Before the Night

Chapters

Well, I’m a Horse Now.
I Made Some Money and Pissed Off Gandalf
Blaze Murdered Me. I’m Dead. Oh No.
My First Winter in Equestria
The Battle of The Everfree
A Date with the Night
It’s Been a Year
The Night Will Begin
I Got a Dog. She is Best Girl(If Your Definition of Dog Translates to Magical Fox Thing)

Well, I’m a Horse Now.

The first thing I noticed was that I was not lying in my bed, instead I was laying in the grass of… some sort of field. My eyes weren’t even open yet, so I didn’t know where I was. Speaking of which, when I did open my eyes, first I shut them tight again because of how bright the sun was. Secondly, I opened them again and rolled off of my back onto… four hooves. That is not normal at all. For one, I am human. Last time I checked, humans had two feet, two hands, two arms, and two legs. No more, no less. Unless you had some sorta of birth defect of course. Or a mutation, mutations are pretty shape altering.

The next thing I noticed, I was a horse of some sort. Cool, that would explain why I have hooves. It doesn’t explain why the ever fresh fuck as to why I’m a horse though. Like I went to sleep as a human, in my bed. I shoulda woke up. Again, as a human, in my bed. Instead, I’m a horse, in the middle of a fucking forest, on my own and alone. “What the fuck did I sip on last night? Mountain Dew? I knew constantly drinking that would turn me into a fucking yellow horse!.” Huh, my vocal chords still worked and could form words…

If I run into literally anyone, I will get bisected. On the bright side, I don’t have to worry about taxes, bills, or hearing another Nickleback song. So really, who’s the real winner here? Me, obviously. I could smell flowers that were on the opposite side of the clearing I eventually found myself in… Walking wasn’t too hard once I figured out how to not trip on my left hooves. Overall, I wasn’t minding being a horse. Would eating grass as a human turned horse allow me to get high off my ass? Or would it literally just be food now? Well, worse comes to worse, I just die. So I took a bite… and that actually tasted pretty good. Like a salad that was already covered in ranch.

Needless to say, it was pretty good, and I kinda liked that. So of course, as I wandered, if a flower was on my path, I ate it. Each flower had a distinct taste, dandelions though, those tasted like shit. Like the flavor wasn’t all that bad, but all the seeds made me nearly choke and die. Fuck dandelions; stupid little weeds. There were these weird blue flowers, now those, those tasted like an angel pissed in my mouth. That is a really weird way to say those are my favorite by far.

Of course, my wandering led to a bunch of tents, where horses walked between them and talked and chatted happily. With those tents was a nice, long caravan of carts. There were fire pits, the smell of bread, and it looked kinda cozy. And reminded me of something that might’ve been a thing during the Great Expansion in early-day American history. Overall, it looked cool, but I didn’t want to stick around. Because I am the luckiest fucker in the world, one of the horses noticed me. “Oi, what the hay is a pegasus doing here?” I slowly turned my head to my sides.

Huh. I have wings. That’s pretty cool. Can’t use them, but it’s pretty cool. “Uh… I got lost somewhere.”

“Why ain’t you flying?” An orange horse walked up to me, wearing a nice, fancy stetson that had a little nip in the front. “If yer a pegasus, you wouldn't have gotten lost to begin with, with your fancy ability to fly.” I blinked a couple times.

“Is wanting to take things nice and slow a bad thing? I like walking more than I like flying; I like to stop and smell the flowers rather than live in the fast lane, y’know?” The best part? I wasn’t lying. I do like to smell flowers when I’m not in a hurry to get somewhere.

“Ah’ll be damned… a Pegasus that doesn't like flying,” it was then that I noticed that the horse had an apple tattoo’d on its ass. “So what’s yer name? I’m Red Delicious.”

“I’m…” That’s the name of a type of apple. Cool. “Bald Ostrich, I came from…” I hummed for a second for a dumbfuck horse-town name. “Las Pegasus. I left that snobby place to find something more in life.”

Red Delicious grinned. “Well, Ah think we’ll get along; Las Pegasus is filled with a bunch of snobby, noble ponies that think they’re holier than thou. The only thing that Ah can say is that they aren’t as annoying as the unicorns in Everfree City; sadly we’re headin’ dere to sell our produce to them.” Wait, that dumbfuck town name is the name of an actual city… Why. what kinda fucked up world do I live in now? It’s clearly not Earth.

“You don’t mind if I tag along? I’ve been lost for a really, really long time. Seeing some… civilization would be nice.”

“Of course! And sorry if Ah sounded a tad bit racist to ya, most pegasi we come across are still getting over the fact that we Earth Ponies are their equals in Equestria.” That’s a dumbfuck name for a country.

“Meh. I’ve been called worse than a few slightly racist remarks; I literally grew up being called various, random slurs.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m a pegasus that doesn’t like to fly. Even my fellow pegasi call me names.”

“Such as?”

“Chicken, little bitch, cunt, retard, all that fun stuff.”

“Ah, so that’s probably why you left Las Pegasus?”

“Eeyup. I do enjoy not being verbally harassed, surprisingly.”

“Ah’m surprised that anypony would insult you; for a pegasus, you’re quite handsome.” I blinked a couple times. Before I knew it, we were standing in front of a firepit, and I was introduced to a bunch of ponies whose names I couldn’t remember for shit. Just know that they were, in fact, named after types of apples. Like Golden Delicious, Braeburn, Honeycrisp, all that fun stuff. One pony that stuck out was a midget named Crab Apple, and it’s only because I had to stop myself from laughing at that name and who that name belonged to.

I was handed food after chatting and joking around with the ‘Apple Clan’, which tasted pretty good. Purely because it had apples in it. If you somehow fucked up apple sauce and a simple sandwich with lettuce and apple in it, then something’s wrong with you. And yes, apple sandwiches existed I guess. It tasted heavenly, so I wasn’t complaining. Even though I could go without lettuce. Fuck lettuce, it’s dumb, stupid, and tasteless. Even as a yellow pegasus.

Later, I found myself sharing a tent with Red Delicious, or I would’ve had I not snuck out last second and just slept out in the open. I don’t wanna share a room, or a tent, with a horse. The ‘ponies’, as they called themselves, were very intelligent and friendly even if I could tell that there was a slight bit of racism. Still, I also just wanted time to myself to contemplate my current situation. I am no longer human, I’m now a pony, in some pony land where having wings is normal, horns are normal, and the ponies here are sentient and smart enough to form civilization and know the concept of trade.

And I have no idea how the fuck I am going to fit in.

For one thing, I can’t fly; never had wings, humans don’t have wings I think. I dunno, that’s the stuff legend apparently… HUMANS! I also have to find a job, while barely being able to walk properly, in what is apparently a lot more ‘old school’ in terms of what I’m seeing. Because so far, I’ve yet to see anything that screams ‘advanced technology’ at me. So how the heck can I get by in my new life? Now I know I have taxes to pay, bills to likely pay. I’ll need a house, or some cave to sleep in, but I suppose I’ll climb that hill when I get to it.

A job would be nice though; money keeps the world going round, and also keeps me from starving to death because I don’t know how to farm, hunt, or what I can actually eat.

With a new goal in mind(getting a job), I rolled over, covered my eyes with my wings, which was a pain in the ass, and went to sleep. The following day, I learnt that wings are amazing to sleep under the sun with if you’re like me, and literally cannot sleep unless it's dark. Anyways, the next day, we started moving along, and it was then that I noticed something. I can barely feel my hooves, which felt so odd considering how sensitive human feet are. Well, I wasn’t complaining because we were traveling for god damn hours; my hooves barely felt that.

When we first stopped at Everfree City was…. There was a whole fucking castle the center of a bunch of midieval looking buildings. As we got closer, I could see the smoke of a smithy rising as the sounds of a hammer meeting metal could be heard from all the way out here. I stopped and stared in awe, because it honestly looked pretty cool with the surprisingly bright colors for a town that looks like it came out during the middle of… well, the medieval period.

“Quite the sight, ain’t it?” I jolted slightly when Red Delicious nuzzled my cheek. “This ain’t even gonna be the capital and it’s still a sight to behold. Canterlot is still under construction; that still won’t stop the nobles from flocking to live next door to the Royal Sisters.”

“Well, every rich asshole wants to be near the politicians; then they can suck their teets and pretend like they have the well-being of their country in mind. Nah, they’re gonna try and lobby laws that help them make more money.”

“Pfft, ain’t that right! Ah knew you were a bright fellow the moment I laid my eyes on you!”

“Red, stop flirting with that stallion! We gotta get our stalls set up!” Crab Apple, the midget, shouted from wherever the fuck she was.

“But M’ah! He’s a hunk!”

I blinked a couple times, before deciding to ignore what the fuck was just said about me. Instead, I focused on helping the Apple Clan get their stalls set up in order to ignore that. I don’t want to think about that. It turns out, I wasn’t that bad at moving things despite my ‘reluctance’ to fly, which earned me a few points from the Apple Clan. of course, I also stuck around and tried to help drive sales up by dancing like an idiot while pointing to the Apples’ wares. Of course, because I am such a good(lucky), talented, marketer, it worked surprisingly well. Of course, I was dancing like an idiot, and got laughed at too, but I was helping.

“Say, Bald-”

“Please, call me Ostri; I hate my first name.”

“Ostri, you dancin’ like dat helped like wonders for our business!” Crab Apple trotted up to me and lightly socked me in the shoulder. “It looked buckin’ stupid, but it helped!”

“That was the goal!”

“And for that, we believe you deserve a bit of a cut-”

“But you guys literally housed and fed me for a day while I was traveling with you guys. It’s the least I can do-”

“Ostri, you can’t put a price on just being nice to a stranger.”

“Then take this as me returning your kindness. I am a firm believer in karma; what comes around, goes around. You paid me in your hospitality, and I will try to return it by helping you guys sell a few extra apples.” Crab Apple sighed, before pulling out a brown bag.

“You really aren’t making this easy, Ostri. We want to pay you. Red thinks you’re a sexy little thing,” Crabby looked me up and down. “And she’s right. Just let us pay you though. You don’t have to stay with us, but just take this bag of bits. Red told us of where you came from, and we believe this bag of bits will help kickstart your new life.”

Now, there are a few times where I felt like crying, this wasn’t one of them, but it almost made me cry anyways. “You…” I swept Crab Apple into a tight ol’ hug. “You guys have to be the nicest folks I’ve ever met. Where I come from, I’d be lucky to get a loaf of bread.”

“Just remember our kindness and pass it along to the next pony that’s suffering.”

“You got it!” I took the, admittedly, small amount of bits, and tucked it under a wing. “I hope we meet again, my friend.” Oh yeah, this is also why Crab Apple stood out. I slowly lowered her to the ground. “And if nothing else, you’re adorable, and you can probably seduce some guy with your cuteness into swindling him for bits.” Crabby snorted.

“If Ah ever have to do that, Ah’ll kill myself.”

“Yeah, I would too. Unless you kill the bastard and hide the body; he can’t fib about what you did.”

“Your… humor sure is interesting,” Crabby smirked. “Ah like it though. Good luck to you, Ostri!” we shook hooves and I was well on my way. Well, on my way, I found a few beggars and handed them a couple bits each. Their eyes widened, so I guess I either gave them a lot, or gave them basically nothing. Eitherway, the beggars thanked me and quickly went off to probably get a loaf of bread. I was honestly a bit busy just looking around, and by the time I noticed it was dark, it was night with a full moon above me. It was… fairly peaceful.

The once bustling little ‘city’ was now barren and empty, and I forgot to look for a place to bunker down for the night. Honestly, I was down to go out of town, find a random patch of grass and sleep on that. For now though… god that night sky. As much as I ignore the night sky, even I’m not above just sitting down and enjoying the constellations, or just how nice and peaceful it is to hear a symphony of crickets as I lie on my back and stare up. The moon was also kinda pretty, so there’s that.

“Why are thou out so late? Shouldn’t thou be resting with everypony else?” Now my ears were ringing. Of course. I can’t have a nice moment of just enjoying the night sky. “Perhaps a pony finally decides to bask in our night?” I rolled onto my stomach to see… a midnight blew unipeg? Alicorn? A fucking horse with wings and a horn, standing over me. She was wearing some crystal horseshoes, which had to hurt; they were heels. Black, crystalized regalia consisting of a necklace and a crown. A beautiful mane that sparkled and shined, and looked as though the night sky itself was captured within the mane. She was also notably taller than most of the ponies I’ve come across so far. “art thee going to speaketh? we supposeth yond a pony yond enjoys our night wouldst still beest afeard of us.”

“Oh no, you’re pretty as fuck and I was taking it all in; it’s not everyday you see a Royal, ain’t it?”

“thee's speaketh so vulgar at which you are talking to thy princess?”

“Can you speak normally? You’re loud as hell and I can barely understand your ‘olden’ talk.”

“Tis tradition to speak like this, but we supposeth we will tone it down…” The Princess cleared her throat. “And speak untraditionally. Why are you out so late? Everypony usually shuns my night sky despite how much work I put into it.”

“I was honestly stupid and didn’t find an inn to sleep in. Dunno if I can even afford an inn with this,” I pulled out the bag of ‘bits’ and handed it to the princess.

“Judging by the weight, you could probably sleep in an inn for months.” The Princess sighed. “So you don’t enjoy our night?”

“Oh no, it’s awesome.” I pointed up. “Like there’s the little dipper. Follow the stars until they stop, boom, Polaris, the most northern star, I think, and boom, big dipper. I wish I was more in astrology growing up; the night sky’s an amazing view in its own right. Not to mention the peaceful atmosphere the night brings, and you get yourself a perfect place to nap, or sleep in a field of grass lit by moonlight.”

“I.. you find the night beautiful… and you are so knowledgeable.” I blinked. “Not even my sister knows what a little dipper is! Let alone a big dipper!”

“Wait up, if you’re one of the Royal Sisters, the heck are you doing out here?”

“We guard our subjects during the night. While my sister is asleep, along with the rest of the kingdom, I rule… it’s hard to rule over anything when all that you rule over is asleep. So I get bored and wander the streets of the city… and tonight I found a stallion that actually appreciates my night!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I sleep during the night too; everyone’s gotta sleep, right? Anyways, I will happily admire the night sky when given the chance, but I will have to go to sleep at some point. I have to, or I’ll probably die from exhaustion after a few days.”

“That… is fair. Ponies were never night creatures, after all. But thank you for basking in our night. Perhaps you would like to spend a night or two in the palace? I’m certain Celestia wouldn’t mind; she’s constantly bringing home mares, stallions, anypony she can possibly sleep with, so why can’t I?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We are not going to sleep with each other.” Luna actually giggled at that. “You didn’t mean we were gonna fuck like a couple of slutty rabbits, were you?”

“Of course not! I was offering you a place to stay as a friend!”

“We… just met though. Meh, we can probably work through the details of us actually being friends by literally just hanging out.”

“Hanging… out?”

“We just spend time together. You know, chat, laugh, tell jokes. I will steal your kidney afterwards, it’ll be fun.” Luna giggled again.

“That doesn’t sound like a terrible idea… though please leave my kidney in my body; I quite enjoy having that.”

“Fine…. Will you settle for giving up a lung? You got an extra to spare”

“No. I quite enjoy having both of those in my body.” Fuck.

“I suppose that would be a thing you’d enjoy… I’m Bald Ostrich by the way, but I prefer going by Ostri.”

“I am Princess Luna, but I believe I don’t need introductions… everypony demonizes me as is.”

“How in the fuck? You’re so pretty looking… and also pretty chill if you were so willing to joke around with me when it came to your kidney and lungs.”

“You don’t think I’m a monster?” Luna looked genuinely shocked.

“Nope. unless you kill somebody, I don’t see a reason for me to see you as a monster of any sort. You’re not too bad from what I’m seeing, and you literally just offered me a place to sleep tonight,” we began walking, with Luna leading the way. “I dunno why everyone is demonizing you; I wasn’t in civilization for a good year or dozen, I can’t remember, and you shouldn’t let that get to you. If they can’t appreciate you, and your sister is apparently doing nothing about it, just up and leave. Find somewhere you are appreciated and cherished.”

“I…” Luna wrapped a wing around me. “You may refer to me as Luna. You and I will be best friends!” I chuckled as the princess suddenly started being really cute and geeking out over her personal interests. Like the night, her love for complex math, all that fun jazz. Hell, she had a checkerboard in her room and we just played that for a few hours until I blacked out from exhaustion… every time she won, she pranced in place, which was criminally cute.

Needless to say, I already kinda liked Luna.

I Made Some Money and Pissed Off Gandalf

I woke up the next day underneath something nice and warm… whatever I was laying on felt like I was sleeping on clouds. It felt… so nice. I shifted slightly and opened my eyes. I came face to face with Luna’s sleeping face. I jolted slightly before slowly relaxing. I think this happened at some random point in the night, probably after I fell face first into the checkerboard when Luna went to go get her lunch, which was around midnight. So far, I didn’t feel wholly violated, and Luna was kinda warm, and being under her wing was nice. But… I know I need to get up.

For what? Nothing. I have no job, I don’t know what I’m doing with myself, I’m just here. Might as well go get that job I was hoping to get yesterday. So I slid out from under Luna’s wing, before pulling the blanket up over her, and going for the door. I slipped out the door and into the hall. Only to bump into something big, white and kinda squishy. I made a very intelligent ‘wag!’ after bumping into said big squishy wall. It also didn’t help that the big, squishy wall made an ‘oh?’ and I jumped back.

“Uh…” Okay, so Luna was tall, and this bitch was a fucking giant. “Hi there,” I waved.

“Hello, my little pony. What were you doing in my little sister’s room?” Oh, so this Celestia. “I bet you two got rather busy last night?” Celestia giggled. “Though if you are simply using Luna for your own person gain-”

“Your highness, I’m glad you care about your sister and all, but I was literally just about to leave to find a job. Luna’s cool, I could easily get by off of being her ‘lover’ or whatever, but I’m not about that life. For one thing, judging from how everyone seems to treat her, she deserves happiness and somebody that can actually make her happy. I doubt I’m that type of person; I won’t make any advances unless Luna wants me to do so.”

“I-I huh. I was not expecting that type of response. Surely anypony accused of such a thing would try to cover their flanks… are you actually going to go look for a job?”

“Yeah. I like working; it gives me something to fill in the void that is my empty life.”

“I’m certain you could easily get a job in… something. If you are being honest, I will even point you in the right direction. What’s your cutie mark? You could certainly…” she started looking at my ass.

“Uh… is now a good time to say I don’t know what a cutie mark is?”

“...What?”

“Yeah, I’m not actually a pony.”

“A changeling?” Celestia’s horn lit.

