’s working on a project.”
•••
Lola woke up in a tangle of covers and with a unicorn draped across her chest, and when she realized she tried to disentangle herself without awakening Aloha but it was already too late.
“You feel better?”
“Sorta.” Lola yawned and ran her fingers through Aloha’s mane. “I slept good at least.”
“No you didn’t, you were tossing and turning the whole night, at least until I snuggled up with you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Aloha yawned, too, then shifted around to face the rabbit. “It’s okay, sometimes Sweet Biscuit has problems with her stallionfriend and needs a snuggle.”
“How about you?”
The unicorn shrugged. “Not having a stallionfriend means I don’t ever have problems with them.”
“Like, not ever?”
“Nope.”
Lola frowned. “I’m sorry, but you’re really pretty, seems like some stallion would be interested.”
“Oh, plenty of them are, I’m just not interested in them.”
“What do you mean?”
Aloha rolled her eyes. “I mean that stallions are dumb and smelly and I’m not interested in them at all—
“Surely there—”
“—since I’m a lesbian.”
“—are plenty of stal—what?”
“Lesbian? Fillyfooler? If you want to be crude, I’d prefer fucking mares.”
“Why?”
“I dunno, it’s just the way I am.”
“Well, I’d rather. . .” Lola’s cheeks started burning, especially as she considered where the mare’s head was resting. She was no Minerva Mink, but she had a decent rack, and now that she thought about it, her fingers were intertwined in the unicorn’s mane. Mixed signals much?
“Trust me, when you’ve discovered what a skilled tongue can do. Any stallion, you’ve got to give them directions or fake it.”
“How would you know?” Lola said defensively.
“You think Biscuit ever shuts up about her relationships? I’ve heard plenty.”
“Bugs isn’t—” Lola pulled her paw back, reached for the covers, reconsidered. Was she still wearing shorts?
Not that Aloha hadn’t seen her in the showers and the locker room already. Memories were flashing through her mind, different in light of the new information she now knew. The situation had gone from sisterly bonding to awkward real fast.
“I’m not—you aren’t coming on to me are you?”
“Not unless you want me to.” Aloha finally lifted her head and shifted around until she was on her belly. “If you want to fuck, I’m down for it, but if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”
“I’d never really considered it.”
•••
Lola was still wearing pants, a fact she verified before pushing the covers back.
Was it the fight with Bugs or the fact that she’d just spent the night with a gay pony that made the morning seem so weird? She felt like she was overanalyzing everything ; did the beaded scrunchie that Aloha wore around her dock mean anything? None of the other mares had one. Was it weird that she seemed more naked without it?
Did it mean anything as she picked it up with her magic and lifted her tail, giving Lola a view of her nethers—intentionally or unintentionally?
Did it mean anything that in the moment before she turned away, she felt a familiar heat in her loins?
For now, the teams were re-shuffled every day, and Aloha was benched out for one game.
She didn’t mind; an important strategy was watching other teams play to learn from them. How their moves could be countered, or if there was something really effective they could do which could be replicated.
It was also a chance to see the new rules play out. Yesterday the refs had held a discussion and experimented with putting a non-unicorn in the catcher role, instead of a unicorn. That diversified play, but also meant a further restriction on basket height.
For the first game, yesterday, they hadn’t thought to restrict the catcher’s movement—or how far her basket could move ahead of her, and some of the stronger unicorns could easily get the basket a quarter circle ahead. That wasn’t fair for a non-unicorn, so now the basket could be no further than one ponylength away from the catcher in any direction, measured from her head.
The rule change made the catchers run even more and rewarded quick turns and careful hoof-placement. Aloha watched as Lola—who was serving as catcher—stumbled on the grass and slid out of bounds when she tried to change directions too quickly.
She got back up and trotted after the stray ball. It could have been a catch.
The lesson was obvious—for a good offense, anticipate the catcher’s movement, get the ball to them or to where they’d be. Defensively, keep a tighter block. A lot of unicorns could move the basket really fast with their magic, so it wasn’t worth trying to block a shot that had already been taken, especially since most attackers knew to throw it wide.
Yuma, currently playing attacker on Lola’s team, had just figured out the same thing; this time, she kicked the ball in close, angling it just past Berry Blend, but not close enough for Cloud Kicker to dive and get it.
Aloha perked her ears as her roommate sat down beside her. “How’s your leg?”
Sweet Biscuit held it up. A bandage ran from pastern to cannon. “Looked worse than it was. Nurse just had to get all the grit out and bandage it up. Ref says I’m sidelined for the rest of the week, though.”
The two mares watched as Lola made a diving catch, gaining team Red another point. “Looks like I won’t be needed . . . she’s fast .”
“You gonna stick around and watch?”
“I got nothing else to do.”
•••
Aloha expected the showers to be nearly empty when she entered the locker room. She’d been in the last game of the evening; surely everypony else would be showered and at dinner by now.
She wouldn’t blame them; her stomach was growling. If it wasn’t rude, she’d show up to dinner all lathered. Some of the earth ponies did, that’s what happened when a pony was raised on a farm.
There was still plenty of locker room chatter to be had. Even if she wasn’t all that close with anypony she’d been playing with—ponies ought to stick together in teams. That was one thing that the earth ponies got right —when they figured out an order to be in harness, they kept that order. She’d overheard more than one conversation where position had been brought up: ‘Oh, I always did nearside swing; wheel teams fine if you’re bulky but wasted on a pony who’s nimble on her hooves.’
The rules change hadn’t helped her. She got half a dozen penalties for letting her basket get too far ahead, and it felt like she’d spent as much time making sure her basket wasn’t too far ahead as she’d spent actually watching the ball, or catching it.
“Hey.”
Aloha perked her ears. “Lola?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“Gone?”
“Dinner.” Aloha peeled off her sweat-soaked jersey and lifted her bottle of Mane-n-Tail.
“No, I—well, I didn’t want to miss any of your game, figured I could shower off after.”
“Oh.”
“Plus the boys played at the same time we did, and—”
“You’ve got a weird attitude,” the unicorn declared. “No problem sharing a shower with a stallion, but if it’s one of your other friends . . . does that mean that I’m not a friend?”
Lola shook her head. “It’s because you’re a girl, and it’s normal.” She rubbed her hands on her temples. “Like, it’s weird to explain and I don’t think you’d understand it.”
“You know I don’t.” Aloha set the shampoo bottle on the bench while Lola undressed—she’d used a lot of magic on the field and her horn was sore, there was no sense in keeping it held when she didn’t have to. “You explained the rules but they don’t make any sense, how is it comfortable to wear clothes all the time?”
“It just is.” Lola stepped out of her shorts and panties and kicked them towards her locker. Lazy, but she wasn’t the only one who had left their clothes on the floor.
Admittedly, she had a larger pile of clothes in front of her cube than anybody else did.
•••
One thing that Lola hated was putting clothes over damp fur. Something that the ponies didn’t have to worry about—something that Aloha didn’t have to worry about. She didn’t even dry herself all the way off, before putting her beaded scrunchie back around the base of her tail, and that was it, she was dressed.
It wouldn’t have surprised Lola if the unicorn had gone off to dinner on her own. The locker room had almost completely emptied, leaving the two of them alone in their section.
“If you’re hungry,” Lola began.
“I can wait. You waited for me and you didn’t have to. You must be starving.”
“I am.” Some of the pros trimmed their fur really short, and a few years ago there had been furious debate when a college swimmer had shaved all his fur off to gain some speed in the pool, reasoning that dolphins didn’t have fur and they were fast, therefore. . . . He looked freaky; if Lola had to pick between having to go outside nude or go outside furless, she’d pick the former every time. There was something wrong with a bare-skin body. Maybe it was the thought that she’d look similar without fur. “Any of your pros or wannabe pros shave off their coats to gain some time?”
