A Conspiracy of Order

Gilda preferred to keep to the clouds when she could; the constant cushions that they offered on long flights meant that she didn’t feel nearly as tired when she arrived at her destination, nor did she feel like her wings were going to fall off from supporting her the whole way. Sometimes, however, every griffon had to bite the bullet and push themselves, and this was one of those times.

She’d flown all the way from Griffonstone to Ponyville, and by the time she arrived, she all but threw herself on one of the few clouds that floated over the small town. She groaned as she pulled her wings in against her back, huffing and grunting. Stomping her front talons against the puffy white surface, she flopped out.

“Damn weather. Couldn’t leave…a few cloud…checkpoints on the way?”

Course not. Cloudsdale and the rest of the pegasus ponies were always stingy about what they’d actually let the non-ponies use. Griffons had to be strong enough to keep flying however long they needed to, while the ponies got all the updates about where the clouds would be on any given day. It wasn’t fair. Losers, all of ‘em, having to –

No, no, she was better than that. Gilda shook her head, grinding her beak against the pillowy cloud as she caught her breath. She was better than that these days; she’d learned not to look down on ponies – at least, not too much – and wasn’t going to start that up again.

But she was going to complain under her breath. She was allowed that.

Still grumbling, she dragged herself to the edge of the cloud and looked down on the small town. Well, small city these days; she remembered when she’d come here when she and Rainbow Dash were much younger. Back then, Ponyville had barely been bigger than the tree and a couple of layers of buildings around the library. These days, it was getting big enough to warrant an actual mayor and some assistants. Nothing like Canterlot or Manehattan just yet, but it was getting there.

She could just barely make out a trail of ponies heading out of town. It was so far off that she could barely see any details, but from the shimmer that came off some of the ponies at the front, she’d guess that they were from the Crystal Empire. Must have been the little visit from Princess Cadance, Gilda imagined; she’d heard that there had been some sort of official visit not that long ago.

The fact that she had to hear about it rather than getting told directly by her friend was not something that sat well with her. She’d wanted to see what the other princess was like in person, and Griffonstone was curious about what things were like in the far-off Crystal Empire. She could have gotten some of that info herself, but instead, Dashie hadn’t told her diddly squat.

That was the main reason she was visiting now. She wanted to find her friend, find out what was going on with the whole silent treatment, and remind Dashie just who she was leaving in the lurch.

We’re friends, ain’t we? Gilda thought, sitting up properly and folding her front claws in front of her. That was the whole lesson, right, you lame-o?

Fair? Not really.

How she felt? Most definitely.

Gilda grumbled as she shook her head. Not like she’d been much better; she’d been the aloof one, waiting for a message or an invitation to come by. Never came, of course, and that made her feel all the more alone as a result. She should have come by sooner, pushed for some attention, or –

Shut up, you stupid…ugh.

It was complicated being good. She still wasn’t very good at it.

Thankfully, an interruption to her self-critique came in the form of a rainbow blur dashing through the sky. She caught sight of it with ease, though, and picked Rainbow Dash out of the rest of the Wonderbolt line-up as they flitted through the skies. They were flying just under the speed needed for a proper rainboom, probably for safety’s sake, but it was still quite the sight to see.

Gilda grinned, folding her talons against each other and letting her wings continue unknotting from the long flight as she watched them work. Tight formation, pushing themselves faster and harder than they probably needed to, but it was good for getting some cohesion. More than that, it looked…almost impossible, now that she stared a little closer. They were meshed together so close that even the tiniest mistake would send them careening to the ground, and more than once, she was half-sure that they were going to do just that.

Yet, they moved impossibly in-sync with each other. Their eyes were focused straight ahead, their wings moved with the tiniest shifts that kept them from bumping into each other, and…

And they were completely emotionless. No smiles, no smirks, nothing. They were completely in the zone, as far as Gilda was concerned, and it was cool.

