"This looks a lot like our first night at Junior Speedsters, doesn't it?"
"You always say that, and-"
"And you always say Soarin, there's a sunset every day. Yeah, I know."
"You always say that when you're trying to build up to something and you don't know how to get the conversation started." Spitfire turned her head from the fiery clouds around them to look at him. "So what is it this time?"
He didn't respond to her at first, continuing to look over the balcony at the vista the retreat afforded. "It was six oktas," he spoke at last. "We could see the ground below, but as bright and warm as it was, it didn't hold a candle to the way the clouds shone, how the sun seem to burrow into them and set them alight from the inside. You wanted to go flying through them, and I told you we'd get in trouble if we went flying without supervision, and you said that if we both went, we wouldn't be unsupervised, since we'd be with each other. I convinced you not to go, and we watched the sun set together. You fell asleep under my wing. I'd never refused to fly when given the opportunity before, but that day, I felt like I just shouldn't, and that I should just enjoy the moment with you. That was the first time I enjoyed myself after not flying." He finally turned to look at her. "Not all sunsets are the same."
Spitfire rolled her eyes and shook her head, but didn't say anything. She let the silence linger for a few seconds before she added her thoughts. "What I remember most about that day are those jumped-up colts," she told him. "They didn't like me being there, for some reason, and decided it was their job to rectify the fact I was. Then some blue colt came over and told them to leave me alone, and they said something back to him, and he said something back to them, and they stormed off." A flicker of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.
"Yeah," Soarin said, grinning. "They asked me if you were my girlfriend, and I told them, 'Yes, and is he your boyfriend?'. They really didn't like that. I dunno why."
"Foals find the oddest things offensive," Spitfire observed. "As if having a girlfriend was meant to be a detriment."
"Maybe they were spot on about you then." The stallion received a glare from his companion, and his grin just widened.
"Clearly I'm not enough of a problem," she reminded him sternly. "You've stuck with me for over two decades now."
"Under a decade," Soarin argued.
"We've been friends since that day at Junior Speedsters. That was, what, twenty...eight years ago?"
"We weren't dating since we were kids."
"You've known me for nearly thirty years. If that isn't enough time to get to know me and figure out if I'm worth the trouble of dating, then you're the dimwit, not me."
"Harsh," he snorted.
"I've never been one to mince words."
"I know. I've been exposed to you for just under thirty years."
"And after all that time, you still decided I was worth the hassle."
Soarin grumbled an acceptance to that, and the pair fell into a comfortable silence. From somewhere down below, birdsong filtered up to them, soft and quiet at their altitude.
"I think they might've been onto something," the stallion continued, bulldozing through the tranquility. "Those bullies, I mean. Maybe it was immeiately obvious we were right for each other, and that's why they said it?" When she laughed, he frowned. "Hey, I'm serious! I think we had something special from the start."
"We were friends for years," Spitfire reminded him. "All the way through school, all the way through Wonderbolts selection, and all the way through training."
"Were we?"
"Yes? As far as I know, anyway. Did you stop being friends with me at some point without telling me?"
"No, we were always friends, but what about that night at-"
"That was a drunken mistake," she told him, giving him a firm side-eye glare.
"You said it was a drunken mistake the morning after," he agreed. "But after a few weeks, when you were willing to talk about it again and not pretend it hadn't ever happened-"
"Because you kept trying to bring it up," she reminded him.
"-you said it didn't mean anything, and maybe we should keep doing it, if we kept it casual."
Spitfire grunted her acknowledgement. "Yeah, well, that was a mistake too."
"Was it?"
"Clearly." When Soarin didn't answer, she turned to look at him, and saw him frowning. "You know what I mean; we couldn't keep it casual, could we? Turns out I loved my best friend too much to just keep being friends with him." She shook her head, the smile she tried to keep away from her muzzle managing to manifest in spite of her efforts.
"Soooo...?"
"You think some bullies from my childhood spotted right away that we were destined to be together, just because we ended up dating years later?"
"Uh-huh."
"You don't think that you've changed in all that time? That whatever they saw in you then isn't what they'd see in you now, or what they would've seen in you when we got together?"
"You once called me a 'foal in his fourth decade'. I think that was a couple of weeks ago, actually."
"You're a dork, you know that?"
"Exactly. And if that isn't enough time to get to know me, then you're the dimwit, not me."
"I hate you."
"No you don't."
A second passed before a gold wing draped over the stallion's back, and she responded, "No, I don't." The quiet remained for a longer period, unbroken save for the soft rustle of wind and the fading chirping from below. "What's this got to do with anything, though?"