“What?” Aloha looked at her in confusion. “How would that make anypony faster?”
“Swimming—less water resistance.”
“We don’t really do competitive swimming, ponies aren’t built for it.”
“You can swim, though, right?”
Aloha nodded. “Yeah, about as well as anypony can. It’s relaxing in a pool or a shallow lake to float around, especially on a hot day or when I’m sore. Are you sore? ‘Cause there’s a spa with a nice hot tub not that far away. I don’t know if they’d let you wear clothes in it, though.”
“No, I was just thinking.” Lola wasn’t as dry as she wanted to be, but she also didn’t want to delay dinner any more.
Wetness and closeness were the enemy. Her bra would hold in moisture, but if she went without, she’d dry off naturally under her shirt. Sort of like wearing a robe.
At home, she never wore underwear after showering, not until her fur had had a chance to dry off on its own. In public was a different matter—but here, in public was among mostly nudists and if there was a little extra jiggling or maybe some nipple poke, they wouldn’t care, would they?
She pulled her shirt over her head and decided that she might as well go full commando. No sense in half-committing.
If Aloha thought it strange, she didn’t say anything about it. Of course, why would a pony whose idea of being dressed only extended as far as a tail-scrunchie comment on the choice of underwear, or lack thereof?
“Alright, let’s go.” She had more clothes in her room to change into later, or she could go back to the locker room and get her bra, at least. It was the most comfortable one she had.
•••
It wasn’t until they were halfway to the dining hall that Lola remembered that her friends were around, too. Even if the ponies didn’t notice she was going braless, they might.
Fuck them. Let them look. She’d already caught Sylvester checking her out in the showers.
•••
“So what sports do you ponies have?” Her locker room conversation had gotten her to thinking about things that hadn’t really been discussed. As interworld intramural sports were being figured out, it might be nice to get a heads-up on what options were on the table.
“Hoofball,” Sweet Biscuit said. She’d already finished eating but was just hanging out for the conversation and camaraderie.
“That’s like your soccer,” Aloha added. “Or pawball as I’ve also heard it called. Why does it have different names?”
“Because we have our own variant that’s very different,” Lola said. “Where the ball is a different shape and players are allowed to tackle each other, you can hold the ball, and instead of having to get it in a goal, it has to go across a goal line.”
“Did . . . did somepony only read some of the rules for the game and improvise?”
“Maybe it’s like the difference between proper hoofball and pegasus hoofball.”
“I don’t know,” Lola confessed. “I know how to play sports, not the history behind them.” She picked a peach off her plate and bit into it.
“There’s a bunch of flying sports,” Summer Breeze said. “Stunt shows, obstacle courses, speed races, marathons. I’m mostly an obstacle mare, which works well in buckball as well.”
“Non-fliers have similar sports. Barrel racing, marathons, drifting.”
“Drifting?” That was something that some of the guys did with cars, skidding around and making lots of tire smoke. She’d seen ponies pulling wagons, but none of them had done stunts with them, not that she’d seen anyway.
“Yeah, that’s where you gallop up to a mark and then plant your rump and slide . . . the further you go, the more points you get.”
“Same as with pony pulls,” Biscuit added. “Except there you’re pulling weight, and you have to get it a certain distance. Most weight wins.”
“Some ponies like to compete in Winter Wrap-Up,” Yuma Spurs said. “Which is dumb ‘cause it’s not a competition, but you get two mares vying for a stallion in front of plows, and watch out! Usually have a foal steering, too, and they’re just hanging on for dear life, the furrows go everywhere and it’s a huge mess when it’s time for planting; the gang seeders can’t follow a crooked line and so it’s back to the basics.
“And if it was just seeding it wouldn’t be so bad, but you can’t get a cultivator through crooked rows, either, so some poor filly’s gotta weed the old-fashioned way, and then when it comes time to harvest. The worst thing is that you’ll never see mares racing in their own fields, ‘cause they know better, but put them on somepony else’s plot of land or even worse Crown land.” She looked around the table—she was the only earth pony present.
“You wouldn’t think you could fuck up pasture grasses, but you can. Coupla years back, I was in Appleoosa and I could tell they’d drilled the field wrong. Got to asking around, and a couple of new mares in town were trying to impress Braeburn, guess they didn’t know he’s already hitched to Little Strongheart.” She snorted. “I’m sure he was impressed every time he saw that field. Heard they got demoted to waking up hibernating marmots the year after.”
Lola let the conversation wash over her as she gnawed on her peach, careful not to dribble juice on her shirt. The boys had noticed—they didn’t know she wasn’t wearing panties, though. Weird how it felt wrong, even though none of the mares at the table were.
It’s not cheating if it’s with a mare . Bugs leered at her and she turned her attention back to the ponies at her table. Sometimes sports brought out the worst in people . . . so far she hadn’t seen that with the ponies, but maybe she wasn’t picking up the right signs. Who knew if the group at their table was the normal group? Could it be that they’d shifted alliances as the teams had, or based on perceived slights during the exposition games? It was hard to know for sure as an outsider.
Most of her crew—for lack of a better way to describe them—had been sticking together, a team even as they got shifted around with ponies. Was she wrong for not staying with them? Or was she the only one who was really understanding how this was supposed to work?
The game was just a pretext; what it was really about was interspecies relationships and what they might learn. Having a game was an excuse, it was more symbolic than actually important. She knew that against a team of skilled buckball players, playing by their rules, she’d get smoked every time. It didn’t matter how fast she was on her feet (and she was faster than a pony), the magic reach of even a bottom-tier unicorn could move the basket faster. Maybe, in time, she could learn to kick the ball as well as the earth pony ‘grounder,’ but no matter how much she practiced, she didn't have the inherent advantage of being able to plant three hooves on the ground in a tripod, adding stability to the kick.
And it went both ways. By standard rules, ponies were both horrible at basketball, or absurdly OP. Pass the ball to a pegasus, hovering higher than even Michael Jordan could jump, and they’d dunk every time. But they couldn’t dribble. They couldn’t sink free throws without magical assistance—a team consisting of a couple of unicorns to get the ball, and a trio of pegasi to drop it in the net could, in theory, follow the rules and win a game, but it was a hollow shell of what the game was supposed to be, and days of tweaking and experimentation had come to an equitable version which could be enjoyed by all.
Magic—that was always the elephant in the room. As with physical activities, learning a new way to use their magic took some time, but most of the unicorns figured it out pretty quick, and when they had they were formidable opponents. Enough so that they sometimes had to wear suppressor rings to level out the playing field.
If she’d seen a society that had been ruled by unicorns while the other ponies served them, she wouldn’t have been surprised, and yet that’s not the way that they were. All three of the tribes—as they called themselves—worked together towards a common goal, recognizing their different skills and embracing them.
She might have mistaken it for a utopia, except she’d seen other creatures who sometimes watched the games but apparently weren’t allowed to play. Why, she didn’t know. Were they inferior in caste or skill, or were they somehow superior and would cause an upset? She wanted to think it was the second reason, but the fact that they were modifying the games so she and her friends could play suggested otherwise.
•••
Lola yawned and opened her eyes, focusing on the tousle of brown hair spilled across her chest. A stubby horn poked out of the middle of the hair.
“Hey.”
Aloha’s ears perked, and she turned to face Lola.
“You weren’t still asleep, were you?”
The unicorn shook her head. “I’ve been awake, but I didn’t want to get out of bed.”
From across the room: “Hey, did you two do it last night?”
Aloha stuck her tongue out, while Lola gave a vehement ‘no.’
“’Cause it’s totally not cheating if it’s with a mare.”
