It hurt. Twilight knew she shouldn’t let it, yet it did. How many times had it been now? How many times since she’d been rejected, dismissed out of hoof by who she’d hoped would be a prospective partner? She didn’t know.

No, that would be a lie. She knew full well, down to the time and location of such events. Another to add to the list. But she didn’t know why and that made it worse. Her previous failed attempts at least, she could understand, to pinpoint the exact moment her admittedly clumsy bids to find a partner—temporary or otherwise—met with abject failure.

Twilight sobbed again, pressing further into the now damp pillow. She wished her mom were here to comfort her, to feel her caring presence and the tender touch of her hoof trailing down her mane. Her support had gone a long way to help Twilight feel better after such debacles. A futile wish, of course. Twilight would find no comfort tonight. She hugged the pillow tight against herself.

For some time, she couldn’t say how long, she remained prone atop her position, allowing the burning tears to stain the fabric atop where she lay. Every sob, every little breath of air she released went some way to help alleviate the knotted pain in her chest.

Twilight sniffled, using a foreleg to wipe the dampness around her eyes. Her breaths came long and deep and the pain in her chest diminished to a dull ache.

A creak of wood drew her attention. Anonymous loomed just past the threshold of the entryway. How long he’d been standing there, Twilight could not say, but she used her magic to light up the room.

“What do you want?” she croaked in a small voice.

“I’m not sure, to be honest,” he said, not meeting her eyes. Rather, he slowly scanned the room. “I think I wanted to talk.”

“Talk?” Twilight’s eyes narrowed and her voice grew in pitch. “Talk?” Her hackles raised. “You want to talk after... after you...” She bit her lip, shut her eyes tight. The pain was still fresh in her mind. Instead she took a breath and held it, as Cadence showed her, her leg stretched across her chest. She released it, moving her foreleg into an arc. “Alright.” More composed now, she sat up straight. “Talk about what?”

“You know, I’m not sure about that either.”

Twilight wanted to feel anger, to rage, to demand answers from him. Answers as to why he hurt her and why he took joy in doing so. But the hour was late. Combined with her emotional outpour, she could only muster a deep-seated weariness.

She sighed. “Why are you here, Anon?”

He exhaled sharply, an odd sound between a scoff and a laugh. “I’ve been asking myself that question for some time.”

“It’s not funny.”

“I guess it wouldn’t be.” Still he had a hard time looking her in the eye. He bent down, then sat cross-legged. He studied his clasped hands, brow creased to a thoughtful frown. “I had a partner, back home. A girl. Did you know that? I guess you wouldn’t. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it to the others. Maybe in passing, who knows.

“It was your picture-perfect love story. We were neighbors, you see. Best friends. Practically grew up together. Eventually we realized we liked each other.” He smiled fondly. “It was good, what we had. There were troubles, here and there, but that’s just how things go, don’t they? We made it work though, for six years. I’m not sure how it compares to you ponies, but that’s pretty good, considering how young we were.”

Twilight frowned, confused. Why was he telling her this?

“We decided to take things to the next level. We used to live out in the country, you see. Her family moved to the city about a year back. It made it a bit tricky to see each other, so we decided to get a place all to ourselves. We found a good apartment, got a lease; everything was looking up. I packed everything I could fit into my car... think a self-propelled motorized carriage—and made the drive to our new home.”

“How nice,” she mumbled halfheartedly.

Anonymous nodded. “It would have been. But somewhere along that drive, I wound up here.” Twilight’s ears perked up. Her waning interest kindled anew. “I couldn’t tell you how it happened, but one minute I’m driving along, next thing I know I’m crashing headlong into a ditch. Sprained my neck pretty well. The car was pretty much totaled. Heh... I’d just finished paying it off, too,” he said ruefully. “Lyra came along after. Lucky me. She’d been making her way back to Ponyville after attending a meetup—some weird fringe group that studied humans, among other ‘cryptids’.”

“What happened to the car?”

