A Conspiracy of Order

Dapper-Bit Twist paused on the road that connected Dodge Junction to the far-off town of Ponyville, taking a moment to twist his head around and pull his canteen from his flank. The desert sun had yet to leave him be, despite the overhang of his wagon, and he groaned as he sucked down as much water as he dared. He knew that there was more in the wagon, and that - luck be with him - the stallion would reach one of the watering holes by nightfall, but he had learned at least some token cautions while traveling the roads. The lands had been pacified since the Changeling uprising, and the various conflicts with the other species out there had been basically brought to a lasting peace, but that didn't mean that everything was always going to go as one planned. Life had a way of throwing a wrench into any established order.

When his throat was no longer dust-dry, he put the canteen back and continued down the road, hooves tapping out a steady beat as he let his thoughts wander. The road was lifted out of the dusty ground of the desert, built that way intentionally to give travelers like him the chance to 'wake up' if they wandered off the road with a stumble and near-fall, so he was able to just let himself drift a bit.

He imagined what he would find when he got back to Ponyville. Last time he was there, he'd brought in a substantial amount of bits with his sales of exotic foods, fruits, and flowers, and he imagined that the same would happen this time. There were researchers - headed by the grown Twilight Sparkle - that were always eager for different, mysterious things from across the lands, and he knew for a fact that she'd be paying top-bit for some of the goods that he had this time. But he hoped that there would be others waiting.

Hope. Dapper-Bit chuckled, shaking his head. Hope was not a good thing for a merchant to hold onto. Sureties, agreements, contracts: those were the bread and butter of his type of pony.

Not that there were as many of those these days, the blue-black pony thought with a small sigh. The rise of 'friendship' and 'harmony' had been good for business, but nobody wanted to commit to anything anymore. It was always down to bit-deals, hoping that you would be able to make another one if you brought the right goods again. More people wanted to barter, less wanted to buy. It was always a risk traveling to get more to sell, because you could never be sure that there was a proper buyer waiting for you at the other end.

So far, Dapper-Bit Twist had done well enough at it to maintain certain standards, able to pay for vests and top hats that were properly suited for his name, but even he knew that fate could change on a dime. He could lose it all, and he just did his best not to think about what might happen if his customers - never truly bound to buy from him, no matter how regular and reliable his deliveries - decided that they were done with his luxuries.

In fact, he worked so hard at imagining other things, a different life - one of order and reliability, less of whim and chance and fancy - that he almost missed something shiny on the side of the road.

Dapper-Bit Twist stomped his front hooves as he came to a stop, half-sure that he'd imagined the shimmer off to his right in the heat waves that rolled off the sands and the dirt road, but no. He took a second look and saw it again, nestled in the crook of the rocks that marked the end of the deeper part of the desert. He cocked his head to the side before unhooking himself from the wagon and trotting over to the strange flora.

As he drew closer, he realized that it was like nothing that he'd ever seen before. It was at once flower-like, with petals and gentle leaves that puffed off a warm, comforting scent, and willow-like, with fronds and tendrils falling out from under the petals and draping the flower stem and roots in curtained shadow. Every part of it had a strange glitter to it, though, as if it was - despite being so dry - reflecting the light like a pool of water.

He had never seen anything like it before, and he would wager good bits that nobody in Ponyville had, either. It wasn't particularly small, but as far as he could tell, the plant was still of a size to be re-planted and carried away. And the scent was quite pleasant, both soothing and calming. He found himself with a smile as he turned around -

"Hmm?"

Dapper-Bit looked over his shoulder, cocking one eyebrow up as he felt something against his back-left hoof as he turned. The plant's tendrils hanging down from the petals had brushed the back of his leg, somehow, but as he looked, there was no way for the plant to have come anywhere close. It was strange. Very strange.