“Oh shut up, Biscuit.” Aloha pushed the covers partway down, then thought better of it and put her head back down on Lola’s chest.
“I’m going to breakfast so you two can have some alone time.”
Lola rolled her eyes and gave the unicorn the finger.
Once Sweet Biscuit had left, Lola and Aloha looked at each other. “She’s always like that,” Aloha explained. “Whenever I have a friend over, or spend the night with a friend. A lot of ponies who know her are just used to it. At least she’s not as crude as Cloud Kicker.”
“That’s not just a pony thing,” Lola said. “I’m used to it. If we were back home, the gossip mill would be going full tilt. You want to surprise her by showing up to breakfast?”
“She’d be more surprised if we didn’ti . You wanna surprise her?”
“How?”
“Well, Hayburger has breakfast now, we could eat there, and she’ll spend all breakfast wondering if we’re back in the room making out.”
“Hayburger, huh.”
“It’s pretty good.”
•••
Fast food hadn’t been the right choice for breakfast, Lola decided. Her stomach wasn’t happy with her choice. She should have expected it; pony fast food wasn’t as greasy as the stuff back home, but it was still fast food.
She tried to ignore the grumbling in her belly as she checked out the team assignments with Aloha.
When she’d first gotten to Equestria, she wouldn’t have seen the significance of the team rosters—she’d learned a lot. The team make-ups didn’t make sense: all the pegasi were benched and unicorns seemed to be assigned wherever, not to mention that there was a null-symbol after Aloha’s name.
Also, they were on opposite teams, something Aloha noticed as well, judging by how her ears drooped.
Or maybe it was for a different reason. “I have to wear a suppressor? Gah.”
“A suppressor?”
Aloha nodded. “It’s an anti-magic ring that goes on my horn so I can’t use it.” She pointed to the symbol on the chart. “That’s what that means. Sometimes when—well, it depends on how you’re playing and who you’re playing, but if you can’t field enough grounders, you can sub in a unicorn or a pegasus who aren’t allowed to use their other abilities. If it’s a friendly game, you just play as if you can’t use other abilities, but for competition, there’s suppressors and wing-binders.
“Pegasi always say that it’s worse for them ‘cause they use their wings for balance, and maybe it is, but . . . I’m not looking forward to this.”
“Should I go easy on you?”
Aloha shook her head. “That’s not in the spirit of the game.”
•••
As the two squared off in the center of the field, Lola couldn’t help but notice that Aloha wasn’t as chipper as usual.
Just the same, she had a wry smile as the two faced off, not quite her game face, and she was slow when the ball was tossed, missing what should have been an easy catch.
Some people could play a game with full intensity even against a friend and some couldn’t.
Some people would take advantage of that.
Lola wasn’t in the latter camp. She wanted to play the game, she wanted to win, and she wanted it to not really matter when the game was over—she didn’t want the game to affect friendships and relationships, she didn’t want to be one of those toxic players where everything was about winning or dunking on an opponent. Especially not now; the rules were in flux and every new game changed the balance.
It nagged at the back of her mind, the kind of thing she’d want to think over in a locker room or in her dorm room or maybe sitting on the bench watching a game—hoofball didn’t have large teams, they didn’t have players in reserve who could be subbed in. Each team had three starters and the same three closers. There were no breaks until it was done.
No rest for the wicked . Even with the suppressor, Aloha was a formidable opponent; her kicks weren’t as strong or as accurate as a plain pony, but she could muster more force with her hindquarters than Lola could with her arms.
Legs were stronger, and if she’d spent any time playing soccer or kickball she might have been able to use that to her advantage. She was a bunny, after all.
•••
As the game neared halftime, Aloha was panting in the center of the ring, her coat drenched in lather. Even her vest was soaked through. Lola’s team was already up in points, by what she considered an insurmountable lead.
And then the temporarily handicapped unicorn got two good kicks in—one really good kick, Lola had heard the ball whistle as it went by her head. She also did have some game with her forehooves, going bipedal long enough to hook the ball as it went by and then set herself for a kick.
It missed, but it was a reminder to not underestimate the unicorn. Any sympathy Lola had felt during their short halftime break vanished in the love of the game; her view of Aloha changed from ‘friend’ to ‘opponent,’ at least for the duration of the match.
They rallied in the second half. There was no epic pep talk in the locker room; the teams only went to the benches to drink some water and relax for a few minutes before restarting. Lola guessed that they’d started to figure out a winning strategy. Yuma was fast on her hooves, she kept the bucket moving and would dive to get a catch if she had to. Orion had a decent jump and a knack for not only blocking, but getting the ball to Aloha.
They still lost. Decisively, although it wasn’t a blowout.
The moment the final whistle blew, the game ended in Lola’s mind, and instead of grouping up with her temporary teammates, she went over to the other side, first for fistbumps and then to walk with her friend.
Aloha didn’t wait until they got to the locker room; as soon as the final whistle was blown and she was off the field, she sat down on the sidelines and reached for her horn, trying to get a hoof around the silvery ring.
Seeing ponies doing things with their hooves that should have been impossible was a common enough occurrence that Lola didn’t really think about it any more. She hardly even noticed, in fact. But Aloha was struggling; she bumped the ring with her hoof and it kind of moved, there was a spark from her horn, and then it slipped back down and she tried again.
There was no joy in watching a friend struggle. Without being asked, Lola walked over and grabbed the ring.
She didn’t know what exactly made a suppressor ring work, nor did she know what its effects on her might be, but she did know what its effects on her friend were, and that was enough for her.
Lola tugged it off, feeling an unexpected resistance before it came free. Almost like it was magnetic—the resistance dropped as it left Aloha’s horn, and once she was holding it in her paw, it was inert. Just a simple ring of metal, not looking like much of anything, and yet. . .
“I get wearing them to be fair,” Aloha said. “Even if I didn’t mean to cheat, I could use my magic without thinking, and maybe the ref wouldn’t catch it. Or the game might be less competitive, ‘cause I’d be focusing too much on not using my magic and not enough on actually playing. With the suppressor, I don’t have to think about it one way or another, if I try to do something magical it just doesn’t work.
“But it completely robs me of one of my defenses. If I needed to use my magic for something, I couldn’t, and that’s always on my mind.”
“You mean outside of the game?”
“I mean anything, inside or out. It’s like being hobbled. Plus it hurts; they do their best to match them to a pony, but unless it’s a really expensive custom one tuned to an individual magic field, there’s always feedback. It’s like having a splinter and every time you move wrong, it sticks in.” She nuzzled Lola. “Thanks for taking it off.”
“Where does it go?”
Aloha wrinkled her muzzle. “It should go in the trash. But it takes a lot of work to make them and I’d get in trouble if I lost it.”
“Alright.” Lola twirled it around a finger and then offered it to the unicorn, expecting her to take it with her magical field.
She didn’t, because it was an anti-magic ring. She leaned in and plucked it from Lola’s grasp with her lips, a shockingly unexpected intimate gesture. Lola stiffened, a bolt of lightning shot up her arm and all the way through her.
It wasn’t until Aloha stopped and turned that she realized she’d been standing there, completely gobsmacked.
“You okay?” Her voice sounded weird around the suppressor ring.
“Yeah, sorry.” Lola reminded her legs how to move, and set out after the unicorn. “Say, I wasn’t too hard on you in the game, was I?”
“I wasn’t expecting mercy, if that’s what you’re asking. I was also expecting to lose.”
“You don’t sound all that bothered by it.”
“When the rules keep changing?” Aloha shrugged. “Sometimes I think it’s easier for you, ‘cause you’ve never played buckball before, so you’ve got less to unlearn before each new variation. I’m changing to a position I don’t normally play, and I can’t use one of my skills to play that position.”