"I dunno," he admitted. "Fate, maybe, or the way things are meant to be? Sometimes I just see things, and it seems like the world's trying to tell me something. On that day at Junior Speedsters, I had a weird urge to go to the benches for lunch, and that's where I saw those colts bullying you. That party at the Wonderbolts, I had a voice inside me telling me not to have another beer, and to go over and dance with you, which led to us...y'know. The day after, even though I agreed it had been stupid, and we should let it lay in the past, there was this gnawing inside me that didn't go away, and told me I should keep asking to talk about it with you. Every time I got this nudge, and it led to where I am now."
Spitfire glanced at him with a quirked brow, then turned her attention out at the absent sun and the blood-red clouds. "And tonight?"
"The same feeling," he told her, predictably. "I've got the mare of my dreams next to me, looking out at a sunset exactly like the one on the first night we met. She's leaning against me almost exactly like that night, too. It's...too obvious to ignore. More than those other times."
"And what's it telling you?"
"It's telling me about us. Where our story started. And it's telling me, maybe we should start the next chapter."
"You're not bringing this up again?" she asked, scoffing. "We've already talked about tying the knot, Soarin, and you know why it's not the right time. One day, I'll be happy to walk down the aisle for you - well, not happy exactly, but even a mare like me has to be feminine sometimes - but we can't right now. We're gonna need to put a lot of thought into-"
"I want to start a family with you."
The silence didn't so much fall as manifest, flash-freezing the conversation and the ponies present. No melody reached them from the birds below, the bronze of the sky faded into a darkening blue hue, and the air became cooler far too quickly. Spitfire's wing stiffened, the feathers snapping to sharp edges, and she seemed to stop breathing entirely. The passage of time wasn't measured in seconds - those stopped having meaning - but the bleeding of light from the sky, until evening had unmistakably become twilight.
"I'm going to bed," the mare announced, withdrawing her wing from her partner's back and turning around.
"Spitfire, don't be-"
"I'll see you tomorrow, Soarin."
"You can't keep walking away from this." He thrust a wing out, blocking her path back into the cloud resort. "Stop trying to ignore me."
"I'm not having this conversation."
"Then when are we?" he demanded, frowning at her. "Because the last time I tried to talk about our future, you kept me away from the aerial relay tryouts for the Equestria Games."
"That was neither the time nor the place, and you know it."
"And what about now? What's stopping us from talking about it now? The crowds of ponies watching us, or the upcoming sporting event we're relentlessly training for?" He stared back at her defiantly as she glared at him, refusing to back down. "There's never a good time for you."
"And you know why!" she snapped. "We're Wonderbolts, Soarin! We're taking a huge risk just being in a relationship! If we ever broke up, the team would suffer! If the public found out about us, we'd never have a moment's peace! And you want to throw a child into that? What in Tartarus is wrong with you?!"
"We're ponies," he protested. "We're not superheroes, or gods, or-"
"We are to Equestria," she interrupted. "We're the best fliers in the entire kingdom, and probably the entire world, if you ask them." She jerked her head over the balcony, down to the ground. "Whether or not you like it, we're celebrities, and that was what you signed up for when you joined. It's not a picnic, it's not sunshine and rainbows, and it's not something you can just toss a newborn foal into. Do you even know what it'd take, raising one? I'm not even talking about the tabloids and the paparazzi, or the intrusions whenever we tried to leave the house, I mean the basic effort that goes into being a parent. The dedication, the sleepless nights, the expenditure, the worrying about their safety every second of every day, the extra fear that comes from them going to school where you can't watch over them, the trantrums, the medical worries, and every other thing a foal entails!"
She snarled at him. It wasn't her usual drill instructor facade, where she shouted and made noise; she was genuinely angry, and she bore her teeth. "Do you know what that would cost? What that would mean? We couldn't be Wonderbolts! One of us would have to take leave to look after the foal, and that wouldn't be you, would it?! Would you toss in your career to take care of your own kid, you useless, featherbrained, selfish, prat?! Because I'd have to! I'd have to quit being Captain of the Wonderbolts! That's what a foal would mean! Would you give it all up for a foal?!"
Of all the things that Soarin could've done, standing still and letting her holler at him was somehow the most disconcerting. He let her vent, he endured every word she spat at him, and he didn't flinch. Soarin, who'd panicked when he'd dropped a pie, who'd screamed when he'd tripped and tailspun, who fretted when asked a question for which he hadn't prepared an answer, stood still and faced the fury of a mare that had made Equestria's toughest quiver. He let the storm pass, and when she was left glaring at him, having lobbed her worst at him, he opened his mouth and answered.
"Yes."
"Yes?" Spitfire asked, frowning at him.
"Not with any mare," he admitted. "But with you...yes. I'd resign from the Wonderbolts today. I'd give it all up if I needed to. I'd stay home and love him or her, and love you. I'd learn to cook, I'd clean the house, or I'd work whatever job would have me." The corner of his mouth curled in a smile. "I'm not messing you about, Spitfire. I want a family, and I want one with you."
