A miracle writhes within your restless maw, no less than nectar; candied divinity. The corners of your mouth curl devilishly of their own volition as the buds on your tongue throw themselves into every last speck of the wondrous ambrosia.
You cannot be without it. You cannot live without it, this balm for your very soul. Should its presence leave you, you cannot say what would become of you. Whatever god presides over this world - and all others - must be tender of heart indeed.
What a boon to the world, this is. Your soul swells, drowning out all the-
“Um… Anon?”
The stupor all but disappears as you’re brought crashing back down from the lofty heights of heaven. Even still, you’ve a fog about you; so much so that you’ve forgotten just where you are.
Putting your head on a swivel brings a busy corner of Ponyville’s market street into view, lines in front of each of the shops disrupting the otherwise steady flow of the main cobblestone road.
Winter always bogs your hometown with foreign traffic. Ordinarily, you would take issue with the volume of ponies crowding every nook and cranny of conceivable space, but you pay no mind; today is a special case. The air is lighter than usual - gone is the heavy-set chill of deep winter. Just as well, there’s something… heady about everything as of late. It’s strikingly prevalent in the way couples gaze longingly upon each other; every movement, every expression a brushstroke of love and adoration. In more brazen folk, the flighty whims of tenderness condense down into a thicker, more voracious compulsion.
That was decently rare, though. The few you did see giving into temptation eventually turned tail to somewhere more private whenever they were called out on it.
“Hellooooo…?”
Huh?
Oh, right.
Without much fanfare, you corral the rest of the blueberry ginger jam down your throat, unable to stop yourself from grunting in abject ecstasy.
“Good lord, Hughbert. I mean, wow.”
A dopey grin overtakes his previously perturbed features.
“I’m glad you like it,” he says, screwing the lid of the jar shut. “Considering it’s a gift, it’s on the house.”
He slides the jar over to your end of the counter, where it’s taken into your eager clutches.
Free…? Is he insane? He should be charging thirty bits for this jar alone.
“Hugh, dude, you gotta let me pay for this,” you bargain. “It’s too good to just give away like that.”
He shakes his head.
“It’s not from me, actually. Rainbow Dash stopped by a few days ago and custom-ordered it herself, said to give it to you whenever it was ready.”
The heavenly jam’s origin gives you pause. She must have felt bad about not being able to hang out before she went on tour with the Wonderbolts. It’d happened before, and she’d always tried to make it up to you, but an actual, tangible gift?
Color yourself surprised. You’ll have to get something for your wingmare whenever she gets back.
“She really did all that?”
“Yep! Shoot, she even wrote you a letter to go with it.”
He procures the carefully folded envelope from below the counter and slides it over as well. You pick it up with your free hand, turning it over a couple of times. It’s smooth to the touch, no wrinkles or blemishes at all. Hell, it’s even been properly sealed.
Since when has she been this formal about something so benign…?
“Now, she told me to tell you that ya can’t open it until you’ve had some of it. I didn’t ask why, though.”
You wave off his concerns, a perplexed smirk still riding the corner of your mouth.
“No worries, man. Hey, I’ll see you around, alright? I’ve got a meeting to go to a bit later, so I gotta split.”
“Happy Hearts and Hooves Day!” he beams, waving as you go. “And good luck!”
You turn back toward him with a raised eyebrow. He simply winks back with a smarmy grin before addressing the next customer in line.
…Odd.
The fervor with which you inhale the final farthings of Dash’s gift is outright salacious. You didn’t mean to eat the rest of it when you got home. It just sort of… happened. Everything else you had in mind flew out the window when the lid came off. Hell, in your jam-induced haze, you’d even forgotten about the letter she had sent you.
The letter which, corresponding to the strange sense of unease in your gut, is now carefully nestled in between the pointer and thumb of your right hand.
Trepidation plays at your senses as you move it to and fro, eyes roaming over its bare surface. You’d known Dash to be a mare capable of her own brand of kindness, but this?
“Something really must be in the air…” you mutter to yourself.
You go to open it, but pause as your fingers are poised to break the seal. The growing warmth within, now spreading freely to your chest, almost begs you to stop, but you aren’t sure why. This is just a letter from your broski, right? What could possibly be so odd about that?
You cull the growing feeling with action, tearing at the flap and digging out the letter within. With a flourish, it opens to its full length.
What’s up, Anon?!
Hope you’re doing good! Chances are, when you read this, I’ll probably be on the train to Las Pegasus with the rest of my team. Wish you coulda come along with me, but I didn’t even know that team members could give out guest passes until all the arrangements were set. Next time, you’re planting your butt right next to me on that train, got it?
