Harnessing the Sunby Foxy HenhouseChaptersPrologue (Which I Think Formally Makes This "Erotica" as Opposed to "Really Pretentious Porn")Six Ways to SundayThree Lights GreenRules For This Sort of ThingPrologue (Which I Think Formally Makes This "Erotica" as Opposed to "Really Pretentious Porn")Harness Pathfinder, duly elected sheriff of the town of Cape Colt, had always thought of herself as somepony who could handle anything thrown at her. Usually, though, “anything” was a minor violation of a municipal code, often litter-related, rarely fundamental-view-of-reality-altering. It generally wasn’t sitting at a cafe table, pointedly not watching the late-summer sun melt into the horizon beyond the harbor, and instead staring across that table at a funhouse mirror image of yourself from another universe. So for the past hour or so, ever since Funhouse Harness had stumbled through a glowing portal at the edge of town surrounded by Funhouse Everypony-Harness-Closely-Knew-and-Loved, the concept of “handling anything” had been less like a thought and more like a mantra: I can handle this. I’ve been handling this. I will continue to handle this for however long it lasts, and so will… other me. Him. The two of us together. Or one of us split apart? Or– “This is so weird,” murmured Hitch Trailblazer, duly elected sheriff of the town of Maretime Bay, with a shake of his head that set his short, boyish mane bobbing above his temples. “It’s like looking in a funhouse mirror.” “Yep,” Harness agreed, unconsciously brushing her own mane — longer, fuller, tied into a tail behind her head to keep it from covering her ears — away from her eyes. “Exactly like that.” They sat in silence for a bit, then decided at the same time to start handling things again. Harness had home-field — or home-reality, or whatever — advantage, so she spoke first. “So, uh… how are you all here?” Harness asked herself. Or himself. Or the disarmingly attractive stallion sitting across from her whose name was Hitch. Whatever. “Y’know, in a purely scientific, literal sense.” “Not a hundred percent sure,” Hitch answered. “Sunny thinks the Together Trees are… wait, do you have those here?” Sunny. He meant Sunbeam — or Hitch’s version of him, anyway. Harness had already handled that too: meeting all her stallion friends as mares, them meeting her, all the others trundling off to the Brighthouse together to talk through probably all the same things she and her counterpart were. Continuing to handle it without a week’s worth of wide-eyed, sleepless nights would be something she’d just have to figure out later. “We have Forevergreens,” Harness offered. “Thick trunks, wide leaves, grown by the magic of friendship?” Hitch nodded. “Sounds about right. Anyway, Sunny’s theory is that they’re not really trees so much as… bridges. And just like their roots are all linked with each other in our universe, she thinks all the Together Trees, Forevergreens, all of them are linked together across universes in the same way.” “Hang on, universes? Like, plural?” “Well, we know of at least one other besides ours and yours,” Hitch said, muzzle bending into a cheeky grin. “And there’s some old legends of one where we all descended from monkeys.” “Monkeys,” Harness incredulously repeated. “So what, instead of hooves, we have…” She lifted a forehoof, imagined tendrils of muscle and bone sprouting out from it, and shuddered. “Ugh. No thanks. Glad you’re normal-shaped, at least.” “The feeling’s mutual,” Hitch chuckled. “So yeah, Sunny and Zipp wanted to see where else our Trees might link to, plus Misty thought there might be a chance that Opaline…” “Assuming that’s Nacreous. Geez, you guys got a way better name.” “... or Nacreous might still be alive and plotting in some alternate dimension, so they experimented. And, well, here we are.” “Experimented, huh?” Harness mimicked again. “I take it you voted against said experiment.” “And was outvoted, yes,” Hitch muttered — and not for the first time that day, Harness just about could’ve mouthed his response along with him. It was like she just knew what he was thinking because… well, it was her thinking it, kind of. Another version of her, different in some ways, but so similar in others. And speaking of which… “Okay, now I’m curious,” Harness said, leaning forward in her chair. “Aside from the obvious, how similar are our universes?” “Pretty curious about that too, actually,” Hitch said, because of course he was. “Okay, first things first: how did you all meet? I mean, you and your friends.” “Well, I’ve known Sunbeam since we were kids,” Harness answered, Hitch nodding along with each detail from her life that he recalled from his. “Then a few months ago, Ike wandered into town talking about unicorn magic, Sunbeam ran off with him to Eurus Peak where they met Pepp and Zepp, and then I caught up with them all in time to help them restore everypony’s magic everywhere. Wasn’t easy, either. There was this ancient monster, and a big fight, and…” “Wait, you fought a monster?” Harness blinked. “Yeah, huge one. Wait, did you guys not?” “No! I mean, sort of. My deputy, Sprout, I left him in charge of Maretime Bay while I went after the girls, and he kind of, uh… built a war machine, went full fascist. It was a mess.” “Deputy Spr…” Harness trailed off, then scoffed and shook her head. “Okay, no. No way.” “Your Sprout didn’t do that?” came Hitch’s puzzled reply. “Well, my Sprout’s name is Sapling, and no, Sapling would never do something like that! She’s so, I don’t know… demure, and traditional, and scared of everything and ooooohkay. Yeah. Now I see it.” “Yep,” Hitch chuckled. “Probably should keep an eye on her.” “Definitely gonna keep an eye on her.” Unsurprisingly, the conversation petered out after that. Hitch turned his gaze pensively towards the sunset, and Harness tried to gaze with him. After a few moments, though, she found herself gazing more at him, curiosity growing into something closer to compulsion. They were eerily similar in so many ways, but that just made the differences stick out even more — both the obvious big one, and the smaller ones that stemmed out from it. Both of them were Sheriffs, both had helped to save the world from disharmony, they even both had basically the same friends. But while she was the only mare keeping a rowdy group of stallions in line, he was the only stallion doing… what, exactly, with five adorable young mares who all seemed to trust him implicitly? It’d be rude to ask. And she knew the answer anyway. Not a single thing about Hitch said, “I’m the type of guy who plows every field my tool can reach.” But she’d seen the mares who’d come through the portal with him. She was looking at him right now. There was no way at least one of them hadn’t at some point… Screw it. She was gonna ask. She’d never stop wondering about it otherwise. “So,” Harness said, leaning towards Hitch as he glanced her way. “We have the same friends.” “Seems that way,” Hitch replied. “But you have girl friends.” “Well… yeah,” Hitch said, after an extra-long blink and a twist of his lips. “I guess.” “You guess, or you do?” “I-I do!” he stammered. “I mean… where are you going with this?” Oh, he had. He one-hundred-percent had. “Just curious,” Harness went on, dragging the word out until she saw Hitch squirm in his seat. “Any of ‘em, ah… more than friends?” “Wha… w-what kind of question is that?” Hitch sputtered. “Do you think I’m friends with the girls just because I want to sleep with them? I mean, that’d be… I-I’m not that kind of stallion! You’re not that kind of mare, even, or… or are you? Not that that’d be… I-I don’t mean to imply that, uh…” “Wow,” Harness murmured, smiling. “All those words, and none of them were a ‘no.’” Hitch clammed up and turned towards the sun again. After a moment, Harness leaned back and relented. “Ah, c’mon, I’m just teasing. And, admittedly, actually curious. Because for the record, I haven’t with any of my guys over here. But, Sheriff to Sheriff? Totally thought about it. And I’m thinking you’ve at least thought about it too. So, Sheriff to Sheriff again, who’s the one?” Still facing the horizon, Hitch chewed on his bottom lip. Then, with a sigh, he muttered, “There isn’t one.” “You mean to tell me none of those mares get you hot under the–” “No, that’s not…” He trailed off for a moment, and Harness realized suddenly that it wasn’t the sun glaring on his face — he was blushing, pink as a peony. “I mean there isn’t… one.” “Oh, Hitch,” Harness gushed, grinning like a hyena. “Don’t tell me you’ve done the dirty with two of ‘em?” Hitch shook his head. “More than two?” At first, Hitch mumbled so softly Harness couldn’t even hear him. Then, seeing her enraptured stare, he took a big breath and repeated himself: “All of them.” For a few seconds, Harness just kept staring at him, and Hitch kept flushing darker and darker shades of scarlet. Then, all at once, the words burst out of her through lips curled into a delirious grin. “No fucking way,” she managed to say, just before she dissolved into laughter that got Hitch’s face all the way to maroon. “Not all at the same time!” he loudly insisted, which just got Harness going even more. “It just… happened, all right? In different places and different contexts, and… they all know too, for the record. It’s not like I’m running around on anypony.” “Oh my stars,” Harness gasped. “You have a harem. In another universe, I literally have a harem.” “It’s not a harem!” “You’ve slept with five different mares who are all friends with each other and willing to share you. That is definitionally a harem, buddy!” “It…” Hitch started to say, but after his jaw hung open for a few seconds without any words passing through it, he gave up on any hope of arguing the point. “Whatever.” “Hey, look, I’m not judging you. If anything, I’m proud of you.” “Sure doesn’t feel like it,” Hitch griped. “C’mon, dude, you’re living the stallion’s dream!” “Well, I just… I don’t like the implication, okay? That I manipulated them, or I turned them into something they’re not. They’re really good ponies, and I care about all of them, and I’d be friends with them with or without… that.” Harness couldn’t help cocking an eyebrow. “I would,” Hitch insisted, with enough of a bite behind his words to convince Harness he really, truly meant them. “You don’t hang around your friends just because you want to have sex with them, do you?” Harness shrugged and sat back. “Fair enough. No, I don’t. They’re goofballs, but… yeah.” “Exactly. You’re… we’re the same that way. Just because I’m a stallion and you’re a mare doesn’t change who we are deep down.” He let the silence hang over them for a second, then sighed and seemed to settle himself down. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Just…” “No, you’re right,” Harness said, meeting his eyes — the exact same shade of hazel as hers — and keeping his gaze locked in her own. “I was out of line. I’m sorry too.” “Don’t worry about it,” Hitch said, voice softening even more. Another second passed, then two, then a few more. Their shadows stretched farther back along the plaza behind them, inched closer together, almost joined at their apexes — and then both ponies blinked at the same time. “Nope,” Harness said, leaning back hard in her chair. “Yep,” Hitch agreed, doing pretty much the same thing in his own seat. “Feels, uh…” “Incest-y?” “Kinda.” “Yeah.” One more second passed. “We were both thinking about it, though.” “No we weren’t.” “We one-hundred-percent were.” “No we…” Hitch shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Ugh. I’m insufferable here.” “And I’m a prude there. See, we are different! A little bit.” Other than sighing again, Hitch didn’t deem that worthy of a reply, which seemed like a good enough reason to wrap things up here. “Reckon the others are done talking?” Harness said as she got to her hooves. “And/or mid-multiversal-orgy?” “Stars above, we really are different,” Hitch muttered as he stood too. “Are you like this all the time?” “All my close friends are stallions and I run a town that’s sixty percent dude-by-volume. What else could I possibly be like?” “Fair enough. Wanna head over to the Brighthouse?” “You go ahead. I’ll catch up. Gonna get a quick patrol in before we lose the light completely.” Hitch straightened up and extended a forehoof. “Well, in that case… good to meet you, other me.” Harness tapped her own hoof to his and shook. “Likewise, other me.” With that, Hitch departed, and Harness watched him go with a feeling of satisfaction that, bit by bit, dissolved strangely into the exact opposite emotion. She wanted to chalk it up to regular old disappointment at seeing the tail end of a new friend, like when Sunbeam’s mom used to tell her it was time for little colts and fillies to stop playing and go to bed. But the longer she stood alone in the plaza and the closer the sun got to vanishing completely beneath the sea, the more sure she was that it wasn’t that at all. All of them… In another universe, she wasn’t just friends with all the same ponies, she’d gotten freaky with them too. And what’s more, every one of those friends was apparently fine with the arrangement — neither pushy nor possessive, no rivalries ready to bloom into bitter feuds, nopony even so much as tossing a “What are we?” into the mix like a live emotional hoof grenade. If Hitch were anypony else other than literally her stallion self, she might’ve thought he was exaggerating, or just straight-up lying in a weird attempt to impress her. But she wasn’t the lying type, and neither was he. He really had, with all of them. And that made her feel something that wasn’t disappointment or anger, but kind of more like… “Oh, for stars’ sake,” Harness murmured. “You’re fucking jealous.” Yep. She was. She’d been Cape Colt’s most eligible bachelorette for who knew how long, wondering all the time what her friends might be like in the sack, never doing anything with any of them because she couldn’t bear the thought of upsetting the others — and in another universe, her stallion self had just gone ahead and done it, and it had apparently worked out great. And then he wanted to act all high and mighty about it like his real actual life wasn’t ripped straight out of a Playmare magazine, like it had just happened because he was just so damn nice and hot and gentlecoltly. “Well, fuck that,” Harness muttered. “And fuck him. And you know what…” They were the same pony, right? Barring a few biological traits and social habits, they were exactly the same. So if it could work for him, why couldn’t it work for her? In fact, why shouldn’t she make it work for her, and then act even higher and mightier about it right to his — her own — whoever’s fucking face whenever it next portaled back into her life like a live psychosexual atom bomb? “Oh, this is a bad idea,” she said with her full voice, in the same tone she couldn’t help using when a perp answered a question in a way that made their lawyer blanch. Bit by bit, the aggrieved frown on her face bent upwards into a devilish grin. “This is the worst idea ever.” Yep. It was. But one other thing Harness and Hitch had in common was this: once they got an idea in their heads, they were one-hundred-and-twenty-percent going to make it a reality. And as Harness got to trotting with a spring in her non-stallion-y step, she had a pretty good idea already of where she wanted to start. Six Ways to Sunday“And then they met Barb,” Sunbeam gushed, practically vibrating in his seat on Harness’s couch. “Well, Spike to them, obviously, but they actually met, and talked to her… him, and went to the Dragon Lands and…” Harness didn’t interrupt Sunbeam, partially because he rambled like this a lot, and mostly because he was getting better at realizing he was rambling and quitting on his own. Sure enough, Sunbeam bit his bottom lip mid-sentence, then flashed her an apologetic grin. