Trixieverse 4/Derpy Desires

Chapters

The Catbird Seat
Detour
Derail
Devoured
Back In Town
Exiles
Soothe
Little Lost Sheep
Loving The Predator
Masks
Exposed
Now You Fucked Up
The Horseshoe Drops
When Ponies Attack
I'll Take No Denial
Rainbow Posse
Off With Her Head!
Alicornspace
New Morning
Derpy Desires
The Circle Almost Circled
Flaming Death Spiral
Spin In
Turn The Stampede

The Catbird Seat

“Holy crap,” said Rainbow, flatly.

Gilda glared at her. “Hey, not so enthusiastic, Dash, you’ll hurt yourself.”

“What are you even doing here?”

“It’s not so much what as who,” said Gilda casually, and winced. “Or at least I thought so. The hell, Dash? Not cool! I thought we had something going!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? You almost ripped my tit off!”

“Oh, really? Well first of all you shouldn’ta done me that good, and second,” said Gilda, “what were you doing? Oh, right, only kicking me in the head!”

“Obviously not hard enough!” retorted Dash. “Cause look at who’s back in town! I’ve changed, Gilda. You said I was a real griffon at last? Dude. Fuck that, and fuck you, and fuck the whole angry sex bullshit scene. You’re history—and I’m elsewhere.”

Dash turned to go, watching Gilda bury her face in her claws in apparent exasperation. Dash spread her wings and took a step—but behind her, Gilda cried out one word.

“Stop!”

Dash froze. That voice still rasped, but the edge wasn’t anger, for a change. It was pain.

“Please…” added Gilda, and Dash gulped. Pain wasn’t an adequate description anymore.

She turned, slowly, to look at her old ex-lover, her alien-species fling from flight school, and saw the unthinkable. Gilda was weeping, grinding her beak in anguish, her body pressed low to the ledge in a grovelling posture.

“Uh,” said Dash. “Gilda. What…” She gulped again. “What is going on here?”

Gilda hesitated. “Nothing,” she croaked. “Never mind.”

“Bullshit. Look at you. Do you mean to tell me…”

“I’m not telling you anything,” said Gilda. “Now that I know how you feel I’m not asking you anything either. Okay?”

“Maybe you should go home!” said Dash.

“It’d be nice,” said Gilda, miserably.

Rainbow Dash stared for a moment, then banged her hoof on the ledge again in frustration—and turned, walking over to Gilda with neat little clops of her hooves against the rock. The griffin didn’t look up as Dash stood over her.

“Listen. Gilda. It’s more complicated than that. You think you know how I feel? I bet you’re wrong there. I just don’t want you to hurt me, okay? That’s not a way I want to live anymore. I realize you get excited, but that last time… dude, you ripped my tit, there was all blood and everything, that’s not acceptable, I need that tit in working order and you can’t do things that way…”

Gilda’s eyes were widening. “But… but, Dash, I’m okay with that! I needed to talk to you about it. I had to realize some stuff—it’s not easy.”

Rainbow glared. “Gilda, the last time we fucked, you yelled ‘don’t get all pony on me now’! You had me buck the crap out of you. That went all kinds of awesome, let me tell you.”

Her sarcasm dripped off her words. Gilda didn’t match it. She just stared up at her pony lover, and she said, “I was wrong.”

Dash blinked. “What?”

“I was wrong. Maybe it was all those other griffins around, judging me. They thought I was a diamondhead, they thought I didn’t measure up. It seemed so important to be having sex their way, to be one of them.” She gulped, with a click of the beak. “I’m not. I’m a fucking diamondhead. A pony-head.”

“You have got to be kidding me. You twisted around and almost gutted me!”

Gilda pressed lower to the ground. “I’m sorry, okay?!”

“Gilda, you’re scaring me. What brought this on? Since when do you act like this?”

At that, Gilda’s head lifted. “Well, I wouldn’t be if you’d just fuck me already! I can’t help how I am! I can’t hide it anymore. I’m a big diamondhead.”

“I’m not a Diamond Dog,” replied Rainbow Dash.

“Dude, you’re six times better than any Diamond Dog,” said Gilda. “You were pure awesome when we were growing up together and I didn’t have the sense to understand it. And you got that magic bit thing, and holy crap, Dash, I’ve never had anything like that. Do you realise I couldn’t walk for half an hour? I was still shaking.”

Dash’s eyes were worried. “But…”

“I’m not just a diamondhead… er, pony-head,” continued Gilda. “I’m a you-head, a Rainbow Dash-head. I can’t sleep at night, thinking about you. And the other griffins notice. They’re all sneering—they know. I hate them now. I gotta be with the ponies, I’ll do anything, Dash, anything…”

“Gilda, I’ve got a steady marefriend now!”

Gilda blinked. “Well, you can’t both fuck me at once. I’d die, literally die. I mean, what a way to go, but still…”

“No,” protested Rainbow, “I’m serious! It’s Applejack, you remember her? Gilda, I had a kid. I’m a Mom. This isn’t fair…”

“Yeah, I remember her, pretty cool for a pony… wait a minute. Soooo… it’s not that you hate me now?” Gilda batted her eyelashes, her gaze still glistening from her tears. Her beak quivered, hopefully.

Dash sighed. “Listen. I never said I hated you. What I said was…”

“Woohoo!” squawked Gilda. She jumped up and bounded around Dash, cavorting and rubbing herself affectionately against Dash’s cringing body. “I was really worried!”

Dash looked around frantically. Off in the distance, she saw Derpy Hooves, apparently done with her mail deliveries. Nopony else was watching. She turned to Gilda. “Settle down! You’re not listening!”

“I promise, I’ll totally be pony style! I’m gonna be so pony for you, please please please let me into your life! And your marefriend’s! All the ponies, the more the better! Uh, maybe not that Pinkie Pie, she kinda pisses me off… oh heck, her too! Dash, you gotta let me be a pony with you guys. I’ve got nothing else!”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

Gilda blinked at her. “Duh! Griffin society isn’t nice with perverts. I tried to hide it for a long time. I had to pretend I hated you guys, and all the time I could remember your tongue exploring me, or that little hoof rubbing my pussy… and now I gotta remember pony cock, and nothing could ever be as good as pony cock. That one time… and now I’m here with you and I can smell you and I could taste you and argh! Dash! You gotta fuck me!”

With that, Gilda whirled and pressed to the ground, presenting for Dash, her goopy honeypot pouting and glazed with feline lubricants. Out of the corner of her eye, Dash saw Derpy Hooves do a doubletake and tumble off a cloud in shock.

“Gilda!” Dash yelled.

Gilda sagged. “What?”

“Not now. Seriously! Not now… I don’t even have the magic bit with me. I’m not sure it’d even work with you anymore…”

“Why not?” demanded Gilda.

“Uh, it got bigger. After I had Spy. My foal, Spy.”

Gilda whimpered, her eyes dilating, and Dash realized she’d fucked up again.

“Look, I’m begging you, Gilda. Just… let me think about this? Applejack, I gotta talk with Applejack. You really abandoned griffin society? For me?”

“They’re assholes,” said Gilda, as if it was obvious. “They’re bloodthirsty, violent assholes and I don’t want to be one of them anymore. Let me be a pony. Let me be your mare…”

“But you’re an asshole,” suggested Dash.

Gilda tensed, and then sagged, tearing up again. “Yeah. But… Dash, can’t I even try?”

Dash bowed her head, her mouth turning down in pained dismay. It was just impossible—yet she remembered that one afternoon in the clearing in the woods, deep in griffin territory—deep in griffin, for that matter. It wasn’t just Gilda’s passion as Dash took her—that was a given.

Rainbow remembered Gilda luring her off to a private place, insulting and cursing her griffin-fashion, and then pouncing her and knocking her flat and cursing her out some more while clinging so tightly to her pegasus pony body.

Rainbow remembered, further, how Gilda had trembled… how her heart had pounded, even while she made the obligatory hostile and snarky remarks.

Life could be very uncomplicated, and decisions could be very easy—as long as you didn’t bother to care.

“Where are you staying?”

Gilda gazed imploringly at her. “Uhh… I kinda thought… um…”

“You gotta be kidding. You thought you could stay with me?” squeaked Dash.

Gilda’s gaze dropped, and her talons extended, fearful claws grabbing and scratching at the rocky ledge. If Flight Lightning had not long since fled, that display of pony-shredding armament would have sent her flying. It looked like Gilda was trying to tear apart the rock.

It was anxiety, and Dash knew it, and it wrung her heart.

“Gilda.”

The griffin wouldn’t look up. She was trembling again, like she had done that afternoon in the clearing, when she’d grabbed Dash and just held her.

“You know where my house is? I’m not staying there now, I just drop in. You can stay there.”

Gilda kept clawing nervously at the rock, and wouldn’t look up.

“I will drop in, too,” said Rainbow Dash. “Let me square it with my ponies—seriously. You just gotta give me that. I’ll work something out. You go there, to my cloud house, and hang tight. Okay?”

The griffin seemed trapped, stuck in the new unaggressive way of being ponylike, and she clearly had no idea how to respond—but then, Rainbow thought, she wasn’t able to give her anything to respond to, nothing conclusive. The big birdkitty was all worked up, and Dash couldn’t help her at all.

Not in the pony way, anyhow.

“Yo. Gilda. Featherbrain. Hey!” snapped Dash, with more of an edge to her tone, and the griffin finally looked up to meet her eyes.

“Now, get the FUCK outta here!” yelled Dash, stomping both forehooves at once with a startling loud clack, and the greenish-gold catbird eyes widened in sudden alarm. Gilda whirled lithely and sprang in a single graceful motion off the cliff, wings bursting into a storm of mad flapping that bore her rapidly upward, limbs thrashing like she was clawing her way into the sky.

Dash watched. Gilda’s thrashing gentled, but her wings beat on. She looked back once, though she was already too far away for an expression to be seen on her face—that beak always tended to look exasperated and too-cool-for-school, no matter what.

She just flew on, towards Dash’s cloud house, and Dash smiled a fretful but sincere smile, watching her go. Gilda would be fine, on ice in the cloud house. She had time to work things out with Applejack and figure out what the heck she could…

“Rainbow Dash!” cried Derpy, approaching.

Rainbow jolted in surprise. “Oh! Hey Derpy, how’s it going?”

The grey mail pony flew down, landing with a little trot on the ledge as she stumbled over a small rock. She looked Rainbow in the eye, and knee.

“Hi there, Rainbow Dash, I, uh, I, uh, uh…”

“Yeah?” said Dash. Derpy could get stuck on ideas sometimes and need prodding to complete a thought.

“I…” Derpy stopped, and pouted. “Rainbow Dash, I heard what your friend said.”

“What do you mean, you heard what my…” said Rainbow Dash, and stopped. She went pale, and her jaw dropped, and in her mind’s ear she could hear Flight Lightning all over again, brash as the noonday sun. ‘That’s retarded,’ she’d said. ‘That’s MAIL pony retarded!’

And Dash had grinned and laughed right along with it, even as she saw Derpy in the distance making her rounds.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, helplessly. “Derpy, I am so sorry. I’m really sorry, that was mean of her. I’m not gonna stand for it. Except I kinda did, didn’t I? I didn’t say anything, I should have…”

Derpy was shaking her head, frowning. Dash grovelled. “I swear I’ll make it up to you somehow. I’d promise to beat the crap out of Flight Lightning even though she’s kinda friends now except I can’t do anything that would make her not able to work Weather Patrol, okay? Shit. Fuck! Or I can…”

“No,” protested Derpy. “Don’t be like that, Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow did a double take. “I swore. Crap! I mean.. argh! I’m so sorry, I’ll behave myself, I promise, and whatever you want from me, I’ll make sure it’s taken care of…”

Derpy nodded, and stared Dash and a passing bird hard in the eye. “Yes! But no! I mean, not that friend, Rainbow Dash! The other friend.”

Dash blinked. “Huh?”

“The kitty! Uhhh… gr.. griffern? Some of the things she said to you, Rainbow Dash, and the way she acted…”

Dash blushed. “Oh gosh. Yeah, I’m sorry about that too. It might be kind of hard to explain. I’m sure it was super confusing. When, uh, when a lady griffin wants to have babies…”

Derpy bounced. “She goes to the carrot patch! Right?”

“Whuh?” said Rainbow Dash helplessly.

“Mama told me ponies grow in the cabbage patch! So you must get grif… kitties out of some other patch. Right? ‘Cos they’re not ponies!”

Derpy tossed her mane, flicked her silky ash-blonde tail, and fluffed her wings, smiling ebulliently at her reasoning. Dash stared at her in disbelief.

“Uh, Derpy… I hate to break it to you but I think some of the things your Mama said aren’t quite the truth.”

She watched, as Derpy’s face fell. Then, her expression joined the mail-mare’s in dismay, when she heard Derpy’s sulky response.

“Mama… said I was a pretty pony…”

“Hoo boy,” sighed Dash. “It’s okay, Derpy, you’re pretty… maybe I’d better just say that Gilda was being weird in a kinda special way…”

“Like you!” said Derpy.

“What?”

Derpy blinked again. “She acted like you! Even though she was upside down for part of it. But you do stuff like that sometimes. Before ponies stick a penis in you! So I think Gilda wanted somepony on top of her, sticking a penis in her!”

Derpy bounced again, while Rainbow Dash stared in horror.

“Oh my Celestia… I’m so sorry, Derpy! We’ll be more careful, I’ll be more careful, you shouldn’t have to see stuff like that!”

“No, Rainbow Dash! No no!” protested Derpy.

“Uh…” said Dash, “you don’t mind? You want to keep watching us?” She cringed, realizing what she was saying. How was she gonna square THAT with Applejack?

Derpy quieted, and looked Dash and a nearby rock in the eye.

“No, uhhh…” she said, and then continued, simply and earnestly. “I want somepony to do that to me.”

Rainbow Dash stared at Derpy Hooves, speechless. Her eye twitched, then her ear, then her tail. She found words, somehow.

“I’ll get back to you.”

With that, Rainbow Dash fled as if demons were after her, straight home to Sweet Apple Acres and her marefriend Applejack—and after about ten seconds of top speed flight in the direction of away, she dared re-open her eyes.

Rainbow Dash trotted through the door to Sweet Apple Acres, and froze in her tracks.

“Made ya a snack, sugarcube…”

Applejack greeted her at the door with a plate of food—some sort of pastry thing, smelling sweet and appley. “G’wan, try one.”

Dash bent her head, and sampled the treat. “Whoa! Is that caramel? And so…” and she coughed, “salty…”

“C’ramelized, honey. No, literally, it’s caramelized honey,” said Applejack, putting the plate down on the table. “Don’t mind th’ salt, except we ain’t leavin’ them things out for the kids, okay? Eat up. If it makes ya dizzy, well, I kin make you dizzier…”

“Where’s Spy?” asked Dash.

“In bed, out like a light. Weren’t so hard. Bit of a hoof to the head, and we got all th’ private time we want…” Applejack kept a straight face for a moment, and then began to giggle, seeing Dash’s face. “Had you goin’ there…”

“No, seriously, where?”

“But ah told you! She really is in bed. I had her nursin’ while I made you your snack, put her back to bed just before it come out of th’ oven. Timin’s perfect. No hoof necessary, darlin’, that lil’ girl drunk so much pony milk she gonna be nappin’ for hours.” Applejack let her eyes go half-lidded and sensuous. “Which is good, on account of we got unfinished business…”

Rainbow chewed determinedly on her treat, and swallowed. “Dear Celestia, Applejack, you’re so fucking good to me…”

“Well, I jes’ hope I’m good AT… y’know,” said Applejack, casting her eyes down demurely with a warm smile.

“I’m not worthy of…”

“Are too.”

Dash didn’t argue—after the upheavals and suggestive erotic chaos, her beloved’s earnest sensuality was like slipping into a warm bath, and she forgot her alarm and her previous guilty resentments as Applejack nuzzled her and rubbed up alongside her body. A playful, glancing lick got Rainbow’s wings arching up boldly, but rather than persist, Applejack’s nose traced along Rainbow’s withers and up her arched neck, only to repeat its sensuous journey with another lick.

“Whoa, Applejack. Are you really… you’re not just putting this on to make me feel better, are you?”

Applejack gave her a loving, exasperated, heated look. “Hell naw! You ain’t th’ only one who was interrupted. I would dearly like to take up where we left off.” Her tail flicked. “Ya might say I’m achin’ for it.”

“You did seem to be really getting into things.”

Applejack pouted. She opened her mouth to speak, glanced at Dash, and shut it again. She laid her ears back, and said, “Ain’t sure how much I should tell ya.”

Rainbow Dash’s ears pricked up. “Hmmm? Something new going on with the prettiest mare in the whole world?”

Applejack blushed, shifting from hoof to hoof. “Aw…”

“No, seriously, if it’s something I should know about, you should tell me.”

That got her a green-eyed glance, and Applejack said, “Aw, ain’t nothin’… I jes’ know you got two feelin’s about it. I reckon it’s jes’ gravy for me. Hot gravy, if ya know what I mean.”

Rainbow’s ears quirked to the side. “What the heck are you talking about, Applejack?”

The country pony narrowed her eyes. “Fine! Lemme try ta phrase this… okay, you know how we got us stallion parts with them magic bits? And ya fly loop-de-loops from being on th’ end of mine, ‘cause it ain’t exactly a comfort ride?”

“Yeah?”

Applejack’s eye glinted with amusement, and her face steadily grew a smirk.

“I reckon, now we’re a PROPER match.”

Rainbow stared back, and found herself grinning as well. “Oh? So you’re sorry that my poor vag got ruined and deformed… but not really?”

Applejack’s gaze dropped again, demurely—except that she was peering up from under those half-lowered eyelids, with a smouldering look that left nothing to the imagination. “Mus’ I be sorry? Seems there’s… compensations.”

Rainbow grinned more. It was easy to feel hard done by, while Twilight Sparkle was bouncing with glee and telling Trixie about her theory that vaginal aperture elasticity correlated to magic penis size. They’d included Rarity as another case of intense penis girth through vaginal loosening subsequent to foaling, they’d speculated on whether it was labia or vulva or cervical folds that did it, and Twilight had even busted out a dildo and started to brainstorm ideas about turning it into a sort of caliper for vagina measurement before Dash had fled, feeling cheapened.

It had probably been Twilight’s remark about how Rarity had foaled years before and sprung back somewhat, while Rainbow had freshly foaled and would be really, really, really loose by comparison. Even Trixie had cringed at that one, and cuffed Twilight with her hoof, but Rainbow had already flown off in a huff. Ever since, Dash had felt less of a desirable mare, which hadn’t helped her depression. She’d brooded on it, remembering all the times Applejack had mounted her and blown her mind, showing every evidence of delight in Rainbow Dash’s eager, snug pussy.

She’d been so distracted by her worries over the strain to her vagina, that it took Applejack’s expression to remind her that she also played other roles in their relationship—that, in fact, each seemingly tough, aggressive, tomboyish pony concealed a private weakness for playing the mare and being reduced to quivering jelly by the stallioning of the other.

Applejack looked indecently smug, peering coyly at Dash, tail flicking to and fro. There was a bit of fretfulness still showing in the set of her ears, for she knew that before the foaling, she’d once asked Twilight if a new version of the bit could make Dash bigger—and that hadn’t gone over well. It was easy to see why she felt it a sensitive topic. It was also easy to see how pleased she was with the new state of affairs. Applejack’s legs were trembling, just thinking about it.

Rainbow Dash smirked back at her beloved. “Yeah… pretty much worth it, I guess. Come on—let’s slip you some plow-horse, little filly… yeah, totally worth it. Can we do it down here?”

“Aw… please, honey, th’ bedroom’s the best place for that…”

“But you won’t make noise anymore ‘cause you’re afraid of waking Spy! Are you worried Big Macintosh will come in and see us?”

Applejack blinked. “Funny thing. He ain’t in. Yeah, when he’s home he’ll come in an’ make sandwiches at all hours, true enough, but he’s been goin’ out somewheres. No, Dashie, I just want to be there if Spy does wake up, which she won’t. Um… you don’t like me too silent?”

Rainbow Dash winked, and Applejack winked in a different way to see that cocky grin.

“It’s okay, best girl. I’ll make you not be TOO silent.”

Applejack pecked at the floor with a fore-hoof. “Ooooh… yeah, I can live with a lil’ misbehavin’ of that nature, long as it ain’t too much.”

Rainbow stepped daintily over, wings demurely furled, and whispered in Applejack’s quivering ear, “I feel inspired. I won’t need to be rough… to be too much.”

Applejack whimpered, and a little wet noise betrayed her body’s winking invitation, and she whispered back, “Y’all come upstairs with me right now.”

She turned, and Rainbow Dash appreciatively ogled her beloved’s fine orange rump, toned from endless applebucking, framing a pony vag worked up to the point of exploding. It seemed amazing that Applejack could walk without squealing and orgasming at each step, for her vulva swelled and projected at the clitoris and favored Rainbow Dash with a spectacularly lovely sculptural form, mare-parts as art.

Dash dipped her head, but thought twice and refrained from nuzzling or licking as Applejack ascended the stairs with lingering, sweet steps. Bringing the country mare off at this point would be spoiling a special treat, and Applejack’s hindquarters still trembled with erotic agitation. Dash’s breath alone brought another hard wink, and the glistening pink of Applejack’s inner folds made Dash’s heart leap with delight.

In the bedroom, Rainbow Dash swooped like a blue owl for the bedside table and the drawer where the magic bit was stored, pausing only to look over Northern Spy’s sleeping form. She snored, drooling on the pillow, which just figured, thought Dash: her child would inevitably be pretty obnoxious, it’d be disappointing any other way. Spy somehow managed to drool cutely, and Dash paused for a moment, fighting off the urge to stamp her hoof and demand, “How is that even possible?”

However, more urgent needs awaited.

Applejack stood, legs set comfortably apart, panting and trying not to whimper out loud as Dash, head high and bit clamped in teeth, slunk around behind her. She winked three times with a sound like a delicate but juicy kiss, and her tail cracked like a whip made of gossamer scarves. She’d pulled the hair-tie off hours ago, when she’d first been mounted by Rainbow: her mane and tail flowed free, girly-fashion.

Rainbow Dash’s magically induced cock dangled—draft-horse fashion.

Rainbow grinned in belated satisfaction. It really was pretty stupid, she thought, to get upset over such a mixed blessing. There was nothing like getting fucked, experiencing those blinding psychic waves of ecstacy on the end of a good stallion: on the other hand, there was a lot to be said for the clarity of thought, the devotion, and the aesthetic experience of being that good stallion. If you found mares sexy, there was no time they were sexier than when they were dazed with pleasure and melting around you, and being the stallion meant you felt it up close and personal. You could worship pony vag with crazed abandon, and issue forth a spurting benediction, then cuddle afterwards while your beloved gradually returned to reality.

Dash clamped down harder on the magic bit, and her stallionhood stiffened and swung up to slap her belly. It’d developed some alarming qualities in its foaling-induced expansion: rather than being the slender elegant thing to correspond with a tender unsullied vagina, it was like it’d gone through a similarly distressing experience. It bulged out aggressively like some sort of club, and wasn’t exactly skinny at the base either, and had picked up a downward hook at the end and a blunter flare. On the whole, Dash’s altered penis appeared to be the nasty henchman to Applejack’s daunting phallus, and Dash had serious reservations about whether it was nicer to look at. Before, at least it’d been more cylindrical, tapering, elegant—a pretty horse cock for a pretty pegasus. Now, it was sort of a monstrosity.

Dash flapped her wings, and mounted upon Applejack’s rump, and Applejack began panting frantically and braced herself. She’d had opportunity to evaluate Dash’s new dick for feel, and as far as she was concerned, it was the most beautiful penis in Equestria, even if it had been polka-dotted or plaid, because of what it could do to her.

Dash flapped, again, and pushed forward with steady pressure.

Applejack’s eyes crossed. She shuddered, flicked her tail, and let out a whimper as Dash bore down harder on the bit, expanding her flare. It was a naughty cruel thing that Dash did, to do that, and Applejack reeled and loved it even as the twinges of tightness turned to jolts of exquisite pain.

Dash’s flare wedged into Applejack’s frantic entrance, squeezing through somehow, and Applejack let out a strangled breathy cry and began heaving wild shuddery gasps, hyperventilating. That was one tough part, but Rainbow Dash now came with two.

Applejack gritted her teeth in an ecstatic grimace, arching her neck and tensing it until the tendons stood out, and she tried to relax and not fight it as Rainbow Dash continued to enter her. A tear leaked from her eye and her breath hissed, as the bulging central part of Dash’s alarming stallionhood pried her wide. She felt the air rush around her head as Dash’s wings flapped with convulsive strength, but all she could focus on was the searing, savage pleasure of that bulging, swollen stallionhood pressing inch by inch into her, penetrating her to its widest point…

Dash didn’t linger—she’d learned. Applejack had cried once when she’d left it there too long. Just like working an equine flare through a tight marehood, Dash’s new features brought joy only when delivered safely to female depths, so once the tightest bit was past, Rainbow Dash swung her hips firmly forward, and the bulky stallionhood slid deep into Apple vagina to thump against her cervix with a psyche-rocking jolt.

“Ngaahh! hhh! hh! hh!”

Applejack couldn’t help but cry out, for all her efforts to remain silent. The sensation of that swollen bulk sliding in to fill her, and bottoming out in her with such daunting firmness, had shaken her to the core.

In her frantic haze of erotic overload, she saw Northern Spy stir on the bed, and she tensed, forcing herself silent with a feeble choking noise, shaking all over, her eyes going very wide.

Rainbow Dash saw it as well, and froze, with a whimper.

“No, no, no, no, no…” whispered Applejack, staring wildly at the little form. Dash felt Applejack’s rump clench on her cockbase, and drew a breath through her teeth, and then held it, not even breathing, and the two lovers stood locked in their carnal pose staring at their adorable little nemesis…

Northern Spy let out another snore, and Applejack relaxed, shuddering and biting her lip.

“…y’okay?” whispered Dash.

Applejack nodded, a tear of relief in her eye, and shut her mouth tightly, determined not to emit another sound.

She gritted her teeth, inhaling and then exhaling as Rainbow Dash lovingly nuzzled the side of her tensed neck, cock throbbing heavily in her snug depths, letting her come to terms with the heightened bulk and thickness. Their initial discoveries of the changes in Dash hadn’t been all great fun. The combination of Dash blowing off steam and Applejack trying not to wake the foal had ended in tears and injury and a very ashamed Rainbow.

Rainbow’s blossoming into more of a hyper-stallion had ironically forced her to lean on her feminine side, by sheer necessity. As Rarity had before her, Rainbow now packed a magic-bit-hardon capable of dealing real damage if it was too rough. Unlike Rarity’s, its bulged-out end girth wasn’t sustained down through the base, so you could keep that boner out of trouble much as a Diamond Dog might—by burying it.

Applejack shuddered, as Rainbow settled her hooves and wiggled cerulean hips, shifting that deeply buried mass inside her. The sheer bulk made her heart pound, but she clenched down fiercely, tensing her pelvic floor to grip onto the base—also expanded, but not agonizingly so. She could tell Dash was gripping the magic bit lightly, because it wasn’t even subtle anymore: when Dash did bear down on the thing, Applejack’s heart would leap into her throat as the girth swelled and stretched her. For now, there was no such drama. Rainbow was a good girl, as well as a great boy, and merely nuzzled gently at her silky blonde mane…

…and nudged a huge stallionhood tenderly to fill her deepest depths.

Applejack’s eyes crossed a mite, and went half-lidded as she bared her teeth again in a grimace of lewd ecstacy. Her tail flicked, and she panted a few hot breaths through her flared nostrils, staring somewhere beyond the bedroom wall as if viewing amazing wonders—but the wonders were upon her, inside her, sunk deeply within her and making affectionate little movements.

Rainbow Dash lowered her head reverently, and began to nudge harder.

She knew better than to tug too much—things got explosive. That was what someone like Gilda seemed not to understand, thought Dash. Yes, excitement, yes the outrageous, yes it was a thrill to drive somepony savagely into mad thrashing orgasm, but by doing so you somehow detached from the heart of the experience. You turned the act itself into a performance. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for a competitive racing-pony to do that, but Applejack had gently opened her mind to a new way to be, even before the foal and all.

And so, Rainbow Dash did not brace her hooves, did not put her back into it, did not seek to work that swollen stallionhood inside Applejack to blow all her fuses and make her scream. Instead, Rainbow clung just a little closer, shifted her hips only slightly, and rather than focussing her attention on the sensations of her magically induced cock and the motions of her own body, she wrapped herself around her mate, stroking Applejack’s body with a foreleg, nestling her head against her love’s as if trying to soak up every little quiver and gasp and not miss the smallest moment.

Her avid attention was rewarded right away.

She could feel Applejack’s heart thumping, could hear it through pressing an equine ear to her neck, felt the country mare quiver… then picked up a swaying, and a gulp, for Applejack was reeling, demented with pleasure. It was just the sort of moment that told Rainbow her lover was worked up beyond belief, ready to be detonated by a few brisk bucks, a few thumps against her depths, and yet Rainbow did no such thing. Instead, she slowed down, spread herself even more lovingly over Applejack’s trembling body, nuzzled close and nudged her increasingly hard and throbbing member at a more and more languid tempo, drawing things out as if she wanted to balance on that edge forever.

Applejack’s ear flicked. Her eye twitched, though she wasn’t seeing anything much but stars against the bedroom wall. She melted into Rainbow’s embrace, her hindquarters trembling and squeezing against the hardened phallus that nudged so hesitantly, buried within her.

Applejack’s hoof clacked against the floor, for her body had jolted so intensely that her foreleg spasmed. She hissed a breath between her teeth, tendons standing out on the neck that Dash nuzzled thoughtfully against, and her eyes leaked tears of awe, revealing almost a horrified look. Every part of her longed for the consummation, but there was always something beautifully terrifying about so great a peak, so visceral a reaction.

Rainbow Dash slowed to a halt, bearing down on the magic bit, and for a few seconds she only throbbed, filling Applejack’s pussy to its very limits as she hung on, teetering on the brink and feeling every heartbeat thumping within her tight-strained confines, equine hard-on nuzzled lovingly up to the gates to her womb as Rainbow Dash’s wings arched high and groped the air…

“…gh!”

Dash let Applejack light the spark. It was better that way.

She felt her earth pony lover’s pussy clench, as she let out that one little cry. Applejack’s hoof clacked against the floor again as her body spasmed. She hovered, somehow, for another moment, as the hammer inexorably fell on her psyche, poised in an unthinkable moment where present, past and future were a swirling meaningless eternity… and then Rainbow Dash heard a faint, sweet whimper against her, and felt Applejack shuddering in a fusillade of climaxes like a string of firecrackers, and that country-pony vagina began gripping her in a wild, quivering, clinging grasp that seized her over and over, grabbing and clenching and begging for her body’s final gift…

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth on the magic bit, and squeezed her eyes shut, nuzzling her face against Applejack’s trembling neck.

Applejack’s lovely green eyes filled with a kind of fond, yearning horror as she felt that moment arrive, for she knew how it’d go. Sometimes she wanted to clamp down and intensify it, sometimes she longed to relax and let it all squirt out, but either way, Rainbow would pack one final orgasmic punch. Since the foaling, Dash didn’t just squirt anymore—she hit with hydraulic force. Applejack whimpered one more time, helplessly, climaxing on the magical stallionhood with irresistible, voracious clutches.

Dash went off like a cannon, and Applejack was suddenly filled with spooge.

The sensation forced tears to Applejack’s eyes. One massive throb, and suddenly goopy white horsecome spurted into her, palpably squirting through her cervix and flooding her womb. It filled her up and kept going—she felt the hot thick fluid pumping inexorably into her and swelling her uncomfortably and her eyes bugged out because it was happening so fast and it was gonna be one of those ones where it felt like she was being inflated and about to burst…

The pressure steadied. Rainbow Dash, her body shaking, was working her hips against Applejack’s quivering rump—and a faint splutching noise could be heard as come squirted out to fall in gooey blobs on the floor. It kept pumping in, still, but a lot of it didn’t stay in there.

Applejack stared wildly at the wall, unable to breathe for a moment as her body jolted with a few more brutal orgasms. The relief of the pressure made all the difference in the world—it could be agonizing if she clamped down and bottled it up and if Dash was extra full of come that day, but it didn’t take many cupfuls of spilled seed to tilt things back toward the reasonable again. She licked her lips, vision blurring, heart pounding in her ears, and felt Dash throb within her, felt Dash’s body jerk and tremble as it clung to hers.

Applejack turned her head, to first nuzzle and then kiss her panting lover.

Dash sprawled loosely across Applejack’s rump. It always took it out of her to come that profusely, though it wasn’t permanent—the come was also magically generated, like the dick. It made for easy clean-up, that was for sure: it just disappeared. She knew Applejack didn’t want it to disappear just yet, so she hung onto the bit and asked a question with her eyes. Applejack answered with a dreamy look and another nuzzle, wobbling slightly under Dash’s weight, and heaved a few quavery breaths, looking off into space. Rainbow knew just what she was savoring. Applejack squirmed slightly, bearing down and squeezing at Dash’s stallionhood, and Dash let her explore the sensation of being literally full of pony-come for a little while longer.

Then, Applejack kissed Rainbow again, and softly said, “Okay. Now talk t’ me, my love.”

Rainbow Dash let the bit drop, and the alarming pegasus stallionhood shrank and withdrew from Applejack’s vagina, followed by a curious sight—bucketfuls of ponycome gushing out of earth pony pussy, only to disappear before it could splash on the floor. Dash dismounted, and nuzzled her lover back. “Hmm?”

Applejack shook her head as if to clear it. “Ngg! Lordy, that was too good. Ain’t complainin’, not me. Yeah—I tole you, Dashie, you been amazin’, all I could ask. Now you tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What’s botherin’ you. Come on, pony girl. It was wrote all over you. Y’wanna join me in bed? Will that make it easier?”

“Uhhh… I dunno. Wow. When did I get that obvious? What gives you the idea something’s wrong?”

Applejack dropped her gaze. “Figured I could get you smilin’ again with snacks an’ pussy, sugarcube, even if you come back still mad. Ah din’t anticipate you comin’ back home guilty an’ worried. Can’t have fucked while you was out, not the way you jes’ flooded my pore body. So what happened?”

Dash stared, amazed. “It… the… gosh. Where do I even start?”

Applejack kissed her. “How about the last thing that happened before you came home? You was all flustered. I hope I soothed some o’ that.”

Rainbow Dash hugged her marefriend fiercely. “Oh, Applejack! I don’t even deserve you, oh my gosh!”

“You do so,” retorted the sated earth pony mare. “Now start talkin’ or I start buckin’, got it?”

“All right,” said Rainbow Dash. “Yeah, let’s get in bed and talk. Don’t bump Spy… that’s the way. Yeah. Okay. Right. Last thing. Wow.”

Applejack blinked. “Ya can’t keep track? What on earth…”

“Okay, you know Derpy? Mail-mare, pegasus, grey and blonde?”

“Course I do! What about her?”

Rainbow Dash gulped. “Derpy wants a fucking.”

Applejack stared levelly at her, while Dash blushed more and more purple. Finally, the blonde mare said, “Terrible thing, a pony girl wantin’ a fuckin’. That never happens.”

“Yeah, but,” began Rainbow Dash.

“Ah wanted a fuckin’, and that din’t seem to throw ya, sugarcube…”

“Look, I shouldn’t have to explain this. Derpy is… derpy! You’ve seen her. Haven’t you?”

“I seen th’ farm animals, too,” suggested Applejack. “When they want a fuckin’ you best stand well clear and leave ‘em to it.”

“Derpy’s not a…” said Dash, and shook her head. “What’re you trying to tell me? That you want Derpy? Is that it?”

“Naw!” said Applejack. “Never crossed my mind. All Dash, all th’ time, that’s me. No, Rainbow Dash, it ain’t that. It’s that you made a face just then. Ah would like you to explain for me why poor Derpy wantin’ a fucking is a disgusting thing.”

Rainbow fell silent, and Applejack stared at her. After a while, she said, “Because I did not see that in you, Dashie. I reckon maybe it’s a good thing I count as a clever-hooves, if it’s like that, ‘cos I ain’t the best at fancy learnin’ and such unicorn tricks…”

“Stop!” said Dash. “Please. Stop. I’m sorry I brought it up now, but that’s the truth, that was the latest freaky thing. Do you really not see how that’s creepy? It doesn’t seem creepy to you?”

“We all gotta do our best with what we can, Dashie. Derpy Hooves is a dear sweet creature, mostly doesn’t lose th’ mail when I need it. She does th’ best she can. You know, I can’t say as I’m surprised. I know she’s got that lil’ sister, but I never did hear of her havin’ a coltfriend nor a fillyfriend. I reckon she’s wantin’ a fillyfriend, then, if she asked you?”

“No. She said she saw me getting a penis stuck in me. She wants that. Kinda means she’s seen you topping me. You okay with that, Applejack?”

“Oh, you mean like Fluttershy kept watchin’ us?”

Dash glowered. “You’re being unfair. I thought this was gonna be a bigger deal for you, Applejack. I was thinking of you, not wanting to share me.”

Applejack lowered her gaze. “Aw… you know, it’s been a while since we was in a position to worry ourselves with such things…”

“The last time you were on your own,” said Rainbow Dash, “you picked up somepony mighty quick.”

That got her a sharp glance. “So did you. Hell, I still ain’t sure how many folks you ran with, only that you come back to me and I went back to you, and that’s the important thing. Ain’t it?”

“So we should tell Derpy ‘no’?” asked Dash.

“Ah did not say that,” replied Applejack. “There was a time when you tried to teach me to spread my love around. Now, that maybe din’t always work out so great… but it seemed like you meant it. Do you or don’t you believe that ponies should be taken care of in and out of bed if they’re needful of it?”

‘Well, I…”

“Why would Derpy be any different? Ain’t like she’s askin’ to have your babies.” Applejack blinked. “Uhh… hold on. Is Derpy askin’ to have your babies?”

“She thinks they come from cabbage patches,” said Rainbow Dash. “Her Mom told her so, and she believes what her Mom told her.”

Applejack’s ears went back. “Dang. Really? You’re sayin’ she don’t understand th’ simplest things about how pegasuses work?”

“She’s horny, and she’s figured out ponies fuck. She wants some of that. No, she hasn’t got the slightest idea what would make her pregnant.”

Applejack frowned. “Wull… maybe we can do th’ understandin’ for her? Me and you, we know what would make her conceive. And you know th’ magic bit stuff ain’t waterin’ no seeds…”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wow. You’re serious, Applejack? You really think Derpy Hooves should get to have sex? To the point that WE ought to help her with that?”

“Um… dern it, yeah, guess I do. I realise that our track record with that stuff ain’t been a string of triumphs…”

“Hey,” said Dash. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I mean, she’s a sweet pony and everything, but that doesn’t mean it has to be your problem.”

“No, I want to. Pore thing. Ain’t fair that she should jes’ be watchin’ like some Fluttershy.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look too sure,” said Dash. “It might be weird explaining stuff to her. I don’t think she’s ever done a thing with anypony. Who knows what might happen? You might not want to attempt it around anything breakable. Like the barn. Or this house…”

“Aw, how dangerous could it be?” said Applejack, and then stopped and thought. “I mean, if it makes her happy? You know the scariest things about fuckin’ seemed to be all about the horns—them unicorns, gettin’ mighty intense.”

“You’re not wrong there,” said Rainbow.

Applejack winced, remembering. “We got through it, though.” She nuzzled Rainbow’s wing, rewarded by a quiver and a gentle moan. “Seem like you wingy types ain’t nearly as tough to deal with, so don’t you fret. We’ll take care of all that stuff, somehow. Maybe it’ll help us have fun while raisin’ our foal, to have some outside pleasure ponies for spare moments. Hmm? Cause I know I got you, and you got me—we don’t have to worry about that, it runs a mite deeper than the pokin’ of penises. An’ you know that’s the simple truth.”

Rainbow sighed, and relaxed against her beloved. “I love you so much, Applejack. You never let me down, ever. I feel like I can face anything, with you backing me up.”

Applejack smiled. “Course y’ can.”

“We’ll get through it all.”

“Course we will.”

Rainbow snuggled closer. “And compared to Derpy, Gilda will be a piece of cake.”

She glanced over at her marefriend, into wide, alarmed, green eyes.

“…beg your pardon?” said Applejack.

Detour

Applejack stared. “Who now is a piece of what now?”

“Uhhh…”

“Did you say Gilda? Like, rip you up with her claws Gilda? That Gilda?”

Dash sulked. “Fine. I’m the real derpy pony around here. I get it.”

“But I’m jes’ tryin’ to understand…”

“Fine!” Dash rolled over, facing away from Applejack.

Applejack frowned, and nudged her balky pegasus on the shoulder, to no effect. She nudged harder, and Dashie covered her face with her hooves and laid her ears back. That had an unintended side effect.

“Ow! Applejack!” Rainbow tried to lay her ears totally flat, and was in a mood to do it, but Applejack had got one in her teeth, and without biting down too hard, tugged, growling…

And let go, shocked, when she saw the tears in Dash’s eyes. “Rainbow, what is happening? I ain’t even mad, now I’m gettin’ scared!”

That got through. Dash twisted her neck to face her love, still looking sulky and deeply hurt. “I don’t want you to be scared. I don’t want anypony to be scared, or sad, or let down, but especially not you.”

Applejack took a breath. “Then tell me what’s happenin’. Never mind all this other stuff—what’s happenin’ to you?”

“I was talking to Flight Lightning…”

“Jes’ talking?” joked Applejack, whereupon Rainbow Dash flipped right back over again, refusing to look at her.

Applejack gulped, and the dark circles that had been sneaking back under her eyes seemed to deepen. She hesitated, and then nudged her beloved cautiously. “Honey? We used to be able to joke…”

Dash sniffled loudly, and rolled back over again. “Sorry,” she said, but Applejack’s heart leapt into her throat with one glance at Dash’s expression.

“Rainbow, what is hurting you? I’ll do anythin’ that might help. You need me lovin’ on Derpy, sugar? Or,” and she gulped, “Gilda? Won’t say I never imagined that but it ain’t safe no-how…”

Dash was shaking her head. “You don’t get it. This is not some ploy to get you busy with my friends—or with my history. That’s what me and Flight Lightning were talking about. I got a thing called post-partum depression, Applejack. I can’t help it. Flight had it once too, she called me on it. It’s not about Derpy, or Gilda. Right now I’m worried that I’m making dumb decisions because of it.”

“Toppin’ Derpy is a dumb decision?” blinked Applejack.

“It is,” said Rainbow Dash, “if it means I’m gonna keep doing stupid things until you hate me and leave me and I’ll never see you again which will be entirely my fault.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. Dash looked right back at her, ears chastened.

“I told you I was worried. I guess I’m not supposed to be thinking things like that, which is just one more wrong thing I do now…”

Her words were cut off by Applejack’s lips, as her mate shut her up with a desperate, tender kiss. Applejack’s eyes pleaded wordlessly as her mouth parted, nuzzling against Rainbow’s, not allowing another word until she saw that Dash’s ears had perked up a little.

Then she pulled back, and allowed Dash to speak.

Rainbow Dash licked her lips, eyes still worried. “I guess I know your opinion, though I still don’t deserve any of this…”

Applejack winced, her eyes gone tragic, and Dash mustered up all the spirit she could find and kissed her back. It was entirely too mournful a kiss, she knew, but she could tell she wouldn’t be able to do better. Now that Flight Lightning had called her on it, she recognized her mood for what it was, and it was a lead anvil tied to her guts, dragging her down into an inevitable crater where she belonged.

Dash shook her head. Logically, that was crap. Flight would kick her ass for thinking it.

Applejack didn’t look hostile, though, she looked terrified. It seemed that Angry Rainbow was normal enough, and Obnoxious Rainbow was par for the course, but Doom-Struck Rainbow broke a whole set of rules for the faithful country pony. Dash hastened to reassure her.

“I promise, I can handle it. I think Flight said it might eventually go away or something? I’ll be careful. No more of my…” Dash ground to a halt, trying to find a way to put it. “…daredevil crap. I’ll stay safe. I swear, I’ll stay safe.”

“You ain’t… safe?” said Applejack, weakly.

“Yes I am!” said Dash, and kissed Applejack again, and this time she was the one with energy, for Applejack seemed to be a little stunned at her words. “I’m safe. I’ll talk to Flight some more. We’ll nip this depression thing in the bud! Just because it’s too big to even fight doesn’t mean I won’t fight it. You know me better than that, right?”

Applejack blinked a couple times. Her eyes were moist. “I… I could tell somethin’ was up, Dashie. Seemed like you din’t want to talk about it. Thought you was mad at me?”

Dash grimaced. “Now you’re thinking it’s something you did!”

“Please, Dashie, calm down!” said Applejack. “I’mma talk to… somepony. Granny, maybe? I don’t care if she’s mad at me, this-all is scarin’ me.”

“Well, she wouldn’t be mad if I…” began Dash, and then forced herself to stop. They both knew it was Twilight’s lactation cantrip that had blown things with Granny—it seemed to disturb her on a level they couldn’t argue her out of, like Applejack’s tits had become magical objects. Of course, thought Dash, they were—but not that way. It didn’t help with Granny, though.

Applejack was staring at her earnestly. “Rainbow Dash, I don’t know much about depression, whether it’s post-partin’ or log-splittin depression, but I want you to know that I got your back.”