The mare blinked, her eyes flicking from one part of his face to another, examining the stallion across from her. She grumbled, relaxing a little, and forced her expression to soften. "It's a big decision," she told him. "I'm not doubting your willingness or your committment, but having a foal together means making something real, and it's not something we can undo once we've started. What if we find ourselves in over our heads?"
"We're gonna work through it together."
"Even if we do, everything still changes. If I'm pregnant, I won't be able to partake in aerial displays or lead the team, and that's going to bring a lot of public attention to us. If we stay in the 'Bolts, at least one of us is gonna need to stay home to look after the kid, or else trust a daycare to look after them." She scrunched her face up at the idea. "It's a lot, and I can't just make a snap decision on this."
"I'm not asking you to make a snap decision, I'm asking you to talk to me about it," Soarin told her. "You always try to shut me down, but we can't run around this forever. The future I want is a mare by my side who's the mother to my foal. I need to know if that's the future you want, too, because time doesn't stop. It marches on, and sooner or later I'm gonna be in the place where a mare and a foal should be, and there's gonna be nothing. If you don't want that, then we need to talk about that, too."
"What if it's a mistake, Soarin?" she asked, sighing at him. "We can break off a relationship, we can move out of a shared house, we can quit the Wonderbolts, but we can't undo a baby."
"You thought sleeping together was a mistake," he reminded her. "You didn't want to talk about it, you kept trying to sweep it under the rug, and I had to make you talk about it. Then you decided that not sleeping together was a mistake, and that we should keep doing it as friends. You didn't want to talk about a relationship, and kept sweeping it under the rug, and I had to make you talk about it. Then you decided that trying to be friends with benefits was a mistake, and that we should start dating."
"That's a lot of mistakes," Spitfire pointed out. "All mistakes we can rectify, if we really wanted to. A baby can't be 'rectified', Soarin."
"Those mistakes were all rectified, by us talking them out," the stallion argued. "We figured out that maybe what we thought was dangerous and wrong was actaully a good idea, and the mistake was trying to half-heart it. We figured out that taking that leap was the best thing to do. Do you believe that if we wanted to stop sleeping together after that first night, that it wouldn't have been constantly awkward? Or that if we hadn't started dating, those feelings wouldn't just linger and make the whole thing sour? Let's just say we broke off our relationship now, and nopony ever knew we were together; could we really run the 'Bolts like we used to? Would it go back to how it was?"
"Duty comes first; we've got professional standards to maintain, regardless of our personal feelings or grudges." She turned to face the vista as she spoke so he couldn't see the doubt in her visage. She heard him let out a sigh, and knew he was looking her over appraisingly, waiting to see if she gave any indication that his words were having an effect on her.
"The 'Bolts come first," he said at last. "We're the elite, the best fliers Equestria can offer, emergency response to everything from natural disasters to monster attacks, and general saviours of the citizenry. We're a model for every pegasus to aspire to be, and representatives not only of the kingdom, but of the virtues and values of ponykind; precision, discipline, teamwork, selflessness, and committment. And atop that unstoppable machine sits the Captain, the best flier out of all of us, the figurehead that Equestria sees as the epitome of achievement and success, who flapped her way to the top using nothing but her sweat and tears, and the sheer determination to be the best out of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. You've got a lot to be proud of, and nopony is denying that. You'll go down in history, your name outlasting the next twenty generations of ponies."
"But?" she asked, impatiently.
"But for how long? How long are you going to hold onto that? Is that really all you care about? About being the Captain? I know it means a lot to you, and it means a lot to me too, but one day you're gonna have to retire, whether or not you want to, if that's in one year or one hundred."
"And?"
"And then what? Who's going to be waiting for you?" He received no reply, so he continued. "Rainbow Dash is already slated to be the next runner-up, and she's got the age, the experience, and the skill for it. She's got the leadership and the talent for it, the teamwork, the discipline and the credentials. She's already helped select ponies for the reserves. She's going to be the next Captain, and when she does, you'll need something to come home to."
"This has been my dream for half my life," Spitfire snapped at him. "I'm not some old fossil - I'm not even forty, so I'm certainly not bowing out yet. I've been training and putting my heart and soul into this since I was a teenager."
"And you've done it," Soarin told her. "You're the Captain of the Wonderbolts, and you have been for a decade now. You've got years left in you, sure, but those years get used up, fast. Are you really going to let the next part of your life go by because you're too stuck in a dream to care? You spent years striving to be a Wonderbolt because you understood the urgency of acting when you did; please don't refuse to strive for the next big goal in your life."
The balcony was growing dark too, now, with the last vestiges of the sun's light disappearing, replaced by the emerging shine of the moon.