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m so… I mean, this is all just…” “It’s exciting,” Harness told him, daintily pulling one hind leg and then the other up under her haunches so she could lean more luxuriously against the armrest of her easy chair. “And don’t apologize. You’re cute when you’re excited.” Sunbeam laughed, then blinked, then let out a sound that was mostly another laugh but sort of resembled a cough at the end. Harness fluffed her mane — untied and bouncy, flowing like silk over her shoulders and neck — a bit with her hoof and chewed on the inside of her lip so she wouldn’t grin. She’d put her plan into action the moment Sunbeam had trotted — or really, bounced — through her door half an hour ago: an indulgent stretch here, an overlong blink there, and her very best “I want you in the unfriendliest way imaginable” eyes every time she glanced or, more often, unabashedly stared his way. Finally, after nearly half an hour, it was starting to bear some big, juicy fruit she was more than ready to sink her proverbial — or hopefully, literal — teeth into. Or she would have been ready, if Sunbeam had come over to her place for a post-multiversal-summit debrief alone. Which, of course, he characteristically hadn’t. “Yeah, it was dope, dude,” Ike added, idly scratching at the nest of blue hair he had tucked up under his paint-spotted ballcap. “We gotta figure out how to get ‘em back here. Get, like, a cross-dimensional art collective going…” “Or alternatively, we could not keep messing with the fabric of the universe,” Zepp sourly replied, sounding as ruffled as his usually-coiffed mane looked. “Just a thought. Throwing it out into the brainstorming session.” “Would you please relax already, bro?” Pepp grunted, glancing up from his phone only long enough to roll his eyes. “The portal’s closed, we’re all alive here, and we’re all total babes in another universe. Things could not possibly be more chill.” “I don’t…” Hazy started to say, cerulean cheeks turning pink beneath his glasses and mulberry braids. “I-I mean, that seems a little…” “Dude,” Pepp said, finally dropping his phone so he could stare across the room at Hazy. “Our chick selves are fully hot. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong.” “Don’t encourage him, Hazy,” Zepp grunted before Hazy could mumble a response. “And stop being weird, Pepper.” “Who’s bein’ weird? You’re bein’ weird. I’m just bein’ honest.” “You know you’re basically talking about our long-lost siblings here, right? Biologically and socially speaking?” “Whatever. You’re just pissed your mare self has better muscle tone than you do.” “Whereas you can’t handle your mare self thinking about things other than muscle tone.” “Okay, down, boys,” Harness finally interjected, cutting both siblings off mid-retort. “Either take it down a notch or take it outside.” After a moment’s thought, she realized the golden opportunity that the room’s full attention had presented to her. “Actually, take it outside anyway, and then go home. You’re gonna wake Sparkle up.” Zepp’s eyes narrowed a bit, sweeping over Sunbeam on their way towards Harness, and Pepp lolled his head over with a shit-eating grin pasted onto it. “Awww,” the latter teased. “Way to be a buzzkill, Mo–” “Call me Mom, and they’ll write a whole new section of the penal code about what I do to you,” Harness shot back. “Seriously, though, it’s late, and it’s been a long and weird day. So vámanos, amigos.” For a heartstopping moment, Harness thought they might keep arguing anyway. Fun — and, okay, very pleasantly muscle-toned — as Pepp could be, he was also incredibly bad at following directions, and intellect notwithstanding, Zepp was equally bad at letting a conversation die a natural death. But thank Twilight, Ike had already stood up and pulled Hazy to his hooves as well. Ike was a very good listener. Possibly because there wasn’t anything else in his head most of the time to distract him from listening. And so, the crowd in Harness’ living room dispersed with a minimum of grumbling and even a couple genuine well-wishes. Characteristically again, Sunbeam was the last to leave, and Harness let him chatter with Ike about some art project the latter had planned all the way down the hall towards the front door. “Hey, Sun?” she called after him at the last possible moment, just as Sunbeam’s forehoof passed over the threshold to the darkened outside world. “Hang back a sec, would ya?” Sunbeam and Ike shared a perfectly gormless glance, then the latter departed with a shrug and a hooftap. The front door swung shut, and Sunbeam and Harness were finally alone together. “What’s up?” Sunbeam asked, and then — bless his heart — asked, “Everything all right?” “Of course,” Harness crooned, shoulders forward and eyelids low. “Don’t I look all right?” “Y-Yeah, of course. It’s just… earlier it kind of seemed like you, uh…” She gave him the “none of the things I’m thinking about are in the Friendship Journal” eyes again. “... w-wanted to talk about something. So… is this that?” “More or less,” Harness replied. “Just felt a bit crowded for it earlier. This is much better.” Truth be told, it was hardly an act at all by this point. Once upon a time, she’d known the two of them would get married someday, the way grown-up best friends always did. But then Sunbeam’s mom had passed and Harness’s career had taken off, and the universe had conspired in a million other ways to always keep the two of them a gossamer-thin distance apart. Maybe it was just a lack of chemistry, maybe some mental block one or both of them hadn’t yet pushed past, maybe some third thing that she hoped to the stars wasn’t Sunbeam batting for the other proverbial team. One way or another, though, she was gonna find out what it was tonight. And dammit, she was gonna have fun doing it. “C’mon,” she said as she turned in place, glancing past her swishing tail to see Sunbeam pointedly staring only at her face. “Let’s chat.” She led him back down the hallway as if it were a catwalk, swinging her hips and jiggling everything a fit young mare had to jiggle, and Sunbeam followed a polite distance behind her, taking extremely polite interest in her wall decorations along the way. Instead of veering left back into the sitting room, she went straight into the kitchen and looped around the dining table towards a cabinet behind it, from which she extracted two tumblers and a half-full bottle of vodka. “Sit down,” she said, nodding first towards an empty chair and then towards one of the glasses she’d just set down on the table. “One fetlock or two?” “Oh, uh… I-I’m fine. Thank you, though.” Sunbeam folded his sturdy frame stiffly into his seat, and Harness shrugged as she made a drink for herself. “You’re missing out,” she informed him as she slid onto the chair to his right, scooting in so that her hock almost grazed against his. “Got this flown in from Eurus Peak. Made from cloud potatoes, if you can believe it.” “I can, actually. Pepp is… a fan of that brand, to put it politely.” Harness lifted her glass and held it so her voice — low and syrupy-sweet — echoed inside it. “And you’re not?” “I just, uh… didn’t want to impose?” Harness cocked an eyebrow. She’d sort of meant to ramp things all the way up to a “bend me over this table and treat me like I charge by the hour” look, but it came out more like “just accept the drink already, you insufferably sweet doofus.” She couldn’t help it. She was only mortal. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry,” Sunbeam finally said, bashfully scratching at the back of his neck. “One fetlock. Thanks.” Harness poured, slid the spare glass his way, and watched as he sipped slowly and carefully. He shuddered a bit even from the thimble’s worth of liquor that passed his lips, and for a moment Harness wanted to kiss him in all the wrong ways: slowly and sweetly, on his soft lips and his sedate brow and the little lock of rainbow-striped mane he got from being soulful and sincere and good though every inch of his heart. She took her own sip — more of a gulp, really — and refocused. She wasn’t here for that. She was a mare, and he was a stallion, and the former in this world could do anything the latter could do in another. The time for chasteness had come and long gone. “So what did you want to talk about?” Sunbeam asked, looking her in the eyes and sincerely waiting for her response. Stars above, he was making this so much harder than it needed to be. In the wrong sense of the word. “Uh…” Harness began, because she really hadn’t planned on talking much at this point. “Y’know, just… today was weird, wasn’t it?” “Yeah,” Sunbeam agreed. “You doing okay?” “What d’you mean?” “I mean, just…” With an upturned hoof, he gestured vaguely in her direction. “You’ve seemed off all night. Y’know, the sly comments, and the, uh… not that it’s bad or anything, it’s just really unlike you. Makes me think something might have happened earlier, with you and other-you. So if you wanna talk about it…” For another moment, Harness wanted to crawl under the table, dig through the floor, and bury herself alive. Was she about to get cockblocked by actual, for-real friendship? Was she really that bad at flirting? “Wha… n-nothing happened!” she lied — badly. Stars, why couldn’t she be a bad cop instead of a bad temptress, so she could at least be good at lying? “We had a good talk. He’s… I’m doing great over there.” Oh, fuck him, now Sunbeam was lowering his gaze and reaching out to kindly nudge his hoof against hers. “Great in the same way, or a different way?” “In a…” She lifted her hoof away from his, and it ended up landing on her temple as she shut her eyes and grimaced. “This isn’t going how I thought it would, for the record,” she informed him. “How you thought what would…” Harness looked up, and just caught the tail end of Sunbeam’s eyes going wide. Welcome to the party, pal, she thought. Population: you, me, and a ferry terminal worth of baggage I apparently have to unpack. “Oh,” he said. “Um… I-I, uh…” Harness took a breath, and was about to let it out in the form of an apology and an offer to walk Sunbeam home — but then she saw it. Right before Sunbeam set his jaw and softened his gaze and prepared to be the best just-a-friend in the whole wide world, the mask slipped. Just for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to dart down and his hoof to twitch, and for his pupils to grow with something animalistic and raw and years in the making. He wanted her. But he would never admit it to himself, never be anything to or for her but kind and supportive, and always a gossamer-thin distance away from what a buried-deep part of him had yearned for since they were teenagers. He’d keep it locked away even now, even with her practically throwing herself at him like a cat in heat, because he’d rather do that than take the smallest risk of hurting her — no, of hurting anyone. Because that’s what he thought might happen if he didn’t keep that lock closed. What he thought his baser self — his stallion self — would do if he let it out. She knew how to handle this now. How to get what both of them needed. “Listen, I–” he started to say. “Yeah, no, you’re right,” Harness interrupted, shaking her head and grinning. “I’ve been weird tonight. And it was kinda because of him. Hitch. Other me.” Sunbeam visibly relaxed, but as he leaned back in his chair, a tiny sigh escaped his snout as well. Most of him was ready to talk things out with a good friend, but the stallion part couldn’t believe the chance he’d just blown. He’d get that part under control and bury it again soon — but only if Harness let him. “You know what he told me?” Harness went on. “I asked if he’d gotten frisky with any of his friends, cause y’know, stallion surrounded by mares, and you know what he said? ‘Yep. All of ‘em.’ Can you believe that?” Judging by Sunbeam’s expression, he scarcely could. “Wow. So, all the ponies we met today, he’s…” “Apparently! Of course, he swore it wasn’t his idea. Just happened, so he said.” Sunbeam chuckled. “Uh-huh. Sure.” “Right?” She nudged his shoulder with her own. “So yeah, that was bugging me a little bit. But it also kinda got me thinking. About you.” “What about me?” Sunbeam replied, his tone playfully trepidatious — or maybe the other way around. “Well, it’s not the exact same situation, obviously. But a young stallion, handsome, sweet as sugar, saved the world a couple of times… guy like that probably could get more than a few ladies into bed with him. If he wanted to, that is.” “No,” Sunbeam chuckled — but Harness wasn’t interested in what he said aloud. What he didn’t say was written all over his face: well-practiced denial, stretched taut atop something uncontrollable, primal. “No, I’m… I’m not interested in that.” “Why not?” Sunbeam chewed on his lip a bit before answering. “Just… wouldn’t feel right, y’know? Taking advantage of…” “Of what?” Harness leaned forward. “You flashing your horn and wings on street corners? Going to bars and asking every filly in earshot if they want an alicorn ride?” “No!” “Then who are you taking advantage of? Because it’s not the dozens of ponies I could name right now who’d drop everything in their lives to do anything you wanted them to. Mares, stallions, take your pick. You’re a hero, Sun. And on top of that, speaking of course in purely neutral and objective terms: smoking, forest-fire hot.” With every word, Sunbeam’s blush deepened, rising from his neck through his cheeks all the way to his twitching temples. “Okay, w-well… wait, how did talking to your stallion self get you thinking about this?” “Because you know what really bugged me about Hitch?” Harness said. “He wanted something, and then he went and got it. He took it, because he deserved it, and ever since we were kids you’ve acted like you don’t deserve anything, because you were too good for your own moondamned good. You never think about what you want, what you deserve, and I just let you do it because I was too wrapped up in…” She hadn’t really meant to say it like that. Or to say any of that, period. But now Sunbeam was staring at her and she was staring at him, and that shroud of denial pulled over his eyes was bulging — starting, inch by invisible inch, to come loose. “So instead, I should… what?” Sunbeam murmured, in a tone that almost seemed angry. He didn’t blink. Harness didn’t look away. “Start taking things instead of asking? Be more of a stallion? What do you want me to do, Harness?” “Whatever you fucking want,” she told him. “Whenever, with whoever, for any reason or no reason at all. Because the world’s treated you like shit your whole life, and you’ve never been anything but good back to it, and you deserve… you’ve earned more than that. And I know you want more than that too.” Sunbeam wrapped his hoof around his glass, lifted it to his mouth, and threw back what was left of his drink. “You know what I want, Harness?” he said once the glass clacked back down on the table. “I wanna go home.” Stars, he was so close — and furious at her for pushing her there, and at himself for letting her do it. Against every instinct screaming at her to grab hold of him and never let go, Harness sat back and nodded towards the door at her kitchen’s rear. “Okay,” she replied. “Get home safe.” She drained her own drink as Sunbeam stood up and carefully edged past her. He only noticed the extra lock attached to the door when he tried to pull it open and heard the obnoxious clunk of the bolt in its bore. “Can you…” he said through a throttled sigh. “Yeah, sorry. Sheriff’s paranoia. Key’s over here.” Harness heard Sunbeam mutter something like “I’ll get it,” but she beat him to the hook on the