“Huh, I hadn’t really considered it that way. You’re not upset by it, are you?”
“Nah, not really. I like winning but I know when I’m outmatched. At the end of the day, it’s just a game. Win, lose, what does it matter?”
Lola snorted. “Some of the serious players would take offense to that.”
“I know . . . ask Yuma Spurs how she feels about losing. Or Cloud Kicker—well, that’s a bad example, she cares more about winning in bed and not on the field.” She paused, and then chuckled. “Well, sometimes on the field if the opportunity presents itself.”
“Not during a game, I hope.”
“I think there’d be a penalty for that,” Aloha said. “She has tried to use her feminine wiles on opposing players.”
“Feminine wiles, huh?”
“Yeah, lifting her tail, showing off her stuff. Not like anypony’s going to be distracted by that in the middle of a game.”
“Speak for yourself. I still haven’t entirely gotten used to your, ah, nudist lifestyle. Guarantee if I lifted my shirt in the game, every boy on the other team would be distracted.”
“Ought to try it, it’s not against the rules.” Aloha lit her horn and pushed open the locker room door.
“Would it distract you?” Lola tugged at the hem of her shirt and then pulled it up as the door closed behind them.
“No . . . maybe.” Aloha stopped and looked at the bunny. “You’ve got really cute udders and they’re really soft and warm and nice to sleep on. Like a really downy pillow.”
Lola frowned, while the unicorn continued. “Although maybe I shouldn’t cause it makes you nervous.”
“Okay, back that train up.” The two were in front of their lockers, but Lola pulled her shirt back down anyway. “First, boobs. Tits. Breasts. Calling them udders is an insult. Cows have udders, I have tits.”
“Sorry, everypony calls them udders or teats.”
“Just because I’m the only—” Lola took a deep breath. “Sorry, force of habit. You guys are built different, you don’t have boobs.”
“Not like that, couldn’t walk if I did. Well, maybe I could, some stallions have dangly balls and they manage.”
“Does that mean you don’t—if you were to have a kit, how would you feed it?”
“A kit?”
“A baby.”
“With my udders.”
“So you do have boobs? Do they fill out or something?”
“Yeah, some, or so I’ve heard, never had a foal. Not gonna unless there’s magical intervention.”
“No guy’s caught—oh, right, lesbian.” Lola eyed the mare. “So, I dunno if this is too personal, but where are they?”
“Under my belly, back by my hind legs—hold on, this is gonna be a little weird.”
Sometimes the ponies went bipedal. It was almost natural for the pegasi; they’d often hover in an almost standing position, with their hind legs dangled down as if they were standing on something. The other two kinds of ponies could stand on their hind legs but generally didn’t stay there, not without something to support them. They simply weren’t built for that, any more than Lola could walk on all four like a proper quadruped.
Aloha pushed herself up on the bench, then planted a hoof on the bank of locker cubicles for balance, then motioned down to—
It wasn’t exactly her crotch, but it kind of was. She’d already noticed that the ponies had bare skin there and hadn’t really paid any more attention to the region, figuring that staring there wasn’t considered polite. Now that she was looking, the mounds and nipples were clearly obvious.
•••
The game calendar was clear for the day; everyone had been given a bye. It was marked as ‘rain,’ which Lola hadn’t questioned. Much.
Back home, weather forecasts came weeks in advance, and were reasonably accurate, so it wasn’t that odd that they knew rain was going to happen, and it did.
She noticed at breakfast that the dining hall was emptier than usual; by the time she was finishing her pancakes, she realized that most of the pegasi were absent.
There was no requirement to eat in the dining hall; it was convenient and it was free, but anybody could eat wherever they wanted to. Even the Hayburger if they felt like taking a chance. But for most of the pegasi to be absent, that seemed like more than just a coincidence.
“They’re out watering the fields,” Aloha explained. “So the grass is nice and green and healthy.”
“Why just the pegasi?”
“‘Cause they can fly. Unicorns can do weather management in a pinch, but most of us aren’t very good at it. Pegasi get trained from when they’re foals so they know how.”
“It’s not that hard, you turn on the sprinkler when the grass is dry.” Lola motioned towards the window, streaked with raindrops. “Or let nature take its course.”
“We tried that and it didn’t work out so good, Crops drowned or dried out,” Yuma said. “So now the pegasi handle the weather, we handle the crops, and the unicorns do unicorn things.”
“Unicorn things?”
Aloha nodded. “We used to raise the sun but that was too much, so now we handle other things. It’s complicated to explain but it all works out for everypony’s benefit.”
“Do they do a rain dance? The pegasi?”
“I dunno if I’d call it a dance. Maybe a ritual if I was feeling literary, but you could say the same about tending a field—prepare it, plant a seed, nurture it, and then you get fruit some time later.”
“I can’t explain in a way that would really do it justice, ‘cause I don’t know how to do it,” Aloha said. “But they’ve all—almost all—been trained in managing clouds and water and stuff, and so there’s a schedule and when rain is needed, they make it by pushing the right kinds of clouds into the right places and that’s how weather happens.”
“Back home, it just does what it does.”
“That’s a bad system, how can you control if you get too much water or not enough?”
“I dunno, it just works. Are they out there now?”
“Probably, it just started and there’s a lot of setup and maintenance to keep things going. I don’t really pay all that much attention; when I was younger I kinda wished I’d been a pegasus so I could fly in the clouds and I looked up a lot, but now I really don’t so much.”
“I want to see.”
Aloha shrugged and lit her horn; a moment later the window rose. A gust of wind blew spray into the room, but that wasn’t enough to deter Lola.
At first there wasn’t anything to see. Clouds and rain, the same as it was back home—and then she saw a pegasus pushing a cloud, a darker gray against the overcast background.
Lola kind of recognised him—she’d seen him on the fields before and in the locker room but hadn’t played any games against him. Which was strange; the ponies were all distinctive colors which ought to have been an easy way to identify them, but she’d kind of fallen into the trap of using their marks to tell them apart.
Not entirely, of course; even if Aloha had her mark covered Lola would have known it was her. Which was even funnier, since the unicorn was about as plain as ponies came. Blonde fur, and a brown mane and tail. Plausible enough colors on an actual horse, contrasted with the bright green of Yuma Spurs, for example.
She watched as he positioned the cloud, then turned and kicked it. A flash of lightning, and then it started raining from that cloud.
Really, the cloud was a tiny thing when compared to the sky at large. If they had to bring in every cloud like that, how could there ever be enough ponies to do it? No wonder the players had to participate.
Would they all be tired tomorrow?
Could she use that to her advantage?
“Does that one little cloud make that much of a difference?”
Aloha shrugged. “It must. One of my friends said that they set up the skies to give them the weather they wanted, whether that was clearing clouds or putting them into place. They need the right kinds and the right conditions—I don’t get all of it, but I kind of do. It’s a lot like magic, there’s a lot of subtlety if you don’t want to exhaust yourself. Like, there’s a couple of ways to move the basket, some of them are easier than others. Really powerful unicorns can just teleport them. That’s really fast but it takes a lot of energy and you can burn yourself out. Plus it’s not exactly fair, the other team can’t see the basket moving, so it’s a lot harder to defend against.”
“It’s not a banned move, is it?”
“Not specifically, but just ‘cause most unicorns can’t keep it up for a whole game. The ones who are strong enough to teleport can just as easily move the basket a different way, faster and with more accuracy, and they can keep that up for a whole game. But you do sometimes see a few crucial points scored in a teleported basket.”
“Can you do it?”