You chuckle openly, the warmth within continuing to spread, reaching an almost uncomfortable intensity. The air conditioning must be a bit too hot…
Ah, you’re too far into the letter to get up now.
Listen, I’m not really good at writing letters like this. That’s Twilight’s whole wheelhouse. Rarity’s too, but that’s besides the point.
I’m just gonna come at you with it: I’m sorry we haven’t been able to hang as much lately. All the training we’ve been doing eats up a ton of my free time, and I sometimes stay after to get my routine down just right. Need to be one hundred percent awesome for the show, right?
I hope you don’t feel like I’ve been blowing you off or anything, ‘cause that’s not it at all. Hanging out with you is, like, one of the best parts of the day to me, and I’ve really been missing it the past few weeks. When I get back in a couple weeks, we gotta grab some pizza and go mess around up in Canterlot or something! Or, you know, whatever you wanna do. Anything is cool with me as long as you’re there.
You cradle your face in your palm, mouth curling this way and that in dopey reverence.
Anyway, I just wanted to get you something to say sorry about the whole thing. You always keep going on about how much you love good jelly, so I went and got Mister Jellius to make some for you. My treat.
Following that line is a rough doodle of Dash’s face smiling at you, stars in place of her eyes.
I’ll see you when I get back home, Anon! Don’t let things get too crazy without me there, alright?
Your best buddy,
Rainbow Dash
Your cheeks threaten to fall off due to how hard you’re smiling.
Man, you really lucked out meeting her. You’d wax poetic about it, but in all honesty, your head is swimming a bit right now. Your breaths leave heavily, too, as if you’d been running this whole time instead of reading. It’s become a bit worrying, in all honesty. Maybe an ice pack would help, or something along those lines?
You set the letter down on the table, and as you set off from your couch, a barely perceptible piece of scrawl catches your eye from the very bottom of the scroll. You pick it up once more, holding it as close to your face as possible.
P.S.: I put some estrus-strength love potion in your jam. Consider it payback for those awful jellybeans. Have fun trying to figure out how to get me back, ya big dork!
…
Your meeting is in an hour.
Twilight’s monthly “friendship meeting.”
The meeting that’s never called off, no matter what.
The meeting that the royal sisters just so happen to be sitting in on today.
That meeting.
“And so, as you can see, the Yakyakistan princess’s vacation to Ponyville was…”
Beyond that, Twilight’s words never register, despite them bouncing around in your hollow head unendingly. You squirm unsteadily in your seat, desperate to avoid eye contact with anyone.
Sight, sound, touch, taste, smell - it’s all been dialed to twelve hundred. The chill of the crystalline table underneath your palms shoots through your nerves and down your spine, and it takes everything you have not to shiver, because to shiver would be to move, and to move would be agony unending.
Not the agony of pain, of course. Pain would be far easier.
You shakily inhale, feeling every micrometer of your bare chest scraping against the cloth of your shirt. The exhale is no less vivid; the ache of your lungs missing oxygen is now a pleasure that renders you rigid in both senses of the phrase. Down under is a war of biblical proportions, fought by your id and superego.
You deign to shift in your seat, and all hell breaks loose for the fiftieth time in twenty minutes. Your eyelids clamp shut as another wave of ecstasy washes over you, drowning out the rest of the world with it.
Rainbow Dash is going to pay when she gets back. Of that, you are certain.
“Anon?”
Blinding light, bright colors - your eyes have opened against your conscious thought. Across the table, three concerned princesses eye you up and down, all the care in the world behind the gesture.
“Are you feeling alright?” Twilight asks. Even from all the way over there, she sounds like she’s right in front of you.
“I’m… good.” You choke the words out, and it does nothing to sway their concern.
“Are you sure, darling?” Rarity asks from your immediate right, impossibly loud. “You look as if you’re running a fever.”
Without warning, her outstretched hoof makes contact with your forehead. An innocent gesture any other day of the week, sure, but today? Pure eroticism.
You wince against her touch, however soft, and quickly remove her hoof from your person.
“Actually, no, you’re right, I’m not feeling too good. I’ve gotta go home and get some rest, okay? Sorry about this, bye!”
You clamber out of your seat, stumbling out of the room with the grace of a dead body attempting to ice skate. They call out after you, but you can’t make out anything they say.
As you race down the halls and out of the castle, you know one thing to be absolutely certain.
Rainbow Dash is going to pay when she gets back.
The eight mares sit, dumbfounded by Anon's sudden exit.
“I don’t wanna be rude or nothin’, but, uh…” Applejack finally chimes in. “Ya’ll smelled ‘im too, right?”
Luna blinks a few times, unsettled. The blush on her face is plain as day.
“We didn’t know humans had a rut cycle.”
Author's Note
keeping a story under 2000 words is harder than I thought it would be 