far wall anyway. When she turned around, lanyard in hoof, the two of them were chest to chest, nose to nose, his harried breath whirling hotly around her slightly parted lips. She raised the key so he could see it, close enough for him to reach out and grab it — and he didn’t. He just glared, and twitched his nose, and stayed exactly where he was. He wanted to take it, to be in control, to put his own desires first for once in his life. But he didn’t know how. He’d never learned. He’d had to grow up overnight, a teenaged outcast denied the family and friends he deserved, and solitude had surrounded his heart not as a shield, but as a filter straining out what he couldn’t help seeing as impurities, as any and every reason another pony might chastise or criticize or assume the worst intentions from him with that poor Pathfinder girl who had such a bright future ahead of her. Because he was a stallion, and she — Harness, his confidant, his will-they-won’t-they that never ever was — was a mare. And so he could never take what he wanted, what he’d earned with his good works and impossibly kind soul, because then all those ponies would be right about him. But they weren’t — never had been, and wouldn’t be now. He had to understand that. She would make him understand that. “I don’t…” Sunbeam growled, panting like he’d sprinted across the room instead of walked. “It’s not about deserving anything, it’s… I just want…” Because she wanted him too. She had wanted him, always, for every day they’d whiled away as kids dreaming of a world better than their own, every night after she’d given up on the future and he hadn’t, every morning she’d woken up alone and stretched her hooves across her empty bed and swallowed back an itching, panging need for something other than what she’d let herself become. “It’s about you,” Harness murmured. “Who you think of yourself as being. What part of you doesn’t fit in that mold you’re so good at filling.” She’d fantasized about all her friends, daydreamed sinfully, spent nights alone with stretched hooves and itching desire — but in the mornings, when the sun was still low over the world that had become everything she thought she could want, there was still something missing, a need left agonizingly unfulfilled. “It’s not a mold. It’s who I am,” he insisted. “Who I want to be. I don’t want to be somepony who just…” “It’s not bad to want.” She lifted her hoof a little further — brushed it over his cheek, letting the little silver key on its lanyard bounce gently off the ridge of his chin. “Or to be wanted. It doesn’t change you.” She leaned in closer — met his eyes and held his face instead of just touching. “Stop letting it change you.” He didn’t look away. He lifted one hoof towards the key. Their chests brushed together — a silent lightning strike. “Are you…” Sunbeam murmured. “Is this…” Slowly, deliberately, Harness pulled her hoof back. “What do you want it to be?” she whispered. He blinked — shut his eyes — decided. She shut her eyes too and didn’t see him approach, just felt his lips on hers and a new weight to replace the one inside her that had finally fallen away: his chest, his whole body, him. It only lasted for a moment, a single second at the end of decades, and then they both opened their eyes at once. Despite everything, she couldn’t help smirking. “There,” she murmured. “Was that so ba–” He didn’t say a word. There was a rough noise from his throat — a wild, unsuppressed growl — and then she was flat against the wall and the key to her house was clattering on the kitchen floor, because he’d pinned her hooves by her head and shoved her to where he wanted her and kissed her again, over and over, heavy and hungry and burning with desire. She kissed him back, and a noise escaped her throat too — a triumphant, uninhibited moan. His forehooves fell to her cheeks so he could angle her head into his, then to her sides so he could mold her body against his, then over and under her stifles so he could caress — squeeze — fondle every part of her he wanted. She hooked her own forehooves around his head, groaned as his lips trailed under her chin, squeaked as she felt his teeth and tongue on her neck and a lurch in her belly as he lifted her fully off the ground. And then, as she wrapped her hind legs around him and felt him stiffening between them, he stopped. They both took a breath. When Harness let hers out, the rainbow lock of Sunbeam’s mane ruffled above his widened eyes. “Wait,” he said between gasps, glancing down the hall towards a door that had been shut since before he and his friends had arrived earlier. “Are we gonna wake Sparkle up?” Panting, Harness shook her head. “I was lying earlier. She sleeps like the dead.” Sunbeam nodded. “Good,” he sighed, and then he pressed his parted lips to hers and slid his tongue boldly between them, and there was no need to say anything else. Three Lights GreenHarness couldn’t remember the trip to her bedroom. She was pretty sure she’d walked on her own, but she was also pretty sure she’d made that walk backwards — lips locked on Sunbeam’s, hoof fumbling behind her for the knob, Sunbeam standing her up on her hinds again and lifting her against the doorframe and nearly talking her without words into forgoing the bed entirely. But in the end, they made it inside, and even got the door closed behind them. Probably the responsible thing to do. Sparkle might sleep like the dead, but sometimes the dead could rise anyway. She forced their heads apart just long enough to navigate them towards the bed, neatly made and plenty big enough for two. Her hocks bumped against the mattress, then pressed into it, then slid up on top of it. She’d stopped at the contact, and Sunbeam had kept going, guiding — pushing — her down onto her back with one hoof cradling her head and the other firm against her chest. If she hadn’t basically already done it, she might’ve swooned. Sunbeam hovered over her for a moment — forehooves braced by her shoulders, violet mane dangling over his shoulder and tickling against her collarbone — then descended, capturing her mouth in his, sucking the air from her lungs and swirling his tongue around hers once he’d drawn it commandingly between his teeth. Harness thought about grabbing hold of his head, kissing him deeper, and it was at that moment he moved his head down and latched onto her neck beneath her chin again, nibbling and licking, growling softly at each tiny groan that vibrated in her throat. Then he was kissing her collarbone, her sternum, the flexing crest of her abdomen that twitched each time his lips lustily touched down. When he reached her navel, she slipped her bottom lip between her teeth as sparks shot through her core. When he glanced up from her pelvis, she scooted a bit further onto the bed, spread her hinds, and nudged her forehoof against his head in a silent command: down, boy. Sunbeam shut his eyes, lowered his head, and turned sparks into arcs of electricity as he pressed his lips to hers and speared his tongue inside her. Her lungs emptied with a huff, then refilled with a gasp, then slowly deflated with a lingering, unbridled groan, and all the while Sunbeam’s lips rasped and tongue wriggled and, stars, were those his hooves wrapping around her thighs? And then tugging her legs further apart, angling her pussy into his mouth so he could purse his lips and drag his tongue up and press it flat and hard against her– Harness didn’t groan this time — she shouted, and squealed, and almost bucked Sunbeam off of her as he smothered her clitoris, switching between the flat and tip of his tongue, fluttering up and down until he felt her shudder and then circling until he felt her hooves clenching at clumps of his mane. She wasn’t a complete novice at this sort of thing, but she’d kind of assumed Sunbeam was. She couldn’t possibly have been more thoroughly, wonderfully wrong. Time stopped and the world fell away, and he played her like an instrument with firm flicks of his tongue and squeezes from his hooves, tiny pinches and pokes and self-indulgent suckles that drew forth atonal notes of ever-rising delight. She’d been riled up before. Now she was shaking with need, clenching thoughtlessly around his head and between his lips, panting and squirming and begging for him to keep going, don’t stop, rightthererightthereohstarsabovefuck— Lightning seared up her spine and squeezed the breath from her lungs, prickled through her limbs and spilled out of her marehood in mind-erasing throbs. Sunbeam kept playing through her climax, her essence smeared on his cheeks and dribbling down his chin, jaw hard and tongue working until it was all she could do to just moan instead of scream. Even his very best efforts could only extend her ecstasy so long, though. As she felt the bed rise up beneath her, rumpled against her spine and damp between her trembling legs, she forced her head up and saw satisfaction radiating out of Sunbeam’s gorgeous green eyes. “Where…” Harness wheezed, swallowing hard and twitching again as Sunbeam gently kissed each of her thighs right at their stickiest points. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Sunbeam chuckled, and the puff of air from his nose tingled against Harness’s lower lips and sent static rolling through her belly. “You don’t wanna know,” he murmured up to her. Harness laughed too — actually, it was more of a goofy, drunken giggle. “Well, now you have to tell me,” she said, stroking her forehoof against the side of Sunbeam’s head. Sunbeam’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, then rolled towards the ceiling in thought. “Remember a few years ago?” he said after a moment. “Those ponies who used to live in the hills north of the Cape?” Harness did remember, and the memory made her brow furrow. “Wait, the commune? The ones that set all those fires at MareSoft?” “Allegedly. And it wasn’t really a commune. More like a really intense polycule.” Harness blinked, and Sunbeam blinked back at her. “You’re right,” she muttered. “I didn’t wanna know.” “Told you so,” Sunbeam muttered back, though he finished the quip with a smile and a kiss that turned into a decadent lick from the bottom to the top of her saturated slit. He didn’t stop there either, and before long Harness had gone from shivering to writhing at every touch of Sunbeam’s tongue against her oversensitive folds. It wasn’t that she wanted him to stop. Honestly, a part of her would’ve been fine to let him stay down there for the rest of the night or until she died of dehydration, whichever — probably the latter, at this rate — came first. But damn it all, her first climax had cleaned most of the sticky, horny cobwebs out of her brain, and the memory of how she’d gotten Sunbeam into her bedroom to begin with had wormed its way back to the front of her mind. “H-Hey,” Harness sighed, failing to get Sunbeam’s attention until she rubbed her forehoof over his ear and gently tugged his snout up a few inches. “Hey, c’mere.” He assented without so much as a disappointed sigh, crawling up her body and pausing only briefly to get his hind legs up onto the bed. His stallionhood came up with him, dark and bobbing and visibly rock-hard beneath his belly, but he kept it hoisted away from her even as he came to a stop above her, head positioned perfectly for a kiss that he didn’t yet give her. He was still hesitant — still trying to let her drive, instead of taking what he wanted. That wouldn’t do at all. She was going to have to force the issue again. “Hey there, stud,” she crooned, craning her neck up to kiss him and tasting herself, tangy and thick, on his lips. In the same motion, she worked a forehoof underneath him and stroked it along the underside of his cock, drawing a satisfied hiss from his nose which he still refused to let blossom into a groan. “Hey yourself,” he softly replied once her head settled back onto the bedspread. “You all right?” “That depends,” Harness told him. She stroked a bit faster — let her hoof linger briefly at his head, so the little bead of precum at the tip could smear across her frog. “What would make you all right?” “I’m doing fi–” She moved her hoof up and pressed it to his mouth. “Uh-uh,” she said once she’d shushed him, shaking her head and smiling. “You’re very chivalrous. A-plus, five-star rating. Now what do you want?” Sunbeam blinked and frowned. Between their torsos, his cock twitched. “I, um… c-can you, uh…” “Nope. Don’t ask. Tell me what you want.” His dick jumped again. He flicked his tongue over his lips, took a bracing breath, and finally ripped the filter all the way off. “I want you to suck my cock,” he told her, in a husky tone that sent a delicious thrill down Harness’s spine. “Good boy,” she whispered, kissing him once more. “Then I want to suck your cock too.” Harness lifted both forehooves and braced them against Sunbeam’s shoulders. Relishing in each little hitch she heard in his suddenly haggard breathing, she guided him down onto the bed next to her and then over onto his back, until she was straddling his hind legs with his rigid length poking into her belly. She grinned down at him and stroked him with her frog again, and finally got a proper noise out of him: a pleasured grunt, paired with a pointed glance down at his cock and then up at her unoccupied mouth. Still stroking, Harness backed herself down along Sunbeam’s body until his lips were level with the head of his dick. She started with a kiss, just a little peck around his tip and a tink flick of her tongue over its highest point, then wet her lips and slipped his head between them, spiraling her tongue around its bulbous ridge, letting her breath leave her nose as a series of satisfied hums. She heard him groan again, felt his cock pulse against her palate, and then felt something on the back of her head: his hoof, firm and steady, holding her in place. Hums turned into happy groans as she started moving her head, inching farther and farther down his shaft with every stroke until his head bulged against her throat and tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. Harness didn’t keep close track of the biggest dicks she’d ever seen, but Sunbeam’s wasn’t anywhere near the smallest, and every sensation it provided her — the softness of his skin, the salt of his sweat, the vibrating melody of moans from somewhere above her head — made her want to service and serve it in any way she could. Because it was his dick, sweet and sexy and confident Sunbeam, and he deserved it, and she wanted to be his right now the way he had just been hers. When her head next lifted, she lingered at the motion’s apex for a moment, suckling and slurping on his tip, gazing luridly up his body towards his slackened jaw and screwed-shut eyes. She waited until his eyes opened, until she could see the primal hunger growing inside them, and then she sank back down his shaft all the way to the base, her eyes never leaving his as she swallowed his head and massaged it inside her airtight throat. Her chin settled between his balls and her nose filled with his intoxicating scent, and suddenly his hoof gripped her head — held her there, gulping and gurgling, until she had to shut her eyes before they popped out of their sockets. After who knew how long, the pressure loosened, and Harness surfaced with a gasp and a single suppressed cough, drool dripping from her bottom lip and dangling from the shining tip of his rapidly flexing shaft. She steadied Sunbeam’s cock with her hoof again and shot him a bleary-eyed grin. “Wanna know where I learned to do that?” she croaked. Eyes lidded with lust, Sunbeam pressed his hoof to her head again, guiding her back down. “I just want you to keep doing it,” came his rumbling reply. Harness obliged him with a lecherous purr and a wink, repositioning herself a bit so his cock had the path of least resistance through her lips and across her fluttering tongue. Once his head reached her throat again, he switched from pressing with his hoof to thrusting with his hips, gently at first and then with ever-increasing vigor until she was barely moving at all, just glk-ing and gagging and trying to keep a steady angle for him to hold her head with both hooves and fuck her face without restraint. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she snuck a hoof underneath her so she could circle it shakily between her legs. She might’ve cum again at the same time he did, if he hadn’t stopped suddenly — his cockhead pulsating on her tongue, seconds from coating her throat with his seed — and pulled her off of him again. Now it was her turn to take ragged gasps for breath and watch her partner savor the sound. “You… you were close…” she managed to wheeze. He nodded in agreement. “Mm-hmm.” “You don’t want to finish?” He shook his head. “I’m not done with you yet.” A full-body shudder rippled through Harness like an earthquake, and by the time her brain started working again, she was flat on her belly with her forehooves spread-eagled and Sunbeam looming above and behind her, one hoof between her shoulders and the other directing his cock to prod against her entrance. She shivered again, flared her hips, and lost what little breath she had left the moment she felt him slip — drive — ram his full length into her in a single barbaric stroke. Never mind. She’d been wrong before. Sunbeam was the biggest she’d ever had, or at least he felt like it right now. Maybe it was the position, the angle, the power he put into every thrust and the years of yearning charged into each one. She didn’t know, or care, or need to think about it. She just needed this — him — more. “Suuuun…” she moaned into the bedspread. “Oooooohfuuuuck…” Sunbeam’s breath came in wild huffs, and his hips slammed against hers with loud, syrupy slaps, spreading her arousal across their thighs, more droplets splattering out of her with each rapid outward stroke and every powerful plunge back in. His hoof pressed harder on her spine, squeezing the breath from her lungs again, and she arched her back and gripped the mattress and went along for the ride as wave after wave of euphoria washed over her. “Fu… fuck… Har… Harne…” He got enough of her name out to get a mindless yelp in response, then moved his hoof from her back to her waist, not pushing anymore but pulling — lifting. Harness was turned onto her side, her leg stretched up onto Sunbeam’s chest at an angle that turned the waves in her belly into a swell like high tide, then roughly moved again. She was on her back now. Sunbeam loomed over her — stretched both her hinds over his shoulders — bent her double and pinned her forehooves and fucked her like he’d saved the world only so she’d belong to him within it. She squeaked as he stretched her deepest parts, shuddered as he increased his pace, felt the wave cresting and cascading and crashing all over her body. She was incoherent, delirious, cumming again, gooseflesh rising and nerves singing and core contracting around his perfect, pistoning prick. “Sun, I’m–” she started to moan — and then he growled, and hilted himself, and clamped his hoof over her mouth. Her heart skipped. Her eyes rolled back. She very nearly came all over again. His hips moved as fast as he could move them, and her body molded to him without the slightest resistance, soft and soaked and squeezing every inch of him in her grasp. He clenched his teeth as his breath hitched. His legs shook as his muscles and tendons bulged. “Close,” he grunted. “I’m…” Harness spread her forehooves to brace herself, lifted her hips and hooked her hinds around the small of Sunbeam’s back. Words were beyond her, but the message came through. Inside. Don’t stop. I’m yours. He hunched overtop of her, pressed her chin to her sweat-dappled forehead, and hilted himself in her again. Then she heard him moan, and she felt his shaft pulse and his head swell and heat spread through her center as he exploded inside her, jet after silky jet, until she was full and he kept going and his cum leaked out of her, smearing in little white streaks around her reddened lips. He made a little noise each time his cock throbbed, a soft affectionate groan, and she whimpered and shook every time she heard it. Then, all at once, it was over. Her heartbeat slowed. His breathing steadied. They both blinked and looked at each other — and Sunbeam realized with a start that his hoof was still clamped over Harness’s mouth. “S-Sorry,” he said as he released her, sounding a little frantic and a little more mortified. “That… I-I wasn’t really…” Telling him to shut up was beyond her, but Harness got the message across. She slid her forehooves over his cheeks and kissed him, humming with contentment, tingling with warmth inside and out. They were both a mess. She could feel her bangs plastered to her forehead, and see the damp rainbow streak in Sunbeam’s mane stuck to his own temple. She also saw — a second before he did — the ethereal glow suffusing the room, and the sources of that light sticking out of Sunbeam’s head and spine. “Oh, for…” he muttered, twisting in place — and slipping out of her in the process, sending one last delightful spark flitting through Harness’s belly — to level a disgruntled stare at his magical appendages. “Now? Really?” “Does this usually not happen?” Harness teased, stroking the back of Sunbeam’s neck so he’d point his pretty eyes back down at her. Thankfully, he was much more pliable post-coitus. She figured most stallions were. “Ugh,” he half-growled as he met her gaze. “I’m sor–” She kissed him again, and waited until he kissed her back before mumbling, “Stop apologizing,” into his mouth. When she let herself settle back onto the bed and felt Sunbeam’s weight settle pleasantly — and a bit stickily — on top of her, she added, “You look good like this. Also, I’m taking it as a compliment.” A goofy grin split Sunbeam’s face. “You should,” he sighed. “That was… you were…” She didn’t really mean to interrupt him this time. She just really wanted to kiss him again. On top of everything else, Sunbeam was a really good kisser. “You were too,” she whispered once she’d sated herself. “You should be like this more often.” Sunbeam smiled again. “Maybe I will be,” he murmured, before glancing up at his still-glimmering horn. “Ideally without this, though. Kind of a mood-killer. They’ll go away in a bit.” Harness wiggled her brow. “You act like I’m gonna invite you to stay the night.” “Well, I am gonna stay the night,” Sunbeam said thoughtlessly — and then his old way of thinking flared up again. “If, uh… y’know, if that’s okay,” he added, even though Harness was smirking and stroking his neck and, stars, really extremely wanted to make out with him some more. “Sorry. I’ll get better at that.” “Well, you know what they say,” Harness replied, keeping her lips off his just long enough to finish her thought. “Practice makes perfect.” And it did. Sort of. The night was perfect. The bedspread was unsalvageable. It was an ugly color anyway. Rules For This Sort of ThingEven without an alarm clock set, Harness snapped awake at the crack of dawn like somepony had pinched her. She couldn’t really help it — even a few short years of Sheriff work had made her a naturally early riser, and usually she didn’t mind getting out and about in the crisp early-morning air before anypony else in the Cape was even thinking about breakfast. But this morning was different. This morning, she felt lazy and comfy, and delightfully warm under her sheets and spare blanket, and a little bit sore in spots she usually wasn’t. And most of those things were the fault of the stallion next to her, whose chest was pressed to her side and whose forehoof was tight across her belly, and whose warm, comfy breath puffed against her cheek as his eyes twitched behind their lids. Gainful employment could wait. She worked hard. She deserved to be snuggled, dammit. And in addition to lots of other things ponies did in beds together, Sunbeam was a very good snuggler. Harness let her breath leave her lungs in a soft sigh, and settled back into her pillow, and scooched down just a bit so she could tuck her head under Sunbeam’s chin. But go figure, even that little motion was enough to make Sunbeam’s jaw shift and send a little grunt vibrating through his throat. She hadn’t meant to wake him up too — but then again, doing that had led to him squeezing her tighter, pressing his lips gently to her temple, and sending tingles racing down her spine to pool deliciously in her belly, so maybe she should’ve woken him up sooner. “Mrr-ing,” she heard him mumble into her mane. Harness made a sound of acknowledgement, but didn’t actually say anything back. She figured rolling onto her side and pushing her head a bit more firmly into Sunbeam’s neck would get her message across — and it sort of did, at least for a little bit. But after a few minutes of rubbing his forehooves up and down her back and occasionally smooching her forehead, Sunbeam shifted a bit so he could lift his head away from hers. “Don’t you have to do Sheriff stuff?” he asked, rubbing her shoulder as he spoke. “Don’t you have to do smoothie stuff?” was Harness’s mush-mouthed reply. “I mean, technically. But I kinda set my own hours.” “Well, I’m doing that too, then. The town can just… figure it out for a little bit.” Sunbeam chuckled. “That gonna be your re-election slogan?” “Maybe. Maybe I’ll just get endorsements. You’ll endorse me, right?” “I’ll think about it,” Sunbeam hummed as he leaned down for a kiss. Harness angled her head, raised her hoof to his cheek, did everything she could to make the kiss she gave him sweet and seductive and altogether distracting — and it almost worked. Sunbeam looked happy when he pulled away from her, but he looked pensive too, like he was trying to figure out how happy he should actually be. Harness had a feeling she knew why, and she braced herself as best she could for questions she wasn’t at all ready to answer. “You know something?” he said, still tender as ever. “I was wrong about you last night.” “What d’you mean?” “When I said you weren’t acting like yourself. I was wrong. I feel like I’ve finally seen the real you, like you saw the real me.” He paused so she could see him smile. “And I really like the real you.” “I like the real you too,” Harness replied, and she was glad to see that Sunbeam knew she meant that. But he also seemed to know what she wasn’t saying, and for some reason that made him smile again, with both his lips and his eyes. “So for the record,” he said, switching from stroking her shoulder to playfully squeezing, “I’m okay with it.” “Okay with what?” Harness couldn’t help but ask. “With your plan,” he answered — and then he winked. “For one-upping Hitch.” Okay. Well. Harness hadn’t braced herself for that. “Wha… h-hold on, what are you…” she tried to say. But those were all the words she got out before Sunbeam swooped down and captured her lips with his own, and her face went from flushing warm to burning hot. “Come on,” he said once he released her. “Your stallion self tells you he’s notched all his friends into his bedpost, and you want to believe me you — goal-oriented, hyper-competitive, I-can-do-anything-a-stallion-can you — are fine letting that slide?” “W-Well, ye… I mean…” was the only argument Harness could provide against sweet, smiling Sunbeam reading her like a fucking pulp novel. Damn her to the moon, did she suck at lying. “Fuck you,” was her closing remark, muttered into her hooves as she covered her face with them. “Think that post has already been notched,” Sunbeam teased back, though he blunted the blow a little by pulling her into a hug. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to be more confident,” he added after a moment. “This is entirely your fault.” Harness just groaned at first, but eventually found some actual words to defend herself with. “Look, I… okay, yes, that was the plan,” she said as she pulled away from him. “But last night didn’t go at all like I thought it would, and now I just…” “Did you enjoy last night?” Harness met Sunbeam’s eyes, felt heat rush through her face again, and nodded. “Mm-hmm.” “Wanna do it again sometime?” “I… yeah.” “Then that works for me,” Sunbeam said with a shrug, as if it were that simple. Maybe it was. Was it? “You’re really okay with…?” Sunbeam took a moment to collect his thoughts before answering. What a good idea that would’ve been for Harness a couple minutes ago. Or for Harness at any point in the last twenty-four hours. “You were right about me last night,” he said. “I haven’t been honest with myself. About what I wanted from life, other ponies. Maybe ‘deserve’ is still a little strong, but in any case, there’s a whole side of myself that I don’t know much about yet, that you made me admit I was ignoring. And I wanna learn more about that side of me. With mares… I don’t know, maybe stallions. With ponies in general.” He met Harness’s eyes and stroked her cheek. “And if you wanted me to, I’d stay just with you and wouldn’t think twice about it, because I still care about you and want you to be happy, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But I do think there’s a side of yourself you want to know more about too. And I think you deserve to do that, with or without me.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Preferably with, obviously, but the point is, I’m fine leaving things open if you are.” Harness couldn’t think of a thing to say to that, so for once, she decided not to say anything. Instead, she just grabbed Sunbeam’s face and pulled him on top of her and kissed him with a hunger that, for the first time in her whole life, she didn’t filter one bit. He braced his forehooves against her shoulders, held her in place so he could kiss her back, filled her belly with bubbles and her whole lower half with growing, ravenous heat — and then he pulled away, smirking down at her as she smiled up at him. “I don’t deserve you,” she murmured. “Yeah you do,” Sunbeam shot back. “I’m awesome. I’m a hero.” “Oh stars,” Harness laughed. “I’ve created a monster.” Sunbeam’s grin grew into a leer. He shifted his hips, and Harness shivered as she felt his length, hard and hot, slide over her pelvis and between her slickening folds. “You can say that again,” he growled into his ear, humping slowly back and forth until he heard her quickening breaths rise into a needful groan. Then he shifted back, wiggled until his head found her entrance, and pressed forward, down, all the way inside her, holding her so she couldn’t squirm, nipping at her ear so she’d ask him wordlessly to fuck her hard. “Gotta admit I’m curious, though,” he groaned as he went from sliding to thrusting, lifting his chest up so he could drive his hips down, grinning wider at each squeeze from Harness’s core and every elated squeak that came with them. “I was first. Good choice. But who’s next?” Harness blinked until Sunbeam’s face snapped into focus, and what remained of her conscious mind suddenly crystallized into a captivating vision. The bed beneath her grew warmer, fuzzier — became the barrel chest of a tall and strong unicorn. With Sunbeam above her, she imagined Ike beneath her, fondling her chest and belly, his shaft throbbing against the base of her tail, his breath hot against her neck as he leaned past her and Sunbeam leaned down and the stallions touched together at their foreheads, noses, lips… She shuddered, and squeezed, and Sunbeam’s satisfied grunt layered over her unconstrained yelp. “I’ll tell you later,” she moaned, and with a moment’s thought and a shrug, Sunbeam accepted that answer. Author's Note Next time on LOST (In the Eyes of Your Really Hot Stallion Friends): [Adult story embed hidden]