"Maybe we'll need to completely upend our lives and start again," Soarin told her. "Maybe it'll work out, and our lives won't change much. Maybe we'll work it out as we go along, and we'll reach a compromise. I don't know, I can't tell the future. All I know is I can't say nothing and let this go by, because that would be a mistake. I've said what I need to say. Think about it, and talk to me when you've decided what you want from your future, whether or not I'm in it." He caressed her back with a wing, which she shrugged off. Sighing, he turned and headed into the room.
"I hate you when you're like this," she said, refusing to look back at him.
"No, you don't," he answered. The door slid shut, and Spitfire was left alone on the balcony, gazing over a sea of silvery clouds, bathed in moonlight from the great orb overhead.
"No," she murmured, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. "I don't."
The Summer Sun Celebration that year fell on the final workday of the week, and after their exceptionally elaborate and physically demanding performance in Vanhoover, the Wonderbolts were scheduled for rest days, adding up to a long weekend for the team. Due to the early nature of their routine and the relatively quick packing time, they were able to catch an airship heading to Cloudsdale by midday, their cabins booked with a simple drop of a name and an up-front payment. Using the privacy afforded by first-class, without the concern of fans and admirers, most of the trip was spent sleeping away the fatigue that had accumulated over days of hard training and regimented preparation for the display.
They arrived in time for dinner, with Spitfire having reserved a table for them at Cloudsdale's Cirrus Cuisine to celebrate their efforts and to start everypony's break with something memorable. The upper floor provided a beautiful view of the city, and with Spitfire's surprise annoucement that the bill had been pre-paid, the Wonderbolts spent a few hours of merriment without a single care in the world. Soarin largely forewent the free alcohol for the free food, munching through several pies of various fruit fillings before he felt he'd exhausted the social tolerance of his teammates, and switched instead to drinking the minimum acceptable amount of beer.
The evening wrapped up with most of the team very, very drunk, and being told they were expected to take taxis home, which they collectively agreed to do; aside from being more responsible than flying themselves, it saved them the trouble of worrying about bumping into lurking paparazzi, who had somehow not yet worked out that the celebrities of Cloudsdale had access to the same modes of transport as the rest of the public. Soarin helped some of his more bow-legged colleagues into their own carriages before waving one down for himself, and had just settled in and given the driver an address a moderate distance from his actual residence when another weight settled in beside him.
"Same address, please," Spitfire added, ignoring Soarin's confused expression. She didn't answer him as the driver flapped his wings a few times, testing his balance with two passengers, and took off from the rooftop pickup, gliding across the vastness of the city. Only when he leaned forward so he was in her vision, did she offer, "Everypony else has somepony to make sure they get home safe; you're the odd one out."
They didn't talk for the rest of the ride, which was mercifully short, though she insisted on paying, shoving a hoofful of bits to the flier before Soarin could object. All he could do was exit the carriage, thank the flier, and watch as it lifted off once again, leaving him alone with the team's captain. She started walking before he did, already knowing the way to his house, as well as the route he took to get there from here.
"I'm pretty sure Fleetfoot didn't have a partner to make sure she got home," Soarin spoke up as he followed her down the street and into a well-lit alleyway. He was following his boss to his own house now? He wrinkled his nose at that thought, though the smell of some greasy, delicious takeaway may have contributed more than the oddity of the situation.
"She knows how to get home," Spitfire replied, not bothering to look back over her shoulder.
"So do I," he informed her. "I'm probably the least drunk pony out of all of us, including you." He instinctively sniffed the air, the takeaway distracting his nose as he walked and meandered through streets and roads.
"I limited myself," she rebutted. "Just a couple of glasses of wine, a few beers, a whisky..."
"I didn't realise the temperance society had elected a new president."
"Well, it's not like I'm going to be drinking for a year or two, so I might as well indulge a little while I can."
Soarin took several seconds to react to her comment, too distracted by the lingering smell that seemed almost to follow him. When he did pick up on what she'd said, he did a double take, and began to question her before she stopped and stepped aside.
"Open up," she told him, nodding her head towards the door. He instinctively reacted to his boss' command, plucking his key from his saddlebags and unlocking his front door, to which she immediately opened it and stepped inside. The stallion followed her in - followed his boss into his own home - and shut the door behind himself, locking it and placing the key in the box off to the side.
"I'm home safe and sound," he called out to her as she disappeared around the corner of his upper landing, unbuckling his saddlebags and dumping them in the hallway. "Now you're in my home too, so should I escort you to yours, or are you staying here and hoping no journalists saw you?" He sniffed the air, glancing around. "Did you bring food home from the restaurant? I've been smelling food all the way home. Spitfire?"
"In the bedroom," came her voice.
"Sleepy already?" he asked, treading the stairs up to his - now apparently shared - bedroom. "Wait, have you got the food in there? Don't get any on the covers, I had them washed and changed for when I got back!" His steps became hurried, and as he turned on the landing towards his bedroom, the scent of something sweet and sour and hot grew thicker and more intense. Dreading the thought of a stain on his fresh linen, the stallion pushed open the ajar door, and braced himself for the worst.