“And wings,” added Rainbow. “Always.”

“Damn straight, darlin’,” said Applejack, “so I’m tellin’ you right now, whether it seems to make sense to you or what—we are a team and we gonna rise or fall together, you hear me? I will do anything, anything you think needs doin’. Hell, I’ll try to enjoy it, specially if it’s somethin’ that feels good like fuckin’. I can see in your eyes that whatever this is, it’s hurt you bad. You ain’t alone, Dashie. If you’re depressed, well I’ll be there with you until you’re better.”

“Mm,” said Dash, frowning. “This is too much to ask. It’s too much trouble, and I’m probably being totally stupid.”

“Ain’t that depression talkin’? Since when were you not awesome?”

Rainbow winced. “Since Spy, apparently. Oh, okay, okay, I get it! Fine, I’m awesome…”

“In my eyes,” said Applejack, sincerely.

Rainbow looked skeptical. “Yeah. But I’m up to my old crap, Applejack. Letting Gilda play with me, trying to get Derpy laid…”

“Did she hurt you? Ah mean, this time?” Applejack covertly tried to look over Dash’s body for injuries.

“We didn’t do anything. I swear, she didn’t touch me,” said Dash. “I sent her to my house. She says she doesn’t want to be a griffin anymore. She wants to be a pony, by which she means, she wants pony cock in a bad way and she’s pissed off at the other griffins for kicking her out.”

“What?!” blinked Applejack.

“Yeah! She says she’s a pervert and they don’t like perverts. I don’t know if it’s true but it wouldn’t be safe to ask them. Maybe Twilight or Princess Celestia could get away with it, but they wouldn’t necessarily talk. Anyway, Gilda says she’s got nowhere to go. I set her up in my house because I’m not there anymore, and I told her I’d get back to her. No, wait, I told Derpy I’d get back to her. I told Gilda to get the fuck out, which pretty much means the same thing if you’re a griffin.”

Applejack was trembling, shaking her head. “Oh, Dashie! I jes’ don’t know. It’s so… un-pony. How can that mean, ‘I’ll get back to you’?”

Rainbow struggled to explain. “It just does, okay? They’re incredibly rude. If you could’ve seen her… um, maybe it’s just as well you didn’t, but I understood. It looked scary with the grabbing sharp talons and everything, but she was nervous as buck! It’s crazy, but some part of her means it. She was trying to act pony, and she had no idea how to do that. She said she was sorry. I’ve never heard a griffin say that, ever! Do you have any idea how weird it was to hear that come out of that beak?”

Applejack twitched at the mention of the sharp talons, and again at the reference to a beak. “I can’t believe she was your honey in flight school. It’s amazin’ you survived!”

At that, Dash gave her a look. “Boss, I’ve probably done nearly as much damage playing rough, and you were okay with that—well, mostly. I’ve kicked you, I’ve bit your butt, and I happen to know you were trying Rarity, who’s the queen of kinky ponies…”

“We din’t do that stuff!” protested Applejack. “I din’t want to hurt her or do her down like that, and I would never surrender or let her dominate me!” She gulped, and then added, “Well, mostly!”

Dash’s eyebrow lifted. “Oh, really! You should tell me sometime. So, the mighty Rarity did manage to top you, hmm?”

It was Applejack’s turn to be sulky. “Don’t count. We loved each other, still do. And that stuff busted us up, Dashie, I couldn’t stand it. It ain’t no concern of yours.”

Dash nuzzled her, a little smirk lighting up her face. “I remember, a long time ago, introducing you to Pinkie and what she does. I told you how sexy it would be to hold you while you lost your pony mind. Wouldn’t it also be sexy to watch Rarity work out on you?”

Applejack was unconvinced. “Rainbow Dash, I ain’t no play-toy, nor anypony’s victim, even in sexin’. I am a mama, now! And I got responsibilities, you have no idea… Big Macintosh is still off somewheres, he tries to get ahead on the work and then go all trot-about and you cain’t do that, things will come up, and Granny’s mad and Apple Bloom mopes around ‘cos of Sweetie and Scootaloo…”

Dash sighed. “Yeah. Thanks for mentioning it. A lot of that is my fault and I was trying not to think about it.”

Flustered, Applejack protested, “Is not! Oh, Dashie. Is this what depressin’ is? Would it help if you got to play again? It’ll take a lot of doin’, what with the baby and all…”

“I noticed,” said Dash, and Applejack’s face fell even more.

“It’s really getting to you, huh?”

Dash didn’t answer, sunk in her gloom. Applejack blinked away a tear.

“Ah do a lot,” she said softly. Then, louder—”Ah do an awful lot.”

“I know,” said Dash.

“Ain’t it enough?”

Dash hesitated half a second too long.

“Of course it is, Applejack. I love you.”

Applejack lay awake a long time, staring at nothing, saying nothing.

Applejack had snuck out to the barn before breakfast—not to carouse or canoodle, but to bring in some of the very freshest hay Sweet Apple Acres had.

Apple Bloom nibbled glumly on the hay-cakes Applejack had made, and stared at her plate.

The spectacle seemed to offend Rainbow, who sat very close to her marefriend and devoured her breakfast with ostentatious delight. “Mmm!” she said. “These really are a special treat, wouldn’t you say, Granny?”

Granny Smith shot her a sidelong glance. “Ye could say that,” she said. She considered, and turned to face Applejack’s hesitant smile. “Ye done good, child, this is a fine breakfast.”

“You might even say,” added Dash, “it was magical.”

Granny’s face shut down, and Applejack cringed and burst into a flurry of explanation. “She don’t mean it literal or nothin’! Jes’ bein’ nice, my Dashie is!”

Granny looked sour, pursing her lips. She hesitated, and then put words to her sour look.

“That makes four of us who ain’t ate magic for breakfast…”

Dash glared. “Hey, we’ve explained this before!”

“Apple Bloom!” interrupted Applejack, fretfully. “You okay, honey? Them hay-cakes all right? Ah could make you some more if they got cold on ya…”

Granny snorted. “If they did, it’s on account of her mopin’ rather’n eatin’! Don’t you dare, child, I won’t have such coddlin’. My sakes, Apple Bloom, what is th’ matter?”

Apple Bloom sighed, pouting, then lifted her head, for she knew better than to cross Granny. “It’s nothin’, I guess. Feelin’ mighty lonely as of late.”

Granny shook her head. “That again? Poor lil’ scaper, I remember you was talkin’ about that stuff. Your lil’ friends ain’t playin’ with you like they used?”

Apple Bloom directed a resentful look at her hay-cakes.

“Well,” said Granny, “if your sis…” and broke off, abruptly.

Rainbow’s head snapped around. “What?”

“Din’t say nothin’, girl,” said Granny truculently. “Back to your hay-cakes.”

“Oh?” replied Dash. “It sounded like you were gonna say something about Apple Bloom’s sis. What could that possibly have been, huh?”

“Rainbow,” protested Applejack, “don’t bully Granny like that!”

At this, Granny Smith snorted. “Ye daft, child? Every day I’m more certain that this little blue wingy pony is Apple born, somehow. Why, Rainbow Dash, it jes’ possibly could have been me sayin’, if Applejack weren’t doin’ somethin’ for you that you could dang well do yourself, maybe she’d be available to be a sister to Apple Bloom!”

Dash glanced at Applejack and caught the stricken look, and she whirled on Granny, flapping. “Oh yeah? Well, if you’ve got a problem with that, take it up with me, because I asked her to do it, and we keep telling you, there are no lasting magical effects! If I ever, ever hear you saying…”

She was interrupted by Apple Bloom, who waved her hooves and cried, “Don’t yell! Applejack is th’ best sister ever, and I don’t mind at all if she don’t have as much time ‘cos we all love Northern Spy who is the sweetest most adorable baby foal in the whole world…”

Applejack was catching her breath as well, recovering from her initial shock, and there was a pleading look in her eyes as she, too, turned to Granny. “Rainbow needed my help if she was gonna start training again. We talked about it, Granny! Don’t you remember?”

Granny’s lips were tight, her eyes strict. “You talked about it, child. Ah am your grandmother, but that don’t mean I own you, nor this farm, and it don’t mean you’ll listen. Only so much breath you can waste on a lost cause.”

Applejack gulped. “Ah’m sorry. I love her, Granny. I would do anything for Rainbow. Anything.”

“That’s jes’ what worries me, child,” said Granny Smith.

“Please don’t fight!” said Apple Bloom. “My friends ain’t prop’ly my friends no more, I don’t want my family goin’ wrong!”

“We ain’t fightin’!” snapped Granny Smith. “We is disagreein’. Best settle for that! Now, why ain’t you finished your breakfast?”

Apple Bloom dove in and gobbled up her remaining hay-cakes, and as she finished them, Applejack said soothingly, “Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo are still your friends, darlin’. Honest they are. Maybe we kin talk to ‘em if they need a lil’ help rememberin’ important things?”

Apple Bloom swallowed. “Ain’t about rememberin’. I wish it were. We had a big meetin’ the other day—well, I say we had, turns out it was me havin’ it all by myself—and afterward, I goes over to Carousel Boutique that evenin’ to find Sweetie.”

“Uhhh…” said Rainbow Dash, making a shrewd guess, but Apple Bloom continued.

“An’ nopony opened the door or nothin’ so I went to look in a window and there they was all the same and they was…”

“Apple Bloom!” protested Applejack.

“…canoodling!”

Rainbow Dash snorted with laughter, in spite of herself. “No kidding?”

Apple Bloom turned to her, hurt and offended. “Did they have to spend ALL that time canoodling? They couldn’t take a few minutes for important Crusader business?”

“Uh, Apple Bloom…” said Applejack, watching Granny’s expression.

“How can you even canoodle all day long an’ into the night? It ain’t possible!”

“Apple Bloom…” began Rainbow, shaking her head and smiling.

“Your tongue would wear off!”

“APPLE Bloom!” snapped Granny fiercely.

Dash snorted with laughter again. Apple Bloom’s ears wilted, and she muttered, “Sorry, Granny Smith.”

“How about we go and make some apple fritters, okay?” suggested Applejack. “Then we can take ‘em into town and sell ‘em, I ain’t tendin’ to our farm stand near as much as I oughta…”

“It’ll get done, child,” said Granny Smith. “We all do our part. I been takin’ up your slack with the stand. Can’t say I ain’t tryin’.”

Applejack looked tragic. “I promise, I’ll find more time to run that there stand…”

“How about you find some time to make apple fritters with your lil’ sister?”

“Yes’m,” said Applejack, her ears quirked to the side in dismay. She followed Apple Bloom out of the room, but paused in the doorway and turned. Her eyes glistened.

“I love you, Granny.”

The old mare glowered at her empty plate. “To a point, ye do.”

Then, she winced, cowering away slightly, for Rainbow Dash wasn’t laughing anymore. Her brittle mood had taken another tumble when she heard the hurtful remark, and she’d leaned over and was glaring right in Granny’s eyes, without a word.

Granny sighed. “All right, all right. I hear ye, child. ‘Course you do. An’ I do love you—all of you confounded jackasses callin’ yourselves ponies. Mebbe I’m the biggest jackass, is my ears long an’ pointy? Check my ears, will ye?”

Rainbow’s head bowed a little. “They look fine, Granny. Sorry I got so mad.”

Granny looked mournful. “Ain’t no thing,” she said. She paused for a moment, and her face twisted. “…but I tell you, this is what you get when you go changin’ all good things willy-nilly!”

Rainbow Dash winced, then, for she considered herself the agent of all this change. She opened her mouth, trying to think of what to say, but it was Applejack who spoke. “I’ll go make some apple fritters with Apple Bloom, I promise. Then we can go sell ‘em at the stand!”

“I’ll get out of your sight,” said Rainbow. “Spy’s probably going to want to be fed soon…”

“No, I’ll go,” said Granny, sagging. “I’ll go, it’s time I had my nap anyways. I’ll try my best with it all, I promise ye. Can’t say I ain’t tryin’. Don’t you dare say that! Ain’t like I ain’t trying…”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes softened, and she opened her mouth to speak, while Applejack watched nervously.

“Maaaa!” cried Northern Spy, from the upstairs bedroom.

Without a word, Rainbow turned and trotted upstairs to nurse the foal, and Applejack headed into the kitchen to make apple fritters. Granny hobbled off to nap, and the room was empty except for breakfast’s abandoned plates.

Fifteen minutes later, Apple Bloom slipped in and collected the dishes for washing. Rainbow hadn’t thought anything of it, but the Apples had never left dishes lying out before, and Apple Bloom did her best to sneak them into the sink in the hopes the grownups wouldn’t notice their own lapse, and feel bad about it.

Applejack saw her do it, but pretended not to notice.

“You take Spy,” said Rainbow Dash, “and I’ll go find Derpy, okay? Are you sure you’re up for this?”

Applejack nodded solemnly as she opened the door for Dash. “Might be worryin’ if I was nursing Northern Spy just a minute before, but you know the thing about them magic bits—won’t matter if I worry. Sproing!”

“Where is it? You’re not holding it in your mouth.”

Applejack’s eyes twinkled. “Got it in my hat. Don’t you worry. I’ll have somethin’ for her if she wants.”

“Well, I assume it’s you she wants, because she wanted what happens to me. She’s seen me with a pony on top of me, and you know that could only mean you…”

“Or Pinkie,” suggested Applejack.

Rainbow gave her a look. “Not with a dick, it wouldn’t be. You know Pinkie won’t deal with those at all. Anyway, she’s all about Fluttershy now. No, Derpy Hooves said she wanted somepony to do that to her, and she meant grow a dick and get busy. It’s gotta mean you.”

“Well, if Twilight could stand it,” said Applejack, “I reckon Derpy kin. Where we doin’ this? Is it okay if I don’t want to be doin’ it in our bedroom? That’s OUR bedroom, sugar…”

“How about the barn, then? That’s pretty cozy. Good place to have fun, right?”

Applejack considered this. “All right. You go fetch Derpy, I’ll head on over to th’ barn with Spy. When you come back, you take Spy and I’ll… heh, well I reckon I’ll take Derpy.”

“You’re smiling,” teased Rainbow.

“Aw. She is a dear sweet thing. Hope I kin make her happy.”

Dash smirked. “How much do you want to bet?”

This got a snicker from Applejack. “No bet. I do all right. Off y’ go, charitable sweetie.”

“From what I hear, Sweetie’s too busy canoodling to be charitable,” said Rainbow. “Is that really what you guys call it? Canoodling? Seriously?”

“Hush. Mah audience awaits. Go git ‘er.”

Rainbow saluted playfully, and shot off at high speed, and Applejack began ambling toward the barn.

When Rainbow returned, it was alone. “She’s coming! She was delivering some mail. She wants to drop that stuff off at her house, she’s afraid she might lose it. Hey—what’s the matter?”

Applejack trotted to and fro, as Spy napped in the grass. “Big Macintosh still ain’t back. I don’t think he’s even been here. What the hay, Dashie?”

Rainbow blinked. “Really? How long has he been gone?”

“I ain’t rightly sure! Since he begun stayin’ in the barn, he travels more’n he used to. He might be in our warehouse in Fillydelphia, but I thought he’d come back for some more plowin’.”

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes, and hmphed. Then she smiled. “Maybe he’s out making some more little foals.”

“Oh dear. Ya think he picked up th’ habit?”

“Hey,” said Rainbow, “we better ask Derpy if that’s what she thinks she’s gonna do. Maybe she’s gonna have a good fuck, then go and look in the cabbage patch after?”

“Oh, dear Celestia,” moaned Applejack. “Don’t say such things, honey?”

Rainbow studied her distressed mate, and then nodded sharply. “Just a minute. I’ll be right back.” She scooped up Spy in her forelegs with a grunt, and began to fly back toward the house.

“Whatcha doin’, Dashie?”

“I’m gonna drop Spy off with Granny, and wait with you!” called Dash. “I’m not going to make you explain this stuff alone. You can still be private with Derpy once we have everything sorted out. Until then, I’m your wing-mare.”

“Aw!” said Applejack. “Thanks, Dashie!”

It took only a minute, and as Rainbow Dash returned alone, both ponies could see a little grey dot in the sky, approaching.

Derpy flew up, calling “Hello again, Rainbow Dash!”

“Hey Derpy! I’m just gonna get you settled in and then I’ll leave you guys to it, okay?”

Derpy landed with a thump and a cute stumble, smiling broadly all the while. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash! You’re a super extra nice pony!”

“So are you, sweetie,” smiled Dash. “So are you.”

“Ya nervous, sugarcube?” said Applejack.

Derpy blushed, looking down. “A little.”

“That’s okay,” said Applejack. “Understandable. Don’t you worry. Nothin’ wrong with feelin’ the way you are feelin’.”

“That said,” continued Rainbow Dash, “we need to ask you a couple of things, okay? If you don’t mind?”

“Okay!”

“Sooo… is this about having foals, Derpy? I know we talked about that a little bit. Do you see this stuff as a way to make a foal of your own?”

They paused, holding their breath, as Derpy thought. Her brow was knit, and her eyes went even more wonky than usual, and she pouted, sticking out her lower lip. Applejack gulped, for it was both adorable and disconcerting. It really was Derpy, wanting this done to her. There was no telling what was bouncing around in that curious head, but it wasn’t about telling at all… it was about asking.

“Uhhh… I was gonna ask you about that, Rainbow Dash.”

“Shoot!” said Dash. At the puzzled look, she explained, “Ask away. I mean—yes, ask me about it.”

“Well, there’s the ponies that get foals, and then there’s the ponies that climb on top of each other and stick things, and I think they’re the same ponies. Is that true, Rainbow Dash? You got one! How does it work? They’re not even in the cabbage patch when they do that—or even near it!”

Dash blinked. “Ah. Ha. Yeah. I was wondering if I could shake you on the cabbage patch thing…”

Derpy lowered her head a little, sulkily. It didn’t look like she was ready to be told her Mom had made up a story for her.

“…but still, good eye, Derpy. Um… either of them. Probably not both at once, knowing you. Anyway, you’re right, that sort of thing does relate to making foals. Is that why you wanted to do it?”

Derpy thought again, and they let her.

“I don’t know, Rainbow Dash. I’m kinda clumsy, and I forget stuff. I’m glad there’s foals. But maybe I don’t want to take care of one right now. I might break it, and that would be real bad. Can I have a penis poked into me without making any?”

Applejack sighed with relief. “Sure ya can. Derpy, it takes a lil’ extra magic for a pegasus mare to make babies. I promise, you won’t have any without that little extra magic.”

Derpy bounced. “Okay! I’ll ask her not to do any extra!”

Rainbow Dash glanced sharply at her. “So it’s not foals you’re after. Maybe I should check and find out if we’re all on the same page here. Derpy, why do you want this? Is it because you see other ponies doing stuff and you think you should try to be like them? If you’re not ready it won’t be comfortable to do. It’s worth asking.”

Derpy blushed more. “Uhhh… when I see other mares getting penises in their vagina, I get the funniest feeling. It’s like itchy, only not. And I want to jump around, and if I rub it I feel really funny and it’s amazing, only I get yelled at if I do it around other ponies or drip wet stuff on pony heads or get it on the mail, so I can only do that at home, but the whole time I just want somepony to jump up on to me and…”

“She’s ready,” said Applejack, with a toss of her mane and a little half-smile.

“Oh yeah,” said Dash. “Okay, Derpy, we get it, you can stop explaining. Hey! Look at me—yeah, with at least one eye, that’s it. I want you to know, I’ve been yelled at for doing the same thing, so don’t feel bad.”

Applejack blinked. “You clop in the air, Dashie? While flyin’ over other ponies?” She thought about this. “Never mind, silly question…”

“I don’t have to do that as much anymore,” said Dash. “And hey, neither does Derpy, now!”

“Dern tootin’,” said Applejack. “Sweetie, that barn holds the answer to your marehood’s prayers, and we’re honestly delighted that we can bring it to ya. Go on in. Your pleasure awaits.”

Derpy stared entranced at Applejack and Dash, her big goofy smile growing bigger and bigger.

Applejack made a sweeping gesture toward the cracked-open barn door with a forehoof. “After you, milady?”

Derpy bounced, with a little squee of joy and both wings quiveringly erect, and charged at the door, bursting through. The barn shook as she knocked the doors wide open.

Applejack began to follow, but a window-box above her creaked, wobbled, and dumped flowerpots on her head. She flinched, but Rainbow Dash darted into the air and caught one, two, three falling flowerpots. A fourth tried to tumble to the ground, but Dash held it in place with her muzzle, glancing down at Applejack with alarm.

“Uh, thanks, Dashie,” said Applejack. “Reckon I’ll fix that up afterwards.”

Dash’s eyes were wide. “Maybe I better stick around to catch falling debris.”

“An’ ogle th’ proceedings?” snickered Applejack.

Dash landed, placing the four flowerpots on the ground, but her wings stayed up. She grinned, foolishly. “…maybe?”

Applejack grinned back. “You’re th’ Dashiest. C’mon, then.”

They walked in to join Derpy, expecting to see a lovely albeit derpy grey mare winking at them, but instead they saw blinking. A glance showed that Derpy was indeed aroused—her pussy pouted fetchingly, and did wink even as they watched, but Derpy herself was looking all around the barn, trotting in place and turning this way and that, perplexed.

“Where is she?” cried Derpy.

“Who?” said Applejack.

“Twilight Sparkle!”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. Dash’s eyes bugged out, and she squeaked, “What?”

“The somepony I wanted! You said my pleasure awaited, and I said I wanted somepony to get on top of me which is Twilight Sparkle and where is she?”

Dash stared at her. Gently, she put out a hoof, reached under Applejack’s chin, and lifted her dropped jaw. She gulped. “Derpy, why does it have to be Twilight Sparkle?”

“Because I saw her out in a field with Trixie last week. And she had sex—that’s sex, right?—with Trixie. And she’s so pretty and magical and I saw the penis she made and I really think it would feel good, really. Can we go and ask her if she will do that to me too?”

“Hoo boy,” said Applejack.

“Twilight Sparkle,” said Rainbow Dash.

“But I think she should have a boy name too if she is a boy sometimes. I, uh, I, uh, decided she could be Dusk Shine, isn’t that a pretty name?”

“Oh, sweet Celestia,” breathed Applejack.

“Um, yeah,” said Dash, “sure. Pretty name. Um… That’s who you want? Twi? How do I even explain this… We kinda tried to arrange things so that Applejack could help you out. You know Applejack. She’s very special, Derpy, she really is…”

Applejack was blushing, shifting from hoof to hoof with a distressed expression. Derpy gave her and the wall a hard look and turned back to Rainbow again.

“I saw Applejack have sex with you, Rainbow Dash.”

“And here I am, I give you permission and I’m telling you it’s okay with us…”

“I saw her penis, Rainbow Dash, and I think it is too big and it would hurt. And Twilight, I mean Dusk Shine, is a lot more magical.”

Applejack’s blush made her resemble her brother. She socked Rainbow with a hoof. “C’mon, Dashie, she don’t wanna…”

“Are you kidding me?” protested Rainbow. “You want magical? You have no idea how awesome it is feeling that massive boner wedging into you. That’s a little earth pony magic, let me tell you! Are you out of your derpy mind? We’ve come out here and set this up for you, and now it’s too much stallion?”

Applejack kept prodding Rainbow, as they watched Derpy pout stubbornly, and reply.

“My mama told me one day there would be a magical pony, who would love me in a special way and not hurt me. I don’t know, Rainbow Dash, maybe your vagina is just really huge, but I saw Applejack with a penis, and how could that not hurt me, a giant thing like that? And she isn’t as magical a pony at all!”

“You don’t get it,” argued Dash, “some things hurt GOOD… if it’s a special way you wanted, you owe it to yourself to…”

“Dashie!” snapped Applejack, scarlet in the face. “Please! She don’t want to! Ain’t nopony owes nothin’, leave her be!”

Dash glared. She ruffled her wings, and pawed at the ground with a forehoof, snorting.

“Down, Dashie! Easy there,” said Applejack, her ears laid back nervously.

At that, Rainbow dropped her gaze, and the flared-out wings sagged, and she bowed her head. After a little pause, she said, “Sorry.”

Derpy’s lip quivered. “Is it okay if I go? I thought you had Twilight. I’m sorry I made you mad, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow sagged even further. “Shit. No, I’m sorry, Derpy. We’re the ones derping today. And EVERY day…”

“Are you gonna bring Twilight Sparkle for me?” asked Derpy, in a little, plainitive voice.

Applejack glanced at Dash. Dash glanced at Applejack. Neither spoke for a moment.

“We can try,” said Applejack.

They watched Derpy’s face light up, and marvelled. Her dismay was forgotten, and the smile grew and grew until it shone forth radiantly. Her fluffy grey wings rose irrepressibly, and her bubble-marked rump quivered deliciously, for Derpy’s legs were trembling at just the thought of it.

Rainbow Dash began to grin, too. “We WILL try. How’s that grab you, Derpster?”

Derpy beamed, and the faint sound and clear scent of her winking labia answered the question—and then she was bouncing ebulliently—and then stumbling into Applejack, panting, for the gleeful bouncing had apparently given her a pony orgasm.

“Whoa!” chuckled the country mare. “Easy there! Damn right we’ll try. If she gives ya any trouble, darlin’, you jes’ smile at her like that, okay?”

“Okay!” squeaked Derpy.

“Now come on, there ain’t nothin’ for us here. Let us work on it, okay, sugar? We got some explainin’ to do.”

“Boy, do we ever,” added Dash.

They turned toward the barn doors, and Derpy reared playfully, then did a flip—a sort of pegasus flip, for she twirled madly in the air with a wild flapping of pent-up wings. She landed on her hooves, stumbled heavily to the side, and charged more or less out of the barn, rebounding off the doorframe and leaping into the sky with enthusiasm.

Applejack galloped out to watch her go, and the falling window-box bonked her on the head, knocking off her hat and sending the magic bit flying. “Ow!”

Rainbow rushed up. “You okay?”

Applejack spat. “Hmph! Yeah. I’ll get that nailed back up in a jiffy.”

“I’ll do it, I can fly,” said Dash.

“True enough. All righty, that works,” said Applejack. She turned to study her marefriend, and frowned. “What’s th’ matter, hon?”

Rainbow glowered worse. “Nothing.”

“Worried about Twilight? Got to admit, that’s gonna take some doing…”

“No,” said Rainbow. “We promised to ask. All we can do is ask.”

“Then, was it th’ crack about your dear marehood, Dashie? She din’t mean nothin’ by it. She ain’t exactly too bright, you know that.”

“No, no…”

Applejack blinked, her ears to the side in perplexity. “Wull… what, then?”

Rainbow pouted, tight-lipped, and looked sidelong at her lover and mate.

“She was talking like you weren’t magical.”

“Maybe not compared to a Twilight Sparkle,” admitted Applejack, “but us earth ponies got us that growin’ magic, and that’s real fine even if we can’t fly or nothin’…”

Rainbow shut her up with a fierce kiss. “She’s a stinkin’ liar—because you are the most magical pony in the whole wide world.”

She watched as Applejack’s eyes widened, then grew moist and vulnerable.

“Ohhh, Dashie!”

Rainbow felt a little wobbly herself. “Yeah. And you are not either too big—even before I had Spy.”

“Oh, really?” said Applejack, smiling. “So I ain’t struck out with all pegasuses, huh?”

Rainbow peered up from under a chromatic fringe of mane, coyly. “Not the brave ones.”

“Thought you was gonna say, smart ones.”

Rainbow shook her head. “Oh no. Taking an epic ground-pounding like that isn’t smart. You end up coming back for more. And more, and more, and more…” She peered coyly at Applejack again, flirting with her tail.

Applejack studied Rainbow for a moment, her head tilted and her face in a wicked grin.

“Well now. Maybe we could take a minute to…”

From the farmhouse, they heard the faint cry, and both ponies stiffened.

“…Maaaaaaa!”

Applejack winced. Rainbow grimaced.

Applejack flipped first the bit, then her hat into the air, catching the one in the other, slamming the hat down firmly onto her head without a word.

They walked, not too hurriedly, back to the house, with every appearance of propriety—if you didn’t count the way that Rainbow Dash’s wing stroked and fondled her beloved’s withers—or the matching orange and blue labia, both winking alongside each other in affectionate frustration.

“We’re comin’, Granny!” called Applejack.

Rainbow Dash snorted in exasperation, and muttered, “If only!”

Derail

Derpy Hooves flew real high.

It was a really nice day! That was not so good, though. Derpy felt all antsy and quivery and weird, and she wasn’t looking for sunshine and pretty flowers, or even a muffin.

Derpy was looking for a really good cloud.

Of course, Mama wouldn’t call it a good cloud. Mama would call it a mik… micra… micro-cumulo-nimbuth, and she would tell Derpy not to play with it, and she would scold—if she was still there.

But Mama died, and nopony was watching, so Derpy was looking for a really good cloud.

And then she saw one! It was floating away behind a hill. Maybe it was left over from the rainy yesterday morning. Derpy flew right over to look, and there it was—a fluffy grey cloud, ready to rain some more.

Derpy didn’t care if it rained or not. She had other things to do with it.

She flew right over and landed on it, and she smiled a big smile. It felt tickly under her hooves, and her wings reached up into the air and she flicked her tail around to be happy. It wasn’t that big of a cloud, but that was okay. Derpy thought it was big enough.

Derpy began to hop up and down on top of the cloud, bouncing off all four hooves at once, flicking her tail around and making a big smile.

It was a stubborn cloud, real stubborn. It rained some, but Derpy didn’t want that. She bounced harder, squeezing her eyes shut, grinning as sparks tickled her hooves.

And then the cloud made a funny popping sputtering noise.

And then it crackled like it was going to make a big zap.

And then it did!

And Derpy squeaked and stuck out all her legs and wings and stuff as the thunderbolt hit her, striking her directly.

As the voltage seized her trembling body, her mane and tail flew straight out and crackled with the energy, which licked her hungrily all over as if it was going to eat her right up, but that wasn’t the best part, even though it left her wild-eyed and breathless. No, Derpy’s prize went deeper than that—her head arched back in ecstacy even as she gritted her teeth and squealed, for the electricity coursed through her like there was no squealing, spasming little grey pegasus in the way at all, and it crackled right up her aching and over-wrought entrance and set off quivering explosions deep within her that made her scream and shake.

It was like the bolts of lightning, spurred loose by her greedy, eager bouncing, knew just what to do—they had plunged straight into her vagina to seize her insides and give them a good shaking, and it seemed like those insides were just waiting to do flips and tricks that left Derpy stunned and breathless.

It had been the most exciting day of Derpy’s life, when she discovered the secret games she could play with the clouds.

The lightning died away, and Derpy collapsed onto the little cloud like a big splat, wings outstretched and twitching. Bits of her were smoking from all the electricity and everything, and Derpy stared unfocussedly in two directions at once, her eyes sensuously half-lidded, her mouth open and panting with her little tongue hanging out, and she just lay there and twitched for a while, leaking wet stuff out of her exhausted vagina as she waited for her head to stop spinning.

And then her head stopped spinning, and Derpy could stand up.

And she stood right up.

And then Derpy did it all over again!

Twilight Sparkle scrutinized the slim, gleaming, metallic cylinder held in the clamp before her.

“Got it. I think we’ve probably taken up the residual elasticity of the metal, so go carefully: we don’t want it to shatter if it’s brittle, and I’m not sure what would happen to the enchantment if we did. Have you noted down the exact increase in thaums?”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Trixie Lulamoon, studying the rig. “It still looks essentially linear to me.”

“Well,” said Twilight, “if you’re right, you’ll be subbing to both of us for an hour this evening. This should prove it one way or the other—I’m pretty sure we’ve got it to the yield point. Give it another turn, Trixie, this time to four hundred and ten megaPonescals.”

She fixed her eyes on the pressure gauge, and Trixie did likewise, and called, “Girl! One more, this time like you mean it, bitch!”

Rarity shuddered, making a weak noise through the ball gag, and lifted her chained-together forehooves.

“And no using your magic! That is for the other part of your punishment, and you know it!”

The two studious unicorns watched with interest as their companion reached up to place her hooves on the lever, prepared to heave and strain and tighten the vise even further for Science. As she did, she shuddered again, and the continuous glow from her horn flickered.

“Push that in deeper, girl, and don’t you dare lose focus! Don’t you harm it!”

Rarity whimpered, and behind her, a glowing phallus composed of her own telekinetic energies surged forward, prying her vagina wide and wedging into her slick confines, between quivering, horrified alabaster cheeks. The telekinetic dildo might have been made from colored glass, but it was not solid: clearly, it was hollow, alarmingly hollow.

For inside it crawled a very confused bug, long and squirmy, all legs and antennae.

Rarity sobbed through the ball gag, feverishly concentrating on her perverse, degrading sexual task while leaning on the big lever and watching the force gauge. When it read four hundred and ten megaPonescals, she released the lever and dropped to all fours again, her body shivering.

“She won’t slip up,” said Trixie reassuringly. “On the one hand she doesn’t want anything so nasty inside her vagina, and on the other she honestly wouldn’t want to hurt the bug…”

Twilight grimaced. “I would. Ew!”

That got her a disapproving look from Trixie. “Mistress! We are not going to harm one hair on its… no, that’s not right, it’s got hairs all over…”

Rarity shuddered in horror, as Trixie wandered over to inspect her hindquarters, where the ooze of marely arousal trickled down her alabaster inner thighs.

“Deeper, girl!” ordered Trixie, and Rarity’s magic surged, sliding the hollow cylinder of magical force fully inside her. Trixie smirked. “Good!” she said. “Do you know why? Because it must have crawled up to the far end. I can’t see it anymore. If not for the telekinetic dildo, that thing could be crawling upon the surface of your cervical folds even now!”

“Augh!” squealed Twilight, laying her ears back. “Trixieeee!”

Rarity jerked, making strangled noises against the ball gag, and began to hyperventilate, nostrils flaring, her eyes wild and terrified.

“All the way,” ordered Trixie, “and hold that thought.” Her gaze dipped down to study Rarity’s quivering vagina, and she leaned closer. “Now… don’t lose focus!”

As Twilight watched, ears flattened against her head, Trixie demurely extended her tongue and began to lick the jutting projection of Rarity’s gleaming pink clitoris, with slow, deliberate strokes of her glistening tongue.

Rarity shook all over, her hooves clattering against the floor from the force of her tremors, and then let out a muffled shriek through the gag, her body convulsing in a titanic orgasm, a torrent of unicorn juices squirting out around the magical phallus to be sloppily licked up by Trixie. The sounds and sensations of this drove the elegant dressmaker to still higher peaks, and she tottered drunkenly, coming her hooves off, ramming the horrific magical dildo into herself.

“Pull it out! Now! Before you faint!” demanded Trixie, her magic seizing onto Rarity’s cylinder of force and delivering a determined pull, and Rarity managed to hold onto the shape while it withdrew from her body, and even while she collapsed, sobbing, and curled into a ball on the floor.

Twilight stared at the moist magic-phallus with the creepy thing inside. “Would she have kept it up even if she lost consciousness? Look, she’s still maintaining it!”

“Girl is very determined,” said Trixie. “But I’d better take over. I don’t think it’s getting fresh air in that. I’m not sure I could make a cylinder of force with air-holes and I’m sure Girl can’t, so we need to get it out of there and put it back in the garden. Otherwise, it’ll asphyxiate.”

Twilight shuddered, her eyes fixed on the creepy-crawly. “Good!”

At this, Trixie shot her a hurt look. “No, Mistress, not good! It is a harmless living thing that comes from your own garden. It didn’t ask for this and doesn’t even know it is disgusting to you and Girl.”

“Oh, so you’d enjoy it crawling on your nether lips, huh, Trixie? Is that it?” challenged Twilight, her ears still laid back.

Trixie made a face. “Not especially, Mistress. Trixie was just being creative. It’s hard to find things to do to Girl that she hasn’t seen and felt a thousand times before.”

“She’s gonna murder you the next time she tops you,” said Twilight. “You wait. The next time she has you in submission, she will end you.”

Trixie began grinning wider and wider, until Twilight shook her head and face-hoofed. “Just get that bug out of here, okay? That’s all I ask. No more yucky stuff, please.”

At that, Trixie nodded, and poked Rarity’s butt with her horn. “You! You’re done, release the force-field, right now. Do it!”

Rarity made a noise that could have been “Yes, Mistress” as heard through a rubber ball, and the glowing cylinder vanished, to be replaced by a small glowing sphere as Trixie caught the bug before it could hit the floor and begin crawling away. She trotted briskly out the door, to return bug-less.

Twilight was removing Rarity’s ball-gag, studying the ruin of her friend. “Rarity? Your hindquarters are a real mess from ooze and stuff.”

Rarity made a face, working her jaw. “Thank you for that, Twilight…”

“I know you didn’t safeword,” continued Twilight, “but did you really like it? I mean, apart from the huge orgasm and everything?”

Rarity frowned, and glanced sidelong at Trixie. “Mistress agreed we would not simply escalate.”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “But, Girl—but, Rarity, you asked for a real workout! Was Trixie wrong to have you do that? You wished the release of your stress. Not only that, you reminded Trixie that you cannot spend long periods in scenes any more, and you wished something intense and brief. Trixie was trying to bring you to release rapidly, and did her best!”

At this, Rarity dropped her gaze. “Oh, it was a workout, make no mistake about that. Mistress is terrifyingly ingenious. Girl shall be cautious what she requests in future.” She hesitated, and added, “Please do not ever make me come so hard again—and it’s kind of Twilight to say it, but I am not at all sure I could drive you as hard as you’ve just driven me, nor would I wish to if I could. Dear Celestia!”

“Would you like us to lick you off?” suggested Twilight, her ears coming forward. “It’s the least we could do. Then you can bathe properly, afterward.”

Rarity gave a little halfsmile. “Greedy Twilight! Anybody would think you’ve developed a fondness for unicorn vagina and certain of its,” and she shuddered elegantly, “fluids.”

Trixie smirked at her lavender marefriend. “Look at her ears. Trixie understands completely, too. Do we have to place you under submission again, to have our way with you?”

Rarity chuckled weakly. “I can’t rise, darlings, I am far too quivery. I suspect not. Come on then—I know your fondnesses. Indulge, and then help me to my hooves if you would be so good? Licked does not count as truly clean, but you may do the initial honors.”

She relaxed, as Twilight and Trixie nuzzled and nudged her body, rolling her onto her back, spreading her legs, little unicorn noses exploring her inner thighs, cute little tongues beginning there and licking up all female oozes she’d produced in her passion.

Rarity sprawled backwards, taking deep breaths and marvelling at the strange new blend of feelings that flooded her. The slobber, the degradation, those were not new feelings in the least. She had built a life upon concealing her grievous sins—pursuing delicious punishment in secret, while acting out the life of a proper and courtly aristocrat above any hint of wrongdoing. Rarity knew all forms of shame and abuse. She’d savored them like fine wines.

Her crime had been a crime of passion, but also of grave selfishness—she had borne Sweetie Belle in an incestuous drama where she, drunk on her youthful beauty and arrogance, had tried to simply take Father from her Mother, and the pitiful, unforgivable fool had gone right along with it. And then, cast from her home, she’d sealed her fate and set the tone of her life by her subsequent decisions.

Being a mother would have taken time away from her career just when that time was desperately needed—but being a sister was not nearly so demanding.

It was miraculous how beauty and love could grow brightly from the foulest muck. Sweetie Belle grew into an adorable filly never guessing her true origins, and the dressmaking business grew as well, and Rarity in turn grew to be a virtuoso of glory and despair, maintaining the highest standards in public and winning accolade after accolade while remaining, in essence, that very foulest muck. Even in bondage and discipline she had become a sort of masterpiece, her increasing skill and expertise driven by her unquenchable hunger for shame and justice.

And then it had all come crashing down, when Sweetie Belle discovered what she was—and what Rarity was, to her—and in the course of a few unforgettable minutes, Rarity had gone from ‘mommy’s a filthy pony’ to ‘filthy pony is a Mommy’.

The odd thing was how little had changed. Rarity continued to respond sexually to degradation, whether or not her true guilt was hidden. Sweetie Belle now lived with her, but she had always been around constantly, and the only changes in the bondage relationship worth mentioning were that any scene must cease in Sweetie’s presence, something that Twilight and Trixie had agreed to immediately. Neither had foaled, themselves, and they tended to shy away from Rarity’s new responsibilities, uncomfortable with the seriousness of it.

Rarity looked down along her reclining body. Twin unicorn horns, purple and blue, crossed and rubbed sensuously against each other as the girls feasted upon her intimate parts, pink tongues stroking and caressing everywhere. Trixie had been part of the bondage scene before she’d ever come to Ponyville and met Twilight, but it was impressive how quickly Twilight Sparkle had picked up on things, when she’d been a studious, reclusive bookworm all her life. Now, her dear muzzle shoved Trixie’s out of the way so that she could thrust her tongue boldly into Rarity’s vagina, splaying labia to the side and relishing the tastes and textures of that supple, silky flesh that descended into a moist dark abyss, the sultry heart of Rarity’s femaleness. Rarity gasped, writhing as Twilight wiggled that out-thrust tongue and gazed up boldly at her. To be slobbered upon and wallowed in so carnally was, traditionally, a degradation Rarity could really trust. It could make her feel excitingly filthy.

And yet… since her secrets had been revealed, there was something else going on at the same time, something weak and hopeful that could not explain itself. Rarity looked down upon the two unicorn mares fervently eating her out in tandem, and she felt another aspect of things that had not been able to reach her before.

As Rarity began to come again, as Twilight’s and Trixie’s eager tongues battled to slurp against her stiffened, maddened clitoris, Rarity felt loved—and it was somehow okay, though it did not make sense when laid alongside the familiar erotic kick of getting befouled and used.

She gritted her teeth, arching her torso off the floor and tilting her head back as her body shuddered in its two-layered release, and Rarity began to buck and squeal, legs thrown wide as her two Mistresses and lovers went after her pussy ravenously, right there on the floor in the middle of the mercifully empty library.

A dark blur appeared in the window, there was a faint squeal from outside that seemed to be in harmony somehow—and through the window smashed Rainbow Dash, wrapped around a grey pegasus with a blonde mane as if trying to wrest her from her path, slamming into the bookcase, showered with Daring Do first editions.

Twilight screamed and scrambled to her hooves, leaping away from Rarity. Trixie rolled over. Rarity wriggled, but was too limp to get up, and just gawked in amazement from her filthy, degraded, crotch-flaunting sprawl.

“Uh, hi Twilight, Trixie, hi Rarity. I was trying to steer Derpy towards the door. We got a little out of control, no biggie,” said Rainbow Dash. She blinked, looking between Rarity’s legs. “Whoa! Looks like we’re not the only ones getting out of control, huh?” She waggled her eyebrows nonchalantly as a book fell off her head.

Rarity whimpered, unexpectedly re-shamed, and Trixie moved to obscure her involuntary winking from view, glaring at the intruders.

Rainbow sulked. “Oh, fine, hide the good stuff, Rainbow Dash is here! No, that’s okay, that’s not why we came, except that in a way it kind of is, so good timing I guess?”

Twilight had gone a redder shade of purple than usual. Her muzzle was slightly glazed with pussy juice. “We’re doing important research! What are you doing here?”

“I’ll say you are!” grinned Dash. “Need some more researchers? Just don’t touch the wings, lab coats optional, you’ll be tearing them off in no time…”

“No!” snapped Twilight. “This is a lousy time to literally bust in here, Rainbow Dash! We happen to be conducting tests about the effects of pressure on the intensity of magic aura, tests that can be dangerous!”

“Can I apply the next…” said Dash, and licked her lips ostentatiously, “…pressure?”

Twilight was blushing worse by the second. “I’m not talking about Rarity! I’m talking about the kind of pressure you get from crushing something in a big vise!”

Rainbow glanced at Rarity. Rarity blinked back at her, lip quivering, still too limp to rise.

“You might want to check with her, just saying,” suggested Dash. “I think she might enjoy it more than you suspect. Wow, Rarity. That would be even kinkier than usual!”

As Rarity blushed, Twilight glared. “I told you, I’m not talking about Rarity, and her pleasures are none of your business! I’m talking about compressing one of the magic bits in a vise!”

That got Rainbow’s attention. “Oh yeah? Not mine! Which one?”

Twilight gestured with a sweeping forehoof towards her experimental setup and the vise she’d used.

“That one!”

As they turned to look at it, the overstressed magic bit exploded.

Trixie screamed and flung herself in front of Twilight. Rainbow Dash found herself shielding a frightened Derpy. Rarity kicked and wriggled, before sprawling limply again, crying “My mane, my mane, did any sparks get in my mane?”

Trixie and Rainbow Dash batted at their respective manes with forehooves. The sparks had gone everywhere, but left no lasting effects other than the loose page of an open book, which had caught fire. Twilight rushed to stamp it out, then studied Rarity critically, saying, “You’re fine, your mane is fine.” She turned away, all her attention on the intruding pegasi.

“Holy crap, Twilight!” said Rainbow. “Little warning next time?”

“I could say the same thing to you, Rainbow Dash! It’s bad enough that you seem to think my window is target practice for crashing through.” Twilight gestured angrily at Derpy, who cowered behind Rainbow again. “What do you expect me to do with her?”

Dash stood, blinking.