Prologue (Which I Think Formally Makes This "Erotica" as Opposed to "Really Pretentious Porn")Harness Pathfinder, duly elected sheriff of the town of Cape Colt, had always thought of herself as somepony who could handle anything thrown at her. Usually, though, “anything” was a minor violation of a municipal code, often litter-related, rarely fundamental-view-of-reality-altering. It generally wasn’t sitting at a cafe table, pointedly not watching the late-summer sun melt into the horizon beyond the harbor, and instead staring across that table at a funhouse mirror image of yourself from another universe. So for the past hour or so, ever since Funhouse Harness had stumbled through a glowing portal at the edge of town surrounded by Funhouse Everypony-Harness-Closely-Knew-and-Loved, the concept of “handling anything” had been less like a thought and more like a mantra: I can handle this. I’ve been handling this. I will continue to handle this for however long it lasts, and so will… other me. Him. The two of us together. Or one of us split apart? Or– “This is so weird,” murmured Hitch Trailblazer, duly elected sheriff of the town of Maretime Bay, with a shake of his head that set his short, boyish mane bobbing above his temples. “It’s like looking in a funhouse mirror.” “Yep,” Harness agreed, unconsciously brushing her own mane — longer, fuller, tied into a tail behind her head to keep it from covering her ears — away from her eyes. “Exactly like that.” They sat in silence for a bit, then decided at the same time to start handling things again. Harness had home-field — or home-reality, or whatever — advantage, so she spoke first. “So, uh… how are you all here?” Harness asked herself. Or himself. Or the disarmingly attractive stallion sitting across from her whose name was Hitch. Whatever. “Y’know, in a purely scientific, literal sense.” “Not a hundred percent sure,” Hitch answered. “Sunny thinks the Together Trees are… wait, do you have those here?” Sunny. He meant Sunbeam — or Hitch’s version of him, anyway. Harness had already handled that too: meeting all her stallion friends as mares, them meeting her, all the others trundling off to the Brighthouse together to talk through probably all the same things she and her counterpart were. Continuing to handle it without a week’s worth of wide-eyed, sleepless nights would be something she’d just have to figure out later. “We have Forevergreens,” Harness offered. “Thick trunks, wide leaves, grown by the magic of friendship?” Hitch nodded. “Sounds about right. Anyway, Sunny’s theory is that they’re not really trees so much as… bridges. And just like their roots are all linked with each other in our universe, she thinks all the Together Trees, Forevergreens, all of them are linked together across universes in the same way.” “Hang on, universes? Like, plural?” “Well, we know of at least one other besides ours and yours,” Hitch said, muzzle bending into a cheeky grin. “And there’s some old legends of one where we all descended from monkeys.” “Monkeys,” Harness incredulously repeated. “So what, instead of hooves, we have…” She lifted a forehoof, imagined tendrils of muscle and bone sprouting out from it, and shuddered. “Ugh. No thanks. Glad you’re normal-shaped, at least.” “The feeling’s mutual,” Hitch chuckled. “So yeah, Sunny and Zipp wanted to see where else our Trees might link to, plus Misty thought there might be a chance that Opaline…” “Assuming that’s Nacreous. Geez, you guys got a way better name.” “... or Nacreous might still be alive and plotting in some alternate dimension, so they experimented. And, well, here we are.” “Experimented, huh?” Harness mimicked again. “I take it you voted against said experiment.” “And was outvoted, yes,” Hitch muttered — and not for the first time that day, Harness just about could’ve mouthed his response along with him. It was like she just knew what he was thinking because… well, it was her thinking it, kind of. Another version of her, different in some ways, but so similar in others. And speaking of which… “Okay, now I’m curious,” Harness said, leaning forward in her chair. “Aside from the obvious, how similar are our universes?” “Pretty curious about that too, actually,” Hitch said, because of course he was. “Okay, first things first: how did you all meet? I mean, you and your friends.” “Well, I’ve known Sunbeam since we were kids,” Harness answered, Hitch nodding along with each detail from her life that he recalled from his. “Then a few months ago, Ike wandered into town talking about unicorn magic, Sunbeam ran off with him to Eurus Peak where they met Pepp and Zepp, and then I caught up with them all in time to help them restore everypony’s magic everywhere. Wasn’t easy, either. There was this ancient monster, and a big fight, and…” “Wait, you fought a monster?” Harness blinked. “Yeah, huge one. Wait, did you guys not?” “No! I mean, sort of. My deputy, Sprout, I left him in charge of Maretime Bay while I went after the girls, and he kind of, uh… built a war machine, went full fascist. It was a mess.” “Deputy Spr…” Harness trailed off, then scoffed and shook her head. “Okay, no. No way.” “Your Sprout didn’t do that?” came Hitch’s puzzled reply. “Well, my Sprout’s name is Sapling, and no, Sapling would never do something like that! She’s so, I don’t know… demure, and traditional, and scared of everything and ooooohkay. Yeah. Now I see it.” “Yep,” Hitch chuckled. “Probably should keep an eye on her.” “Definitely gonna keep an eye on her.” Unsurprisingly, the conversation petered out after that. Hitch turned his gaze pensively towards the sunset, and Harness tried to gaze with him. After a few moments, though, she found herself gazing more at him, curiosity growing into something closer to compulsion. They were eerily similar in so many ways, but that just made the differences stick out even more — both the obvious big one, and the smaller ones that stemmed out from it. Both of them were Sheriffs, both had helped to save the world from disharmony, they even both had basically the same friends. But while she was the only mare keeping a rowdy group of stallions in line, he was the only stallion doing… what, exactly, with five adorable young mares who all seemed to trust him implicitly? It’d be rude to ask. And she knew the answer anyway. Not a single thing about Hitch said, “I’m the type of guy who plows every field my tool can reach.” But she’d seen the mares who’d come through the portal with him. She was looking at him right now. There was no way at least one of them hadn’t at some point… Screw it. She was gonna ask. She’d never stop wondering about it otherwise. “So,” Harness said, leaning towards Hitch as he glanced her way. “We have the same friends.” “Seems that way,” Hitch replied. “But you have girl friends.” “Well… yeah,” Hitch said, after an extra-long blink and a twist of his lips. “I guess.” “You guess, or you do?” “I-I do!” he stammered. “I mean… where are you going with this?” Oh, he had. He one-hundred-percent had. “Just curious,” Harness went on, dragging the word out until she saw Hitch squirm in his seat. “Any of ‘em, ah… more than friends?” “Wha… w-what kind of question is that?” Hitch sputtered. “Do you think I’m friends with the girls just because I want to sleep with them? I mean, that’d be… I-I’m not that kind of stallion! You’re not that kind of mare, even, or… or are you? Not that that’d be… I-I don’t mean to imply that, uh…” “Wow,” Harness murmured, smiling. “All those words, and none of them were a ‘no.’” Hitch clammed up and turned towards the sun again. After a moment, Harness leaned back and relented. “Ah, c’mon, I’m just teasing. And, admittedly, actually curious. Because for the record, I haven’t with any of my guys over here. But, Sheriff to Sheriff? Totally thought about it. And I’m thinking you’ve at least thought about it too. So, Sheriff to Sheriff again, who’s the one?” Still facing the horizon, Hitch chewed on his bottom lip. Then, with a sigh, he muttered, “There isn’t one.” “You mean to tell me none of those mares get you hot under the–” “No, that’s not…” He trailed off for a moment, and Harness realized suddenly that it wasn’t the sun glaring on his face — he was blushing, pink as a peony. “I mean there isn’t… one.” “Oh, Hitch,” Harness gushed, grinning like a hyena. “Don’t tell me you’ve done the dirty with two of ‘em?” Hitch shook his head. “More than two?” At first, Hitch mumbled so softly Harness couldn’t even hear him. Then, seeing her enraptured stare, he took a big breath and repeated himself: “All of them.” For a few seconds, Harness just kept staring at him, and Hitch kept flushing darker and darker shades of scarlet. Then, all at once, the words burst out of her through lips curled into a delirious grin. “No fucking way,” she managed to say, just before she dissolved into laughter that got Hitch’s face all the way to maroon. “Not all at the same time!” he loudly insisted, which just got Harness going even more. “It just… happened, all right? In different places and different contexts, and… they all know too, for the record. It’s not like I’m running around on anypony.” “Oh my stars,” Harness gasped. “You have a harem. In another universe, I literally have a harem.” “It’s not a harem!” “You’ve slept with five different mares who are all friends with each other and willing to share you. That is definitionally a harem, buddy!” “It…” Hitch started to say, but after his jaw hung open for a few seconds without any words passing through it, he gave up on any hope of arguing the point. “Whatever.” “Hey, look, I’m not judging you. If anything, I’m proud of you.” “Sure doesn’t feel like it,” Hitch griped. “C’mon, dude, you’re living the stallion’s dream!” “Well, I just… I don’t like the implication, okay? That I manipulated them, or I turned them into something they’re not. They’re really good ponies, and I care about all of them, and I’d be friends with them with or without… that.” Harness couldn’t help cocking an eyebrow. “I would,” Hitch insisted, with enough of a bite behind his words to convince Harness he really, truly meant them. “You don’t hang around your friends just because you want to have sex with them, do you?” Harness shrugged and sat back. “Fair enough. No, I don’t. They’re goofballs, but… yeah.” “Exactly. You’re… we’re the same that way. Just because I’m a stallion and you’re a mare doesn’t change who we are deep down.” He let the silence hang over them for a second, then sighed and seemed to settle himself down. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to snap at you like that. Just…” “No, you’re right,” Harness said, meeting his eyes — the exact same shade of hazel as hers — and keeping his gaze locked in her own. “I was out of line. I’m sorry too.” “Don’t worry about it,” Hitch said, voice softening even more. Another second passed, then two, then a few more. Their shadows stretched farther back along the plaza behind them, inched closer together, almost joined at their apexes — and then both ponies blinked at the same time. “Nope,” Harness said, leaning back hard in her chair. “Yep,” Hitch agreed, doing pretty much the same thing in his own seat. “Feels, uh…” “Incest-y?” “Kinda.” “Yeah.” One more second passed. “We were both thinking about it, though.” “No we weren’t.” “We one-hundred-percent were.” “No we…” Hitch shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Ugh. I’m insufferable here.” “And I’m a prude there. See, we are different! A little bit.” Other than sighing again, Hitch didn’t deem that worthy of a reply, which seemed like a good enough reason to wrap things up here. “Reckon the others are done talking?” Harness said as she got to her hooves. “And/or mid-multiversal-orgy?” “Stars above, we really are different,” Hitch muttered as he stood too. “Are you like this all the time?” “All my close friends are stallions and I run a town that’s sixty percent dude-by-volume. What else could I possibly be like?” “Fair enough. Wanna head over to the Brighthouse?” “You go ahead. I’ll catch up. Gonna get a quick patrol in before we lose the light completely.” Hitch straightened up and extended a forehoof. “Well, in that case… good to meet you, other me.” Harness tapped her own hoof to his and shook. “Likewise, other me.” With that, Hitch departed, and Harness watched him go with a feeling of satisfaction that, bit by bit, dissolved strangely into the exact opposite emotion. She wanted to chalk it up to regular old disappointment at seeing the tail end of a new friend, like when Sunbeam’s mom used to tell her it was time for little colts and fillies to stop playing and go to bed. But the longer she stood alone in the plaza and the closer the sun got to vanishing completely beneath the sea, the more sure she was that it wasn’t that at all. All of them… In another universe, she wasn’t just friends with all the same ponies, she’d gotten freaky with them too. And what’s more, every one of those friends was apparently fine with the arrangement — neither pushy nor possessive, no rivalries ready to bloom into bitter feuds, nopony even so much as tossing a “What are we?” into the mix like a live emotional hoof grenade. If Hitch were anypony else other than literally her stallion self, she might’ve thought he was exaggerating, or just straight-up lying in a weird attempt to impress her. But she wasn’t the lying type, and neither was he. He really had, with all of them. And that made her feel something that wasn’t disappointment or anger, but kind of more like… “Oh, for stars’ sake,” Harness murmured. “You’re fucking jealous.” Yep. She was. She’d been Cape Colt’s most eligible bachelorette for who knew how long, wondering all the time what her friends might be like in the sack, never doing anything with any of them because she couldn’t bear the thought of upsetting the others — and in another universe, her stallion self had just gone ahead and done it, and it had apparently worked out great. And then he wanted to act all high and mighty about it like his real actual life wasn’t ripped straight out of a Playmare magazine, like it had just happened because he was just so damn nice and hot and gentlecoltly. “Well, fuck that,” Harness muttered. “And fuck him. And you know what…” They were the same pony, right? Barring a few biological traits and social habits, they were exactly the same. So if it could work for him, why couldn’t it work for her? In fact, why shouldn’t she make it work for her, and then act even higher and mightier about it right to his — her own — whoever’s fucking face whenever it next portaled back into her life like a live psychosexual atom bomb? “Oh, this is a bad idea,” she said with her full voice, in the same tone she couldn’t help using when a perp answered a question in a way that made their lawyer blanch. Bit by bit, the aggrieved frown on her face bent upwards into a devilish grin. “This is the worst idea ever.” Yep. It was. But one other thing Harness and Hitch had in common was this: once they got an idea in their heads, they were one-hundred-and-twenty-percent going to make it a reality. And as Harness got to trotting with a spring in her non-stallion-y step, she had a pretty good idea already of where she wanted to start.