“I did once.” Aloha nested up against Lola, her eyes on the distant sky. “By accident, if you’d believe. I knew the spell, I’d seen some pros use it before and I’d practiced in the hopes I could get good, but it was a lot of energy and once you send it there’s no real correction you can do until it arrives.
“Late in the game, we were one point away from winning, and I wasn’t really thinking about it, I whipped the basket for a wide kick and all of a sudden it blinked out and then it was there in front of the ball, and I caught it again with my magic and that was the winning point.
“Kinda sucks to have my best move ever in a non-tournament game, but that’s life. There’s only one other unicorn at school who can teleport the basket, and she hardly ever does ‘cause she’s got terrible accuracy. More of an instinctive desperation move if you ask me.”
“Who is it?”
“Firecracker Burst—you haven’t met her, she’s not one of the ponies playing in this tournament.”
For some, rainy days were lazy days—especially since there weren’t any games scheduled. A group of athletes didn’t take a bye day lying down. Sleeping in was great, watching the rain fall passed the time, breakfast had proceeded at a languid pace, but by lunchtime some got restless. The hoofball field was being rained on, but the gym wasn't, and the basketball hoops hadn’t been taken down yet.
For Lola, it was a chance to play a game she loved. Hoofball was fun, but basketball was where she shined.
Two teams were made up over lunch; mixed ponies and Toons. Both Tweety Bird and Sweet Biscuit—on the injured list—volunteered to referee.
Even with the modified rules, Lola played as traditionally as she could. In deference to the ponies, dribbling was not required; there was no such thing as a traveling penalty.
In the spirit of fairness, unicorns could receive passes with their magic, but they could not steal the ball nor shoot the ball with magic—hoof contact was required.
Everybody—and everypony—had learned things during the previous basketball games. Their teammate knowledge had only been increased by the hoofball games; while some had grumbled that not only did the rules keep changing, but so did the teams. That had given anybody who was paying attention a better understanding of what everypony—and everybody—could offer.
•••
The game started off rough, as pickup games often do. Neither team was really playing in sync; passes were missed, opportunities lost. Drives fell short, missed shots weren’t rebounded, and then five minutes into the game it started to gel for both sides. For the ponies, skills learned but not used in a week came back; for the Toons everything they’d learned about their teammates—and opponents—started to factor in.
Lola threw a wide pass towards Aloha, who’d been keeping a close eye on the bunny. She grabbed it with her magic, pulled it in, and galloped down the court with the ball, passing it back as she crossed the halfcourt line.
Lola cut wide, tilted her head towards the backboard as if she was going to try for a three-pointer, Yosemite Sam moved to block her and opened up a pass opportunity back to the unicorn.
Cloud Kicker was playing a loose defense, since she knew Aloha didn’t have a good shot, and missed the ball as it came by. Aloha didn’t hold it, she rocketed it back to Lola, who was now in position for an easy layup.
One of the teams was largely made up of Toons; the other was majority pony. Lola was the only exception. Even with the modified rules they shouldn’t have had a chance against a well-honed team who were good at playing the sport as intended.
But Lola knew that the ponies weren’t glory hogs—except for Cloud Kicker—they’d get the ball to whoever was in the best position to make the shot. Teamwork led to victory.
They were still down at the half but quickly gaining momentum.
•••
“Whoth thide are you on?” Sylvester grumbled as they walked to the locker rooms.
“The winning side.” Lola stuck her tongue out at him.
A week ago, the shared locker room had been weird, uncomfortable territory. Lola was well aware that she was the minority gender in her group—over here the rules were shifted. A few stallions, but the bulk of the ponies were mares and the vibe was that of a girl’s locker room where guys were grudgingly allowed. Over time, she’d gotten more and more comfortable and was going to miss it when she left.
Her teammates were around her as she undressed, and they all walked into the showers together. The earth ponies and pegasi often team-bathed and she wondered if that was a boundary she was ready to cross if she had to. She didn’t; Aloha could use her magic to wash.
The final level of bonding , she thought as she shampooed.
•••
Aloha’s ears perked at the soft knock on the door. She glanced across the room at her roomie—Sweet Biscuit was stretched out on her bed, reading a magazine.
The two exchanged a glance, and Sweet Biscuit closed the magazine and got out of bed.
“You don’t—” Aloha began.
“Yeah, I do. You need this.”
Aloha beat her roommate to the door. “Hi, Lola, come on in.”
“Headed to Yuma’s room,” Sweet Biscuit announced as she passed by. “Catch ya later.” She walked out of the room and pulled the door shut behind her.
“She’s—”
“I can’t believe this is the last day.’ Lola sat down on Aloha’s bed. “And then . . . .”
“Consider it a friendship lesson.” The unicorn stuck out her tongue. “Our princess is big on those. Sometimes part of making new friends is leaving them behind.”
“Yeah, but I don’t like it.”
“Me neither. We can write each other.”
“Not the same. I’ll think about what could have been.”
“Still could be. We’ve got tonight.”
“We do.” Lola put her hands on the hem of her shirt and then paused. “She’s not going to come back, is she?”
“Biscuit?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got a signal.” Aloha lit her horn, suffusing her tail-scrunchie with a glow of magic. “On the doorknob outside, she’ll know.” She already knew. “Go ahead.”
Lola reached for the scrunchie and hesitated—it was right around the unicorn’s dock; touching it was basically groping her.
Wasn’t that what she wanted?
She was a brave bunny. Confident, strong, willful . . . she reached out a paw and touched the scrunchie, a simple thing of beads and elastic and yet it could be the key to so much more.
The beads were wooden, painted with a bright enamel that was chipped in places, and she felt Aloha’s tail twitch as she grasped and pulled, focusing instead on not pulling out tail hairs. Then it was done, the scrunchie was in her hand, still warm from the unicorn.
She crossed the room in a daze. The doorknob was cold and refreshing, a spritz of cold water on what was getting hot fast—almost too fast.
It stretched over the doorknob and just hung there, and was it a warning or a brag? She’d seen one pony who liked to wear ribbons in her tail and caught sight of a zebra with a tail-wrap; other than that, all the ponies went without any fashion accessories back there. Did that mean anything? Was it an advertisement, an invitation, or was it just something that Aloha liked?
Lola half-expected to turn and find the unicorn spread-eagled on the bed with a sultry ‘come-hither’ expression, but she wasn’t.
Back home, just being naked was a signal of readiness . . . here, it meant nothing. Or maybe it did; maybe there was some nuance that Lola didn’t get.
How was this going to work anyway? There wasn’t anything in the pony’s room to serve as a distraction, a social lubricant—or at least, not for her. No TV, so no movie to watch while snuggling. Maybe she had some beer or wine.
And where to sit? There was a desk chair, there was Aloha’s bed, and that was it.
Best to sit next to each other. Lola hopped up on the bed and leaned back against the wall; the unicorn jumped up beside her and stepped around on the mattress, rocking the bunny as she moved.
She finally sat up against the wall, too, settling down alongside Lola, her hind legs splayed out and her forelegs in between.
“Is that comfortable?”
“Sort of, it’s not the best. Beds aren’t really made for sitting in.” Aloha pushed a forehoof on the mattress. “Too springy, but it’s not as comfortable if it’s hard.”
“That’s what she said.” Lola snickered. “So . . . now what?”
“Are you feeling flirty?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Just wanna go right at it?”
Lola shook her head. “I’m not ready for that yet.”
“How about just snuggling, then? Maybe some grooming? I’ll get my brushes.”
“Grooming?”
Aloha nodded and got back on her hooves.
“Can’t you use your magic?”
“I could , but we weren’t really comfortable yet, and I want to save it for later.”