Shaking his head, he went back to the wagon. It didn't take long to find an appropriately-sized pot - after all, part of his stock was flowers and plants from foreign areas, and he needed a way to transport them - and a shovel. He hummed under his breath as he returned, carefully digging a hole around the plant before delicately pulling it up with his teeth. There was a strange taste to the stalk, and for a moment, he was worried that he'd bruised it as he lifted it up and out, but after putting it in the pot, he didn't see any break-points in the plant's surface.

Taking another sip from his canteen to wash the fluid away, he took a moment to admire the plant again. Now that it was in the pot, he had a chance to see it from a better angle, yet it still looked no more familiar than it had in the ground.

It stood a good two feet in height, nearly the size of a bush, but rather than the trunk of a young sapling or the central core of a bush, it reminded him more of a sunflower, pushing up tall and strong in defiance of all plant logic. The tendrils hanging down gave it an illusion of greater girth, but the various fronds looked like the beads of curtain more than anything else, something that made it decorative and rather lovely. It must have been a development of the plant to avoid being scorched in the desert heat, he decided, something to shade the stalk from being burnt during the day.

Fascinating, and beautiful: it would fetch a high price from somebody or other, he was sure.

Dapper-Bit carried it back to the wagon, sliding it into the rear of the cargo container and strapping it down. As he did, the plant rolled more than he expected, almost like it was threatening to come loose from the pot if he wasn't careful, and he made a mental note to take the turns on the road as gently as possible.

The stallion gave the plant one more sniff, and he held onto the strange mood that the calming scent brought him. It made him feel...better. That fantasy of a world of order, of a realm that had contracts and agreements again rather than the constant changing minds and shifting moods, felt possible for a moment.

He chuckled as he pulled his head back.

"Just a dream...but a good dream."

Shutting the back of the wagon, he walked back to the front and strapped himself in. Time to keep moving; Ponyville was several days off, after all, and he wanted to make good time. His canteen was already getting a little low, and he didn't want to tap his supplies if he didn't have to. Best to keep moving and make better time.

Dapper-Bit reached the spring just before sundown, though he was the only traveler staying there tonight. It was to his preference; without any real goods beyond his luxuries in the back of the cart, there was no point in meeting other merchants. They didn't have anything that he could use, and he was full-up on goods that might make him a profit in the near-future. Besides, he preferred his own company.

As he anchored the wagon in place with a block on either side of each wheel, he went to the back and opened it. The plant was there, secure as he had hoped, though leaning slightly in his direction.

"Maybe I should let you get some fresh air..."

There was something oddly compelling about the plant as he pulled it from the back of the wagon. Just a quick breath of the soft scent coming from between the petals made him want more, and he went so far as to shove his muzzle into the petals and breathe in directly. The scent itself was like the incense that he got from some of the far-off cities, something almost intoxicating to breathe in, but that wasn't the true draw of the flower.

No, it was more that the scent...did something. It helped his mind stop rushing all around, and helped settle things down. It brought a sense of order, of stillness to his thoughts, and he appreciated that with the frantic state of life. He liked the way that it made him feel...still. Serene.

So, he carried the pot out of the wagon and down to the spring itself, carefully using his spade to pull some water free and give it to the plant. The earth it was potted in was thirsty, and it sucked up the moisture quickly as he gave it a few shovel-fulls of water. Soon, the earth was as sandy as it had been when first pulled loose, and he shook his head.

"Either you were parched when I found you, or you're just going to be sucking up water all the time."

The plant, of course, did not answer, and Dapper-Bit chuckled to himself.

"And here I am, talking to a plant. All the more reason to be thankful nobody's around to see me."

Shaking his head, he put the spade down and leaned over the water himself. He spread his hind legs slightly to make the descent easier, and then did the same with his front legs, only to a much greater degree. As he lowered his head to the water, he closed his eyes and savored the cooling touch of the spring to his parched muzzle. A few mouthfuls went down, then a few more -

"Mmph!"

He jerked his head back as he felt something again. Once more, it was almost like a tickle against his back legs, something rubbing against them, but this time slightly further up, almost past the mid-way joint. He looked over his shoulder at the flower, almost as if -

No, no, if it had touched him, it would have been the result of some wind or something along those lines. It couldn't move. Flowers couldn't do that...