The blurred rainbows reached the only other cloud in the sky and alighted on it, one, two, three, all four of them. Rainbow Dash would have normally danced and thrown her hooves in the air with a ‘woo hoo’ or something lame like that, but this time, she just stood there while Spitfire tossed out critiques.

Gilda chuckled. Looked like Dashie had finally grown up a little bit.

She couldn’t hear the comments from the rest of the Wonderbolts, but it sounded like they were still in the middle of training for something big later in the year. Whatever it was, she’d bet that it was going to be amazing.

Gilda waited until Spitfire and the others had taken wing, and only when Rainbow Dash was left alone did she flutter down. Her wings screamed at her for pushing them again, but it wasn’t as bad as when she’d been flying long-distance. Gilda chuckled to announce herself, and Dashie turned with a blink.

“Heh, wondered when I’d find you. Training without weights these days?” Gilda asked.

“Heh, you know it.”

“Pity. I bet you’re slower than me now.”

“Hey, that was at Jr. Speedster’s Camp. I’m a full Wonderbolt.”

“Psh. Yeah. Jr. Wonderbolt.”

“You wanna see how fast I can go?”

“You know it, Dashie.” Gilda grinned, tossing her head back. “But you know that you’re not going to beat me. Never have, never will. Not without going sonic-rainboom on me, and you can’t do that here, can ya?”

“Oh, you wanna race? Then let’s race.” Dashie looked around, finally pointing to a mountain far off in the distance. “Come on. Any speedster can hit that and be back here in less than five minutes.”

“Oh, that? You think you can get there and back before me?”

“Why? You think you can’t keep up on the long-haul, feather-head?”

“Oh, you know I can, Rain-Butt.”

“Hehehe. Come on, then.”

Dashie scraped out a line in the cloud, taking her place right behind it. Gilda joined her, one foreleg forward, the other pushed back. She leaned into it, her haunches up and her tail feathers raised. Dashie was in a very similar pose, the pair of them staring straight at the mountain as they gathered their concentration.

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three!”

They shouted the last number and took off at the same time, the cloud all but exploding beneath paws, talons, and hooves. It poofed out of existence as they soared through the air, punching through it as they shot straight at the mountain as if they’d been launched out of a cannon. The air rippled around them as they put on all the speed that they possibly could, and in mere seconds, Ponyville had been completely left behind.

Gilda could feel the strain in her wings, but it wasn’t just that. There was the pull of the air around her, the sheer acceleration that was, in and of itself, pushing against the air and trying to slow her down. The faster she went, the harder it was to maintain it, even with the advantage of being better-shaped for high-speed flights. Even with her eyes narrowed, Gilda could still feel them watering from the sheer speed of the air passing by.

And yet, Dashie was somehow flying faster.

It wasn’t by much, but the blue-furred mare was pulling ahead by a neck, straining as she narrowed herself out. Her wings pounded the air, forcing Gilda to shave off a few feet from her to avoid being knocked out of the skies from the sheer power of the wings hitting the skies.

They reached the mountain. Gilda gained a little on Dashie in the turn, her body better suited for it as she clawed her way around the peak, but the mare was right on her tail. Right behind her, and gaining again.

Pushing. Clawing. Beating the sky with wings that were both bigger than the griffon’s and not quite suited for it, but that didn’t stop her from pushing further and further forward, getting more and more of a lead again.

Halfway back to Ponyville in the space of less than a minute. The air blurred around both of them, cut by beak and muzzle and wing. They were neck and neck, and then Dashie pulled ahead. By a nose, by a muzzle, by a full neck…

And by the time that they reached the edge of the town, the mare was ahead by a full body’s length. They both threw their wings out to the side, almost snapping them off from the sudden friction in the air around them, but they had to slow down fast. The wind that followed rushed by, carrying away the cloud that Gilda had been resting on before and nearly blowing the tops off some of the taller tree-houses below.

Gilda gasped for breath as she hovered in place, barely believing just how fast Dashie had gotten. Her ego was bruised, but despite that, she still managed to force a smile onto her face. It wasn’t much, but at least she could do that.

