Heat Season

“Now then,” Twilight Sparkle said, her mouth taut in a grim line as she looked to the rest of the girls. “I’m sure you all want to know why I called you here.”

Her five friends nodded with varying degrees of curiosity.

“It’s over, girls. I’m putting an end to Operation: Heatsink in lieu of recent developments.”

They reacted with varying degrees of confusion.

“What gives?” Rainbow said. “I thought everything was going good. Didn’t you and Anon...”

Twilight blushed. “N-no.”

“Didn’t what?” Pinkie asked.

“I flew in on them,” Rainbow said. “Just last night. Looked like they were getting real friendly.”

“Ooh, did you get some action, then?” Pinkie said eagerly. “Is he a stud or is he a stud?” she finished with a wink.

“He’s...”

“The best darn lay ya ever had?” Applejack said, nodding knowingly.

“No! He’s... you... what?”

“He came t’ the farm round noon just yesterday. We, uh, got real friendly, if you know what I mean.”

All eyes turned to the farmpony with surprise.

Rainbow leaned in. “Alright, spill! How was it?”

“What did he look like... um, down there?” asked Fluttershy.

“How many creampies did he stuff you with?” Pinkie said eagerly.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity said, aghast.

“What? I just want to compare notes!” She reached into her mane and pulled out a long sheet of parchment. “I lost count right near the end, but Nonon said humans can usually go more than a couple rounds, and that’s without even using a booster shot, so—”

“Wait a minute,” Rainbow cut in. “What are you saying, Pinkie? Did you and Anon...”

She smiled fondly, a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes. “We did. All day long.” She blushed.

There was a brief pause as all mares digested this.

Rarity gulped. “Now when you say all day long...”

“All. Day.” She burst into a fit of giggles, cupping her cheeks with her hooves. “You girls should have seen him. He went three rounds back-to-back! And once he tried drinking a booster shot,” she giggled again. “He was like an animal!”

“Pinkie.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “What you’re saying isn’t possible. That aside, it’s not the reason I called—”

“The list never lies,” Pinkie declared confidently, brandishing said parchment. “You know, on account it can’t talk.”

“Oh, for...” Twilight muttered, taking her place among the clustered mares who’d gathered to take a proper look.

“What are the numbers supposed to be?” Fluttershy asked, her head tilted to the side.

“That,” Pinkie said. “Is how long he lasted.”

“I don’t see it,” Rainbow muttered. “These are like, minutes.”

“As in, more than three,” Fluttershy added.

“And they just,” Rarity said faintly. “And they just keep—”

“Growing,” whispered Twilight.

Pinkie grinned smugly. “Is he a stud or what?”

Applejack nodded. “Sounds about right.” Her friends looked at her expectantly. “I, uh, don’t rightly know how many times he went for when we did it.” She blushed. “But, y’know, he wore me out. Like, fully.”

“O-oh, my.” Fluttershy too blushed. “So, Rarity, how many times did he last with you?”

Rarity fidgeted in place. “We, uh,” She bit her lip. “We didn’t... we were... interrupted.”

Rainbow chuckled deviously. “I love it when a plan ‘cums’ together. Huh? Huh?” she said, winking and nudging Pinkie, who too giggled. The others rolled their eyes. “This is great news! Heat season is gonna be a breeze.”

“No!” Again she unknowingly tapped into the Royal Canterlot Voice. Twilight sighed. “Girls, it’s over. We,” She glanced longingly at the gloriously long list. “We may have made a mistake here.” Applejack maintained a neutral composure. The others merely looked confused.

“He knows, girls. Anonymous found out and—”

“How’d he find out?” Rainbow cut in.

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight said, waving a hoof.

“No,” Applejack said. “No, I think it does. I let it slip, see. And... and maybe Twi’s right. Maybe... maybe we didn’t consider all when going on this little hee-haw.”

Pinkie raised a hoof. “Um, I'm confused. What happened?”

“Anon didn’t take it too well,” Applejack said. “When he found out. Not. One.Bit.”

“I imagine he must have been a little, um, peeved,” Fluttershy said. “But is it really that bad? We just wanted to have fun.”

“He says we’re usin’ him.”

Twilight perked up. “That’s what he said to me.”

“That’s silly,” Pinkie said. “We don’t wanna use him. We want to make him feel good. And we want him to help us feel good too.”

“It is a reasonable exchange,” Rarity said. Rainbow and Fluttershy nodded.

“Yes,” Twilight muttered. “Yes, it is. To a pony.” She looked up to her friends. “He said humans are monogamous. Did you know that?”

“Mono-what?” Rainbow said.

“They keep to one partner, sexual or otherwise.”

“He did mention that,” Pinkie said.

“Same here,” said Applejack.

Twilight looked to the other three. “How about you girls? Did you know this?” They shook their heads. “Interesting...”

“We should bake him a cake!” Pinkie piped up. “A nice big apology cake from the six of us.”

“Not sure that’s gonna cut it, Pinks,” Applejack said.

“You may be right,” Twilight muttered. “There’s something we’re missing here. Something that...” she frowned, looking but not really looking out the window. “Physical relationships are... special where he comes from. They have a certain meaning to them. His words.”

Pinkie hummed. “Special how? In how they make you feel good?”

Twilight shook her head. “I think it goes further than that.”

“You lost me,” Rainbow grumbled. Applejack and Fluttershy agreed.

“Clearly humans are different from us,” Twilight elaborated. “I don’t mean in form. Anypony can see that. We differ in a substantially more fundamental level.”