"Oh," he uttered after several long seconds, once his brain had rebooted. As he'd feared, there was in fact a stain on his sheets, though not from the source he'd been worrying about - he wasn't sure if that was worse or better. "So...no fast food?"
"No," Spitfire purred at him, looking over her shoulder at him from her position on the bed, her eyes lidded and her smooth, lowered tone laced with a dash of amusement at his question. "Just you, me, and my answer."
"Your answer?" he questioned, eyes fixated on her backside, her swishing tail drawing his gaze towards her toned, shapely buttocks and lithe gaskins spread out behind her.
"That night in Neighagra Falls, out on the balcony, you opened up to me about where our relationship was going," she explained.
"That was weeks ago."
"I've had time to think about it. If you want to talk about starting another chapter, I won't be running away, not this time."
Soarin forced himself to look at Spitfire's face, a cautiously optimistic excitement beginning to build in his chest. He searched her expression for signs of mischief or mockery, an oppositional dread beginning to form in the pit of his stomach, anticipating something going wrong. Forcing the words into his mouth, he asked tentatively, "You want to try for a foal?"
"I don't think we need to worry about trying," Spitfire told him, her voice dipping into an alluring low tenor. "Unless you somehow miss, it's going to happen."
"How do you-?" His question was cut short as she raised her tail and laid it across her back, exchanging the flashes of flesh for a full-frontal view of what lay between her hindlegs. Without her tail fanning her sent back to him, the inescapable odour that had been lingering around him since the taxi ride was less prominent, but in exchange for the view he was receiving, it was more than worth it. "...yeah, that makes sense how you know. Have you been...all this time?"
"Was I in heat while we were performing today?" she deduced. "No, that would've been torture, and not to mention incredibly unprofessional. The estrus suppression potions I take have an incredibly precise duration - high-end stuff - and so I just worked out when we'd be done, and here we are; with me on your bed, offering you the best night of your life, and you asking me questions about my personal upkeep."
"So you're not just saying this because you're in heat?" Soarin checked, wincing as she glared at him.
"I've only been in heat since the restaurant, which is exactly what I planned, and it's quickly getting hotter, so could you maybe do less thinking and more dicking? I don't want to say now's a bad time to have second thoughts, but it'd be a really bad time to let me know-"
"No, no," he cut in, hurriedly. "I do want this, I really do - I just want to make sure you want this too, and it's not your heat, or alcohol talking. I said I want to talk about it, and last time we talked, you raised a good point about not being able to take it back once we'd gone through with it."
With a huff, Spitfire shuffled her way back off the bed, dropped to all fours, and walked over towards him, her tail swatting and whipping at the air. "I've had weeks to think about it," she told him, her orange eyes fixed on his. "You've had, what, months? Years? You know you want this, and after what you told me, I get it too; I want this. I really, really want this, and you gave me the courage to see that. I've known you for just under three decades, and I've got to know you for who you are. It's the same reason I've stayed your friend, the reason I couldn't keep it casual between us, and the reason we're here now. Nopony else could've made me confront my doubts and stubborness the way you did, and when I reflected and I realised that, I knew that, yes, you really were the only pony I could commit to, spend my life with, raise a family with." Her usual stern visage softened, and a tenderness came over her that seemed almost out of character for her. "You're the only pony I'd give up my career to be with, and the right pony to raise children with; you're the pony who should, has to be, the father of my foals. Our foals."
It wasn't clear who kissed who, but within an instant they were connected at the lips, a forehoof holding the back of the head and caressing the cheek. The seconds ticked by, the passion between them continuing until one of them broke it, just as obtusely as to which had started it. Soarin's face didn't carry any doubts any more; he grinned happily, imbibing the smoldering come-hither gaze of his lover, her eyes lidded and her lips curled into a knowing half-smirk.
"Looks like you need a fitness review," she growled lowly in her drill instructor voice, all the gravel without any of the barked fierceness. "Let's see you give me twenty."
"Not tonight," the stallion told her, kissing her nose. "I know you like being in charge, and so do I, but if we're starting a new chapter, I'm not fucking my boss; I'm making love to my girlfriend."
Normally, the mare would've rolled her eyes and called him a dork, but after the sudden and intense onset of estrus she was riddled with hormones, her brain swimming with them, and his statement plucked at her heartstrings. She looked away to partly hide her adoring smile, and only partly succeeding, before she turned and swiped him harmlessly across the face with her tail. The stallion snorted a few times, the scent of her arousal seeping into his nostrils. When he wiped a forehoof across his nose, it came away slick, and a quick glance at the fiery tail which had whapped him revealed it to be damp.