“Heh…gotten even faster, huh?” Gilda said.

“Heh, you know it. Hehehe, oh, Gilda. It’s good to see you.”

And just like that, the dweeb of a pegasus threw her forelegs around her, hugging her around the neck. Gilda blushed, looking around for anyone watching, then hugged Dashie with one foreleg in return.

“Heh…good to see you, too.”

“Hey, you want to get a drink? Celebrate seeing each other again?”

“Come on. You just won and now you’re asking for a drink, too?”

“Who’s asking for a drink? I’m buying.”

“…Well, in that case…”

Gilda had to hand it to her old friend: she knew the good spots. Half-expecting some loser café or bakery in the middle of town, the griffon found herself led to a little coffee shop on the edge of town. Located in a tree with some lovely furniture that was upscale and a little bit more polished than the other places she’d been lately, it was comfortable and cool. The quiet music in the background, droning drums that barely did more than thump against the natural sounds of the world, only added to it.

“Heh, I thought this place was filled with lame spots. When’d you find a cool place like this?” Gilda asked as they found a table.

“Oh, not that long ago. I put in a little request, you know. Flash that Wonderbolt flair, say it’d be good for us…”

“Heh, showing off to get what you want?”

“Hey, you do it all the time.”

“Why do you think I like it?”

“Heh. So, want me to get the drinks?”

“Yeah, you do that.”

Dashie hopped over to the coffee bar, talking to the mare behind it. Gilda watched for a moment or two, then turned to look at the view.

Much shit as she was giving Dashie over staying here in Ponyville, she couldn’t deny that there was something cool about the view. The trees, the houses built into them, the new ones that were emulating it: it all looked very natural compared to Canterlot and the other big cities across Equestria. It felt natural, right, and that was something that made her feel more comfortable with it.

Even Griffonstone felt a bit weird compared to this place. Never thought she’d feel comfortable on the ground, but this place made that happen.

Just need more of a reason to come back, I guess.

The griffons back home weren’t bad, but they were a little more stuck-up than she was. There was something about them that just never quite sat right. Everyone was so proud, stiff, prim and annoyed with each other, like anyone getting something meant that someone else lost it. Made it hard to feel good about doing well with anything.

Man…when you think about it, we’re pretty fucked up.

Gilda chose not to think about it too often. Sometimes, however, that thought just snuck in, and there wasn’t much that she could –

“Here you go!”

Dashie was back with drinks. The mare had a dark drink, looking like some sort of bubbly coffee, while the griffon was passed something bright and clear. It wasn’t water, too opaque for that, but it didn’t look like anything else that she’d ever seen. She cocked her head to the side, looking at it for a moment before glancing back at Dashie with a raised eye-feather.

“What’s this?”

“Heh, they call it a Sunburst.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to be?”

“They only give it to the stars, Gilda. The stars.”

“Oh. Oh! Hey, that’s cool!”

She took a sniff of the drink. It wasn’t anything bright or bitter precisely, but more like she was sniffing something…

It was hard to describe. Not bitter, but like it? And definitely with something else around the edge, something earthier and more like a salty-sourness than she was used to getting from something that looked that bright. But it didn’t smell bad, just strange.

Shrugging, she wrapped her talons around the handle and set to drinking. From the first mouthful, a happy tingle followed, and she knew that she could get real happily buzzed on this thing real quick.

That said, she didn’t care. She was here for a good time with a good friend. Let the good times roll.

Four Sunbursts later, she was wobbling in her chair, singing and forgetting the words, and then laughing about it. Dashie had been laughing with her, but the laughs had slowly stopped as the giggling on her side got worse and worse. Gilda wasn’t sure if she was getting it wrong or if Rainbow Dash didn’t actually find her that funny, but at that point, she wasn’t sure she cared. She was just having a damn good time.

Laugh.

Love.

Live.