Lola nodded, wondering what that meant. ‘Save it for later.’ Could she use her magic for sex? Probably. What form would that take? What would it feel like? It was tingly on her fingers, not unpleasant, like a mild electric current. That might be a very interesting sensation in sensitive places . . . she shivered in anticipation, and then put her focus back on the unicorn. Seeing her fully naked outside of the locker room—it felt different, but she couldn’t say why that was so. Her scrunchie didn’t cover anything.
What would it be like to be so carefree when it came to clothes? To genuinely have no concern about anybody who was looking at her, to go about everything in her life wearing naught but her fur?
If the boys weren’t here on campus, she might have tried it. The ponies wouldn’t think it strange, or would they?
Aloha pulled open a drawer on her dresser, got out a couple of brushes with her magic and then turned and headed back to the bed.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to use your magic.”
“Not to get them out of the dresser, that’s hard. I have to open the drawer and ‘feel’ around for them. Just carrying them’s easy, a foal could do it.”
“Doesn’t seem easy. Remember a few days back where we were talking about distractions on the field?”
Aloha nodded.
“If we hadn’t started out with basketball where I have a natural advantage over you ponies, I think I might have spent just as much time watching things fly around by spell than actually playing the game. I got used to it, so long as I don’t think about it too much.”
“I felt that way the first time I met a hippogriff. She was weird, kind of like a pony but not, and then after a while she just started to look normal to me, that was how hippogriffs were supposed to look. The next one I saw, instead of contrasting her with a pony, I compared her to another hippogriff.”
The unicorn settled on the bed, sitting in the same position as before. “We’re going to have to do some figuring out, do you want to take turns brushing or mutual-groom?”
“Maybe take turns?” Lola reached out and grabbed the mane brush out of Aloha’s aura, feeling the now familiar tingle as her fingers reacted with her field.
“Can I lie down on your lap?”
“Sure.”
Running the brush through the unicorn’s mane was relaxing. It gave her mind a chance to focus on a simple task, to follow a couple simple rules—be careful around her ears and her horn, don’t pull on snags but work them out slowly. Since Aloha regularly brushed her mane and used conditioner, there weren’t many snags.
Aloha’s hair was coarser and wavier than her own; the brush would pull it straight and then it would pull itself back once she got to the end.
The two talked about the games they’d played, the strategies they’d used, a nice, innocent conversation. Neither of them had kept a total points tally, and Lola wondered if that was something ponies did, or if they weren’t generally concerned with statistics. It didn’t feel like the right question to ask.
When she was finally satisfied with the state of Aloha’s mane, she put down the hairbrush and leaned over to get the curry comb, being careful to not impale herself on the unicorn’s horn.
“It feels weird to have your udd—your boobs on my head.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, they’re nice. Don’t take this wrong, but I liked them better when they were free.”
“Trying to get me out of my clothes already?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t it feel better when they can move around how they want, not be all squished up under fabric?”
“That really depends on circumstance—my boobs have to be held back during a game, but I don’t normally wear a bra when I’m sleeping, or if—”
Lola grabbed the curry comb and leaned back and started wiggling around; Aloha turned her head in time to see the bunny pull her bra out from the sleeve of her shirt. “Could hang this on your doorknob . . . you ponies probably wouldn’t even know what it meant.”
“Sure we would, we’ve all seen you in the locker room.”
“Fair point.” Lola tossed it on the bed instead. She grabbed onto the brush—the loop on the back was sized for a hoof, not her paw, and it wasn’t an adjustable strap like the one she had.
She could go back to her room, get her own grooming supplies, but no, it was better to stay here and let things unfold.
•••
By the time she got done with the unicorn’s barrel, she’d gotten good at holding the curry comb. “Do you want me to brush your stomach?”
“If you want to, or you can brush my tail, or I can take my turn.”
“I’m happy to continue.”
Aloha nodded and then rolled onto her back, wiggling around until she’d regained a comfortable spot on Lola’s lap.
After their conversation about boobs versus udders in the locker room, Lola had started to notice them on the mares. They’d always been there, of course, but since they were normally standing on three or four legs, they weren’t obvious.
The pegasi were the exception, inadvertently showing off every time they flew overhead.
With Aloha stretched out on her back, Lola had a very clear view, two bare mounds of flesh just in front of her hind legs, thicker nipples than her own, but no areola to mark them.
She had a sudden mad urge to touch them, to see if they were bouncy or not. That will wait .
Wouldn’t it?
She picked up the brush and eyed the grain of Aloha’s fur. It came together along her belly in a ruff, almost the opposite of a natural part. That was easy enough to work with, but she started instead with the unicorn’s forelegs, brushing all the way down to her hooves—technically, up , since the unicorn was supine.
She’d have to move to get the unicorn’s hind legs—she could get her tail, too, although that was going to be . . . intimate. Doubt started rising, so she focused her attention on the unicorn’s belly, running the curry brush along the grain of her fur, getting every closer to the mare’s compact udders and perky nipples. Were they always perky or was she just enjoying the brushing?
Lola had never turned another girl on, as far as she knew. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Should she be proud?
The brush was almost there, the unicorn was relaxed, she was relaxed and if she thought too much about what she was about to do, she might wimp out. Lola let the brush drop off her hand and reached out, her paw on the border of fur and flesh, and then she did it, sliding her paw lightly along Aloha’s tit—they were small enough that she could have nearly covered both with one paw, if she wanted to. She could definitely tweak both nipples with one hand.
They were not as tight as they looked; there was some give and some squishiness, but not much.
She’d only intended for a quick exploratory feel, then her fingers bumped up against a rock-hard nipple, and she traced around its border, then gave it a gentle pinch, heat racing to her cheeks and her loins as she did.
With Aloha lying on her lap, she felt the unicorn twist in pleasure, so she did it again, and then she slid her hand down further. She wasn’t entirely familiar with a mare’s anatomy, especially not from this perspective, although she had seen her genitals plenty of times.
Stop, this isn’t right, she’s a girl. Lola tried to will her hand to move, to make that last short journey, but she wasn't mentally ready yet. She could feel the tension building again, her psyche insisting that she was about to do something that was Wrong.
Aloha noticed, too. Lola’s paw was still resting on her teats, and then she pulled it back to the safer territory of belly-fur.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m just not ready yet.”
“That’s fine.”
“I could brush your—” Having her hand right up against the unicorn’s butt, against her vulva, it would be a good excuse to touch ‘accidentally’ and go from there, but she wasn’t sure she could. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
“Or I can brush you , let you relax some, you’ve been doing all the work.” Aloha leaned up, looking the rabbit in her eyes.
I’m not sure I can do this . She didn’t say it, but they both knew she was thinking it.
She wanted to, but a louder voice in her mind wanted her not to.
“If you don’t mind, it’ll be easiest for me to do your hair if you’re sitting on the ground.” The unicorn rolled off Lola’s legs. Already she missed the contact. “I don’t have good balance standing on the bed, but if that’s uncomfortable. . . .”
“It’s fine.” Lola slid off the bed and crossed her legs, sitting on her heels. The floor was cold, but it was something to focus on. She could feel the mattress moving as Aloha got in position, and then she felt the brush in her hair.
Hairdressers brushed her hair, and when she was a little kit her mom had, but otherwise nobody else had brushed it but her. It felt entirely different to when she did it, or when a hairdresser did it, a whole host of pleasant sensations. She could feel Aloha’s breath on her head—the unicorn was holding the brush in her mouth. If she hadn’t seen it, she wouldn’t have expected it; the finesse was on par with hands.
She focused on that, but in the back of her mind she was already wondering what else those lips could do.
•••
Compared to Aloha’s mane, Lola didn’t really have a lot of hair, so it wasn’t long before it was time for the curry brush.
“I can come down there with you,” Aloha said, “or you can get back on the bed and lie down.”