"I hate you," he chuckled, snorting several more times as that irresistible, hunger-inducing aroma permeated his senses, his body growing warmer as its effects spread throughout him.
"No you don't," she snarked back, climbing onto the bed gracefully and slumping down, spreading herself out in the posture he'd found her in when he'd entered the room. "Now get over here and f-...come and show me how much you love me, Soarin."
The blue pony's nostrils flared as he approached, his eyes fixated on the vista her flagged tail exposed for him. Her marehood was a wetland, the fur around her crotch and groin damp and darkened with the overflow of her excitement. Her golden-brown lips were parted wide, forming a teardrop shape beyond which lay the red, flushed walls of her canal, glistening with dew and bridged with strings of her nectar. She pulsed and contracted irregularly, squeezing out rivulets and drops of her natural lubricant, which streamed over her saturated coat, unable to find purchase, and dripped onto his sheets like a gentle rain, soaking them in an expanding puddle that he couldn't find the motivation to care about at that moment. As she squeezed involuntarily around nothing, the thick, pink bulb of her clit winked from its hood, disappearing again as she relaxed, as if deliberately teasing him. And then there was that smell he'd mistaken; sour and hot and deliciously enticing, the air around her reeked of that fragrance, painting pictures and imperatives in his mind, the images and thoughts of her body and what he should - needed - to do to her.
Her flavour washed over his tastebuds in a torrent of spice and musky sourness as he dragged his tongue up her presented quim, her nectar flowing so freely it was like he'd bit into the juciest fruit in the world. The taste of her drove him onward, his lapping becoming more fervent with each pass across her font, swiping upward and downward and sweeping around the shape of her vulva, scooping up her effluence where it clung to her. The task seemed pointless; no matter how much he cleaned her, how much he licked and drank and indulged in her thick, stringy mess, more was squeezed from her to smear his face and undo all the hard work he put into wiping the delicious muck from her crotch. That might have bothered or frustrated him, had the work not been its own reward. The more of her flavour he consumed, the more urgently and passionately he drove his muzzle against her, his lips grinding against hers, his tongue dipping into her gulley to seek more of that ambrosia and feast on the scent and the taste and the feel and the spice and the-
When he withdrew, he was panting, both from the lack of cool, fresh air to breathe while nose-deep in a slavering marehood, and from the intoxicating fog that had descended over his brain. His senses were as drenched in that musky murk as his muzzle was with her overabundant lubricant, but he was still acutely aware of the part of him that was growing, slipping from its mooring and pulsing into full tumescence. Far from nourishing his hunger or quenching his thirst, feasting on her gulf had deepened his need, sharpened the roar that had begun as a low growl, and as he snorted and felt the incessant, predatory demand pound through him with every beat of his heart, he held onto that one thing he needed to do, the promise he'd made himself when he'd first decided he wanted to start a family with the huffing, hormone-riddled pegasus draped over his bed.
"What in the hay are you doing?" Spitfire grumbled, glaring at Soarin as he strode to his cupboards and wheeled out a full-length mirror. "Seriously? You stopped for that?"
"I want to be able to see your face," he told her bluntly, lacking any of the sheepishness or dopey affection that would normally seep from a statement like that. "Both when I'm doing it and when I finish."
"Don't trust yourself to not blow before you change positions, huh?"
"I don't trust myself to stop at all."
With the mirror in place, Spitfire had a perfect view of herself prone against the duvet, her face flushed and her wings fluttering restlessly. She had an instant replay of her lip-bite as Soarin told her he wasn't sure if he could stop, and a play-by-play account of the stallion coming into sight and leaping onto the bed, feeling the springs reacting to the sudden addition of weight. She felt him settle atop her, his body's warmth meeting and intermingling with her own as his barrel trapped her wings and the blunt head of his tool prodded her blazing, sensitive gate, but it was the mirror that offered her vision of what that looked like, that matched sensation to visual. Most importantly, it was the mirror that - in the brief second before her vision warped and her eyesight ceased to serve any useful function - showed how her jaw dropped as he entered her, her face contorting into the exact expression of blissful agony she'd have tried and failed to imitate if considering what it must look like.
There was no middle to the penetration: Soarin's glans spread Spitfire's entrance, and then he was all the way inside her, his sheath kissing her labia. How exactly point A became point B was absent from their memories - maybe it was instant, maybe it was drawn out over an hour - and that was fine by them. The pleasure-wiped memory of him gliding into her was secondary entirely to the fact that he was in her, the two of them connected and intertwined in the best possible way. This was far more intense than it had ever been before, where she'd felt good and he'd moved in ways that had satisfied them both. Spitfire's marehood rippled around his member, squeezing and grasping as if it had a mind of its own, moving in smooth fluctuations which persisted even as he lay still and did nothing to prompt it. The heat she produced was savage, warming him through from all sides and bordering on uncomfortable, until he felt he had to move to avoid burning against her scalding inner flesh.