“Ha! L, L, L. Looooooooser all the way, hahahaha!”

Was it even a funny joke? Not really, but she wasn’t sure quite what funny was anymore. All she knew was that everything felt like it was going to get her giggling again, and her beak hurt from how much she’d been smiling instead of sneering. In a way, that felt like a good thing, though she couldn’t have entirely said why.

The griffon finally noticed that Dashie wasn’t giggling at all anymore. For that matter, she wasn’t’ even smiling. The pegasus was just staring at her without a word, her face neutral, empty. Her eyes no longer glimmered, and her face was both slack and somehow tightly controlled at the same time.

Bleary eyes looked around the small shop. The other customers had gone quiet, too, all of them turning to stare at her. Something was weird about that, and she couldn’t put her talon on it until she looked at them all again.

They all had the same face.

Not the same color, of course, not the same sort of features, but the same sort of expression. It was all there, all the same. They looked dead, empty, without anything behind their eyes as they stared at her. There was something…

Something almost hungry about it. The griffon felt something that she hadn’t felt since she was a fledgling: the gaze of a predator. It was empty, empty of everything but the hunger to get what it had been hunting, and it was even stronger than the time that she had felt a hawk looking at her like that when she was little. It was like she was going to be caught, plucked and stuffed for –

She wobbled to all fours, only to stumble and almost fall flat on her face. The rest of the ponies around her got to all fours at the same time, the sudden ‘thump’ of so many bodies rising to their hooves enough to shake the tree-top restaurant from the unnatural movement. Dashie clopped around the table, hooves clicking softly until she stood over Gilda’s twitching body.

“Dashie…Dashie, what the fuuuuuck…”

“It is time for you to learn your place. Your jokes of where you belong, of who is best, must be punished.”

There was none of the laughter and cockiness that she was used to hearing in Dashie’s voice. There was only…

She didn’t even know what to call that dead sound. Determination? That was there. Anger? None of that. It was just…fact, almost like she was the voice of fate.

Gilda managed to roll onto her side, but that was as much as she could do. Her entire body felt like it was burning up, her face turning bright red with some sort of…some sort of horny heat. She didn’t even know why she felt like that; all she knew was that she did, and her body wanted her to…to…

Spread.

Taste.

Lick.

Lust.

Unable to translate her own thoughts, Gilda couldn’t protest when Dashie scooted forward and lowered her hips. Puffy pony cunt lowered itself over her face, and not for the first time, Gilda was smothered in it.

“Mmmph!”

Grind, slide, press. Dashie said nothing as the pegasus pushed down, grinding her pussy all over Gilda’s beak, over her face, down her muzzle and then back to the tip of her beak again. The constant taste of pussy, of slimy wet sex, was grinding right into her face. Her feathers were immediately matted down and the smell of it, the raw stench of sex, was impossible to get away from.

Every breath sent a strange tingle right down to her own pussy, making her wetter than she should be. Something…something –

A hoof on her head shoved her right against that swelling pair of nether lips. She groaned as she had her beak all but shoved inside, made to smell it, taste it. Each lick made it worse, her heat growing by the second as it spread through her core and made her dribble down between her hind legs. It oozed out, running in warm rivers towards her ass. She grunted, weak and futile struggles emerging to try and drag her head back.

It didn’t work.

Nothing worked.

“Nnngh…let me…mmmph…”

She couldn’t take with her beak ground against that slippery sex, her eyes rolling back with each breath. The smell, the taste: there was something about both that left her completely out of it. The eyes of the other ponies on her told her that they knew what was going on, and that there would be no mercy.

Dashie humped her face. There was no other way to put it; the pegasus was literally humping her face, grinding on her beak, thrusting against her cheeks and sometimes her forehead. Thick, gooey strings of pussy juice smeared across her, sliming her up and leaving her more and more marked with sex.

Marked with need.

Marked with heat.

Marked with humiliation.