But if this one could...

Dapper-Bit put it out of his mind. There was no way that he'd been lucky enough to find the only flower in the world capable of independent movement. That was just wishful thinking, and that sort of thing put merchants out of business.

Shaking his head, he went back to drinking. Once his thirst was quenched, he carried the pot back to the wagon, and began the process of setting up camp for himself. Lacking space within the wagon, he had to sleep under the stars, and that meant getting a lot of blankets ready, some firewood, and a lamp. It wouldn't take long, but best to do it while there was still light.

Dapper-Bit Twist dreamed, and he dreamed a familiar, comforting dream.

The earth stallion sat behind a stall, with his wagon on one side and a chest on the other. The latter was open and the former was parked, and rather than his wares laid out like the half-desperate merchant that he had become, he had packages waiting. Each one was marked with the name of a different pony, each one in a perfect row, waiting for its recipient to come and pick it up.

He smiled as each pony arrived, exactly correct in order of the packages arranged in the stall. The Mayor. The post-pony. The candy-maker. The cake-makers. The librarian. All of them coming, one by one, in the exact order that he had arranged the packages.

No surprises.

No unexpected arrivals.

No bargaining.

There were only contracts, pre-assigned roles, and a schedule that everyone had to keep. He never had to worry about whether he would have what he needed. He would always have what he required, and sufficient unto the day to remain where he was without ever being made less.

The ponies arrived, one by one, and he passed their packages to them in turn. A simple word, a call and respond, always giving him that little boost of having done well. Dapper-Bit smiled at all of them, though the smile always felt a bit robotic to him, a little bit required rather than genuine, and they did the same. It didn't matter; it was part of the process.

Eventually, he ran out, and the ponies stopped coming. He could have left, but that felt wrong, off, like he was breaking some unwritten rule in the dream. He should stay. He should stay and watch, be part of the market, even if he had nothing more to sell.

And so, he did. He stayed, and he watched, and he saw that the others were doing the same thing. Mr. and Mrs. Cake brought their wares down, but rather than displaying them, they were arranged in little boxes, just like his, all pre-ordered and waiting to be picked up.

Derpy was there, her eyes glazed as ever, but rather than delivering her packages, she was accepting them, taking them one at a time from a completely still line that moved forward in perfect unison whenever the pony at the front had finished. There was no loss of time, no wasted moments, just perfect precision.

Dapper-Bit loved every moment of it, and his cheeks turned up into a real smile, one that appreciated the impossible order. There was some part of him that knew that this was a dream, that it had to be a dream, for the impossible movements that everyone made were only possible if they all knew exactly how the others would shift. One couldn't react at that speed without knowing what someone else was going to do in advance. No schedule was this perfect, no line this organized, no list so complete that had been made with a normal mind.

And that made it a dream.

A good dream.

A dream that he would never see.

His smile faded ever so slightly, and he started to sigh -

Then something else tickled his fancy. He felt something that he almost never felt in a dream. There was something pleasurable rubbing between his hind legs, starting at his sac and slowly going higher. He felt it rubbing against his pucker, teasing it, licking, nudging against it.

Dapper-Bit looked over his shoulder, half-expecting to see some dream stallion or mare getting to work on his pucker. Instead, he saw...nothing.

Nothing but petals...

And tentacles...

Dapper-Bit gasped as he lifted his head from his improvised pillow, immediately aware of two things. The first was that his hips were up high, no longer pressed against the ground, and that was at least half because of his massive erection at the time. The second was that something was up his ass.

"Ah...ah..."

And yet...it didn't hurt, nor sting, or anything that might have made him panic and flee from the situation. Instead, he lifted his front up, looking back, feeling...

Feeling...

Disconnected, he supposed. There was no emotion as he looked back at the flower that he'd left near his sleeping area. It was closer than it had been, and some of its tendrils were up. Two were pressed against either side of his rim, holding it open, while the third was inside of him, wriggling, going deeper, going in and out. The little 'beads' that he'd noticed along the tentacle were rubbing against his inner walls, teasing them, pushing them further open for a moment before popping out again. The thrusting tendril was -

Spark.