“Whoa, hold it the fuck up. I ain’t some fucking weird… the fuck is a changeling? I’ve only seen the movie- no I haven’t I’ve heard of the movie. But I wasn’t a pony a couple of days ago,” Celestia’s horn stopped glowing and she blinked a couple of times. “Anyways, two days ago, I woke up in the middle of bumfuck, nowhere. Instead of my nice, warm bed, I was laying on the ground as a horse. I was once a human. An ape-like animal that practically ruled our planet. I don’t know how I got here, I don’t want to know how I got here, I don’t know why I’m here. I’m just here and I gotta accept it.”

“What in the world…” Celestia lit her horn again. “Please retell that, this time I will know if you are lying.” I shrugged and did so, abridging most of what I just said because I don’t want to say all of that again. By the time I was done, the day Princess blinked a couple of times. “Oh my day…” Celestia lifted my chin up with a hoof. “You really are not a pony, are you?”

“Nope. I guess my new name’s Ostri, short for Bald Ostrich, nice to meet you.”

“I know your name. Luna was talking about you during breakfast and she was so happy while talking about you. Truly, you must at least be special if you managed to get my sister to open up.”

“All I did was treat her like a person, and not the demon your subjects make her out to be. Luna’s actually not too bad, and actually kinda funny sometimes. Not to mention that my human brain finds Luna to be ridiculously cute when she prances in place when she wins a game of checkers. Or when she kicks my ass in chess. So I dunno how the fuck your subjects began demonizing her, but you gotta find some way to stop that. It’s genuinely fucking Luna up in ways I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Actually… Luna never told me how it’s affecting her. I know how my subjects see her; they fear the night and Luna’s reputation is so heavily tied to it that they’ve begun seeing Luna as a demon. And we barely see each other unless it’s at my breakfast, or her dinner, or at my dinner or her breakfast. And when we do see each other, we mainly talk about politics, things that happened in our respective courts, or anything involving ruling Equestria. We never talk about ‘sister’ things. You’re the only subject Luna has brought up outside of her duties such as budgeting.”

“You… Go talk with your sister, Celestia. She’s your little sister, and if I were you, I would immediately go see what was wrong with Luna if my subjects started making her out to be the second coming of Satan’s asshole. Because while I might not have any siblings of my own, or any family for that matter, if I did have a little brother or sister, I would be out making sure they aren’t hurting.”

Celestia stared down at me and took a deep breath. “Do not tell me how to be an older sister, Ostri. If Luna deems it important, she will talk to me about it.”

“Alright. If your sister ends up committing suicide, or goes down a route you don’t like, don’t blame me. I know what that kinda treatment can do to a person, Celestia. If your subjects make your sister out to be a demon, she will become one. And as Luna’s friend, I’m at least going to make sure she is sane at the end of every day. But if my friend ends up doing something regrettable, I will hold your ass to it. Take care of your fucking sister, Celestia.” Celestia’s hoof came down with a thunderous crack.

“Don’t you bucking dare tell me how to treat my sister. As you said, you don’t have siblings or a family of your own, so you don’t know what it’s like.”

“Yeah. I was an orphan, woohoo! Eh, fuck it, it’s like talking to a brick wall-”

The door opened and Luna sleepily stuck her head out. “Ostri, Celly? Why are you two yelling outside my door?” Luna walked over, and Celestia offered a wing for her younger sister. Instead, Luna walked over to me and leaned on me. “It’s too early in the day to be yelling at each other. Ostri, if you want breakfast, you can ask one of the servants to take you down to the dining hall and you can have whatever you’d like… please return tonight; it was fun ‘hanging out’ with you.” I chuckled and nuzzled her, which jolted her awake. “You just nuzzled me…”

“Yeah. Is that bad?”

“No. it’s not bad at all,” Luna leaned further into me, which was kinda awkward because she was a lot taller than me.

“Here, I’ll get you back to bed, Luna,” I felt Celestia’s glare bore its way into the back of my head while I helped her sister back onto her bed, and tucked her in as well. A small smile fell on my face when Luna quickly fell asleep and started snoring. After I closed the door, I turned back to Celestia before shrugging. “I may not have known what it’s like to have siblings, or parents, but you do. You have something special. I know you aren’t listening, you mule.” Celestia seemed a bit shocked when I said that. Hard labor ain’t the only thing I picked up in my short time around the Apples, Sunny. “But don’t let it go to waste because Luna won’t tell you. Or fucking stop your subjects from demonizing her. Good day, your highness. I’m going to go get a job and make bank.”

“What?” Celestia was very confused… people of the past, am I right?”

“Make money. Bits, all that fun stuff. Toodaloo motherfucker!” I waved before glancing out a window. Wow, this place is tall… I can’t just jump out the window I guess. “Say, can you show me the way out? I think I might be a bit lost.”

The princess simply chuckled. “Well, I suppose I can help out Luna’s new friend. Even if he doesn’t know his place.” Celestia’s horn lit up and I was suddenly kicked out of the palace by two guards. It hurt like a bitch, my ass was itchy, and I wanna go and kill myself. But I’ll probably die anyways, so I don’t need to do that last bit just yet. First thing’s first, I asked around, asking about where I could possibly find jobs, odd or not, for some bits. I was pointed to a bulletin board in the shopping district with odd jobs and bounties, most of which were offers from the Crown, or Celestia and Luna. So I went there and chose a job at random, mostly a high paying one.

So here I am, standing in front of a cave with a sword, because one of the odd jobs, that paid about five hundred bits, and it involved murdering the shit out of some bear infested mineshaft. How did bears get in a mineshaft? I don’t know. I heard the bears, and they sounded pissed the fuck off. So an idea came to mind. I walked away from the cave and back into town to see if ponies discovered fireworks yet.

The answer was yes.

So, I grabbed a few, which pretty much costs about half the bits I got from Crab Apple, and went back to the mineshaft with something to light the matches with: A flint and steel. When I got to the cave, there was some unicorn with a really cool beard, a cape and hat with bells. Of course, I ignored them, walked to the mouth of the cave, and began setting up the fireworks. “Hey!” I stopped what I was doing and turned to the mage. I think he was a mage. You don’t dress like that without being a mage. “What the hay are you doing, pegasus?”

“I’m… going to clear this mine of bears.”

“And I was sent by the Crown to remove the bears from this mine as well. And since you are a pegasus, I doubt you have any good ideas, or the abilities to take down a bunch of bears. Especially if you have fireworks. Go kick some clouds or something. And why do you have fireworks pointed into the mines to begin with?” That was probably racist somehow.

“Because fuck you. I need the bits from this job, and I’m fucking getting them; fireworks are fucking dangerous.” I then lit the fireworks and started running from the entrance.

“If you think-”

The fireworks shot into the den and a lot of bears, who sounded like they were dying or in pain, started making noises. The lightshow was kinda pretty. After a moment, the two of us walked into the mines, which somehow withstood shit blowing up, and started surveying the damage. There were a lot of dead bears, most of which were charred to a crisp. Needless to say, my idea worked.

“Bitch,” I chuckled. “I ain’t a pony in the head. What I am doesn’t matter, but just know this: If we want something dead or removed, we will do it better than anyone else can. Now, I’m going to go collect that bounty; I think the Crown’s paying out the bits for that. Before I do that though, I’m gonna go pick up a few more odd jobs and cash them all out at the same time. See ya around, Gandalf.” I bonked the unicorn on the nose before making my leave.

And that’s how my day went, doing the more dangerous odd jobs, because they seemed to be the ones that paid the most. One involved removing wolves from an area, and I ended up playing with them and leading them away with a stick and a game of fetch. Another involved bears again, so I cashed out one of the odd jobs in order to get the bits required to murder the bears again. God, this place has a fucking problem with bears… Meh, not my problem; a bear can still die from a bunch of fireworks hitting it in the face and blowing it up. Especially when you shoot them in the face with a firework.

At the end of the day, I cashed out about five odd job checks, leaving me with around a thousand bits. Oh yeah, and I got arrested for some fucking reason. I dunno why, but I didn’t honestly care because I was probably going to die. I wouldn’t put it past Celestia; she doesn’t like me, I think. So I just sat in my dungeon, my bags of bits were sitting on a desk next to the guard captain, who acted as Everfree’s police, I guess. At some point my idea for a fun idea was to rhythmically beat my head into the wall to the beat of some random song stuck in my head.

“This is the pony I was talking about, your highness.”

“Oh, hey Celestia,” I waved from inside my cell, before returning to beating my head into the wall to the beat of Fireflies because that was just what was stuck in my head at the moment.

“Ostri? Is that actually you? How did you get arrested?”

“Dunno, don’t care,” I didn’t relent in my wall headbutting. “All I did was do some jobs that the Crown was offering, that were apparently dangerous. It was fun. I blew up some bears with fireworks, played with a pack of wolves, and got to pet one of said wolves; they were sweethearts. And I got about a thousand bits to my name now, because leading those wolves away while playing fetch took up most of the day.”

“You… played with wolves?”

“Yeah. Some humans find wolves adorable, and I’m one of those humans. Wolves don’t even wanna eat ponies apparently, or the pack already ate something. Anyways, do you know why I’m in jail?”

“You interrupted a mission directly from Celestia of course!” Gandalf, no that’s not actually his name, yelled. It was the same god damn unicorn from earlier.

“Oh, the whole bear infested mine? That fun bit. Yeah, you’re welcome; I got the job done didn’t I?”

“You blew the bears up!”

“Ostri did technically take care of the bears, Starswirl.”

“And Celestia already knows what I am. Anyways, can I go now? Luna asked me to meet her in like… an hour or something. Kinda can’t do that if I’m in a jail cell. And can I also get my money? I actually almost died from a rogue fireworks show while getting some of those bits; fireworks are really useful for clearing out pests. Also, I just want my money so I can get some bread before seeing Luna. Perhaps I can show her what a grilled cheese sandwich is.” Starswirl stalked off, saying some very colorful, and probably racist, shit about pegasi.

“Well, I don’t believe you’ve broken the law. And as much as I don’t like you, I will let you out; Luna will yell at me if I don’t. You can also go get your bits, and meet me at dinner. Luna is still asleep and will likely be joining halfway through dinner.”

“Can I cook? I wasn’t joking about wanting a grilled cheese sandwich… you guys got cheese right?”

“We do. What kind of question is that?”

“Your world is very primitive compared to mine, your highness.”

“Well, if you are so adamant about cooking, I shall allow you to do so with a guard watching. I don’t want to risk you poisoning anypony.”

“Understandable. See you at dinner.”

By the time I got the sandwiches just right, Luna apparently woke up, and was sitting in the dining hall, talking over some political shit with her sister. Said sister took a whiff of the air before turning to me. “Sup, ladies?” I walked in carrying the platter on my back, which was actually kinda easy. I managed to put together three grilled cheese sandwiches, and a fourth because the guard’s mouth was watering at the smell of them. I perfectly seasoned them with some garlic at some point, because cheese and garlic are a tried and true combination.

“What is that smell?” Luna sniffed the air. “It smells delightful!” Luna slowly looked down at the plate I put in front of her. A grilled cheese along with a cup of pudding I managed to find in the cupboards. Celestia, according to the kitchen staff, required cake for dessert so that’s what she got. I just stuck with a grilled cheese sandwich and some water. “What… is this?”

“Celestia, have you managed to tell Luna about what I am?”

“I did, shortly before coming to see why somepony got arrested and required my judgment.”

“Cool. Luna, as you know, I’m not a pony,” she nodded. “This is… not a delicacy from my world, it’s more of a guilty pleasure. Something you eat because you either want a good time, or your moments away from killing yourself and this is your comfort food that keeps you from killing yourself. Tonight, I assume you two just want a good time, and aren’t about to do any self-harm. Now, without further ado, this is grilled cheese.” I wiped my hooves with some napkins before picking up my sandwich and taking a clean bite through it.

Yup, that, that hits. Celestia soon followed suit, and after watching her sister’s reaction, Luna took a bite of her sandwich. Unipegs really like grilled cheese sandwiches apparently. “Ostri, you must tell the kitchen staff how you made this, it’s amazing!” Hey, at least Luna wasn’t mad about me not being a pony. How? I dunno. I’ll probably have a talk with her about that, where she’ll probably just be asking me why I didn’t tell her immediately after meeting her.

“Hm… trade secret. Or family secrets… kinda can’t have that be a family secret if I don’t have one though. So it’s just a trade secret.”

“You… Do you have any family to speak of?”

“Guess why I’m not devastated about being stuck here?” I shrugged. “Never knew my parents, grew up in an orphanage, and since I wasn’t cute or something, I never got adopted. Never had siblings that I’m aware of either. It’s honestly not too bad. It’s something to make jokes about at least; I’m a terrible person, or pony, so I make fun of my own misery.” I took another bite out of my sandwich while Princesses actually took that in.

“You know, Ostri, when you said that earlier, I passed it off. Do you truly have no loved ones?”

“Yeah. Coming here was the second worst thing to happen to me.” Celestia blinked and I laughed. “I wasn’t always an orphan; somebody had to give birth to me after all.”

“That… is incredibly messed up, Ostri.”

“Yeah. Humans are awful.”

“You humans can’t be that bad; you don’t seem that bad.” I just started laughing. “Ostri?” Luna cocked her head. “Is this some sort of joke I don’t understand?”

“Okay so, you probably know what genocide is, right?”

“Of course.”

“You can guess where this is going, right?” The two of them nodded. “Plus, I’m pretty awful. I did literally murder a whole group of bears for choosing the wrong home.”

“That isn’t so bad; animals don’t have emotions,” Celestia said.

“Ah, you ponies and your archaic beliefs. Yeah, no, animals have emotions. Or are capable of them at the very least. They probably aren’t as complex as what we are capable of feeling, but a bear can still feel love, fear, anger. Hell, those wolves I played with earlier were very capable of being friendly and happy. Don’t you think about disputing this, Celestia,” said the Princess closed her mouth. Not before shoving another chunk of grilled cheese in her mouth at least. “Humans are a bit divisive on the topic despite there being scientific proof for this. Dogs are very capable of empathizing with their owners. I killed those bears in cold blood simply because I wanted money.

“And that’s what makes humans so horrible and dangerous. We can detach ourselves from our emotions and morals for any reason. Either for greed, or to finish a task.”

“But you were so friendly yesterday!” I found myself, with half my sandwich in my mouth, and held under one of Luna’s wings. “And I will not allow my friend to talk so poorly of his race, or of himself. So shut up and let us enjoy our evening meal; let’s move onto more fun topics. What have you done today?” I retold what happened, wolves, bears, yotta, yotta.”I never thought that fireworks could be used in such a manner…” Luna hummed. “That’s rather ingenious even if your methods were a bit violent.”

“Yeah, it was a bit violent, but you can’t argue with the results.”

“You’re right; I cannot.” Luna nuzzled me. “Perhaps I shall find some way to incorporate that into Equestria’s defenses? We have mages, but being able to blow up large bases, without me or Tia present, would be helpful.”

“Say, why are you nuzzling me? I know it’s a sign of affection; you wouldn’t be doing it to me if we weren’t at least friends after all.”

“They are a sign of affection; a bit like a kiss if you will. You’re quite attractive, even if you do not know it, Ostri. Granted, I wish your coat wasn’t bright yellow, but it suits you.”

“In… in other words, you are trying to court me? That’s what you guys do, right?”

“Of course. Though, after learning of your origins, I don’t know if that is something you’d be comfortable with. So let’s talk about making you my consort instead?”

“What’s… that?”

Celestia snorted. “You poor, poor, little pony.” My head instantly cocked to the side as Luna began to tell me what being a consort would imply.

Author's Note

holy shit-

thanks for the support for this story on just the first chapter! another cool thing, this story got featured on the first day of it publishing. i may not know how that works, or how hard it is, but it’s still pretty fun.

Blaze Murdered Me. I’m Dead. Oh No.

“Ostri, what the buck?” Luna sat bug-eyed, looking up and down the kitsune sitting next to me at the dinner table. The nine-tailed fox was resting her head on the table while I ran a hoof through the fur between her ears. “Why do you have a Kumiho?” Surprisingly, getting food arranged for Blaze was incredibly easy, since she can apparently eat just about anything; she just has a preference for rabbits. So she was happily munching away at some eggs, another favorite of hers, that I boiled for her(her favorite way of cooking eggs), which is the one thing foxes eat, that ponies are also okay with eating. Sitting in front of me was a simple salad with some of those blue flowers, that I really liked, in it, that I was happily chewing on. On occasion, Blaze would nudge my hand and would receive a few pats in turn.

Who knew that I’d like eating grass more than some crazed drug-fiend?

“Luna, if Blaze was a Kumiho, I wouldn’t even be alive. I met this bugger by going out on one of those odd jobs because Blaze apparently ate ponies. Not only does she not like eating anything sapient, and straight up hates violence if it’s not necessary, but she also doesn’t like eating pones because we smell bad. I could literally bop Blaze on the nose, and at worse, lose my privilege to having my hoof not in her mouth. Watch.” I did just that, and now Blaze was the proud owner of my hoof, wagging her tails as she held onto it. She also never actually bit into it, just gently holding it there. It was cute as fuck when she happily squealed when she reigned victorious over le hoof. “I used her as a bed last night; she’s really fluffy and is a great cuddle buddy.”

“Just because you compliment my wondrous fluff, does not mean I will let go of your hoof, Ostri.” Blaze’s tails kept on wagging. “Hmm, this is quit the dilemma I’ve found myself in.” now, Blaze had to make a difficult choice: Eat her last egg and let go of my hoof, or keep my hoof, and not eat her egg. Her eyes darted between both, if she could, there’d be a single bead of sweat running down the side of her face. she soon sighed, her ears perked up, letting go of my hoof, and eating her last egg in one fell swoop. I raised the same hoof and started rubbing her shoulder.

She then reclaimed that hoof.

“See? Blaze is dangerous, but she chooses not to be dangerous. On Earth, there are similar creatures to Blaze, but they’re all mythical and not real. For starters, they’re called Kumiho, like what you called Blaze, and Kitsunes. Kumiho were Korean, while Kitsune were Japanese. I don’t know the finer details, but Kumiho were ‘corrupted’ by the Japanese during a war, and are now apparently evil and violent as fuck. Like they will seduce men, according to legend, and eat their liver before torturing them for fun. Kitsune are apparently just big, fluffy, friendly fox things that just want to be your friend.”

“I fit that category!” Blaze raised both her paws in the air before falling on her back.

Again, Blaze is stupidly cute. Then she wonders why I boop her nose.

Luna just sighed as we continued with our antics. “Blaze, stop doing that. It’s cute as fuck, and it will make me develop heartburn because of how cute it is.” Blaze sat up and stuck her tongue out. “You were so mature-sounding yesterday, and now you’re like a big baby. You’re less irritating than a baby at least.”

“Well, Ostri, you’re my human. I’m allowed to relax and display my more playful side to you, am I not?”