Her cheeks burned hotter and hotter with each successive grind, her thoughts fleeing her. All she knew was that she was pinned under someone faster than her, better than her, and she was being claimed as the prize. Thrust, thrust, thrust. Grind, grind, grind.

“Open your mouth.”

It wasn’t Dashie that said it, but Gilda did it anyway. She opened her beak as far as she could, sticking her tongue out, and Dashie planted her cunt right against it. The wet, warm, slightly metallic flavor was right there, impossible to ignore, flooding her mouth.

And then, something else flooded her mouth.

The soft hiss of Dashie pissing across her tongue almost brought some sense of sobriety back. Gilda whimpered, the shame of the moment giving her a voice for a split-second before the piss hit her in a different way. The near-tasteless liquid ran down her throat, and then –

“MMmph…”

It was like all the giggly happiness of the Sunbursts hit her all at once. All four combined had not been as strong as this. She moaned, her hips twitching weakly, the toes of her hind paws curling as her talons twitched at her sides.

You…you made me drink…pony piss?

Her face burned all the hotter as the realization finally struck. She couldn’t believe it, but at the same time, her body’s reaction was making her enjoy it. She was…she was enjoying the thought of being the bitch of every pony in the place. There was something good and right and horrifyingly hot about being the griffon bitch of all the mares and stallions and…

And…

And…

She was fading, she realized. The constant flow, forced down her throat with weak swallows on her part, was slowly knocking her out. It was like that time that she’d been taken to the hospital and had a needle in her arm and had the nurse put something in it. The feeling of getting knocked the fuck out was getting stronger and stronger as the warm piss kept flowing down her throat.

Weak spasms that might have once been flailing limbs were all she could muster. She coughed, sputtering as she tried to stop swallowing, but all that got her were hooves at the side of her face, pinching her beak and forcing it open again. Dashie aimed her stream right down the back of the griffon’s throat, making it go down, down, down to her depths. And Gilda had no choice but to swallow, swallow…swallow…

And pass out.

Gilda opened her eyes to find herself completely restrained. Her beak was lashed shut, wrapped around by some sort of wooden root, while her legs were pinned down in a seated position. Her rump had been pressed flush into a root system that was just big and round enough to lift her off the ground while not letting her completely fall through it. She grunted as she wriggled from side to side, but even her front talons had been pulled down and restrained. She couldn’t lift them nor move them to slash and cut.

What was going on? Where was she? What was –

“This host greatly anticipates you learning your new loyalties.”

“Mmph?!”

It was Dashie. Had to be, but that voice – what was wrong with her?

“Griffons. Ponies. It is time for you to learn the true master of the world. The Nest will have you.”

“MMPH! MMPH-MMPH!”

Gilda couldn’t get her words out, but even as she tried to shriek at Dashie for whatever this bullshit was, she could feel something wriggling under her. It pushed up against her, rubbing against her sex, then up against her other hole. It would push, nudge, then go back down, grinding against her pussy until it was wet again and go up to her rim again.

What the hell? What the hell is that thing?

She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to find out. She threw herself into greater struggles, trying and failing to get loose of the vines and ropes all around her. She tried to scream, to fight back, but nothing wanted to work. Her limbs refused to break through, and the roots tightened all the more around her hind legs, keeping her flush to the root circle around her haunches.

Another push, another nudge. It was so close to sliding in. She flexed her wings, hoping against hope that they’d been stupid enough to leave those free, but no. They were just as tightly tied as anything else. Gilda screamed, the sound only half-muffled in the darkness as that thing pressed against her sex again, sliding inside with a squelch and a guilty feeling of unwanted pleasure before going back to her ass. Another nudge, another push –

POP!

Pain and pleasure alike followed as whatever it was managed to get inside of her. The griffon clenched down in a vain attempt to try and keep it from going in further, but it was too late. It was already inside of her, and it was pushing in deeper, wriggling, forcing itself past her inner walls. It was going in, in, in –

And then she felt the first shock.