Spark.

Spark.

There were little shocks, never more than a split-second in duration, and never painful, just surprising. They flicked against his prostate, then something deeper, higher. His tail started flicking with it, responding to the shocks by rising higher and higher. Dapper-Bit shook his head, trying to clear it, but the panic that he kept expecting to feel from the impossible situation never came to him. Instead, he felt...calm. At peace. Serene.

"Mmmph..."

Stand.

It was less word than concept, and it was in picture-form, rather than words, showing him a vague silhouette of a stallion on all fours rather than face-down, ass-up. It was tricky, his legs having a harder time responding for some reason, but he gradually leveraged himself to all fours. He stood staring straight ahead -

Flicker.

Flicker.

Spots went across his vision as those strange sparks from deep inside his ass spread up his spine. They went right across the bones to the back of his head, and he felt something different, almost like the 'click' that he got when he hooked himself up to the harness that pulled the wagon, except that this was living. This was like something had just 'clicked' with his mind, connecting itself with his brain.

Before he could think about it, a rippling sensation went down his spine, going from the top of his head down his back all the way to the base of his raised tail, coming to a stop right over the spot where the tentacle in his ass rested. He felt the shiver going right to the tendril, and it almost seemed to bloat as the sensation continued down the odd frond to the plant itself.

Another pulse.

Another.

Another.

And as he stared straight ahead, Dapper-Bit felt his thoughts passing out of him. The dream came first, popping through his skull as if he was reliving an incredibly vivid memory, followed by the journey of the day. Then, his fantasies, the wishes and wants, the desire for order and stability with other ponies. From there, his thoughts turned to his deals and his stay in Dodge Junction, of the winds and heat that burned through the city on a regular basis, of the preciousness of water, and at that, there was a slight pulse back, a tremor that went up his spine rather than down it, as if he was given an agreement on that sentiment.

The moment passed, and what he could only define as a download continued. A cold, emotionless download, as if the heart of him had been turned off, shunted off to the side to make room for all the information that was going through him. He couldn't feel, he realized. Not fear, not curiosity, not anything; whatever the plant was doing, it had connected to him in such a way that the emotional side of things might as well not have existed for this.

He stood there, the pleasure of the moment slowly growing. Even as he was made to relive the various memories that he had stored in the back of his skull in reverse order, the tremors running along his spine were matched with pulses that rubbed right over his prostate. Other things, other, smaller tendrils that flicked and flexed along the main tentacle, were constantly tickling and teasing his inner walls, driving his cock to harder and harder states.

He stared straight ahead, feeling his cock rising, then slapping against his stomach. Pleasure rose as data, going up his spine, getting processed as something enjoyable, and then going right back down as another tremor. The constant adjustment and shifts of things inside, the tendril moving and adjusting its length, the other little tentacles that were rubbing his rim just outside, were giving him such a...such a clinical treatment, but the treatment was effective nonetheless. He was getting turned on, wanting, wanton, and he shivered even as he tried and failed to buck his hips.

The plant kept pulling more memories forward, and time started to shift in his consciousness. The moon had been barely over the horizon when he first saw it, but when he next looked - long after the memories of Dodge Junction had finally come to an end - the moon was nearly halfway across the night sky. Time passed faster, and in odd chunks, and he didn't know what was happening when.

The moon was a third of the way down to the other horizon, past the midpoint, when the plant finally reached his memories of the sheer breadth of the world. It stopped there, the pulsing, rolling feeling down his back from skull to tendril coming to a stop. It pressed against him slightly, hesitantly, then seemed to resolve itself to something.

Thrust!

Three more tendrils were inside him, each smaller than a pony's shaft would be, but adding up to something akin in size. As they rested against his prostate, he felt stronger shocks, stronger bursts of pleasure and something else, something that buzzed rather than trembled up his spine.