“You are allowed to, and it’s cute, too cute. You’re not allowed to kill me by being cute, though.” Blaze sighed, closed her eyes, and spun my chair around so I was facing her. “What the heck-” Blaze’s eyes opened again, revealing her attempt at puppy eyes. Was it weird because her eyes were one color? Yes, was it still really cute? Yes. That tongue of hers was poking out just enough to seal the deal, so I just ended up hugging her.

She made a happy, little fox laugh before leaning into the hug. My heart is now a puddle of blood and muscle.

“I really must argue as to why keeping something that looks similar to a Kumiho is a bad idea,” Celestia said, taking a sip of tea. “Sure, she might seem friendly, but she could be deceiving you so she can eat you, Ostri. It’s a Kumiho’s nature to deceive and cause pain; Blaze might not even be a Kitsune like she says she is. And while I know you and I don’t get along, I do not want to hear you scream in pain as your ‘beloved, sweet, cute, little pet’ kills you in cold blood. Or find her eating you after killing you in your sleep.”

“Oh yeah, Blaze already killed me,” I turned back and pointed at my beloved, sweet little pet that’s actually almost as big as Luna. “That face is enough to make Satan cry from the sugaryness in it.” I chuckled. “You are not making me regret keeping Blaze. And if she kills me, who cares? I’ll be dead so I can’t feel betrayed, I know you’d at least be happy because you no longer have to worry about me seducing a certain somebody for my own personal gain, and Blaze gets to eat my kidney. It’s a win-win-win.”

“Ostri, Luna would care. I would care given enough time to actually grow accustomed to you. You’re not a bad pony, and you’re taking jobs from the Crown that nopony else would do, and often end up sending Starswirl out from his studies to solve. At a minimum, you’re pulling your weight and then some, Ostri. As much as I want you gone, I don’t want you killed.”

“Sister, you’re just jealous that Ostri isn’t here on a one night stand.” Luna said from behind a tea cup. “However, I must agree with you. Ostri, why the buck did you think bringing something, that’s that big, and carnivorous into town, and then keep it in the palace was a good idea? Sure, you might find Blaze cute, but even I can admit that Blaze is slightly terrifying. And I’ve faced armies of griffins without flinching.” Blaze, at that point was resting her head on top of mine, her eyes slowly blinking as she struggled to stay awake. “Buck, I don’t even know if giving you your own room, alone, with your pet would be a good idea.” Surprisingly, Blaze didn’t make any retort.

“Ostri, I don’t need to make a response to these accusations or their opinion of me. If they do not like me, resembling a member of a species I’m not a part of, so be it.”Blaze looked up at the Sisters, who were sitting on the far end, away from her. “If you’re so concerned with me eating your consort, Luna, I am willing to wear a muzzle. However, I don’t think my owner would want that, or let me put a muzzle on.” Blaze yawned. “Ostri, finish your salad already; I’m sleepy and I demand cuddles when we get to bed.” I shrugged and did just that. Then, without even giving me a second to say goodnight to Luna, I got picked up and dragged by the fox to our room.

Of course, we ended our long day of playing constantly, in the same bed. No, we didn’t do anything nefarious; she’s my pet fox, you pervert. We just cuddled, and I got to sleep under a blanket of tails, which is always fun. The next day, I woke up to Blaze nudging me with her nose, summoning a water bottle, or as close to a water bottle as she can get, from my nightstand. I sipped on that, before laying my head back down to get some more shut-eye. “You know we’ll have to get up eventually and go do some odd jobs; the safest ones are always available earliest in the day.”

I sighed. “I know, but you made one mistake.”

“Oh?” the kitsune grinned. “What is that, my favorite little pony?”

“You are very cuddly, soft and fluffy. I wanna sleep in because you’re a really good bed.” Yeah, we weren’t even using the bed. Blaze was happy with just laying on the floor, and she was big enough to be used as a perfectly pony-sized bed, with her own self heated blankets. “Aren’t you capable of fire manipulation? I swear, you are warmer than most mammals should be.”

“I am capable of that, but I cannot breathe fire like a dragon does. Why do you ask?”

“Yeah okay. That would explain why you’re so warm…” I sighed in contempt as I nuzzled into the floof. “Wake me up whenever; the best paying jobs are usually dangerous, so nobody takes them.”

“Of course… so right now?”

“You would be a monster if you did that.”

Blaze sighed. “Then I shall refrain for now, Ostri. Until I want to walk”

“Ostri!” The door slammed open. Celestia walked in. “I have a job for you and your fox!” I groaned as I slowly raised my head. “Oh shut up; I know you don’t have an actual job.”

“I walked for miles-”

“Don’t know what those are.”

“-To get to where Blaze was, and then that same distance to get back to Everfree City.”

“I carried him halfway back,” I didn’t know canines could make shit eating grins, but I do now.

“Shush, you. You’re not my real mom!” I sighed and sat up. “So what do you need me to do, Celly?”

“Well, it’s not exactly urgent, as you can guess, but your help would be nice. And since you’ll end up seeing it on the job board later and take it anyways. I need you to help me prank Luna.”

“...What?”

“Okay, it’s not a job at all, I just want to prank Luna. Luna is to hold a very important speech later today, and I want to put on a scary light show behind her while it happens.”

“And then you wonder why ponies consider her a demon. Celestia, that is bumfuck stupid, and you shouldn’t do that. What’s the speech even for?”

“The opening of an orphanage Luna would like to run; she loves foals, and this is her way of helping out less fortunate ones.”

“And you want to make her look like a demon even more than she already does to your subjects,” Celestia nodded. “And you saw nothing wrong with that?”

“Well… now that you say it, that does sound a little dumb… you’re right, I shouldn’t prank Luna in such a way.”

“Good. you best not either. I know you say I have no right to talk, but I think you doing that would get your ponies yelling at Luna, and that will probably make her lock herself in her room and cry all day.” I got up out of bed. “And because I don’t think I’m going to go back to sleep, I’mma drag Blaze outside and go on a walk. See ya around, Celly.” Blaze picked me up by the scruff again, opened the window and jumped right on out, landing gracefully on all fours, before setting me down.

“I was promised a walk, Ostri.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the two of us just wandered around town, getting scared looks and stink eyes. At some random point, a foal walked up to us before its mother magicked it away from us. I love ponies, not racist at all, and huggable. Later into our walk, we got bored and just started playing fetch until the day was over. I was doing fine money-wise, and Blaze just wanted to play a game of fetch for some reason. She was really excited, and with all those tails wagging, along with the happy pants she was doing… Yeah no, I’m not saying no to that face.

And she knows it. She swindled me out of a banana with that face of hers; she knows how to emotionally manipulate me and I’m proud.

About a week later, I was lounging outside of some sorta bar, sipping on what was just really sugary beer, Blaze was laying at my feet, until she saw some colt handing out newspapers. So like any good dog, she grabbed one with her ‘basic’ telekinesis and brought it over to me. The main article was about Luna’s orphanage, and how it was one of the best ideas the Crown had come up with to date. On top of that, it helped ‘humanize’ my friend, so now ponies didn’t hate her as much. Of course, all the credit for the idea went to Celestia, despite Celestia stating it was Luna’s idea to the press, so that’s really fun.

“Why are you ponies all so stupid?”

“How did you read this article without looking at it?”

“I can read your mind, and I read it processing what you read. Why do ponies constantly make out Luna to be some sort of demon incapable of anything good, when she is literally hosting children that do not have parents? The orphanage has her sister’s name on it, Luna is the one that funded it, and yet Celestia is the one that gets all the credit?” Blaze snorted. “It’s like you ponies want that mare to do something awful to herself or the rest of your ponies. While Luna doesn’t seem to like me, for somewhat decent reasons, she is a good person from what I can tell.”

“You’re telling me that. First two nights I spent in Equestria? Under her wing, because she considered me a friend off the bat, and she now houses me because of that. The fact that, according to this article, there were no orphanages in town until Luna opened one, says a lot though…”

“You might be the only sane pony, and you aren’t even a pony in the head. How does Luna, who is tied to the moon in some way, get classified as a demon?”

“...Let’s go see Luna, Blaze. Chances are, she’s seen this, and definitely isn’t happy about it.” Blaze nodded, threw me on her back, and made a mad dash through town. We kinda ignored the fact that ponies were shouting at us on the way; they were mostly rich assholes who yelled about their tea time being interrupted. Before I knew it, we were in the castle running to Luna’s room. I knocked a couple times. “Luna? Are you there?”

“What do you want, Ostri…” Luna’s voice lacked any of the cadence it usually had.

“Luna, open the door. You don’t sound good.”

“Ostri, you do not bucking get it!”

“Luna, I saw the article. Please just let me in.”

“So you can call me a demon too!?” Her voice was getting to ‘hearing damage’ levels of loud. “I tried, I try to do some good in the world, and the world just assumes Celestia, bucking Celestia, is just being a good pony and naming something good after her sister! All that hard work, all of the time I took to plan it out, just gone… The only good thing is that the less fortunate foals won’t be starving in the streets.” Luna sounded so dead, that that slight bit of emotion towards the end shocked me.

“Luna, just let me in. You’re clearly hurting, so don’t suffer alone. Allow me to help you take the pain.”

The door opened and I walked in, Blaze followed suit. “You know, I have an idea or that might help out, but I dunno how helpful they would be…” I climbed up on Luna’s bed, where she was under the covers. “Blaze, initiate emotional support fox,” before Luna could even blink, she was now being cuddled by Blaze. The fox in question had the Princess wrapped up in her tails, constantly grooming Luna.

A smile cracked on Luna’s face. “Blaze, please stop!” Luna squirmed slightly. “That is ticklish! Stop it!” Blaze did as asked. “Okay… maybe you aren’t so bad; a Kumiho would’ve eaten me by now in my state of strife.” Luna nuzzled into the emotional support fox. “This is quite lovely.”

“Thank you! I spend a lot of time grooming myself in the morning,” Blaze glared at me. “Because somepony keeps drooling into my coat! Using me as a pillow is a privilege that somepony doesn’t seem to get.”

“If I’m abusing that privilege, why don’t you stop me from using you as a pillow/?”

“Because I love you.” Oh. “Not romantically, you imbecile.”

“Bro, I can’t even spell that word. I’m just surprised that you actually love me.” I hopped up on the bed and nuzzled Luna. “So, are you at least feeling better, now?” Luna nodded. “Good. I have an idea or two that may help your image, or at the very least just make you feel better.” Luna’s ears perked. “One of the ideas is that you go out during the day and just be a normal pony. No crown, no regalia, just Luna. Another, is if you go on a date with somebody you love, or if Celestia is okay with it, you two just act like sisters in public. Either or, just show that you are just some lady who happens to rule a kingdom. The last is just plucking a kid out of your new orphanage and adopting them.”

“Those are some ideas… I particularly like the last two ideas. I would like to care for a foal, and I would like to go on a date with somepony. For now though…” Luna snuggled deeper into Blaze’s fur. “This is very lovely.”

“You know, it surprises me that Kumihos are apparently more common than Kitsunes in this world.” Luna’s eyes shot open, now filled with a child-like wonder. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No. You’ve spoken of what humans are like, but never what your world is like. It has Kitsunes and Kumihos as well, but they are only the stuff of legend. Would you care to elaborate on that more?”

“Okay… so there are two countries that are practically neighbors. With humans, dunno how it works with you ponies, but two nations being neighbors, often leads to a lot of cultural differences and similarities. The legend of a nine-tailed fox is one of those legends that Japan and Korea, two countries in my world, three if you wanna go by technicalities, where Kitsunes and Kumihos originate respectively. While in Equestria, where Kumihos are so common that you and Celestia heard of them, despite them living very, very far east, on Earth, the Kitsune was more wide-spread. Again, they weren’t real, but the legend of them was more wide-spread. Like any fictional creatures that were based on a nine-tailed, shape-shifting fox were called Kitsunes for the most part.”

“You humans are dumb. Kitsunes are wholly incapable of shapeshifting. Kumiho can do that, despite the imperfections that derive from said shapeshifting, their other abilities cover it. Hence why their hunting of sapient beings is so effective… but still, humans are stupid.”

“You tell me. We let Nickelback make music.”

“What… is Nickleback?”

Blaze opened her mouth and the instrumental to Photograph started playing. I blinked, but I suppose speak-singing Photograph is just gonna be something I do today. Luna shut Blaze’s mouth after the first minute. “Golly, that’s what you humans listen to? It sounds so basically structured and lazily lyricized. And your performance doesn’t sell it much either.”

“The thing is, it’s catchy, and that’s all it has going for it. I personally prefer something more tasteful-” Blaze’s mouth opened again and some orchestral music started playing from it. “How the fuck are you doing that?”

“Magic.”

“Fair enough. Wait, if you can do that, how come you can’t just speak english?”

“Again, the concept of language is lost to me.”

“But you know music theory.”

“...Yes?”

“How the fresh fuck-”

“Listen, I liked partaking in the enjoyment of art, and even learning music theory took me several years longer than anything with sapience should.”

“You confuse me.”

“Shut up, bitch.”

“Oi, the only bitch I see is you.” Blaze shot up, making Luna roll over with an ‘oof’.

“Oh, you wanna go?” Blaze then pinned me down with magic. “I will throw paws at you, Ostri. I will kick your ass so hard that you won’t be able to sit for a week!” Blaze loomed over me, ready to kick my ass without any feet, before she laid down and started licking me. Luna was just sitting on the floor wide-eyed. “Sorry about that Luna, this is just how me and my owner speak to each other; it’s quite fun.”

“I genuinely thought you were about to kill each other.” Luna got to her hooves. “I am feeling better though, thank you, Ostri, Blaze. However,” I was lifted in a blue aura and removed from Blaze’s reach.

“It is still my turn to cuddle with the emotional support fox.”

“But she’s my fox!”

“And now she’s mine.”

Blaze raised a paw. “Do I get a say-”

“No!” We both turned to each other.

“You know, we could both cuddle her at the same time.” Luna and I’s faces grew into something malicious, and they ended in pure bliss as we shared a very confused Blaze. Then I heard both my fox and favorite princess snicker. The next thing I know, I was dead.

Nah, Blazed laid on top of me, and Luna laid on top of her. It’s warm and cozy, but I’m dead now.

Shit, that sucks.

Author's Note

next chapter might have a reference to Snowdrop. just wait’n’see.

My First Winter in Equestria

Winter, no matter the dimension, it seems to just exist, and it is a real bitch and a half. It’s been winter for the last few months, and because of biology, I never got to grow my winter coat in. I don’t know the specifics, I don’t need to know those, but I did know it was cold as shit. Despite the fact that ponies can control the weather, they decide to let it get to roughly about ‘haha, fuck you’ levels of cold. Something about the land needing rest, which is fair, I guess. Once the clouds are available, spring can begin or some shit.

Luckily, because I had Blaze, doing odd jobs wasn’t too hard as long as we stuck around town to do those odd jobs. They were low paying, pretty safe and easy jobs that mostly involved delivering something, helping with building something, and just general, small tasks that the nobles were too lazy to do. I didn't make a lot (barely as much as the first odd job I took, ever), but it still helped put food on the table. Well, despite voicing my desire to get my own house, Luna said that consorts had to live, and get their meals, in the palace.

For some reason.

I didn’t mind that, but now I just had a stockpile of bits and money that I had nothing to do with. Aside from toys for Blaze, which were literally just sticks I found on the ground for free, I had nothing to spend my money on. I got fed by Luna and Celestia, Blaze got her food from the same source, and I didn’t have to pay taxes because I was Luna’s consort. I just lied in my bed, cozied up under the comfort of a Kitsune’s tails, and tried to read some book that kinda sucked. There was nothing to do, as it was snowing so hard that everywhere had shut down.

The government included.

“Hey Ostri?” I looked up to Blaze. “Somebody’s at our door.” She didn’t even have her eyes opened. Damn magical foxes and their magical ways. “I heard that.” Fuck. You’re cute. “Thank you!” Ostri nuzzled me.

“I’ll-” The door opened up and Celestia calmly walked in. After my initial week of living in Equestria, the two of us came to an understanding. She tolerates me and I stay out of her way. Granted, after I cooked for her and Luna that one time, and a couple more times after that, she hasn’t exactly warmed up, but was willing to pretend to be friendly to me. That in itself was kinda cool; at least she wasn’t actively trying to get rid of me now. “So, is there anything you need from me, Celestia?”

“I was going to invite you to something Luna and I do whenever the weather is horrible like this. Whenever the weather gets so bad that we even have to shut down, Luna and I often partake in sitting by the fireplace, telling stories, jokes, enjoying some tea, and just being sisters. I wanted to invite you to that.”

“But like… isn’t that solo time you can have with your sister? Why not pounce on that as soon as possible? I know you two don’t often see eye to eye, and this is one of those few opportunities where you two being politicians and alicorns won’t matter for a whole day. So take the chance to-”

“Ostri, I am inviting you. Luna did not request that you be there, I am requesting that you come. I want you to come, and I simply to at least learn to do more than just tolerate your presence. I know you think I do stupid things a lot, and I think you should stick your nose up where the sun doesn’t shine, but I will admit that I’ve been a little rude to you. Despite your position and ability to abuse it, you choose to try and make an honest living and I can respect that. I’d like to know you better.”

“Can Blaze come?”

“I would also like to go. Sitting in a room, alone, is boring when you can’t nap as easily as you mortals.”

“Blaze may come, but she best not do anything bad.”

“Didn’t I wake up on the bed once,” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “And woke up to you using Blaze as a pillow, while purring, and being groomed by the big, scary, possibly evil Kitsune?”

“Okay, that was one time-”

“You do that at least once a month, Celly. You like Blaze, admit it.” I hummed when Blaze moved to rest her head over mine. “She’s just a big, giant softy, just like you. That’s something you both have in common.”

“Okay, so I heard from Luna that Blaze is excellent for cuddling, and wanted to try it a few times.” She actually giggled. I stared at her blankly. “What? Can I not giggle?”

“No. it was adorable though.”

Celestia spun around and shook her ass. “Oh? Is there any other part of me that you think is ‘adorable’? Perhaps sexy as you put it?”

“Hmmm,” I entirely ignored the ass shaking. “The way you light up whenever you get cake, or some other sweet treat, is pretty cute. Honestly, if you learnt how to suppress how blunt you are with your emotions, you’d be a good ruler too. And I know you enjoy it, you workaholic. I see you prance in place during day court whenever you manage to solve somebody’s problem on the spot. That’s pretty cute too.”

“...You do realize what I just did, correct?”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s probably a nice horse ass, but I ain’t into horses,” I tapped my head as I hopped off the bed. “I’m not a pony where it matters. If I were one, I’d probably consider you the sexiest thing on the planet. Despite how your subjects see Luna, I see a few stallions and colts taking a glance and blatantly staring at her backside and legs. So I assume that has to do with pony attractiveness? Slender legs, something about your arse. If so, you’re probably ‘supermodel’ levels of hot to your ponies.”