She could have done Lola’s hair that way, but having a break from the closeness had actually been good, had given the dissenting voice in Lola’s head time to calm down.
“Yeah, on the bed’s better.” Lola stood and stretched, while Aloha strapped the curry brush onto her forehoof. “Maybe groom my back first?”
She’d already laid on the bed when she realized what a difficult task she’d set for the pony. How could Aloha groom her if she was wearing clothes? “You can—”
Aloha could reach under her shirt and get almost everything but that was stupid; she’d seen the bunny naked before, this was no different than the locker room. Lola sat up and pulled her shirt off, then laid back down and let the unicorn go to work.
It was kind of like a massage table. Aloha sat down on her rump and braced herself with one foreleg while the other used the curry brush. Intentionally or not, she’d positioned her hind legs in a way that gave Lola an unobstructed view of her teats.
At first she just watched, but as the unicorn worked her way down her back, Lola reached out, not quite touching them, resting her hand against the mare’s thigh, sliding ever closer until her nipples just slid against the back of Lola’s paw whenever Aloha leaned across her.
If there’d been a dick there, she’d have already had her paw wrapped around it, and she hated that she was thinking that way. She tried to shut her mind up, tried to focus instead on the feel of brush on fur and was mostly successful.
•••
As Aloha worked her way down Lola’s body, she wanted the unicorn to just yank off her shorts and do what needed to be done. It might be easier if Aloha initiated, and she could just follow along; she could already imagine it in her mind, especially as the brush started touching the waistband of her shorts, the curve of her ass, as she started to reach around her tail and then ran out of exposed fur to groom.
Lola wasn’t expecting for her to go back to the mane brush nor for her to brush her tail; she tensed and then relaxed, waiting for the unicorn to switch back to the curry comb, to slide her hoof under the elastic—
She didn’t; she shifted on the bed and scooted down, working on Lola’s legs, as much of them as she could reach around shorts anyway.
It was time for Lola to make another decision, so she reached down, pushed her shorts down as far as she could, they were going to come off sooner or later and it might as well be now.
Her panties still gave her some modesty, and even though she wished she wouldn’t, the unicorn respected that, only brushing up to the edge of the fabric, not even trying to go beyond.
Once she’d gotten the backs and outsides of Lola’s legs, she returned to her ass, the brush and her hoof gently pushing against the back of her thigh, needing access. Lola hesitated, then spread her legs, closing her eyes as she felt the side of a hoof brush against her crotch and then the comb was in her fur, working away, down towards her knee, and she wanted it back, she needed it back.
A moment later, it was back, pressing once again on her panties, on her sex, and then it was gone again and she focused on the sensations of the brush and the anticipation of the next time.
When Aloha had finally finished combing all the fur she could get to, Lola rolled over, hesitating only for a moment to remind herself that the unicorn had already seen her nude plenty of times, and this might have been a totally different situation than the locker room but it was really more private so not a big deal at all, right?
Even her boobs were blushing, it felt like.
Looking up at the unicorn was strange. Everything was strange. Here she was, in only her panties, on a pony bed in a pony world getting ready to do it with a mare—which was the harder barrier to cross, the species barrier or the gender barrier?
Which should be?
Aloha leaned down and touched the brush to her neck, instinct told her to roll away, to protect herself but she was tense and quivering until the curry comb moved on, around her shoulders, around the upswell of her breasts and then it was back again, gentle and delicate. She opened her eyes, expecting to see Aloha’s focus on her boobs or the triangle of fabric between her legs, but it wasn’t. She was looking at her face. Their eyes locked, and Aloha leaned in, nuzzled her nose and then gave her a quick peck before the brush started moving again.
It was taking her forever to get to her breasts, the wait was getting agonizing. Lola finally pushed Aloha’s hoof down, twitching involuntarily as the brush hit a nipple that was hard enough to cut glass.
Even if the brush hadn’t been between them, there was no way that Aloha could enjoy the touch as much as Lola did. Her hoof was hard, insensitive—Lola’d been kicked a few times in the course of the games, she still had bruises and scrapes on her legs and one just below her breast where her enthusiasm had outweighed her wisdom and she’d tried to block a kick in progress.
The ball had missed the goal, so in that regard it was a victory.
The touch of curry comb on her boobs was immediately rewarding; it was a touch she needed; as it got to her belly it was more intimate, not a quick reward but a slow, subtle build. Lola had been holding Aloha’s foreleg in a vice, but she let go long enough to slide her panties down with almost no hesitation as soon as the brush touched the elastic waistband.
Would Aloha abandon the brush? She wanted her to, she could already anticipate the pleasure between her legs as—
No, this was better, a completely different touch of brush on fur, teasing her and getting her closer and closer to the edge as it closed in, thrilling her with anticipation, letting her mind imagine what was going to come next before the brush moved down her thigh, then returned, closer.
The lightest hoof-touch, gone so fast it could have been imagined, and then the unicorn was working her way down to Lola’s feet.
She opened her eyes again and looked down at the unicorn, diligently brushing her shins, a faint glow from around her horn even though she wasn’t using her magic at all, not as far as Lola could tell.
Her feet—she’d forgotten how sensitive they could be. Aloha turned to get a better angle, facing her rump towards Lola, her tail high, her clit a bright pink button against the dark skin of her forbidden flesh.
Lola jerked back as the brush touched her paw-pads.
“Sorry—does that hurt?”
“It’s, I wasn’t expecting it.” Her throat was dry, her voice husky. “Come back up here, you’re too far away.”
Aloha did a careful three-legged hop-walk back up and settled down beside the bunny, pressed up against her side. She lifted her forehoof and pulled the curry brush off, then set it down on the bed. “Do you feel more relaxed?”
“I don’t know how I feel.” Relaxed and yet completely wound up, it felt like every nerve on her skin had been stimulated—almost every nerve; the ones between her legs had been frustratingly missed.
So far.
“Your horn was glowing, were you doing something with your magic?”
“I was happy, sometimes it glows when I’m happy.” She leaned in and brushed her muzzle against Lola’s nose, then their lips touched.
As their tongues danced together, Lola ran her hand along the unicorn’s side, pulling her into a one-armed hug. When they finally broke contact, she was ready.
Aloha went for her throat first, gentle pecks down to her collarbone, along her breastbone, the fur on her cheeks already teasing her breasts—the touch with the comb hadn’t been enough, it had been the merest promise of what was to come.
Lola whined as Aloha worked her way further down—she wanted her down there, too.
And then the unicorn came back, kissing her way up again, this time booping her nose against a breast, her muzzle unbelievably soft and delicate, her breath hot, her touch both firm and feather-soft, a sensation that Lola had never felt before. It was almost anti-climatic when Aloha’s lips brushed against a nipple and then her tongue—those, at least, were known quantities.
Except they weren’t , because her lips and her tongue were far more talented than any Lola had ever known previously. The mouth that could hold a brush while talking, or gently pluck an anti-magic ring out of her fingers had far more skill than her own stupid lips. Every time she found a good spot she’d focus in on it, sending the bunny writhing under her.
Some girls had said that they could get off with just nipple play, a claim which Lola had doubted.
She had been wrong.
She was close, and then she felt a pressure on her other breast–a hoof, firm and unyielding, cool and refreshing, and then she felt an unexpected sensation, an electrical jolt that set her nerves alight–a magenta glow as the unicorn wrapped her boob in her field.
Now she knew why Aloha had been saving her magic.
Besides the electrical feel, it was a totally different sensation. It had more finesse than even her lips and tongue, since it wasn’t hindered by a physical body. Yet at the same time, it wasn’t as good, because there was no presence behind it.
The closest comparison she could make was between a dildo and an actual dick—they could both do different things, they could both get her off in a different way, and yet at the end of the day only one was real.