Concepts started popping into his brain, images. There were never words, but they were translated to thought the more times that they popped in, gaining meaning through repetition.

Plant at front of wagon, the images were saying. Never in the back. Never far away.

Curiosity wasn't possible, but even if it was, it would have swiftly given way to the repetition of the order. Bit by bit, the image-command etched itself into his brain, becoming almost like a programmed routine that he would follow no less eagerly than the morning need to pee and relieve himself. Dapper-Bit nodded, and the images shifted.

Tail up...tail up...tail up...

He was given an image of himself, drawn from memories of the mirror. He was made to look at himself with his tail held high, his pucker on display, that donut of a hole pushed out so that all could see.

Tail up. Tail up. Tail up.

The command came faster and faster without any explanation. His tail rose further as the prickles went up his spine, burning the command into his skull no differently than the first one. Dapper-Bit could feel the urge becoming second-nature, not even something that he would think about, before he stopped thinking about it in the slightest. After all, why would a pony think twice about keeping their tail up? There was nothing to hide there.

Time had shifted, he realized belatedly. The moon was almost down, now, reaching the far end of the horizon. The purple light of daybreak was coming, and he was still standing there. A sliver of tiredness intruded on his mind, and the pulsing up from his rump and along his spine stopped, reversed, the concept of his exhaustion going down his spine and out of him.

A moment of stillness concluded with the sudden slurping sound of the tendrils pulling out of him. The stallion tumbled to his belly, and passed out, with no more than one word remaining in his darkening mind.

Forget...forget...forget...

Morning came, and he was completely exhausted, though he knew that he'd slept the whole night through. Dapper-Bit groaned as he put one hoof after another under him, shaking his head as he felt oddly sore. He must have slept wrong, the Earth pony decided, and he shook his head as he turned back to the plant.

He meant to put it back in its slot at the back of the wagon, but something felt wrong about that. It didn't take long for him to decide that there was a place near the front that he could keep it, and - after all - it would be easier to keep an eye on it and keep it from shifting if it was in sight. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of that before.

As he rested the pot in place, however, Dapper-Bit realized that it was a bit heavier than it had been taking it out of the wagon the day before. He paused, looking the tall, shimmering flower over a few times. Had it grown overnight? Surely not, that would have been impossible without some sort of unicorn or alicorn magic, he would have imagined. Surely, it was just him being tired, and the pain of the lack of sleep reflected in sore muscles. Yes, yes, surely that was the problem.

As he lashed it in place, pulling the ropes tight with his teeth, he was aware of something else, a stiffness just at the base of his spine. Once the ropes were tight, he glanced back.

His tail was up. For a split-second, he was puzzled, but he shrugged it off. Of course it was up. It was right and proper for stallions to go around with their tails up; they were supposed to be showing off.

For who?

The question came from the back of his head, and he blinked as he realized that he didn't have an immediate answer. Eventually, however, he shrugged it off. There was a reason for it, surely, even if he couldn't think of it right now.

But why are you so stiff if you're -

Dapper-Bit cut the thought off before it could go any further. There was no reason to be thinking about it any further, and that was that. He had a long trip to make, after all, and he had best get started before he lost much more light. The next spring was, after all, some ways off, and he didn't want to be caught in the desert, even with a few extra supplies.

He backed himself up to the front of the wagon, clipping himself into place. The shade of the flower was actually rather pleasant to his lower half, and he smiled to himself as he got comfortable. He tested the weight of the wagon against his shoulders, listened for anything shifting or falling inside of the wheeled block of wood, and when he heard nothing concerning, began pushing forward.

He managed three steps before a tendril went right up his ass.

"Nngh."

Calm...calm...calm...

The word came with a pulse that went right up his spine, a pulse that felt half-remembered as he stared straight ahead. The brief panic that came at the shocking insertion disappeared as his mind and heart obeyed in tandem, pushing that feeling to the side as easily as someone simply crossing out an erroneous entry in an accounting book. There was no need to panic. He was calm.