“Well, I do not know what a supermodel is, but,” the three of us began walking out of the room. “I have had a few older stallions come to try and court me. I never gave them a chance after the first one; he tried to touch me in ways that were far from comforting on our first date.”

“...How old are you?”

“Around thirty. This happened when I was roughly twenty.”

“How old is this country?”

“Fifteen years old.”

“Huh… that would explain why you kinda suck at being a politician, but it makes sense, I guess. I assume that- wait up- didn’t this country come together from a war?” Celestia nodded. “You and Luna were generals at fifteen? Possibly earlier?” Celestia nodded again. “What the fuck dude?” I nuzzled into Celestia’s shoulder. “I have a newfound respect for you. Jesus christ, I could never handle pressure like that at that age, or even now. I’d crumple, cry and hide with a tub of ice cream while trying to forget I’m a general...”

“Well, Luna was often the one leading the charge,” the hell? “She came up with strategies I could never come up with. Luna is Equestria’s sword; she’s been a better fighter and tactician than I have. Sadly none of her efforts were seen simply because she is my younger sibling; it’s assumed that I taught her those strategies and how to fight.”

“And Luna was kicking ass at the age of…?”

“Twelve. Alicorns, even the younger ones, are very powerful. The only unicorn that I know of that even comes close in raw strength was Starswirl, and he was on our side during the war.”

“I…” I stopped.

“Ostrich is aroused, your highness.” I glared at Blaze. She then pretended to be a dumb little animal, sniffing a lamp that was in the way.

“Oh? Do you have a thing for powerful ladies?”

“I mean… Yeah. I can only imagine how fucking cool you or Luna would look in battle armor…. Holy shit, I think I’m starting to find you horses attractive.” Celestia grinned.

“I hope you realize that the term ‘horse’ is a slur, Ostri.”

“Oh… I said that in public once when you first met Blaze.”

Before our conversation could continue, we entered a small side room, where we found a wild Luna partaking in hot chocolate. In other words, a fairly happy Luna. Her tail idly wagged as she read a book and hummed in delight as she took a sip of her chocolaty beverage. An ear flicked at the sound of the door clicking shut. “Ah sister!” Luna waved at said big sister. “And you actually brought Ostri? What have you done to the real Celestia?”

“I figure it would be best to get some bonding time with Ostri. We are living together, so we have to be able to do more than just tolerate each other… Ostri, choose to cuddle with me!” I blinked.

“No, Tia, he’s my consort! Get your own!”

“But you chose a hunk for a consort, Luna! We can share him if we really want to; it’s legal.” I don’t like the sound of that.

I slowly turned to Blaze, who was just sitting there, blissfully smiling. “Don’t look at me, Ostri. You-“

“Lay down between Luna and Celestia please. I wanna cuddle you, snuggle you, and huggle-“

“Excellent argument, Ostri. I suppose I will save you from this predicament.” Blaze went to lie down and I followed suit, laying basically on top of her. “This is nice,” Blaze closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. “This is very nice, actually.” I was about ready to take a nap when Celestia laid down next to us and rested a wing over the two of us. “Celestia, go get your own male pony to cuddle with. Ostri is mine,” Blaze snorted. “After all, I am his pet, therefore I get priority in the Ostri Cuddles Line.”

I just lied there silently, wishing for a mercy that would never come. Then I found myself blink, and was laying on Luna’s side. “Why the heck are you guys even fighting over me now? Not even yesterday, you gave me the sink eye. Then I wake up to you shaking your ass to me, Celestia. I know Blaze just wants to cuddle, and I know why Luna wants me to be with her.”

“Tia, I know we can legally share consorts, but why did you shake your flanks in my consort’s face?”

“We were merely joking around. I believe it is time that me and Ostri began to do more than just tolerate each other.”

I just stared into Blaze’s eyes while the Sisters’ argument got more and more heated. “Guys? Can y’all chill out?” I sighed. “If I knew this was gonna happen, I woulda gone back to my room and kept on cuddling with Blaze. Or even play with her; Blaze is adorable when she pounces at a soccer ball.”

Both Princesses looked at each other for a long moment, they took a deep breath. “Sorry Ostri. We’re just stressed out at the moment.”

“Why is that?”

“The griffins made a threat on Everfree City. And this is the first day we’ve had away from that mess.” Luna shook her head. “Look, if you and Tia become friends, then I won’t mind. I think it’s good that you two are finally starting to get along. Though if you do consider courting somepony, you did promise that you’d give me a shot first.”

“I dunno if I promised that, but mark my words: You will be the first lady I court and dance with should I ever get to that point…”

“Ostri already finds how you ‘kicked ass’ at the age of twelve, hot. He also wants to see you in armor,” Blaze said smugly, still cuddling Sunbutt. “And I know he’s beginning to crack and consider ponies attractive. Why not begin seeing if you two are compatible? You’re immortal, Luna. You may as well take the chance while you can. Knowing you two won’t work out, rather than not knowing if love will bloom between the two of you, is a lot less painful. If nothing else, you two will probably be happier.”

“I… Would you actually like to court me, Ostri?”

I stopped to consider it. On one hand, Luna’s a pony. On the other hand, I don’t think I care. It’s not like I’ll become human again anytime soon, and Luna is pretty fun to hangout with. It’s been months since I’ve first come to Equestria, and I’ve become complacent with how things are looking. “Y’know what? Fuck it. If it doesn’t work out, the worst that can possibly happen is we leave our relationship off on good terms.” Luna blinked a couple of times before getting up, squealing in joy and hugging me tightly.

Blaze let out a howl while Celestia clapped.

A month or two down the line, I woke up under Luna’s wing. Overall, the first two months of dating weren't too bad. Luna nuzzled me more, but acted roughly the same around me. The threat of griffins looming overhead still seemed to stress her out to no end, but Kitsune therapy seemed to ease her mind at the beginning of every night. Of course, Spring was coming up, and tomorrow would be the mark of the end of winter.

We were going to Cloudsdale for the Spring Sunrise ceremony. As Luna’s consort and now lover, I had to attend. Blaze said she could walk on clouds for some reason, but would like to keep her paws on the ground. I quickly found out why Blaze said what she said… Cloudsdale is a fucking city in the sky and it’s fucking glorious! Like when we landed, I got over the fact I was standing on clouds, and then shook off the fact that I was cold as fuck due to my lack of a winter coat.

“G-good g-god this shit’s c-cold…” I shivered. “That’s better…” I nuzzled into Luna’s side as she brought me closer with a wing.

“You’d be much warmer if you actually wore a cloak like we said you should.” Luna giggled.

“I-I don’t even ha-have a cloak!” Luna looked shocked. “Blaze usually kept me warm by using a ball of fire that she somehow got ahold of. So I never got one…” The breeze made me shiver even harder.

“Sister,” Luna called to Celestia. “Can you drop a wing over my consort? I know you are unnaturally warm, and that would do Ostri some good.”

“I thought he was your consort.” Celestia chuckled. She raised a wing over me.

“I’ll be f-fine if I f-freeze. As long as I don’t have any exposed skin, which I shouldn't, I’ll live.” When we got on stage, because being royalty leaves next to no time to explore, I guess, I stared out at the crowd before me. “Huh…” I shivered. “All these ponies are here just to celebrate spring?” I guess it would be a big deal when you literally cannot grow food during the winter, especially as a plant eating race that needs to grow plants, it makes sense. Now if only ponies could tolerate eating meat; then winter wouldn’t be that bad.

In all honesty, winter was fun, I just didn’t have the winter coat to go dick around in the snow all day. While Celestia gave her speech about the hardships of winter, a rather impressive one given how inexperienced she is, I took the time to survey the crowd. At the very front were fillies and colts with things to ‘make the season shine’ or something. I hmmfed at the lazy attempts of making stuff that makes spring shine brighter. Like, there was an hourglass, a literal jar of nothing, and a cup of some random shit. I didn’t let my disapproval shine though; that would be rude.

“Wait!” A little filly, a stupidly adorable one, and her mother began pushing their way through the crowd and I paused in silence when she finally stuck her head through the crowd. “Holy… shit…” I whispered to myself. That kid’s blind! God… if the times are as late as I believe them to be, then that means that kid gets bullied a lot over being blind over some stupid curse from God or something. I couldn’t help but give my full attention as she showed off a snowflake that she apparently made herself, and how winter needs to be appreciated, just like the night sky.

I couldn’t help but notice Luna looking away for just a moment at that.

“Hey kid,” I stepped up, and hopped off the stage. “It takes guts to do what you’re doing, and I respect that,” I knelt down. “Hey Celestia, get a look at this snowdrop, it’s pretty cool.” It was, it was a crude star, but it was a ‘star’ and I couldn’t help but admire the creativity. “You… made this without being able to see, right? The filly nodded. “That is totally, fucking, awesome!” Celestia beckoned the filly over to get a closer look at the snowflake in the filly’s hoof.

“...Can you make us some more?” The filly looked genuinely shocked at Celestia’s judgment. That said, the kid nodded.

“Round of applause for Snowdrop, everypony!” I started clapping and soon everyone, the Princesses included, clapped. If ponies had fingers, they’d probably be whistling too, so I did that amongst the chorus of hooves clapping together. I couldn’t use my fingers, but pony snouts were somehow better than human mouths for whistling. “Good work kiddo. I’m lookin’ forward to seeing snowflakes fall from the sky again.”

“Again…?” The kid looked up at me.

“Eh, don’t worry about it, kid. I’m just some old geezer spewing nonsense. Go enjoy the moment; I bet your mother’s super proud of you. Say, what’s your name? I’ve a feeling that the two of us will be meeting again quite often in the future, after all.”

“My name is Snowdrop,” I ruffled the kid’s mane. “Hey!” She playfully batted my hoof away, almost scarily accurate given she couldn’t see.

“Well, I hope to see you again. I think Luna would absolutely love to chat with you, she absolutely loves foals, and especially adorable, little foals like yourself.” Snowdrop cocked her head. “As you said, give the Night a chance, you’ll find a certain type of light even amongst the darkest and gloomiest of the dark sky above when the sun goes down.” I hope that sounded cool. It probably sounded cheesy and stupid, but it sounded cool. Snowdrop gave me a resolute nod, before going right up to Luna as Celestia pursued around the crowd for PR purposes or something.

The two of them were chatting away really quickly after that.

A few weeks later, I was sitting in a meeting room with Luna and Celestia, looking over battle plans that Starswirl was putting together, along with the current captain of the royal guard. You see, the griffin tribe that threatened the city were still sending threats out to us, and now likely to come out and strike at us. It’s been a minute and a half of me just looking at rather archaic battle plans. I just stared at it blankly before looking up at everyone else in the room.

“This plan’s fucking stupid.”

“Why is that?”

“Griffins have bows and arrows, right?”

“Yes they do, Ostri. Why do you ask?”

“The distance on the longest combat spell you guys know?”

“One hundred meters.”

“A bow and arrow can reach up to three hundred and fifty yards. We’re going up there, phalanx style with unicorns and shields, sure, but here’s the thing. Every second we are not close to them, opening cans of whoopass on their troops, is a second they can possibly shoot over or through one of the shields and kill one of our guys.” I pointed to the map, where the mines I cleared out the first time were. “I’ve seen the inside of these caves, and we can probably fit most, if not all of the city into them if need be. So I’ve got a plan.”

“Your plan, Ostri?”

“Griffins have range, and while earth ponies are hella strong, I doubt they can do much against something literally built for killing stuff. Griffins eat meat, and thus need to be able to hunt. Their bodies are weapons, Celestia. So I say we evacuate the city and spread troops throughout one street. Make it so our enemy can only go through one street, and instead of just having our guys out on the streets with them, we hide them inside of houses, alleyways, anything. We give a signal for when the entire group of griffins are on that street, and then we pepper and spray them with spells, arrows, anything. And while they’re approaching, we can probably shoot fireworks into their ranks and scare them off before any actual fighting starts.”

“And you know this will work, how?” The captain asked.

“I’m not a pony in the head, Captain. I used to derive from a very different species that has seen more wars than your kind ever will. One of those wars was a bunch of colonies fighting for independence from their mother country. There was a general that did what I described, where he picked the enemy off from the sidelines instead of taking them dead on. There were two sides, patriots and redcoats. Redcoats were fully trained and were the strongest military force on the planet for the time. The patriots were just some guys who were fighting for what they thought were right. The patriots never took a battle against the redcoats head on, and if they did, they often got massacred. But when they chose to fight like how I have described, the redcoats’ losses were often far higher than the patriots.

“And that’s without the fact that the griffins won’t know what’ll hit them until they're surrounded, getting peppered with explosions and spells, and having myself and kitsune going through and kicking ass. And if we don’t wanna kill them all, take the officer and hold him at spear point. Or if you want to make this fight easier, find the guy in charge and kill him first; his soldiers will be disorganized if we do that.”

“And you were merely a citizen in your world?” Luna asked. “Because that… is ingenious. I was rather nervous about going against griffins; just one is hard enough for our guards to take down in a head on fight.” We all looked at Starswirl, who was glaring at me.

“I think that is a dishonorable way of fighting.”

“Well, we fight fairly and possibly all die, or we play dirty and have the chances of dying be lower… holy shit I just had an idea.”

“What?”

“Celestia, Luna, how strong are you guys with magic?”

“Incredibly so; one of us alone could easily decimate a mountain.”

“So if we stick one of you towards the outskirts when we put the plan in motion? Then when they’re all in line, go apeshit and blast as many of them as possible. The captain will either be up front, with his troops, or in the back for his safety. So if Luna or Celestia stays in the castle, then they can just snipe him from a window with a spell. And sniping means to shoot something from a concealed location. And the other can sit towards the end of the line and blast the back end of the griffins and possibly kill the captain. And if nothing else, we’ll have two alicorns surrounding a group of-”

“But we have to keep the Princesses safe!”

“Captain, those Princesses can kick your ass seven ways to Sunday. I think they can handle themselves.”

“And where will you be during the conflict hm? Hiding like a coward?”

“Blaze has the ability to outright counter most magic. As long as we don’t got a raging juggernaut on the other side, I’ll be fine. I’ll be sitting in front of the castle with a firework show ready should I need to… start an early celebration for the upcoming battle.”

“You’re going to blow them all up with fireworks,” Luna said bluntly.

“Yeah. These fuckers are threatening my home, just ignoring the two ponies I hangout with on a regular basis. I’m going to make this a message for everyone else; do not fuck with my home.” Luna’s wings poofed out. “What?”

“N-nothing!” Luna immediately began, to no avail, to make her wings fold back. Celestia just sat there with a smug grin, while the captain was pretending not to notice. Starswirl just looked about ready to kill himself. We all soon filled out to get ready for battle. Luna’s wings finally folded when she remembered what we must do.

The Battle of The Everfree

The Evactuation of Everfree City was a swift one, apparently the nobles were perfectly happy to move when I told them all that they’d get brutally murdered if they didn’t. No, I didn’t threaten them, that’s just what’s gonna happen if they stick around. The simply fact of the matter is that this griffin tribe wants to catch these hands, and if they managed to stave off getting their asses kicked in, then those rich, racist pricks will probably get murdered, robbed, and raped. Not in that order, but griffins could be absolute freaks and want to do that in that order.

“So Blaze, are you willing to at least help kill some birdcats?” I asked as I sat next to the line of ponies being moved to the mines as my plan lined out. Luckily, thanks to Everfree being in a valley, for the most part, most of my plan was done for me; there was really only one way for the Griffins to come from, as the city was mostly surrounded by mountains, forests, and had a huge ass field between those obstacles should the dumbfuck birdcats come from those directions anyways.

If they do, I’ve got fireworks and a couple angry and stressed out alicorns to work with.

Blaze simply snorted. “Some griffins tried to hunt and skin me alive, Ostri. If they attempt to do the same to me, or attempt to hurt you,” Blaze growled. “Kitsunes prefer to be friendly, fluffy and cute, as you put it, but we are more than capable of killing somebody through magic or sheer physical might should we need to, Ostri. On top of that, I believe you know what spite is, correct?” I nodded. “Kitsunes can feel that, and probably feel it ten times stronger than you can. Vengeance is also something my kind are very familiar with, and will go to great lengths for it.”

“Like how you tickled the ever living shit out of me for tickling you for thirty seconds?”

“...Okay, I was mostly having fun; it had been so long since I’ve had a friend, and I was trying something new. Is it not my job, as your pet, to make you smile and feel loved?”

“You do a good job at that, Blaze,” I rubbed up against her. “But when this battle starts, we’ll be sitting in front of the castle. Your shield can handle arrows right?”

“Nothing shy of a minotaur pounding on it will break my shield, Ostri. And even then, you can hide behind me if need be; I am mostly magical in nature, so it’s less likely that anything can kill me. My kind requires… more magical means to be killed. I can feel pain, but I would rather feel that than have my favorite pony murdered because he wanted to defend his home, his new lover, and Celestia.”

“Hey now, Celestia actually kinda respects me now because of the strategy I lined out for this skirmish,” the last of the nobles filed into the mountain and it was sealed off with a magical barrier. Anything not a pony will be stuck outside, so as long as people watch their stupid as hell children, they’ll all be safe in there. “Though I also don’t want my favorite ball of fluff to feel pain. So just use that shield of yours; then when this is all done, we can cuddle in front of the fireplace with Luna while me and Luna plan out our first date.”

“That is an excellent idea. And thus why I chose to follow you!”

“Are you done making love to that stupid fox? We’ve got a battle to prepare for!” Starswirl hit me over the head with a cane. “Heavens, and Celestia put her trust in your plans and not any mine, or the Captain’s plan? You know, ponies who take this seriously?” I back hoofed Starswirl in the face, I swear I could see a tooth fly out of his mouth when I did that, and simply sat there.

“Listen old man, I know I’m not the most experienced person. But I also know that lining up in front of an enemy that outguns you is a fucking retarded idea. And that’s what you and the captain were planning on having us to do because it’s honorable or whatever. My people, the race I derived from, don’t play like that. We learnt that that’s a stupid way to fight a long fucking time ago; smaller countries could stand up to the literal strongest military on the planet back at home, and kick that military’s ass by using the tactics I described.

“Traps, ambushes, killing the people in charge. That, that is how humanity fights. We don’t give a shit about honor; getting out of a battle alive is more important than chivalry. In an outright duel, you or the captain, or any guard for that matter, would kick my ass. I don’t even know how to fly, let alone walk without nearly tripping every now and then, but if you give me time to plan, I have so many strategies just from my race’s history of fighting to kick your ass through means of using my brain and not ‘oh, I’m so well trained!’.” I grabbed Starswirl by the beard. “If you wanna die, go ahead, stand in the middle of a goddamn field in front of the griffin army with whoever else is retarded enough to join you. I’ll be alive by the end of the day after blowing their asses to shit after they murder the shit out of you.” I let go of his beard. “I already don’t fuckin’ like you, so I won’t save your ass if an arrow hits you in the head.”