Gilda tensed up from head to tail, wings to paws as a lightning bolt went up her spine. It sent a shock of pure pleasure through her, along with a single command.

Obey.

Another shock, another, another, each one wracking her and leaving her almost glad that her beak was pinned shut; anything less would have risked her biting off her tongue from the intense shocks.

She had never felt like this. The great dives from the sky, the exhilaration of every race, the pleasure of claiming her erotic prizes from the losers that she beat every single time: it didn’t compare to this. The invasive, violating feeling of that thing in her ass faded, replaced and hammered out with the –

Shock, shock, shock. She came, her pussy spasming against the other roots, her toes and talons curling and popping from how powerful it was. Her brain almost felt like it was frying, her fears and anger burned away with each shock of pleasure.

Feel good.

Shock.

Forget.

Shock.

Feel good.

Shock.

Forget.

The constant pulses up and down her spine almost masked the feeling of something else coming out of the tendril inside of her. She didn’t even feel it at first. It was so small and slight that she doubted that anyone would have blamed her for missing it. Yet, as soon as the shocks had a slight break, it took over. She felt it like a feather, tickling her inner walls, teasing them, rubbing them, almost like it was testing if she was some sort of good girl.

Gilda whimpered, no longer squeezing, her eyes half-lidded as she stared forward into the darkness. Thoughts of resistance were gone; the pleasure was more effective than pain ever would have been. She couldn’t even think of anger anymore. All she wanted…

Tingle. Tingle. The tingles were nothing like the shocks of pleasure. She wanted more of the intensity, the adrenaline junkie needing something more than just the little, feathery touches that the new thing was doing inside of her. She would have whimpered if she had the energy. As it was, she just offered her rump to the thing beneath her.

More, she thought, the only thought that she was capable of. More, more, more, more, more –

You are host. You will get what you deserve.

Gilda shivered at that thought. She didn’t think that she could get something like that from anyone else; no other partner had ever come close to the mind-shattering, utterly breaking pleasure that the thing inside of her had given. She didn’t even know what it was; all she knew was that it made her feel good in a way that she couldn’t live without. She needed it again – as soon as possible.

Host…when…

When we decide.

It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted it now, needed it that instant, but the little bit of Gilda that was left understood that it was impossible to force it. The thing behind her, under her, was too powerful. It would do what it wanted when it wanted, and the only way that she would ever get what she needed…was to give up.

Submit.

Be loyal.

Be host.

Her mind was too frazzled to see the flaws in the plan. Her thoughts were too far gone to point out the flaws of that particular understanding. So, when she gave in, she gave in totally, utterly, and when the parasite reached her spine and began the pleasurable process of taking over, she threw herself behind it with all the loyalty of a complete zealot.

Take me. Take me. Take me.

Gilda was ‘rewarded’ with more of the flashes of pleasure. An orgasm that was nearly a minute long, rolling up and down her spine as her body was rendered completely inert from the high-pleasure stimulation, rocked her to her core. The pleasure left her completely insensate, and the parasite took advantage. She felt it take her, felt the warmth of its control running down each limb, through her wings, out through her tufted tail. Every inch of her felt the power of the parasite, the control, the management.

The griffon was no longer herself. She was a host. And she was rewarded again…and again…and again…

At the end of it all, she was released. Gilda-Drone had instructions: remain with Rainbow-Drone until departure from Ponyville, ensure the total conversion of the remaining uninfested Wonderbolts, then take a sapling of the Nest with her to Griffonstone to begin the conversion. It would be slower with one host to start, but Gilda was already considered something of a loner there. She would not be suspicious for having something that the rest would consider a new hobby and nothing more.

The Nest would grow.

She would be a good host.

She would have all the pleasure that she needed.

The addict was happy with that. She stepped away from the root system, her body as steady as if she hadn’t just spent the last six hours being conditioned and warped, and joined Rainbow-Drone in the slow trot out from the basement of the library. There was, as always, more to do.