“Celestia got in touch with the Trottingham Institute of Technology. They sent a salvage crew to gather up the wreckage. It’s still over at their labs, last I knew. They gave me a pretty bit for it too, so at least it wasn’t a total loss.”

Despite everything, a sense of elation swelled within Twilight. An advanced piece of technology from another world, basically sitting at hoof’s reach—a train ride away. And with her new status as princess... she frowned, coming back to what he’d said.

“The girl... that marefriend of yours.”

“I never did make it to our new place. I sometimes still wonder what she made of it. A car wreck? There’d be no body, no trace, nothing. Kidnapping’s always a possibility, but unlikely. As far as she knows... as far as anyone knew, I dropped off the face of the earth.” He looked out the window. The raging storm had calmed considerably. “She probably thinks I abandoned her.”

Twilight opened her mouth, closed it. What could she say... what should she say at a time like this?

“What was her name?”

He remained silent, still looking out at the pouring rain.

“It’s funny. I’ve been living here a while now. I figured you ponies didn’t have much more to surprise me with.” He chuckled. “Humans are monogamous, did you know that? No, of course you wouldn’t. Imagine my surprise when I learned of herds. In my side of the world, we were brought up to view sex as something... special. Intimate. Not something you casually give out. There’s a kind of stigma to those of us who do so. Don't get me wrong, I don’t think less of you ponies for doing so. That’s just who you are.”

“I’m... not sure where you’re...”

“I know, Twilight.” He looked at her dead on. “I know what you and your friends were up to. Heat season?”

Twilight flushed. “How?”

“I got it out of Applejack, once we did it. Pinkie too. Hell, Rarity and I almost went at it, but... well, it really wasn’t that hard to put two and two together. You know what the real kicker is? I’m not mad. No, I should say I’m not nearly as mad as I thought I’d be. I don’t know. Maybe you ponies have rubbed off on me more than I expected. Tell me though, really, why the whole smoke and mirrors? Why make it a whole secret? Why didn’t you girls just... ask?”

“We,” Twilight bit her lip. “I was afraid you’d have... reservations.”

He looked at her closely. “This was your idea?”

Twilight nodded. She told him of estrus, of the heightened version that came with being an alicorn, and the havoc it would wreak, turning her to a mindless, slavering sex fiend.

“You saw it firsthoof, back at the spa,” she said, looking away, her blush deepening. “It’s more or less what I can look forward to if I don’t find suitable... relief this estrus cycle.”

“I see,” he muttered thoughtfully. “So you were desperate.”

She let out a brief, mirthless laugh. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Well, I can understand why you were so reluctant to bring it up. I still remember how you used to jump or duck out of the way to hide every time we were set to cross paths in the street.”

Twilight was mortified. “You saw that?”

“Yep. Well, no. Not until Lyra pointed it out to me.”

Twilight buried her face in her hooves. What was it with her... with him... that she kept embarrassing herself in his presence?

“So what happens now?”

“You know, I’m not sure about that either,” he said. “Applejack, Rainbow Dash, the others... I’d like to think we’re good enough friends. They’ve all helped me out one way or another, back when I first came here. I’d prefer not to lose them over a misunderstanding.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Misunderstanding?”

He gave her a pointed look. “You tried to use me, the six of you. For sex.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Use you? That’s such an... impersonal way to put it.”

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Alright. How would you put it? What was the thinking behind this whole... plan of yours?”

“Well,” she said carefully. “I knew that for a while, you had no interest in ponies. I...” she looked away, blushing. “I know I probably didn’t help matters, considering what happened. And well, you had needs, same as us. Same as every living creature. If that were the case, and you did start to see ponies as potential partners, you probably wouldn’t know how to approach us. The girls and I, we wanted to help... ease you into the idea If my hunch were right—if you really did start getting interested, then we could all help each other. We could... satisfy you however you wanted and in turn you’d help us get through the worst of the heat cycle.”

He mulled over the words. “An exchange, then? Is that what it came down to? Trading one favor for another?”

Twilight nodded.

“And you see nothing wrong with that?”