Six Ways to Sunday“And then they met Barb,” Sunbeam gushed, practically vibrating in his seat on Harness’s couch. “Well, Spike to them, obviously, but they actually met, and talked to her… him, and went to the Dragon Lands and…” Harness didn’t interrupt Sunbeam, partially because he rambled like this a lot, and mostly because he was getting better at realizing he was rambling and quitting on his own. Sure enough, Sunbeam bit his bottom lip mid-sentence, then flashed her an apologetic grin. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m so… I mean, this is all just…” “It’s exciting,” Harness told him, daintily pulling one hind leg and then the other up under her haunches so she could lean more luxuriously against the armrest of her easy chair. “And don’t apologize. You’re cute when you’re excited.” Sunbeam laughed, then blinked, then let out a sound that was mostly another laugh but sort of resembled a cough at the end. Harness fluffed her mane — untied and bouncy, flowing like silk over her shoulders and neck — a bit with her hoof and chewed on the inside of her lip so she wouldn’t grin. She’d put her plan into action the moment Sunbeam had trotted — or really, bounced — through her door half an hour ago: an indulgent stretch here, an overlong blink there, and her very best “I want you in the unfriendliest way imaginable” eyes every time she glanced or, more often, unabashedly stared his way. Finally, after nearly half an hour, it was starting to bear some big, juicy fruit she was more than ready to sink her proverbial — or hopefully, literal — teeth into. Or she would have been ready, if Sunbeam had come over to her place for a post-multiversal-summit debrief alone. Which, of course, he characteristically hadn’t. “Yeah, it was dope, dude,” Ike added, idly scratching at the nest of blue hair he had tucked up under his paint-spotted ballcap. “We gotta figure out how to get ‘em back here. Get, like, a cross-dimensional art collective going…” “Or alternatively, we could not keep messing with the fabric of the universe,” Zepp sourly replied, sounding as ruffled as his usually-coiffed mane looked. “Just a thought. Throwing it out into the brainstorming session.” “Would you please relax already, bro?” Pepp grunted, glancing up from his phone only long enough to roll his eyes. “The portal’s closed, we’re all alive here, and we’re all total babes in another universe. Things could not possibly be more chill.” “I don’t…” Hazy started to say, cerulean cheeks turning pink beneath his glasses and mulberry braids. “I-I mean, that seems a little…” “Dude,” Pepp said, finally dropping his phone so he could stare across the room at Hazy. “Our chick selves are fully hot. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong.” “Don’t encourage him, Hazy,” Zepp grunted before Hazy could mumble a response. “And stop being weird, Pepper.” “Who’s bein’ weird? You’re bein’ weird. I’m just bein’ honest.” “You know you’re basically talking about our long-lost siblings here, right? Biologically and socially speaking?” “Whatever. You’re just pissed your mare self has better muscle tone than you do.” “Whereas you can’t handle your mare self thinking about things other than muscle tone.” “Okay, down, boys,” Harness finally interjected, cutting both siblings off mid-retort. “Either take it down a notch or take it outside.” After a moment’s thought, she realized the golden opportunity that the room’s full attention had presented to her. “Actually, take it outside anyway, and then go home. You’re gonna wake Sparkle up.” Zepp’s eyes narrowed a bit, sweeping over Sunbeam on their way towards Harness, and Pepp lolled his head over with a shit-eating grin pasted onto it. “Awww,” the latter teased. “Way to be a buzzkill, Mo–” “Call me Mom, and they’ll write a whole new section of the penal code about what I do to you,” Harness shot back. “Seriously, though, it’s late, and it’s been a long and weird day. So vámanos, amigos.” For a heartstopping moment, Harness thought they might keep arguing anyway. Fun — and, okay, very pleasantly muscle-toned — as Pepp could be, he was also incredibly bad at following directions, and intellect notwithstanding, Zepp was equally bad at letting a conversation die a natural death. But thank Twilight, Ike had already stood up and pulled Hazy to his hooves as well. Ike was a very good listener. Possibly because there wasn’t anything else in his head most of the time to distract him from listening. And so, the crowd in Harness’ living room dispersed with a minimum of grumbling and even a couple genuine well-wishes. Characteristically again, Sunbeam was the last to leave, and Harness let him chatter with Ike about some art project the latter had planned all the way down the hall towards the front door. “Hey, Sun?” she called after him at the last possible moment, just as Sunbeam’s forehoof passed over the threshold to the darkened outside world. “Hang back a sec, would ya?” Sunbeam and Ike shared a perfectly gormless glance, then the latter departed with a shrug and a hooftap. The front door swung shut, and Sunbeam and Harness were finally alone together. “What’s up?” Sunbeam asked, and then — bless his heart — asked, “Everything all right?” “Of course,” Harness crooned, shoulders forward and eyelids low. “Don’t I look all right?” “Y-Yeah, of course. It’s just… earlier it kind of seemed like you, uh…” She gave him the “none of the things I’m thinking about are in the Friendship Journal” eyes again. “... w-wanted to talk about something. So… is this that?” “More or less,” Harness replied. “Just felt a bit crowded for it earlier. This is much better.” Truth be told, it was hardly an act at all by this point. Once upon a time, she’d known the two of them would get married someday, the way grown-up best friends always did. But then Sunbeam’s mom had passed and Harness’s career had taken off, and the universe had conspired in a million other ways to always keep the two of them a gossamer-thin distance apart. Maybe it was just a lack of chemistry, maybe some mental block one or both of them hadn’t yet pushed past, maybe some third thing that she hoped to the stars wasn’t Sunbeam batting for the other proverbial team. One way or another, though, she was gonna find out what it was tonight. And dammit, she was gonna have fun doing it. “C’mon,” she said as she turned in place, glancing past her swishing tail to see Sunbeam pointedly staring only at her face. “Let’s chat.” She led him back down the hallway as if it were a catwalk, swinging her hips and jiggling everything a fit young mare had to jiggle, and Sunbeam followed a polite distance behind her, taking extremely polite interest in her wall decorations along the way. Instead of veering left back into the sitting room, she went straight into the kitchen and looped around the dining table towards a cabinet behind it, from which she extracted two tumblers and a half-full bottle of vodka. “Sit down,” she said, nodding first towards an empty chair and then towards one of the glasses she’d just set down on the table. “One fetlock or two?” “Oh, uh… I-I’m fine. Thank you, though.” Sunbeam folded his sturdy frame stiffly into his seat, and Harness shrugged as she made a drink for herself. “You’re missing out,” she informed him as she slid onto the chair to his right, scooting in so that her hock almost grazed against his. “Got this flown in from Eurus Peak. Made from cloud potatoes, if you can believe it.” “I can, actually. Pepp is… a fan of that brand, to put it politely.” Harness lifted her glass and held it so her voice — low and syrupy-sweet — echoed inside it. “And you’re not?” “I just, uh… didn’t want to impose?” Harness cocked an eyebrow. She’d sort of meant to ramp things all the way up to a “bend me over this table and treat me like I charge by the hour” look, but it came out more like “just accept the drink already, you insufferably sweet doofus.” She couldn’t help it. She was only mortal. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry,” Sunbeam finally said, bashfully scratching at the back of his neck. “One fetlock. Thanks.” Harness poured, slid the spare glass his way, and watched as he sipped slowly and carefully. He shuddered a bit even from the thimble’s worth of liquor that passed his lips, and for a moment Harness wanted to kiss him in all the wrong ways: slowly and sweetly, on his soft lips and his sedate brow and the little lock of rainbow-striped mane he got from being soulful and sincere and good though every inch of his heart. She took her own sip — more of a gulp, really — and refocused. She wasn’t here for that. She was a mare, and he was a stallion, and the former in this world could do anything the latter could do in another. The time for chasteness had come and long gone. “So what did you want to talk about?” Sunbeam asked, looking her in the eyes and sincerely waiting for her response. Stars above, he was making this so much harder than it needed to be. In the wrong sense of the word. “Uh…” Harness began, because she really hadn’t planned on talking much at this point. “Y’know, just… today was weird, wasn’t it?” “Yeah,” Sunbeam agreed. “You doing okay?” “What d’you mean?” “I mean, just…” With an upturned hoof, he gestured vaguely in her direction. “You’ve seemed off all night. Y’know, the sly comments, and the, uh… not that it’s bad or anything, it’s just really unlike you. Makes me think something might have happened earlier, with you and other-you. So if you wanna talk about it…” For another moment, Harness wanted to crawl under the table, dig through the floor, and bury herself alive. Was she about to get cockblocked by actual, for-real friendship? Was she really that bad at flirting? “Wha… n-nothing happened!” she lied — badly. Stars, why couldn’t she be a bad cop instead of a bad temptress, so she could at least be good at lying? “We had a good talk. He’s… I’m doing great over there.” Oh, fuck him, now Sunbeam was lowering his gaze and reaching out to kindly nudge his hoof against hers. “Great in the same way, or a different way?” “In a…” She lifted her hoof away from his, and it ended up landing on her temple as she shut her eyes and grimaced. “This isn’t going how I thought it would, for the record,” she informed him. “How you thought what would…” Harness looked up, and just caught the tail end of Sunbeam’s eyes going wide. Welcome to the party, pal, she thought. Population: you, me, and a ferry terminal worth of baggage I apparently have to unpack. “Oh,” he said. “Um… I-I, uh…” Harness took a breath, and was about to let it out in the form of an apology and an offer to walk Sunbeam home — but then she saw it. Right before Sunbeam set his jaw and softened his gaze and prepared to be the best just-a-friend in the whole wide world, the mask slipped. Just for a moment, just long enough for his eyes to dart down and his hoof to twitch, and for his pupils to grow with something animalistic and raw and years in the making. He wanted her. But he would never admit it to himself, never be anything to or for her but kind and supportive, and always a gossamer-thin distance away from what a buried-deep part of him had yearned for since they were teenagers. He’d keep it locked away even now, even with her practically throwing herself at him like a cat in heat, because he’d rather do that than take the smallest risk of hurting her — no, of hurting anyone. Because that’s what he thought might happen if he didn’t keep that lock closed. What he thought his baser self — his stallion self — would do if he let it out. She knew how to handle this now. How to get what both of them needed. “Listen, I–” he started to say. “Yeah, no, you’re right,” Harness interrupted, shaking her head and grinning. “I’ve been weird tonight. And it was kinda because of him. Hitch. Other me.” Sunbeam visibly relaxed, but as he leaned back in his chair, a tiny sigh escaped his snout as well. Most of him was ready to talk things out with a good friend, but the stallion part couldn’t believe the chance he’d just blown. He’d get that part under control and bury it again soon — but only if Harness let him. “You know what he told me?” Harness went on. “I asked if he’d gotten frisky with any of his friends, cause y’know, stallion surrounded by mares, and you know what he said? ‘Yep. All of ‘em.’ Can you believe that?” Judging by Sunbeam’s expression, he scarcely could. “Wow. So, all the ponies we met today, he’s…” “Apparently! Of course, he swore it wasn’t his idea. Just happened, so he said.” Sunbeam chuckled. “Uh-huh. Sure.” “Right?” She nudged his shoulder with her own. “So yeah, that was bugging me a little bit. But it also kinda got me thinking. About you.” “What about me?” Sunbeam replied, his tone playfully trepidatious — or maybe the other way around. “Well, it’s not the exact same situation, obviously. But a young stallion, handsome, sweet as sugar, saved the world a couple of times… guy like that probably could get more than a few ladies into bed with him. If he wanted to, that is.” “No,” Sunbeam chuckled — but Harness wasn’t interested in what he said aloud. What he didn’t say was written all over his face: well-practiced denial, stretched taut atop something uncontrollable, primal. “No, I’m… I’m not interested in that.” “Why not?” Sunbeam chewed on his lip a bit before answering. “Just… wouldn’t feel right, y’know? Taking advantage of…” “Of what?” Harness leaned forward. “You flashing your horn and wings on street corners? Going to bars and asking every filly in earshot if they want an alicorn ride?” “No!” “Then who are you taking advantage of? Because it’s not the dozens of ponies I could name right now who’d drop everything in their lives to do anything you wanted them to. Mares, stallions, take your pick. You’re a hero, Sun. And on top of that, speaking of course in purely neutral and objective terms: smoking, forest-fire hot.” With every word, Sunbeam’s blush deepened, rising from his neck through his cheeks all the way to his twitching temples. “Okay, w-well… wait, how did talking to your stallion self get you thinking about this?” “Because you know what really bugged me about Hitch?” Harness said. “He wanted something, and then he went and got it. He took it, because he deserved it, and ever since we were kids you’ve acted like you don’t deserve anything, because you were too good for your own moondamned good. You never think about what you want, what you deserve, and I just let you do it because I was too wrapped up in…” She hadn’t really meant to say it like that. Or to say any of that, period. But now Sunbeam was staring at her and she was staring at him, and that shroud of denial pulled over his eyes was bulging — starting, inch by invisible inch, to come loose. “So instead, I should… what?” Sunbeam murmured, in a tone that almost seemed angry. He didn’t blink. Harness didn’t look away. “Start taking things instead of asking? Be more of a stallion? What do you want me to do, Harness?” “Whatever you fucking want,” she told him. “Whenever, with whoever, for any reason or no reason at all. Because the world’s treated you like shit your whole life, and you’ve never been anything but good back to it, and you deserve… you’ve earned more than that. And I know you want more than that too.” Sunbeam wrapped his hoof around his glass, lifted it to his mouth, and threw back what was left of his drink. “You know what I want, Harness?” he said once the glass clacked back down on the table. “I wanna go home.” Stars, he was so close — and furious at her for pushing her there, and at himself for letting her do it. Against every instinct screaming at her to grab hold of him and never let go, Harness sat back and nodded towards the door at her kitchen’s rear. “Okay,” she replied. “Get home safe.” She drained her own drink as Sunbeam stood up and carefully edged past her. He only noticed the extra lock attached to the door when he tried to pull it open and heard the obnoxious clunk of the bolt in its bore. “Can you…” he said through a throttled sigh. “Yeah, sorry. Sheriff’s paranoia. Key’s over here.” Harness heard Sunbeam mutter something like “I’ll get it,” but she beat him to the hook on the far wall anyway. When she turned around, lanyard in