Every shift was apparent to them after the initial penetration, their sensitivity heightened to an extent where they registered every pulse and throb, every contraction and clench, every inch entered and withdrawn. Everything was more intense, from how solid Soarin's stallionhood felt to how soft Spitfire's walls were as she received him, the caress and squeeze simultaneously vice-tight and feather-light, each motion provoking a paryoxysm of agonisingly blissful sensations that had never been present during any of their previous romps. This wasn't just being joined intimately; this was becoming an extension of one another, where each could feel the other's beating heart, experience every flush and jolt and spark the other felt as if it had happened to both of them, and be wrapped so fully in the moment that the distinction between her body and his was purely semantic.
The mirror captured all of the secondary and tertiary details that didn't really matter to them, or which took a backseat to the emotions and focus of their activity. Even with the jostling and the shutting of eyes and the blurring of vision, they saw everything, from the gritting of teeth to the untempered flapping of wings, and the faces they pulled as their bodies moved of their own accord. Soarin buried his face in Spitfire's mane and snorted, breathing in the smell of her as his hips jerked back and forth, while she panted and groaned, throwing her rear half back at him to try and take him deeper. He shoved himself against her, driving his shaft deep into her tunnel in an endless quest for a level of satisfaction that pushed further out of reach every time he drew close, grunting atop her and rolling his hips in a practiced cycle.
Spitfire's moans became louder, her gasps and groans more frequent, as the stallion atop her rutted her with a mindless dedication. His groin slammed into her buttocks, his orbs thumping against her peaking bundle of nerves, and the tension inside her grew tighter and more compact with every powerful beat against her body and her core. The flurry of blows persisted while the coiling, warping pleasure condensed, pulling inward toward her stomach, each thrust like a hammer striking an anvil, ringing and reverberating through her, until that inexorable buildup hit its peak and released with a sudden fury. Waves pulsed outward from her marehood, rippling through her body with the force of a tsunami and crashing against her mind, leaving her whimpering and gasping while her canal writhed and clamped down like a vice around her lover's rod.
Even through her spasms, Soarin refused to stop, throwing his loins against hers in a fluid, hectic movement. It couldn't be called thrusting anymore; he jerked himself backward and forward, slamming himself as deep as he could muster past her crushing walls, aided by the fresh deluge of fragrant juices that had sluiced his crotch. The wet slap of his pistoning mingled with her wordless jabbering and his bullish grunts and snorts, their minds too overtaken by an ever-thickening haze to pay any attention to the noises they made or the techniques they used; there was that insatiable urge, that need running hot through both of them to see this through to completion. Only when they caught sight of the mirror, in those brief flashes of cognizance where their brains paused in their relentless pursuit of pleasure and fulfillment, were they made truly aware of what was happening in totality.
Their manes were slick with sweat, their coats matted with it, and their mouths hung partly open to exclaim passion and excitement, or else to pull in hurried, necessary breaths to keep themselves going. Soarin's nostrils flared repeatedly as he sniffed and snorted, dragging in lungfuls of the pheromones which were infused densely in the air, and pressing his nose against Spitfire's fur and burying it in her mane to inhale the scent of her. Every time he did, he shuddered softly, the rush of alertness jolting through him like a bolt of lightning to his senses. The mare's face alternated between alert and dopey, switching from one to the other as he struck against a sensitive spot inside her or nibbled on her ear, the ecstasy rising and peaking and falling back into a general stormy sea of pleasure. Their moans overlapped and complimented one another's, their discordant tones weaving a speechless story that culminated with the rising growling of the stallion.
Soarin struggled to watch the mirror as the dam broke, the boiling, bubbling pressure spilling over in a great wave and surging through him. His limbs shook, his senses melted into a muddled soup and his awareness was washed away by the current of his orgasm. He felt the molten torrent rush from his nuts and through his stallionhood, rocketing from him in a great jet that made the mare beneath him squeal in delight. He shook as his piece pulsed, pumping out rope after rope after rope, until the heat and the potent, vigourous contractions left his pride numb, and it felt as if he were just pouring his seed into her. He managed to look, his vision made wan by the demand on his mental faculties, seeing his contorting visage and the tongue lolling from Spitfire's mouth as she lay prostrate and twitching, her own eyes rolling back and unfocused. Her tunnel rippled along his burning length, milking him for more of his viscous cream which in turn prolonged her own orgasm. The two of them fed one another this way for what felt like an age.
Their lips met, the two seeking each other out for a clumsy side-kiss long before their climaxes finished, breathing hard and lazily smooching. Usually, they could tell when their finishes had concluded, but this time, the monumental eruption of body and mind left them drifting, part free-falling and part floating, their descent gradual enough that telling what was orgasm, what was aftershock, and what was afterglow became impossible. The lines between ecstasy and normality blurred, and they continued to embrace one another with lips and bodyweight.