“Okay. Um… Bear with me, this is going to sound a little weird…”

Twilight advanced on Dash. “That was a rhetorical question! We are engaged in scientific research and it’s probably your fault that my bit just blew up: you smashed into my house and jostled the pressure rig while it was under load! It’s not a rhetorical question for you, huh? You brought that clumsy pegasus in here for a reason? Oh, please, fill me in, I can’t wait to hear your explanation! What do you expect me to do with her, Rainbow Dash?”

Dash bristled. The attitude didn’t sit well with her.

“I expect you to fuck her, that’s what!” she yelled.

Three unicorns stared, astonished.

A dog barked in the distance.

“So, uh,” added Dash, “I guess technically we want you to fill her in, not the other way around…”

“WITH WHOSE DICK?!” demanded Twilight Sparkle. “You just broke mine!”

Rainbow sulked. “I didn’t mean to! I could fly home real quick and grab mine for you.”

Twilight sputtered, enraged. “I’m trying to do serious magical research and you really expect me to drop everything and have sex with a, a… a RETARDED PEGASUS?”

Dash’s eyes widened in shock. “Hey, hey! You can’t say that, that’s not right!”

“Oh, sorry—TWO retarded pegasi!” retorted Twilight.

She and Dash glared, nose-to-nose, for second after second. Rainbow could feel Derpy trembling against her as she hid from Twilight’s rage. Then, Rainbow heard a sniffle behind her, and she knew things had gone too far off the rails to be rescued.

She turned, to see what she’d expected: tearful golden eyes, drooping wings, quivering lower lip, the image of a scolded and chastened pegasus who’d been very bad and was being punished.

And it hadn’t been her fault, any of it.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes burned, and she seared Twilight with them as she said, in a chillingly controlled voice, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” She turned again, speaking more gently. “C’mon, Derpy. Let’s blow this joint.”

“You’re being unreasonable!” yelled Twilight. “Okay, maybe I put it too strong about the retarded pegasus but you can’t ask me this! Suddenly it’s my fault?”

“Can’t hear you,” said Dash. “We’ll be out of your way before you know it. You can go back to your wonderful research. Sorry for ruining everything, it’s a knack…”

Twilight blinked, and stamped a forehoof, shaking her head. “Derp, ah, Der, uh, Miss Hooves! Hey!”

Derpy jolted in surprise, staring wildly at Twilight and at Rarity’s left forehoof. “I’m sorry, Twilight Sparkle, I’m sorry, Twilight Sparkle!”

“Did Rainbow Dash put you up to this?”

Derpy gulped, and Dash froze in her tracks, staring worriedly at her companion.

“No, Twilight Sparkle, I put her! I mean… I just wanted to do what she does!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “With the magic bits? But Rainbow’ll fuck anypony, and Applejack would probably oblige if you asked, and clearly you’re already talking to them or at least to Rainbow—why on earth would you come to me?”

Her jaw slowly proceeded to drop into a gawking gape of horror as Derpy haltingly answered, and answered, and answered.

“I, uh, I need you Twilight Sparkle because you have the best penis of any of the ponies when I watched you, because it would feel so good, which is why you should have a special name for having a penis with, which is Dusk Shine, so I wanted to come and then you would have sex with me and I could call you Dusk Shine and it would be like a name for just me to say whenever I would come and you would have sex with me, because it’s such a nice penis and it would feel so good pushing into my vagina so you should have a special name for doing that with, which is, which is Dusk Sh…”

Twilight snapped. “GRRRHH!” she cried, exasperated beyond endurance, and she whirled and trotted angrily across the floor and up the stairs to her bedroom.

Derpy took a few tentative steps to follow her, but then stopped, her rump quivering, for Rainbow Dash had grabbed her tail in sturdy equine teeth, as Applejack had done so many times for her. Derpy stopped, and looked back questioningly.

“C'me on, Derpy. I think w’re gonna go work on y'r pick-up lines for a while…”

Derpy sagged, and bowed her head. A tear dripped to the floor.

Rarity had managed to flip over into a less obscene position, and craned her neck to see around Trixie. “Rainbow Dash, is she serious? Sweet Celestia!”

Dash glared at Rarity with indiscriminate anger. “Serious? We’re seriously going. Come ON, Derpy!”

“But…” said Rarity, uncertainly.

Trixie stepped in front of her. “Get out,” she said, emphatically done with the unscheduled and distressing intrusion. Rainbow glared at her in turn, hesitated a moment just to make the point, and then stalked out the door, wings neatly folded. On the threshold, Derpy hesitated and looked yearningly back, but Dash was quick: she had Derpy’s ear in her teeth with Dashian speed but then pulled the other mare along with a strange and unexpected gentleness.

Derpy tossed her head a bit, with an imploring look at the remaining unicorns, but then she went peacefully along with Dash, and with a sound of wings, they were gone.

Rarity stared up at Trixie. “Whatever do you suppose brought that on?”

She flinched, for Trixie stamped a hoof angrily, crying “How dare she?”

“It seemed,” said Rarity uncertainly, “that she whiffed of sexual excitement, and one would think that more than an adequate explanation…”

She trailed off, for Trixie was glaring at her.

“My Twilight deserves better than such… insult!”

Rarity cringed, automatically falling in line and deferring to her Mistress, but something in her gaze was dissatisfied, and she persisted. “That might be, dare I say it, perhaps an unkind way of looking at…”

“Girl!” snapped Trixie, nostrils flared.

Rarity squeaked and fell silent, gazing up at her Mistress.

“Trixie,” said Mistress, “expected better taste from the likes of you.”

Rarity’s eyes flashed briefly, but she did not reply.

“She cried for an hour, Applejack. An hour! I can’t stand it. I’m so pissed off at Twilight right now…”

Applejack nuzzled her mate’s chin, pulling her closer in the big cozy bed. “She gonna be okay, Dashie? That explains why you weren’t home for dinner. We was all worried about you. I was wonderin’ if you saw Big Macintosh. Uh… did you see Big Macintosh, while you was out?”

Rainbow shifted restlessly. “Nah. I’m talking about Derpy. She’s really hung up on stupid Twi, Applejack. I could see it in her eyes, she’s got it real bad.”

“Which eye did ya check?” joked Applejack, but fell silent at a glare from Rainbow. “Sorry.”

“It’s not funny, not after Twilight called her retarded.”

“Uh… I might be speakin’ out of turn, sugarcube, but…”

Dash sighed. “I know, I know. She kind of is. Applejack, I was laughing at her myself just the other day, but it seems different when she’s crying and you’re hugging her. It seems different when she’s cowering behind you because Twi is yelling at her. She had no idea how to handle it. All she could do was try and explain that she wanted to call Twilight ‘Dusk Shine’ and get mounted by her because the penis would feel so good. That went over real well with everypony, you have no idea.”

Applejack winced. “I reckon I can imagine. By everypony you mean?”

“Twi and Trixie and Rarity. They’d been eating out Rarity so hard she couldn’t even get up. That’s a nice chunk of pony right there, if you don’t count being a stuck-up flaming bitch from hell.”

“Hey!” protested Applejack. “All of them? All of them were that mean?”

Dash sagged. “…no, I guess not. It was mostly Twilight, she was really disgusted. Trixie was just mad we busted in and broke their experiment, I guess. Rarity? I don’t know anymore. I guess she might not be that kind of bitch, but Applejack—she’s their bitch. I saw a ball gag lying on the floor, thank goodness Derpy didn’t ask what it was. One guess who was strapped into it! Can’t have been Twi, not with the way she was acting.”

“So, one thing at a time,” said Applejack. “You’re mad as a wet hen at Twilight, but we ain’t got no quarrel with Rarity, not that you’re sure of. Right?” She waited, nervously.

“Sure,” mumbled Rainbow. “I guess not.”

“So, if we just try to get a lil’ pony kindness into Twilight so’s at least she might say she’s sorry, that’d be somethin’,” said Applejack. “I confess I ain’t sure how we’d get Twi toppin’ Derpy if that’s her attitude. You remember, that lil’ pony gets mighty worked up about fuckin’—Twi, I mean, not Derpy—though from what you say ol’ Derpy ain’t no walk in th’ park neither!”

“I can’t stand it,” muttered Rainbow. “Thinking about Derpy crying. She just couldn’t stop, Applejack. The Derpster’s just totally stuck on her ‘Dusk Shine’ and the hell of it is, I’m not sure she’s smart enough to think twice about that. What the hell are we going to do?”

Applejack didn’t answer, but she nuzzled Dash tenderly, her eyes big and sad.

“And we’ve got to cool off Gilda, I didn’t go see her once today,” added Dash. “I could send her away, but I don’t know how serious all this is. No, scratch that, I know it’s got to be serious, because otherwise she’d have come and yelled at me. She knows I’m with you, she knows where to find us. She’s still cooped up in my place, because I told her to stay there.”

“Ya think?” said Applejack.

Dash nodded. “I’ve got to go deal with that. Except I have to go check on Derpy… and if I don’t take Spy tomorrow, Granny’s gonna kill us, you know she gets upset when you and your magic tits do all the feeding…”

“We’ll take care of it, Dashie,” soothed Applejack, petting her fretful pegasus.

“And I’m not sure how mad Twilight and Trixie are, it was really bad…”

“We’ll handle it.” Applejack’s voice was pure reassurance.

Rainbow sniffled, and wiped her eye. “You’re so good to me, Applejack.”

“Course I am,” soothed the country mare.

“A lot better than I deserve…”

“Sshhh,” said Applejack. “Sleepy bye.”

She cuddled Rainbow Dash, putting forth soothing vibes like her life depended on it, until her wounded love had fallen asleep, and she watched for some time, still holding Dash, until she was certain that Rainbow would not wake.

Only then did Applejack turn away, staring into the darkness with a haunted, tortured gaze, and give in to the shakes, trembling terribly, with nopony left to hold or comfort her.

Morning was a long time coming.

Devoured

Applejack groaned, coming awake like a rusty nail being pulled out of a pine board. Like pulling out the nail, it wasn’t impossible, it just sounded painful and awkward.

The groan was doubled. Dashie socked her in the chest with a hoof, moaning, “Too early!”

“Oooookay,” said Applejack, “you set tight, I’mma get breakfast going…”

“Oh, yeah—right,” said Dash. “Rrrmmm. Sorry. You go and do that…”

Northern Spy wriggled against Dash, lifting her head, and Rainbow tried to roll over to cuddle her and didn’t quite make it. A snore shook the walls. The little green head with its ice-blue mane peeked over, wide eyes catching Applejack’s.

“Okay, okay,” said Applejack. “I gotcha. C’mere, lil’ scaper, guess you’re gonna beat everypony to breakfast, ain’tcha?”

She winced, as the gangly foal clambered right over Dash, itty-bitty hooves prodding her in awkward places. Spy even stepped on Rainbow’s head, but all she did was flail a forehoof and make a piteous noise, only to resume snoring immediately.

Spy looked down at Applejack expectantly.

“Oooookay!” responded the country pony. “Up an’ at ‘em.” She sighed, and rolled unsteadily out of bed, wobbling as she got to her hooves. She wasn’t sure what time she’d got to sleep—logically, she had to have got to sleep at some point, because staying up all night to work felt totally different. Applejack didn’t dare guess how few hours, or minutes, she’d got.

Northern Spy didn’t mind. She jumped down to the floor with a clatter of little hooves, dove beween Applejack’s hind legs, and latched on, engaging The Suction.

It was a heck of a thing, entirely outside Applejack’s experience with having breasts. She stood, legs set slightly apart for stability, a walking, talking, thinking… milk-bag. When she’d been a filly, she’d treasured the tender youthful swellings of her pony breasts as they formed, hoping they were lovely, knowing they were sensitive. She’d spent some years longing for attention to be paid them, secretly fondling them herself in late night clopping sessions until the nipples twanged erect. With Dashie, she’d finally found a lover who could take her every which way, and those pony breasts and sensitive nipples had been nuzzled and licked in the most entrancing manner. She’d thought that the high point of having tits, and gloried in it.

Now, she stood, a fleshy nozzle. Spy drained one tit totally dry, a familiar sensation in the last few days with Dash out so often—thumped Applejack’s belly with the top of her head as if to say, get that working!—and the hungry foal switched to the other side, and Applejack shivered, feeling her milk so powerfully drawn. Kid was about as subtle as Dash, though she had yet to say one word beyond ‘Maaaa!’

“Okay, Spy,” said Applejack, “okay.”

“Glad one of us thinks so,” observed Granny Smith, tartly. Applejack whipped her head around, her gaze wide and startled. She hadn’t heard the old mare poke her head in the door.

“Mmm… whuh?” said Dash from her slumber, and Applejack glanced back just as hastily.

“Stop that!” chided Granny. “That head will come clean off, with you throwin’ it around like a party favor! Don’t you fret, I done said my piece…”

Rainbow Dash’s head came up, and she fixed Granny with a bleary gaze. “It’s way too early for me to glare at you properly, maybe I just didn’t hear what you said to her? Hm?”

Granny looked down. “Jes’ as well, child. Old lady rattlin’ on in that way she do—that way she will always do, so long as she does live.”

“And there I was, thinking that Northern Spy is a real blessing around here, and Applejack being able to nurse her is even more of a blessing, wouldn’t you say?”

Granny’s head turned farther and farther away, her anger seemingly half at herself. “I’m old, I tole you. Must you ask me to accept all manner o’ crazy messed-up ‘blessings’?”

Applejack, trapped between them, said nothing and simply shut her eyes, thinking—please, please, let me do something right and make this all better.

Dash wasn’t paying close attention. She seemed to be weighing her words carefully. “Well… even though I’m not admitting a thing you’ve said about ‘natural feeding’ for Spy, because I know what you mean by it and I’m not buying a word of that… there’s something I probably should admit. It might mean something to you.”

Granny was truculent. “Whut’s that, child?”

“Applejack’s been helping me SO much that way… that I’ve been making it rain inappropriately.”

Granny pondered this statement for a moment, and then her eyes began to twinkle. “Oh, I think I knows what you are suggestin’! Dare I say, white rain, ya crazy lil’ flyin’ pony, you?”

“Just a bit,” smirked Dash. “And I’m totally uncomfortable. Sore, untapped, you know. Which is to say—it’s my turn.”

Granny pranced, trying to kick her hooves up. “Weehoo!” She then froze, eyes big and shocked. “Dag-crabbit all ta whosis, what got into me?”

“Oh, no!” cried Applejack. “Granny, let me help you, can you walk okay? Is it a bad one?”

“You hold your peace!” demanded Granny. “Ah will be jest fine, you daft critter, even if I lose my head an’ take to caperin’ like some nanny goat…”

“Made you look forty years younger,” teased Dash.

“Jes’ forty?” retorted Granny, the glint in her eye sharp as ever.

Dash grinned even more. “Tou-shay! So I guess I’ll be staying home today and taking care of Spy.”

“Which means th’ mistress of the house can git downstairs and start breakfast!” announced Granny, and Applejack clattered down the stairs to do just that.

“Oh, crap,” said Rainbow Dash, looking up from her hay-cakes.

“Language!” said Granny.

Rainbow glared at her. “That doesn’t count as language! Not bad language! I can’t say crap?”

“You want th’ little one’s first word to be that?”

Granny trailed off, jaw dangling in shock as she watched Rainbow Dash grin wider and wider. She gulped. “Oh, deary me. Let me try that another way—hmmm, how do I put this? Wait, I got it! ‘No’. Do you hear me? We understandin’ each other? Don’t you cross me!”

“I don’t need to cross you,” smirked Dash. “You get cross all on your own.”

“Please, Dashie,” said Applejack. Her ears were laid back, as she glanced between the two hotheaded ponies.

Granny was still staring at Dash. “Dang right. I git cross about swearin’ around the little tiny ones. You kin talk about anything without such cussin’. Anything! There ain’t no call for that stuff.”

“We could talk about why Big Macintosh still hasn’t come back!” suggested Apple Bloom. “Everything’s terrible now, my friends ain’t my friends and even my big brother done left us!”

“He did not!” protested Applejack. “He’s off to Fillydelphia or somethin’. You know he’s been journeyin’ more of late.”

Apple Bloom fixed her with a sorrowful gaze. “So you’re sayin’ it’s true my friends ain’t my friends no more? ‘Cos you din’t correct me about that, jes’ about Big Macintosh.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped, and then she lifted her chin, though her ears were still splayed in distress. She replied, with dignity, “Ah corrected you about that first, on account of he’s family. Never you mind about your lil’ friends, them attitudes is bound to burn themselves out in time…”

“Ah’ll set fire to their tails,” sulked Apple Bloom. “Help ‘em along with the burnin’.”

“Apple Bloom!” protested Applejack.

Rainbow Dash ruffled Apple Bloom’s mane, producing a childish pout, which seemed to amuse the cerulan pegasus. She fluttered her wings, and said, “Take it easy, kid. You can hang out with me today, I’ve gotta look after Northern Spy.”

“Is that why you said oh,” began Apple Bloom, and hastily corrected herself, “…darn?”

“What?” squeaked Dash. “No! I love looking after Spy! I just want to do so many things, plus there’s also stuff I’ve gotta do and see and ponies I’ve gotta see and… What I’m saying is, I’m pretty booked, okay?”

“Ponies you gotta do?” said Apple Bloom, and then her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with a hoof.

Rainbow glowered at nothing. “Except it’s not a pony, though she seems to think she wants to be one. It’s Gilda. I was gonna go see Gilda, she must be tearing the place apart by now.”

“Gosh,” said Applejack.

“Who’s thet?” said Granny. “What’s this Gilda, then, that ain’t no pony?”

Applejack made frantic gestures for silence, but Rainbow Dash was undaunted. “Griffin,” she said.

Granny Smith nodded solemnly. “Y’ don’t say? Heh. Heh…”

“But I can’t make time for her, not today,” said Dash. “I know! I’ll drop you off, Applejack. She couldn’t possibly complain, know what I mean?”

“Ain’t neither of us should be seein’ no griffin,” protested Applejack, “an’ stop talkin’ about it! I’m sure Granny never heard the like! What mus’ she be thinkin’?”

She glanced fearfully at Granny Smith, and blinked. Granny was staring at Dash, a wry half-smile on her face.

“Heh,” she said, again, shaking her head gently. “Jes’ because I’m old don’t mean I never seen nothin’.” She turned to look sternly at Applejack. “Your mother dated a griffin once. I don’t mind sayin’ I fretted, but that girl showed me what she was made of. Oh yes.”

Applejack’s eyes were wide and alarmed, but Dash leaned closer, face transformed with glee and delight until it was all huge ruby eyes, expectant. “What happened? You gotta tell me more!” she begged.

Granny Smith nodded, that little smile playing around her mouth as she made Dash wait, and gathered her thoughts. “Oh yes. It’s all true. Din’t last two weeks, mind you. Terrible idea it was, ended poorly an’ suddenly. Mm-hmm.”

“But what happened? Why did it end?” pleaded Rainbow Dash. “Gossip! You can’t just tell me that much, go on!”

Granny glanced sharply at Applejack, as if finding her wanting. “I think she skeert him off, to be honest, child. I don’t believe for a moment he knew what he was dealin’ with, but he soon learned his lesson. He thought he was all that, but he never reckoned on tanglin’ with a proper Apple mare!”

Dash guffawed. “No way! Applejack’s mom went out with a griffin? Like… romance, all that stuff? Ohmygosh! That’s f…eathering amazing!”

Granny nodded smugly. “Jes’ the one griffin, yep. Far as I know. An’ thank you for minding your language, you can say any ol’ thing without cussin’, see? We kin talk about anythin’ without cusses. Well, she wouldn’t talk about it much. Said by the time she’d kicked the scratchyness out of him, there weren’t much left to him. I think she wanted more of a challenge, to tell you th’ truth. She found him a lil’ too tame, I reckon.”

Dash grinned, nodding. “Yeah! And then there’s the tiny penis.”

Applejack gasped. Apple Bloom pretended not to hear. Granny Smith gazed levelly at Dash.

“Eyup, that’s what she said.” Her eyes narrowed. “And that is exactly enough o’ THAT! Subject closed!”

Dash banged the table with her hoof in glee, and Applejack protested, “Dashie! You can’t be talkin’ about such things to Granny! It ain’t right!”

“Settle down!” demanded the old mare. “She did quit cussin’, and Ah am surprised at you, Applejack! Your mother weren’t afraid of no griffins, and look at you, gone all white and scaredy-hooves! What’s got into you?”

“Oh no no,” said Rainbow Dash. “I might have to make you apologize, Granny Smith. Applejack is trying to be respectful to you. She’s not scared of Gilda. In fact, I bet she’s going to help me out by taking my place. And you have no problem with that, right? Especially since now we know her mother and me have something in common for fun?”

That got her a very grumpy look from Granny Smith. “Then you’re both crazy, to be havin’ that kind of fun. So was Applejack’s Ma, rest her soul.” She sighed. “What I’d give to have her around again. Mind you, she skeert me on her meaner days, too…”

“So you have no problem with me dropping off Applejack at my place to entertain my friend, while I stay home and take care of the foal?” pressed Dash.

“Entertain, she says,” grumbled Granny. “Mighty fine language you’re usin’!”

“No swears,” pointed out Rainbow.

“Thankee,” said Granny. She sighed again. “Oh, all right. Mebbe it’ll give her a little more Apple backbone.”

“Applejack has more guts than you could ever imagine,” argued Rainbow Dash. “Seriously, wake up, you’re being so unfair! I’ve seen her take on really tough stuff.” She tactfully omitted the fact that some of the toughest things, for Applejack, had been getting in touch with her feminine side. It was easy to see how that whole side of things had been rendered no-pony’s land, for her. The imposing shadow of Applesauce, her notorious mother, hung heavily over her life.

Applejack tried to keep a stiff upper lip. Trouble was, it was the lower lip that kept threatening to quiver.

Granny looked sharply at her, and nodded. “Very well. If you must do this—give that griffin hell!” She thought for a moment, and added, “Don’t hurt it too bad, mind you. Wouldn’t be charitable. Gotta be polite an’ all.”

Rainbow Dash was looking at Applejack, too, and her ears were back. “Uh, sure, she totally will! We’d better go. Can you look after Spy for a few minutes? That griffin won’t know what hit her, trust me.”

“Ain’t she gonna clean up after breakfast?” demanded Granny.

“Hey! Her audience awaits! Can’t you and Apple Bloom do it?”

Granny glowered. “Oh, all right. Apple Bloom!”

The filly blinked. “But… but Granny, she said you an’ Apple Bloom!”

“You are clearin’ the table, young lady!”

Apple Bloom brightened.

“An’ washin’ the dishes,” added Granny, and Apple Bloom sagged. “An’ dryin’, and puttin’ away.”

“It ain’t fair!”

Granny’s eyes narrowed. “That, missy, is what your big sister does for you every day. I mighta helped you, afore you said that! Unfair? Well, now, time you got an appreciation for th’ blessings you are given. Hop to it!”

Rainbow Dash had already led Applejack away, upstairs to get her saddlebags and pack the magic bit into them—and to deliver a little talk. “Listen. Don’t pay any attention to her. It’s gonna be just fine, and it’s the merciful thing to do—the PONY thing to do.”

“But…” quavered Applejack.

“No, listen! Gilda just wants a dicking. Is that so wrong? I was with her for years, all through flight school. I’d do it myself except I’m not free to. She’ll be so grateful, you have no idea.”

“She tore you up, Dashie!”

“She didn’t mean to! I got rowdy. Did I tell you that part? I got mad and started pounding away at her,” admitted Dash.

“And she got mad,” said Applejack, “and fought back?”

Dash’s ears were quirked ruefully. “Not exactly. Maybe it’s something to do with giving it to griffins deep and hard? I drove her berserk, Applejack. I could feel her going completely nuts, and I wouldn’t stop. Then, while she was still thrashing around shrieking, she twisted and got on her back and started kicking, and, well… you know what happened.”

Applejack just stared at her, ears laid back and panicky.

“You’ve kicked me in the chest a good one when I got extra rough,” said Rainbow. “You know what it’s like. Well… sometimes you kick me in the chest, sometimes you just come harder, but you know what I mean?”

Applejack gulped, her eyes wide. “Are you seriously tellin’ me them scars on your tit are really your fault? Seriously?”

“Haven’t you ever learned that you’ve gone too far, Applejack?”

“I ain’t!” protested Applejack. “I never! I’m a good pony!”

Dash facehooved. “No, I mean me! You may not have noticed but sometimes I go too far. Well, let me put it this way. Do you want to do something nice for my griffin friend, repeat friend? Then lay her, and give it to her nice and tender. You’re good at that! Even if Granny doesn’t appreciate that side of you.”

Applejack gulped again. “An’ if I don’t want to be dead meat?”

“Then don’t ram it into her as hard as you can, while holding her tight, and not letting her get away as you pound that pussy with all of your pony strength.”

“Damn. Uhh… what if she wants me to?”

“She won’t,” said Dash, and then looked thoughtful. “Or, say no.”

“You should open your eyes! We’re almost there!” said Rainbow Dash.

“You jes’ tell me when there’s a floor under my hooves!” said Applejack. “An’ no cheatin’!”

Rainbow flew on, holding tight to her beloved’s body, for it reassured Applejack a little—even though a less grim embrace would be less tiring. She pointedly didn’t mention anything about her forelegs getting tired, but did ask, “How come you could fly in Twilight’s balloon, then? Heck, when Discord had me acting crazy, you were on top of it!”

“Ah pretended it was a big ol’ hill?”

Dash hugged her tighter. “Wow. You’re so incredibly brave and awesome! I’m still learning new things about you!”

“Jes’ tell me when there’s a…”

“Open your eyes. There is.”

Applejack opened her eyes, and there was. They’d flown into Rainbow Dash’s cloud house; not just up to the cloud it was on, but inside. There was a checkered floor in two shades of light gray. There was a raised dais in graceful curves. There was a bed, covered in a navy-blue blanket with Rainbow’s cutiemark on it. There was a confused-looking griffin on the blanket.

“You kidding me, Dash?” said Gilda.

Applejack had a different question. As Dash lowered her, she drew her hooves up. “You sure it’s safe, Dashie?”

Rainbow kicked at the floor with a rear hoof. “Safe as houses, which it is. I can’t believe I never brought you to my house before!”

Applejack gingerly put out her hooves, and stood on the floor, which she knew was floating high in the air. “How come y’all make these when you can walk on clouds?”

Rainbow gave her a look. “Clouds feel to us like walking on snow. Which they are, of course, just snow that hasn’t fallen anywhere yet. Would you want to walk everywhere inside your house, on snow?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” said Gilda, “which is basically what the fuck? What kept you? Why’d you bring her, Dash?”

“I gotta take care of my foal, Gilda. I can’t come yet, but I brought Applejack for you. She can put out your fires—you’ll be thanking me, she’s awesome!”

Gilda stared at Applejack, who shrank back, ears laid flat.

“Sure looks awesome,” said Gilda.

Rainbow grinned awkwardly. “Um… gotta dash!” Before either Gilda or Applejack could protest, Rainbow was gone, flying back to Sweet Apple Acres and Northern spy, her rainbow tail and cerulean rump disappearing in the distance.

Gilda and Applejack stared at each other, and then Gilda spoke.

“I am so sorry about this. You must be Applejack, Dash’s sweetie. I thought it was Pinkie she had, but with Dash you can never guess who she’s with this week.”

Applejack licked her lips. “Goin’ on a bit longer than a week, sugarcube. Jes’ sayin’.”

“Oh. Shit.” Gilda covered her face with one unfolded talon. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you weren’t important to her. I’m sorry again, okay?” She sagged, the tip of her tail twitching in agitation. “Look, why don’t I just go take a fly for a while? Or I could go get Dash and tell her she’s out of her tiny mind and to take you back…”

“Ah look that bad?”

That got a blink out of Gilda. “Well, yes, you do. You look appalled, and I don’t blame you, there’s no pony but Dash who would do what she does with a griffin, and she shouldn’t assume other ponies are comfortable with the idea.”

“There’s my Ma,” said Applejack, still shying away but trying to look directly in Gilda’s predatory eyes.

“Beg pardon?”

“My Ma dated a griffin once,” said Applejack. “I guess folks must think it runs in th’ family. Rainbow wants me to help you out, and my Granny, she kinda wants me to give you a clobberin’…”

This time, Gilda’s eyes were wide. “Really. Really? Er, I don’t know how to put this, but I haven’t done anything bad to you and I don’t deserve a ‘clobbering’, whatever your Granny thinks. What kind of idiot is she, to tell a pony to go try and beat up a griffin?”

“An Apple kind,” sighed Applejack. “I don’t wanna clobber you, Gilda. I wouldn’t be here atall, except, well…”

They looked at each other, and both said it. “Rainbow Dash.”

Gilda began to chuckle. Applejack’s ears began to perk up, and she hesitantly joined in, a little rueful smile coming to her face.

“Dash!” laughed Gilda. “Maybe you and me both ought to clobber her! I can’t believe this one. She’s dropping off her girlfriend, expecting things to just happen?”

“In fairness,” pointed out Applejack, “she packed th’ bit as well. So you could say she dropped off her stallion-friend, to try an’ support somebody who she sees as in need.”

Gilda’s head jerked up, she stared straight at Applejack, and Applejack’s ears laid flat against her head again, though she didn’t flinch in any other way.

“Am I reading too much into that?”

Applejack didn’t drop her gaze, though she couldn’t help her panicky ears. “We do think folks should be helped out with their needs, me and Dashie do. Unless you reckon you and Dashie is special to each other and you ain’t lookin’ elseways?”

Gilda shook her head, slowly. “Griffins don’t pair off any more than ponies do. Which is to say, sometimes, but it’s not the rule. No, Rainbow Dash isn’t my property, though she is special to me, dude, remember. I guess she doesn’t keep you all to herself, then?”

Applejack thought back on her history since they’d discovered the magic bits. “Uh… nope. I done lived th’ life of a stallion, if I’m honest. Naw, I been shared far an’ wide, Gilda, so I understand why Dashie thunk this was a good idea.”

Gilda’s eyes were wary. “Really,” she said.

Applejack’s heart was pounding. “Yup. So, y’know, if you happened to, y’know, want to do anything…”

“I’m just figuring out what you’re offering,” said Gilda. “Not Dash. I know Dash. I understand Dash. I’m figuring out you.”

Applejack met her gaze. “Ah am offerin’ hot dickin’. Not rough!” she hastily added. “Not what you might call rough! Jes’ hot, I hope! Dashie ain’t been complainin’…”

Gilda picked her words carefully. “Why has she formed the impression that you should take her place, with me?”

At that, Applejack began blushing, steadily growing redder and redder. “Uh… Ah gits a big fella, maybe that’s what she was thinking?”

That predator’s gaze transfixed her. “So you’re saying, Rainbow Dash thinks you have a big cock and therefore she assumes she can leave me here for days and then toss me your bone and I’ll be so horny that I’ll take any pony that can shake my tree? Is that it?”

“She is tryin’ ta do you a favor!” argued Applejack, scarlet. “If you don’t want ta…”

“Simple question. Is that it?”

“Well,” said Applejack sullenly, “Ah guess that’s jes’ how my Dashie thinks.”

She glowered at Gilda, who smirked.

“Well… I guess she knows me pretty well, huh?”

Applejack sagged. “Whut?”

“Sounds terrific. What TOOK you guys so long? Do you have any idea how crosseyed I am? Come on, come on, whip it out already…”

“I, uh, I, uhh…”

“Will you make up your damn mind?” demanded Gilda.

“I thought you was tryin’ to be more pony!” blurted Applejack, her ears laid back again.

Gilda froze, then hid her face with a talon again. “I’m not?”

“Nope!” said Applejack, determinedly. “Y’all got a lot to learn!”

Gilda’s face-feathers seemed ruffled up. Griffins rarely blushed. “I’m really sorry. That usually works great with Dash…”

“It would,” said Applejack. She stepped closer, tentatively. “Honey, I ain’t hardly even seen you before. If you want dickin’ you got to make some allowances. Okay? Let me get to know you. An’ no rough-housin’!”

“What do you want to know?” asked Gilda, chastened. “This is me, right here, what’s to know? This is so weird.”

“Maybe it’ll soothe you to know that Dashie found it weird too,” said Applejack. “I don’t know if you can learn to get it on nice an’ tender, pony-like, but I’ll have you know it’s time for you ta try. I will not be mean an’ rough like my Ma or like apparently Dashie done. First, on account of it’s dangerous with th’ likes of you, and second ‘cos it ain’t my way. Got that?”

Gilda just nodded, looking lost.

“Okay,” said Applejack. “Lemme have a look at you.”

She stepped closer, and the griffin held still, but for the twitching of her tail, even as the pony sniffed at her and inspected her body.

It was quite a body. ‘Birdkitty’ didn’t really do it justice. Gilda’s feathers, gleaming white, echoed the texture of Dashie’s lovely wings but quickly transitioned into soft beige fur over rippling feline muscle. It smelled mysterious and exotic to Applejack, redolent of strange perfumes and pheromones alien to a pony, yet somehow understood, and she sniffed along Gilda’s body, watching the muscles shift, exploring in spite of the instinctive sense of great danger…

“I like your mane,” said Gilda, unexpectedly. “I hate long flowing manes, you know. And pretending to be all nice, which Dash pretty much never does… shit, I startled you, didn’t I?”

Applejack had jumped back a step. She blinked. “You like how I wear my mane?”

“Yeah. Don’t ask why, it’s not a nice story for ponies to hear.”

“With th’ tie? What about my tail?”

Applejack turned, and flicked her tail, letting the bright red tail-tie flip about, its weight gently tugging on her tail base as it hit the end of its travel. She looked back at Gilda, and blinked again. The griffin was staring at her ass, and her female treasures, with eager, hungry eyes.

Gilda licked her beak. “Oh, baby.”

Applejack lifted a rear hoof uncertainly. “Uh, you like?”

“You do know me and Dash had lots of fun even before we discovered the dildo, right? How do you think I even became a pony-head in the first place?”

Applejack frowned. “I seem to remember Pinkie Pie sayin’ you yelled at Fluttershy. Roared, even. Maybe you mean Dashie-head? Which is understandable, but still!”

“The yellow one? I yelled? Oh, yeah,” said Gilda, and winced. “I told you. I don’t like that one. The long flowing mane, the attitude—I don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather talk about Rainbow Dash’s girlfriend, who’s sexy and who’s offering to fuck me. Did anybody ever tell you that you’re pretty hot for a pony?”

Applejack blushed. “Yeah. Dashie, mostly.”

“Go back to looking me over,” said Gilda. “I liked it.”

Her cheeks rosy, Applejack turned and continued sniffing at Gilda’s body, seeing her hindquarters lift, those fearsome paws set themselves a little apart. She followed around the lean cat haunches, up under that slim and strangely naked tail that flowed only in gesture and not hair, boasting only a fluffy tip, and Applejack gazed upon Gilda’s griffin vagina, which pouted slightly and seemed awful juicy.

She watched for a while before she realized griffins couldn’t wink their labia, that it wasn’t going to do anything but drip.

Applejack turned her head, to see that Gilda was devoting just as much attention to her own pussy—and felt herself wink.

“Oh, MAN,” said Gilda.

Applejack’s heart was pounding. Just for a moment, she got a clear sense of the situation she was in, and looked back over what had brought her to this place, where she was preparing to mount and fuck a terrifying savage beast.

It was a hell of a time to be taking such risks. Dashie wasn’t well, and had that depression thing. She was losing Granny, and had to decimate this griffon to prove herself. Apple Bloom was getting worse and worse by the day, Big Macintosh still wasn’t back, everything was drifting out of her control and here she was, her vagina being ogled by a creature that could rend her limb from limb, of a species that had hunted ponies for food before they’d been made to stop doing that. Dark rumors held that some of the griffins still kept their old ways, even now.

And this one was licking her beak as she watched mare pussy wink.

Applejack rallied her flagging forces. “Don’tcha mean, oh STALLION?” she said, and nosed into her saddlebag, her teeth closing on the magic bit. The cock emerged from between her legs. Beside her, griffin claws extended horribly, trying to sink into the floor of Dash’s house. Whatever the floor tiles were, those claws scratched it.

“Git on th’ bed,” said Applejack. “We’re doin’ th’s my w’y.”

Gilda stared at her, wide-eyed, and cowered lower. “You mean… like, right now?”

“Go on!” commanded Applejack, bravado coming forth to mask her nervousness.

Gilda squeaked, a curiously cute feline sound, and leapt onto the bed in a single bound, hunkering down. Her body trembled visibly, her paws were set well apart. She pressed to the ground, except her ass was stuck provocatively in the air like her spine was unnaturally flexible, a posture no pony could have taken.

“Y’ good th’re?” asked Applejack.

Gilda’s cheek was pressed to the bed, and her eyes were screwed shut, and she screamed, “I don’t know! Fuck me!”

“Wh’t?”

Gilda turned her head, and her eyes raged. “It’s gonna hurt, it’s gonna hurt, I can’t stand it, do me anyway! Oh, fuck! Get it over with, oh fuck, I’m so fuckin’ scared!”

Applejack’s heart went out, in spite of her terror, in spite of the dreadful sense that everything in the whole world was spinning out of control. She had to ball a terrifying monster to achieve impossible, unreasonable things just to hold her world together—but the monster was also scared of her, or at least of the size of her stallionhood.

“C’lm down. I know h’w to do th’s.”

Gilda hyperventilated, shaking, as Applejack mounted her, wrapping forelegs around that trembling, warm, furry body. She didn’t kick, though, because griffins didn’t kick out behind them like a pony would. She didn’t have that defensive instinct against an over-eager stallion, because most birdkitties didn’t find themselves mounted by amorous stallions.

Applejack’s heart pounded. She felt something wet against the end of her pony cock.

“B’st rel’x. F’rst part’s th’ hardest…”

The most powerful hindquarters in Ponyville jabbed forward, and equine flare popped into feline vagina with an outrageous squelch. Gilda shrieked.

“AAAAAAHH!”

She struggled, but Applejack held on, and the next thing Applejack felt was fur against her inner thighs. Gilda had kicked a leg out behind her, a trembling leg with paw flaring out and claws extended in sweet agony. She took deep breaths, and screamed again, pounding a balled-up talon on the bed.

Applejack paused at the mixed signals. “Too m’ch? I c’n spit the…”

“MORE!” screamed Gilda, her whole body shaking.

Slowly, Applejack slid her oversized ponycock deeper, her crotch grinding against Gilda’s outstretched leg. Gilda’s pussy was so taut and slick it was unbelievable, and Applejack fought back the urge to buck and fervently hump that cat ass, understanding better than ever what had seduced Rainbow Dash into her follies. Her stiffness sank further and further into the roiling cauldron of feline lust that was Gilda’s vagina, until it reached a firmer place, surprisingly soon, and Gilda went stiff as a board in her arms.

And Applejack, feeling she’d come right up to Gilda’s cervix and stuffed the birdkitty full of pony, drew her hips back with careful tenderness.

Gilda hyperventilated worse, reeling, impaled on hard horsecock, and tried to shove herself backwards. She was terrifyingly strong, but Applejack held on, and snarled “H’ld still!” She began to work her erection back and forth inside Gilda, always slowly, resisting sudden motions even when she had to clutch Gilda with all her strength just to stop the maddened griffin from flinging herself backwards, ramming her cervix with horsecock by the force of her own crazed shoving.

Gilda began to shriek, driven beyond endurance by the massive bulk that slid so gently but inexorably back and forth inside her, always right up to her feline trigger but refusing to butt her cervix and set off her final release. She tottered, clenching on Applejack’s cock, her body shaking violently.

Applejack felt it, and tried to work out what the hell to do. It was the final, appalling test after a series of trials that had been too much to ask of any pony, with everything at stake and no certainty that she’d be able to prevail. She had to bring off the griffin without getting herself killed, so she could go home and try to fix the many problems there and win back Granny’s approval, but she knew from Dash that bucking roughly would get her gutted, yet the tender motions seemed to be working Gilda up into a state of total insanity anyway.

She kept it up, racking her brain, gritting her teeth on the metal bit as her hips tenderly worked away. Slowly. Slowly…

Gilda pounded her balled-up talon on the bed again. “Please! Please! AHHHH! Oh please!”

Applejack’s ears went back. Her gentle motions continued, and she clung tighter to Gilda to prevent backward shoves. “Wh’t do y’ n’d?”

Gilda heaved giant, hysterical breaths, her body jerking as if she was about to have heart failure. “AHHH! Deeper! Gah! Now! Dying! Please!”

Applejack gulped. She was about to come herself, from the intensity of the stimulation, and she couldn’t help but sympathize. And so, very carefully, she slid the swollen horsecock deeply into Gilda, until she reached firmness—and began to press against that limit, gentle at first, but carefully building the pressure a little at a time.

Gilda was stiff as a board. She emitted a cracked, fractured scream, her pussy clamping down on Applejack’s stallionhood, still nowhere near the base, she shook violently, and then all at once her body was convulsing in its rigid pose and she ripped Applejack’s ears off with a deafening, mind-mangling squall of orgasmic release.

And, as Applejack was about to blast ponycome into that spasming pussy, Gilda’s paws sank into the bed and her body ripped itself forward with overwhelming, unbelievable strength—and the griffon yanked herself away, out from under the pony in spite of all that pony forelegs could do, flung herself up against the headboard and collapsed, clawing at the air with fierce gestures that quickly became dazed and sated.

Applejack stared in amazement, achingly hard ponycock jutting forth under her.

“Th’ hell?”

Gilda’s tongue dangled from her half-open beak, as she lay sprawled on her side like she’d been poured there. “Hnggggg…”

“G’d, w’s it?”

Gilda’s look was drooling adoration. She flipped over, to face away from Applejack. Then, she flipped again, with a boneless wriggle. A deep purring emanated from her chest.

Applejack’s eyes were wide. She’d somehow managed to pull it off, with just one little detail that didn’t really matter. Something told her not to say it, that she should leave well enough alone, that it would be the worst possible mistake to say it.

She said it.

“B’t… I d’n’t come.”

Griffin eyes glittered. Griffin muscles tensed.

“Oh, baby,” murmured Gilda, besottedly, “you’re going DOWN.”

Applejack’s eyes had time to widen at her terrible mistake, and then the predator was upon her.

Gilda’s body slammed into hers, knocking the bit from her mouth. She screamed, kicking out, writhing on her side, but the griffin was too strong for her, wrestling her, balking her attempts to get to her hooves and forcing her onto her back, belly exposed. Applejack fought desperately, biting at Gilda’s hind paw as it shoved her head into the mattress, seeing that strange skinny tail lashing above her, Gilda’s body pressing her down, and she tried to kick, to pound that furry body with a forehoof, and got in a couple hard blows, and the talons went for her legs and the paw raised and came down…

Applejack froze, waving her left foreleg weakly, helplessly.

Gilda’s hind paw was pressing her throat, pushing her head back, her neck laid bare to the huge claws that extended to dig into her. The other paw had her right foreleg pinned, and she couldn’t budge, for Gilda’s full weight rested on it and her throat.

Talons grasped her hock, her inner thigh, pulling her legs wide, splaying her. She had never felt anything grab onto her leg like that. They were sharp, too. The hold on her pony hock was vise-like, and the talons wrapping around her thigh sank in until they nearly broke the skin. It was the sensation of the claws ready to tear open her throat and crotch that had cut off her struggles. Her belly, her groin were open to the beak of her attacker and there was nothing she could do about it at all.

Something very deep inside Applejack flipped a switch, something she couldn’t control. She felt suddenly detached from her helpless body, endorphins flooding her, viewing it as if she was floating above the scene.

Her whole psyche said, you are going to die, right now.

Her body said, we will take the pain away. We give up.

And Applejack’s exhausted soul said, work is over, now and forever…

…and that scratchy griffin tongue hit her erect clitoris, and her body exploded in orgasm with the force of a bomb.

Applejack screamed and shuddered, unable to tell the sensation of ferocious cunnilingus from carnage, prevented from seeing what was happening by the paw pushing her jaw up and holding her head back. Gilda made a curious little keening, wailing noise as she erotically devoured Applejack’s ooze-drenched, winking marehood, not noticing the weird limpness, the weakly waving foreleg that had been kicking her, not noticing anything but the mare pussy spread before her. She went after Applejack’s vagina feverishly, licking everywhere and especially over the throbbing, erect clitoris, and love-biting her vulva in fits of mad abandon.

Applejack, neck bared, legs splayed by talons, an explosion of sensation obliterating her senses, wailed a cry of ultimate despair and acceptance, gave one last flail of her only free limb, and surrendered to the abyss, falling into the warm darkness as her body was seemingly torn apart in a spray of flying juices and chunks.

It was a good darkness.

It was peaceful, and the screaming seemed very far away, and then it was quiet because all was black.

The voice called her, that scratchy little voice she loved so much, and it beckoned her back from the darkness into inexplicable warmth and bizarre sensation.

“Hey! Hey lovebirds!” called Rainbow Dash, as if from a great distance, but coming closer.

Applejack opened her eyes, and the bizarre sensation turned out to be a griffin sensuously licking her throat, and the voice was Dashie flying over to join her and Gilda as they lay on the bed.

Dashie smirked. “Have fun?”

Gilda gave her a look. “Holy fuck, Dash. Just a little! Sorry, there’s a new best pony, okay?”

“Oh, I know,” crooned Rainbow. “How I know. Hey, baby. Feeling good?”

Applejack blinked, her eyes wide. She twitched a little, but couldn’t move.