Starswirl simply massaged his beard(how he did that without fingers is beyond me) while he stumbled off, grumbling about how I have no respect for my superiors… Beng Luna’s consort put me at a higher chain of command than him or the Captain. Said captain walked up. “Honestly, I may not agree with your barbaric means of fighting, but for the griffins, I believe we don’t have a choice. One griffin is worth three of my stallions, but if we ambush them as they walk through the streets of Everfree, we can kill them before they become a threat. Kill their captain first if we can, correct?”

“Captain, general, it doesn't matter. If it looks like the fucker’s in charge, put that fucker six feet in the ground,” the captain blinked. “That meant kill him.” The captain nodded. “Now I may have come up with the battle plans, but I know you know your guys and their strengths better than I do. So arrange them as you see fit; I know I don’t know shit about how you guys operate, so I’m gonna leave that to you.”

“That is a wise choice sir. You already have my respect; you’re letting me do my job in leading my troops, and you already did your part in the planning.”

“And you listen to reason,” I stuck a hoof out. “Hope to see you after the battle, lad. I’d love to hangout with you in a bar, and some of your men, after this is over. You sound like a pony I’m down to hold a conversation with.” The Captain smirked.

“Name’s Captain Armor, or Armor Breaker when I’m off duty. I already know yours, Bald Ostrich, correct?” I nodded.

“Call me ‘Bald’ and I will gut you though. I don’t know why I chose that name when I first came. I just thought of something flightless and went with it.” The captain smirked. “Now let’s go fuck somebody’s shit up; preferably somebody that wants to cause bodily harm to Princess Celestia and my marefriend, eh?”

“...You’re fighting?”

“My plan involves me sitting in front of the gates with fireworks. If need be, I’ve got a knife and Blaze, and Blaze is fucking tough, look at her,” I poked her. “She may not seem like much, but while we’re just play wrestling, she kicks my ass every fucking time. What’s under that fluff is magic and raw muscle. She can kill a griffin or ten.”

“I’ve killed twenty before, Ostri. I will be more than able to back you up should you need it.”

“...Holy shit, Blaze. You didn’t tell me you were a fuckin’ god.”

“I’m not a male, so the term would be goddess, and even then, I am not. When you’re immortal, you learn how to fight pretty well.” Blaze nuzzled me. “I just go easy on you because I don’t want to actually hurt you.”

Armor Breaker just stared at my fox. “...I need to find more of you things and see if you’d be willing to be partnered with my guards.”

“Just beware; you might run into a Kumiho instead of a Kitsune. Trust me, you will regret mistaking a Kumiho for a Kitsune, and pay for it with a kidney, a lung, or just a slow painful death.”

“Now I want a pet Kumiho,” I hummed as the city got closer and closer.

“...You are an idiot.”

“No, I am a human. There are some people who’d keep tigers in because they think they look cute or beautiful, or something. I don’t fucking know.”

“I’m not letting you near a Kumiho,” Blaze sighed.

“And I won’t either, sir. You, as Luna’s consort, means your life has political value in it. We can’t lose you just yet.” I stopped as a thought hit me.

“Okay so, I remember this from something in my world. If you stick one guy in a single building, it’s riskier, but if you have him alternate between windows he’s shooting out of, it might make the griffins think there’s more than one guy in that house. If the officers are killed immediately, that could be something we can try out.” The captain simply smirked.

“And that sir, is why you have my respect. Strategies like that will revolutionize how Equestria defends itself.”

And so, the day of reckoning had begun, a scout came back saying the griffins were coming, and everyone very quickly got into position. Blaze helped me get the fireworks set up, Celestia chose to remain in the castle, while Luna went to the outskirts of where we were gonna funnel the griffins into, in a building with the captain of Luna’s personal guard that I only just now learnt about. Apparently Luna and Celestia had their own battalions of guards, Lunar and Solar respectively. Everyone was in position, Captain Armor was in a building closest to the castle to keep an eye on me and his Princess.

I was sitting out front of the gates with fireworks, a torch for Blaze, and Blaze herself, sitting down behind me, her tails pristinely fanned out behind her, idly wagging as we awaited for the griffins to come in. Of course, she already had a shield ready. Now was time for action. “Aight, so this is really only gonna work one way, Blaze, and I left this out of the plan for a good reason. I’m gonna go out there and act as bait to get the griffins onto Main Street; we never blocked up the other entrances to the city.”

“Ostri… are you stupid?”

“Yes and yes. If I die, coolio, at least I will die doing my job.”

“If you die, I will bring you from the grave just to kill you again for being an idiot…” Blaze sighed. “I suppose I will not stop you; I’ve a feeling you would try to do it even if I told you not to, or literally held you down.” Blaze licked my cheek. “Good luck, Ostri. It was fun being your pet.”

“You say that like I’m gonna die.”

“If you don’t die, then I’ll still be your pet, but I am going to sit on you for being so fucking stupid.” I chuckled before trotting out from the shield and up main street. For some odd reason, nobody really stopped me, just an occasional Solar or Lunar Guard would poke their head out a window and their eyes would widen in shock. Eventually I made it to the edge of town after taking a back alley; Luna would one hundred percent stop me if she knew what I was doing. And then came around to find a pretty big group of griffins. I wouldn’t call it an army, but it was enough to probably take on the guards we had at our disposal.

“Pony! Are you a fool? You bring nothing but yourself. Where are the Princesses? We demand their heads!” The captain stepped, he was wearing a big, stupid captain hat.

“I say we have a duel. If I win, you die, and your army turns around and nobody else dies. If I lose, you can kill me and the Princesses are yours!” I shouted back. “Or are you too much of a chicken to wanna fight a scrawny, little pegasus? Hmm? You stupid bitch!” That did the trick. The captain stepped forward, brandishing nothing but the amount of scars he’s probably accumulated across the years of his life. He stopped until we were snout and beak. He stood about a head taller than I did, but was still shorter than Luna. I’ve seen, first hand(hoof?), how fucking jacked Luna is despite her pretty thin build.

Luna would fucking deck this guy and probably rip his dick off.

“No weapons, no wings, just your hooves and my claws-” I shoved a knife in his chest, not in his heart, but just in his shoulder to try and cripple him. I immediately booked it as the general shouted orders to ‘kill that stupid horse’. I would probably laugh at how dumb these fuckers were, but I was also trying not to get hit with arrows. I ran down Main Street, running, ducking and weaving, somehow none of these fuckers knew how to lead a shot, because I was somehow completely unscathed. Of course I felt something hit me, but adrenaline was keeping my ass from falling over.

The sounds of screams made me glance behind me. As griffins ran through the streets, spells, arrows, spears, anything and everything that could be lethal, shot out at them as they tried to catch up with me. Suddenly the arrows stopped flying my way as they tried to figure out where the hell the random attacks were coming from. I tripped and rolled until I found myself laying under a bubble shield. “Ostri, you are bleeding. You have a fucking arrow in your hindleg, lay down and do not move. Once Luna or Celestia come out and meet you, they will probably end up at least patching the wound…” I slowly turned to my hindleg. Yeah, that’s an arrow in my ass. I didn’t feel it yet, but I feel like I will be screaming my lungs out in an hour or two, or whenever I run out of adrenaline.

“Light the fireworks, Blaze.” Blaze, without hesitation, moved the fire from the torch to the fireworks and they all shot off, one after another, needless to say, the bloodbath was over. Every single griffin was dead, wounded, or… No, fuck it, they were all simply fucking dead. The only one standing was their leader, the one I stabbed in the shoulder. Luna was holding him down, leering at him, and then looked at me with a ‘we are going to talk later’ look. Celestia soon strolled out of the castle’s gates, removing the arrow from my thigh, and quickly healed the wound.

“That was very reckless, Ostri,” Celestia sounded like she was about to scold me. And she did. “Did you not think while planning that?” She asked sternly. “My sister has never been happier before you started dating her, and then you go and almost get yourself killed? I saw an arrow sail past your head. I almost watched you die before my eyes. Ostri-”

“I needed the plan to work. I got the plan to work. I don’t give a shit if I died as a martyr, Celestia, I wanted everyone to know that this country doesn’t fuck around when it comes to defence. And if dying while leading the enemy into a trap is what it takes, then I will take that opportunity every time. This country has a nice, bright future ahead of it, and I want it to be known that it’s not taking shit from nobody…” I walked over to the general despite my leg not feeling super good, I wonder why. “Now what to do with you…?” I grinned. “Kill you? Torture and question you? Send you back to let you know that Equestria lets you exist and we can put an end to that at the drop of a hat?”

“Y-you’re a monster! I thought ponies were of love and acceptance!”

“You wanted to kill my girlfriend, her sister, and everyone in this city. You may threaten me all you want, but if you threaten the people I care about and made due on those threats…” I stuck my face in his, giving him a nice look into my soulless eyes. I made sure my voice was low so nobody but the griffin could hear me. “I will see to it that you are no longer capable of making such threats ever again. I will slaughter every, single, fucking one of you griffins. My brain is wired differently than everypony around here. If you cross me, I will go to the ends of the Earth to make you pay tenfold. Got it?”

The captain actually pissed himself. “Aight, Luna, Celestia,” I stood up. “Do whatever to this guy.” I looked over at Captain Armor. “I believe we’re gonna have to clean this mess up, aren’t we?” He nodded. “Aight, I’ll help out where I can-”

“No you are not mister, you and I are going to have a word about your actions today, and then you can help our guards clean the streets.” Luna grabbed me by the ear using her magic. “Tia, take care of our guest while I take care of Ostri.” I blinked and we were suddenly in Luna’s room. “Ostri, what the actual buck were you doing?”

“I needed bait for the plan to work, Luna. I’m not putting somebody else’s life at risk for that when I’m perfectly capable of being the bait. All I had to do was piss off their captain, so I sucker punch-shanked him in the shoulder and had the whole army on my ass immediately. It was honestly not too bad, my leg only kinda hurts, and Everfree City still pristinely stands tall. Well, it is covered in ash and a bunch of dead griffins, but that’s beside the point-”

“Ostri, do you not understand how your death would affect me? Just ignoring the fact that we are dating, you would’ve been my best friend, going into a group of griffins and actively angering them in order to get them into a trap. Where you might not have come back alive, and instead with an arrow in your heart! Just…” Luna buried her face in my shoulder. “If you plan on doing that again, please tell somepony!” Luna began to sob into my shoulder. “But please, please do not ever do that again! My heart couldn’t take it if you died!”

“Hey Luna…” I nuzzled her. “Cheer up. What could’ve happened to me didn’t happen to me. It’s best not to dwell on it,” Luna started crying harder. “Oh c’mon, Luna, please stop crying…” I brought a hoof up under her chin and brought it up. We were now eye to eye. “You’re much, much prettier when you aren’t crying and it makes me feel like a piece of shit.” I kissed her on the lips. Her eyes widened, but she slowly closed them as she embraced it. When we drawled back, she wasn’t crying nearly as much. “We’re gonna go on a date tomorrow, and we’re going to have a good time, Luna. For now…” I nuzzled her. “Let’s just cuddle and relish in this little hiccup being over.”

“Okay… and even if I don’t want to admit it, seeing you run like that was sexy… and when you got angry! Oh! I bet even Tia is jealous!” Luna clapped her hooves. “You are very sexy when you take charge, Ostri…” My wings poofed out. “Oh? Are you finally beginning to feel flustered when I compliment your appearance?” Luna giggled. “Oh now I can finally make you bury your face in my mane when I flirt with you!”

“Dammit! Now I’ll have to get these things folded up again, Luna!” I chuckled. “Seriously, next time, I will try and not run into danger. C’mon, we got a city to clean-”

“You aren’t moving, mister. You are going to stay here and keep the weight off your leg. And yes, I know you want to go grab a drink with our soldiers, and you can go, but you are going to get some rest first. Then we are going to talk about the big, fancy award we’re going to give to you for your bravery and contribution to the battle while planning this out and while you were in action!” My eyes widened. “And you will become a noble.”

“Oh great, I’m gonna join the entourage of stupid, rich people who can’t think straight to save their life!” I shrugged. “Will it be public?”

“It’s going to be public and it will be the biggest ceremony we’ve held to date.”

“Fuck you.”

“Take me to dinner first-” I pounced on Luna. Yes, it did end in a very fun time in bed later. I was later told by Blaze that she could smell it from outside the room, and went to go bunk with Celestia for the night instead of hanging out with us. God, I am looking forward to that date tomorrow.

Author's Note

Next chapter will have some romance as the focus

A Date with the Night

I made sure to get a fuckload of caffeine in my system for tonight. Luna and I were finally going to have our first date, and I was dressed very dumbly; no suit, no tie, nothing. Just me, myself, and I. God, I don’t know if I am even fit to date a Princess with how unprepared I am for this. And I could tell that Luna was beautiful, but my human brain could not find her ‘sexy’. Yeah, I may not care about her being a pony anymore, but that mental barrier in my head is something I’m just gonna have to get over.

“Ostri, stop being nervous. You’re only dating Luna.”

“She’s a Princess, Blaze.”

“Yet you were willing to court her and be completely normal around her for the most part.”

“Because I now realize what that implies, Blaze…” I sighed. “God I am-”

“I’m ready, Ostri!” Luna came strolling down stairs in a white dress, a plain, simple white dress that snuggly hugged her barrel and ended in a nice skirt. It was a bit jarring, seeing a pony in a dress, but… Holy shit. It was just a simple dress and Luna was gorgeous in it! My brain sputtered and wheezed as it tried its best to figure out what the fuck I was supposed to say. Luna simply looked incredible despite my earlier reservations; she was hotI opened my mouth to come up with a very intellectual response:

“W-w-huh? Wuba?” Luna simply giggled as I slapped myself. “Sorry, I’m just at a loss for words. How the hell did I score a lady like you?”

“By simply showing me kindness, Ostri. You were the first pony I’ve met that’s treated me… like I’m a pony and not a demon. You also appear to admire my appearance whereas everypony else considers me crazy and unapproachable. And with responses like that, I don’t need words to know what you think of me…” Luna spun around and shook her rear. “Like what you’re seeing at least?”

“Yes.” What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Ostri’s mind is questioning his body’s desires, your highness. Make sure you treat his brain nicely; a kiss will probably break it.” Blaze chuckled. “He also likes your legs.” Fuck you, Ostri. “And now he wants to have intercourse with me. I think your stallion is broken, Luna.” I… am going to hang myself. “And he’s suicidal.” I hate you. “That’s rude, Ostri.”

“I… your telepathy is rather scary, Blaze. You best not be sharing my thoughts with him, like you’re vocalizing his thoughts.”

“I’m merely responding to his thoughts, Luna… and telling you about how he likes your legs and makeup.”

“Listen, they’re really nice legs, and your makeup is subtle enough that it actually highlights the best parts about your face, Luna. I… still don’t know how the fuck I scored you, but I’m happy for it.”

“Now, you two lovebirds are going to go out there and get to know each other better; I know you two haven’t properly dated yet, despite you two being a couple for all of winter. And while you two are doing that, Celestia promised to pet and cuddle with me and I groom her in exchange. So shoo! Get out of here!” With that, me and Luna found ourselves sitting on the steps up to the castle, with me having a picnic basket full of things to make a nice dinner with.

“I don’t suppose we’ll be going to a restaurant anytime soon?” I asked.

“...Restaurant?” Luna smacked her lips, trying to get a feel for the word. “What on Equus is a restaurant, Ostri?”

“It’s a human thing, a business opens up that sells food. But it’s specially prepared and uses unique recipes the restaurant came up with. Usually humans ate at them to celebrate, some made fast-food restaurants that only serve to get food out to people as soon as possible for a quick meal. Sometimes humans went out to have dinner or lunch with somebody they’re going on a date with,” I lifted the picnic basket with a grunt. “I had this just in case; I can still cook you something over an open fire.”

“Well, I was hoping to just have a nice, relaxing stroll with you, but a picnic under moonlight does sound quite nice. We can sit, admire the stars, or the softer shades that the stars reveal to us. You know how to cook, though?”

“Luna, I’ve literally made meals for both you and Celestia, that you enjoyed a lot I might add. I can cook reasonably well. I’m no gourmet chef, but I know my way around a grill… that said I’m just putting together a taco salad, warming up some chili, and making a few fruit sandwiches for us… I’ve even got something called mash potatoes I know you’ll enjoy.” I nearly tripped immediately upon taking a step down the stairs. Only fuck Luna to catch me and the basket of food in her magic. “Fuck… I can barely walk on four hooves; why did I think I can go up and down steps with three?”

Luna simply giggled. “I’m going to have to teach you to fly and walk properly; you can walk, but it’s like watching a big foal. Your steps have a lot of spring, but there’s no rhythm. I’m surprised you could run so fast despite that.” Luna hefted the basket onto her back where it perfectly stayed as she followed me downstairs. “and this basket is a bit heavy for me and I have earth pony strength. Why did you think you could carry it?”

“It’s tradition amongst human males to carry things for females.”

“It’s the other way around for us ponies, Ostri.” I blinked. “I’m not surprised that you didn’t know this at all. But there is a higher birth rate of mares than stallions. It’s why stallions having multiple wives is normal. Mares are also usually more dominant, which is why I find your behavior sexy; you don’t take anything from anyone and never back down. And usually, it’s the mare trying to impress the stallion, hence why I am actually wearing a dress for this. And if anything, I should be cooking for you, but the last time I cooked something, I melted the pot I was using to cook with.” Huh.

“We take turns trying to impress each other? Because it's usually the other way around for humans.”

“We could, but I do enjoy being pampered… I would not mind if you tried to impress and lather me in love, Ostri. I would quite enjoy it.”

“Bet. I know how to groom ponies now because Blaze taught me; between your ears are also a favorite spot for me to massage.” I chuckled as we finally made it to a field fit for a picnic. The streets of Everfree were cleaned up rather nicely despite there being a literal massacre happening, but then again, only one street was bloodied and burnt and covered in burnt feathers and fur. We quickly laid the picnic blanket out and Luna quickly emptied the basket with her magic while we settled down.

I couldn’t help but admire as Luna’s mane and tail waved and sparkled like the night sky; they were stunning. “Luna, why does your mane flow like that?”

“It’s due to my connection to the Moon, Ostri. I can move it, and that requires a lot of magic. It also helps that alicorns simply have more magic than normal unicorns with us storing magic from pegasi and earth ponies along with unicorn magic. So this is how my body passively exhausts extra magic without burning itself out due to how much magic it is outputting. Hence why my mane does… this.” Luna pulled out the bowl of mash potatoes and cocked her head.