“What? Like clothes?” Rainbow said.

“No, no.” Twilight made a frustrated noise. “Honestly, we know so little about his species. Who’s to say what... what could be...”

The five mares shared a concerned look. Twilight went still. So still she appeared frozen in place.

“Um, Twilight?” Fluttershy said, gingerly poking her.

“Clothes...”

“What’s that, hun?”

“Clothes,” she said more clearly. Her friends could practically see the gears in her brain cranking and spinning rapidly. “Rarity!” Twilight said, a certain zeal in her voice. “How much do you know about the relationship between humans and clothes? Tell me everything.”

Momentarily surprised, she recovered quickly. “Well, per Anon’s testament, his kind have clothed themselves in... animal pelts since they were little more than stick-wielding barbarians. Tens of thousands of years, by his account. They were hunters, always on the move and foraging for sustenance in the wilds. The pelts protected them from the elements. Eventually they settled down and slowly built communities. Towns, villages, cities. They began incorporating more natural fibers into their clothing—becoming more elaborate, more complex as time went on.”

Everymare reeled.

“Tens,” Twilight squeaked. “Tens of thousands of years?”

Rarity smiled wanly. “Hundreds of thousands if you account for the earliest human ancestors. So he says.”

“Golly,” Applejack muttered. “No wonder his kind’s managed to invent all them gizmos and doodads he’s talked about. Figures. Bein’ around that long, they gotta know a thing or two.”

“Still,” Twilight said, reaching up with a shaky hoof to wipe the sweat from her brow. “Tens of thousands of years...” She addressed Rarity again. “You said the humans considered it a taboo to go without clothes. Did he ever elaborate on that?”

Rarity hummed thoughtfully. “Not exactly,” she said slowly. “He was so... shy when it came to nudity. Why, he got quite flustered when I asked him to take off his shirt. For measurements, of course. I think... I think he said his kind is comfortable with nudity under very specific circumstances.”

“Such as?”

“In the presence of their special somepony. There’s meant to be a degree of trust, I believe.”

Twilight’s mind raced. The picture was slowly taking shape. Her magic flared and along with it, the chalkboard rolled over, stopping just behind her. Her back to them, Twilight’s friends watched as she rapidly scribbled onto the surface. 10,000 years, Taboo, Special Somepony and Trust, all arranged in a semicircle.

“Bear with me here, girls. I believe we’re close to understanding this.” The riding crop came into view, earning little more than a cursory glance. It hovered just beneath the 10,000 years mark. “Unlike us ponies, the humans have regularly clothed themselves—likely in layers, if Anonymous is anything to go by—for over ten thousand years. A practice such as this, so deeply ingrained within a species... there’s not a doubt in my mind it must have left some sort of indelible mark in their society.”

The riding crop levitated under the two remaining words.

“Nudity is a taboo. We don’t have enough data to speculate as to why. Regardless, it is and humans are quite shy about it.”

The riding crop hovered under Special Somepony. “Unlike us, humans are largely monogamous. Taking the nudity taboo into account, we can speculate that sexual encounters between them are not nearly as casual as they are between us ponies. Going successively from one partner to another must be a strange concept to them.”

Pinkie’s eyes lit up and she nodded in understanding. “Ooh, yeah. He got super weirded out when I suggested he try his luck with Rarity, once we had our fun.”

Twilight nodded, now bringing attention to the word Trust. “He said to me last night that sex was something... intimate between partners. That there’s a kind of stigma to those who give it out casually. It’s meant to be special.”

Rarity frowned. “A stigma? Isn’t that going a bit too far? It’s just a bit of harmless fun.”

“Not to them.” Twilight tapped the word Trust. “They are monogamous. Nudity is a taboo; casual sex is frowned upon. To overcome these two barriers, a certain level of trust is needed.”

“Trust to what?” Rainbow said, exasperated. “What are they so afraid of?”

The ponies pondered this in silence.

“I think,” Twilight said carefully. “It might be trust in each other.”

Her friends looked up.

“How do you mean, hun?”

“Think about it. Humans are constantly wearing clothes. On some level, they hide themselves from the world, allowing only a select few to truly see them.”

“It sounds lonely,” Fluttershy whispered. The others nodded solemnly.

“I don’t see how it couldn’t be,” Twilight continued. “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Imagine if all your life you’ve been taught to hide your body. Everypony does it, all around you. It’s such a constant, omnipresent reminder you don’t even notice it anymore. It’s just normal. So normal that being in your bare, natural state becomes abnormal.”

Rainbow’s mouth twisted. “Crummy world, if you ask me,” she muttered.

“But if what Twilight said is true,” Rarity said. “If sex is such a meaningful act to them... if humans are as afraid to show themselves as Anonymous was, then... then...”

“Then he trusted us,” Pinkie said softly. “He trusted us in a super special way. And, and we...” she bit her lip.

“We betrayed that trust,” Applejack said.

“Hey, hey! Hold on!” Rainbow said, hovering in the air. “That’s not fair! We didn’t set out to betray anypony.” None of her friends seemed to register her impassioned outburst. “Stupid human ways. Ugh! Why do they have to make it so complicated? We didn’t... it’s not our fault if he...” Her enthusiasm vanished as though swept by a strong breeze. Her wings went limp and she landed on her haunches, all but sagging in place.

Fluttershy tore her gaze away from the floor. Her friends had that same vacant stare, lost in their thoughts.

“What are we going to do?” she said to Twilight, who looked back helplessly.

“I have no idea.”