hoof, the two of them were chest to chest, nose to nose, his harried breath whirling hotly around her slightly parted lips. She raised the key so he could see it, close enough for him to reach out and grab it — and he didn’t. He just glared, and twitched his nose, and stayed exactly where he was. He wanted to take it, to be in control, to put his own desires first for once in his life. But he didn’t know how. He’d never learned. He’d had to grow up overnight, a teenaged outcast denied the family and friends he deserved, and solitude had surrounded his heart not as a shield, but as a filter straining out what he couldn’t help seeing as impurities, as any and every reason another pony might chastise or criticize or assume the worst intentions from him with that poor Pathfinder girl who had such a bright future ahead of her. Because he was a stallion, and she — Harness, his confidant, his will-they-won’t-they that never ever was — was a mare. And so he could never take what he wanted, what he’d earned with his good works and impossibly kind soul, because then all those ponies would be right about him. But they weren’t — never had been, and wouldn’t be now. He had to understand that. She would make him understand that. “I don’t…” Sunbeam growled, panting like he’d sprinted across the room instead of walked. “It’s not about deserving anything, it’s… I just want…” Because she wanted him too. She had wanted him, always, for every day they’d whiled away as kids dreaming of a world better than their own, every night after she’d given up on the future and he hadn’t, every morning she’d woken up alone and stretched her hooves across her empty bed and swallowed back an itching, panging need for something other than what she’d let herself become. “It’s about you,” Harness murmured. “Who you think of yourself as being. What part of you doesn’t fit in that mold you’re so good at filling.” She’d fantasized about all her friends, daydreamed sinfully, spent nights alone with stretched hooves and itching desire — but in the mornings, when the sun was still low over the world that had become everything she thought she could want, there was still something missing, a need left agonizingly unfulfilled. “It’s not a mold. It’s who I am,” he insisted. “Who I want to be. I don’t want to be somepony who just…” “It’s not bad to want.” She lifted her hoof a little further — brushed it over his cheek, letting the little silver key on its lanyard bounce gently off the ridge of his chin. “Or to be wanted. It doesn’t change you.” She leaned in closer — met his eyes and held his face instead of just touching. “Stop letting it change you.” He didn’t look away. He lifted one hoof towards the key. Their chests brushed together — a silent lightning strike. “Are you…” Sunbeam murmured. “Is this…” Slowly, deliberately, Harness pulled her hoof back. “What do you want it to be?” she whispered. He blinked — shut his eyes — decided. She shut her eyes too and didn’t see him approach, just felt his lips on hers and a new weight to replace the one inside her that had finally fallen away: his chest, his whole body, him. It only lasted for a moment, a single second at the end of decades, and then they both opened their eyes at once. Despite everything, she couldn’t help smirking. “There,” she murmured. “Was that so ba–” He didn’t say a word. There was a rough noise from his throat — a wild, unsuppressed growl — and then she was flat against the wall and the key to her house was clattering on the kitchen floor, because he’d pinned her hooves by her head and shoved her to where he wanted her and kissed her again, over and over, heavy and hungry and burning with desire. She kissed him back, and a noise escaped her throat too — a triumphant, uninhibited moan. His forehooves fell to her cheeks so he could angle her head into his, then to her sides so he could mold her body against his, then over and under her stifles so he could caress — squeeze — fondle every part of her he wanted. She hooked her own forehooves around his head, groaned as his lips trailed under her chin, squeaked as she felt his teeth and tongue on her neck and a lurch in her belly as he lifted her fully off the ground. And then, as she wrapped her hind legs around him and felt him stiffening between them, he stopped. They both took a breath. When Harness let hers out, the rainbow lock of Sunbeam’s mane ruffled above his widened eyes. “Wait,” he said between gasps, glancing down the hall towards a door that had been shut since before he and his friends had arrived earlier. “Are we gonna wake Sparkle up?” Panting, Harness shook her head. “I was lying earlier. She sleeps like the dead.” Sunbeam nodded. “Good,” he sighed, and then he pressed his parted lips to hers and slid his tongue boldly between them, and there was no need to say anything else.
Three Lights GreenHarness couldn’t remember the trip to her bedroom. She was pretty sure she’d walked on her own, but she was also pretty sure she’d made that walk backwards — lips locked on Sunbeam’s, hoof fumbling behind her for the knob, Sunbeam standing her up on her hinds again and lifting her against the doorframe and nearly talking her without words into forgoing the bed entirely. But in the end, they made it inside, and even got the door closed behind them. Probably the responsible thing to do. Sparkle might sleep like the dead, but sometimes the dead could rise anyway. She forced their heads apart just long enough to navigate them towards the bed, neatly made and plenty big enough for two. Her hocks bumped against the mattress, then pressed into it, then slid up on top of it. She’d stopped at the contact, and Sunbeam had kept going, guiding — pushing — her down onto her back with one hoof cradling her head and the other firm against her chest. If she hadn’t basically already done it, she might’ve swooned. Sunbeam hovered over her for a moment — forehooves braced by her shoulders, violet mane dangling over his shoulder and tickling against her collarbone — then descended, capturing her mouth in his, sucking the air from her lungs and swirling his tongue around hers once he’d drawn it commandingly between his teeth. Harness thought about grabbing hold of his head, kissing him deeper, and it was at that moment he moved his head down and latched onto her neck beneath her chin again, nibbling and licking, growling softly at each tiny groan that vibrated in her throat. Then he was kissing her collarbone, her sternum, the flexing crest of her abdomen that twitched each time his lips lustily touched down. When he reached her navel, she slipped her bottom lip between her teeth as sparks shot through her core. When he glanced up from her pelvis, she scooted a bit further onto the bed, spread her hinds, and nudged her forehoof against his head in a silent command: down, boy. Sunbeam shut his eyes, lowered his head, and turned sparks into arcs of electricity as he pressed his lips to hers and speared his tongue inside her. Her lungs emptied with a huff, then refilled with a gasp, then slowly deflated with a lingering, unbridled groan, and all the while Sunbeam’s lips rasped and tongue wriggled and, stars, were those his hooves wrapping around her thighs? And then tugging her legs further apart, angling her pussy into his mouth so he could purse his lips and drag his tongue up and press it flat and hard against her– Harness didn’t groan this time — she shouted, and squealed, and almost bucked Sunbeam off of her as he smothered her clitoris, switching between the flat and tip of his tongue, fluttering up and down until he felt her shudder and then circling until he felt her hooves clenching at clumps of his mane. She wasn’t a complete novice at this sort of thing, but she’d kind of assumed Sunbeam was. She couldn’t possibly have been more thoroughly, wonderfully wrong. Time stopped and the world fell away, and he played her like an instrument with firm flicks of his tongue and squeezes from his hooves, tiny pinches and pokes and self-indulgent suckles that drew forth atonal notes of ever-rising delight. She’d been riled up before. Now she was shaking with need, clenching thoughtlessly around his head and between his lips, panting and squirming and begging for him to keep going, don’t stop, rightthererightthereohstarsabovefuck— Lightning seared up her spine and squeezed the breath from her lungs, prickled through her limbs and spilled out of her marehood in mind-erasing throbs. Sunbeam kept playing through her climax, her essence smeared on his cheeks and dribbling down his chin, jaw hard and tongue working until it was all she could do to just moan instead of scream. Even his very best efforts could only extend her ecstasy so long, though. As she felt the bed rise up beneath her, rumpled against her spine and damp between her trembling legs, she forced her head up and saw satisfaction radiating out of Sunbeam’s gorgeous green eyes. “Where…” Harness wheezed, swallowing hard and twitching again as Sunbeam gently kissed each of her thighs right at their stickiest points. “Where’d you learn to do that?” Sunbeam chuckled, and the puff of air from his nose tingled against Harness’s lower lips and sent static rolling through her belly. “You don’t wanna know,” he murmured up to her. Harness laughed too — actually, it was more of a goofy, drunken giggle. “Well, now you have to tell me,” she said, stroking her forehoof against the side of Sunbeam’s head. Sunbeam’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, then rolled towards the ceiling in thought. “Remember a few years ago?” he said after a moment. “Those ponies who used to live in the hills north of the Cape?” Harness did remember, and the memory made her brow furrow. “Wait, the commune? The ones that set all those fires at MareSoft?” “Allegedly. And it wasn’t really a commune. More like a really intense polycule.” Harness blinked, and Sunbeam blinked back at her. “You’re right,” she muttered. “I didn’t wanna know.” “Told you so,” Sunbeam muttered back, though he finished the quip with a smile and a kiss that turned into a decadent lick from the bottom to the top of her saturated slit. He didn’t stop there either, and before long Harness had gone from shivering to writhing at every touch of Sunbeam’s tongue against her oversensitive folds. It wasn’t that she wanted him to stop. Honestly, a part of her would’ve been fine to let him stay down there for the rest of the night or until she died of dehydration, whichever — probably the latter, at this rate — came first. But damn it all, her first climax had cleaned most of the sticky, horny cobwebs out of her brain, and the memory of how she’d gotten Sunbeam into her bedroom to begin with had wormed its way back to the front of her mind. “H-Hey,” Harness sighed, failing to get Sunbeam’s attention until she rubbed her forehoof over his ear and gently tugged his snout up a few inches. “Hey, c’mere.” He assented without so much as a disappointed sigh, crawling up her body and pausing only briefly to get his hind legs up onto the bed. His stallionhood came up with him, dark and bobbing and visibly rock-hard beneath his belly, but he kept it hoisted away from her even as he came to a stop above her, head positioned perfectly for a kiss that he didn’t yet give her. He was still hesitant — still trying to let her drive, instead of taking what he wanted. That wouldn’t do at all. She was going to have to force the issue again. “Hey there, stud,” she crooned, craning her neck up to kiss him and tasting herself, tangy and thick, on his lips. In the same motion, she worked a forehoof underneath him and stroked it along the underside of his cock, drawing a satisfied hiss from his nose which he still refused to let blossom into a groan. “Hey yourself,” he softly replied once her head settled back onto the bedspread. “You all right?” “That depends,” Harness told him. She stroked a bit faster — let her hoof linger briefly at his head, so the little bead of precum at the tip could smear across her frog. “What would make you all right?” “I’m doing fi–” She moved her hoof up and pressed it to his mouth. “Uh-uh,” she said once she’d shushed him, shaking her head and smiling. “You’re very chivalrous. A-plus, five-star rating. Now what do you want?” Sunbeam blinked and frowned. Between their torsos, his cock twitched. “I, um… c-can you, uh…” “Nope. Don’t ask. Tell me what you want.” His dick jumped again. He flicked his tongue over his lips, took a bracing breath, and finally ripped the filter all the way off. “I want you to suck my cock,” he told her, in a husky tone that sent a delicious thrill down Harness’s spine. “Good boy,” she whispered, kissing him once more. “Then I want to suck your cock too.” Harness lifted both forehooves and braced them against Sunbeam’s shoulders. Relishing in each little hitch she heard in his suddenly haggard breathing, she guided him down onto the bed next to her and then over onto his back, until she was straddling his hind legs with his rigid length poking into her belly. She grinned down at him and stroked him with her frog again, and finally got a proper noise out of him: a pleasured grunt, paired with a pointed glance down at his cock and then up at her unoccupied mouth. Still stroking, Harness backed herself down along Sunbeam’s body until his lips were level with the head of his dick. She started with a kiss, just a little peck around his tip and a tink flick of her tongue over its highest point, then wet her lips and slipped his head between them, spiraling her tongue around its bulbous ridge, letting her breath leave her nose as a series of satisfied hums. She heard him groan again, felt his cock pulse against her palate, and then felt something on the back of her head: his hoof, firm and steady, holding her in place. Hums turned into happy groans as she started moving her head, inching farther and farther down his shaft with every stroke until his head bulged against her throat and tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. Harness didn’t keep close track of the biggest dicks she’d ever seen, but Sunbeam’s wasn’t anywhere near the smallest, and every sensation it provided her — the softness of his skin, the salt of his sweat, the vibrating melody of moans from somewhere above her head — made her want to service and serve it in any way she could. Because it was his dick, sweet and sexy and confident Sunbeam, and he deserved it, and she wanted to be his right now the way he had just been hers. When her head next lifted, she lingered at the motion’s apex for a moment, suckling and slurping on his tip, gazing luridly up his body towards his slackened jaw and screwed-shut eyes. She waited until his eyes opened, until she could see the primal hunger growing inside them, and then she sank back down his shaft all the way to the base, her eyes never leaving his as she swallowed his head and massaged it inside her airtight throat. Her chin settled between his balls and her nose filled with his intoxicating scent, and suddenly his hoof gripped her head — held her there, gulping and gurgling, until she had to shut her eyes before they popped out of their sockets. After who knew how long, the pressure loosened, and Harness surfaced with a gasp and a single suppressed cough, drool dripping from her bottom lip and dangling from the shining tip of his rapidly flexing shaft. She steadied Sunbeam’s cock with her hoof again and shot him a bleary-eyed grin. “Wanna know where I learned to do that?” she croaked. Eyes lidded with lust, Sunbeam pressed his hoof to her head again, guiding her back down. “I just want you to keep doing it,” came his rumbling reply. Harness obliged him with a lecherous purr and a wink, repositioning herself a bit so his cock had the path of least resistance through her