“Well, it’s gorgeous, so I don’t mind if it’s just a way of expelling extra magic.” I handed Luna a spoon. “Try that shit out, you’ll love it. Personally, I believe it still needs gravy, but that requires meat.” Luna grimaced at that, before using the spoon to scoop out some of the creamy goodness that were the potatoes. Her eyes simply widened and it was adorable. “So, how are the taters?”

“This… Ostri, are you certain you don’t wish to work in the Royal Kitchens? I would love to eat this everyday!”

“I’m certain. I don’t like cooking for other people, Luna. I just did it tonight because you are worth cooking for; the way your eyes lit up was adorable.” I took a spoonful of taters myself, and quickly got a fire going. In a few moments, I had a container of chili being warmed over it. “Once that’s boiling, it’s ready. Put some of that over the potatoes; you’ll get hit with flavor town.” I took a sandwich and took a bite. “As a man who once lived in the midwest, chili is a must-have.” Luna nodded and waited to do as I suggested.

She emptied the bowl of potatoes when she did that. We had a light hearted chat, I shared more about my past, and Luna told a war story after I gave her some puppy eyes. Of course, I was hella impressed, and Luna loved telling stories to ‘impress the stallion’ as she put it. Out chatting ended up with me using her shoulder as a pillow while she tried out the rest of the food I prepared. “You know, Ostri, I believe you could work in the Royal Kitchens should you ever need a more stable source of income; you shouldn’t even have to work while you’re with me. But since you’re insistent on working, you would be paid lavishly for dishes like this.” Luna lifted the empty bowl of chili and mashed potatoes.

“That’s a comfort food; not very nutritious, but it makes you feel better. As a princess, you need something that’s actually good for you and keeps you fueled up. This is good as a meal every now and then, but everyday? Nah, it wouldn’t be very good for you Luna.” Luna sighed. “I know, my cooking is top tier and totally original in terms of recipes.” kissed her on the cheek. “If I had the ability to, I would whole-heartedly introduce you to so many unhealthy human snacks that you wouldn’t know what to actually choose when you want something to snack on…” I nuzzled Luna.

“I believe…” Luna teleported the basket and the blanket away to some random location. “Is it time for us to stroll around the city? The nobles are out and about, so you can impress me by punching them in the nose if they insult me!”

“That… would make them even more scared of you; thinking you summoned a pony shaped golem to attack people or some shit- I don’t fucking know. If somebody does insult you though, I will happily tell them to shove their heads up their ass,” I gestured to all of Luna. “If they consider you a horrible monster, then something’s wrong with them. You’re pretty as hell, sexy as fuck, and overall just a fun lady to hangout with. If I wasn't dating you, I’d still hang around you just to hang out with such a lovely lady such as yourself.”

“You charmer,” Luna giggled.

“Stop doing that. It’s stupidly cute and it will kill me from heartburn. Stop. Being. Cute.” Luna giggled again. “Stop! My heart!” I brought a hoof to my chest and fell to the ground and rolled around. “Argh! I hopped back up and wrapped my forelegs around the princess’s neck. “I guess I will have to kidnap you and take you away! Come come! The time for your sacrifice is nigh!” In reality, the two of us just walked around town, and Luna was laughing up a storm by the time I was done with my whole pirate shtick. I couldn’t help it whenever my act would crack when a noble looked our way in sheer, raw confusion and awe.

Yes, you bunch of retards, Luna is mine. Y’all had your chance and you fucked it up by socially isolating her for so fucking long.

When the two of us were finally done making our way around town, Luna removed her dress and laid on her back in the middle of a field. I joined her shortly afterwards, and we began staring up at the sky in silence until Luna decided to break that serene moment. “I think I should begin teaching you how to properly fight and fly; you’ve spent how long as a flightless chicken? If you’re going to be doing a majority of the planning for battles from now on, because of how effective your first plan was, then you’ll need to learn how to fight. Afterall, I am going off your previous performance, and you decided to be the main reason why the plan worked at all, mister.”

“I’m down. I wanna fly,” I pointed at my wings. “No point in having these if I don’t use them. So I might as well… well, learn to use them. As for fighting, I wouldn’t mind doing that either. How else can I impress you if I’m not some, big, strong stallion that can keep you safe and fight by your side in a ‘proper battle’ where we line up in front of people shooting at us and meet them halfway through a field to get our asses kicked because half of our men were shot on the walk up to them.”

“Not like that sort of fighting, Ostri, proper hoof to hoof combat. I’m mostly self taught; I don’t think anypony’s ever seen my style before due to it being hastily put together while I was twelve, after seeing various fighting styles, because I had no time to actually learn.”

“I’m still down, I’m looking forward to you kicking my ass for the first few weeks.”

“Oh please, I’ll kiss any boo boos that I cause, away at the end of every lesson. You will walk away at a skill that should make it so, if you need to, you will be able to defend yourself. It’s standard that every guard learns a very basic form of any martial art that they choose, and I will have you walking away as a master.”

“Well, it was always a dream of mine to become a karate kid, so I’m down. I get to see you put those legs of yours to work, and you get to punish me for being an idiot yesterday. So it’s a win-win.”

Luna giggled. “It is indeed, Ostri. Though if you like my legs so much…” She wrapped those nice legs around my neck and laid her head on top of mine. “I believe we should begin heading back; it’s almost your bedtime, colt.”

“Fine, Mom, I’ll go to sleep.” We both rolled onto our stomachs before quickly getting up to go home. The walk back was quiet and peaceful, not the awkward type where the two participating in the silence were made or had no idea as to what to say. No, crickets were chirping, it was night, owls would occasionally ‘who’ and squawk. It was worth being quiet to hear the night’s ambience. The Night was truly a stunning thing, and the woman tied to said night was equally so. That woman owes my world.

The next few weeks blew over relatively quickly, Luna and I would spar, Luna would heal me, and I was slowly becoming nocturnal in order to keep up with her better. Did I keep up? No, Luna’s fucking cracked at fighting and was kicking my ass. She did it so often, and pulled her punches, but she only made sure she wouldn’t accidentally break or cause permanent damage that she could not immediately heal. Apparently Luna’s well versed in magic, but healing magic is more in Celestia’s skillset. Again, Luna was the sword, Celestia the shield, together the two of them could kick some serious ass. Overall, it was kinda fun, because inbetween learning to fight, I would learn how to fly after face planting, hitting trees, bushes, a house, Celestia’s bedroom window, Celestia herself promptly afterwards, and a log. Celestia made sure I was kept far away from the castle after I hit her window.

“Fuck!” I somehow hit the castle anyway. “God! I am so fucking bad at this, that it’s like my wings want to fuck me in the ass!”

“That is an interesting way of saying you are bad at flying and you hate it.”

“Well, I don’t hate it, but it’s so fucking much, just to get used to a set of limbs that humans don’t naturally have. I don’t even have a problem controlling them! I just suck at being a person, I guess, and can barely function.”

“You scored a hit on me earlier, only to stop, hug my head, and start apologizing for hitting my shoulder, Ostri. You’re at least improving in one aspect… and flying isn’t for everypony.”

“Yeah, that’s true. At least I can get somewhere, now it’s a matter of not crashing into shit whenever I get to that somewhere.” I sighed. “You know what? Fuck it. I’m spiteful, I’m mad. I’m gonna be spending a lot of time flying around; can’t get better if I don’t fly, after all. I am going to be the best god damn flier the world’s ever seen!” I raised a hoof up. “...As long as I am not near Everfree. Celestia was not happy when I crashed into her, her bed, and broke said bed by crashing into it. Somehow Celly and I were perfectly fine…” God, I still owe her a cuddle session. Yes, that was Tia’s price for the repairs of her bed to not be on me.

For now, she stole Blaze and was using her as a bed whenever nighttime came around. That bastard! That’s my fuckin’ fox!

“If you somehow become the fastest, and one of the best fliers in Equestria, I may have to kiss you and marry you; nopony is very fast. Not even myself or Tia, and we’re one of the faster fliers purely due to our wingspan.”

“And you gave me more of a reason to learn how to fly better. I am going to fly better, and you will fucking see me break the god damn sound barrier!”

I began to train like nothing else matters. I only stopped to eat, or to pet Blaze while eating.

Author's Note

next chapter I shall begin setting up the end. it won’t be a happy one.

It’s Been a Year

So, what happens when you decide to break the sound barrier? A fucking rainbow apparently. Wanna know how I know this? Well, it all started when I decided to go on my flying-super training arc or whatever. Luna’s hoof to hoof combat took priority over my training arc over the last few months, but I still took every chance I got to fly. It was actually kinda cool once I figured out how to land, slow down, and actually get to places without destroying everything on the way there. It was to the point where Celestia was actually impressed with how accurate and quick I was while flying.

I still pushed myself harder, trying to go faster, and faster, and faster. Blaze often started barking her head off whenever I started going too fast for her to even keep up with me. It was kind of hilarious to see the usually calm and collected kitsune losing her shit because she couldn’t keep an eye on me and was panicking slightly over it. Blaze didn’t think that was funny, so I ended up getting sat on for making her worry about me. So I was happily just laying there, coming up with the calculations to go even faster so I could finally break that sound barrier… But something more important was coming up.

It was my anniversary. Not for my relationship with Luna, no, that was next year(we officially got hooked up with our date a couple of weeks ago). No, it’s been a whole year since I became a pony and woke up in Equestria. On one hand, what in the holiness of shits, secondly time sure does fly when you grow a pair of wings, a butt tattoo that nobody will tell me about, and suddenly not be a hairless-ape anymore. Instead, you wake up as a yellowish, orangish pegasus with a black mane. So I guess I was supposed to try and find people to celebrate it with… It didn’t even take me a year to crack and fall in love with a pony.

I guess that shows how awesome Luna is.

What isn’t awesome is the suit and tie I have to wear. Because I guess my existence requires that a ball should be thrown in my honor as ‘the Hero of Everfree’ even though the nobles still wouldn’t touch me with a ten foot pole. “So why are we doing this?” I asked as I looked over my suit, which I thought looked fucking stupid. “Like why are we holding a ball in my honor? I’m just some dude; I’m not worth celebrating.”

“Well Ostri,” Celestia said from behind a dressing curtain. “You are technically a national hero, because you led the charge against that griffin charge, and then killed every single one of them. “Celestia spat that last bit out. “And as much as I do not like your more violent methods, I cannot deny how effective they are. If nothing else, you have my guards wanting to ask you about more war tactics from your race, and the one you already shared will revolutionize how Equestria fights its future battles. For that, I can at least thank you; even I thought the more honorable way of fighting was stupid.”

“But is me killing a whole army really worth celebrating? I mean yeah, I was dead set on it, but that’s because they were attacking my home. Those guys had their own homes, families, and lives to live and all I did was put an end to it because their leader wanted to fuck with my home.”

“Ostri, last time I thought like that, I lost a battle and half of my stallions. Just do not listen to thoughts like that; all it will do is come back to haunt you. Just know that you did what you had to, and that you did a good job at it,” Celestia hummed. “This will also be your award ceremony. I believe Sir Ostri rolls off the tongue quite nicely, don’t you say, Luna?” They were behind the same curtain.

“It does, doesn’t it? Prince Ostri would also roll off the tongue quite nicely.”

“What’s with the curtain anyways?”

“It’s rude to watch a lady get dressed,” Celestia sing-songed.

“You guys-”

“Girls.”

“Go fuck yourself, Celly. Anyways, I see you two naked and literally slept with Luna; I don’t think it’s that taboo. With Luna, I’d get it; she’s hot as fuck and I wanna have my brain fried when I see her in a dress. With you, I don’t get it.”

“Who knows? You might find me attractive.”

“Sister, get your own coltfriend; we may be allowed to share him, but I am not sharing him.”

“And humans are all about only having one partner… having more than one is a taboo. Just having sex with another woman is a taboo. It won’t stop anyone from doing so, but I just want two in my life. Since one of them was gonna be my Mom, I guess there’s only one I can have in life, and that’s gonna be the woman I wanna marry.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at the mares’ silence after my joke. “You guys are still not used to me joking about my family, or lack thereof?”

“I’m just shocked that you joked about that,” Luna then chose now to step out from behind the curtain wearing the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen. It was a simple, black dress with sparkles in it, like the stars in the night sky. It hugged her barrel so tightly that it’s like Luna chose the dress because of how well it showed off her figure. The skirt ended off at her hinglegs’ ankles, but still allowed her tail to poke through. Her mane and tail were tied and it made her look younger… I just let my jaw hang while Luna showed herself off for my eyes to feast on the optical buffet before me.

“And Blaze tells me not to worry about how I’m dating you…” I whispered.

Oh, and Celestia came out wearing a dress, one that was a lot more ornamental than Luna’s, and a lot less form fitting. It was a white dress with yellow trimmings, fit loosely around her barrel, and ended where just short of the ground. Her tail also stuck out. Overall, Celestia was pretty and all, but Luna was simply breathtaking. I blinked a couple times at the sight of both of them and took a deep breath. “Well, how do we look?” Celestia asked.

“Luna’s sexy and you’re pretty looking. Like Luna, what the actual hell? Why do you gotta be hotter than the Princess that is magically tied to the sun?” Luna giggled and kissed me on the nose.

“And you are quite handsome. I must admit that your coat makes your black suit stick out more. It’s quite lovely.” I then planted a kiss on her lips, and couldn’t help but love the shocked look in her eyes when I cut her off in such a way. The two of us shared a kiss until Blaze broke through the doors and tackled me.

“You and Luna need to just get married and mate already; you two reek of hormones.”

“But-”

“You sentient races are stupid. Just find a female, or male, that you love and mate with them!” Blaze chuckled before letting me up. “I can’t believe it’s nearly been a year since you’ve come to try and murder me!” Luna blinked. “Oh shush, I know you or your sister posted that job on the bulletin board a year ago. I must admit, I am glad you did because I got to obtain a stallion that I quite enjoy serving. His hooves are nigh heavenly when it comes to pampering as I’m sure you’ve found out.”

“Can we just go to the party and get it over with? I want to get out of this suit as soon as possible-”

“If you keep the suit on all night and stay until the ball is over, I’ll show you a surprise,” Luna said with a sly grin. Oh. Okay. I guess I like suits now. The three of us quickly made it out into the ballroom, it was full of stuffy nobles that all stared at us as we walked on up. A couple older dudes tried hitting on Celestia, but steer clear of us as soon as they saw Luna. Despite the fact that their eyes tried getting a peek at her hips. Of course, Luna didn’t mind, but I had to open my mouth.

“Oi, if you’re gonna think my marefriend is a psycho, at least don’t try stealing looks at her.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I’m dating Luna, and I see you’re taking peeks at her.”

“So you’re that degenerate we’ve heard rumors about… the stupid pegasus-”

“So being in love with a Princess makes you a degenerate? Odd, but whatever.” I nuzzled Luna. “At least she can be polite unlike you fuckwads…” I grinned. “Bet you two would be perfect together; you’re both assholes and I bet you could fill each other pretty easily.” Both stallions just stood agape at me, while Luna was doing her best to not burst out laughing. Celestia just stood off to the side with a peaceful little smile, a trick I taught her, but the glint in her eyes told me she found what I just told them to be pretty funny. “Anyways, good day to you two, or night. Preferably night, the Night’s pretty nice.” With that, me and Luna decided now was a good time to break off from Celestia. We quickly found ourselves on the dance floor, and the two of us shared a dance. Well, Luna led the dance, and was the only one dancing. I was just following her lead and trying my damned best to not fuck up from doing a fancy dance on four legs. I tripped anyways, but Luna managed to catch me, kiss me, and then put me back on my hooves.

In turn, I draped a wing over her, an apparent sign of ultimate affection amongst pegasi, and walked her back to Celestia, where she was on stage when she beckoned us up to her. Sitting next to her was a blond unicorn, who looked fairly muscular and pretty fucking the strong. The two of them were happily chatting away about cake, just… Yeah, I think Celestia just found herself a boyfriend. I see her eying his pristine, white coat while the stallion admires her. Yeah, if those two end up dating, I wouldn’t be surprised.

“Hello Luna, Ostri. This is Sea Blueblood, a friend of mine….” Celestia bent that long neck of hers and nuzzled her ‘friend’. Yeah, you two are gonna end up in bed together, fucking more than a pair of rabbits do. “We’re about to begin your award ceremony. Are you ready, Ostri?”

“Nope.” I nodded to the Blueblood fellow. “Nice to meet ya, I bet you and Tia are gonna be having some… fun later?” Blueblood chuckled.

“Not just yet, Princess Celestia and I have only begun dating a week ago. She just kept our relationship underwraps. I’ve heard quite a bit about you, about how you chose to lead the charge against a clan of griffins. It’s quite impressive and takes a lot of bravery to do what you did. Even if your idea of a proper battle is a bit warped, I would probably be dead if you chose to go about the battle in a ‘proper’ way.”

“I was just defending my home. I don’t give a shit about honor, my dude. What I cared about was that Luna was threatened, my home was threatened, and by extension, I was threatened. I know how tough a griffin is; they’re predators after all.” Blueblood nodded in agreement. “So I made damn sure that they, and everybody else knows this: They mess with my home, or the woman I love, then I will retaliate and make sure that they won’t be around to keep making threats or advances.”

“You did a fine job at that; another griffin tribe sent me a letter requesting to come and become allies with us,” Celestia hummed. “Your methods were pretty violent, though.”

“Again, they threatened you and Luna. You and I may not see eye to eye, but I’d like to think that we’re friends despite that. And I’m dating your little sister; I don’t have any family of my own, now I have people I care about, and I will defend them until I can’t draw breath anymore.”

Celestia’s peaceful little smile became warmer and more genuine. “Well, I’m glad you consider me a friend; I was hoping you would. We will continue this discussion later though. It is time to turn you into a noble and give you your medal.” I nodded and went to take my spot next to Luna. while Celestia began to start her speech, I surveyed the crowd without turning my head. None of the nobles looked particularly excited about whatever Celestia was talking about, which is fair. It was just some speech about how Equestria is still standing strong and how she’s proud of her little ponies. “And now, I will discuss one of your fellow ponies, one who has shown great bravery, to be an excellent tactician, and a close friend of mine. Please give a round of applause for Bald Ostrich!” I walked up beside the Princess and waved.

“Ostri, would you like to have a word or two about your actions?” I nodded, knowing I had nothing prepared for this.

“Sup, name’s Bald Ostrich, Ostri for short. I almost died by being stupid and trying to fight the griffin general. And then did something even dumber and sucker punched him-and stabbed him in the shoulder-and pissed him off even more and got a whole army to chase me. It’s not as cool as it sounds, or as heroic; I literally killed every single person in that army. Uh… I dunno. I don’t know why I’m getting an award or anything like that.”