Dash’s eyes widened. “Whoa. Gilda. You did that?”

“She’s been passed out for hours,” said Gilda smugly. “Damn right I did. And she deserved every bit of it, believe me. Look at her. Just look at her!”

Rainbow’s smile broadened and broadened. “Sweet Celestia!”

“Hey!” snapped Gilda. “Don’t say that name, what the fuck, Dash?”

“Eep! Sorry,” said Rainbow. “I forgot. What’s your beef with her, anyway?”

“She’s not so sweet. Don’t ask. Especially not now. It was incredible, Dash, so fucking incredible, I thought I was gonna tap out it was so incredible…”

“Told ya so,” said Dash smugly. “Applejack is best pony. So I guess even if you hate some ponies, you appreciate others, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” said Gilda, and licked Applejack’s neck again. “We’re gonna be real good friends, me and her. And look! Not a mark on her, aren’t you proud of me?”

Rainbow Dash lifted an eyebrow at Gilda, and then her foreleg lifted one of Applejack’s hind legs, exposing her crotch. She gestured, and Gilda peered and then winced. The warm burnt-ochre thighs and rounded vulva showed a whole series of pinch marks, obvious beak-bites on close inspection, and even a trace of blood on one.

“Liar,” smirked Dash. “Gotcha. Busted.” She looked closer. “Oh my gosh, you went bonkers, look at it all! Applejack, was she as awesome as it looks like she was? More to the point, can you even walk and stuff?”

“I think she’s still a little stunned, actually,” said Gilda.

“You’re so fucking competitive,” griped Dash. “But that’s what I love about you, babe. Hey, Applejack! Speak to me!”

Applejack blinked weakly, looking up at Rainbow and then over at Gilda.

“Can… can I see you again?”

Gilda’s eyes twinkled.

“Hell yeah, babe.”

“I tole you, I love you more’n anything!” protested Applejack. “Please let’s not have this conversation before we’re on th’ ground?”

“Oh, all right,” said Rainbow Dash, flying steadily homeward while holding Applejack in her forelegs. “We’re almost there, anyway. Hey, there’s Granny!”

They arrived at Sweet Apple Acres, and Dash dropped Applejack before the door, where Applejack staggered drunkenly and then rotated to try and hide the bite marks on her vulva from Granny, who inquired, “Did’ja give that griffin a good ‘un?”

“Laid her to waste,” boasted Rainbow. “What’s going on? Why are you out here with Spy waiting for us?”

Granny’s eyes twinkled. “Because we got us somethin’ to show you. And it was me who discovered it, while you idiots canoodled. Come on, Northern Spy! Come on, that’s a girl! Say it for Granny, go ahead!”

Northern Spy stood, her huge ruby eyes blinking. She screwed up her little face, and took in a tiny foal-sized breath, as Applejack and Rainbow Dash held theirs.

“Ohh… ohhk…” said Northern Spy. “Ohhk... okay!”

She beamed up at them, with a heart-melting smile on her tiny face.

Rainbow Dash trembled. “Ohhhh, Granny, that’s wonderful. Oh my gosh! Spy said her first word!”

“How’d you like them apples?” said Granny, proudly.

Rainbow turned to Applejack. “And it’s your word! You’ve been saying that a lot, trying to jolly me out of being depressed, you know. That’s from you!” She dropped her gaze. “It IS you, Applejack. It’s perfect for you to pass on. Because—because you’re okay.”

Applejack bit her lip.

“Dear Celestia,” she said unsteadily, “I hope so.”

Back In Town

“Twilight, darling?”

Twilight glanced at Rarity, as she hurried past. “Yes? Me and Trixie are very busy right now, recreating our bit formula while evolving it to add monitoring.”

“Then I shall be brisk,” said Rarity. “May I have my red lipstick back?”

That stopped Twi. “What?”

“Understand, I am not cross—much. I don’t use that shade as a rule; it is for what you might call extreme glamour emergencies. I do, however, expect things to be restored to their proper places…”

“I didn’t take anything,” said Twilight defensively.

“Well!” said Rarity. “In that case, you may wish to discipline naughty Mistress, because ransacking a bathroom for beauty aids brings with it certain responsibilities! A place of grooming is very personal, a tiny oasis of peace and control, and whilst I am all sympathy toward the desire to preen…”

Twilight blinked, and called upstairs to her bedroom. “Trixie! Did you take Rarity’s red lipstick?”

“Trixie most certainly did not!”

Rarity squeaked, and stepped back a pace, as Twilight’s eyes gleamed triumphantly.

“Now who’s naughty?” she said. “Naughty for interrupting our work over nothing, that is. And naughty twice for unfairly judging Trixie, your own Mistress. Oh, Rarity! What, and understand I ask largely hypothetically—what, oh what, shall we do with you?”

Trixie clattered down the stairs, hearing the tone in Twilight’s voice. Her mane was disheveled, and she whiffed of pony horniness. “What’s happened, Twilight? What has she done?” she called, gleefully.

“Why, our little miss Rarity seems to think she can accuse you of stealing—and not, as might be thought, her heart!”

“Really!” breathed Trixie. “How extremely bad of her. Trixie is appalled at such behavior and will stripe her lovely behind, quite beyond her capacity to use makeup to conceal it!”

Rarity gasped. “Oh my!” she squeaked. She backed up a step. “But, you know, this isn’t a ploy, I’m perfectly serious…”

“Girl!” demanded Trixie. “Behave!”

“No, listen! This lipstick was contained in my second auxiliary grooming cabinet. My second auxiliary grooming cabinet! You ponies are over constantly and go everywhere in my boutique, not excepting my private areas: indeed, you go most eagerly into my ‘private areas’, and well you know it! Hence, you might have been aware of this cabinet. Who else would be privy to such knowledge?”

“Sweetie Belle,” suggested Twilight.

Rarity’s ears wilted. “Oh. I suppose.”

“Hah!” said Trixie. “Accuse Trixie and Twilight of lipstick theft, only to discover your daughter was the true culprit, eh?”

“We don’t know that,” began Rarity, but Twilight interrupted her. “I’ve never seen Sweetie wearing lipstick, though, what could she want with it?”

“Better winking at that little pegasus?” replied Trixie, smirking. “Did you check all of her lips?”

Twilight squeaked in dismay. Rarity’s eyes flashed, and she stamped a forehoof. “Consarn that revolting talk! Consarn, I say! Stop that this instant!”

Trixie pouted. “Oh, for…”

“No, we’ve agreed to not focus on Sweetie in such areas,” said Twilight. “You remember, Rarity even wrote it into her bondage contract and we both signed it. And ‘consarn’ is her safeword, don’t you pout about it! Drop the subject entirely.”

“But,” protested Trixie, “it’s not as if Sweetie Belle is behaving chastely in the least, so how can it be so wrong if Trixie makes flippant remarks…”

Rarity glowered. “Uht! It just is, Trixie, dear Mistress, it just is. But if the lipstick thief is not you, or Twilight, or Sweetie, then who could it possibly be?”

“Big Macintosh!” cried a voice.

Rarity’s jaw dropped. “Well, if you wanted to suggest the most outlandish possible candidate…”

“Big Macintosh is back! Hooray!” cried the voice. It came from outside, and it was Apple Bloom’s voice, and Big Macintosh was back in town.

The three unicorns went out to see, and froze in shock, all three of them. Big Macintosh was walking bashfully down the street, but he wasn’t alone. He’d arrived with somepony else.

Lyra was back in town, too, holding her head up proudly and high, as if to show off her shockingly burned-away stump of a horn. She walked like she was a little bit more royal than the other ponies—or, specifically, that there was royalty in her. Not royal blood, perhaps, and not at the moment, but all the same, evidence suggested royalty had been in her—deep in her.

“Sweet Celestia, she did it,” gasped Twilight.

“You were the one thinking it would not burn her up and kill her!” argued Trixie, staring.

Twilight was staring as well—in fact, every unicorn within sight was staring. Normally, if a unicorn mare was having really dramatic sex, and got an intense magic arc from her stallion’s horn to her own, she might experience some charring of the tip of her horn as it catalysed his magic ejaculation, the arcane portion of his orgasm into her.

To suffer such extreme burning spoke of erotic experiences far beyond any unicorn’s imagining, except mad Lyra who’d become obsessed with finding romance with Princess Luna. They’d even had a conversation with her and debated the safety of arcing with an alicorn lover, Twilight claiming the horngasm could still be catalysed, Trixie vowing that the bolt of horncome could cut through rock.

It seemed they were both somewhat right.

Big Macintosh swept Apple Bloom up in a hug, and hurried to Sweet Apple Acres without even a glance at the unicorns, but Lyra headed right for them, trying unsuccessfully to avoid smugness.

She trotted up, as Twilight, Trixie and Rarity all stared at her horn-stump. “I suppose first I should thank you, for everything you did both good and bad in bringing us together…”

“Oh, Lyra! Your poor horn!” cried Rarity.

Lyra’s smugness burst forth unrestrained. “Mm-hmm!”

Trixie glowered at her. The spring-green unicorn had disrupted the cozy relationship she had with Twilight and Rarity, and had upset Rarity dreadfully with her powerful blasts of horncome. Though both Trixie and Twilight found being magically ejaculated into, erotic, Rarity had issues around it from her checkered history. She'd been shattered when Lyra ‘impregnated’ her, and Trixie had been unable to protect her from that trauma.

It was maddening to Trixie that Rarity seemed to hold no grudge about this: Girl was both frighteningly dark and astonishingly sunny within her complicated and twisted personality, and somehow Lyra seemed to bring out the sweet and generous Rarity, rather than the haunted Mistress of pain and domination. Trixie did not think Lyra deserved to see that Rarity…

“Trixie!” snapped Twilight. “Both of you! Stop that!”

Trixie blinked, and realized she’d locked gazes with Lyra, whose chin was up and who stared back with arrogant cool. She dropped her head, sullenly. “Yes, Mistress.”

“You’ll scare her,” began Twilight, and then saw Lyra’s expression. “Or… not. Sweet Celestia, Lyra, what’s happened to you? Or maybe that’s a bit of a dumb question!”

“Princess Luna happened to me,” said Lyra. “Again, I must thank you. I haven’t been able to tear myself away, she won’t leave the castle, but she insists I must put my things in order after my hasty departure.”

Trixie smirked, not looking at Lyra. The hasty departure had been a terrified fleeing from vengeful Trixie and her telekinetically wielded whip.

“I’ll head back soon,” continued Lyra, “I don’t like to leave Looney unattended because she frets and thinks bad things about herself.”

Rarity’s jaw had dropped. “Did you say… Lyra, there is such a term as lese majeste! I understand you have always been wilful but surely there are limits?”

Lyra’s smug look intensified, and it became more obvious why she no longer feared Trixie, or anypony in Ponyville. “I used to think there were limits, yeah. Limits are for breaking. Look at my horn, I could have died if she burned all of it away! I took Princess Luna in every way, and now I’m hers, forever.”

Twilight looked unsettled. “Soooo… I guess the bits work on alicorns, huh? That’s experimentally proven?”

Lyra blinked. “They were made for her! You didn’t know that?”

“Well, I hadn’t tested it!” retorted Twilight, her ears back.

Lyra smiled fondly. “They were made for my Luna thousands of years ago, and they work wonderfully, just wonderfully. Both on her, and by her. Just trust me on this one, okay?”

Twilight couldn’t take her eyes off that burned-off horn. “But me and Trixie sort of reinvented them—and Trixie thought she’d invented the first one from scratch. She didn’t know she came from a legacy of unicorns who used to serve Luna that way. We’re still not quite sure how they work, they run off the power of love but mine just exploded.”

Lyra blinked. “What?”

“Exploded violently,” confirmed Trixie, brightening. The news had made a major dent in Lyra’s smugness. “Kaboom!”

“We narrowly averted damage to my coiffure!” added Rarity.

Twilight gulped. “Be careful not to bite yours too hard, I guess?”

Lyra frowned, dropping her gaze, and for a moment she looked less like a haughty noblepony, and more like the young mare she was, a slim unicorn with major sex-induced horn injury and no real security outside her spectacularly powerful and capable lover. She looked up, her golden eyes worried. “Luna said she thinks these new ones are stronger.”

The smugness was on Trixie’s side now. “If you cannot handle it,” she said, “Trixie understands. Not everypony is so powerful—or so great.”

Lyra bridled, fixing her nemesis Trixie with a gaze that combined resentment and fear, and then she’d whirled and was running off, back to Canterlot and her royal lover.

“That wasn’t very nice, Trixie,” said Twilight. “We didn’t even get to tell her that it was clamped in a big vise and stressed to the metal’s yield point. That’s kind of relevant!”

Trixie smirked. “Ha! Trixie sorted HER out! Let her run from the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Oh, honestly, Mistress, she’s not even in the Relationship anymore!” said Rarity. “I do not think her quite stable enough, to be honest. Perhaps she and Princess Luna deserve each other. Twilight? What’s troubling you, dear?”

“It’s probably nothing,” muttered Twilight, pecking at the dirt of the street with a forehoof. “There’s no point in me asking.”

“Twilight?” coaxed Rarity.

“Oh… I was just going to ask,” said Twilight, and her gaze yearned, “…what it was like?”

To this, Trixie had no answer. She knew Twilight found taking a horngasm erotic. She knew she’d come in Twilight very forcefully, and that Lyra had done it even more fiercely, and that Twilight had got off good and hard at the sensation of their magic flooding into her through her own horn.

But none of them had ever taken the unbearable orgasmic blast of an alicorn Princess coming in them—and now Lyra plainly had—and all three unicorn mares could not help but feel inadequate, like a pony who craved warmth and stared into the face of the Sun where she could not go.

Trixie sighed, looking cranky. “Come on. Mistress? Research?”

Twilight brightened, and they headed back to her tree house.

“My sakes, Big Macintosh,” said Applejack, “where the hell ya been? We was all worried about you—even Rainbow Dash!” She winked.

“Uh,” said Big Macintosh, “out west—I mean, east!”

“You was comin’ around the side of Town Hall, Apple Bloom says, with that Lyra. Droppin’ by Carousel Boutique instead of greetin’ your adoring family what missed you a whole bunch?”

Big Macintosh’s eyes widened. “Nope! No no, not there! Weren’t east then, it was west, now I remember. Uhhh… Manehattan. Not comin’ by Carousel Boutique at all.”

“Y’ don’t say. Pity you weren’t all the way out to Appleloosa, you could greet our cousin Braeburn. Ain’t seen him in ages. Manehattan, you say?”

Big Macintosh nodded. He gulped, and made an observation.

“Second cousin…”

Apple Bloom just sat, silently studying her big brother. His story was clearly a load of crap, but that wasn’t the only new mystery about Big Macintosh.

She’d bumped against his rump while trying to gleefully shove him homeward to be welcomed, and some of the red color had come off on her shoulder. Apple Bloom wasn’t at all sure who she could ask about that, but all the same she needed to ask somepony.

What sort of markings would Big Macintosh be painting his butt red to conceal?

Flight Lightning saw him as she flew out over the Everfree Forest. For a moment she wasn’t sure—his hair was longer, and she mistook him for a mare because there was a bite mark on his ass, but then she was certain, and she swooped down at speed, and the closer she got the more certain she became.

It was him—Braeburn!

He was trotting home to Appleloosa with that prairie gait of his that covered a lot of ground with little effort, and his head was high and proud, that cowpony hat tilted rakishly.

Flight Lightning grinned and switched to a glide, cruising in with owl-like quietness. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to surprise him, for he was as alert as ever, and scanned the horizon in all directions for varmints and stray cows, but she swooped in directly behind him, getting a fine look at his well-muscled ass and the incongruous bite-mark, and she reached out her forehooves and grabbed his flanks with a ‘Gotcha!’

Braeburn shrieked, and took a tumble when he tried to whirl around without breaking stride, and Flight Lightning was right on top of him, laughing hysterically.

“HOLY CRAP!” he yelped. “What the… Lil’ Bird!”

“It’s me!” whinnied Flight Lightning, grinning her face off. “Sweet Celestia, is it good to see you! What are you doing out by Ponyville?”

“I ain’t doin’ nothin! Or,” he said with that irresistible cocky grin, “maybe I ain’t doin’ noPONY. Do you b’leeve that? If ya do, you’ll b’leeve anything and that’s the sure ‘nuff truth…”

“Oh, Braeburn!” laughed Flight. “Same as ever. Still jumping all the ladies, half the boys and a few of the cows, huh?”

“Ain’t no cows, missy!” objected Braeburn, with mock outrage. “I won’t jump no cow. I denies that part to the last bone in my body.”

“Oh, you mean the bone between your legs?” teased Flight. “That bone?”

“Aw, that ain’t the last bone in my body,” crooned Braeburn. “You know that ain’t true. I denies that part as well.” He shook his head, gazing deeply into her eyes.

“Oh, sorry,” said Flight Lightning. “I should have said, the first bone in your body.”

“Ah think you mean… the first bone in YOUR body.”

Flight blushed an even redder magenta, fluffing her wings at the earnest lust in his gaze. Braeburn could always make you feel like a drink of water in the desert. That little wicked smile, while he stared into your very soul without blinking those luminous green eyes, russet locks framing that gorgeous pony face nearly too pretty to be a stallion. And yet what a stallion he was—and this, his gaze somehow communicated as well.

“Oh, Braeburn…”

“Ah know, Ah know… you tell me I ain’t rightly your first, but you know I cain’t believe a word of it, you luscious lil’ filly, you. Fresh as a daisy, ripe for,” and he licked his lips, “pluckin’. That why you swooped down to catch me, Lil’ Bird? Comin’ back for that best bone in your body?”

Flight Lightning sagged a little. “More like, last bone in my body.”

Braeburn stared for a moment, uncomprehending, and then his eyes widened in dismay. “That ain’t true! That can’t be true! Aw, Lil’ Bird, no!”

“It is true,” she admitted. “You were my last. It’s been a while.”

“It ain’t possible,” vowed Braeburn. “You’re the loveliest Lil’ Bird on the prairie, you jes’ GOT to have stallion company. The hell you been doin’, girl, sayin’ such a thing? I can’t believe it! What happened to th’ stuffy ol’ coot you had back at home?”

“He left. Stuff came up. It’s so good to see you again, Braeburn. I’ve been flying so hard trying to keep up with everything, I swear I’ve forgotten what it’s like to get a really great lay. I’m sure it makes me crankier than I want to be.”

“My poor darlin’,” sighed Braeburn, his eyes filling with sympathy. “How ‘bout we fill ya up with, uh, the milk of pony kindness? Now it might be some strange milk, sugar. Y’know, more sticky an’ thick than you’re used to. And th’ method of drinkin’ it may seem unorthodox but if ya hold still for a minute…”

“I’ve got somepony I’d like you to meet,” blurted Flight Lightning.

His face froze, just for a moment, and Flight’s heart stopped.

“Now, why would you be sayin’ a thing like…”

He was sharp, sharp as a tack on an unexpected seat, and she watched him put it together and frantically tried to get on top of the situation. “I mean, if you want! I think you really should. It would mean so much to her. You know, while you’re out here in Ponyville.”

“Somepony I know out Ponyville way? Her? Y’mean Applejack, my cousin?” he said, warily. “What’s got ya thinkin’ about cousins, anyway?”

“I didn’t say anything about cousins! Oh, Braeburn, never mind, okay? So are you going to be around here for a little longer, you know, in the vicinity? Or are you going straight back to Appleloosa?”

She winced at the look he gave her. It was a cheerful, open gaze, as wide as the whole outdoors, and yet she could tell she’d screwed up again. He could guess why she wanted to know where he’d be. He had guessed, and she was looking at the bland face of pony evasion.

“Lil’ Bird,” he said, “don’t you fret. Everythin’s going to be jes’ fine. Why, I’ll be around like tumbleweeds in Appleloosa, I’ll turn up when ya least expect it!”

Only to blow away and be gone, thought Flight Lightning. She didn’t say it, she tried to keep her face from showing it. She was not at all sure she’d succeeded. Braeburn was a poker player, and he read right through you while revealing nothing. His face said he wanted nothing more than to be there with her, and her soul told her that was suddenly an outrageous lie. She didn’t dare even look away from him, for fear he’d be gone.

She began to cry. She was no fool.

“Aw, Lil’ Bird!”

Flight Lightning fought to pull herself together. “I’m sorry. It’s been so long, and I’ve missed you so much…”

“I’m here now, Lil’ Bird. Ain’t I?” He put out a forehoof, stroked her cheek, wiped away a tear.

Flight Lightning looked helplessly at her earth pony lover, father of Scootaloo, the stallion of her dreams but the source of so many of her troubles. He was sharp, but so was she—the very earnestness of his countenance warned her. He probably realized that too, but there was nothing else he could do. He was going to put on that face until he could make a break for it, and then he’d flee as if she was his own personal Nightmare Moon.

He’d mentioned crazy fillies after him, back in the day, and Flight had understood exactly what he was saying. They’d had a taste of his pony thunder and fallen head over hooves for him, and wanted to tie him down, and that was the one thing he could not abide. Flight Lightning had always been able to reassure him that she had a husband, which he liked to hear, and that she was playing things just as loose and casual. She’d never suggested she would put down roots in his life, so she’d been able to visit it freely.

She’d just blown that wide open, and crossed to the other side, and it was a one-way journey.

Or at least, that was the way he usually worked…

Flight stared hard at Braeburn’s earnest, smiling face, and her look of helplessness eroded, a determination steadily replacing it. Her tearful eyes gleamed, then burned, as she took in every detail of his features like she was committing them to memory forever, like she was aiming to hunt him down no matter where he went.

There was no point concealing it: she was.

“Ya scarin’ me, Lil’ Bird,” he said, shifting from hoof to hoof.

“Braeburn.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s been a long time since I was laid, Braeburn. I was busy. You’ll see why.”

Braeburn quirked an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement crossing his face, a reaction too strong to suppress. Like hell I will, it seemed to say.

She kissed him. “Oh, Braeburn. Listen. Give me one thing. I bet you can.”

“Now, what might that be?” he said, softly.

“Fuck me, Braeburn.” She gulped. “Fuck me like it’s gonna hold me for the next ten years. Like it’s gonna hold me for the rest of my life. Do you understand?”

“Aw, Lil’ Bird…”

“Do you understand, Braeburn?” demanded Flight Lightning.

He dropped his gaze, not meeting her eyes, as if ashamed to be called out so directly, but then those incredibly green eyes were gazing into her soul again.

“Yes, ma’am.” The eyes twinkled. “Are ya ready, Lil’ Bird?”

“I was born ready,” said Flight Lightning. She gulped, and then dared to say it. “So was my baby.”

“Now how could that happen?” said Braeburn, as if it didn’t really matter very much to him. “I thought you explained to me that if I din’t touch those lovely wings, you wouldn’t get pregnant? I’m sure you promised me something like that, didn’t you?”

Flight snorted. “Wasn’t my fault! Stupid husband jumped me the instant I got home, I felt that needle dick go up me, and he bit right down on my wingbase. He’d decided he wanted us to have a kid because I’d been so good and obedient and faithful. It was supposed to be a surprise, he thought it’d be a more exciting reward that way.”

Braeburn gasped. “Y’ don’t say?”

“Surprise was on him, I’ll tell you that much. Fucker.”

“Poor Lil’ Bird! Aw, baby, if there’s anythin’ I can do…”

He trailed off. The way she was looking at him, he had to. He was sure he’d made it sound totally convincing, but she just knew him too well, somehow.

“Oh,” she said, “you will. I won’t say it’ll be easy, but you will.”

“Poor Lil’ Bird,” he said, shaking his head, and that time he really, truly meant it.

She wiped away another tear. “Enough. I asked you for a balling, one to remember. You can do that, can’t you? Give me one more great bucking and then… we’ll see. Won’t we?”

“Yes we will,” said Braeburn, studying his lost pegasus lover. “Lil’ Bird, will you promise me something too?”

“What, to not get pregnant again? To not come after you with a kid in tow?” she said.

His gaze was stern. “Seem like you made that promise before!”

Slowly, a wicked smile crept onto Flight Lightning’s face. “Oops.”

Braeburn sighed. “You’ll be th’ death of me, Lil’ Bird. But no, y’all fucked that one up already. You’ve asked me for one thing I can give, I’mma ask you for one thing that you can give. Fair enough?”

Flight Lightning studied him, skeptically. “What?”

“Don’t you ever let me play poker against you. Ever!”

She laughed, and suddenly they were hugging, she was nuzzling his neck and he was nibbling her ears, and her heart was pounding and she drank in his scent, hide of the frontier cowpony stallion and she could tell he was taking her in as well. It wasn’t about her not being sexy, this impending situation of him running away. She knew she excited him. It was just the thing with the kid, the putting down of roots, and he wouldn’t have it.

She flicked her tail, and he sniffed under it. There were some things he would take like a stagecoach highjacker, whatever the risk. In a way, that bravado was the sexiest thing about him.

Pain lanced through her rump, and she squealed and laid her ears back, bracing herself. Braeburn was a nippy stallion in the sack. He liked feisty girls to hang out with, but he wanted ‘em totally passive before he’d mount, and he didn’t hold back when he set out to dominate a mare.

She began to glance back, wide-eyed, and he snorted and bit her again, and she let out a throttled scream and kept her eyes straight ahead, ears plastered back against her skull, and her pussy began winking and dripping like mad because it knew exactly what that meant, it remembered as well as she did.

It had only seconds to prepare itself before his weight came down on her rump, and she was never able to wholly prepare herself for it at all.

He went slow, not out of sentimentality but because he didn’t propose to stop once he started. His pleasure was not dependent on that of his mare, but he liked a slick juicy feel once he got worked up and started bucking in earnest, and he knew it wasn’t difficult to get that with a little care and attentiveness.

“One for th’ ages,” he breathed, in her deliciously panicked ear, and his hips swung firmly forward.

It always seemed like it wouldn’t be any trouble to take Braeburn, for the first few inches. His flare almost wasn’t a flare, and the end of his stallion cock tapered down to a manageable size, and it poked into Flight Lightning’s frantic, oozing vagina very comfortably, as if to say, hello! Nothing to worry about here!

The term ‘thin end of the wedge’ came to mind.

And Flight Lightning came, then and there, for Braeburn didn’t stop at just the tip of the horsecock. He kept right on going, obviously without a moment’s hesitation, and Flight screamed as he took her.

Braeburn’s cockbase was just plain frightening. His length was more than enough to fill a mare, in the normal stallion way, but his girth was special—as he firmly shoved it in, the bulk pried Flight’s pussy wide and sent agonizing shards of searing sensation right up her spine. It was always just on the verge of unbearable, as the bulky area wedged into her, and it didn’t keep thickening more and more towards the base—if it did, her tightness would push him out. There was an area that was the tiniest bit less bulky, just about at the point where he was thumping her cervix, and Braeburn clutched her body and shoved deeper and deeper until he reached that point, his nostrils flaring as he savored the intensity of the sensations around him.

Flight Lightning held her head high, panting, heart pounding, staring wildly into space. She’d totally forgotten how harrowing it was. She glanced behind her, for just an instant, to see his face. He was grinning a savage, wicked outlaw grin, and she realized what he was gonna do to her. She couldn’t chase him, if he reduced her to such limp jelly that she couldn’t walk. Win/win situation, for him, fulfilling her request in the most treacherous way.

She’d meant to glance for just an instant. She ended up just staring back at him, her eyes wide and shocked. His twinkled.

“You’ll remember this, I reckon—up to when ya pass out. Bye bye, Lil’ Bird. Sweet dreams of sexy cowponies, and don’t say I never gave you nothin’.”

He tugged that swollen horsecock part-way out, and slid elegantly to her depths again, and Flight Lightning reeled. The game was on: outlaw versus outlaw, in a fucking battle. Pleasure was not the prize. Pleasure was the weapon. Her challenge was to endure the pleasure he could cause. His prize would be to leave her so incapable that he could tip his hat and vanish away while she lay there, a helpless puddle, unable to rise…

Braeburn was a canny one, and he knew better than to simply take Flight by storm, for it’d give her ways to resist him, it’d deliver more shallow climaxes, ones she could withstand. Instead, he nuzzled her neck, working that swollen stallionhood gently within her, and he crooned, “Mmmmm… ya always did feel so good, babe, you’re better’n ever.”

“Even after having a…” began Flight, but then she stopped, feeling his teeth on her ear. Not so hard as to hurt, but reminding her who the stallion was, that she was in his grip and taking his cock and his lovemaking. And it was lovemaking, too: though he dominated through nips and bites and force of personality, it was a means rather than an end. The end goal was a quivering, juicy mare he could buck the heck out of, safely and with pleasure for all. It took some building up to.

Braeburn began to build.

His lean, muscular hips began to swing back and forth, at first slowly, and Flight heard the obscene juicy noises that produced. Braeburn enjoyed describing his cock as ‘swole up fit to bust’, and the middle of the swelling was also the middle of his swing, either by happy accident or as something he’d practiced. Flight Lightning had never asked him. She braced herself, licking her lips, eyes wild at the eye-popping sensation of that bulkiest part of him being tugged out of her slickness, and then shoved firmly back in again. No other pony had ever delivered the like. It was like the wedging, widening sensation of carnal entry on both the out-stroke and the in-stroke, and Flight gasped for breath, letting out little wails and shrieks, as Braeburn got into his stride.

He let her ride that for a surprisingly long time, let her wallow in the sensation until she’d exuded so much pussy juice that there was a puddle below the slurping, squelching grip of her maddened vagina. She’d gone beyond winking around the plunging massiveness, to full-on orgasm and clenching at it rapturously with shrieks of breathless delight, and if that was all Braeburn had, it would’ve been more than delightful.

It wasn’t.

Flight Lightning shuddered, wobbling on unsteady legs, amazed that Brae had kept it up that long, that he’d fought off his own climax minute after minute just to deal her an orgasmic hand beyond belief. She sucked in a deep breath, and heard herself squeal a quavery little cry that clearly hinted of the overwhelmed—beyond her lusty shrieks of joy, to a zone that felt a little more vulnerable. Her voice said, maybe that’s enough, but don’t stop, except maybe stop?

He’d been waiting to hear that tone of voice. He’d been saving it.

Braeburn snarled, shaking his mane, and Flight felt his forelegs clasp her body tighter—and then he was humping her like a rabid Diamond Dog on fast-forward.

She screeched, her heart leaping to her throat. The noise was beyond belief, an obscene juicy squelching that seemed impossibly loud, but how could it not be with a thing like that churning in her? And he was churning, there was no other word for it, he was managing a couple strokes a second and they weren’t little strokes, either, they were the same eye-popping full depth plunges of massive swollen stallionhood from her entrance to her depths, and the same wrenching of deeply buried hard-on from her depths to just the cock-tip entering her. Only her extreme juiciness helped her endure it. Braeburn fucked her savagely, and Flight Lightning screamed and tottered and came and came and came…

He roared a wild whinny to the air and he throbbed heavily as he gushed horse-come against her insides, ramming it as deeply as it would go and jolting her with repeated thumps of her cervix, his body convulsing as he topped it off with brutal, animalistic thrusts into Flight’s churned, clenching, climaxing marehood, and she gave out with a long, ragged shriek and lost her balance, falling over.

And he fell with her, and even lying on his side in the dirt, he rammed that throbbing and gushing horsecock into her as far as it would go, snarling and jabbing with it as Flight writhed and kicked…

…and fainted, going limp.

Braeburn panted, his vision blurred and stars floating before his eyes.

“Dang,” he said. He hesitated, and then leaned forward and kissed the back of Flight’s ear as she lay against him.

“Such a sweet baby… an’ so wild!” he breathed. “Well… all right then. Ain’t it?”

Quietly, he drew his hips back, and his deflating and sore erection withdrew from Flight’s vagina, which looked like an explosion in a lube factory. He smirked happily at the sight, and stood up, though it involved him staggering drunkenly to the side and catching himself.

He tipped his hat. It was only right, at times like this.

“Be happy, darlin’, where-ever you do end up. You’re beautiful. But I got to… to…”

He trailed off. Her disheveled wings were stirring. Her legs kicked feebly. His eyes bugged out.

Flight Lightning twisted her neck around, and grinned dazedly up at him.

“I won’t be far. Maybe you should start running. I can fly pretty fast, you know.”

Braeburn hadn’t waited for her to finish. He was already galloping for Appleloosa and points west, as fast as he could, on his shaky and stumbling legs.

“Come on, Lightning!” said Flight. She got to her feet, and promptly fell on her face, her own legs not able to support her. He’d left her such a pile of jelly that she couldn’t walk.

But she was a pegasus, which he’d apparently forgotten.

Flight Lightning staggered for just a few steps and flapped madly as she began to faceplant again—and up she went, flying a crazy drunken path of sloppy swoops, dripping pony juice and Braeburn’s come as she went, but she fought her way into the sky and she headed for her house, begging Celestia or any listening Princesses to smile upon her and her kid and have Scootaloo be there…

“Mom? Mom! What’s going on? Yeesh, you reek!”

“Shut up, come on, right now, this instant!”

“What, into town?” protested Scootaloo. “More flight lessons? What have you been doing?”

“I’ll grab you! Come on! Braeburn, I found Braeburn!”

Scootaloo blinked and glowered. Flight had never shared that detail, she’d played everything down for so long that they’d not talked about it, out of habit.

“Your DAD!” yelled Flight Lightning. “Come on, right now!”

Scootaloo needed no more explanation. She was already running out of the house. Her wings buzzed like a demented bee, and then her mother had snatched her out of the air and was blasting through the sky towards Appleloosa, scanning the horizon in every direction.

“Look more!” begged Scootaloo.

Flight Lightning panted. “Baby, honey, I can’t… something’s wrong here…”

“Yeah, you promised me my Dad was here!” wailed Scootaloo.

“Damn it! I know how fast he can go. We’re out on the plains and we’ve been over twice the area he could cover on hoof. I’ve been going flat out for half an hour, I literally can’t fly any farther. I’m sorry, baby, I know it must hurt. I hurt too.”

Scootaloo stood, trembling all over, looking at her mother, and began to silently weep, even while she glared. She said, in an unsteady voice, “And now you’re gonna be mad at me for being a big crybaby, huh?”

Flight Lightning’s lip quivered. She held out a foreleg. “Not this time. Maybe I’ll join you. C’mere.”

Scootaloo hesitated, for it was an awfully big rules change, but she saw the expression on her mother’s face, and she could tell all the rules and all the self-reliance and all the toughness were being thrown out the window, just this once. Her face worked, and then she rushed into her mother’s embrace and gave herself over to a helpless bawling that shook her little body with its horrible force, while Flight cuddled her close, protecting her while the emotions tore at her, enduring her own flood of desperate and sad feelings.

“I swear to you, kid,” vowed Flight Lightning, “I’ll find him for you. I don’t care what it takes.”

Eventually, Scootaloo quieted. Eventually, she and her mother shared a glance that said they wouldn’t talk about their big emotional cry-fest they’d shared. Eventually, the two pegasi walked feebly back to Ponyville, the small one because she was emotionally devastated, the big one due to sheer physical exhaustion.

By the time they were halfway home, they were leaning on each other to keep from falling: by the time they were home, they were too weary to cry, and they slept, both piled into Flight’s bed, like they had when Scootaloo was a tiny foal. Except, Scootaloo curled up against Flight’s back, where her dock met her tail.

She could smell her father’s scent on her mother, there. She started crying again when she explained that. Flight didn’t object.

Halfway to Appleloosa, where the Everfree Forest ends, the hills of Mareheim begin to suggest the Western plains. There’s sand, and broken ground, and little scrubby bushes.

One stirred, and flopped over, revealing it had been uprooted.

Braeburn peered up out of a hole in the ground, completely covered in dirt, and scanned the sky. It’d been hours. The search was probably halfway to the Leylands by now.

“If ya can’t keep ahead of th’ posse,” he mused quietly, “best keep behind it.”

He glanced at his filthy hooves, knowing his entire body was brown as Mareheim dirt. It was a side effect of the hiding place, and meant he was no longer his recognizable color.

“Son, once you’re in Appleloosa schemin’ out where to jump next, you’re takin’ a bath—but not until then!”

With that, he began to trot off to the west, whistling a little tune.

Some minutes later, he returned, glancing nervously at the sky, and replanted the hapless bush that he’d used, giving it a comforting pat before hightailing it once more.

Exiles

“Luna! Oh, Luna! It’s not going to work, just let me stay with you forever, please?”

Princess Luna blinked at her distressed little unicorn lover, who’d rushed into her bedroom tumultuously. “Calm yourself, Lyra! From whence comes thy dismay?”

“From Ponyville, of course!” wailed Lyra. “Where else? I should never have gone back, ever! I don’t know what you were thinking!”

“In truth I was considering your own well-being, little pony…”

“YOUR little pony,” corrected Lyra petulantly.

“My little pony,” acknowledged Princess Luna wearily. “I am only trying to care for you, and entreat you to try and understand…”

“Yes, treat me!” squeaked Lyra, bounding onto the bed with her like some electric-green gazelle. “Treat me to some more princess loving. I don’t want anything else!”

Luna narrowed her eyes, ruffling her wings and flicking her tail. “WE wish you to have something else. We wish you to have more than just this. It will pall, in time, and it too closely resembles our shame, when we tried to capture a pony for our selfish use.”

“It will not pall!” protested Lyra. “…who even says pall, anyway?”

Luna sighed. “Enough! Do you think it a mere suggestion? Just because you wish to live out my sick fantasy does not make it meet. I tell you this, you shall not lose Ponyville! We forbid it. You shall go back and try again.”

Lyra opened her mouth to speak, and then shut it. She looked shrewdly at her Princess, and thought for a second before replying. Then she climbed back out of bed, stood on the pristine floor of Luna’s bedchamber, and gazed upon her lover and patron seriously, with an air of a pony gathering her wits for a debate.

“How much of this is about me,” she said, “and how much is about the fact that you’ve lost Ponyville yourself?”

“Impudence!”

Lyra rolled her eyes. “That again? How long is it going to take for you to figure out that doesn’t work on me? I’ve stayed here with you for months and you keep talking about Ponyville, about all these stupid townsponies that I can’t see why you care about, as if you want nothing better than to go and be with them again. It’s like you’re sending me there in your place. Which is kind of nice, I feel like an ambassador from you, but it’s not fair to me! I don’t want to be with them at all!”

Luna sagged. “But, Lyra, Ponyville was your home, was it not? I cannot believe you will remain truly happy while abandoning it. It is not the same with me. I committed terrible acts against those who live there. I sought to meddle in their lives, and stole a pony for my own pleasures. I must do penance, and perhaps in a few generations…”

“That’s not good enough!” exclaimed Lyra. “The next time I go into Ponyville, I want you to come with me. You’re punishing yourself for something that doesn’t matter now. You’ve got me, so it doesn’t matter who else you wanted.”

Luna fixed her with a stern gaze. “It matters to some ponies, Lyra.”

“You mean, it matters to Trixie!” said Lyra, and saw the Princess wince. “I’m sorry to say the name, Princess, but you know it’s true. You’re exiling yourself from all of Equestria because of stuff you did to one pony!”

“I am exiling myself because of who I became, while doing it to that one pony,” said Luna somberly.

Lyra confronted her. “Yes, I know, you’ve told me over and over, and it doesn’t make sense! I know you were just trying to do what was right, for yourself and for Twilight and for Princess Celestia and even for Trixie. It’s wrong for you to be punished for that!”

“Even when it is myself passing the judgement?”

“Aha!” said Lyra. “But isn’t it true that the crime you’re punishing yourself for, is passing judgement without permission? You decided stuff all on your own, and then you decided all on your own to punish yourself for it, and you’re still deciding everything all out of your own head.”

Luna looked askance at the triumphant unicorn. “Lyra, my sister Celestia is the one who declared this fate. I am only embracing it as fit for such a reprobate as myself.”

Lyra’s gaze dropped. “Oh. Right.” She thought for a moment, and brightened. “But still—she let you have me. Didn’t she?”

“That is true.”

“She said you needed to love. Didn’t she? And she still doesn’t think I’m a very good pony, but she lets me stay here all the same. Doesn’t she?” said Lyra.

“My sister is solicitous of your well-being,” protested Princess Luna. “Indeed, if you are to attribute the desire to mingle to me, so I may recognize in you a tendency to believe all ponies your enemy! Or, if not strictly your enemy, then unfavorably disposed to you?”

“It’s different,” said Lyra, bridling. “I know they don’t love me. Trixie was mean to me, Celestia wrote unkind things about me in her diary…”

“Her private notes to aid her memory,” said Princess Luna, “which she did not grant you leave to read!”

Lyra shrugged. “It’s still true. You want me to go be with these ponies who care nothing for me, out of some sense of guilt or desire to please. And I don’t want any of that, I just want to be with you. If you never go out, then neither will I. Ha!” She stomped her little hoof.

Princess Luna glowered at her pony lover. “We have ways of compelling obedience…”

Lyra was on fire, prancing around the bedroom flicking her tail and tossing her mane. “And that’s worked out for you so very well, hasn’t it? You know how to break a pony’s mind so she is nothing but your puppet, and hasn’t it made you feel just wonderful about yourself? Looney, don’t even start with that stuff! We’ll talk it out, like we always talk.”

“And talk, and talk,” sighed Princess Luna. “In truth it were fit for another punishment, should I believe my sister capable of it. Cooped up with chattering fluff!”

There were times when Lyra’s swinging moods faltered and tumbled at such a remark, times when the kept unicorn with the burned-away horn had despaired and wailed in dismay, to eventually be comforted by her contrite, regal companion. The long hours had given way to many such times, in the crucible of confinement that taught the prisoners—the one a prisoner of honor, the other a prisoner by choice—about each other. Sometimes Lyra’s ecstacy of attending upon such a magical creature was turned to the blackest misery.

This wasn’t going to be one of those times.

“YOUR fluff,” Lyra corrected sharply. “Just because I am not as clever as an alicorn princess doesn’t mean I can’t think, Looney. I may not understand townsponies, but I understand you! Sometimes you get hurtful when I’m too close to something. You talk about compelling me to go out and visit Ponyville. What good could you possibly think I can do there?”

“We believe the term normally used is, ‘your own good’,” stated Luna.

“Immaterial,” said Lyra. “I have never felt like I belonged in Ponyville. I was always the weird unicorn filly who sits funny and gets too excited about things. For years I turned to Bon Bon and let her become my world, because she seemed to accept me. Hah! Accept my youthful vagina, more like.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “You yourself have admitted you are not always easy to live with. This is not to say we regret living with you, dear pony! Only that Bon Bon deserves a certain sympathy for her actions, flawed though they were.”

Lyra frowned. “Yeah, I’ll let you know when I’m ready to believe that. Signs point to ‘never’. Don’t pout! I’m being honest—and you’re still trying to distract me. You want to return to Ponyville yourself. Yes or no?”

“There is no circumstance that would justify that!”

Lyra trotted over to where Luna lay on the vast, ornate bed. “Wrong! You go out on Nightmare Night and appear for the townsponies. I saw you do it.” She hesitated, then added, “That’s when you fell in love with me. You saw me jumping up to see you. You told me about it. Remember?”

Luna was not comforted. “If it becomes our habit to go and fall in love with a mortal pony on Nightmare Night, mayhap we had better cease the practice!”

That struck the radiant green unicorn, where sharper remarks had not. Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry!”

Princess Luna stammered. “But… nay, we are sorry, dear pony, we do not mean to imply that we have the slightest regret, moreover we spoke with unfitting frivolity…”

“No!” squeaked Lyra. “The other thing. You know? And I’m so, so sorry, with all of my heart.”

“Lyra?” said Luna uncertainly. “What thing is this?”

Lyra gulped. “For being mortal—and leaving you, someday. You deserve so much better, and I’ve got to find a way to heal you in the time that I have. Because I love you that much.”

Luna couldn’t speak. She gazed into those swimming golden eyes so full of mad, manic devotion, and made a weak little choking noise—and then found words.

“My darling little pony! Oh thou miraculous, endearing wonder!”

“Please don’t be sad?” said Lyra in a timid voice.

“We shall love you forever! Forever, little one!”

“But it can’t be a sad thing! I can feel the sadness pouring out of you,” protested Lyra, “and I don’t want that for you! How do we get around this part, how can you enjoy your time with me? It’s part of why I don’t want to leave here, ever! How can I go and talk to Ponyville ponies and not spend every second I have by your side?”

Luna controlled herself with a mighty effort. “We do not wish you to lead so confined an existence. You should not live like an exile.”

Lyra blinked. “But I always did, before. Weren’t you listening? I’ve never felt at home anywhere, unless you count Bon Bon…”

“And so you should, we hasten to add! Your brightness is dimmed by resentment and grudge-holding, things you must rise above!”

Lyra shook her head. “You’re changing the subject again. It almost got by me—you can use even my own hurt feelings as a trick. How long have you been practicing that one?”

“Thousands of years,” said Luna, quietly. “What is this subject to which you refer?”

“You, Luna, want to go to Ponyville, so you’re having me go FOR you. And we need to come up with reasons that you get to go on your own. You claimed there is no such reason, and there is: you go on Nightmare Night. Now we will talk about other reasons you might go and enjoy Ponyville.” Lyra fixed the Princess with a stern gaze.

“Enjoy!” snorted Luna, ruffling her wings anxiously. “Do you mean to seek out the very heart of that which I must not do?”