He was serene.

He was fine.

Keep walking.

Again, it was less of a word and more of a sense of concepts. Motion, progress, forward, rather than the simple word. He lifted one hoof, feeling the motion as surprisingly mechanical and automated, and began the process of moving forward, pulling the wagon behind him. The pulsing, trembling feeling of something moving down his spine continued with each step, almost as if the process was something solid, and the plant was taking it from him, learning, feeding on the data that just walking around was giving him.

Relax.

Open.

Walk.

Relax.

Open.

Obey.

Obey.

Obey Nest.

Nest. That was the first time that the concept popped in with something newer than the rest of the things going through his skull. It came with a feeling of cohesion, collection, similarity, and...order.

So much order.

So much arrangement.

So much exactness.

The Nest was there for those that would come to it, submit to it, give it information and drones to work with. They would be the Nest's extensions, and they would be given exactly what they needed, exactly as they required. There would be no lack of sureties, and...and...

The information was incomplete, the concept coming through without the same clarity as all the others. Dapper-Bit didn't care. There was something to that which had seized hold of him, and he was interested, perhaps in spite of himself. The tingling in the back of his head, the embedding of the other concepts, made it all the easier to just let it happen, his curiosity and the pleasure of being impaled by the tendril as he walked allowing him some sort of comfort that the standard journey never would have brought him.

Keep walking.

He did, and as he did, he could feel the plant slowly pulling more and more from him, taking information and processing it, storing it. It was so distant, though, that he didn't really pay much attention. It was something happening in the background, something that he was told to ignore.

Well, that was a trifle harder with an erection throbbing between his legs. The pressure on his prostate, so insistent and persistent, meant that he was forced hard despite any attempt to stay soft. His cock swayed back and forth, the base brushing against the upper parts of his hind legs and the head nearly brushing his forelegs every time that he took a step. It throbbed away, almost rewarding him with pleasure for obedience at the cost of an inconvenience as he walked.

The next pulling shiver down his spine must have taken some of that information back to the plant, because the next 'response' up his spine came with a different concept.

Soft unless ordered...soft unless ordered...soft unless ordered...

Again, the words were things that he put to it, a phrase that made the command make sense as it filtered through images and feelings. Yet, at the same time, the stallion could feel his cock slowly shrinking back in, softening before gradually dragging itself back into his sheath. It wrinkled up as it lost its taut shape, and he groaned as it finally disappeared back inside of the fleshy pouch between his legs, locked back where it was supposed to be during travel.

A dull ache came up as it went soft, but he was encouraged to not notice that. All he needed to do was keep walking, and keep thinking, allowing the plant to do what it needed. Dapper-Bit, happy for the promise of something with greater focus in his life, did as he was told.

And so, he walked, and walked, and the plant pulled his mind from thought to thought, place to place. His memories of Equestria, seen through so many travels, were dragged forth from the darkest corners of his mind. Every scrap of information, every bit of knowledge that he had, every contact that he had made over the course of his life, was pulled forward and relived as he walked along. He had never had such vivid memories before, but today, he felt each one as if he was living through it again.

Through it all, his body moved, seemingly all on its own. Whenever he was aware of still walking, he was briefly made aware of the fact that he wasn’t thinking of walking or moving, but that his body was moving without his control, or consent, or order. Then, he would be made to go back to his memories, to remain impaled, soft, but dripping with the pleasure of the plant so deep within him.

Dapper-Bit submitted, letting it take over. What little will he had without panic or surprise was completely suppressed by the strange shocks that went up his spine, bringing concept-orders to his skull. They repeated until they were embedded in his brain, and each one must have taken time, for the sun seemed to jump across the sky as he traveled.

Yet, that, too, was fine, for it sped his journey along. By the time he reached the next spring, he felt as if only an hour had passed, but the progress of a day had been made. The plant…was good.

The Nest…was probably better. And from the concepts the plant pushed forward, there was something coming, something maturing, something that would be left behind in him soon. Something that would connect him to the Nest even more fully.