I know, I am really good at talking.

“Thank you for your… words. I don’t even think that would register as a speech,” the crowd chuckled. “Despite Ostri’s speech, what he did was very brave and something not just anypony would do of their own free volition. Let alone come out alive after being chased by an army of griffins. As such, I shall be awarding Ostri the title of the Defender of Harmony!” With that, Celestia summoned a medal out of nowhere. Then it was promptly lowered down onto my neck. The medal looked… pretty plain, honestly. It wasn’t extravagant, but it had the Equestrian Crest on the front and the name of the award on the back.

It hung just above my chest and I simply smiled. Sure, I don’t think I earned it, but if somebody thinks I did, I’ll take it. This is way, way cooler than whatever was going on in my terrible life before I became a pony. Honestly, this last year went by quickly, but it was a good one. I got a new life, got a girlfriend, what is essentially a hyper-intelligent dog, and I’m a war hero? I simply smiled… then a flash of light made everyone panic. Some screaming later, a specific one stood out to me.

A purple unicorn, with a darker purple mane with a stripe, which was the same color as her coat, landed head first onto the stage. Soon, she sat up on her ass and was rubbing the back of her head. “Ugh…” She groaned. “Where is that damned ali-” she stopped as soon as she saw me. “Sweet Celestia…” She then glanced at Celestia, her eyes got even wider, and then eyed Luna. “What… The… Buck…” she whispered. “W-where am I?” I raised an eyebrow, but decided to bite the bullet.

“Sup, welcome to Everfree City. We were just in the middle of an award ceremony. Name’s Ostri, any idea as to who you are? You did hit your head; that can fuck with your memories.”

“My name… is Starlight Glimmer. The last thing I remember is seeing this… light, and now I’m here.” I nodded. “Can… I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Everfree City.” I glanced back at the Princesses as she went on about her life, a magically gifted unicorn, being wronged in life before she somehow ended up here against her knowledge. “I’m sure I can figure out how to get back home… I just need a week to recover from… whatever happened to me.”

“Well…” I looked at Luna. “If my marefriend says it’s alright, we can let you stay in the palace while you recover.” Luna nodded. “Aight, we’ll get a servant to show you to your room. Your appearance was… kinda shocking and you accidentally made everybody in this room run out of the building while screaming about how this is Luna’s fault.” I shrugged as a servant came by and actually took Starlight Glimmer to show her her room.

“Something is wrong with that mare,” Celestia said bluntly. “Either she is lying, or genuinely has amnesia; there is no in between. I may not be the most experienced, but even I could tell she somehow recognized you, Luna, and myself. On top of that, her appearance had a sudden spike of magic to it. You may not be able to feel it, but other unicorns can… That mare is remarkably powerful and likely performed a spell that ended up with her landing in the ballroom.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, she’s full of shit. All except for that week of rest bit; she looked genuinely tired. I’m down to give her the benefit of the doubt for now though. Maybe she’s just scared because she landed in a room with you and Luna; you two are kinda scary with your reputations. I won’t do anything to Starlight unless she ends up being a sicko.” Luna and Celestia nodded. “Well, the ball ended a lot earlier than usual…” I looked at Luna. “So can I get that reward for keeping the suit on?”

“Hmm… perhaps. You can help me get undressed and we can go get you that reward.” The two of us were a giggling mess as we walked away.

Then the next day I went out and used a lot of mathematical shit… I made a rainbow after absolutely destroying the sound barrier. Luna and Celestia, along with Starlight Glimmer were watching. Luna fainted, Celestia was pointing and laughing while going on about how cool it looked. Starlight was just silent, like her mind wasn’t actually present. It was… kinda scary, because it looked like her eyes were simply… it just looked like she was calculating something with every second she spends around us.

I think I’m not gonna go speak with her. Starlight looks like a serial killer.

Author's Note

so this is clearly going to be a spin on an idea by fillcoulson. i won’t say what I’m gonna change about the idea; that’s for the next chapter.

The Night Will Begin

The first day of the new week(The ball was on a sunday), I woke up to Blaze in my face, her chin resting adorably on the bed, nose to nose with me, and her tongue was poking out a little. “Oh! I did not know that was sticking out!” Blaze’s telepathy emulated a chuckle as she tucked it back in. “Anyway, I was going to tell you that I do not trust that purple unicorn at all. I have a feeling that she may want to cause you harm,” Blaze rubbed up against me while her eyes began to glow. “And now I am soul-bound to you. As long as you are in this realm, I will know where you are, and I will know how to get to you.” I blinked a couple times. What in the fuck?

“So… that means we’re soulmates?” I cocked my head to the side.

“No… yes, in a way. On one paw, we are not romantically together, but on the other, we are about as close as can be without being mates. I watch your back, you watch mine, two peas in a pod, any cliche saying you horses like to use to describe friends. At this point, I know you don’t just see me as a pet, even if I proclaimed that I am your pet. I’m one of your best friends in your mind, so I would be honored if you agree to being soulmates with me; the spell only works when you say yes.”

“Well… Meh, what can go wrong?” Horrible. “Yes, I, Ostri would like to be your soulmate.” Blaze barked, wiggled her tails, and she hopped up on the bed to nuzzle me.

“Blaze… I’m glad you just managed to bind yourself to your owner, but can you be quiet? It’s too early in the night for this,” Luna grumbled. She was laying face down into a pillow, ears adorably pinned against her head, as she tried to get just five more minutes of sleep. “Blaze, you also best-“

“Luna, I would never get between the relationship of two mates; that would end horribly. I merely wish to know where Ostri is, in case he spends time with our new guest and mysteriously goes missing. This way I will know, and we can protect each other better.” Blaze started grooming Luna. “Sorry about waking you, but as you said, I am the best alarm clock you’ve got; I don’t to expel any waste like you or Ostri, but I do like going on evening walks with you both.”

Luna moaned when Blaze went to her ears. “I suppose you are right; I have night court in a few hours, so I suppose I should’ve woken up sooner. A little to the left?” Blaze did as requested. “You are ridiculously good at grooming ponies, Blaze. That should not be possible.”

“Well, it’s a sign of affection amongst my kind, and the more common fox you’re used to seeing. Either you are good at grooming, or your mate doesn’t think you love them that much.” Blaze giggled. “Not really, but females that can get into the itchiest nooks and cranny of another living being is often a more valuable mate.”

Luna sat up with a cat-like stretch. “Well, I suppose I shall properly greet the night and get ready. Ostri, I know you think that Starlight Glimmer is a freak; you’re completely right. But I think it would be best if you go to her room and speak with her. Perhaps she was like me and just needed some handsome stallion to coax her out of her shell.” I nodded. “Though if she looks at your flanks, let me know, and her flanks will be extra purple when I’m through with her.”

We both laughed at that. “God, I never met a lady who so casually jokes about me possibly cheating on her.”

“Again, a stallion having multiple mates is quite common. I would rather not share you, but if you love another mare, I wouldn’t mind if you told me about them. I’d like to meet the lady who could compare to a Princess.” Luna said with a sly grin. “Perhaps she wouldn’t dream to match me in bed.”

“Your sister? She might be more than a match for you.” I cocked my head and Luna just snorted. “But nah, you’re the only one I want to be with, Luna.” I nuzzled her before drawing back. “Well, I’m gonna go talk to our mystery girl, if I don’t come back, assume I died. Or Starlight decided to knock me out. Or rape me. Or knock me out and rape me-”

“We get it, Ostri. Just go,” Blaze rolled her eyes. “Though if she does do anything to you, I will personally make sure Starlight does not see the light of day. I don’t care if she is more magically inclined than I am; you simply do not do that to another sentient being.” With that said, I walked out the door, and because Celestia’s servants are smart, Starlight Glimmer’s room was right next to mine and Luna’s. Why would you host your guest, who is potentially dangerous due to their magic being so strong that it impresses a literal Sun and Moon Goddess, next to said princess’s room where a less magically defensive person (me) also resides? Beats me, but I have a feeling that will end poorly. I knocked on the door.

“Yo, I know it’s the asscrack of dusk, but are you awake right now?” The door started glowing and it gently opened. “So uh…” Starlight was sitting down, reading a scroll and studying it. “What the heck are you doing?”

“I have access to Starswirl’s spell calculations,” Starlight said. What the fuck. No question, just why? What the actual shit. “These were thought to be lost to time…” I raised an eyebrow as Starlight looked up from the scroll in her magic. “I… I really don’t know how else to say this, but you’ll just have to take my word on this. I’m from the future,” I blinked. “Yes, I know, it sounds crazy,” I blinked again. “Are you even going to respond? Call me crazy? Believe me at all? What the heck-”

“So if you’re from the future… how the fuck- nah, I’ve seen magic raise the sun and moon; that’s not something I used to see everyday. Given how I’m assuming that I’m not from this universe, then I’m not surprised.” Starlight blinked… “Yeah, you’re not the only bitch that has a weirdass origin story. I wasn’t even a pony a year and a week ago. So why do you look like a psychopath most of the time? I literally broke the sound barrier yesterday and all you could give was a poker face while probably plotting my demise.”

“It’s just so… surreal. Seeing the Princesses, Luna looks roughly the same if a little shorter, and Celestia with a pink mane… it’s just so strange. And it’s even weirder seeing Luna’s consort in the flesh! You’re in the history books as a great general, who appeared out of nowhere, whose life is cut short…” I raised an eyebrow. “You apparently went missing not even a year after you revolutionized Equestrian warfare through your ‘out of the box’ strategies and brutality. You’ve partook in a battle where none of your troops died or were even injured.” Gawdamn! I didn't know we did that good! “Well, except for you. It was heavily theorized that after the battle, you were wounded and died shortly afterward because we didn’t have the proficiency in healing spells at the time…” I shrugged. “Well, I might as well tell you why I’m here.”

“You casted a time travel spell and fucked up?”

“I was only supposed to go back a week! I definitely went a little further than a week though. Sorry if I seem creepy, it’s just so weird to see you make history in front of me; you’re the reason why the Sonic Rainboom became a thing of legend! Oh Rainbow Dash will not believe me when I say this!” Huh. Glad she spun her apparent reasoning back to how I’m a historical figure of importance.. “You also had apparently a pet Kumiho-”

“How the fuck do you know so much about me anyways? I doubt just anybody is looking through history books unless you’re a nerd,” Starlight nervously chuckled. “You’re a nerd, Starlight. You wanna meet my pet Kumiho? She’s in the other room and can hear my thoughts and is plotting on tickling the shit out of me for calling her that. My ‘kumiho’ is actually a kitsune, a similar creature, that is significantly more peaceful and friendly-” the door slammed open and Blaze happily trotted in. “Please don’t tickle the shit out of me. Starlight’s the one that called you a Kumiho, not me.” Blaze snorted.

“She won’t eat us, right?”

“Nah, she will judge you and kill you with cuteness, but she won’t eat us. Kitsune, while absurdly dangerous, are big ol’ fluff balls that love being loved. Mine in particular likes being petted,” Blaze then rubbed up under my chin and happily yipped as she laid into a hug.

“...How did you tame her?”

“Didn’t run like a bitch when I first saw her, and even thought she was kinda cute. I never actually even tamed her. She just said ‘aight bet’ to me being her owner, and became my pet.”

“Oh Twilight is gonna murder me for this! She always wanted to see a kitsune, but is so busy, and Kitsune and Kumiho live so far away from Equestria that it’s impossible to go meet either!” I Started laughing like an idiot. “What?” I kept on laughing and even Blaze joined in shortly afterwards. Starlight was now just looking confused.

“Don’t go meet a Kumiho. Those things are psychotic; they will either eat your kidney and torture you, or they will seduce you, eat your kidney, and then torture you. If you’re lucky they’ll just kill you. Go meet a kitsune; you look at the one currently letting me use her head as a pillow and tell me these things are vicious. They can kill you, but they choose not to because they will actually try and respect the fact that you’re alive… As long as you don’t try to murder them for whatever reason.”

“I originally met Ostri because he was getting paid to murder me,” Blaze said. “His desire to murder me wavered because I was pretty, pretty fluffy, and he wanted to pet me when I got close to him,” she glared at me. “You tickled me instead of petting me. I still remember that.”

“You got your revenge though…”

“And do I need to explain why I should tickle you again?”

“If you tickle me, I won’t rub your belly for a week.”

“I… Fine, I will not tickle you.”

“So Starlight, this is a Kitsune, big babies that love affection.”

“She has telepathy…” Starlight’s jaw dropped. “Not even skilled unicorns in my era can do that!” Blaze chuckled. “Though… Whateven happened to you? Nopony knows what happened, and if the history book was accurate, then this is the middle of summer, and the Battle of Everfree was at the start of spring.”

“Probably doesn’t help that I started dating Luna and started being nocturnal so I can wake up next to her; those nobles are not fun to be with during the day, and are about the same at night. So I chose the best outcome for me and Luna, and now we can wake up side-by-side. Well, Blaze acts as our alarm clock most of the time, even though Luna is tied to the moon and is more accurate at telling the time than most clocks are. Blaze is just a bitch.” Blaze snorted. ‘Yes, that earned me the silent treatment, I love you all the same, bud.” I chuckled before sending Blaze on her way. “So let’s cut the crap; are you gonna murder somebody?”

“No! Heavens no! I just want to go home… The problem is, casting a time travel spell is very taxing on my magic, and casting again can lead to magic burnout. That’s not good to have when you’re a unicorn that heavily relies on magic; it can end in death.” Oh. Shit. “So I have to wait before I can even attempt the spell again, and even then it’s a mixed bag. I could end up in the present, where I belong, or end up in the wrong time. Using some of Starswirl’s calculations, I can probably work together-”

“I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. I don’t know a damn thing about magic beyond the fact that the magic that we have right now is really basic. Like, according to Celestia, teleportation was only recently discovered,” I shrugged. “I also don’t look into it given that I can’t do it, so calculations, especially your calculations, will probably confuse me. Lemme guess, you can take that spell, find some way to counter it, and doing so will take you back home perfectly unscathed?” Starlight nodded. “Cool. You’re staying in here so you won’t fuck up the timeline?” Starlight nodded. “Cool. Keep doing you!” I walked out the door to do basically nothing.

I have zero responsibilities. Actually, I can’t really do any odd jobs now that I’m nocturnal except for ones by the Crown. And at this point, Celestia just asks if I could do the task required, and I often do it without pay. Most of the time, if it’s not dangerous, if it is, then Celestia does pay me money. And I’m assuming she has none for me given that she’s currently asleep, she doesn’t need me to violently murder the overflowing population of rabbits. So a stroll under moonlight until Luna was free sounded like a good idea. And so I went ahead and did that.

The next night, I woke up, did the usual with an extra side of Blaze knocking the wind outta me while waking me up for her evening walk. That’s how most of the week went, actually. I just woke up, checked in on Starlight when I could, and hung out with Luna throughout most of the night, and Celestia during the day. I told both of them about the situation and they think it’s bullshit, but admitted that it’s plausible after I pointed out that they are magical, Perfect, Pretty, Pony Princess Sisters that can control the Sun, the Moon, and have a specific type of pony that can control the weather to the point where they schedule rain, snow, seasons, anything.

Yeah, time travel would be possible, especially with Starswirl apparently coming up with that spell at some point.

This week was uneventful, and Starlight was still working out how to send herself forward in time so she wouldn’t accidentally fuck anything up. One day, a week after my first encounter with Starlight, I went out and met some sorta bughorse though. “So you eat love,” I hummed as I looked down at the thing stuck in a trap. It simply nodded. “And you can shapeshift?” It nodded again. “You got a name?” Oh yeah, it’s wearing a crown. It nodded. “Can I get your name? I’ll give you mine, I’ll let you go, and we can go on our merry little way.”

“My name is Chrysalis, I am a changeling princess,” cool.

“Name’s Ostri, nice to meet ya.” I knelt down and took the net off the changeling. “Say, you’re kinda thin looking; do you need food? I got some extra love stored up in me, and I’m down to share.” Chrysalis nodded. “Cool, do your thing, I guess.” Oh, that feels weird. It’s like somebody’s licking your brain… Oh… that feels so so fucking weird! It’s kinda ticklish, honestly. The sensation of my brain being licked like it’s a tootsie pop was over pretty quickly, and Chrysalis was licking her lips. “So I assume you had your fill?”

“As much as I could without harming you…. Thank you, Ostri. I shall remember your kindness; I believe you were sent to kill me?” I nodded. “And you’re letting me go?”

“Yeah. Don’t see why not. You haven’t murdered anyone, right?” Chrysalis shook her head. “Cool. No need to chop your head off,” I booped her on the nose. “Go do whatever bugponies do, or just go home. You had to be in that net for a fucking minute; bet that wasn’t fun, was it?” Chrysalis shook her head. I hugged her. “Hope we can meet again, and hey, if you’re starving again, you can stop by in Everfree, and I’ll feed you. It felt like I was getting high when you did that, so I don't mind it.” Chrysalis looked shocked, but hugged me anyway. “We’re gonna be best friends! Oh, Luna would love to meet you!”

Spoiler alert: They became best friends, they met, chatted, and were happily gossiping. Chrysalis was chatting about stallions, changelings and ponies alike(she can apparently mate with either), and Luna just chatted about having me around to tease and fluster. Then she kissed me on the nose in order to try and confuse the ever living shit out of me. “You know, Luna, you’re gonna have to try harder than that in order to get me flustered. I kiss you all the time, and vice versa.” Luna then kissed me, nuzzled under my chin, and rested her head on my foreleg. Okay, that is adorable and now my cheeks are burning.

About a week or two later, Starlight approached me one night while I was sitting under a tree, reading by candlelight. This spot was always pretty cool; nobody even came out to it, so I was left to my own devices and could basically do whatever I wanted. As long as there wasn’t a bear around, or else said bear will try to eat me. Since I was alone, never telling anyone where this spot is, I was surprised that the unicorn even managed to find me. “So Twinkles, how’s finding your way home going?”

“It’s going well. I’m really close to figuring out how to configure the spell. I just needed to be in a spot close to where I wanted to end up; if I did the spell in Everfree, I would’ve ended up in the Everfree Forest, a future landmark that springs up after Nightmare Moon.” Huh… “I probably shouldn’t have said that last bit,” Starlight stared into my expectant eyes. “A year or two after your disappearance, Luna got jealous of Celestia and became Nightmare Moon,” she finally answered. I just cocked my head. “What?”

“Is that… seriously the bullshit reason behind Luna possibly becoming evil?”

“Yeah…? What actually happened?”