“Princess Celestia never ordered you to be miserable the rest of your life,” argued the little unicorn. “She was angry with you, which you’ve told me all about. She calmed down, and she later gave you ME and she can’t possibly have meant that to hurt you. Do you think Princess Celestia requires you to be miserable right now? Let’s start with right now.”

Princess Luna looked grumpy, flicking her radiant tail until sparkles seethed within it. “No, Lyra. I do not believe my sister requires me to be miserable right now. But while I am carrying out my duties within Ponyville…”

“Would the children, the colts and fillies enjoying Nightmare Night, have more or less fun if you are miserable and not enjoying yourself?” suggested Lyra.

Luna laid her ears back. “This is going to be one of those conversations, is it not? We ask merely for elucidation, and not to evade.”

It didn’t discourage Lyra. “I am only trying to heal you, because I love you so much. I’m sorry if it seems insistent…”

“No, you’re not.”

Lyra didn’t bat an eyelash. Her golden eyes shone with the glorious, obsessive love she nurtured and encouraged within herself for the Princess of the Moon, the ghost that had haunted her dreams until she sought to bring those dreams to her waking hours, and she said, “No, I’m not sorry at all. I believe I CAN heal you and I’m gonna do it. You can’t stop me. The only thing you can do is outwait me. And I admit you can do that, but I believe something else—I believe that when you fell in love with me, that opened a crack I can keep open, and you’re gonna let me lead you to the sunshine where you can be happy.”

Luna’s face was expressionless. “You assume so quickly that I answer to the Sun, just because I defer to my sister? How sure are you that my heart desires this sunlight of which you speak?”

Lyra bent and kissed the top of Luna’s muzzle, looking her in the eyes. “You told me once that you see the light of morning in my eyes, the sunlight through dappled leaves in my coat. Some part of you wants to wake from your night.” She hesitated, looking away, a pang of doubt stabbing her. “Some of the time, anyway. I hope so?”

Luna didn’t speak at first. She looked at Lyra as if from a long way away—or as if at a distant memory, as if already placing Lyra in the company of the countless dead Lulamoon unicorns she’d treasured all those years ago.

Lyra’s lip quivered, the doubt returning, but before she could venture far down that path that ended in tears and the chill of lifeless eternity nipping hungrily at her hooves, her Princess had seen her mood shift, and it was Luna’s eyes now moist with tears.

“Lyra, Lyra! Yes, you speak truth—I long to wake for you, darling. I don’t know why you reach me where so many others have not. I don’t understand it. But I hope so too, I so fervently do hope so.”

She was standing, gathering Lyra’s body into her embrace, enfolding the little unicorn in dark wings. Lyra, enclosed by Night, felt comforted and safe.

She snickered. “You also told me you’d widen my pussy with a crowbar if I didn’t quit pinching at you, so there’s many things you long to do.”

Luna snorted, again. “Thou angelic, daft minx. We spoke in jest, as you are well aware. Oh, Lyra, how did I survive without your peculiar, insufferable charm?”

“Back to the plan,” said Lyra, snuggled in the Princess’s wings. “What would it take to get you out into Ponyville? You know you want to.”

Luna sighed. “Relentless minx. Indefatigable. We grant that there are purposes that permit the curtailing of our exile.”

“Like Nightmare Night? Okay, that’s a start. What if… okay, hear me out. Suppose you were watching from your window in the castle, and you saw a little foal playing on the cliff out by Ghastly Gorge? And that foal toppled and fell off the cliff and only your wings could save her?”

Luna snuggled her pony lover closer. “Then she would have to hope a certain unicorn hadn’t been turning my wings to quivering jelly all the previous night.”

Lyra wriggled deliciously. “I’m serious!”

“So am I,” murmured Princess Luna.

“Answer the question or I’ll bite you,” squeaked Lyra determinedly. Her bright green head poked out of the swaddling of deep blue feathers, wearing an expression of adorable vexation, like a frustrated kitten.

Luna remained resolutely silent. Lyra thought about what she’d said.

“I take it back—answer the question or I WON’T bite you. So there.” She pouted.

Luna gulped, theatrically. “Cruel mistress! We must comply, then. Yes, if a foal was falling off a cliff, we would fly in haste from our prison to rescue the waif. Surely Celestia would grant leave for this. Her stricture was against our misbehavior, and was in no way meant as a permanent penalty. Dear Lyra, it is only three hundred and fifty years. Those of our kind might shrug off a mere three hundred and fifty years and spend it in study and contemplation. We had intended just such pursuits.”

“You don’t sound like you still intend that,” said Lyra.

“We will spend it with you… some of it, anyhow. This time should not be wasted in cloistered meditations. Your life must be lived.”

Lyra snuggled into Luna’s embrace, satisfied. Then, she twisted around, looking up at her beloved. “So, you agree to go out with me and look for heroic things to do and ponies to save from disasters?”

Luna choked, startled. “Mad wretch! We said no such thing!”

“Yeah,” said Lyra, “but you expect me to go out into the world and not stay here with you all the time. And you’ll only come join me if there’s somepony to rescue, otherwise you’ll stay home and mope…”

The Lyra logic was inexorable, and Luna stammered. “I, I, mayhap it appeared that we had conceded something of the sort…”

“You did,” said Lyra stubbornly. “I could just stay with you here, but you don’t want me to live that way. I can see it now, I’ll walk Equestria, ready to send out my Luna-signal. What’s a Luna signal, how will I send out a signal to call you if you’re needed?”

“You could take a quick nap and dream of me?” suggested Princess Luna.

Lyra glared at her, and Luna’s jaw dropped. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” said the little unicorn. “I only want to do what will make you happy, and you so badly want me to go out and lead an exciting life. This would be an exciting life! I shouldn’t stay around Ponyville, though, not enough happens there. Can you magically appear in places far away from here?”

“Your opinion of alicorn magic prowess,” said Luna, “seems excessive, albeit flattering!”

Lyra pouted, snuggling closer. “All right, all right! I’ll stay around Ponyville. Is there a sort of whistle only alicorns can hear?”

“From deities to dogs, yet?” gasped Princess Luna.

“Well, I don’t know! I’ll do whatever you like, I just need to be able to call you in emergencies!”

Luna was frowning, considering this. “Ponyville is scarcely given to emergencies, that is one of its charms. If you promise to stay around Ponyville…”

“I just did, didn’t I?” said Lyra.

“And woe betide you if you solicit my presence for unfitting reasons!” scolded Luna.

“Oooh! You’re okay with it? This is going to be exciting! How do I summon you?”

Luna thought. “Hardly a demanding cantrip. Oxley’s Resonator should suffice. It is not two-way, regrettably, so we will have to trust your judgement, as dire a prospect as that may seem…”

Lyra snuggled into her Princess’s wings, satisfied with her day’s work.

Luna was not wholly satisfied, however. “Darling? Must I remind thee?”

“Huh?”

“Thou hast made… other promises.”

Lyra blinked, and then her eyes flew wide. “Oh!” she squeaked. She bent her head, smiling a wicked little pony smile, and her lips closed on a deep blue feather, and tugged.

Luna shuddered, baring her teeth and letting out a deep groan. The little darling had never been with a pegasus, or any winged pony, and she’d known nothing of specialized erogenous zones.

She’d learned quickly and gleefully.

Luna arched her neck in ecstacy as her little pony munched speculatively on her wing shank, not too hard (though she was capable of alarming jolts when least expected) but not hesitantly. “Uhhhh!”

“You like that? My Princess?”

Luna gulped, her body washed with surges of eager lust for her wicked, adorable lover. She pivoted, shuffling her hindquarters over, coaxing Lyra back onto the bed while still enclosing her in a fluffy embrace—a trembling fluffy embrace, for the unicorn pony was delivering sporadic nibbles and nips to Luna’s powerful, yet sensitive, wings.

There hadn’t been a mortal lover so bold with her person since… ever?

They sprawled, bodies pressed together on the generous expanse of silky bedsheet, and Luna bent her head to nuzzle Lyra’s cheek, knowing the likely response, and there it was—her little unicorn pony nuzzled back, and then with a quivery sigh took to unicorn-kissing in feverish delight, caressingly rubbing her horn against the tower of Luna’s massive alicorn horn.

She had to use her hornbase, however, because even months later, her burned-away horn still had not grown back—and the gesture was filled with heart-stoppingly intense symbolism for Luna, carrying meaning that made her swoon. They’d be so good, for weeks on end, and then inevitably Luna would yield to Lyra’s pleadings, typically on a full moon night around two in the morning—and would arc with her petite lover, unleashing magical orgasm into her, lighting her up from within through a torrent of magical ejaculation that effortlessly overwhelmed Lyra’s gout of horncome and flooded her with the magic she craved.

Lyra had said once that she wished to die that way, when her time came, and Princess Luna understood just what she meant. She knew from her regal sister that such a fate, or worse, was possible. She knew that taking such a climax from a full-grown alicorn was an experience beyond description for any mortal unicorn, a sexual release so powerful as to make all previous experience pale by comparison.

She also knew the dark and illicit secret of the alicorn who permitted herself that luxury—it sucked the magic out of you like some mad, frantic blow-job, irresistibly. She hadn’t talked about that part with Celestia, and knew better than to raise the subject—Celestia would never, ever talk about it. Luna hardly knew what to say, anyhow. It was every bit as intense for her, and that was the secret. Lyra’s body, wracked with ecstacy and illuminated from within by a storm of alicorn magic, seemed to suction her horngasm right out of her with unbearable urgency and sweetness. It left Luna dazed, stunned by the forces that had blasted through her massive horn during their seconds of arcing.

And if it was merely seconds, it’d be another thing—but her little pony was a prodigy, and could horncome for half a minute without stopping, gushing magical orgasm until she was limp and spent beyond all reason. That meant that the channel was open, and during those times, Princess Luna too was helpless to resist. And so, she would be cajoled into arcing with her pleading, magic-addicted lover, and she would cry out, wracked by ecstacy and dumping impossible torrents of magic into Lyra’s thrashing body in a climax beyond anything she’d ever known in a very long life.

And Lyra would be left twitching feebly in boneless bliss, her body literally smoking, and with more and more of her sweet little horn burned away by the unbearable force of Luna’s magic each time. It had no chance to grow back, no matter how carefully Luna tried to guide her diet, sneaking rare herbs into her food that were said to aid horn regrowth. Every time Luna gave in to Lyra’s pleading, every time they did it all the way, Lyra got a little bit closer to her own joyous destruction.

When the last molecules of catalysing unicorn horn burned away, the magic that stuffed Lyra to bursting each time would cease its role of inducing a female unicorn’s ovulation. It would change instantly to raw force, incinerating the hapless mare in a heatless flash of pure energy even while she came, a hammer-blow of final sensation leaving only a hollow shell where the beloved had once been.

One time, Lyra had come so hard and so long on the end of Luna’s horngasm that she’d not only lost more than half the horn she had left, but she’d managed to char half an inch off the tip of Luna’s horn as well. Luna had felt clubbed in the head, drunk, dizzy with the new peak and desperate for more. And Lyra, once she’d regained consciousness and seen what she had done, was the smuggest unicorn in Equestria. Luna had never seen such pride.

She had to get Lyra safely away from her before she burned her darling up entirely.

Luna trembled at the unicorn kisses, her heart leaping at each caressing touch of that brave little stump of a horn against hers. There was something so dizzying about it, like a moth making love to a flame, Lyra’s ravaged horn begging to be the conduit for more orgasmic magic, at any cost. Luna knew that the yearning horn-kisses would go on for some time, and then her little unicorn would turn again to her wings, working her up into a frenzy from which only going all the way would deliver her. At such times, her horn felt like it would burst from the pent-up magical pressure.

And so, Luna reached out with her levitation and hastily seized Lyra’s magic bit from the shelf in the hallway outside, swooping it into the bedroom with them and hovering it before Lyra’s cute little mouth in hopes of switching things to the more earthy mode of penises and vaginas, and away from the heights of horn-yness they tended to gravitate to…

…and Lyra shrieked in alarm and scrabbled awkwardly away across the bed, eyes panicky and wide.

Luna blinked. “Lyra? What’s the matter?”

“I forgot! We need to get rid of that thing, Looney, it’s dangerous!”

“But it’s much less dangerous than the other way!” protested Luna.

“No, I mean Twilight Sparkle’s blew up! Kaboom, Trixie said. That sounds like a very big explosion, to go kaboom! Because it sounds like there’s a rumbling afterwards, which implies bigness, you know? Don’t ask me to put that in my mouth, please! It’s just not safe!”

Luna blinked rapidly, processing this information. “But Lyra, darling! I know these bits from years ago. I assure you, it will not explode for me! It would not dare! We forbid such a kaboom, in fact!”

Lyra peered fearfully at the floating bit. “Can you actually forbid a kaboom?”

Luna drew herself up haughtily. “They are my magic artifacts! There shall be no kaboom here, my Lyra! Now, come here. The royal vagina wishes attention, and penetration.”

Lyra bridled, glancing sidelong at her Princess. “Can… can you test it out for me, first?”

“For you?” said Luna. “Or in you? Does the pony’s vagina also wish attention, then?”

Lyra wriggled, kicking out her legs sensuously, running a forehoof down between them to caress her breasts and tickle her jutting vulva. She squirmed around, and winked at her Princess, while fixing her with an unblinking, smouldering gaze.

“My, my,” breathed Princess Luna, and with an air of ceremony took the bit between her own teeth and grew a thick blue hard-on.

“No p’nching,” she murmured, wriggling up with her belly to Lyra’s trim backside.

“No promises,” crooned her little unicorn lover, her pussy winking frantically.

And as Luna slowly entered, Lyra gasped and shuddered in transports of carnal delight, her juices easing the passage of the bulky alicornhood, and she tried not to pinch though at times she squealed and tensed right up, causing Luna to snort and grit her teeth and swell that erection within her with shocking force. Yet, the intensity of that could only give way to the tender and graceful thrusting so typical of a mare packing a stallion’s penis, a tacit understanding of how it felt to be deeply penetrated, a fluidity and naturalness, a pent-up eroticism that expressed itself not only through the cock but also the clinging embraces of Lyra’s trembling body, the tender hoof stroking her belly and fondling her breasts and kneading her vulva even as the stiffened erection slid deeper below the kneading hoof…

Lyra squealed and shook as she came, her stump of a horn spurting magic in bright splashes against the headboard, and Princess Luna grunted, her body jerking rhythmically as it spurted temporary magical stallion-seed into Lyra’s womb, her mind determinedly trying to work out how many degrees of hue variance there was between the color of her magic cock, and the color of Lyra’s left forehoof.

The distraction and intention to withhold proved enough to prevent her horn from letting go, and she sagged in physical satisfaction, with only a moderate case of blue-horn, feeling absolutely delicious as the stallionhood unloaded a few more leisurely spurts into Lyra, who squeezed dreamily upon it for a few more beautiful seconds and then swooned away in a contented slumber.

Luna allowed her to completely relax, and then placed the bit decorously on the pillow beside her, and the erection withdrew from pony pussy without drama.

Sometimes just feeling good with earth pony parts was its own satisfaction.

“I see your paramour is resting comfortably,” said Princess Celestia, sipping Luna's best tea.

“Oh, yes,” replied Luna. “We cannot thank you enough, dear sister. To share her life is a continuing delight. By the way, we must ask questions of you, related to one of Lyra’s new ideas.”

“Ah, yes,” said Celestia knowingly. “Lyra ideas. What’s she come up with this time? I’m almost afraid to inquire.”

“Nay, it is we who might be hesitant, sister, for Lyra wishes to play the hero out in the world, with our able assistance. You remember how we sought to coax her from our side?”

Celestia nodded, solemnly. “If you wish her to last, you had better find a way, yes.”

“This is the crux of it, then: Lyra would walk Equestria, or at least Ponyville, bearing what she dubs a ‘Luna-signal’, and seeking trouble and distress. Foals falling from cliffs, attacks of griffins, that sort of thing… It is her belief that dispensation would be granted to us for acts of heroism, and so she agrees to travel from my side as long as she may summon me to hers.”

Celestia blinked. “Goodness! She wishes to be a sort of ‘Mare-Do-Well’?”

“She wishes us to be one, together,” explained Luna. “Provided we are permitted to depart from our prison in service of such good deeds?”

Celestia frowned at her younger sister. “Luna, it is not a prison. It is only three hundred and fifty years, over a year of which has already passed, and I did not call it prison. You are grounded, not imprisoned.”

Luna’s ears drooped. “Which is to say, no?”

Her sister’s brow was knit in thought. “I didn’t say that. Lyra gets some startling ideas, doesn’t she? You do understand that part of your punishment is to consider why you’d done what you’ve done, and learn to behave differently toward the world?”

Luna’s ears perked up. “You mean…?”

Celestia’s expression was grumpy, yet benevolent. “Yes, Luna. You are still grounded, but if your lover wants to gallop around finding lost kittens and stray ponies, and then call on you to help them, I cannot disagree. I think that will be good for you, and it’ll get her away from you for what I fervently hope is long enough that her horn will recover. You two worry me terribly at times. You do not want to use this unicorn up, Luna. Believe me, you will not like the results of losing control with her.”

Luna didn’t dare comment, and then hesitantly said, “Surely I need not fear some things? Bizarre things, happening again? Things we will not speak of, further? It cannot be a common thing, to, to…”

“What is common,” said Celestia sharply, “is to destroy the poor creature in her moment of greatest pleasure! No, I would not expect the… stranger outcomes, Luna. Nevertheless! You love this little pony, so by all means send her out and play Mare-Do-Well with her. Do you anticipate needing costumes? I’m sure Rarity would be thrilled to oblige.”

Luna glanced at Lyra’s limp, sated body, sprawled deliciously on the bed. “Methinks she wears the most flattering one, already…”

Celestia chuckled wearily. “You’re biased. But yes, she’s pretty, and I’m so pleased you’re happy with her, and she with you. Handled with respect, a relationship between unicorn and alicorn can be a beautiful thing.”

“Speaking of which,” said Luna casually, “mayhap you might check on Twilight Sparkle? Something Lyra said concerns us. We are sure it is nothing, but if you would find out whether she is well?”

Princess Celestia blinked. “Certainly. Why?”

“Oh, Lyra said those magic bits explode now. With a kaboom, she says. We do not believe a word of it, but she was very upset. She did not mention whether Twilight was using it at the time, but apparently it was Twilight’s that exploded, so we thought…”

Luna trailed off. Her sister was staring at her, aghast.

“What?” said Princess Celestia.

Soothe

“Do you still think we should… you know?” whispered Sweetie Belle, peering around the Crusader clubhouse.

Scootaloo glared at her, and her heart skipped a beat. “More than ever!”

“Well, you don’t look happy about it! I hope you don’t think I’ve been telling Apple Bloom.”

“It’s not that,” said Scootaloo. “And I’m not mad at you, before you ask.”

“Is it because I think you should try it both ways, Scootaloo? I don’t understand why that would be a problem. You’re a filly and trust me, it’s amazing.” Sweetie dropped her eyes bashfully. “You were amazing.”

Scootaloo continued to glare, but at nothing. “It’s complicated.”

“No, actually, it was very simple! You sort of stand there and hold still and I’ll do all the work. I think you will really enjoy it!” said Sweetie Belle.

“That’s not what I meant. I guess, maybe, if you say so,” grumbled Scootaloo. She blushed slightly, her wings lifting. “I guess if I’m not liking it, you could sort of nibble? You know, that thing you do. The one that gets me really excited. The one where you have to be my most special somepony forever and ever to do it, which you totally are, so I guess it’s okay?”

“Chewing on your wings?” suggested Sweetie, and Scootaloo blushed scarlet, her wings poinging to quivering, rigidly erect poses. Sweetie blinked. “What was that for? We’re just talking.”

“Dammit!” snarled Scootaloo. “Sorry, okay? I can’t help it. Don’t just say it like that, I get all excited! Now I can’t even focus.”

“It’s all right, Scootaloo,” reassured Sweetie. “I checked with Rarity, remember? After you said that I could, I asked her. It’s natural for a pegasus your age to have wing erections, because you’re a grown-up now and your body is telling you to mate. Which you can do with me, so everything is fine, isn’t it? Mine is telling me the same thing, all the time.”

Scootaloo looked grumpy. “I wish it wasn’t ALL the time. Anyway, you could do that—what you said.”

“No, I couldn’t,” said Sweetie. “I’ll be holding something in my mouth, remember? That’s the whole point.”

“Yeah, well, I think it should be me holding it, you’re the one who keeps telling me I should find out what it feels like when you…”

Apple Bloom’s head appeared in the doorway. “Hi! How’s things in th’ land of the thunder-stinky?”

Scootaloo’s head whipped around and Sweetie screamed. “Apple Bloom! What are you doing here?”

This wiped the determined smile off Apple Bloom’s face. “What, y’mean in our clubhouse, ‘here’? That what ya mean?”

Scootaloo didn’t blink at all, and grinned back at her old friend with a vengeance. “Oh, hi, Apple Bloom! What’s going on?”

“You couldn’t possibly mean, what are ya doin’ here in this clubhouse that you built yourself bangin’ in nails with your very own hooves—this clubhouse your big sister Applejack gave you to share with your very best friends?” said Apple Bloom. “Whatever could you be doin’ here in your own dang property? That what you’re askin’?”

Sweetie Belle gulped. “I mean… it’s so good to see you! We should spend more time together.”

“If it wouldn’t interrupt your canoodling,” suggested Apple Bloom. “I know that mus’ be quite a burden, or somethin’.”

Sweetie cringed, and Scootaloo saw this and bristled. “This is you being mean, Apple Bloom! What are you, related to Babs Seed or something?”

As soon as she said it, she felt stupid, but all the same it broke the tension. Apple Bloom laughed. “Yeah! We’re cousins, Scootaloo, don’t you know anything?”

“I wonder if she is experiencing puberty, too,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Now that’s a frightening thought,” said Apple Bloom. “Listen, guys, I need your help with somethin’! We gotta find out where Big Macintosh went and what he was doin’, on account of he’s doin’ weird things now and that ain’t right!”

“What kind of weird things?” demanded Scootaloo.

Apple Bloom took a deep breath, and whispered it with her eyes wide and spooked. “Big Macintosh put lipstick on his butt!”

She then sat and sulked, for she did not get sympathy so much as hysterical laughter. Scootaloo rolled around crying with laughter, and Sweetie Belle sat up straight smirking and giggling, and it went on and on and on as the country filly glowered.

“Good one, Apple Bloom!” laughed Scootaloo. “You’re the best!”

“I ain’t joking,” said Apple Bloom bitterly, and they trailed off. “And it ain’t funny!”

“We’re sorry,” said Sweetie. The corner of her mouth twitched. “But maybe it is just a little bit funny?”

“That there pony’s family. An’ he was missing, and it’s weird, and it ain’t neither funny!”

Sweetie shot a warning glance at Scootaloo, and continued, “We didn’t notice he was away!”

“Don’t notice much these days, do ya?” grumbled Apple Bloom.

“You should tell us these things, Apple Bloom,” said Sweetie earnestly. “If we knew you were upset we would figure out what to do so you’d feel better. Are you serious? Big Macintosh put lipstick on his butt? Do you think some pony lady was kissing him there?”

Scootaloo snorted with laughter again, but suppressed it.

Apple Bloom looked woebegone. “That’s th’ thing! He used a color that’s pretty near exactly the color of him already! You cain’t hardly see it or nothin’, I wouldn’ta known it except for I was pushin’ him along and it come off on my shoulder. I wiped it away right quick, and he din’t see me. I swear I ain’t lyin’. Big Macintosh painted himself with a color that was just like the color he already was. Why would he do a crazy thing like that?”

“Covering up bite marks, maybe,” snickered Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom glared at her.

Sweetie’s eyes widened. “Scootaloo, weren’t you telling me you saw your Dad near town?”

That wiped the smile off the little pegasus’s face. “No, I didn’t! My Mom saw him. I even smelled him ‘cos he jumped my Mom before he left. But he ran away and wouldn’t see me and we can’t find him anywhere!”

“Your Dad?” squeaked Apple Bloom. “Really? The one we saw when we used that magic gem that shows who your parents are? Which one, the pegasus guy or the cowpony?”

“The cowpony,” said Scootaloo. “Braeburn.”

This floored Apple Bloom. Her jaw dropped, her eyes bugged out. She said, “Oh my gosh! That was Braeburn, really? I ain’t never seen Braeburn, I have never travelled to Appleloosa like my big sister has! Braeburn is your Dad? He’s my cousin! Oh my gosh, Scootaloo, we’re related!”

“I never saw him either,” muttered Scootaloo, staring at the floor.

Sweetie Belle was gazing into space, deep in thought. “Soooo… Big Macintosh was away, but now he’s back. At the same time, Scootaloo’s Mom saw Braeburn outside Ponyville, and tried to catch him but he got away. And Big Macintosh is using lipstick…” She gasped. “Rarity was talking about somepony stealing lipstick from her! She asked if I’d taken it, and then apologized all over the place when I said I didn’t! It must have been Big Macintosh who took it!”

“How’d he even put lipstick on his butt?” complained Scootaloo. “He’s an earth pony, not a unicorn! He can’t reach or see it properly!”

Sweetie’s eyes widened. “What if… okay, this might sound weird, but I’m sure it makes sense. What if Big Macintosh did have a bite mark on his butt or something, and he wanted to cover it up, and he met Braeburn and Braeburn put the lipstick on for him?”

“Or Big Macintosh put lipstick on for Braeburn,” said Scootaloo, and then her eyes widened as well. “Whoa! Sweetie, do you realize what that could mean?”

“Maybe Big Macintosh wasn’t just putting lipstick on for Braeburn,” breathed Sweetie Belle.

Apple Bloom’s face was a mask of dismay. She gulped, and then quavered, “Oh, naw…”

“My Dad is a gay cowpony!” squeaked Scootaloo.

“Oh, naw, naw…”

“And Big Macintosh is his little filly!” cried Sweetie Belle, excitedly.

Apple Bloom banged her hoof on the floor, making them jump.

“OH HELL NAW!” she yelled, enraged. “You take that back!”

“But it makes so much sense, and it explains all of these things,” protested Sweetie Belle.

“No!” yelled Apple Bloom. “My big brother ain’t no fancy-pony! He is strong!”

Scootaloo turned on her. “What is your problem? I just said my Dad was a gay cowpony and I have no problem with that. In fact, I just HAVE to find him now!”

“Ain’t about whether you have a problem, you crazy canoodling featherhead!” yelled Apple Bloom. “We’re talkin’ about my family here!”

Sweetie found herself in the role of peacemaker between hotheads again, bringing back memories of years past when she’d spent all her time with the other Cutie Mark Crusaders. There was something comforting about the familiarity of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom about to punch each other—except that Apple Bloom seemed really upset, worryingly so, and Sweetie wondered how to soothe her country friend.

“Maybe if we calm down a little and talk about it,” she said. “Rarity told me that pegasi have more relaxed attitudes towards homosexuality and polyamory than earth ponies and unicorns. She even waggled her eyebrows when she said it, so it must be really extra true. I don’t think Scootaloo meant to say anything wrong…”

“There is nothing wrong with it, what’s wrong with you?” demanded Scootaloo, glaring at Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom bit her lip, about to cry. “Th’ wrong thing is… I thought I knew my brother,” she stammered, and then before Sweetie or Scootaloo could stop her, she’d bolted, galloping out the door.

Sweetie and Scootaloo looked at each other, helplessly, and then ran after her.

“Where does she think she’s going?” said Scootaloo. “She’s headed out towards the Everfree Forest!”

And indeed she was, but as she approached it they realized Apple Bloom wasn’t heading for the Everfree. Instead, she stampeded across the little bridge and headed straight for Fluttershy’s cottage, crying “Fluttershy! Fluttershy!”

Sweetie made to follow her, and was stopped by a firm yank on her tail. Startled, she looked back to see Scootaloo, wings up, hooves braced, teeth gripping her tail firmly, and eyes fierce.

“W’t,” ordered Scootaloo. Sweetie’s eyes widened. She stopped pulling, and Scootaloo released her tail, but held her with that commanding gaze.

“Oh, gosh, Scootaloo. Plan C? Really?” She gulped. “Now?”

The little pegasus nodded. “Or plan R.”

“But I don’t even have any pudding, or a wading pool with me!” protested Sweetie.

“No, that’s plan X!” argued Scootaloo, and then looked confused. “No, wait, that one was the pudding and Rainbow Dash. Impossible to resist but impossible to arrange! Plan R was… shhh!”

Apple Bloom had emerged from Fluttershy’s cottage, Fluttershy in tow. The butter-yellow pegasus looked grumpy, and they could just barely hear her arguing.

“I don’t know, Apple Bloom,” she said. “It seems very unlikely, and I wouldn’t want to call you a fibber, but Pinkie and I would know if that was true…”

“Then he come down with a case of it durin’ his travels!” protested Apple Bloom. “You gotta come and give him The Stare and tell him not to be gay no more, please!”

“That’s another thing!” exclaimed Fluttershy. “I may use that ability to gather chickens and keep them safe, but I would never try to compel another pony! It is unfair of you to ask that of me, Apple Bloom, and hurts my feelings that you would think I’d do it! And what is so wrong if Big Macintosh wishes to enjoy a little rumpy-pumpy?”

“He’s mah BROTHER,” sniffled Apple Bloom, sulking.

“You earth ponies have such peculiar attitudes about sex at times,” sighed Fluttershy. She gave Apple Bloom a stern look. “For your information, young lady, the only really important thing is never to do things to other ponies without asking. Or expect them to do things to you without asking. Or watch them doing things to each other without asking, I suppose. Anyway, I am usually almost certainly good about these things and I hope you can be just as good, or better! Better would be nice. I won't say why.”

Fluttershy bit her lip, blushing. Apple Bloom wailed, “But I need you to help straighten Big Macintosh out!”

“Young lady, he helped to father my foal!” snapped Fluttershy. “I am a mare and extremely female, and he came in me, I’ll have you know! Quite forcefully! I do not know what you’re talking about, to me it all seemed very heterosexual and I have the foal to prove it!”

Apple Bloom’s lip quivered. “Mebbe he forgot?”

Fluttershy heaved an exasperated sigh.

“Please,” said Apple Bloom, “can ya come and, I dunno, remind him?”

Fluttershy pouted. “It has been a while since I’ve spoken with him. We’ve never expected anything regarding foal-rearing from him, you know, he was strictly the stud horse and delightful at it. I have no intention of telling him what to do or who to do it with, but if it will make you feel better, I will visit him, unless he is busy working in the fields.”

“Yay!” cried Apple Bloom, apparently confident that the vision of Fluttershy would entice any stallion away from the dick. There was some justification for this belief. Fluttershy had returned to the shapely figure that had attracted the attention of paparazzi and fashion photographers, she glowed with new motherhood, and though Pinkie Pie still wished to feed her with sweets and enjoy her plumpness, Pinkie Pie had bigger challenges to contend with and hadn’t been able to keep the sweets around long enough to do it.

Apple Bloom charged off. Fluttershy trotted after her, flicking her tail in vexation but not truly cross: she couldn’t be too angry at animals and little children, and to her, all the Cutie Mark Crusaders still counted as children, a view they took pains to encourage.

Scootaloo stared at Sweetie Belle. “Plan…”

The door of Fluttershy’s cottage burst open again, explosively, in a cloud of flying laundry, and a little white colt bounded through, shrilly whinnying and capering about with impossible energy and glee. From inside came a despairing cry.

“Not the mud puddles! Funny once, do you hear me? Funny ONCE!”

Rock Candy, Pinkie and Fluttershy’s foal, had inherited Fluttershy’s sweet tooth, but he’d got Pinkie’s metabolism and energy levels. This wasn’t the frightening part. He’d also picked up Pinkie’s sense of humor, though he couldn’t talk yet… and the results were terrifying.

He was wearing one of Fluttershy’s fluffy socks on his head, and was draped in bedsheets and pillowcases, both the quilted butterfly pattern that went on Fluttershy’s bed and the loud, brightly colored bedsheets that he’d gone bouncy over when they shopped for his. Both kinds dragged through the long grass as the tiny, hyperactive foal cartwheeled around and bounced off all four hooves just like Pinkie did.

Pinkie wasn’t bouncing. “You get back here, mister!” she cried, and charged out the door after him.

Scootaloo gasped. “Oh my gosh! Plan… I don’t know, just go, go right now! Go!”

“But which letter should it be?” protested Sweetie.

“Don’t know! Just go and distract them, this is our big chance! Now!”

Sweetie squeaked as Scootaloo butted her towards the capering foal and pursuing Pinkie, and then set off to intercept them. Behind her, Scootaloo dove into the bushes, and slunk towards the open door of Fluttershy's cottage.

“Hi, Pinkie Pie!” called Sweetie. “Do you need any help?”

“Help?” squeaked Pinkie Pie. “I might need Applejack here with her lasso! This little guy got up on the counter again, and ate two trays of cookies! Two whole trays! Do you know what that means?”

“Um… no?” hazarded Sweetie Belle, seeing Scootaloo enter the house, her wings erect with excitement, her body pressed low to the ground as if that would help her be furtive.

“It means total chaos is what it means! You thought Discord was good at turning Ponyville upside down? Get a load of this kid! Hey, buster! Rock! Can you do this, huh?”

Pinkie dashed up to Rock, facing him, and stood very still, staring into space vacantly. Rock capered again, did a backflip causing the rest of the laundry to fall off him onto the grass, and attempted to imitate Pinkie, who held her pose. He flung himself into a similar pose, though it seemed clownishly exaggerated—but he couldn’t match what Pinkie had done, because his big wide eyes twitched and flickered, and his tail twitched, and then Sweetie could see that all his legs were vibrating and the little colt shivered in continual hyperactive tremors.

“Hah!” teased Pinkie. “At least I got him outside for Phase Two!”

Sweetie glanced in a panic at the house. Scootaloo still hadn’t emerged. “Phase Two? Is that like Plan B?”

“How about you stand back oh, say, three feet or so?” suggested Pinkie Pie.

“How c…”

Rock continued to beam ecstatically, vibrating. Then, a puzzled look crossed his face.

“…hurrrk!” he said, and deposited cookies all over the flowerbeds.

Sweetie gagged, but Pinkie announced, “Phase Two, engage! Right on schedule, you adorable little nightmare! No, don’t step in it, this way, that’s a good boy—if you were a good boy, which you’re kind of not but you come by it honestly—and now we’ve got a minute or so before Phase Three! So what brings you here, Sweetie? Where’s your friends? Why aren’t you with Apple Bloom? She was just here!”

“Was she?” said Sweetie, trying not to stare at the house. “What a coincidence! I just happened to be passing by at the same time. Can we play in the yard some more?”

“If you’re quick!” said Pinkie. “Don’t step in the baby yack, even if it’s mostly cookies! Their texture is much yuckier than usual, thanks to Rock!”

Rock did another flip, then saw Sweetie Belle as if for the first time. He stared at her in wide-eyed wonder, and his face became wreathed in a smile that got larger and larger. It didn’t look so much like he was happy to see her, more like the sight of Sweetie Belle was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Then he was gamboling and whinnying shrilly again, bouncing high into the air.

“He likes you! Or he’s up to something. Or he likes you AND he’s up to something,” suggested Pinkie.

That makes two of us, thought Sweetie. She bounced too, trying to mimic his capering, though she suspected she was far too old to manage it. It felt like she was a grown-up trying to bounce like a foal. On the bright side, if Scootaloo had seen that, the rest of the afternoon would probably be given over to unicorn-pleasuring. To make sure, Sweetie capered again hoping to be seen, and Rock laughed as he bounced all around her.

“Three,” said Pinkie conversationally, “two… one… uh, zero… come on, Rock, what is it, the visitor?”

Rock bounced over to Pinkie’s side, gazing up in obvious adoration. Then, his eyes glazed over, and he flumped into the grass in a pile of ungainly colt limbs, the pink mane and tail a glorious tangle against the green.

“And, Phase Three!” proclaimed Pinkie, triumphantly. “That boy! Thinks he’s just like Mom! Can’t handle the sugar rushes, though. Not yet.”

“Oh my gosh!” squeaked Sweetie. “Is he okay?”

“He’s gonna be super cranky when he wakes up, poor little guy! I’ll let Fluttershy deal with him, it’s like she doesn’t even register him being obnoxious. At least I don’t have to mop the great outdoors! Come on, buddy, let’s get you cleaned up and into your bed. Lips that are pukey shall not touch my boobies!”

Sweetie looked around hectically, but still didn’t see any sign of activity in Fluttershy’s house. “Um, you’re putting him to bed? It’s such a nice day, it’s so beautiful out!”

“I’m sure he thought so too, for about three minutes!” giggled Pinkie Pie. “Enough talking, let’s get to walking!” Without hesitation, she bent down and seized the scruff of Rock’s mane in her teeth, and began dragging his limp form back toward Fluttershy’s cottage.

“Eek!” squealed Sweetie. “Are you okay, do you need help, is that hurting him?”

Pinkie shook her head, and Rock bobbled loosely in her grasp. “J’st a m’nute!”

Sweetie ran ahead, her heart pounding, and rushed into the house. She looked around, and there was no sign of Scootaloo, though she wondered if Scootaloo had hidden upstairs or was searching there. It seemed like Fluttershy did clean and redecorate things occasionally, and it wouldn’t be surprising to discover the newly maternal mares had found a more suitable place for their unused magic bit since they had a hyperactive, sugar-eating foal around getting into mischief.

Pinkie appeared in the doorway, dragging Rock. Sweetie tried to block the stairs to Fluttershy’s bedroom, but it was no good, that was right where Pinkie was heading. “Sc’se me!”

And at the top of the stairs, caught in her outlaw bit-thievery, was… nopony. Sweetie sagged with relief, still looking around hectically. There was no sign of Scootaloo anywhere. Had she given up and run away when Pinkie returned? Could she still be hiding somewhere? None of their plans had covered this. As Pinkie deposited her foal in his crib and wiped his mouth with a rag, Sweetie considered what to do, and decided beating a hasty retreat was the best option.

“It’s been wonderful visiting you and seeing Rock Candy again, but I have some things to do and I should be going,” she began, and squeaked, for Pinkie was suddenly grinning at her.

“I’ll bet you do! Let me make a wild, crazy guess and say… Scootaloo?”

Sweetie was frozen in horror. Pinkie chuckled. “Don’t be so shocked. I know what you two are up to. You’re a lot like me, aren’t you?”

“How is that?” said Sweetie in a small voice, her heart pounding.

Pinkie smirked, and walked over to nosebump with her. “Wanting a suitor with the cooter! It’s okay, I won’t tease you about it. Maybe I should be encouraging you to play with boys since there are things that leads to, like Rock, which are very magical. I dunno, though: I seem to have the best of both worlds. We have made a family that is as solid and wonderful as the Apple family!”

At this, her tail twitched, violently. Pinkie gasped, and Sweetie squeaked again, and then Pinkie was standing on top of Rock’s crib, sheltering it with her body from the unthreatening ceiling, staring up huntedly.

“Pinkie, are you okay?”

“That’s funny,” said Pinkie hesitantly, “and by funny I mean the kind of funny that’s not very funny at all. Why would my Pinkie Sense go off indoors, when nothing is falling? But it’s going off like gangbusters, all of a sudden, and it won't stop!”

“I’d better go,” said Sweetie, and she left Pinkie peering up at the ceiling, and clattered down the stairs. Nothing nearby was falling, and there was no sign of Scootaloo, and she trotted outside, and began to head back toward the clubhouse…

“Pssst!” came a familiar voice from behind her. She turned, and Scootaloo was peering out of the undergrowth on the outskirts of the Everfree Forest.

A shiny metal bit gleamed between her teeth, and her grin was the most joyful thing in Equestria.

Sweetie let out a squeal of delight before remembering that she was trying to be sneaky, and Scootaloo vanished, scurrying deeper into the concealing forest, hotly pursued by Sweetie Belle who chased the sounds of crunching twigs and trotting hooves until the surroundings were dark and ominous. Sweetie slowed, looking around fearfully, but Scootaloo wasn’t far ahead: the triumphant orange pegasus stood in a small clearing, a forehoof raised and pawing the air, rear hooves set well apart and braced for battle, and a fine russet-to-magenta ponycock jutting forth underneath her.

“Pr’pare to c’lebrate our l’ve,” she proclaimed, “cause I’m g’nna do you c’wpony style!”

Sweetie blinked. “What’s cowpony style? Do you mean like Braeburn would?”

Scootaloo snorted and flicked her tail, grinning rakishly at Sweetie, and Sweetie quivered and winked.

“R’ns in th’ family!”

“But…” said Sweetie Belle uncertainly.

“Wh’t?”

“But it’s not fair to you, to make you do that part all the time. I think it’s time for you to enjoy it the way I did,” said Sweetie. “You have no idea. And is this really the place?”

“I g’t the biggest m’nster in th’ forest!” announced Scootaloo.

“And I am looking forward to it very much, but we did talk about how it’s not fair to you that you haven’t tried sex as a mare yet,” said Sweetie. “I thought I explained how wonderful it was, and it seemed like you believed me. Did you forget?”

Scootaloo glowered. “Aw, ‘s okay, r’lly…”

“No, it isn’t! I love you, Scootaloo, and I won’t be selfish and take all the pleasure leaving none of it for you, no matter how noble you are about it. I promise I don’t mind doing this for you. It’s time for you to have really, really amazing sex and I won’t let you down! I can have a turn afterwards, even if we have to wait for a while. Then we should leave before it gets even close to night-time.”

Scootaloo looked concerned. “R’lly, it’s okay, th’s is th’ right w’y f’r us.”

“You agreed you’d try it,” said Sweetie Belle. “I insist! Rarity’s been explaining lots of things as long as I ask carefully.” She circled around behind her young lover, eyeing Scootaloo’s personal areas. Pegasus vagina pouted enticingly, and winked back at her.

“Y’r sister knows everything, huh?” grumbled Scootaloo. Then, she shrieked, spitting the bit out, for Sweetie had nipped her rump sharply. “What was that for?!”

“She’s my Mom!” retorted Sweetie. “And yes, she does. Come on, let’s get started before it gets dark! I don’t know why you even came here!”

Scootaloo glared back at her. “Because adventure, and danger, and stuff!”

“We’re not really deep in the Everfree Forest,” said Sweetie. “Just deep enough that nopony is likely to find us. How come you had to spit the bit on the ground, Scootaloo? It’s all dirty, now!”

Scootaloo smirked. “Good. A rough and tumble cowpony colt like me doesn’t mind a little dirt. Now, you hold still, little missy, because this is going to be awesome…”

She bent to pick the bit back up again, but before she reached it, a white missile slammed into the dirt at her feet, and the bit was gone. Instead, Sweetie Belle faced her, chin high and proud, and bit firmly in her teeth, and the unicorn filly said, “Y’s, Sc’t, it is.”

Then, her eyes widened, as did Scootaloo’s, at what had happened under her belly.

It was black. It was bulky. It had a hell of a flare, a bluntness that was like a scaled-down Applejack, from that time when they’d spied on Applejack getting with Rainbow Dash. The stallionhood that had traumatized their dreams but kickstarted their puberties lived again, in a smaller and more appropriate form, given aching stiffness by Sweetie’s intense pubescence, jutting forth in haughty brutality as if mocking Sweetie’s feminine ways.

Scootaloo gulped. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Is it b’gger than yours?” blinked Sweetie. She rolled onto her side, so she could get a better look, kicking at the air, and it bobbled about rigidly.

“I think so,” said Scootaloo. “Oh yeah. Whoof! What exactly am I supposed to do here that’s so wonderful? This seems like the stupidest idea ever.”

“You sh’d tr’st me,” said Sweetie implacably.

“I guess I don’t have the biggest monster in the forest?”

“I’ll be g’ntle,” soothed Sweetie Belle.

That got her a glare. “Ha! Cowponies aren’t gentle. Just because you have some kind of huge dick, don’t you dare start treating me like some little scared filly!”

“Ok’y,” said Sweetie, moving around behind Scootaloo, but the pegasus scrambled out of the way.

“Uh, you’re sure that fits? I mean—you keep saying it’s so wonderful, how am I supposed to know that when I’ve never done it? Give me a moment…”

“Tr’st me,” said Sweetie Belle.

Scootaloo panted. She could feel her vagina doing its strange things, getting all squishy and exuding juices and winking, and she stamped a rear hoof in frustration. It was demanding things that didn’t feel right, a whole overwhelming burst of sensation that felt different from who she was, and it spoke in a very loud voice.

“Are you sure?” she said, and winced at the nervousness in her voice—not very cowpony, she thought.

“I’ll be g’ntle,” said Sweetie Belle, and heaved herself up, mounting onto Scootaloo’s pert pegasus rump.

Hooves flashed out, and Sweetie cried out and spat the bit onto the ground. “Ow!”

“Oh, wow!” squeaked Scootaloo. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t even thinking, my body just kind of…”

She let out a shriek. Sweetie had nipped her butt again, and the sensations that were battering her became overwhelming things, a vast rush of need from her depths that froze her in place, legs spread and shaking, passive before her new stallion and stunned by the alien dominance of her own sexual feelings.

Sweetie snorted. “Rarity told me it’s okay when mares want to be TAKEN!”

Scootaloo was panting, her eyes very wide and panicky. Sweetie hesitated, and added, “That is… if you still want to?”

Scootaloo screwed her eyes shut, laid her ears back and squealed, “Do it!”