lips and across her fluttering tongue. Once his head reached her throat again, he switched from pressing with his hoof to thrusting with his hips, gently at first and then with ever-increasing vigor until she was barely moving at all, just glk-ing and gagging and trying to keep a steady angle for him to hold her head with both hooves and fuck her face without restraint. Somewhere in the middle of it all, she snuck a hoof underneath her so she could circle it shakily between her legs. She might’ve cum again at the same time he did, if he hadn’t stopped suddenly — his cockhead pulsating on her tongue, seconds from coating her throat with his seed — and pulled her off of him again. Now it was her turn to take ragged gasps for breath and watch her partner savor the sound. “You… you were close…” she managed to wheeze. He nodded in agreement. “Mm-hmm.” “You don’t want to finish?” He shook his head. “I’m not done with you yet.” A full-body shudder rippled through Harness like an earthquake, and by the time her brain started working again, she was flat on her belly with her forehooves spread-eagled and Sunbeam looming above and behind her, one hoof between her shoulders and the other directing his cock to prod against her entrance. She shivered again, flared her hips, and lost what little breath she had left the moment she felt him slip — drive — ram his full length into her in a single barbaric stroke. Never mind. She’d been wrong before. Sunbeam was the biggest she’d ever had, or at least he felt like it right now. Maybe it was the position, the angle, the power he put into every thrust and the years of yearning charged into each one. She didn’t know, or care, or need to think about it. She just needed this — him — more. “Suuuun…” she moaned into the bedspread. “Oooooohfuuuuck…” Sunbeam’s breath came in wild huffs, and his hips slammed against hers with loud, syrupy slaps, spreading her arousal across their thighs, more droplets splattering out of her with each rapid outward stroke and every powerful plunge back in. His hoof pressed harder on her spine, squeezing the breath from her lungs again, and she arched her back and gripped the mattress and went along for the ride as wave after wave of euphoria washed over her. “Fu… fuck… Har… Harne…” He got enough of her name out to get a mindless yelp in response, then moved his hoof from her back to her waist, not pushing anymore but pulling — lifting. Harness was turned onto her side, her leg stretched up onto Sunbeam’s chest at an angle that turned the waves in her belly into a swell like high tide, then roughly moved again. She was on her back now. Sunbeam loomed over her — stretched both her hinds over his shoulders — bent her double and pinned her forehooves and fucked her like he’d saved the world only so she’d belong to him within it. She squeaked as he stretched her deepest parts, shuddered as he increased his pace, felt the wave cresting and cascading and crashing all over her body. She was incoherent, delirious, cumming again, gooseflesh rising and nerves singing and core contracting around his perfect, pistoning prick. “Sun, I’m–” she started to moan — and then he growled, and hilted himself, and clamped his hoof over her mouth. Her heart skipped. Her eyes rolled back. She very nearly came all over again. His hips moved as fast as he could move them, and her body molded to him without the slightest resistance, soft and soaked and squeezing every inch of him in her grasp. He clenched his teeth as his breath hitched. His legs shook as his muscles and tendons bulged. “Close,” he grunted. “I’m…” Harness spread her forehooves to brace herself, lifted her hips and hooked her hinds around the small of Sunbeam’s back. Words were beyond her, but the message came through. Inside. Don’t stop. I’m yours. He hunched overtop of her, pressed her chin to her sweat-dappled forehead, and hilted himself in her again. Then she heard him moan, and she felt his shaft pulse and his head swell and heat spread through her center as he exploded inside her, jet after silky jet, until she was full and he kept going and his cum leaked out of her, smearing in little white streaks around her reddened lips. He made a little noise each time his cock throbbed, a soft affectionate groan, and she whimpered and shook every time she heard it. Then, all at once, it was over. Her heartbeat slowed. His breathing steadied. They both blinked and looked at each other — and Sunbeam realized with a start that his hoof was still clamped over Harness’s mouth. “S-Sorry,” he said as he released her, sounding a little frantic and a little more mortified. “That… I-I wasn’t really…” Telling him to shut up was beyond her, but Harness got the message across. She slid her forehooves over his cheeks and kissed him, humming with contentment, tingling with warmth inside and out. They were both a mess. She could feel her bangs plastered to her forehead, and see the damp rainbow streak in Sunbeam’s mane stuck to his own temple. She also saw — a second before he did — the ethereal glow suffusing the room, and the sources of that light sticking out of Sunbeam’s head and spine. “Oh, for…” he muttered, twisting in place — and slipping out of her in the process, sending one last delightful spark flitting through Harness’s belly — to level a disgruntled stare at his magical appendages. “Now? Really?” “Does this usually not happen?” Harness teased, stroking the back of Sunbeam’s neck so he’d point his pretty eyes back down at her. Thankfully, he was much more pliable post-coitus. She figured most stallions were. “Ugh,” he half-growled as he met her gaze. “I’m sor–” She kissed him again, and waited until he kissed her back before mumbling, “Stop apologizing,” into his mouth. When she let herself settle back onto the bed and felt Sunbeam’s weight settle pleasantly — and a bit stickily — on top of her, she added, “You look good like this. Also, I’m taking it as a compliment.” A goofy grin split Sunbeam’s face. “You should,” he sighed. “That was… you were…” She didn’t really mean to interrupt him this time. She just really wanted to kiss him again. On top of everything else, Sunbeam was a really good kisser. “You were too,” she whispered once she’d sated herself. “You should be like this more often.” Sunbeam smiled again. “Maybe I will be,” he murmured, before glancing up at his still-glimmering horn. “Ideally without this, though. Kind of a mood-killer. They’ll go away in a bit.” Harness wiggled her brow. “You act like I’m gonna invite you to stay the night.” “Well, I am gonna stay the night,” Sunbeam said thoughtlessly — and then his old way of thinking flared up again. “If, uh… y’know, if that’s okay,” he added, even though Harness was smirking and stroking his neck and, stars, really extremely wanted to make out with him some more. “Sorry. I’ll get better at that.” “Well, you know what they say,” Harness replied, keeping her lips off his just long enough to finish her thought. “Practice makes perfect.” And it did. Sort of. The night was perfect. The bedspread was unsalvageable. It was an ugly color anyway.
Rules For This Sort of ThingEven without an alarm clock set, Harness snapped awake at the crack of dawn like somepony had pinched her. She couldn’t really help it — even a few short years of Sheriff work had made her a naturally early riser, and usually she didn’t mind getting out and about in the crisp early-morning air before anypony else in the Cape was even thinking about breakfast. But this morning was different. This morning, she felt lazy and comfy, and delightfully warm under her sheets and spare blanket, and a little bit sore in spots she usually wasn’t. And most of those things were the fault of the stallion next to her, whose chest was pressed to her side and whose forehoof was tight across her belly, and whose warm, comfy breath puffed against her cheek as his eyes twitched behind their lids. Gainful employment could wait. She worked hard. She deserved to be snuggled, dammit. And in addition to lots of other things ponies did in beds together, Sunbeam was a very good snuggler. Harness let her breath leave her lungs in a soft sigh, and settled back into her pillow, and scooched down just a bit so she could tuck her head under Sunbeam’s chin. But go figure, even that little motion was enough to make Sunbeam’s jaw shift and send a little grunt vibrating through his throat. She hadn’t meant to wake him up too — but then again, doing that had led to him squeezing her tighter, pressing his lips gently to her temple, and sending tingles racing down her spine to pool deliciously in her belly, so maybe she should’ve woken him up sooner. “Mrr-ing,” she heard him mumble into her mane. Harness made a sound of acknowledgement, but didn’t actually say anything back. She figured rolling onto her side and pushing her head a bit more firmly into Sunbeam’s neck would get her message across — and it sort of did, at least for a little bit. But after a few minutes of rubbing his forehooves up and down her back and occasionally smooching her forehead, Sunbeam shifted a bit so he could lift his head away from hers. “Don’t you have to do Sheriff stuff?” he asked, rubbing her shoulder as he spoke. “Don’t you have to do smoothie stuff?” was Harness’s mush-mouthed reply. “I mean, technically. But I kinda set my own hours.” “Well, I’m doing that too, then. The town can just… figure it out for a little bit.” Sunbeam chuckled. “That gonna be your re-election slogan?” “Maybe. Maybe I’ll just get endorsements. You’ll endorse me, right?” “I’ll think about it,” Sunbeam hummed as he leaned down for a kiss. Harness angled her head, raised her hoof to his cheek, did everything she could to make the kiss she gave him sweet and seductive and altogether distracting — and it almost worked. Sunbeam looked happy when he pulled away from her, but he looked pensive too, like he was trying to figure out how happy he should actually be. Harness had a feeling she knew why, and she braced herself as best she could for questions she wasn’t at all ready to answer. “You know something?” he said, still tender as ever. “I was wrong about you last night.” “What d’you mean?” “When I said you weren’t acting like yourself. I was wrong. I feel like I’ve finally seen the real you, like you saw the real me.” He paused so she could see him smile. “And I really like the real you.” “I like the real you too,” Harness replied, and she was glad to see that Sunbeam knew she meant that. But he also seemed to know what she wasn’t saying, and for some reason that made him smile again, with both his lips and his eyes. “So for the record,” he said, switching from stroking her shoulder to playfully squeezing, “I’m okay with it.” “Okay with what?” Harness couldn’t help but ask. “With your plan,” he answered — and then he winked. “For one-upping Hitch.” Okay. Well. Harness hadn’t braced herself for that. “Wha… h-hold on, what are you…” she tried to say. But those were all the words she got out before Sunbeam swooped down and captured her lips with his own, and her face went from flushing warm to burning hot. “Come on,” he said once he released her. “Your stallion self tells you he’s notched all his friends into his bedpost, and you want to believe me you — goal-oriented, hyper-competitive, I-can-do-anything-a-stallion-can you — are fine letting that slide?” “W-Well, ye… I mean…” was the only argument Harness could provide against sweet, smiling Sunbeam reading her like a fucking pulp novel. Damn her to the moon, did she suck at lying. “Fuck you,” was her closing remark, muttered into her hooves as she covered her face with them. “Think that post has already been notched,” Sunbeam teased back, though he blunted the blow a little by pulling her into a hug. “Hey, you’re the one who wanted me to be more confident,” he added after a moment. “This is entirely your fault.” Harness just groaned at first, but eventually found some actual words to defend herself with. “Look, I… okay, yes, that was the plan,” she said as she pulled away from him. “But last night didn’t go at all like I thought it would, and now I just…” “Did you enjoy last night?” Harness met Sunbeam’s eyes, felt heat rush through her face again, and nodded. “Mm-hmm.” “Wanna do it again sometime?” “I… yeah.” “Then that works for me,” Sunbeam said with a shrug, as if it were that simple. Maybe it was. Was it? “You’re really okay with…?” Sunbeam took a moment to collect his thoughts before answering. What a good idea that would’ve been for Harness a couple minutes ago. Or for Harness at any point in the last twenty-four hours. “You were right about me last night,” he said. “I haven’t been honest with myself. About what I wanted from life, other ponies. Maybe ‘deserve’ is still a little strong, but in any case, there’s a whole side of myself that I don’t know much about yet, that you made me admit I was ignoring. And I wanna learn more about that side of me. With mares… I don’t know, maybe stallions. With ponies in general.” He met Harness’s eyes and stroked her cheek. “And if you wanted me to, I’d stay just with you and wouldn’t think twice about it, because I still care about you and want you to be happy, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But I do think there’s a side of yourself you want to know more about too. And I think you deserve to do that, with or without me.” After a moment’s pause, he added, “Preferably with, obviously, but the point is, I’m fine leaving things open if you are.” Harness couldn’t think of a thing to say to that, so for once, she decided not to say anything. Instead, she just grabbed Sunbeam’s face and pulled him on top of her and kissed him with a hunger that, for the first time in her whole life, she didn’t filter one bit. He braced his forehooves against her shoulders, held her in place so he could kiss her back, filled her belly with bubbles and her whole lower half with growing, ravenous heat — and then he pulled away, smirking down at her as she smiled up at him. “I don’t deserve you,” she murmured. “Yeah you do,” Sunbeam shot back. “I’m awesome. I’m a hero.” “Oh stars,” Harness laughed. “I’ve created a monster.” Sunbeam’s grin grew into a leer. He shifted his hips, and Harness shivered as she felt his length, hard and hot, slide over her pelvis and between her slickening folds. “You can say that again,” he growled into his ear, humping slowly back and forth until he heard her quickening breaths rise into a needful groan. Then he shifted back, wiggled until his head found her entrance, and pressed forward, down, all the way inside her, holding her so she couldn’t squirm, nipping at her ear so she’d ask him wordlessly to fuck her hard. “Gotta admit I’m curious, though,” he groaned as he went from sliding to thrusting, lifting his chest up so he could drive his hips down, grinning wider at each squeeze from Harness’s core and every elated squeak that came with them. “I was first. Good choice. But who’s next?” Harness blinked until Sunbeam’s face snapped into focus, and what remained of her conscious mind suddenly crystallized into a captivating vision. The bed beneath her grew warmer, fuzzier — became the barrel chest of a tall and strong unicorn. With Sunbeam above her, she imagined Ike beneath her, fondling her chest and belly, his shaft throbbing against the base of her tail, his breath hot against her neck as he leaned past her and Sunbeam leaned down and the stallions touched together at their foreheads, noses, lips… She shuddered, and squeezed, and Sunbeam’s satisfied grunt layered over her unconstrained yelp. “I’ll tell you later,” she moaned, and with a moment’s thought and a shrug, Sunbeam accepted that answer. Author's Note Next time on LOST (In the Eyes of Your Really Hot Stallion Friends): [Adult story embed hidden]