“Luna, during these times, is demonized to all hell. She fought for this country at the age of twelve yet none of her efforts were recognized. Her night sky is considered soul sucking, there are literal cults making her the embodiment of everything bad happening in Equestria and neither she, or her sister, can legally do shit about it. Everyone shuns the Moon because it’s a catalyst for a dark future or some shit, whereas the Sun leads to a brighter one. I’ve seen fucking posters on job bulletin boards from psychos who want Luna dead because she’s a witch. Luna opened a god damn orphanage just to help foals, and was even going to outright adopt one of the foals in that orphanage. Hell, the foals love Luna whenever she shows up. Yet despite every good thing, despite how much blood she spilt and bled for this country, it still fucking hates her for no fucking reason. You become what people treat you, and if Luna becomes a demon, then it was your people’s fucking fault, not Luna being a god damn child who couldn’t handle not having attention.

“Luna doesn’t even care about being seen that much. She can handle not having appreciation. She’s a fucking adult, after all. What she cannot handle is waking up to the very subjects she loved and fought for, calling her a bad omen, a demon, literally anything. Not to mention I see her draw out plans for the night sky whenever she can, something to spice up the seasons when new constellations, comets, anything. Guess what? Nobody fucking notices it. She started being my friend because I was the one pony that admired her night sky and she pounced at the opportunity to befriend somebody who didn’t immediately hate or fear her. Then we got to know each other and become something more. Luna was lonely, Starlight. And even though I’m starting to like Celestia, the very fact that she won’t even go and talk to Luna about Luna’s problems because ‘Luna won’t tell me, so it’s not important’ is fucking stupid and all it does is cause her baby sister more pain.”

“...Huh.” Starlight hummed. “When you put it like that, that story makes far more sense than Luna becoming jealous of Celestia.”

“I think Luna’s starting to resent Celestia to some extent, but only because Celestia doesn’t act as the older sibling she is and comforts her little sister when her little sister clearly needs it. Fuck, if Celestia just went to bed, with Luna under her wing, in a hug, snuggled into her side, anything, it would probably make Luna happier. But because Celestia doesn’t actively seek Luna out, and Luna thinks Celestia has no time for her, then that begins to fester to some kind of resentment. I’m hoping to bridge that gap soon and get them properly acting like sisters and not two people who happen to share blood with each other. I never had a family before and it hurts to see two people taking their family for granted. That’s enough of me, why are you out here?”

She started staring off into the distance, taking a step away from me. “According to the map, this is where a town, called Ponyville, will be standing in the future. The very tree you’re laying under gets turned into a library, and eventually a castle after a while. I want to end up in that castle, and so this is where I’ll be performing the spell. I know you and I barely interacted, but it was nice to meet such a historical figure… Good luck with Luna. I’m sure you’re part of the reason why she has not fallen yet.” Starlight’s horn started glowing, as did her eyes. “Goodbye, Bald Ostrich.” Starlight and I started floating in the air, but her back was turned to me, so she didn’t notice I was being pulled toward her.

“Hey Starlight?”

“Yeah?”

“Uh… I don’t think-”

Everything turned to black.

Author's Note

Originally I was gonna have evil Starlight Glimmer in here, just plotting away. But I think her messing with a time traveling spell she wasn’t supposed to is way better. Especially when she is why Ostri goes missing.

If you cannot tell, I am ending this story on a cliffhanger. There will be a sequel that’s maybe five chapters in length, maybe more. But until then, this is the end of Before The Night.

I Got a Dog. She is Best Girl(If Your Definition of Dog Translates to Magical Fox Thing)

I sat in pure silence, having been explained what a consort was, what it entails, and all that other fun stuff, Luna sat with a huge smile on her face. Be the husband of a Princess, or a companion. Whatever the fuck ‘companion’ implies. I stared down at my now empty plate, while Celestia sat there with a smug grin on her face. Now, on one hand, I don’t know if I could handle being a consort of any sort, husband or not, but I can’t deny that Luna’s huge, bright smile made it hard. Those magenta eyes of hers were also so full of hope… With how Luna spent so much of her time being rejected by the very people she ruled over, that hope would make sense.

“Well, Ostri? Will you take my sister’s offer?” Celestia peacefully smiled, her pink mane flowed with a nonexistent wind.

I turned to and from each Princess while my brain worked out the upsides and the downsides. “Can I make my own terms if I were to be a consort?”

Celestia started to open her mouth. “Well-”

“Of course! I wouldn’t want you to be upset the whole time!”

“Well, for one thing, we aren’t getting married, not yet. I’ll be your consort as a friend; we humans take at least a few months to get to know somebody they’re in love with. Sometimes a decade just to get married if it even gets to that point. I’ve known you for about two days, Luna.” Luna nodded, she was still so happy. “But that doesn’t mean that may change in the future; I might end up falling head over ass for you, which I could see happening. Next, I don’t want any perks from it, I’ll happily have the title alone, but I don’t want my place in the world known as ‘that one guy that was friends with a Princess.’”

“But… you wouldn’t need to work a day in your life-”

“Luna, that isn’t how I roll. I would love some luxury, who doesn’t? The thing is though, I know a life of pure luxury would be boring and unfulfilling. Doing those odd jobs, those were fun, and exciting because I didn’t know what they would entail. One of those jobs led me to playing with a pack of wolves. I got to blow shit up with fireworks. Humans, as much as they don’t want to admit it, thrive on challenges. It’s what kept us moving forward. Back home, we got to the moon because getting there was a challenge and we just wanted to touch the moon. I’m not different, I guess. I like having something to do.”

“I… suppose. No guards as well?”

“If you think I need guards, I won’t deny them, but I don’t think I will need them. Sure, I can barely walk straight, but I’ve got a brain, some common sense, and the innate knowledge of knowing how to murder the shit out of a threat that humans have. So far, fireworks have been a tried and true method, and I’ve got a few that were confiscated when I got arrested for no reason… and because you, Luna, are adorable, I can’t see myself saying no to you. Not with that smile you were doing earlier.”

“I am Princess! I cannot be cute!” Luna raised half of her now cold grilled cheese sandwich to the air.

“You could be the Cute Princess. Celestia’s already got the Tall One down.”

“That could work… if only my subjects would agree.”

“Hey, your subjects are bumfuck stupid. And also pretty racist towards each other apparently. If they think you, who has an award winning smile, is evil, then they’re dumb as hell.”

“I know…” Before Luna could continue wallowing in her sadness, I walked right up to her and bopped her on the nose. “W-what?”

“I don’t like seeing you on the brink of tears. So I bopped you on the nose. It worked, didn’t it?”

“You…” Luna’s eyes were now hidden by her mane. “You… have booped the Royal Nose.” I cocked my head. “Now you must face my wrath.” Needless to say, I learned how ticklish I was, and how good wings were for tickling the hell out of somebody. By the time Luna was done, I was bumfuck tired, and any energy that I had left, was used up on trying to squirm out of what could only be described as literal telekinesis. Of course, Celestia wasn’t happy about how her little sister was bonding more with some guy she just met, then y’know, her. So she left early on the guise of ‘she needs her rest’ or some shit.

I woke up again, under Luna’s wing the next day, and left without a word. Of course, I left a note saying that I was gonna go find some more odd jobs, and that is exactly what I did. I did a few less dangerous jobs, which only ended up with me making about twenty five bits after six of them. That was retarded, because I almost fell off a roof and broke my neck during one of said jobs, so I went to the bulletin board and found a job that involved taking care of a monster. So I went, got a contract for the job, a sword, and of course, more fireworks should I need to kill said monster.

Needless to say, the pay was gonna be huge, because apparently the monster ate ponies. So I went out, following a crudely drawn map to where the beast was supposed to be residing, hoping I didn’t run into Starswirl, since apparently he’s a heavily gifted unicorn making leaps and jumps in magical theory or whatever. So hopefully that old fucker took some sleeping meds to prepare himself for a long nap, and would leave me alone while I took care of the monster. The only description of the monster was that it's fox-like and pony-sized. Which is cool.

Because I ran right into the fucking thing. It was beautiful, honestly. It heavily resembled a Ninetales from Pokemon, but its tails ended in black tips of fur, its ears were the same color as the tips of the tales. The red eyes were cerulean in color. It was sitting on its haunches, and its head rested higher than mine, while its shoulders were at my head level. I paused in awe as I saw the fucking thing, because Ponyland, it also had nine tails. Its creamy coat looked incredible and actually really cool when combined with the black fur of its ears and tails. Along with some markings that were also fur, but didn’t look like runes.

“Greetings, Pony. Are you seeking passage? I’m more than willing to guide you… you’re the first pony who hasn’t run away in fear of me immediately.” Its mouth did not move as it spoke.

“I was told that you were eating ponies, and am getting paid, to murder you.” The fox cocked its head.

“Oh heavens no; you ponies don’t smell good, so I assume you wouldn’t taste good either. And I am unlike a similar creature, the Kumiho, as I would rather befriend travelers than eat and torture them.” Huh. “And before you ask, it is too far west for Kumiho to roam. It is also a little far west for me, a Kitsune, to be all the way out here, but my homeland is currently under siege, so I took refuge here. Do you still wish to kill me? Because I believe I will simply leave if that is the case. You ponies are quite unfriendly.”

“Nah. If you’re telling the truth, I don’t give a fuck about what the hell you are. You’re pretty cool looking, and quite pretty if I must say so myself. How the heck are you speaking without your mouth? I’m curious.” Am I dumb for trusting this thing? Yes. Do I care? No. It says it hasn’t eaten anyone, so it doesn’t need to die yet. If it’s lying, then yeah, it will die.

“I am using telepathy, and I can read your thoughts, pony.” Oh shit. “If you need your suspicions confirmed…” the Kitsune was up in my face now. It then licked me. “There, I do not do that to many, Bald Ostrich.” Huh. “You want to pet me now that I’m this close? Either you are suicidal, or not right in the head. Because most ponies would run before I even got this close…” It grinned. “Before I could get the chance to eat them.” Before I could react, it licked me again. “I’m merely joking; you may pet me if you would like.” I did just that.

“So, how smart are you in relation to a normal fox?”

“I am significantly smarter than a fox. I am capable of basic ‘levitation’ as ponies dub telekinesis. I also have an advanced level of telepathy, even if it is a little difficult to convey my thoughts into language; I am intelligent but language is something my kind is not very acute to. It doesn’t stop us from communicating, but we are not even capable of saying the words of this language… Equish as you may call it. I will stop reading your mind now; I can tell you have questions.”

“So, what do you eat?”

“I can get by for months on a single rabbit. Kitsune are magical beings; we don’t need to eat as much as you mortals do, and still retain a healthy figure. And I can hunt for myself. I refuse to hunt anything sapient, however, so ponies are off the menu for me.”

“So… I could keep you as a pet if I wanted to.”

“Would you want to?” I shrugged. “Well, it would be a nice change of pace in this life of mine. I’ve seen it all, have served a variety of creatures, but never as a pet. It sounds relaxing, where I lounge, and obtain food by doing nothing.”

“Do you think you can still hunt for yourself? I know ponies won’t be selling meat, and I can’t hunt for shit.”

“Of course. I do not mind having to do that. I assumed having a master, of a mostly vegetarian race, would come with a few caveats.” The kitsune rolled over onto her back. “Rub my belly; I am a cute, cuddly fox that wants affection.” I grinned and couldn’t say no to such an offer, so that’s what I did. “Oh… yes this is nice. I see why some other canines have been warming up to ponies.” The kitsune’s tongue started hanging out the side of her mouth as I kept on going. “I believe you wish to give me a name?”

“Hey! I thought you’d stop reading my mind.” I didn’t relent in rubbing that belly despite my outburst.

“I did for a few moments. And I will stop for the most part… this just seems that it would come naturally. A sign that we’re bonded; I am named, and belong to you.”

“Well, I was gonna call you Blaze.”

“I…” The fox hummed. “It’s good and simple; easy to remember. You may call me Blaze.” Blaze sighed before batting my hoof away with a paw. “That’s ticklish, stop.” My hoof had moved up to her neck before that. “I said stop!” Blaze squealed as I kept tickling her. It was cute as hell. A toothy grin worked its way onto my face until I found myself being pinned down by my new pet. “Ostri, what did I request that you do?” Her legs were slightly shaky, probably because I just tickled the shit outta her.

“To stop tickling you?”

“What did you do?”

“Keep tickling you.”

“My tails are very useful for tickling, remember what happens when you cross a kitsune.” By the time I was done, I was a heaving mess, using Blaze as a bed of sorts while she covered me with her tails, like a nice, fluffy blanket. “That was… fun. Quite fun. Is this what being a pet is like?”

“I dunno. I never had one… is it normal to love the hell out of their pet immediately after meeting them?”

“I am uncertain. I’m not complaining; I am certain by the end of this, I will be crying when you are gone.”

“Because you’re immortal?” Blaze nodded. “Oh…” I reached up with a hoof, and somehow directed her muzzle towards me with it, despite not having fingers. “Well, that’s more of a reason to make use of the time you have me, eh?”

“You are correct. Come, I can carry you back to your village, and you can get me settled into your home.”

“Uh… I don’t have one. A home, that is.”

“How?”

“I wasn’t a pony four days ago.”

“That makes far, far more sense now. You don’t act like a prey animal in front of a carnivore that can eat you whole. Well, let us go anyway. I believe the nearest settlement is Everfree City, correct?”

“Yup. I’m staying at the castle in the middle of it. Hopefully Celestia and Luna won’t mind me having a pet.”

“We will have to wait and see.” So we started walking back, or rather, Blaze carried me by the scruff on my neck. I didn’t even know that was there, and felt degrading. But I guess I was still catching my breath, so I didn’t complain, or fight back because I literally couldn’t. My body, legit, acted like a kitten and just stopped doing anything I told it to do, and just went limp in the kitsune’s grasp. “You seem fully rejuvenated. I shall let you walk now.” Blaze stopped, lowered me onto my hooves, and kept on walking.

Halfway through, I got bored, and tossed a stick. Blaze, wagged her tails, and went after it only to stand with it in her jaws until I caught up with her. We repeated this, and it took us a little while longer, but we got back to Everfree City. The amount of discord my pet’s new presence was fucking funny. Like they saw me, gave me the stink eye for having wings, and then hid under a cart, in an alley, or in somebody else's home as soon as they saw Blaze. Of course, Blaze wasn’t super happy about ponies giving me the stink eye, but made no move to even attack them.

“Watch it!” Blaze grabbed me by the scruff, tucked me in under her forelegs, and rolled over. The sound of an arrow planting into the side of wood made it acutely aware as to what happened. I slowly turned to the thing, before looking up at the kitsune, who was now peering down at me under a ball of light that was deflecting more arrows. “Did you get hurt, Ostri? You almost took an arrow for me without knowing it.”

“I’m fine. Is this another one of those things you are capable of?”

“Of course. I can create magical fields that act as weak shields. Somebody hitting it with a very strong hammer could get through, but a volley of arrows? My shield wouldn’t even falter for a second.” Blaze turned her gaze up. “Though I am not appreciating being shot at with my, now, favorite pony hiding underneath me.”

“Wait!” I slipped out from under my fox, but just under the magical shield she was still holding up. “Stop shooting! For the love of everything that pisses, stop shooting at my god damn pet, you bunch of fucking horses!”

“Watch your language, there are foals listening.”

“I don’t give two damns, you simple bitch!” I yelled back.”

“Ostri,” the arrows had stopped, and now Celestia was calmly walking forward. Wings flared, walking all regally. “How do you, in three days, get arrested, make enough money to buy a small house, and then come back home with a bucking Kumiho? Not only that, but it is peacefully laying down behind you, and even saved your life. What the actual-”

“That’s not a Kumiho, Celestia. It’s a Kitsune. The main difference is,” I booped Blaze on the nose. “I can do that to a Kitsune and not get murdered.” Blaze then took my hoof in her mouth and held it there. “Can I have my hoof back? I need that to walk.”

“You booped my nose, so I get to keep your hoof.” Blaze paused. “I’m bored of it; you can have it back now.” She then released my hoof and started licking it.

“See? Hoof’s fine-Blaze, stop grooming me-and I’m still alive and kicking. Blaze is actually really sweet. And she’s my pet Kitsune now, so if you can not murder her, that would be really appreciated, Celestia.” Blaze didn’t stop grooming me by the way.

“Ostri, you worry me sometimes… Guards, leave this pegasus and his pet fox alone. They aren’t here to hurt anypony. You may continue living in the palace, Ostri, but you are responsible for your pet. If it eats anypony, I will hold you accountable, and I will kill blaze.”

“You’d be lucky to even do that, your highness,” Blaze said with a serene little smile. “Kitsunes are incredibly hard to kill. However, I won’t harm anyone, as it goes against our very nature. Trust me, if I wanted to hurt your ponies, this one,” Blaze hopped on her hindlegs, resting the upper half of her body on me. “Would be dead already,” the Kitsune then nuzzled me.

“That’s reassuring.”

“You give good belly rubs, Ostri; you’re safe.”

Celesita sighed as she began walking back to the palace, muttering about what the fuck I get up to in my spare time. “So, what do you wanna do now?” I turned to Blaze. “I still have a day to kill, and your head was about to be my main paycheck today…” I grinned. “Perhaps there is some way to still get your head.” Blaze simply rolled her eyes. “What? I know you probably don’t have the concept of money in your head, but I need that money.”

“Watch.” Blaze’s head was now off her shoulders and in my hands. “Illusions are a part of my skill set. You can still get your money, and I can still be alive!” Blaze’s headless body wiggled. “My actual head is merely invisible. Just drag me by the leg into wherever you collect your money from, hold my fake head up, and go on your way.” I shrugged and did just that. I now had three hundred bits, a kitsune, and was now playing with that kitsune.

As in we were wrestling for the fun of it. I didn’t win a single time; Blaze is fucking huge, leave me alone. “You know, today’s been a good day,” I rested my head on the fox’s chest as she rested on her back. The two of us were bone tired, how Blaze, a ‘magical’ creature was tired, I dunno, but I didn’t question it. It gave me a good chance to test the pillow properties of something so fucking fluffy. Spoiler: Blaze is a very good pillow. “Got paid, got a new pet and friend, and we get to sleep under the night sky to end the day off.”

“And I have somebody to scratch my belly when I demand it. Just know that I will demand attention for five seconds… like a dog.” Blaze filled my head with her version of a giggle. “I actually won’t; that would be annoying. I will, however, demand pets and belly rubs at times. I am your pet, and it is your job, as my owner, to pamper and spoil me rotten. In turn, you will have my unyielding loyalty,” her tails wrapped around us. “And cuddles. Don’t forget those.” Before long, Blaze was snoozing away, and I wasn’t too far behind.

Now I don’t feel as alone as I did.

Author's Note

I had Celestia act the way she does for a reason. For one, Imd like to think that she’s relatively new to ruling, and probably a lot worse at repressing her surprise in public, or hide distaste for somepony she doesn’t like.

In a later A/N, I might explain why Luna was so quick to trying to make Ostri a consort.

also, Blaze Best Dog.