That was all Sweetie Belle needed to hear. It all made sense to her, right then.

She seized the bit from off the ground, ignoring the leaves and twigs, and her stallionhood shot forth once more. She inspected Scootaloo’s pussy, and it dripped juice and winked madly. Everything seemed ready.

Sweetie Belle heaved herself up once more, and mounted upon Scootaloo’s trembling rump, adjusting her unicorn hips decorously.

“Tr’st me,” she said once more, and pushed, and her aim was lucky the very first time.

She felt Scootaloo’s body shudder under her, heard the throttled squall, felt the ruthless tightness clamping her and she froze, wedged into Scootaloo’s virgin pussy, afraid to go further, and she squeaked, “Oh no!” through the bit.

Scootaloo’s head was lowered. She was so tense. She banged the ground with a forehoof, shaking her head.

“Sc’taloo, ‘re you okay?”

“Haaahhh! This is so wrong, ahhhh!”

Sweetie’s heart lurched. “Oh, I’m s’rry! Y’re so tight! Does it hurt?”

Scootaloo shook, her body trembling, and Sweetie felt that tightness around her hard-on grip and clench, which she wouldn't have thought possible. Scootaloo stammered, “My… my…”

“Wh’t is it, Sc’taloo?”

“My body is making me like it—but this is so messed up! Ahhhh!”

Sweetie blinked. She hadn’t expected that. “It d’sn’t h’rt?”

“Ahhhh! Oh Sweetie Belle, nnnngh, aahhh!”

“Sc’taloo! Am I h’rting you?”

“I don’t know! Don’t stop! I can take it!” cried Scootaloo, wracked by sensation.

Sweetie Belle considered that, holding very still while Scootaloo shuddered and clutched at her stallion bulk. “Th’s is not like it was f’r me. I w’nt you to like it. I’m g’nna stop unless you c’n tell me what’s wrong. M’ybe you’re too little.”

Scootaloo snarled, pawing the dirt with a forehoof. “This isn’t ahhh! what I’m like. This isn’t like being a cowpony colt! Oh gosh Sweetie, ahhh! Why is it so big, what is it doing? How can I feel this way?”

Sweetie held her a little closer as she trembled. “It’s int’nse f’r me too,” she said around the bit, in Scootaloo’s pinned-back ear. “Does it feel g’d?”

“I don’t know!” wailed Scootaloo. “It’s too much! Why does my vagina want this when it’s so messed up? What’s happening to me?”

Sweetie took a deep breath.

“Tr’st me,” she said, and began to thrust with gentle firmness, pushing deeper into her lover’s taut pussy.

Scootaloo let out a strangled shriek, all the feathers on her wings bristling out, and went rigid in Sweetie’s forelegs like a little statue. She arched her neck up, staring into space with a look of utter shock, and inside her body, the huge throbbing mass of stallion slid deeper, jolting her to her very soul, sending bursts of sensation through her so intense that she couldn’t interpret them, or wouldn’t.

She felt deep, wracking pangs of arousal shake her, felt her vagina going even more slippery and oozey, drawing her with horrible force towards some strange new peak she’d never experienced: not the fine clean burst of orgasm she’d had inside Sweetie, or the waves of pleasure through attending Sweetie by tongue and hoof and being attended in turn, but something else, something dark and enfolding and too big to grasp that sucked her under and took her away from herself.

Sweetie Belle panted, breathing through her nose, working her hips though they were tiring already. She didn’t pretend to be as athletic as her beloved, and hoped she didn’t give out too soon. She turned her attention to Scootaloo, and saw her face scrunched up as if in agony, her teeth gritted, sweat on her brow.

“Oh no, Sc’taloo!”

“Haaaaahhh! Nggh!”

“You’re v’ry pinchy,” managed Sweetie worriedly, and then gasped, for Scootaloo wailed and bore down on her stallionhood ferociously. “Oh g’sh!”

“Oh, do the thing, ngghhh! Please, please, give me that…”

Sweetie’s eyes were wide and alarmed. “B’t I can’t bite y’r wing and th’s at the s’me t’me…”

Scootaloo trembled under her, and the little pegasus seemed on the brink of some dreadful climax, the flavor and character of which was up for grabs. Her wings stuck up rigidly, vibrating, fluffed out and disheveled already. Sweetie thought fast. She bent her head, and nuzzled those wings as hard as she could, rubbing them with the end of the magic bit and jabbing the end of the metal cylinder against the trembling wing shanks.

Scootaloo’s lean orange body jolted. “Haaaahhh!”

Sweetie felt a sharp clench onto her unyielding hardness. For a moment, her expression seemed just like Rarity’s, sly and experienced, and her horn glimmered and began to glow. Unicorn lovers had more than teeth and hooves—if their magic was dexterous.

Scootaloo’s face was scrunched up, troubled, longing. Sweetie began to break a sweat as she resolutely thrust her hips, shifting that unnatural stallion bulk inside Scootaloo’s pussy while devoting her attention to another thing. Magic glow surrounded one of Scootaloo’s feathers, tugged sharply at it. The little pegasus screamed, legs shaking. She began to kick her forelegs and struggle, but then the magic suddenly released her feather and reformed much farther back, and pinched her taut butt-cheek even while the wielder of that magic continued to penetrate her seemingly up to her chin. Sweetie nipped with her magic right where she’d nipped Scootaloo to make her a compliant mare, on exactly the same spot.

Scootaloo made a croaking sound, an indrawing of breath, and was shocked into passivity not because it was so very painful, not because she suddenly felt Sweetie dangerous or hostile: in a way, it would have been easier if that was true. It wasn’t like that, it was like her insides suddenly liquified, turning her to butter, feathery girly surrender to the imposing stallion that mastered her and penetrated her so deeply and boldly. Scootaloo felt like she was struggling along in some stream, trying to stay afloat and aware of who she was, only the stream was in a cave and it was in the dark and she was totally disoriented and couldn’t tell which way was up—and then, when Sweetie’s magic nipped her rump again, the feelings welled up and sucked her under, into a dark swirling cave where the air was totally gone and she would never return as herself again. Pleasure was drowning her remorselessly.

She moaned like a lost soul, shuddering, and Sweetie Belle grinned around the bit. There was no mistaking the sound of a mare about to lose her mind to orgasm. Sweetie had been there and treasured it beyond anything. Reverently, she bowed her head, focussed her magical energies, and began thrusting fiercely inside Scootaloo, while her magic reached out and bit down firmly on her beloved’s wing shank—and Sweetie dripped sweat while she made her horn simulate eagerly gnawing pony teeth, taking Scootaloo roughly, just the way she liked it.

Scootaloo’s world exploded.

Her body bucked underneath Sweetie from orgasm alone, and she let out wild whinnying screams that weren’t even like vocalizations, more like the sounds of a body wracked by unendurable pleasures—guttural shrieks as huge breaths forced themselves from Scootaloo’s lungs in sudden, hysterical hyperventilation. Her tail thrashed against Sweetie’s crotch, her butt clenched around the deeply plumbing stallionhood, her tight little vagina went ballistic in crazed spasms. From the outside, it looked like Scootaloo had come harder than she’d ever come in her life.

From the inside, she knew she had, to the extent she knew anything. She’d been sucked under into that underwater cave, but it had turned out to be a bomb. All her intentions to tough it out, to ride out the experience with style and personality, were obliterated in a white-out of mind-mangling proportions. She reeled, a speck of identity in a maelstrom of carnal sensation that swamped her until she didn’t even know who she was.

Slowly, the world began to return.

She was trembling violently, feeling weak and submissive, barely able to remain standing. The biggest horniest stallion in the whole world was clasping her possessively around the waist, his huge fat cock prying her wide, and with a shudder of mysterious awe, Scootaloo realized she could feel his come in her, sticky and wet inside her womb, where he’d gushed it when he came. Her womb. Stallion cock. Spurted into. Deep inside…

Scootaloo drew a shuddering breath.

“…so messed up…” she whimpered.

“I love you,” breathed Sweetie in her trembling ear.

Scootaloo sobbed, and Sweetie’s ears quirked in alarm.

“Sc’taloo? Is ev’rything okay?”

The little pegasus panted, dropping her head, and wouldn’t answer. Sweetie began to panic.

“Sc’taloo! T’lk to me!”

Her mate’s head turned, and she was looking into eyes like she’d never seen, those violet eyes wide and defenseless and drinking her in.

“I love you so much,” said Scootaloo in a frightened little voice. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“Wh’t happened?”

Scootaloo’s lip quivered.

“Did it h’rt, should I stop?”

Scootaloo shook her head frantically, her eyes widening. Everything in her soul demanded she wallow in that sensation of thick horsecock stuffing her, the warm goopy stallioncome coating the walls of her womb, and unthinkingly she clung to it like she had no will at all. Then, as if stepping outside herself, she saw herself reacting that way—and her eyes flooded with tears, and she could only bray like some bereaved donkey.

“SOOO MESSED UUUUPP!” she bawled, shaking in Sweetie’s attentive embrace.

That tore it. Sweetie Belle let go, spitting the bit out onto the ground and releasing Scootaloo, who dropped and curled up in a little ponyball as Sweetie watched in horror.

“Scootaloo!”

“Hold me!” sobbed her beloved, and Sweetie was right there, wrapping the trembling pegasus in a comforting embrace, tears coming to her own eyes in empathy, though she could not understand what had happened.

“Was I too rough?” she asked. “I’m so sorry, just so sorry!”

Scootaloo shook her head, twisted and looked at Sweetie again, and there was that expression like some timid but worshipful bunny, so unlike the Crusader she loved.

“Well, then,” said Sweetie, “is it, is it… are you mad that my dick was bigger than yours?” She pouted. “Silly thing! It just figures that such a weird strange thing gave me such a ridiculous penis, just to show how wrong it would feel.”

“It’s not that it was bigger,” stammered Scootaloo. “It’s that… it’s that…”

Sweetie waited, biting her lip with anxiety.

“It’s that mine wasn’t there!” sobbed Scootaloo, and hid her face.

Sweetie’s ears quirked to the sides in worry and confusion. “Huh?”

“You made me your mare, okay?” sobbed the little pegasus. “You happy? I can never go back. How am I gonna face my Mom? My whole life is a lie. I’m, like, a, a… a Fluttershy, inside! I gotta have more of that, I can feel myself wanting it, everything I ever knew is wrong…”

Sweetie hugged her tighter as she cried. “What in the world are you talking about, Scootaloo?”

The pegasus filly pulled herself together, gulping. “This is so messed up…”

“Stop it!” begged Sweetie. “This is not the Scootaloo I know!”

At that, a hint of the old Scoots returned. “You noticed too, huh?” she said bitterly. “It’s not fair, it’s so not fair…”

“Stop, stop! Talk to me. Why do you feel you’re so different, why is that so bad?”

Scootaloo’s face was misery. “Everything I know about myself was wrong. It was a lie. I thought I was this brave tough pony that my Mom loved and I could face stuff and, and have a marefriend and be sexy like my Dad… and all of a sudden, blooey. It’s not fair!”

“What? Explain!” pleaded Sweetie, perplexed.

“I liked it,” muttered Scootaloo.

“Huh?”

“I LIKED it!” wailed Scootaloo, heedless of any listeners. “I’m not even me! I’m some new vagina person I don’t even know! Fuck me again, I can already feel myself wanting it! I want to feel that big cock gushing pony come—urrk!—into me!”

Sweetie clouted Scoots on the head with a hoof, producing a squawk and a “What was THAT for?”

“You’re talking crazy and scaring me, that’s what it was for!” said Sweetie. “You’re shaking. You look really sick. Scootaloo, I can have big orgasms without this much fuss, what is wrong with you? This is all because you’re a mare now that I came inside you and made you come that way? How can you find it this gross, Scootaloo, after you came so hard?”

Scootaloo looked away, miserably. Sweetie’s horn lit up. A small cylinder of metal drifted slowly, bashfully, in front of Scootaloo’s eyes.

“Would it make you feel better to hold this?”

The orange pegasus hesitated, her eyes filling with tears, and then she’d snapped at the bit and curled up again, Sweetie embracing her protectively. But she wasn’t the only one, for it was like Scootaloo had curled protectively around her artifical ponycock, shielding it from harm.

“I c’n pr’tend w’th you, Sweetie,” she murmured, quietly. “Y’ll st’ll let me.” She sniffled, wiping away a tear with the back of an orange hoof.

Sweetie’s heart went out, though her confusion was dreadful. “Please let me try and understand. You’re so upset because you’re a mare now, because you came that hard, so your whole life is a lie? And now you have to be Fluttershy instead of you?”

Scootaloo’s voice was bitter. “I’m not a stupid pony, Sweetie. I felt that. It broke my whole world, how can I go back? I’m not who I thought I was.” Her face twisted. “I turned to goo. To girly goo, filled with stallion goo. It was DISGUSTING. I can still feel my body wanting it.”

Sweetie’s hoof clonked her head again, more gently. “So what?”

Scootaloo turned, ready to argue, and her challenging gaze was more like the Scootaloo that Sweetie knew and loved. “What do you mean, so what? I’m a disgusting puddle of girly, deep inside!”

“I mean so what!” said Sweetie. “Nopony has to know. You can still be my brave stallion, okay?”

“I’ll know,” complained Scootaloo. “This is a lie. It doesn’t matter how bad I want it. Yours was even bigger and you think it’s silly, none of this is real…”

“Maybe,” said Sweetie Belle, “instead of thinking all that stuff about what it means to be a mare with new mare feelings, you should think about what it means to be you.”

That silenced Scootaloo. She stared angrily into the deepening dusk, in the quiet of the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, holding the stolen magic bit in her teeth and feeling the comforting solidity of the magic-induced stallionhood it gave her, and all the while deeper in her body the femaleness lurked, ready to tell her who she could be, capable of laying her out with devastating biological commands that made no sense in her life.

Sweetie hugged her, unshakably, saying nothing more as Scootaloo thought, and thought, and thought.

Finally, the little pegasus’s lips parted around the magic bit, and she spoke to herself without releasing the grip her teeth had on the magical creation.

“Well, th’n,” she breathed, “I’m the tr’th, y’re the lie,” and she set her jaw determinedly.

“Were you talking to me?” said Sweetie.

“No,” said Scootaloo, “I w’sn’t.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m g’nna be y’r stallion. And the p’ny my Mom l’ves.”

Sweetie hugged her tighter. “I’m so happy! Be my stallion, it really was way better for me that way. I don’t know what you see in it at all, it wasn’t that great being male, the orgasm was so lame! I like being a quivering puddle of mare for you, and your Mom would love you any way you are…”

Scootaloo stirred, looking back at Sweetie, and her gaze was challenging again. “And we c’n n’ver g’ve this back. I need it. Pr’mise.”

Sweetie gulped, startled. “Really?”

Scootaloo nodded, grimly. “Th’s ‘s me. Y’r stallion. We need th’s, we don't g’ve it back.”

Sweetie’s heart fluttered, but seeing her Scootaloo back from the strange realms of weepy girlyness, proud and determined once more, was bait too tempting to resist. Scootaloo was truly her stallion, clasped in her hooves, and needing her loyalty and support.

“Never,” said Sweetie. “We’ll hide it out here somewhere. It’s yours now. It’s you, now.”

Scootaloo held her eye for another moment, demanding that loyalty silently, searching Sweetie’s soul for it—and then, finding nothing but pure mare-ly submission and devotion in her unicorn mate’s gaze, turned again in satisfaction and let out a deep shivery sigh of relief, and Scootaloo lay in Sweetie’s embrace, safe.

Admittedly, they were still lying quietly in the Everfree Forest, but there would be time to sneak back out, and no sound of anything anywhere nearby, and they were concealed in underbrush, so neither pony felt any need to break their quiet contemplation.

After a few thoughtful minutes, Scootaloo’s head turned again, questioningly.

“Yes?” whispered Sweetie.

“Can we st’ll do it th’ other w’y s’metimes, and don’t tell anyp’ny?” whispered Scootaloo.

Sweetie’s ears quirked. How to agree without leading Scootaloo back into that girly morass that she seemed to despise so much? Finally, she had it.

“If you earn it!” she whispered, and nipped Scootaloo’s ear.

Scootaloo squirmed, giggled, and relaxed back against her love, deeply content, and the darkness enfolded them in curtains of privacy.

As Applejack set out their dinner, while Rainbow Dash still dawdled upstairs playing with Northern Spy and letting her nurse for her dinner, Apple Bloom brought it up.

“Soooo, Big Macintosh,” she said, “I was jes’ thinkin’…”

“Eyup?” said Big Macintosh placidly, licking his lips as he eyed the delicious salads with their tart apple dressing.

“You know, when I brung Fluttershy around to th’ fields, and you was workin’, and she said hello and then run off apologizing on account of you was busy and all…”

Big Macintosh lifted an eyebrow, inquiringly.

“Well,” said Apple Bloom, “did ya have any… feelin’s?”

“Feelin’s?” blinked Big Macintosh.

Apple Bloom gulped. “Stirrin’s, maybe.”

“How so?”

“You know!” said Apple Bloom, blushing. “Seein’ that perty, uh, tail and everything, all sashayin’ away from you…”

“I declare, Apple Bloom!” said Applejack. “Y’all tryin’ to fix up Big Macintosh with Fluttershy?”

“Who’s trying to fix up Big Macintosh with Fluttershy?” said Rainbow Dash, trotting downstairs to join them, accompanied by Spy who still tried to stick her head under Dash’s belly and drink her milk, even as Dash descended the stairs.

“Apple Bloom is!” chuckled Applejack. “Listen at her, now!”

“All I wanted to know was if he had feelin’s!” protested the filly.

“Well, Fluttershy’s pretty well set up with Pinkie Pie,” smirked Dash, “so I’m not sure how much good ‘feelings’ would do him.”

Granny Smith snorted. “Th’ ponies in this town!” she said, and shook her head, rolling her eyes. Big Macintosh shot her a nervous glance.

“You tryin’ to tell us somethin’, Apple Bloom?” teased Applejack. “Ya joining the ranks of the grownups all of a sudden? They do say us Apple mares is late bloomers but we make up for it in a hurry.”

“But what if I don’t want you to hurry?” said Rainbow, and then reined it in at a glance from Granny.

“Watch it,” said the old mare. “Even if Apple Bloom is goin’ into her natural changes that’s no call for frivolity. Maybe she’ll fly straighter than some ponies around here as got themselves wings an’ everythin’.”

Rainbow glowered, and Applejack bit her lip watching her, but the blue pegasus controlled herself and only said, “What’s for dinner?”

“It’s okay, Apple Bloom,” rumbled Big Macintosh. “You might like getting interested in colts, even if your sister gonna tease you about it.”

Apple Bloom was bright red with embarrassment at how the whole thing had been turned around to reflect on her supposed sexual ravenousness that hadn’t even happened, and something snapped. “Oh, really?” she squeaked. “Maybe you can tell me all about that!”

Big Macintosh froze. Applejack said, “What?”

“You can’t make fun of me when I ain’t done nothin’ and it’s Big Macintosh actin’ all scandalous and stuff!” wailed Apple Bloom. “It ain’t fair!”

“What, with Fluttershy?” blinked Rainbow Dash.

Apple Bloom realized she’d crossed a line. Granny Smith was staring at her sharply, and Big Macintosh would only look down at his plate, and Apple Bloom tried to do likewise, but she hadn’t bargained on Applejack.

“Honey, don’t be upset! Everythin’s gonna be all right. Now, what give you that idea? I confess I ain’t seen Big Macintosh doing the least little thing scandalous. He would never! Maybe, jes’ maybe, you owe him an apology?”

“The lipstick on his butt!” muttered Apple Bloom. “I ain’t givin’ no apology, y’all can go whistle up a tree ‘cos it ain’t me that done nothin’ wrong!”

Big Macintosh’s eyes were panicky. He began to back out of the room, but unfortunately it brought him near Rainbow Dash, whose eyes were alight with mischief, and her hoof shot out to slap his massive rump. She squeaked, “Hey! She’s right!” and held out a blue hoof with a red smear across it.

Applejack’s jaw dropped. “Big Macintosh, what in the world is this? Ya gildin’ the lily? You are already red, sugarcube!”

“You see? You see?” cried Apple Bloom. “That’s why I brought Fluttershy, but she wouldn’t help me, she just went home again!”

“What the heck are you talking about?” said Rainbow Dash. “Why Fluttershy?”

Apple Bloom was scarlet with insult and embarrassment, her pulse pounding in her ears. “Because!”

Big Macintosh whimpered. Applejack said, uncertainly, “Because what, honey?”

“Because my friends say Big Macintosh is a big fag-pony who takes it up the butt from Braeburn, and I tole them my brother is big and strong and it can’t be true, but they say he musta put lipstick on there to cover up a bite mark like if he was a mare, and it must have been Braeburn helping him because Braeburn was just around and he run away outta town, so they think Braeburn musta helped him with somethin’ else too, namely makin’ Big Macintosh his little filly, and I just can’t believe it! Big Macintosh, you don’t ever lie, tell us it ain’t true!”

Apple Bloom panted, having delivered this speech in a single breath, and gazed up at her beloved older brother. Applejack stared at him as well. Rainbow Dash’s jaw dangled in amazement, and Granny Smith’s gaze slowly, unwillingly turned to take in the hulking red stallion.

His face was a mask of horror. He gulped, but he could not speak. Sheer panic was in his eyes.

“Uh,” said Applejack, “you okay there, big fella?”

Then, she cringed, and Rainbow Dash ducked and covered Northern Spy instinctively, for Granny Smith had raised a hoof and smashed it right down onto her dinner plate, shattering it and sending food flying everywhere. They stared in terror at the old lady, whose nostrils were flared, whose mouth was a thin hard line, whose eyes were slits.

She took three breaths through clenched, gritted teeth, and quietly turned to leave.

“Granny!” cried Applejack, and then froze at the look Granny gave her.

“This one’s too much,” said the old mare. “Ah was wrong. To hell with y’all.”

Little Lost Sheep

Granny Smith would not leave her room. She would not speak to her family.

Strangely, she would speak to Rainbow Dash.

“What the fuck?” demanded Dash.

Granny glowered, but she only muttered, “Used ta be better about cussin, girl.”

“Well, you fucked that one up for all of us, didn’t you?” announced Rainbow Dash. “Your family is really upset. OUR family, I should say. Or should I? How screwed up is your head, anyway? I’m dying to find out.”

Granny snorted, contemptuously, and didn’t deign to comment.

“Actually, there’s another thing,” said Dash, sitting in front of Granny and ruffling her wings tensely. “Why me? Maybe it’s just that you’re going to be a total bitch and want to curse out a pegasus? That would make a sick kind of sense if you’re a stupid bigot who only wants to hurt ponies that aren’t like you.”

“How likely do you think it is,” said Granny bitterly, “that ah am who you jes’ said?”

“Well, I don’t know!” yelled Dash. “You were doing so well! You were good with me and Applejack, you love Northern Spy… I don’t get it. And now you’re willing to talk to me, and you won’t talk to Applejack. That pisses me off.”

“That’s why,” said Granny Smith.

“What?”

“You’re angry,” said Granny. “O’course you’re angry. I kin understand that, girl. Go ahead and be angry, ‘cos I’m angry too, and we’ll be angry together. You might’s well be angry for all the good it will do, jes’ like me. I kin believe in that. Don’t give me some soppy pony cryin’ that don’t amount to nothin’, just be angry and cuss me out and be done with it, at least we’ll be honest that way.”

Dash glared. “Applejack is crying in our room and you’re talking about being honest?”

“She kin be honest in that way all she pleases. Don’t mean I want to see it.”

“But what is your problem?” yelled Dash. “You seemed fine with us, and all of a sudden Big Macintosh takes it up the ass a little and you’re all full of attitude. You know, in Weather Patrol we’ve talked about this? We call it the dyke waiver. I thought I’d spare your feelings by not mentioning it, but as long as you’re out there doing it maybe you should know what other ponies think of your behavior.”

“Oh, really?” snapped Granny. “And what, pray tell, is this dike waver? There ain’t even any water nearby less’n you go to the river.”

“It’s a word for lesbian,” grumbled Dash, “that’s not the point. Let me tell you, pegasi try to be patient with you earth ponies and your prejudiced attitudes about sex, but this one’s really special. It seems that if two girl ponies are gay with each other, as long as you don’t hear too much about them licking each other’s clitorises, earth ponies are surprisingly okay with that. Especially when a pegasus mare is involved! We can only assume you ponies think it’s cute or something. There’s also a part where you like turning to pegasi for your perversion needs, like we’re so oversexed that we don’t count and can’t be held responsible for fucking you guys every which way…”

“Mind that language,” said Granny.

“No, listen! You guys give it a pass when mares get together, what we call the dyke waiver. It makes it seem almost like you’re not bigots. But Celestia help you if two stallions get busy! You can stand it with the mares, you like it when there’s a pegasus, but you are shits to your own gay earth pony stallion couples and that is exactly why you’re flipping out. Honest, you say? Admit that’s what you’re doing. Come on!”

Granny tightened her lips. “All that tells me is, I been too dang lax already.” She snorted. “If I was honest, an’ I mean honest with myself, I woulda said I seen this comin’.”

“Now you don’t approve of me and Applejack? I don’t believe this.”

“I blame myself,” said the old mare. “An’ it’s too late, in case you’re wonderin’.”

“So,” tried Dash, “that means you hate Northern Spy now, right? Your own grandchild? Your flesh and blood, not that Applejack and Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh aren’t also your flesh and blood. That little foal who loves and adores you, you hate her now?”

“Kindly don’t be puttin’ words in my mouth,” said Granny. “I got too many of them in there already and don’t need yours. Seemed like I could get through some of my words on you, guess I was wrong about that as well…”

“Do you or don’t you hate Spy?” demanded Rainbow.

“It jes’ makes me sad,” said Granny. “An’ I ain’t got time for sad. I choose angry—so fuck you too.”

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. “Oh, no you don’t. That’s your weak point, huh? Can't stand to feel sad?”

“Ah am all weak point. That’s th’ problem. Ain’t a thing I can do anymore and I’m past foolin’ myself about it. Y’all jes’ carry on as you will do. I’m done here.”

“I’m not,” said Dash. “No way. What’s it gonna take? I’m telling you here and now, you are going to rejoin your family and you’re gonna be happy about it…”

Granny banged her hoof on the floor, and Dash jumped.

“Happy?” said the old mare. “You want happy? I’ll tell you happy. Many years ago, I snuck behind th’ barn with a fine young stallion, Apple Bucket he were, and we got busy…”

“Right, incest is fine, it’s fag ponies you hate. Continue,” said Dash.

“Shut up. Jes’ because he had an appley name don’t mean nothin’. For yer information, us settlers was namin’ all the babies after apples from afore I was born, on account of we had a vision, which is pretty well lost now. An’ Apple Bucket put a foal into me, a good strong earth pony foal like they all was in them days, and around a year later I bore Applesauce, an’ I looked at her and she looked back an’ I knew, I jes’ knew, this one was gonna take it all the way, was gonna grab on and show the town what fer! An’ we were gonna make our earth pony town without no help from nopony especially them dang unicorns and fluttery pegasuses, and we were gonna be th’ rock on which ponydom was founded and th’ best town in all of Equestria. An’ it was out of love.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes were narrowed. Carefully, she said, “Where is that love now?”

“We had too much,” said Granny Smith. “Or mebbe we had too much courage. My filly Applesauce included. Hell, she led th’ way. Nopony ever tole that girl what to do, m’self included. She kept up the old ways, she laughed off th’ unicorns what come by warning us there were griffin outposts nearby in the Everfree Forest. Ha! We took care o’ them all righty. Maybe that’s why Applesauce took one to bed—they like anythin’ that can fight, I reckon that’s how you ended up with one, ain’t it?”

“Sorta,” admitted Dash. “Gilda always seemed extra interested in ponies for some reason. And always mad, which put the other ponies off, but I could relate to her.”

“Where was this?” demanded Granny.

“Flight camp.”

“Oh,” said Granny, “then you mean pegasuses. Weren’t no ponies there—not PONY ponies.”

“What the hell is your problem? Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Ayep,” said Granny. “Or make ya think. Child, all y’all pegasuses and unicorns come from pony ponies, long ago. Every so often, an earth pony’s magic gits knotted up on itself, and she’ll pop out with a pegasus or unicorn or some sorta deformity…”

“We’re deformities?” yelled Dash.

“Earth ponies taught y’all how to fly. Taught th’ unicorns to focus their magic through them horns. We din’t know how well it’d work, but we loved you and we sought to help y’all live with them useless wings and horns and things, long long ago.” Granny sighed. “Guess we’re good at lovin’. But then, you know my granddaughter Applejack, so you’d a’ noticed that by now.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Rainbow Dash, trembling. “After all the pegasi, all the unicorns have done for you and this town and all of Equestria, you’re telling me you look on us with nothing but pity? For being deformed earth ponies? Really?”

“It would be easier to be charitable if y’all din’t puff yourself up to th’ skies every time we turn around!” snapped Granny. “Cloudsdale, Canterlot… Did you know there ain’t no earth ponies in the Fillydelphia town offices at all? We know it. Pegasuses for cops, unicorns runnin’ the place, there ain’t a thing an earth pony can do for that town that somethin’ fancier can’t do better an’ quicker. They don’t care, they jes’ want their streets swept on th’ fly from pegasus wings, and they want their buildings planned by unicorn fizzin’ minds and enchanted to glow at night without makin’ a simple fire.”

“But…”

“It would be nice,” said Granny Smith, “if we could still pity you poor souls. Y’all beat your plowshares into swords, and we’re resented when we cross you.”

Dash was speechless. She stammered, and Granny watched her coolly. Finally, Rainbow said, “I do not resent your granddaughter. Or anypony else in your family. I admit I resent the fuck out of you right now. So it’s all about earth ponies being taken over, you feel oppressed? Mind explaining why in Celestia’s name would you turn against your family, who are totally earth ponies? You’re supposed to be standing by them no matter what, not hurting their feelings and making them cry!”

“They won’t stand with what I believe in,” said Granny, “an’ I’m too old to change. Leave me alone, and I’ll leave them alone, and they can carry on however they like, long’s I don’t have to see it none.”

“Not good enough!” yelled Dash. “They’re used to having your support and affection! To turn away from them now…”

“No!” said Granny. “No, ma’am. I’m done. I was gonna carry on th’ Apple line. My grandma told me stories of the mares an’ stallions workin’ the farm. We founded Ponyville with Apples, our line stretched all over Equestria, and I thought I would be part of it. And look at me now! My baby is dead, crushed under a falling barn. Her children, my grandchildren, are crazy. They’ll git Apple Bloom as sure as shit, this whole town’s gone to th’ Diamond Dogs. It will dry up and blow away, no proper earth pony foals and the grown-up ponies get citified and run off to Fillydelphia and rut like animals in th’ streets with anything that got four legs. I cain’t watch. We used to be a community, girl. We were an earth pony community!”

“Aren’t you forgetting Northern Spy your great-granddaughter?” said Dash, fighting to stay reasonable, though her voice shook with suppressed rage. She could feel the anger that Granny’d said she identified with, but now it was walling her off, trying to force her to say things too close to the bone, things she normally wouldn’t say.

She wasn’t the only one with that problem.

“Born out of a pegasus and fed on magic milk from birth?” said Granny Smith, and spat on the floor. “Maybe she’ll end up dating a pig. Or a phoenix chick. We’re earth ponies! Well… I was an earth pony.”

“I like the ‘was’,” hissed Dash. “I could arrange that, maybe, if I kicked you hard enough.”

“Do it,” said Granny, and Dash sagged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Granny’s eyes were dry but glittered a little too sharply. “It’s Big Macintosh, ya see. He’s a simple soul, like the ponies of old. He’s like a big colt, really. He was gonna carry on th’ old ways, he would never get misled or nothin’. He’d plow all day, eat his dinner, go to bed. I believed in him, girl. It was fine that he took his own sweet time about everythin’, ‘cos he ain’t too bright and I trusted him to carry on the earth pony way, when Applejack’s a lil’ bit too much like her mother, too wild, but Big Macint…”

Granny Smith blinked, and gulped, and it took her a moment to continue.

“If this town has swayed him too, everything’s lost,” she said, bleakly.

Rainbow Dash pulled herself together, trying to seize the opportunity, the moment of vulnerability. “I can’t let you be prejudiced! In case it escapes your attention, your family cares a great deal about you…”

Her voice quavered. Granny heard it, and tensed, freezing up, her jaw tight, refusing to go further with those feelings, and she glared through slitted eyes as she spoke.

“Not enough to listen to a dang word I say, ob’v’sly. You go fly like the birds now, girl. I done outlived my time and you will not make me love it. And don’t you go looking stubborn as if you think you’re gonna get around me. I bore Applesauce, girl, an’ maybe that was where it all started to go wrong. I brought true stubbornness into th’ world. If I wait good and hard, I can bring my own stubbornness right back out of it. Go on! Git!”

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, whirled and left, unable to get past the old lady’s rage with her own. It was a towering rage, though, and Dash sheltered in it, feeling about a thousand feet tall and murderous. Her hooves banged the old floor of the farmhouse as she left Granny’s room, hearing the door close behind her, stomping down the hall and downstairs as if her rage would shield her from everything and last forever.

It lasted right up until she walked back into the dining room where the family huddled. Big Macintosh looked every bit the overgrown baby Granny had said he was. Apple Bloom sat some distance from the other two, obviously not willing to approach Big Macintosh. They wouldn’t look at each other, but their eyes pleaded with her.

But what turned Rainbow Dash’s fire to cold miserable rain was the sight of her beloved Applejack, stepping forward, lower lip quivering, eyes filled with yearning, desperate to be told that it was going to be okay.

Rainbow just stood there, frozen. For all her righteous anger, she wasn’t able to tell Applejack a single reassuring thing.

“Uh,” said Applejack. “Um… ya settle her down, a little?”

Rainbow’s legs trembled. Her face twisted—and the next thing she knew, she was bawling her eyes out, and Applejack was holding her tightly.

“Not so much, huh?” sighed Applejack. Apple Bloom glowered, and trotted off to the living room.

“I’m sorry!” sobbed Rainbow, shaking. “I don’t know what else I can do! She’s really stubborn!” She saw Big Macintosh sulking, and her heart sank further, and she tried to fold her wings tightly to hide them, feeling every bit the monstrosity Granny suggested she was.

“But what do she even want from us, Dashie?”

“She wants this to be an earth pony town,” sniffled Dash, and Applejack’s eyes widened.

“But this ain’t just a earth pony town! It’s Ponyville, it’s a pony town! That’s why it’s called Ponyville!”

“Yeah, well,” said Dash, “apparently pegasi and unicorns aren’t ponies after all. Oops.”

Applejack squished her in a fiercer hug. “Don’t be talkin’ that way! We will jes’ have to try somethin’ else.” Her eyes gazed bleakly into space. “Maybe we can sneak Granny some salt? Maybe if she gits real drunk or somethin’…”

“Maybe I should have bucked her in the head like she wanted,” said Dash bitterly.

Applejack shuddered—Rainbow felt it, could tell her words had shaken the country pony, and instantly regretted saying them.

“How am ah gonna fix this,” said Applejack softly. She’d begun to tremble, and couldn’t stop. “How am ah gonna fix this, how am ah gonna fix this.” She glanced at Big Macintosh, but he only gazed back mutely, as always looking to her for the answer. “How am ah…”

“A pegasus is here!” called Apple Bloom, from the living room.

Rainbow tensed. “If it’s Fluttershy, tell her she’s too late!” she said, and Big Macintosh jolted, a wounded look in his eye.

“Ain’t Fluttershy or I’d ‘a said Fluttershy, wouldn’t I?” called Apple Bloom. “It’s Miss Derpy! You know, th’ mail-mare? She wants to talk to Rainbow Dash. If you’re not too busy being not any help at all!”

Applejack’s and Dash’s heads shot bolt upright, and they stared at each other.

“Oh sweet Celestia, what could she want?” stammered Dash.

Applejack’s stricken gaze turned to a weary, bleak one. “Is that what y’call a hypothetical question?”

Dash winced. “Yeah, it kind of is. What am I even supposed to tell her? Twilight doesn’t want her, that was abundantly obvious.”

Applejack hugged again. “Do what ya can. Sometimes helpin’ another pony gives you kind of a lift.” She didn’t mention that she’d been in need of help and compassion herself, for there was no point—again she’d ended up giving the support, with none for her.

“Do you really think so?”

“I know it,” said Applejack, pulling together every shred of spirit she had to offer, and putting it into the conviction in her voice. It felt like overstraining her beleaguered soul, but Dash brightened a little.

They joined Apple Bloom in the living room, along with a curiously… toasted Derpy Hooves, who cried, “Hello, Rainbow Dash!”

“Hi, Derpy,” said Rainbow, sniffing the air curiously. “Hm. That’s weird, I didn’t realize there was such a big storm around.”

“I’m sorry for interrupting a nice family dinner,” said Derpy. “How come your eyes are wet, Rainbow Dash? Are you sad?”

“That’s okay, Derpy, no concern of yours…”

“Yep,” said Applejack quickly. Rainbow looked at her and saw that her legs were still trembling, her attitude still desperately tense. She continued, “Ain’t nothin’ going on here to concern you, we are all jes’ fine. Right?”

Apple Bloom pouted, and nodded. “Sure we are.”

Rainbow Dash could tell when Applejack was in a ‘save face’ mode, and she rallied, wiping her eyes with the back of a hoof rapidly. “Right! So what can I do ya for, Derpster? But first, maybe we should go deal with that thunderhead?”

Derpy blinked puzzledly.

“You know,” explained Rainbow Dash, “the big thunder cloud? Like, when a pegasus flies somewhere and there’s a thunder cloud SOOOO big that it hits her with lightning when she’s just minding her own business? It’s nice of you not to mind it but part of our job in Weather Patrol is to break that stuff up before it gets out of hoof.”

“Oh!” squeaked Derpy, and bounced. “Vagina zaps! That is kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “Vagina what?” she said, while Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at still more pony sex business and trotted to her room in a huff.

“I think I need to have sex with Dusk Shine, I mean Twilight Sparkle, because vagina zaps aren’t enough for me anymore! I do them and do them and do them,” said Derpy, “but I still want more.”

“Vag…” began Dash, and gasped. “No! Derpy, that’s bad for you! I know it gives you a big jolt and it doesn’t seem like it hurts you. I’ve even got off on the ol’ coochie charger myself, I’m not judging you. But it’s not okay to go doing that a lot, it will mess with your nervous system and make it twitchy and… oh.”

Rainbow trailed off, looking dismayed. Applejack said, “What she been doing with herself, honey? Ah don’t understand.”

Rainbow glanced at her earth pony mate. “You wouldn’t be able to do it. Actually, you’d really hate it. I’m almost afraid to tell you.”

Applejack bridled. “Oh yeah?”

“She’s been kicking thunderclouds. Derpy’s ‘vagina zaps’ mean that she’s getting struck by lightning bolts, on purpose, while flying. That’s why she smells a little crispy. The jolt can get us pegasuses off if we’re extra horny. How many times, Derpy? How many times did you do it today?”

“T… tw…” stammered Derpy, while Applejack paled, for she was frightened of thunderstorms and couldn’t imagine getting struck by lightning as a sexual thrill.

“Twice?” demanded Dash. “In one day? Not good, Derpy!”

Derpy Hooves blushed, shaking her head, backing away from the irate Dash. “Tw… t…”

“Twilight?” guessed Dash. “You hope Twilight will help you not need to do that anymore?”

Derpy scraped the floor with a forehoof, blushing brightly.

“…twelve.”

Applejack whimpered, staring at Derpy in horror. Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped, and then she’d rushed forward and was hugging Derpy with fierce determination. Derpy beamed, then squawked “Ow!” for Dash had clocked her on the head with a hoof, only to continue hugging.

“We’re gonna get you help, Derpy,” swore Dash. “We’re gonna get you LAID properly if it’s the last thing I do. Even if Twilight isn’t exactly a big wing fan—but you have to stop with the zaps!” She blinked. “Speaking of laid, we’ve still got Gilda on ice in my place, right? Applejack, I know it’s asking a lot but I need to be focussing on Derpy right now. She needs a pegasus wingmare to guide her through this. Do you think you could help out Gilda again, say tomorrow?”

Applejack nodded. “I reckon!”

Dash turned back to Derpy.

“You—come with me.”

“We’re actually quite busy right at the moment, Rainbow,” said Twilight, tending not to look at Rainbow’s gray companion.

“Well, it shouldn’t take you all that long,” wheedled Dash. “Be a sport. Heck, she’s kind of saving herself for you, it might feel awfully good, and then you can go and do whatever it is you’re so busy with. Think of it as a coffee break only instead of coffee it’s pegasus pussy?”

Twilight’s ears went back. “Ah. That again? Seriously?”

“Why, do you have a problem with pegasus pussy?” countered Dash. “I know we never spent much time playing. Now you have me wondering, do you just not like pegasi for some reason?”

“I’m working!” snapped Twilight, flicking her tail.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to be called Dusk Shine,” offered Derpy, “because maybe you don’t want to be called Dusk Shine, but is it okay if I’m thinking it?”

Twilight made a frustrated noise. “Why me?” she lamented, to the empty air.

Derpy seemed totally undaunted. “Because I saw you having sex with your nice marefriend and the penis you make looks like it would feel good…”

“Oh!” exclaimed Twilight. “It’s that, is it? Well, I can make all this very simple.” She turned to face Derpy Hooves, though meeting her eyes was disconcerting—Derpy’s gaze went all the more sideways when she was confronted. “So, you watched me using the magic bit, Miss Hooves?”

“Yes, on your pretty marefriend. Though I think I am pretty too. My mama told me I am a pretty pony, and…”

Twilight cut her off. “Well, do you know where that particular bit is right now?”

Derpy blinked, unable to answer. Rainbow Dash’s gaze darkened. “She can’t see it, genius, how’s she supposed to tell you that? Where is it, then?”

Twilight gave them a tight grin. “It’s gone. That bit isn’t there anymore. Poof!”

“Trixie thinks it was more a kaboom, really,” suggested Trixie Lulamoon. She’d seemed pleased at Derpy calling her pretty and nice, but showed no sign of encouraging her further.

Dash laid her ears back. “What do you mean, kaboom? I’ve seen them go off in a shower of sparks. I thought these ones didn’t blow up. Though, uh, something I tried to do once made mine blow up. But I wouldn’t call that a kaboom, more like a fizzy sparkler!”

“This was more of a kaboom,” said Trixie firmly. “It nearly set Girl’s mane on fire. Girl! Was it not an impressive kaboom? Come over here and speak!”

Rarity was standing to the side, looking tense, but lifted her head when called. Rainbow glanced at her and did a double-take: her unnatural standing position wasn’t an accident. They’d tied her hind legs together, and something was balanced on her pristine alabaster rump, high on her croup. It seemed an innocuous lump of vegetable matter, but Rarity glanced back at it with alarm, and then began to approach them with extreme trepidation, taking steps with her forelegs and then inching her tied rear hooves forward with tiny, nervous hops.

Derpy gasped. “Oh, my! Let me help you, Miss Rarity.” She darted forward, flapping agitatedly, peering at Rarity’s hind legs, and then blinked at the object balancing on Rarity’s croup. “What’s that?”

“Don’t…” began Rarity, but Derpy had already seized it in her teeth, by way of transferring it to the floor. It did reach the floor, but more abruptly than she intended. The gray pegasus squeaked and spat it out, crying, “Hot! hot!”

“What are you guys doing?” demanded Rainbow Dash. “Easy, Derpy. What is it?”

“Ginger root,” said Rarity, “and that does not count, surely, Mistress! Please, don’t count that, I implore you!”

Trixie glowered. “You should be able to handle the situation! Very well.”

“Ginger root?” said Dash. “But what are you doing? How is it kinky to balance a ginger root on your croup?”

“If I allowed it to drop to the floor,” said Rarity, “Mistress would shove it up my…”

“…for two hours!” proclaimed Trixie.

Rarity’s eyes flew wide, and her ears laid back hard. “But Mistress, you said one hour! You did!”

“Penalty for allowing the gray pegasus to remove it,” replied Trixie. “Don’t you dare to object, you filthy beast.”

This upset Derpy, who still champed her teeth like her mouth was sore. She turned on Trixie in dismay, arguing, “Miss Rarity isn’t filthy! She is a nice pony, and why would you put a thing like that up her butt? Or any place? That would hurt really bad, I think!”

Twilight squeezed her eyes shut. “Rainbow, would you please remove your pegasus friend and yourself? We’re working, and I already explained that we don’t have that bit anymore. It did actually explode, and it’s gone.”

“That’s why we had to make a few more, and study them,” explained Trixie, but she shut up quickly at a fierce glare from Twilight.

“Seems like you’re mixing work with pleasure!” complained Rainbow Dash.

“But this is sad,” fretted Derpy. “Miss Rarity’s legs don’t look comfortable and how can they be getting pleasure from that unless they’re mean and cruel ponies…”

Rarity looked stricken. “Oh, heavens. Derpy, darling, it is rather difficult to explain to you, but I assure you I am perfectly safe, though appearances and conditions may suggest otherwise.”

“Is she going to keep coming around here and bugging me?” demanded Twilight. “Thanks, Trixie, for tipping them off that we’re re-creating the bit. I ought to stuff that ginger up YOUR butt.”

Trixie smirked. “Mmm. The burn. And one takes on such a spirited posture—Trixie suspects Mistress just wants to see that.”