"I love you."
The utterance was so soft and quiet that if Soarin hadn't been right next to her, and she'd said it half a minute earlier when their breathing had been heavier, he never would've heard it. As it was, he had to open his eyes to visually check if she'd spoken. She was smiling, an easy, satisfied smile that exuded genuine contentment; not the cheeky smile he was used to, or the smug satisfaction he might otherwise see, but pure, heartfelt happiness. Had she always looked this bright and feminine? Had her coat always glowed the way it did right now?
"I love you too," he murmured into her ear, licking it softly and kissing at the base where it joined her head.
"I really, really love you," she replied, the tiniest hint of a feminine whine in her tone. When he chuckled, she cracked open her eyes and glared at him in the mirror. "I was being serious."
"I know," he assured her. "I really really love you too. I've just never heard you say it like that. It sounds kinda weird. But a good weird, y'know?"
"And you look weird when you cum."
"No I don't."
"You've got a butt-ugly O-face, Soarin."
"It can't be that bad."
"You look like a colt trying to whistle and sneeze at the same time."
"Hey, I-"
"Like a mime with jawlock."
"You've made your-"
"Like a foal who bit their tongue while trying to read out loud to the class." The mare chuckled as he muttered some excuses under his breath. "But it's a good weird."
"I hate you," he grumbled.
"No you don't."
"No, I don't." He licked her cheek affectionately. "I love you. I'll always love you. And I'll love the foal we raise together."
She let out a little sigh at that, and hummed approvingly. "So will I."
The house didn't have a balcony, and so after the shower, the pair opted to sit on the roof and watch the sun set below the horizon. They were just in time to catch the tail-end of it, the dull red transitioning into a dusky purple. With their legs folded under them, they lay and watch the light fade from the sky.
"Do you think we'll need to quit the 'Bolts?" Spitfire asked, nestled up against Soarin, his wing draped over her smaller form.
"I don't know," he answered, honestly. "We might have to. We might want to."
"We might not," she countered, yawning. He nodded in silent agreement.
"Does it scare you?" he asked after a while.
"Not anymore," she responded immediately, leaning her head against his neck. "I couldn't imagine a future as anypony other than Captain Spitfire. That title defined me. It was a golden mark of everything I'd ever achieved in my life; every race, every training session, every time I'd ever proven myself to be more than some filly with naive aspirations. Now, if I have to resign - when I end up resigning, whenever that will be - I'll miss it for sure, but I won't...I won't be lost."
"What changed?"
It took her several seconds to answer. "The 'Bolts was the pinnacle of my life, and when I was promoted to Captain, it became me. There wasn't really a 'me' outside of that job, except with you. You knew who I was before I became a Wonderbolt, before I became the Captain. You knew me under all the medals and suits and uniform and shouting. Other than that, I had nothing, because that was everything I gave my life to being. The thought of all that ending was like the thought of death; we all know it's coming at some point, innevitably, but we all just don't think about it and push it away for as long as possible. Now, I have something beyond the 'Bolts, something else that I can give my life to. Another great adventure, a huge and prestigious achievement."
"That almost sounds like a 'thank you'," the blue pegasus jibed, smirking over at her.
"Yes." The simple answer stunned Soarin, and he quirked an eyebrow at her. "Sincerely," she assured him. "You knew me, and you knew I wasn't just Captain Spitfire. You knew I was a mare too driven to a career and to prove myself to the world. You knew I'd never take a step back and check to see if there was something else I wanted, and consider what I might need to do to get that. So yes; you really, seriously opened my eyes, and stopped me stumbling onward without a plan." She kissed his cheek, and he coughed and mumbled something about just going with his gut. She smiled at him and rested her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes to bask in his presence, and yawned once more.
"You're welcome," he said at last, smiling too. The sky was shifting from purple to dark blue now, the uppermost layers already accumulating a black hue. Ahead of them, the moon had risen to a shallow angle, and was starting to weakly illuminate the cloud cover. "This looks a lot like our first night at Junior Speedsters, doesn't it?" he asked, taking in a deep breath of night air. It wasn't cold, but as the night drew on, there'd be less and less to look at. "We should head inside." She didn't answer, and the stallion turned to look at her.
Spitfire still bore that smile in her sleep, her expression peaceful as she took slow, deep breaths, her head resting against his body. Letting a smile crack his muzzle, he ensured she was covered fully with his wing before turning back to the vista ahead of him. From his position, he could just about make out the pattern of cloud, his assessment assisted more and more as the moon grew brighter and cast its silvery light on them. He counted, doing some quick maths in his head, and smiled. Satisfied at the sight he'd be falling asleep to, he lay his own head down, and closed his eyes, his smile brighter than even the moon above.
Six oktas, and his best friend beside him.