Together they could be amazing.
Lola felt the building pressure inside her, wrapped her paw in Aloha’s mane, and cried out in pleasure. She pulled the unicorn into a tight hug—she didn’t want her to stop, but she needed a minute to process what had just happened.
•••
“How can you be that good when you ponies barely have tits?”
“I’m good at learning on the job, I guess.” Aloha leaned up and nuzzled the bunny’s cheek, then rested her hoof against a boob. “Your udders are really nice and fun to play with.”
Aloha kissed her way down Lola’s sternum again, working her way around her boobs, this time leaning far enough across to kiss the other one, her magic once again teasing.
She didn’t stay for long before she was moving down again, kissing to the bunny’s navel, even licking that little button of flesh, then her lips were below, sending a shiver through Lola’s entire body as her head got closer and closer, as she slowed her pace, drawing out the moment yet not pulling her head back—Lola wiggled her butt on the bed, sliding up, her mind insisting that the only reason the pony wasn’t down there yet was because she somehow couldn’t reach.
Aloha pulled back and gave the bunny a quizzical look.
Lola nodded, and she bowed her head again, her muzzle brushing against private fur, the little hairs on her chin giving the barest hint of a touch. She kissed the inside of Lola’s thigh, up so close, and then—
For all the buildup, it still came as a surprise when Aloha’s muzzle finally touched her, jolting her to her core. Never once had a partner been this good, and the unicorn hadn’t even done anything yet. She was about ready to cum just from anticipation .
She clenched her fists on the comforter, her muscles tense as Aloha’s tongue traced her labia, her love-button, shooting waves of pleasure up her.
Her brain protested again. This wasn’t right, she shouldn’t be doing this—she told her brain to shut the fuck up and lost herself as the unicorn’s lips closed around her clit, squeezing and releasing, pushing her to a new plateau even as Aloha released and pushed her tongue inside. Broad, flat, strong, exploring her inner walls even as her nose still brushed against Lola’s clit.
“Holy fuck.” Maybe the unicorn had learned about boobs on the job, but she sure knew her way around a pussy. She was finding nerves not even Lola had discovered before, absolutely annihilating the hapless bunny.
•••
The two were snuggling again, Aloha in her usual place on Lola’s boob. Lola was in what felt like a perpetual state of pleasured numbness, as relaxed as she’d ever been and yet also at a new level of horniness she’d never experienced before.
She was playing with the unicorn’s mane as she came down off her latest orgasm, and it occurred to her that Aloha had been doing all the work—she hadn’t even gotten past second base.
Lola traced her finger around the border of Aloha’s ear. “Hey, roll over.”
“Roll over?”
Lola nodded. “My turn on top.”
•••
She turned to face the other end of the bed, to face Aloha’s tail, and leaned down and kissed the unicorn. Being upside down made it different somehow.
Her ass was facing the dorm room window, and she wondered if pegasi ever peeked into rooms to see what was going on inside. If they did , they’d get quite a show.
Then she forgot about that as she started to rub her paw over Aloha’s belly, as she moved down, her fingers brushing against her udders, this time not hesitating as she reached for nipples—
Lola hadn’t expected Aloha to take advantage of boobs in her face, but of course she would; as she rubbed her thumb against a nipple, she felt Aloha’s lips on hers.
The unicorn reached up with a hoof, pressing against the other, jiggling it—lots more movement when the girls were hanging down. She lost her concentration and then regained it, trying to ignore the already-building pleasure in herself and focus instead on how Aloha was reacting.
She eventually took away the unicorn’s playthings, working her way down Aloha’s belly until she was face-to-face with her teats.
Lola was still regarding them, her fingers still kneading a nipple, when Aloha stuck her nose under the bunny’s tail.
Lola leaned down and started kissing and licking Aloha’s udders. They did feel like very small boobs, she decided. Structurally, about the same, but there was more muscle and less fat.
Even scrunching them together with her hands didn’t give the mare any noticeable cleavage. Not that there was any point in her having it; nobody would see anything.
Aloha hadn’t started using her tongue yet—she couldn’t reach. That was fine with Lola, she could concentrate better when she only had one thing to focus on.
Well, two things at the moment, but it would soon only be one thing. She scooted forward, leaving hand resting on Aloha’s udder, crossing the final gulf. Making out with a pony was different in a lot of ways, but it was kind of similar to making out with a non-pony. Kissing was the same if it was a boy or a girl, her teats were more guy-like than girl-like, and, in principle at least, getting eaten out was more or less the same no matter who was down there. At least she could tell herself that, the inner id who had been conditioned to accept only certain kinds of bedroom activities.
This was different.
This was new.
For the first time, she really looked at Aloha’s genitals—she’d seen them before, gotten a peek under her tail more than once, but she’d never studied them up close, in a situation where it felt okay to look.
Not that Aloha would have cared previously; Lola didn’t have to ask to know that.
Her first epiphany was that she actually didn’t know what her own pussy looked like. Their high school sex-ed book had suggested setting up a mirror and looking, but she never had. That just seemed weird—and she certainly knew what it felt like.
She’d watched some porn, and while she didn’t believe it was all true or representative, between what she’d felt on herself and what she’d seen on the screen, she knew that Aloha’s vagina was very different from her own, at least in the specifics. In a broad sense, it was mostly the same.
Her fingers skirted the edges, touching outside the fur but not her vulva, not her clit—she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. That one voice in her mind was shouting very loudly, like there was a bear trap in there or something.
It’s okay if it’s with a mare . The whole point of the trip here was to learn new rules, and maybe to unlearn old ones. She moved her finger, feeling around the edges, running her finger over the unicorn’s labia, strange and foreign, not like her own. The little nubbin in the front also felt completely different; it was bigger and stuck out more but it must have been just as sensitive, because she felt Aloha tense under her, and her tongue paused long enough for her to suck in a breath.
She pushed inside, exploring. She wasn’t burned by acid, or caught in a snare; if she closed her eyes it was almost like fingering herself, so long as she only focused on her fingers and nothing else.
And where else should she focus? The playing field was right in front of her, she knew the rules, and now it was time to play the game. Her first step onto a buckball court had been intimidating, hadn’t it? It seemed so long since she’d first stepped into the locker room with Aloha and the rest of the ponies.
Once she knew the borders, knew the good spots, she bent her head down, hesitating one more time before taking the final plunge. Her mind still yammered away in the background; she ignored it as her tongue brushed against Aloha’s clit, as she repositioned herself for a better angle and dove back in.
She’d never tasted herself either; so she couldn’t make a comparison there. Aloha was metallic and grassy, and she had more muscle down there—what felt like a surprising amount of voluntary and involuntary movements.
For a game she’d never played, any movement was good movement. Tuning out the distractions from under her tail was difficult; the unicorn had way more experience at eating pussy, sending Lola off yet again, but what she lacked in experience she made up with enthusiasm and dogged determination.
Aloha’s orgasm had been a long time coming. Lola finally hit the sweet spot—an irresistible combination of fingers and tongue, she felt the unicorn tense up under her then clench around her fingers, trying to pull them in further as she came and then lay panting on the bed.
•••
The two finally collapsed together long after midnight. It had ended much like it had begun; they’d experimented with positions and even the toys that Aloha had—she wasn’t opposed to having a dick in her, so long as it wasn’t attached to a stallion.
She’d cuddled up with her head on Lola’s bare breast, and it wasn’t long before she was asleep. Lola stayed awake, her mind replaying the last few hours and all the places she’d taken Lola that no male ever had—that no male had ever even tried . After they’d gotten the urgent out, they’d talked about what they liked, and Lola had achieved a level of pleasure she never thought was even possible.