“Which one is Mistress?” asked Derpy. “Trixie was Mistress but now Trixie’s calling Twilight Mistress! But if Twilight likes being called things maybe that’s good because when she makes the bit again, she might let me call her Dusk Shine…”

Dash face-hooved. “This is a weird situation for you to walk into, Derpy, and that’s me saying it. We’re not going to give up, guys! My friend Derpy needs some attention and it shouldn’t be so much trouble. Have a heart, Twilight, she wants you because me and Applejack scare her. You know how well hung Applejack is, and me since having Spy. Why is this so difficult when the three of you are in and out of each other’s vaginas all day long?”

“This is all because your friend needs a stallion and has fixated on me for having a small penis?” demanded Twilight.

Rainbow Dash nodded emphatically. “I think she’s a virgin. Unless you count lightning bolts—and she’s got to stay away from those. Maybe once she’s had you, we can coax her to try other ponies? She’s kind of stubborn sometimes though. Come on, at least let us start her off right, with something she wants?”

Twilight’s head was high. Rarity’s ears went back, looking at how commanding and dominant her Mistress’s Mistress was, and glanced with concern at Derpy. Twilight’s attitude was condescending, even contemptuous, and on the one hoof it seemed unkind to behave that way toward a mentally challenged pegasus pony, while on the other hoof that attitude seemed only to be making Derpy more submissive and compliant—and Rarity’s nose told her that this submissiveness wasn’t just a matter of going away obediently. It was making Derpy more horny by the second, just looking at her ‘Dusk Shine’ being so stallion-ish.

“Rarity!” snapped Twilight, and Rarity twitched so hard she’d have dropped the ginger lump if it were still balanced on her croup.

“Yes, Mistress?” she said, as a shadow moved outside.

“Take this pegasus away and do a total make-over. Make her pretty and then take her to Fillydelphia and find her a stallion with a small penis that’s not me! That’s your new punishment, combined with the increase of the ginger threat to two hours. We can get back into the hoof-tying and balancing punishment when you return!”

Rarity stared at Twilight in shock. “She is wall-eyed and clumsy, darling, and her mane is singed and disheveled. Fillydelphia is a very sophisticated town! How can you expect me to do this? And so suddenly!”

“Girl!” snapped Trixie. “Does Trixie need to teach you chain of command again? With a whip, or the ginger lump? Trixie is not sure she heard you correctly!”

Facing both Twilight and Trixie’s dominant stares, Rarity caved.

“Yes, Mistress. Can Girl bring the bit you’ve just re-made in case she finds a mare who would make a suitable partner for Miss Derpy?”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “You said the bit was gone! So you’ve already re-made one of them and you were hiding it?”

Twilight’s expression was filled with exasperation. “I said THAT bit was gone. Thanks, Rarity. Yes, take it, now that you’ve told them that and blown my cover completely…”

“You guys are something else,” grumbled Rainbow Dash. “How many more do you intend to make?”

“I would say none,” came a stern voice.

Princess Celestia was looking in the door, and did not look pleased. “Twilight, I regret this very much, but I must instruct you to turn in all the magic bits. You’ve never satisfactorily demonstrated the provenance of their power source, and I’ve been told they are now exploding with dangerous force. I’m sorry, but play-time is over. Please begin by relinquishing yours, and we will go from there.”

Twilight looked up at her, aghast. “No! I mean, let me explain!”

“It’s for your own protection, Twilight, and the safety of the other ponies.”

“Mine doesn’t explode, even a little!” protested Rainbow Dash, backing away anxiously.

Twilight Sparkle gritted her teeth. “Lyra told you that, didn’t she?”

Princess Celestia frowned. “Though it is futile to conceal my source, I would have you honor my wish that you not resent her for it. They are only concerned for your well-being.”

Trixie snorted, her eyes furious, and Twilight took a deep breath and spoke in a barely controlled voice. “Did she tell you we were clamping it in a vise, to nearly the yield point of the base metal?”

That rocked Celestia, who replied, “No, Twilight, she did not.” She considered this, and added, “Still, I don’t see how that changes things appreciably. You must see that these things have brought disorder and distress to Ponyville. We can talk about how you may continue to study them under controlled conditions, in Canterlot. First we will gather the artifacts, and I command you to cease their manufacture, if for no other reason than this: to gather multiple powerful magic artifacts poses dangers of which you may be unaware. The more of these you make, the greater the potential risk, Twilight.”

Twilight Sparkle was glaring. “It’s our risk to run.”

“But if you do not know all possible outcomes?”

“You never know all possible outcomes, unless you’re not really doing science,” said Twilight. “What if I say no? What if I just refuse?” Behind her, Trixie bared her teeth in satisfaction.

Princess Celestia’s face twisted in woe. “Please do not defy me, Twilight. I assume I can take steps to gather the other magic bits? My sister was also defiant, but I have confiscated her bit and if I do not trust a full alicorn Princess with the things, you cannot expect me to trust them to simple mortal ponies.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Rainbow Dash, going pale. “Mine’s totally fine, Applejack’s that is, I guess you could come get it at Sweet Apple Acres. Unless we lost it, maybe we forgot where it is, that counts as confiscating it, right? We can search Sweet Apple Acres. It certainly wouldn’t be at my cloud place, I don’t even stay there anymore. Uh, come on, Derpy! We have to go, uh, search Sweet Apple Acres. You can also search Fluttershy’s, I know Twilight gave her a magic bit, and I’m sure they don’t use theirs!”

Princess Celestia didn’t notice Dash’s, and Derpy’s, hasty and flapping departure. Her gaze was locked with Twilight’s, and Twilight Sparkle was not backing down.

“Mine goes last,” said Twilight, finally.

“Twilight, I wish you would let me remove yours first, since I am already here…”

“No!” snapped Twilight. “Mine goes last. You have to pick up all the other ones first, and then come back for it. Do you know why, Princess?”

“Why, Twilight?”

“I’m gonna solve the power source issue before you even get back here for it,” said Twilight Sparkle, flatly. “And then you’re going to give them all back—and apologize.”

Celestia’s jaw dropped, and then her gaze dropped. She’d gone red in the face, and could no longer look at her once-student.

“I think I’d better go visit Fluttershy,” she said, “whom I don’t believe would object to me trying to protect her!”

She departed, then, striding out of Twilight’s front door and taking to the air with a storm of powerful alicorn wings, bound for Fluttershy’s cottage.

Twilight sagged, and Trixie embraced her, squealing in glee. “You were wonderful, Mistress! Wonderful! We showed her!”

“Trixie.”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“Make coffee, lots of it. I’m not sure I’m going to get to sleep for a while…”

Loving The Predator

Thousands of feet in the air was a really terrible place to be told that.

“Beg pardon?” said Applejack, her eyes still tightly screwed shut.

“I said, when we get there, help me find a good place to hide our magic bit so Princess Celestia can’t confiscate it!”

“Aw, Dashie, now when did she ever do a thing like that?”

“Just yesterday. I saw it. Twilight was pissed! I can see why. Princess Celestia’s mad because one of the bits exploded…”

“It what?” blurted Applejack, and then squealed. “Eeeee! Oh gosh, Dashie, you let go a lil’ there…”

“I gotcha!” said Dash, tightening her grip. “I told you, it exploded. I guess nopony told Princess Celestia that Twilight had it clamped in some kind of creepy magical science equipment. I know, okay? I was there. I wouldn’t want that to happen in my mouth either but ours doesn’t do that. Do you want to stop talking about this until we get to my cloud place?”

Applejack whimpered, her heart pounding.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes,” said Dash, and they flew on in silence.

Before long, Rainbow Dash called, “Hey featherbrain! I brought you a treat! Almost there, Applejack, hang in there.”

“You’re too kind, Dash,” said Gilda from about twenty feet forward and down, and Applejack cringed and waited with a stubborn look on her face for her mate to touch her hooves to the floor of the cloud house. They had to fly right indoors, for Applejack couldn’t walk on the cloud the house was built on—but pegasus engineering was able to produce a floor of sorts, and Rainbow Dash’s house had one.

Applejack’s hooves touched, and she breathed again. She used this breath immediately.

“What the hay is going on, Rainbow Dash?” she yelled. “Princess Celestia wants to confiscate our magic bit?”

Rainbow backed away, lifting a forehoof defensively, and Gilda tensed, her expression darkening.

“Ah am waitin’ for an explanation!”

“But I already told you!” protested Dash. “She’s mixed up. Twilight did some crazy magic thing to her own bit to make it explode, and now Celestia thinks they all do. And ix-nay on the incess-pray around Gilda, all right? We don’t mention that name, Gilda hates her.”

“Well…” Applejack hesitated. “What did Twi do? She blew it up, somehow, and now Princess Celestia heard about it?”

Gilda whirled and stalked off into Dash’s kitchen, and Dash’s face fell watching her go. “Oh, horseapples. Yes, Applejack, exactly. There was like machinery and magic stuff and everything, I don’t even know what else. I’m with Twi on this one, she would know what she did, and she was really mad at the idea that anypony’s gonna take our bits away. Especially now!”

Dash stamped a hoof in frustration, and Applejack sidled closer. “I hear ya, darlin’, bear with me. Don’t like the sound of disobeyin’ Princess Celestia though. Uhh… exactly what you got in mind, sugarcube?”

“We can hide it somewhere in here when we’re not using it. I told her I didn’t even live here anymore, which technically is kinda slightly true, you know? Don’t tell her we’re keeping the bit, don’t tell her we’re keeping Gilda, as far as she’s concerned we lost it. Okay?”

Applejack’s expression was far from okay. “Aww, Dashie…”

“No, please!” begged Rainbow. “I don’t know what’s going on with this, but I trust Twilight to fix it, and what if Princess Celestia decided not to give it back? I… I’ve gotten used to having you as my stallion, okay? And I thought you liked the new changes in me.”

Applejack’s ears were laid back. “Well, sure enough, and it ain’t that at all…”

“Then please! Stay with me on this one. Please, please!”

Applejack whimpered a little. “Don’t be upset, Rainbow?”

Dash gritted her teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m horrible. I mean it, though. Right now I can’t stand it to lose that. I really can’t. It feels like she wants to rip a big chunk of our life away and she doesn’t even care and she’ll just laugh at us being sad and think it serves us right.”

“Rainbow!” gasped Applejack.

“I can’t stand it!” yelled Dash, trotting in place.

Gilda’s head poked back out of the kitchen, curiously. “Sup, Dash? Why throw a fit all of a sudden?”

“She’s actin’ like Princess Celestia is some kinda monster!” said Applejack.

Gilda’s reaction was striking. Her eyes flared wide, she hissed and backed away, her claws dug into the floor, and for a moment Applejack panicked, thinking she was going to be attacked.

Gilda controlled herself, lashing her tail, and said “That’s a very… pony point of view, there, Applejack. In case you were wondering if you were, you know, biased or anything.”

Applejack trembled, biting her lip. “Um, happens I am a pony an’ all,” she said. She felt her vagina wink, and wondered why the hell she was suddenly so horny?

“Yeah,” said Gilda, watching Dash closely. “I like that part.”

Dash looked back and forth between them. “You guys okay? Like, ready? I have to go, Spy is waiting, and then I need to talk to Derpy. Gilda! Talk to Applejack, okay?”

“Sure, Dash,” said Gilda, and yawned nonchalantly. “Is it okay if that’s not the first thing I do?”

That got a laugh out of Rainbow. “Hah! At least something still works, right? Gotta go, I’ll be back later!”

“Yo, Dash, you know I could fly Applejack back to her place, right? Uh… if that’s okay with you, there, Applejack?”

Applejack gaped at her, and felt her vagina wink again. She gulped, and said, “Couldn’t be scarier!”

That got her a hurt look from Rainbow, with lip quivering and big ruby eyes tearing up—and then she whirled and took off out the door, a blue streak leaving a trail of tears.

Applejack yelled and ran after her, but before she could get out to see which way Dash had fled, she was yanked to a stop by a fierce grip on her tail.

She turned to see Gilda gripping her tail in one tightly clenched claw and glaring at her in a fury, and she went weak in the knees and felt herself winking again at the big griffin, captured again and at her mercy—her body wavering between boneless surrender or hysterical flailing depending on how fiercely Gilda attacked her.

Instead, Gilda licked her beak fretfully and said, “Yo, Applejack. Can you walk on clouds? Pegasus ponies can. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re not a pegasus, are you?”

Applejack just stared at her, and then the meaning sank in and her eyes widened. “Oh, crap!”

“You scared the shit out of me,” said Gilda. “Come back here and don’t try to run out of this house. Dash would fucking kill me if you fell from here, even if I caught you. Which I totally could, but what if you were freaking out and kicked me or something? Don’t. Just… don’t!”

“Aw, I’m sorry! I was upset.”

Gilda gazed coyly at her from under that crest of feathers. “Let me help you be less upset.”

Hesitantly, at first, Applejack stepped toward her, watching that griffin tail lash eagerly.

“Hang in there, Big Macintosh, I’m on it!” called Applejack, trotting toward the farmhouse.

The difference between the two siblings was stark. Big Macintosh’s head drooped as if his collar was suddenly too heavy for him to bear, and he pouted outrageously, looking slightly less mature than Apple Bloom, plainly filled with dismay over the turn of his fate and not just filled with Braeburn under the turn of his tail. He’d returned to his chores but seemed to be throwing himself at them with redoubled effort, as if that would redeem him.

Applejack clung to her optimism, and she was aided by her fine healthy mare body, which glowed with satisfaction. Gilda had been amazing, just as good as the first time but more manageable. She’d melted delightfully when taking pony cock, making the most outrageous sounds but wriggling and pushing back against Applejack’s crotch in a way the country pony felt she could really get used to, and this time she’d controlled herself for so long that Applejack had come in her, which set a new high mark for glorious guttural feline squall.

Gilda had come so hard, feeling that copious gush of stallionseed, that she’d collapsed under Applejack rather than thrashing forward in a frenzied ball of muscles and claws. The whole thing had been odd, for Gilda seemed to be fighting to stay relaxed apart from her orgiastic shrieks of lust, making huge efforts to change her griffin way of lovemaking. Even her rolling and flipping afterward had been somehow more languid, and she had insisted on giving Applejack a bonus orgasm with her scratchy little tongue, and even that had been an affair of very slow, careful motions, sensuous deliberate licking without any hint of predatory greed.

“I’m going full pony,” Gilda had said, “you make it seem so right.”

Applejack wasn’t at all sure how she felt about that, but it had left her body thrumming with pleasure and life, and she drew on that feeling as she trotted determinedly upstairs and down the hall to a certain firmly locked door.

She banged on it with her hoof.

“No!” snapped Granny Smith.

“Ah will kick it down,” declared Applejack flatly. “Open th’ damn door!”

She waited, heart thumping, and just as she began to turn around and direct her potent hindquarters to their wooden target, she heard the latch click, and then Granny drew the door open and any kicking of the door would literally mean kicking Granny in the teeth.

She didn’t turn back right away, even so.

“Well, I opened th’ damn door,” said Granny, bitterly. “What d’ you want, girl?”

“You know, Granny. Happens I don’t care whether you like it, at this point.”

Granny sniffed the air, confronted with Applejack’s shapely hindquarters. “Been playin’?”

Applejack set her jaw. It wasn’t a time for coyly pivoting away just because Granny was looking at her marehood with a sour expression. Her position served another purpose.

“Ah’m done playin’,” said Applejack.

“Can’t you jes’ leave me alone?” complained Granny. “Why you got to come an’ bother me now?”

“Come along,” said Applejack, “an’ apologize an’ make nice. I ain’t askin’. Step lively.”

Granny froze, then spat on the ground. “Like hell,” she began, and then her eyes widened and she shrank back. Muscle played beneath orange flanks. Applejack, her hindquarters still aimed at Granny, had raised a rear hoof. It hovered, poised for a kick that would knock all the apples off a tree.

She turned her head, and her eyes were fierce slits to rival Granny’s.

“That was me bein’ nice, Granny Smith. Do ya want it nice, or don’t ya?”

Silence fell. Granny gulped, and licked her lips, for her mouth had gone dry real suddenly. Back in the day, she hadn’t wanted to give up Sweet Apple Acres to her daughter, and that scene came roaring back to her. There could only be one boss Apple mare. She’d intended to deliver a grownup-sized spanking to Applesauce and go about her business after teaching her daughter not to countermand her orders to the farmhand ponies.

Instead, she’d ended up spitting out broken teeth in her room, her bed upended and barricading the door, her heart pounding as she listened to Applesauce demolishing both door and bed to get at her… and then, that pause, that incredible pause as she and her daughter took a moment to register the situation… and then, one sigh of satisfaction from outside the door, without even a curse or stomp.

And the hooves that had been bludgeoning her body and beating down her door turned and trotted blithely away, down the stairs, and out the door. She heard Applesauce’s voice, calling out to the hired hands.

“Farm’s mine now, boys,” she’d said.

“Yes’m,” they’d replied, in unison, without a moment’s hesitation—and they’d all returned to work, leaving Granny to stew in her room behind her improvised barricade.

Applesauce had personally helped to fix her door, later that night, bossing three farm hands to remove the splintered and shattered wood and replace it with a brand new door, which she decorated with flowers. Hollyhocks—which were probably not mockery, thought Granny, but as much explanation as she’d ever get. Lily-of-the-valley would’ve been too much to ask. From that point on, she was treated with kindness, respect, and slight embarrassment—and it seemed like mere weeks before everypony had forgotten she’d used to be the boss.

It wasn’t many more weeks before she forgot what it was like, herself.

Applejack had never needed to prove herself in that way. Her mother had died when she was small, and apart from the brief period where she’d gone away to Manehattan, her life had been about trying to take up the reins of Sweet Apple Acres when still just a filly herself. Nopony thought to challenge her, for it was already such an epic undertaking just to run the farm that her whole family had rallied behind her and wished her well.

Now, Granny gazed into Applejack’s narrowed eyes and realized that little filly was truly her daughter’s filly, and furthermore, prepared to demand a whole new set of changes.

“Are you really gonna kick a poor ol’ lady what outlived her time and jes’ wants to be left alone?” she said, bitterly.

Applejack’s nostrils flared.

“Ah love you very much, Granny, and that is why I mus’ do this. You come along an’ apologize, right now. We need you as part o’ this family an’ you are gonna act right. I’mma give you a count of three an’ then Celestia help you. Move!”

Granny watched the muscles move under that silky orange flank, smelled the scent of recent sex and the alien hint of griffin that combined with it. This one was mighty dexterous with those hooves. Maybe even dexterous enough to clock her Granny in the head without breaking her jaw or knocking her out of this new and unwelcome life completely.

“Define ‘right’,” she said.

“Three!” snarled Applejack.

“Yes’m,” said Granny, hastily. Her heart was pounding fit to bust. “What y’all want me to say?”

“Speak your heart,” said Applejack, “your real one. This way.”

Granny’s face fell, even as she obligingly followed, and she muttered, “There’s yer problem…”

Big Macintosh’s legs trembled, and his eyes were a little too wide.

“Come on, now!” said Applejack. “What do we say?”

“Danged if I know,” muttered Granny. “Sorry, I guess. Sorry for what, exactly?”

Applejack stamped the ground with a forehoof, and both Big Macintosh and Granny flinched. Apple Bloom did not. She watched with an expression of annoyance and awe, a strange combination.

“Ah might suggest, sorry for bein’ closed-minded an’ unkind!”

“Sorry for bein’ closed-minded and unkind,” parroted Granny, and shot Applejack a sidelong glance. “That about right?”

“Like ya mean it!” demanded Applejack.

“An’ how kin you stand there an’ tell me I do or don’t mean a thing?”

Applejack glowered at Granny. “How about you look him in th’ eye and say that, for a start?”

“Easier said than done, that overgrown colt’s a-studyin the dirt…”

“Big Macintosh!” demanded Applejack, and her brother gave another start. “You look at Granny. She got somethin’ to say to you and you best hear it!”

“What did you want me to say, again?” grumbled Granny.

Applejack sighed. “You say what you jes’ said, and you mean it! Look him in th’ eye. Big Macintosh, steady there! Okay. Go.”

Two pairs of Apple eyes locked.

Granny gulped, suddenly struck with the reality of her situation. She stared into her grand-colt’s eyes, so wide, and she was lost for words. The big baby seemed totally helpless, begging for an approval that she was not able to provide. She even wanted to, a little, but she wondered if that was how he looked into the eyes of the stallion who mounted him and…

Granny Smith gulped again.

“Come on!” demanded Applejack.

“I’m sorry,” said Granny. “Ah am so, so sorry, child. For, uh, bein’ unkind. I guess I asked too much. I… I’m sorry, Big Macintosh.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and his face fell, and fell, and fell, bathed and then drowned in her obvious disappointment and despair.

Granny turned then, to glare at Applejack. “You satisfied? You satisfied with this day’s work, girl?”

The country mare stood, appalled. Her picture of this encounter had not ended with Big Macintosh hanging his head in shame, with Apple Bloom shocked, with Granny bitter and miserable. She stared in astonishment, and then frowned and said, “Maybe. Ya gonna act right, now?”

“Ah will act however you want me to act, you jes’ tell me what I must do. You’re th’ boss, I ain’t fool enough to cross you twice,” said Granny. Apple Bloom brightened a little, though her face showed her frustration with her conflicting loyalties.

“How about you go on back to your room if you like,” suggested Applejack. “I’ll call for you if I want you.”

“Yes’m,” replied Granny, and walked off, dragging her hooves dispiritedly. Big Macintosh watched her leave, his massive neck drooping and his head hanging low.

Apple Bloom bounced determinedly to her hooves. “Come on, Big Macintosh!” she cried. “I saw you plowin’ the fields to beat th’ band, not at all like some pony’s little filly. I’ll help you! We’ll get you back ta how you used to be, my big strong brave big brother!”

Big Macintosh’s look of disbelief was eloquent. He stared at Apple Bloom, then looked again at Granny’s retreating form, and then at Applejack’s commanding gaze.

“Oh,” he said. “Y’mean… before that horrible Rarity ruined mah life?”

Applejack’s jaw dropped.

“Now see here!” she yelled. “You take that back! Rarity is a wonderful pony an’ a close friend and the bearer of an Element of Harmony besides, an’ you will not call her names, Big Macintosh!”

He cringed, backing away as she advanced, and he moaned, “Sorry! ‘m sorry! Din’t mean it! Ah promise!”

Applejack controlled herself, drawing breath between clenched, gritted teeth. “Well… y’better not! Go on then.”

Big Macintosh skulked off, head hanging even lower than before. Apple Bloom scampered along with him, like a miniature Applejack, hectoring him cheerfully. “That’s right! You can do it, Big Macintosh, you can outplow anypony and be kind and respectful to mares and everything! Ah believe in you and I jes’ know you gonna be right as rain in no time, and we’ll take care of you until y’all feelin’ yourself again…”

Applejack watched them go, feeling like a pony carved from hard and unyielding stone. There had been no room for her to be gentle, or soft, not with such hard cases to deal with, and she wasn’t at all sure she’d managed it. She hoped so.

There had been no sign of Rainbow. Applejack looked to the farmhouse, into which Granny had already disappeared, and her lip quivered, and suddenly she knew what she needed. She trotted and then galloped to the house, and rushed up the stairs to their bedroom—the master bedroom, fit for the boss mare of Sweet Apple Acres even when she wanted to not feel like such a boss for a while—and burst in to be comforted.

Rainbow was crying on the bed, and Applejack froze in the doorway.

“Sup,” said Rainbow bleakly. “What was going on out there? I heard yelling.”

“Uhh… Rainbow? What’s th’ matter? What are y’all doin’ up here crying?”

“It’s okay, Spy’s asleep. She drank a lot of milk and went to sleep. I thought that was the least I could do after the trouble I’ve caused.”

Applejack’s face twisted. “Oh, honey… what trouble?”

“You know,” said Dash. “Making you lactate using magic, and being a pegasus, and all that stuff that’s getting you in trouble with your family. They don’t seem happy and I think it might be easier for them if they don’t see me.”

Applejack was already rushing to her side, sweeping her up into a hug and cuddling her limp form. “Naw! Oh, darlin’, no, you cain’t think that…”

“Sorry,” said Dash sullenly. “I’m doing the best I can with this. I thought it made sense.”

Applejack hugged her tightly. “What did you get for lunch?”

“Huh? I gave Spy lunch. That’s what I’ve been doing up here.”

“No,” said Applejack, trying to hang onto a reassuring smile. “Ah mean, what did you get YOU for lunch?”

“I don’t remember, which probably means I didn't. Did you make me lunch? Listen to me not even know if the love of my life made me lunch, is that pathetic or what?”

Applejack shook her head. “We’re gonna go fix you somethin’. Right now. Rainbow, especially if you’re doin’ some kind of post-foalin’ depressin’ thing, you got to take care of yourself! You never did eat right an’ now look at you, a-skippin’ meals…”

“I’m not exactly hungry,” said Dash, apologetically.

“Don’t matter! Why, honey, all us ponies get fretful if we miss a meal. Apple Bloom is that way, I seen her sulking up a storm when she skipped lunch, even when she’s out with her friends an’ everything! An’ ain’t you never wondered why I am so good with my breakfast and all that there? You’re an Apple now, you got to eat right.”

Dash tilted her head, lifting an eyebrow. “Huh. Sounds serious. Don’t tell me, you need me to heroically get up and go have some snacks. Am I understanding you?” Her eyes showed her willingness sparking to life, fighting through the waves of depression that laid her flat on the bed.

“Ain’t sure if it counts as heroic or nothin’,” said Applejack, “but hell yeah, sugarcube!”

Dash lifted herself.

“Well, for your information I kind of think it does,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m even getting up, but I look at you and it makes me want to fight it. I really love you, Applejack. I mean, really, really… for what it’s worth which maybe isn’t that much but I don’t know, I’ll… oof!”

Applejack had grabbed her in another frantic hug, and cut off her monologue with a fevered, desperate kiss. The country mare’s body trembled, and she closed her eyes and willed her own life force into her adored, faltering mate, and she clung and kissed and yearned until she was dizzy with it, and then opened her eyes to gaze into the ruby eyes she loved so much.

They were wide with surprise.

“Wow,” breathed Rainbow Dash. “Maybe life’s good?”

“Believe it,” ordered Applejack, weak with her efforts.

This time, Gilda had come to pick her up. “How’s it going, toots?” chirped the griffin.

“Where do ah start?” grumbled Applejack.

Gilda lifted a feathery eyebrow. “That good, huh?”

“Jes’ never mind, all right?” said Applejack. “I don’t wanna think about it.” She glared at the dirt, kicking the ground with a forehoof.

Gilda sat back, looking concerned. “Are you sure you want this? If it’s bothering you so much, tell me to go away. I would totally understand.”

“Aw, not you too!” yelled Applejack.

“What?” squawked Gilda. “Fuck you, okay? All I’m saying is, it’s asking a lot for a pony to get with a griffin! I thought that was obvious! In case you were wondering, I’m trying really hard to be pony about it!” She hid her face in her claw for a moment, controlling herself, and then spoke more calmly. “I’m sorry. It’s not easy being, you know, all bland and serene and stuff. I’m trying. Look… how about I fly you up to Dash’s place, and give you some tongue? I noticed how that was for you. Dash probably warned you that it takes a little getting used to, I can work on doing it more gently and not overstimulating you…”

“Spoilsport,” snorted Applejack.

Gilda’s eyes widened. “Oh, really? No wonder you’re with Dash. Soooo… you like the full effect, huh? I thought I was falling out of the nest a little too soon with that one but I guess it has its charms?”

Applejack still didn’t look up, but she blushed and grinned and flicked her tail, and as Gilda studied her expression her own tail began to lash.

“All right,” said the griffin, “how about this? I pick up my sweet little pony and bear you carefully off to Rainbow Dash’s place, flying super gentle because I saw how you were about heights, and I lay you down on the bed still all nice and pony-like and spread your lovely legs and lay down between them real smooth so I don’t freak you out… and THEN I overstimulate the fuck out of you?”

Applejack snorted again, this time with laughter.

“Hey, it’s not fucking funny, okay?” protested Gilda. “Do you know how difficult it is to get pony pussy if you’re a griffin? You guys get triggered sometimes and only the brave ones like Rainbow Dash can really take on an excited griffin. All I’m saying…”

“Oh, I heard what you said,” grinned Applejack. She peered up from under her blonde bangs with coy wickedness. “Maybe I’m brave or maybe I’m jes’ stupid in th’ head, but around about now, all that sounds like th’ best thing ever. Yes please, do all that, an’ I’ll give you what you like, too. Jes’ one thing, though.”

“Yeah?” blinked Gilda.

“Ah…” began Applejack, and gulped. “Ah needs ya to do somethin’ for me, first, ta set me up. Prob’ly nothin’ too difficult for you—I reckon you kin.”

Gilda blinked again, racking her brain. “Anything, babe. Let you warm up with a hoof first? Start on the hide before going for the pink? I know Dash needs me to build up to it sometimes, I totally understand.”

Applejack shook her head. “Naw.” Her eyes glittered with mischief, and her hind legs trembled, her tail flicking even harder with agitation.

“So what, then?” squawked Gilda in exasperation.

Applejack licked her lips. Her mouth had gone dry. She could not stop grinning.

“Catch me!”

And with that, she was off, sprinting across the field, and behind her Gilda whooped with delight and stormed into the air, instinctively caught up in the new game. She swooped upon Applejack, and then squawked harshly and almost crashed, for Applejack had aimed a kick at her as she carefully descended.

“What the fuck, you fucking pony?” shrieked Gilda, but Applejack stopped and rolled, lolling on her back with her legs splayed. “Come an’ get me!”

“Oh, that’s how you want it?”

“Thought you was a GRIFFIN!”

“What?” squawked Gilda. “Oh, you are shittin’ me! I’ll go for your clit first, you hear me? Pony temptress!”

“All talk an’ no action,” teased Applejack, and then grunted and scrambled to her hooves in haste, for Gilda had charged. Laughing, she galloped away, her heart pounding and all the colors of the day glowing around her in hallucinatory vividness, hitting her top speed just to stay clear of the avenging griffin, just as if she didn’t want to be caught.

At first it had been a game just like she’d played with Rainbow Dash, but something had happened to her when she felt Gilda swooping down, claws outstretched, and Applejack helplessly felt herself escalating things, pushing harder and harder beyond friendly roughhousing. She swerved hard as Gilda came in again, aimed another wild kick that the griffin narrowly avoided with a filthy curse, and Applejack lost her head and began sprinting back toward Sweet Apple Acres without looking behind her…

There was a rushing of air, and Gilda’s body slammed into hers, knocking her off her stride, and Applejack would have fallen but those powerful forelimbs wrapped around her body and yanked her into the air. The ground dropped away beneath her, and her eyes first went wide in utter shock at her situation, and then shut tight against the sight of Ponyville from hundreds of feet up.

“Fuck,” muttered Gilda, in Applejack’s terror-dazed ear. “Got too into it. If anypony saw us… Hold on to your hat!”

Applejack couldn’t, but her luck was in. Her hat stayed firmly on her head, even as Gilda hit her top speed, trying desperately to get to Rainbow Dash’s house before some bystander saw what could only appear to be a pure and unprovoked griffin attack. Gilda cursed as she strained every wing muscle to get herself and Applejack into hiding. “You fucking lame crazy pony, oh shit are you gonna get it now, what were you thinking? I’ll bite your clit off. No, seriously, you’re so in for it, you’re not gonna be able to walk. I’m gonna wipe you out, you're history. Did Dash teach you that shit?”

The griffin’s panting, lusty abuse, delivered as she flew her fastest to her lair, turned Applejack’s blood to water—and as Gilda’s forelegs tightened harshly around her body, she felt herself going limp again, and once more felt that little voice telling her to stop fighting, to just lay back and the hurt wouldn’t be so bad and she wouldn’t feel a thing. Endorphins flooded her again, just as they had that first time, and as Gilda burst in through Dash’s front door Applejack barely saw it, for she’d gone wobbly and dizzy in a strange blend of erotic expectance and prey’s surrender, and wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.

Gilda flung her roughly onto Rainbow Dash’s bed in a sprawl of flopping earth pony limbs, prepared to continue the roughhousing, wrestling Applejack into position as if she was expecting a frenzied kicking. She seized Applejack’s hindlegs, claws gripping each hock in grim earnest, wrenching them into an exposed, splayed position, diving forward with feverish, wild eyes to lick that pony vagina mercilessly…

Gilda hesitated. Gilda stared. Gilda’s beak dropped open in astonishment.

She looked on, without doing a thing, as her earth pony feast shuddered and moaned drunkenly, nipples stiffly erect, exquisite vagina juddering and twitching without even the most glancing taste. The firm shapely hocks she held weren’t struggling; their spastic jerking was only a result of the profound climaxes that racked Applejack’s helpless body. Gilda let one leg go, and it just sagged, twitching. She stared in consternation. Her pony lover was obliterated in orgasm, and she’d done exactly jack shit—she hadn’t even had time to get started.

Gilda sat very still, staring at Applejack’s vagina as it oozed and twitched its convulsive orgasmic shocks, listening to Applejack’s abandoned wails and cries. It seemed to take a very long time for the quivering mare to subside. Gilda didn’t even twitch a wing as she waited. Finally, Applejack lay quiet, relaxed in her obscene, sprawled posture, staring into nothingness as if in some sort of trance… and she jerked, as a curt phrase cut the air.

“What the fuck was that?” demanded Gilda.

“Aggg…” gurgled Applejack.

“Articulate,” said Gilda. “Seriously? I knew I was good, but I didn’t fucking lay a tongue on you! It’s hard to be proud of your pussy eating when you don’t actually get to do any of it. I’m afraid to touch you now in case I set you off again. What happened?”

There was no response. Gilda slunk cautiously around, with one last longing glance at that delectable marepussy, to see Applejack’s face more clearly. At first she thought she’d snapped the hapless pony’s mind completely, for the lovely green eyes just stared at nothing—but then Applejack blinked and began to come to her senses. As she did, she began to blush harder and harder, and a look of dismay steadily overcame her.

“What happened, Applejack?”

Applejack gulped, unable to rise. “Oh horseapples…”

“Okay, let me try that another way,” said Gilda carefully. “It looked kind of like you just came as hard as I’ve ever seen a pony come, and that includes fucking Rainbow Dash, and you know what she’s like—except I didn’t even touch you, or do any of my oral things. You came anyway, until you literally couldn’t come any more. Why?”

Applejack stared into space, scarlet with mortification. She gulped, again, and her inverted frown gave Gilda a mocking merry smile. “Aw, hell.”

“Do you want help flipping over or something? That doesn’t look comfortable. Uh, assuming it’s safe to touch you? I don’t suppose maybe your body got so sensitive that a touch or even a breath makes you have orgasms for five minutes?” said Gilda hopefully.

“No such luck,” managed Applejack, “an’ sure, flop my ass over. Oh, gosh…”

Gilda grasped Applejack’s foreleg with her claw, and the earth pony whimpered, shuddering at the touch.

“You are! You are, like, come-just-from-breathing-on-her pony, even more than Dash!”

“Naw,” said Applejack weakly, “I got this. I got somethin’ else too, I think. Ah kin feel it, now ah jes’ wonderin’ what I’m gonna do with it. Ah’m stuck with it, there ain’t no denyin’. For pony’s sake…”

“Yeah!” said Gilda. “Exactly! For pony’s sake, I want to know why you seem upset. I mean, as great as it is to be so sexy you produce orgasms from just looking at a pony, I have this nagging feeling you’re not telling me everything. One more time. What the fuck happened, Applejack?”

She rolled Applejack onto her side and arranged her head comfortably, and lay beside her, staring into those lovely green eyes with hawk-like directness. Applejack, in turn, melted under that gaze, and felt her exhausted body winking and signaling further surrender to her voracious lover.

“Talk,” demanded Gilda flatly. “You look so horny, and so miserable. If there’s something wrong, I’ll fix it. If there’s something I should do, I’ll do it. I want to be like one of you ponies and I’m not gonna give up, so tell me what’s wrong or I’ll bite your ear off.” She winced. “Sorry. Griffin phrase. We don’t actually do that, it’s just a saying.”

Applejack quivered, her heart suddenly pounding again, her breath coming in shallow pants. “Y’ kin.”

“What?” snapped Gilda.

“If ya like.”

“Whoa there, pony,” said Gilda. “Not the kind of compliment I want.”

“Uh, uh, nevermind then,” stammered Applejack. Her face twisted, and she began to cry. “Ah did it again! Aw, horseapples!”

“What the fuck is the matter with you? Do I have to tell Dash I broke her marefriend?”

Applejack’s lip quivered. “Yep. I reckon! ‘Cos I cain’t hold with this, nohow…”

She froze. Gilda was pounding her claw on the bed, and then she’d seized Applejack’s face in both claws and was glaring at her from about an inch away, grinding her beak in a sudden temper.

“Tell me what happened!” Gilda demanded, and held her entranced gaze.

Applejack felt herself sinking into those burning eyes, and suddenly it was all so easy to say.

“Ah thunk you was gonna hurt me. Real bad. An’ then everythin’ felt all okay an’ wonderful, real sudden-like, an’ I felt no pain. An’… an’ it would be okay. You could go ahead an’… an’ do it.” Applejack gulped. “Y-you kin. When you look at me that way. Ah’m gittin’ that feeling some more now. G-go on.”

As the warmth began to flood her, the griffin eyes dropped and broke the entranced gaze.

Applejack lay, helplessly, limp from extended orgasm, looking at her predator who stared dully at Rainbow Dash’s rumpled bedsheets. She felt total peace, having given herself completely up: from her sexual desires and private parts, to her body’s flesh and blood, right down to her darkest inner secrets that she herself hadn’t realized were there. Gilda, on the other hoof, looked troubled.

“My Mom told me that happened,” said Gilda. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe her. I thought maybe she was just making shit up to feel better about herself.”

Applejack watched, silently, wide-eyed.

“I didn’t realize it was true,” said Gilda. “Holy shit. It’s horrible. I guess it’s just as well. I hope the little things get it, too. And that is SO fucked up, when I really think about it, but still…”

Applejack watched.

“I didn’t want this,” said Gilda quietly. Her eye glinted, a tear threatening to emerge. “I don’t want this.”

“Please,” said Applejack, “don’t you cry?”

At that, Gilda turned to her imploringly. “Well, then, don’t talk about things I don’t believe in! Don’t you understand I want to be like a pony? Griffins suck, dude! When you do me, I get to feel like I’m a pony mare taking on a stallion, and it’s mind-blowing and I can pretend I’m this grass-eating flower child with a long poofy tail and hooves that can’t tear apart the flesh of living things, not even little things!”

Gilda controlled herself, her eyes glistening.

“And that would be good, okay? That would be a good thing to be. That’s, like, something to admire about you guys, something that other griffins don’t understand, though it’s not like I haven’t tried to make them understand. I went to a pegasus flight camp for years. I want to BE a pegasus, or at least act as much like one as I can. It helps that it’s Dash I hung out with, she meets me halfway.”

She gulped, and fixed Applejack with a hurt, fierce glare.

“Are you seriously telling me that when I do you, you get to feel like cooling meat that’s about to be griffin chow?”

Applejack’s eyes were grief-filled pools of surrender. “Ah’m sorry. Ah’ll be whatever you want me to be. Cain’t help it. Don’t wanna be no burden to nopony.”

Gilda sighed. Her body sagged, her feathery head hung, and Applejack looked on in dismay—and then, Gilda was looking sidelong at her, raptor eyes imploring.

“Can you do something for me? If you’re up to it?”

“Ah’ll do anythin’. Anythin’.”

“Let me do what I wanted to do,” said Gilda. “Before all that rough play. Before you went all prey on me. Dude, you’re not the only one with a fetish about eating pony, okay? I was all up your yingyang the last time we fucked, and I so want to eat you out again. It’s the best thing ever—well, that and pony cock! Everything pony is just the best thing ever.”

“But…” said Applejack, and bit her lip. “Ya coulda had your fill, all this time. And, uh, more.” She trembled, still longing to give herself up entirely and surrender to that warm feeling’s powerful undertow. It had kicked in so hard, and it felt so good.

“No, you don’t get me,” said Gilda. “I want to give you pleasure. I want to worship that vagina, lick it, not eat it. Especially now, especially after what you did… Can you lay back and be NOT hurt? Pretend I’m Dash or something. Like… like a p… pony could, c…”

Suddenly Gilda wouldn’t look at her. Applejack hesitated, and then said, “Darlin’?”

Gilda’s voice was quiet and controlled, but she still wouldn’t meet Applejack’s eye.

“Like a pony could really love me back—and trust me.”

“Gilda,” said Applejack clearly. “Look at me.”

The griffin’s eyes were dry, but terribly strained, as she faced Applejack.

“Can’t be harder than teachin’ that way of lovin’ to Dashie,” said Applejack. “She din’t even want to be tender, an’ you do. Well, I hear ya. An’ if this is what you want to learn, I am deeply honored. So c’mere.”

“Yeah?” said Gilda.

“Yeah. Prob’ly a lot more how my Granny pictured you an’ me… never you mind! Gonna need your help on account of I’m still jelly, but roll me on my back, spread my legs and de-liver your ecstacy. I kin stand it, I’m strong.” She hesitated, and added, “An’ even if I weren’t… what a way ta go!”

Gilda frowned. “No, don’t joke, not funny from you.”

“Aw,” said Applejack. “Shit, if I ain’t allowed to, don’t know who is… come on, then? Time ta make sweet pony love.”

Slowly, hesitantly, Gilda prowled across the bed on furry cat and talony bird feet. Gently, as if trying not to touch Applejack’s flesh with her sharp claws, she coaxed her lover’s pony body into its obscene, sprawled position again, vagina tantalizingly exposed, warm swellings of breasts comforting and sensuous between those spread legs.

Softly, Gilda nuzzled those breasts, not with her beak but with the side of her face, the soft rustling of feathers against stiffening nipples, her predator’s eyes closed in worshipful contemplation of the smells and softnesses and feels of it all.

Tenderly, Gilda licked her pony lover’s groin, breasts, vulva, with light caressing touches and firm loving strokes, waiting until Applejack’s vagina glistened with wetness and winked eagerly for her, then slowly progressing bit by bit until she was groaning in a transport of shuddering desire and pressing her scratchy little tongue as deeply into mare pussy as she possibly could—erotically devouring what she would not carnivorously devour, and revelling in her mare’s shudders and cries as she made passionate love to her special pony that loved her back and trusted her completely.

Gilda came without even touching herself, just flinging herself into the fantasy and devoting herself utterly to Applejack’s pleasure. Applejack came over and over until she’d passed out, woken to more orgasm, and passed out again, to come awake nestled in Gilda’s forelegs, enfolded in a furry feline embrace. Gilda was so warm.

Applejack nuzzled against Gilda’s feathery chin. “Mmmmm… not bad for an amateur pony.”

The griffin’s voice was slow and sated. “Mmmm. Wiseass. I was your mare all over again and you know it.” She nuzzled back. “So, done with the creepy prey thing?”

Applejack frowned.

“Y’ had YOUR turn,” she said.

Masks

“Well, if I can’t have a cape, you should at least let me have a mask!” protested Lyra.

Princess Luna snorted, amusedly. “Exquisite one, be reasonable! We are pleased thy journeys provide thee enjoyment, but garbing thee in strange disguise seems excessive!”

“What’s so strange about it? I can be the mysterious masked mare. The Mmmmmmm!”

That got a still louder laugh. “Naughty little pony! Thou art indeed the Mmmmm, as you well know, but we are discussing the manner in which you travel Equestria in our absence…”

“But you have to let me have fun with it!” protested Lyra. She dropped her eyes, and pouted. “Because it is in your absence. That’s the problem.”

“Oh, Lyra,” sighed Luna. “It’s for your protection. We must send you forth, lest we use you up in transports of too much ecstacy.”

Lyra trotted over and nuzzled her Princess affectionately, tucking her head under Luna’s chin. This, from any other unicorn, might be uncomfortable—but it was different with Lyra. Her horn had been half burned away, healed up enough to smooth the charred end, and then in another erotic paroxysm, she’d lost a third of what she had left and Luna had set about her plans for sending Lyra away.

That had worked so well that Lyra’s horn looked pristine—but only in that the burned end had rounded over. It was still a mere nub compared to any other full-grown unicorn, and gave her a disturbingly foal-like quality that wasn’t reflected in Lyra’s personality or attitude. It was this nub that Lyra pressed lovingly to Luna’s neck, in sensuous rubbings that made the Princess of the Moon tremble. Though she could not feel bound by unicorn mores, she knew how wanton her sweet Lyra was being, and she quivered to feel her little pony love-making with just a touch.

“Indeed, even now thou seekest more such transports!”

“Of course I do, I’m yours,” said Lyra. “I should be here. I want to devote myself to you. Like if you were my stallion, and you were giving me foals when you do that and… hey! If I’m going to take your horncome again and again, do you know if there’s a way you could turn into a male alicorn and…”

“There are no male alicorns,” interrupted Luna.

Lyra blinked. “Huh?”

“None,” said Luna. “The nature of the condition precludes it, little one. My sister, ever trying to make sense of the universe around her, has speculated that it is akin to our giving birth to magical versions of ourselves.”

Lyra’s eyes were sharp under that disturbingly foal-like horn-nub. “So you’re all females and magical versions of… ooh! Does that mean you’re all female unicorns to start with?”