She pondered on this. “Well, I suppose we could have gone about it better. I suppose... I suppose we could have come straight to you instead of going behind your back.”

Again he sighed, rubbing the back of his head.

Twilight’s ears drooped. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Forget it,” he said, waving a hand. “Just another one of those things.”

They fell into a silence, filled by nothing more than the gradually waning rain outside and the occasional crack of thunder.

Twilight studied him from the corner of her eye. He all but sagged, his posture slumped. His eyes were glazed over, not fully seeing the writing desk on which they rested. A faint, thoughtful frown creased his brow.

Something else caught her eye. Behind him and to the side was the chalkboard she’d used as a presentation, to track her and her friends’ progress on their supposed mission—the colorful progress meters included.

Twilight traced them from the bottom-up, starting at the bulbous base, to their lengthy body and the oblong top on which they terminated. Her heart swelled with despair.

“They are cocks...”

There was even an outdent just past the middle, reminiscent of a medial ring.

Anonymous looked to her, as if snapping out of a trance. “Did you say something?”

Twilight’s horn surged with power and let loose a spell that struck the chalkboard dead on, completely erasing the figures. Anonymous started a bit, glancing back to the chalkboard. Twilight bit her lip. She glanced around, noting how she’d allowed her study room to fall into a bit of a mess and seized the opportunity.

With another practiced application of magic, the modest room came to life. Scattered books levitated from various places, as did quills, parchments, and a small assortment of instruments of academia, all floating to their respective places on drawers, shelves or the desk.

“Don’t mind me,” she chuckled nervously. “Just, eh, cleaning up.”

He regarded her oddly, but his lips quirked into a half smile. He leaned back and was about to say something but then stiffened. “What the...” Frowning, he reached out with a hand somewhere behind him. Twilight’s heart sank further as the riding crop came into view. “What is this thing?” he asked, looking it over.

Another flash of magic and it disappeared from his grip to parts unknown.

“Nothing, nothing,” Twilight said, trying to sound casual. “Just a... marital aide?”

Anonymous didn’t seem convinced. “Right...” he drawled.

Twilight mustered as much dignity as she could. She refused to embarrass herself further and schooled her features into the most pleasantly neutral look she could.

“Pretty handy, that magic of yours.”

Twilight blinked owlishly. “Wha... oh, yes. Yes, it is quite useful.”

“I’ve wondered... you’ve done some pretty impressive things with it. Is there a limit to what you can do with it?”

Twilight was surprised, but then perked up. “Well, yes. With the sufficient skill, power and intent, magic can do almost anything, but even the most powerful users only have so much to draw from. Our material bodies have limits. Magic does not.”

“But you, personally. Would you be able to... I don’t know.” He pointed at the desk. “Turn that into a lion?”

Twilight considered this. “I could. But it wouldn’t be a very stable transformation. It wouldn’t even be a real lion, so much as my own interpretation of what a lion is.” She pointed at the desk. “And that is wood. It’s inert. Unliving. A lion isn’t. A simple way to look at it would be...” She tapped a hoof to her chin, thinking. “When you transform something into another, the object in question will eventually return to its original form. The more the transformation deviates from the original state, the more unstable it will be, the faster it will revert. A desk into a lion? Very unstable. But what if you were to use a tiger instead? You’ll get a much more stabilized transformation. It will eventually revert, of course.”

“So you could turn a bird into another?”

“Within reason. I mean, even Celestia wouldn’t be able to turn... say, a hummingbird into a roc.”

“A cat into a dog?”

Twilight snorted. “It wouldn’t be very happy, but yes.”

“A turtle into a cockatrice?”

“Only in form. It wouldn’t have the cockatrice’s deadly gaze.”

“A griffon into a minotaur?”

“I... can’t see them ever consenting to it, but yes.”

“A human into a pony?”

“Like I said, anything is possible with, uh...” Twilight blinked rapidly. Did she hear him right? “What?”

Author's Note

Now we're cooking

Pre-read by Elric of Melnipony