“We did not say that, dearest,” chided Luna. “Do not pry. We are more mysterious than you know, for all your… mmmmm-ystery.” She kissed Luna on the nose, smiling a secret smile.

“Well, then, if you’re strictly female, we can’t get me pregnant from you,” said Lyra, her mind seizing on the idea and worrying it like a terrier. “Or… ooh! If I got turned into a male, not just with the bit which we don’t have anymore, but the real deal…”

Luna laughed. “Little pony! Desist with thy panting to bear my foals! Let us just share our sweet life and think not of the morrow!”

“But that’s just it, what if you could bear mine? Huh? Oh—unless you wouldn’t want that. Or if that’s impossible too.” Her eyes were big and solemn. “Luna, what is possible? I can have foals, I’m a unicorn mare. You’re an alicorn. Can you have babies?”

“How do you wish me to answer?” said Luna.

“Tell me the truth,” said Lyra. “I want to know everything about you. Even if it’s sad.”

Luna hesitated, and Lyra’s face began to fall. “Oh, Luna!” she said. “I’m so sorry!”

“Nay, nay!” said Luna. “We are merely wondering… how much we may or should reveal.”

Lyra’s eyes widened. “It’s that secret?”

“It can cause problems, Lyra. For an alicorn, to become pregnant is a grave matter. We are vulnerable, our magic hobbled. Be aware that we lose a little bit of that magic to the process, Lyra, and it is not a thing we think of lightly.”

Lyra pressed more closely to her alicorn lover. “Tell me. Tell me everything. I have to know, now.”

“And what shall you do, little pony, if we refuse to answer?”

Lyra considered. “Cry? Beg? No, I think I’ll just remember and I won’t be able to let go of the thought now that you’ve mentioned it. And the more you hide it, the more obsessed I’ll be, and I’ll think of nothing else, and I’ll always come back and bug you until you finally tell me, or until it makes me sick with curiosity and I end up dying young, wasting away in worry about the big secret you refuse to tell me. So there.” She stuck her little tongue out.

Luna chuckled. “Poor little pony. Methinks we might find ways to distract you, even so.”

“No!” squeaked Lyra, jumping away, prancing about. “Tell me, tell me! How do alicorns have foals?”

“Will you promise not to speak of it around my sister, dear one?”

“How come? Will she be mad, are you not supposed to do that?” said Lyra.

“Oh, no,” smiled Luna. “Which is to say: no, she will not be angry, but the subject may dismay her. It is her happiness I wish to safeguard.”

Lyra looked shrewdly at her Princess. “She did it, didn’t she? She had a foal and it didn’t work out. Is it Cadance? Is Cadance disappointing somehow?”

Luna stared, startled. “That is not where Princess Cadance came from, little pony!”

“Then, is it…”

“We shall have to explain this lest ye run rampant with idle curiosity,” said Princess Luna, and sighed. “Vow that thy lovely lips will be sealed on the matter, or I shall reveal nothing!”

Lyra squealed with delight, and scampered over to snuggle against Luna’s body, and be covered by a large, deep-blue wing. “They will! Why would I want to talk to other ponies anyway? I have you. Tell me everything.”

That got her a concerned look. “We have spoken of the texture of thy precious life. Talking to other ponies should be a gift, dearest: how few years both you and they have to enjoy such pastimes!”

Lyra snorted with contempt. “As if. Did I tell you about the guy in Manehattan? Ridiculous!”

“Indeed not. A stallion in Manehattan insulted you?” Luna narrowed her eyes.

Lyra batted her eyelashes. “Don’t look grouchy. I handled it. Actually it was pretty funny.”

“We await the tale, oh delicious consort…”

“Hey, it was after a consort! A cello consort by Octavia. She played beautiful music though it was dedicated to something I wouldn’t have expected. But Looney, if I tell you, you have to tell me all about alicorns getting pregnant!”

“You have my word. Proceed!”

Lyra nestled closer, and began her tale.

“He’d been watching me, but not in a bad way, just sort of looking—and after the concert, he came up and started to ask me about my… prowess.”

Luna blinked. “Your what?”

“That’s pretty much how I reacted. I kind of stared at him, and he stared back with this intense look, but his eyes kept wandering. Up.”

“Oh, my,” said Princess Luna, gazing down at her lover’s burned-away horn, healed over to foalish nubbyness.

Lyra nodded. “I played along, a little. I thought I could call you if it didn’t go well. Was that wrong of me?”

“Indeed not! Yet we would fain have thee request our presence in a better class of emergency. This unicorn, what did he do?”

“Oh, he didn’t do anything. We were just talking. He seemed so needy. He was trying to tell me it was okay to be the way I was, that there were unicorns who appreciated it. He said he would be gentle. He started to explain that it was wonderful we’d met, because of the way he was…”

“Oh, my,” said Luna.

“Uh-huh,” said Lyra. “That was when he started to blush, was when he tried to explain how good it would feel for him to horncome in me. Because I was such a weakling, and would be happier with another weakling who wouldn’t burn me up in sex.”

Luna’s jaw dropped.

“That was when I started to laugh at him,” said Lyra, nonchalantly. “I couldn’t stop. The whole idea was so ridiculous. Me, a weakling! I had to find you before I could find a unicorn I wouldn’t just overpower, if I got excited, and this fellow thought my magic wasn’t enough to have sex with?”

“Oh, Lyra,” said Princess Luna. “How did he react, this fellow?”

“Ran away crying,” said Lyra, and snorted. “Good thing, too. If we had done it, I’d have killed him, probably. It’d be like you, on me.”

“It would not be unfit to suggest, perhaps, a little kindness…”

Lyra turned her head and looked up at Luna. “Why?”

Luna sighed. “Perhaps not. Curiously, your tale leads into mine. I shudder to think of what I’d have to go through for that poor fellow to impregnate me.”

Lyra couldn’t help but burst out laughing at Luna’s grave face and solemn statement. “What? Oh, Looney, what, what? You are a looney to get an idea like that!”

“Ah, but dear Lyra, you see the problem. Do you think that under normal circumstances even you could do it? Assume the best will in the world, a fully intact horn, everything going your way.”

Lyra considered this. “That was me the first time. Though you were so terribly pent up… I’ve had you again, when you weren’t as pent up, though, and it was about the same. If we arc, it’s time to light up Lyra.” She shuddered, eyes closing, teeth baring in a sensuous snarl. “I love it, I love it so much.”

“Yes,” said Luna, “but if you wished to, could you make it go the other way? I know you don’t wish to. But if you did?”

The sensuous look didn’t leave Lyra’s eyes as she considered the question. She began to pant, and wriggle. Finally, she crooned, “Oh, no. Never. It’s too powerful. Not even me.” Then a thought struck her, and she twisted her head and looked up at Luna, eyes wide in wonder.

Princess Luna nodded. “But yes, dear one. A unicorn must come into my horn as part of the impregnation, or there would be no foal. Think about it. I have a horn too, darling, just like you!”

Lyra gaped. “It’s not possible. You’re too strong. How is that even possible?”

Luna’s smile was wry. “Through a process of weakening, my little pony. Not a simple task. Alicorns do not foal often, for obvious reasons.”

Lyra nodded, awed. “I guess not! I know when you were pent up, it was overwhelming.” She licked her dainty lips. “Sexual exhaustion? It’s a game of drain the alicorn?”

Luna chuckled. “Indeed! In all my years I have never heard it called that… yes, you’ve got it. I would have to be weakened to where a unicorn—a very potent, magically virile unicorn—could come into my horn and I’d be helpless to prevent it.” Her face turned a still more midnight shade of deep blue. “The thought is… erotic.”

Lyra moaned. “I know. I know! I can only imagine how you feel. When I found you, my life was complete in a way that never existed before. Princess! Do you really want to feel me come inside you? To be flooded with my magic? Oh my gosh how can you be so sexy, eeeee!”

Luna was an almost black purple, and wouldn’t look up to meet Lyra’s eyes. “We would not argue the point, though there are concerns that, perhaps, are lost in the flood of emotion for the beloved…”

“I want to!” squealed Lyra, trembling. “Oh Looney, I want to do that for you!”

“Hold!” said Luna. “We said it was not a simple task, we have not finished explaining!”

“You’re telling me!” cried Lyra. “It’s hard to believe that one unicorn could wear you out, but if there’s a way…”

“Exactly,” interrupted Luna. “You’ve got it. And one of the secrets is right here.” She enfolded Lyra in her slightly blush-ruffled wing.

“Huh? Oh! I get it, I know how much you love it when I pay attention to your wings. It makes me envious sometimes. If I…”

“Wait,” said Luna. “Listen. I said one unicorn. It is not a matter for one unicorn. There must be a pegasus, attending to my wings.” She blushed worse and worse. “Or… two.”

“What?” squeaked Lyra, shocked.

“It is a question of size,” muttered Luna, “they are large wings. To, to, to be sure of conception one has a different pegasus attending each wing.” Her body trembled as she dutifully explained the process. “It is also possible for the unicorn to take one wing, and the pegasus the other. Cadance favors two strong pegasus guards combined with the unicorn, but she is not really completing the process, merely enjoying herself and her nature. Um. I should not have said that.”

Lyra hadn’t got past an earlier sentence. “A flathead? You need a winged flathead?”

Luna looked down, resentfully. “Our concerns are redoubled…”

“But I don’t understand!”

“I have wings, like them,” chided Luna. “Do you question the ways of magic? I cannot. Magic creates alicorns and we are helpless before its whims. Though I did not always believe so, I am one of the fortunate ones and magic’s requirements of me are not onerous. I am telling you how alicorns foal, and would have you listen and learn. My worries are increased, hearing you talk.”

Lyra looked chastened. She nuzzled Luna reassuringly, and said, “Don’t worry, please! I’ll try to learn. So it takes a very strong unicorn, and you also have to get some pegasi as sort of scaffolding to do your wings really hard. I hope they don’t get in the way of the unic… uh-oh. Luna? I know I’m not a stallion… but please don’t tell me it’s a pegasus that has to come inside you to finish the job?”

Luna would not look at her. She stared angrily at the bedspread she lay on. “Nay.”

“Oh good, I was worried that…”

“There are three pony races,” said Luna. She turned her head, and stared Lyra right in the eye as she said it.

At first Lyra stared, uncomprehending, and then her eyes widened, and she began shaking her head. “No no. No, no…”

“I love you, Lyra, but yes.”

“No!” squeaked Lyra. “That’s just wrong! You’re a magical creature beyond all magical creatures! It’s… a desecration!”

“I have a horn, just like you have,” said Luna implacably. “I have wings, like the pegasi have. And I have a vagina, like the earth ponies have. I am a magical creature, female in essence whatever my origin, and I can foal and give birth—but to do so I must have a unicorn overcome me with his or her horn, while at least one pegasus seizes my wings, and then my womb is filled with earth pony semen and it is complete. Three races unifying inside me and kindling new life. That is how it is done, now and forever, for my kind…”

She paused for effect. She looked down at her little unicorn pony’s dismay, and her eyes burned.

“You will not scorn any part of this!” roared Luna, in Royal Canterlot Voice.

Lyra’s lip quivered madly, and then she burst into tears. She didn’t pull away, but she wailed her distress and cowered under Luna’s wing, and Luna let her vent her feelings, knowing that the spring-green unicorn was prone to such explosive moods. Luna also stared into space with a sour expression, for she knew that she’d unearthed a problem. If it persisted—well, perhaps seeking this greatest intimacy, this greatest celebration of mortal pony love, could still be considered. Yet, tainting it with mortal failings seemed unworthy. Some lives never reached the greatest enlightenment and had to be loved for what they were.

In that spirit, she snuggled sobbing Lyra with her enfolding wing, and waited for the tears to slow.

Gradually, they did. Lyra clung to Princess Luna as if trying to shield her from some awful fate, and fought to wrap her mind around what to her seemed a ghastly, arbitrary process unfitting to such a magical creature. Finally, she looked up at Luna, woebegone.

“I guess it’s worth it. If that’s what it takes to make an alicorn. That makes it okay. It’s so strange. I’m trying to understand, please don’t be angry with me?”

“Nay,” said Princess Luna gently.

“Huh?”

“That is not how you make an alicorn. It is not an alicorn that my womb would nurture and gestate.”

Lyra gazed up at her, pleadingly. “Then… a unicorn? Some other thing we’ve never seen before? Some magic beyond magic?”

“In a sense, poor Lyra, in a sense,” said Luna gently. “An earth pony foal. It produces an earth pony foal, Lyra. I would give birth to a simple, mortal, earth pony, quite naturally. That is the miracle of it.”

Lyra was shaking her head again. “But… but…”

“Unless you can understand this,” said Luna firmly, “it shall not be. We would ask you to consider it. Bearing an earth pony foal is creating new mortal life. It is the only way we alicorns can ever, ever touch the mortal world in that way. You cannot imagine our feelings on the matter, dear one. You plainly cannot understand in the least what a devout, soul-shaking miracle it is for one such as myself to rejoin the great tapestry of mortal ponykind and create life and love that binds me willingly to the world and draws me from the infinite to contemplate the source of all things, the root of all our lives, and be part of that when it seemed utterly lost… you cannot imagine, Lyra!”

She gulped, and continued. “And now, I cannot cease to imagine it.”

Lyra’s eyes were very wide as she gazed, stunned, into the depths of her beloved’s earnest gaze.

Pinkie Pie trotted up the path, and banged on the door with a hoof.

“We’re here! We’re here for our little pony playdate!” she called, cheerfully.

There was a little pause, and then Rainbow Dash pulled open the door. As her teeth gripped the handle, Pinkie looked fondly down at the top of Dashie’s head, noting that her mane was extremely disheveled, even shabby. Pinkie drew in a breath to ask if the foal had been keeping Rainbow busy…

Dash cringed back and Pinkie squawked in outrage. Little hooves had landed on her back, and Rock Candy dove straight over her head in his eagerness to get inside, whinnying shrilly.

“Hey!” yelled Pinkie. “Hey, mister ‘jump on Mom’! Watch it!”

He didn’t listen. He just bounced off all four hooves and did flips, beaming as he heard a sudden commotion from upstairs. Tiny hooves hit the floor and a green form with a powder-blue mane appeared at the top of the stairs, but for only a moment. Northern Spy wasn’t hanging around. With a look of extreme concentration, and to the alarm of Rainbow Dash and Applejack, Spy proceeded to run straight down the stairs as fast as she could, to Rock’s obvious delight.

“Whoa hey HEY!” yelled Applejack. Northern Spy didn’t listen, and didn’t slow down either. Just as she had the first time they’d met, she charged straight into Rock Candy and he went flying, legs flipping comically in the air.

“And where’s that high jumping now, huh, mister?” demanded Pinkie. “You know Fluttershy doesn’t like it when you let Spy do that! Oh, licorice. How’s it going, Applejack?”

“Absolutely wonderful in every way,” said Applejack staunchly. There were dark, dark circles under her eyes, and under Dash’s, and her jaw was tight as she watched the foals caper and play.

“Oh, good,” said Pinkie, and then instinctively hit the floor with hooves over her head, because her tail began twitching violently. Applejack’s and Rainbow Dash’s ears went back, and they glanced with alarm at the ceiling, but there was nothing to be seen there.

“Darn it!” said Pinkie, getting up. “It happened again! Now what could that m…”

She stopped, looking at Rock Candy. He was facing Spy, who pawed the floor with a hoof and lashed her tail, but he wasn’t watching her. He was staring past her, with an expression Pinkie had never seen before, and he wasn’t clowning around. He looked serious, solemn—awed.

Pinkie followed his gaze across the room. Rock was staring at a full-grown griffin, sitting quietly next to Granny Smith on the couch. Just for a moment, Pinkie’s mind went blank with utter panic. She nearly wet herself, couldn’t move or think.

Both the griffin, and Granny, looked very unhappy and uncomfortable.

“Applejack?” whispered Pinkie, as Spy head-butted Rock again. “What is this?”

“It’s everythin’ being fine is what it is!” snapped Applejack, tensely. “Nothin’ to worry about. New friends. Gilda here is hankerin’ to live like a pony, I figured on havin’ a lil’ tea party with us all together. You like parties, don’t ya?”

Pinkie trembled. Her tail twitched violently again. “Yes? I mean, yes, of course! Now I recognize her! We just haven’t had… ALL kinds of party guests… with the foals…”

“You don’t mind Gilda,” said Rainbow Dash encouragingly. “We’ve hung out before! This just might be a bad time to prank her. Ah ha, ha.” The laugh fell horribly flat.

Pinkie gulped. “Uh-uh. I mean, no, I wouldn’t! Oh, gosh. Are you sure everything is okay, Applejack? You’re letting Northern Spy play with, um, all your friends?”

Dash looked away. “Actually we had her napping until you showed up…”

“Forgot you was comin’,” said Applejack apologetically.

Pinkie stared at her. “But, Applejack, you don’t forget things like that! Are you okay?”

“Never better!” insisted Applejack. “Nothin’ like a nice day for gettin’ together and practicin’ a little ponyness. Wouldn’t you say, Granny? …Granny?”

Pinkie looked over, and Granny Smith was sitting, looking miserable, and glaring at the floor. She looked up resentfully at Applejack, and then visibly gave a start, and said, “Oh, sure as sh…ugarcubes an’ fine fresh apples! Yep. Right again.”

Pinkie glanced back at Applejack, and couldn’t see her face directly, but she’d raised a rear hoof for some reason. Granny looked truculent and sat stiff and straight, only her eyes moving as she looked back and forth, watching the foals play. Rock Candy was very distracted. He kept looking at the huge predator sitting on the couch next to Granny. He’d never seen a griffin before, but he seemed to know, somehow, what sort of thing she was.

Spy plowed into him again, and he careened into a table, sending a vase of flowers flying to shatter on the floor.

“Oh, be careful, Rock!” squealed Pinkie, and rushed to pick up the pieces, but Rainbow was already there, sweeping them into a neat pile with a hoof.

“Damn it, Spy, what are you, a goat?” she demanded, ruffling her wings in agitation. “What’s with the head butting and charging everywhere?”

“She do use her head,” said Applejack, “no denyin’ that. Quick, too.”

Pinkie glanced back at Granny, wanting to apologize for the loss of the vase, but the words stuck in her throat, for Granny wouldn’t look at anything. She just sat there next to Gilda, like a statue.

“I think the foals should play outside for now,” said Pinkie.

That galvanized Dash. “Right! Outside, both of you! No more breaking stuff!” She chased them out the door, Rock looking over his shoulder the whole time at Gilda. Pinkie hesitated, following them.

“Do you think all of us should come along?” she said, plainitively.

Applejack lifted her head, staring down challengingly at Pinkie, but before she could say a thing, a new voice broke in. “I think I’ll just go home,” said Gilda. “Or… you know. Back to your place, okay, Dash?”

“She’s staying at your cloud house?” squeaked Pinkie.

“Ah tole you and tole you,” said Applejack, “Gilda is learnin’ to be a pony. I guess that’s okay, Gilda, it was a charmin’ afternoon an’ good to have ya. You kin go.”

Gilda nodded. The feathers on her face were ruffled up, and she carefully didn’t look at Granny as she got to her formidable paws and talons, and walked awkwardly toward the door, obviously trying not to dig into the wood floor and damage it.

Pinkie’s eyes were wide as she watched this performance. “I’m… gonna go check on Rock!” she squeaked, and ran outside, leaving Applejack and Gilda alone with Granny.

Applejack and Gilda exchanged a glance.

“Points for trying, dude,” said Gilda. “I don’t think you get any for succeeding, today.”

“Like hell,” replied Applejack. “Don’t you give up on me now!”

That got a hint of a smile out of Granny, as Gilda shrank back, intimidated by Applejack’s boss-mare glower. “All right, all right!” said Gilda. “Um… should I wait until the ponies are gone? Or better yet, maybe you’ve got a back door I can use?”

“No,” said Applejack. “You use th’ front door like a pony. We’re gonna show this town th’ new you, an’ I will not have you skulkin’ around like that. C’mon!”

She trotted boldly out the door, her tail flicking lively, lifting her hooves high and looking around at her domain. The foals were playing with Pinkie out by the fence, while Rainbow Dash stood by, her head drooping. Apple Bloom was running up to her, calling, “Rainbow, ya seen Big Macintosh? He’s lef’ his plow just layin’ there! I was only gone for a minute!” As Applejack watched, one of the flower ponies trotted by on her way to town—Roseluck? Yes, Roseluck. She spoke to Pinkie, who gestured toward the house.

Roseluck looked over at Applejack, who began to trot forward to greet her. Then, the flower pony cowered back, looking past Applejack, her eyes wide in terror. Applejack raised a hoof, drawing in a deep breath for shouting, but it was no use: Roseluck whirled and ran back the way she came, a one-pony stampede, and Pinkie’s face fell as she watched Roseluck go.

Applejack heard the quiet padding feet coming up behind her. She didn’t dare look back, for her face had gone red, and the whole idea seemed absurd, and she was afraid she’d start to cry and could not let that happen.

“New me isn’t going over that well,” said Gilda.

“It will,” said Applejack. Her legs trembled as she stood, defiant.

As Braeburn slunk through the alley, on his way to the outskirts of Appleloosa and the awaiting plains, he heard a sound, and his ears pricked up in alarm, swiveling about.

“Who’s there?”

There was no reply.

“It won’t work,” he said, to the listening darkness. “Ah’ll git away. I’mma go and live the way I got to. Don’t know how y’all found me. You brought a set of hoof-cuffs, darlin’? ‘Cause you’ll need ‘em…”

There was a sniffle in the darkness, and Braeburn froze.

“…Princess?” he said in complete disbelief.

Slowly, a lovely form came out of the shadows, and Braeburn’s eyes widened and widened by the second.

“Princess? It is you! What the hay? Poor sweet lil’ darlin’, what’s the… wait a minute. Wait a minute!” he snapped. “If she put you up to this… Princess, did you come alone? Are you alone?”

Deep, limpid, innocent eyes gazed tragically into his. Those sweet lips parted.

“Ayep,” rumbled Big Macintosh, and his face twisted, and he wept, standing there helplessly.

Braeburn spent less than a second trying to work out if it was a trick. Princess never asked anything unreasonable and was so abjectly, pitifully grateful for everything, and Braeburn could not stand to watch him cry, and rushed forward to seize him in a fierce cowpony hug, shaking him to get some sense into him.

“Ah tole you not to tell. I tole you! Dammit! It’s like that, is it? Did they turn on you?”

Big Macintosh sobbed, nodding, melting into Braeburn’s embrace in his grief.

“Dammit, I should never have gone near Ponyville! Why din’t you listen when I tole you to keep th’ wild west th’ mild west, around them? Now I got a posse on my tail and one of my sweet lil’ fillies ain’t got no home to go back to! That’s s’posed to be the nice quiet life to take a break from, the safe place for you… how could you let ‘em catch you out? What am I gonna do now? This is terrible!”

Braeburn glowered into the darkness, and then his face hardened into a grim mask of resolve.

“Well, you ain’t. Alone, that is. Do you know why, Princess?”

“Why?” moaned Big Macintosh.

“Cos you’re comin’ with me.”

Big Macintosh gasped.

“Hope ya like th’ distant prairie?” said Braeburn, and his eyes crinkled up endearingly around the edges.

Exposed

Rarity stepped nervously towards Twilight Sparkle’s kitchen table, glancing around, her horn glowing as she carried a needle, thread, and cloth.

Derpy peered in the window from a safe distance. She remembered that Rarity had promised to help her and she’d visited Carousel Boutique and Sweetie Belle had giggled and said that Rarity was over at Twilight’s house for the night and wrinkled her nose cutely. She’d then been pulled out of sight by a little orange pegasus, so Derpy’d flown straight over to the old library tree where Twilight lived.

Derpy didn’t want to break the window again, so she had to watch Rarity through the window, and then land and go in through the door. She began to turn away, satisfied that Sweetie had told the truth, when she saw a scuttling motion that froze her blood.

A horrible, spider-like creature was in there with Rarity, behind her, stalking her.

Derpy screamed. Rarity’s head jerked around, and then she saw the creature too and her eyes went wide. She didn’t run, though. She just stood there, and Derpy watched as the horrible spider thing rushed, leaped, grabbed…

It had grabbed Rarity’s butt. She was just standing there and it looked like it was biting her—oh, sweet Celestia!

Derpy screamed again and dove straight into the window, smashing through it. Rarity squealed, “No, no!” but Derpy was not to be denied. She reared, and struck at the monster with her hoof, and it made a woody clonking noise like some sort of box.

Rarity shrieked in anguish. The thing had jerked and gone after her poor vagina again when Derpy kicked it, grabbing her so fiercely that it dug into her pretty flanks. Derpy’s nostrils flared, and as Rarity screamed, “Hold still, hold STILL!”, Derpy attacked the monster some more.

As her hooves battered it, it went crazy, and Rarity quit standing still and began to kick and jump. Her rear hooves caught the monster going up just as Derpy came down like vengeance upon it, and there was a big blue pop and a smell of tin, and a clattering noise, and suddenly Derpy was staring at Rarity’s bottom and watching trickles of blood leak from different places, and the monster was lying in pieces on the floor.

The pieces were wooden boxes and sticks and ropes and two forks like the unicorns used for fancy dining, the tines of which had Rarity’s blood on them. Derpy looked closer. It was worse than that. They’d got a little piece of Rarity’s pink vagina, just a tiny scrap. She glanced up in horror to see where the piece had come from, and found herself staring into Rarity’s enraged gaze.

“You BROKE it,” snarled Rarity, and Derpy’s jaw dropped.

“Huh?”

“Did I, or did I not tell you, to hold still? Damn you! Damn you and damn her, talk about irresponsible, doesn’t she understand it may not always be about my superlative self-control?”

Derpy blinked, dismay coming over her face, and she gulped and repeated, “Huh?”

Rarity looked down. “Oh, no! It did get a piece of me, oh damn it, damn it to pony hell! Ow! Derpy Hooves, what have you done?”

Derpy just stared helplessly, and then sagged backwards, plopped onto her rump, and began to cry.

Seeing that, Rarity cooled off, gritting her teeth and controlling her temper with a heroic effort. She glowered at nothing, and muttered, “This is going to be very, very difficult to explain.”

“Explain?” sniffled Derpy.

Rarity sighed. “And yet, I had better. Oh, Derpy! I cannot expect you to understand this. Perhaps the fault is really with Mistress. I’m not sure whether maybe Twilight is right after all, and she and I are not good for each other. Trixie is so terrifyingly ingenous regarding my pleasure, and when she tops she is so intimidating…”

“Pleasure?” sniffled Derpy, looking totally confused.

“That was a device, darling,” said Rarity, gently. “It wasn’t real. It is—was—a magical punishment device. And rather magical it was, too, I must say… while it lasted.” She pouted, annoyed.

“I don’t understand! I don’t understand any of this!”

Rarity sighed, again. “You don’t need to, darling, it is not for such as you. It’s for very bad ponies, who are very, very guilty, and need punishing. It lurked, waiting for me to not pay attention, and then it would pounce and bite me in a rather personal area. When it did, I was required to hold still and be completely submissive, at a moment’s notice, even while startled by the attack. After ten seconds of no motion, it would release, and then later it would pounce again when I was not expecting it. If I leapt or kicked, it would bite harder until I submitted.”

Derpy stared. Rarity added, “Trixie made it for me, knowing I could enter subspace very abruptly, as a sort of exercise in submission and expanding my experiences.”

She swallowed, gazing into space. “She’s good: dear Celestia, she’s good.”

Derpy trembled, shaking her head, her wings flapping spastically, and then wailed “No! No, that is not good! She’s a bad pony to make monsters that bite nice ponies!”

Rarity hid her face in her hoof. “Oh, machine-stitched shirring! No, Derpy, I asked her to do it! Perhaps not exactly that. And we did not bargain on a stranger bursting in, attacking the device, and preventing it from turning off!” She winced. “Damn it, though, Mistress, how dare you not build in failsafes? That is trusting me far too much.”

“Why? Why did she do such a terrible thing to you?” demanded Derpy.

Rarity set her jaw. She glowered at the floor, flushing slightly pink in the face, and when she looked up at Derpy it was with a petulant glare that belonged on a much younger filly.

“Because, my dear, darling Rarity is a bad, bad pony—and keep your derpy hooves out of it, for it is not your business!”

Derpy met her gaze, shocked. She kept staring into those bitter, angry violet eyes, and then she tossed her head, silky blonde mane flying, and she stamped a forehoof and looked Rarity straight in the eye, and ear.

“No! You’re a good pony, Rarity. You’re wonderful and kind and generous and you make beautiful dresses, and you promised to help me!”

Rarity’s gaze faltered, and dropped.

“I did, didn’t I? Twilight insisted on it. I agreed. Oh, hell! Look at me: Mistress may think nothing of such things, but oh, selfishness incarnate, caught up in my own dark pleasures like this! I apologise, Derpy Hooves… ah, yes, I suppose that is the most formal epithet we have for you, isn’t it? I do apologize, and indeed I will help you, darling.”

Derpy bounced, having understood the last bit. “Yes! Help me enjoy Dusk Shine penis!”

Rarity choked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Because there should be a name for when Twilight Sparkle grows a magic penis, which is Dusk Shine, which can be the name just for me to use when…”

“I’m sorry, Derpy, she didn’t ask me to arrange that,” interrupted Rarity. “I am to beautify you, and bring you to some likely den of pony iniquity that you may enjoy the favors of some other stallion. No?”

Derpy considered this. “No.”

“Oh, darling, be reasonable, do!”

“But I saw the penis Twilight makes, which looks like it would feel so good, and she is the most magical pony ever, and my Mama told me that one day there would be a magical pony…”

Rarity’s hoof zipped out, and gently touched Derpy’s lips, and for just a moment both eyes converged on the unexpected touch.

“Please, Derpy,” said Rarity earnestly. “No. Not Twilight. Humor me?”

She withdrew her hoof, and Derpy stayed silent, gazing into her eyes and thinking. Derpy’s lower lip quivered and pouted. Her big light-golden eyes brimmed with tears.

“If it’s humor, why do I feel like crying?”

“Oh, Derpy,” sighed Rarity, and gathered the wall-eyed pegasus into a hug, petting her and stroking her mane as she began to sob. “It’ll be okay, I promise. We’ll have you radiant and devastatingly enticing in no time, which will necessitate doing something with this mane and the eyes, eurgh… never fear! Poor thing. Once you’ve had a few nice stallions you’ll soon forget this foolishness about ‘Dusk Shine’.”

Derpy shook her head frantically. “Uh-uh! Nooo!”

Rarity’s gaze grew fixed. “Well… I had better change that no to a yes, yes. If I cannot, I fear Twilight will ask Trixie to intercede, rather than me.” She gulped. “I do not wish to see that. Let’s bring you back to the Boutique, and work on your mane, and not ask difficult questions for a while?”

Derpy sniffled, but accompanied Rarity willingly. They walked off, Derpy Hooves still dripping tears of romantic distress, Rarity dripping a thin trickle of red down the inside of her leg.

Behind them, they left a few smashed wooden boxes, some dowels and ropes no longer animated by a perverse spirit—and the tiny scrap of Rarity that represented a line she’d never been willing to cross, and which neither she nor Trixie had intended to cross.

Yet, there it was.

Applejack stalked her prey, fat stallionhood swinging heavily under her belly.

“Aw, yeah. Gimme that kitty tail. I’mma give you a pr’per buckin’ this t’me.”

Gilda panted. “Gently! Don’t push me. Not rough. Gotta keep my head.”

Her pony stallion smirked at her. “Do you r’lly want it gently an’ slow? R’lly?”

That got a fearsome glare. “Stop it! You’ll get yours. You’ll get yours when I’m in fucking control of myself! Don’t you dare take me too hard. It’s not safe, I clawed Dash that time and you know it!”

Applejack’s grin widened. “But I l’ke you wild!”

“Oh, you wait, you just wait…”

Then she let out a shriek. Applejack had leapt forward onto her, knocking her over and straddling her leonine body, grinning around the magic bit. Gilda writhed frantically, trying to dislodge the pony between her legs. “Gah! Not this way, this is how I got D… UHHH!”

The squelch was positively filthy. Pony flare prodded Gilda’s crotch just right, and wedged into her taut feline vagina with equine force… just a few inches, and then stopped.

Gilda’s beak hung open, and her eyes were wider than Applejack had ever seen them. The country mare with the big throbbing magic horsecock gazed down into those eyes, her teeth showing around the bit she held.

Gilda quivered all over. She tensed, and Applejack felt that griffin vagina grasp at the intruding bulk, and still she gazed up in vulnerability and alarm, terrified of flipping out feline-fashion and harming her lover.

“Th’s ‘s your pony lesson,” said Applejack. “Go limp. Be taken like a m’re. Ah k’n bite y’r ass if you ain’t got th’ idea prop’ly.”

Gilda panted. Her eyes began to glaze over. She squeezed at the ponycock entering her.

“I’m… good…”

“Y’re great,” corrected Applejack, and began to move.

Gilda let out a ragged squeal as she felt that massive horsecock thrust deeper, but Applejack had been listening after all. It wasn’t rough, except that the equine bulk itself sent Gilda mad with overwhelming sensation, and slid up her tight greased tunnel like griffin Doom packed into one unbearably thick erection.

She clutched at Applejack in every way, clenching onto the ponycock with all her might to try and manage it somehow, and embracing Applejack with frantic force: wrapping fore and hind legs around that equine barrel of a body to get her claws and talons out of play, feeling ruddy pony hide moving placidly against her inner thigh-fur.

“Oh! Ah! Nhhhh!”

“Th’re’s a good k’tty,” crooned Applejack, her eyes half-lidded. “G’d girl…”

She nuzzled Gilda’s throat as she took her, feeling her shudders and jolts of erotic madness as she stirred the griffinpussy with a very thick stick. As requested, there was no jabbing, no brutal stallion overload to drive the predator insane with feral, clawing orgasm. There was just the dreamy, sedate thrusting into her reeling, squelching lover.

It seemed almost a pity, thought Applejack. It was so tempting, in spite of or maybe because of the terrible risk. Gilda was so wickedly sexy when she was scary. She was awful sexy when she was a shuddering, moaning puddle, too. This time, it was the puddle: in fact, she’d been lubricating so hard out of that griffin-pussy of hers that Applejack was working the magic cock inside a noisily squelching pocket of slippery goo. Applejack could feel her flare was expanded, but her lover was so lost in arousal that there was little resistance as she worked a fleshy, mushroomlike bulge back and forth across Gilda’s vaginal walls. It swelled up fit to bust a birdkitty, but as long as she didn’t shove or buck…

“Ah! NGH! Ghh! Stop! Ohstop!”

Gilda’s feathers were all ruffled up, and her eyes were totally unfocussed. Her cry was breathless and panicky, and Applejack could see the tremors jolting her, driving her into that zone where she’d go totally insane and thrash and claw.

Applejack stopped. Then, before Gilda could get her breath, Applejack gritted her teeth on the bit, to swell up for a last send-off.

She grinned as she bore down. Gilda’s face was memorable, a look of utter shock and then a completely unguarded, defenseless expression as she went off like a party cannon. It wasn’t all mare-ish submission to the stallion, either. There were fierce grimaces, and convulsive kicks of the hind-legs wrapped around Applejack’s waist, a very exciting reaction. Applejack clung to her savage lover and allowed the spasms to subside, keeping herself stiff inside there.

“B’t,” she said speculatively, “I din’t c’me…”

Gilda looked stunned. “Gimme a minute,” she panted, still quivering all over.

“A whole m’nute?”

That got a smirk, which crinkled the corners of Gilda’s eyes and stole across her beak until griffin and pony were grinning manically at each other.

“How… about…”

Gilda’s paws, once more under strict cortical control and claws carefully sheathed, drew back and whisked under Applejack’s soft underbelly like they knew just what to do.

“NO!” squawked Gilda, and flung Applejack off her with one powerful and cautious heave. Her strength was fantastic, like the day-long power of an applebucking pony had been saved up to expend in brief mad bursts. Applejack flew through the air, bit flying from her mouth, and landed heavily on her side, scrambling to get up, but before she could get her bearings that powerful predatory form seized her, mock-biting the upper part of her foreleg, then her throat as Applejack whinnied in delicious alarm, and then a furry paw pinned her head to the bed while talons splayed her legs apart…

That tongue rasped her clitoris with manic intensity, and Applejack again could not tell eros from mayhem, and squealed wildly as her body surrendered to the onslaught and went off in titanic orgasm. It was a roaring sea of red and white flashes and then darkness, warm nurturing darkness.

When she came to, Gilda was wrapped around her and purring. Applejack sighed, dazed with satisfaction, and nuzzled back against her lover’s embrace.

“Oh, the little pony’s back with us, hmm?” crooned Gilda.

“Mmm,” agreed Applejack. “More.”

Gilda cuffed her ear with the back of her talons. It felt like dry sticks, but strangely hot. “I think you had enough! Seriously, though—was that good? Was that what you like, what gets you off?”

Applejack shrugged against her. “Maybe jes’ a lil’! Mmmmm…”

“Yeah, well, I was testing you. Are you okay, Applejack?”

Applejack tensed. “What you mean, Gilda? Okay how?”

She turned to look up at Gilda, and got a calculating, birdlike stare in return.

“I went for your throat. It was a play bite. Applejack, that sent you over the edge bigtime. I hardly even needed to go for your clit. I got the feeling I could have, you know, worried your throat with my beak and it would have got you off… Shit. Look at you!”

Applejack’s eyes were wide as saucers. Between her legs, her pony vag winked frantically, and her jaw was slack as she processed that vision of Gilda seizing her throat and biting and tearing.

“Applejack!” demanded Gilda. “Snap out of it! We gotta talk, Dash never wanted me to hurt her, and now this? I mean, I’m totally fine with playing, it just seems like…”

“No, I’m okay!” protested Applejack. “Jes’ takes me funny now and then. I jes’ like it rough, you know what I mean? You know me. You can count on me, like ever’pony counts on me! It’s fine, it’s all fine…”

“Listen. I have my reasons for worrying about what you’re doing. I don’t like it one bit. I can’t even begin to tell you how done I am with that whole scene. I like wild rough fucking as much as the next griffin, or I guess more, considering that I’m getting fucked by a little horse…”

Applejack interrupted, again. “An’ you’re fine with that ain’t you? Where do you come round askin’ me fussy questions about what gets me off?”

“Maybe we do need to think about what gets you off, Applejack.”

The earth pony shook her head, her eyes flashing. “No, ma’am! Ah do not want to discuss it. Y’all jes’ make me happy in your special way an’ I’ll make you happy in mine. Don’t you judge me!”

“I’m not judging you, what the fuck, Applejack?”

“Well, then, there ain’t nothin’ to talk about, is there?” said Applejack, her heart pounding.

She waited, as the griffin mulled that one over, and then went dizzy with relief to hear a contemptuous snort and clack of Gilda’s beak.

“Fine! Bitch.”

“Stallion,” corrected Applejack, and was reminded again of Gilda’s basic nature. She sounded pissed off, she’d just called her pony lover a bitch, but she was purring, and she snuggled Applejack close again. It seemed like starting a fight was a good way to not think about stuff.

Applejack resolutely refused to think further about what she’d just refused to talk about. A mare’s kinks were her own affair, and she could handle it, like she handled every damn thing in Equestria, seemingly. That was what everypony—and now, every griffin—expected.

She likewise refused to think about how the solution to every problem seemed to be her turning more and more into a stallion, with no way to be feminine anymore, ever.

Except that dark, final surrender.

“Anyways, ah don’t badger you about your damn mysteries,” she added.

Gilda stirred. “What the fuck are you talking about? What mysteries?”

“You know. Th’ C-word.”

“Cunt? Coffee?”

Applejack blinked. “What’s so mysterious about coffee?”

“Oh,” grumbled Gilda, “Dash always got on my case about it. I drink huge amounts, especially when I’m h… going out, and then I don’t sleep and I toss and turn and knead the covers and sometimes jab her with a claw, and I usually give bullshit excuses about that, too. I guess it’s safe to tell you, because you don’t dare bitch about it. Otherwise I’ll bug you about your perverted masochist crap, fair warning. Hell, you’d probably like it.”

Applejack snorted with laughter. “Fair enough! But naw. Do I gotta spell it out? Starts with Princess. Am I gettin’ warmer?”

Gilda tensed against her.

“That isn’t a mystery at all, Applejack. You just don’t want to hear it. Don’t ask.”

Applejack’s ear quirked, swiveling to pick up every word. “Don’t you tell me what I want. If it ain’t a mystery, what is it?”

“It’s worse, it’s a history,” said Gilda, and sighed, and regarded Applejack through slitted eyes. “Promise you won’t tell other ponies. I have enough trouble with them. Not even Dash! She isn’t curious about stuff like this.”

“All righty! I swear, I won’t tell nopony. Now, why don’t you like Princess Celestia?”

“The obvious reason,” said Gilda darkly.

“Um,” said Applejack. “She got better wings’n you? She’s prettier?”

“She killed my mother,” said Gilda.

“But my Mama told me I was a pretty pony,” protested Derpy.

“Why, yes, darling, certainly,” said Rarity. “I’m not doubting that. We seek only to heighten the loveliness that you already enjoy. We are gilding the lily. In truth this is ninety percent of my work, except with some of my clients it is rather more like gilding a rock. Or possibly a toad.” She shuddered. “But happily, our challenges here are nowhere near as daunting. You’ve got a lovely body, darling, we must simply do something with your mane and, of course, I shall have to work out an eye strategy.”

Derpy hesitated. “You don’t like my mane?” she asked, plaintively.

“It does not whisper ‘Fillydelphia’ in a sultry manner, darling.”

“Huh?” said Derpy. She blinked, and then pranced, flapping her wings excitedly and sending gusts of air around Rarity’s bathroom. “Oh! Oh! I can whisper!”

“Augh! Darling! Cease!” cried Rarity, as bottles of exotic lotion tumbled from the counter to be caught by frantic unicorn magic.

Derpy was heedless. “Ready? Ready?” She concentrated, and whispered “Fillydelphia!” like it was a very special secret she had to share.

Rarity’s mane hinted at wildness confined by the restraints of her grooming and coiffure. Her eyes betrayed no such restraint. “Please! Derpy Hooves, cease—that means stop—your mad flapping! You are spilling beauty aids!”

“What’s that for?” asked Derpy.

Rarity levitated the bottle she’d caught. “Oh! I suppose I must consider that a stroke of luck, no? As it happens, this is precisely the conditioner I was looking for.”

Derpy eyed the bottle, and the nearby air, suspiciously. “What does it do, Rarity?”

“Why, you may be under the misapprehension that it does nothing at all…”

“Then what good is it?”

“BUT, I hasten to add, you would be mistaken! Derpy darling, your mane is composed of delicate strands of hair, all the more since you’re a blonde of a particularly light shade and silky texture. Before we endeavor coiffure, we must condition the mane to strengthen and prepare it for beautification. Into the tub!”

Derpy’s eyes widened, and she balked, pawing the ground cutely with a forehoof. She swished her tail, knocking a jar of hoof polish to clatter on the floor, and protested “Do I haaaave to?”

Rarity had seized up the hoof polish jar with her magic, and stood defiant, regarding her ungroomed gray pegasus with a commanding gaze. “You do! Trust me, darling, the rewards shall be great. Have you ever had a spa treatment? I’m tempted to turn you over to the professionals, I simply felt it within my grasp because of your natural beauty.”

At this, Derpy’s face lit up radiantly, and she beamed at Rarity, placated. “My Mama told me I was a pretty pony, and she was right!”

“Yes, yes,” soothed Rarity. “Now, into the tub, and no more stalling!”

She winced, as Derpy took one big wing-assisted bound and splashed water everywhere. “I suppose that is one way of entering a bath…”

“My Mama told me that, too!” cried Derpy.

Rarity jerked. “Oh! Is she well? She seems to tell you so much!”

Derpy blinked. “She’s dead, silly!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too,” said Derpy, “but I am so glad she was my Mama. Rainbow Dash said she went to a special happy place and not to be sad for her.”

“Ah,” said Rarity, “well, Rainbow Dash would know all about going to a happy place.” She bit her lip, blushing slightly, but Derpy would probably miss the double entendre: Dash, were she here, would be insufferable about it, but Dash wasn’t present.

“Did your Mama tell you good things and teach you to be happy?”

Rarity coughed. “Ah! Er. Oh yes. Of course she did. I may say I was not always an easy unicorn to have as a daughter, to be perfectly honest.”

Derpy nodded. “I understand, Rarity. Mama said there is a place in her heart for me no matter how many things I knocked down by mistake. Did your Mama tell you that when you broke stuff?”

Rarity gulped. “Oh, yes! Something like it, yes.” Technically, she thought, ‘there’s a place in pony hell for you, stallion-stealer’ was not that much like what Derpy’s mama had said, but one had to make allowances for being unbearably provoked. And dreadfully out-classed, as well, thought Rarity, and winced anew at the arrogant vanity of herself.

“Oh, good,” said Derpy. “You’re such a nice pony, Rarity!”

Rarity gulped. “Well, thank you, Derpy Hooves. Now, shall we attend to your dear mane? I may say that you seem to keep it admirably clean, darling, kudos for that.”

Derpy nodded. “My Mama taught me how to do that!”

“Of course she did,” soothed Rarity.

“What did your Mama teach you?”

Applejack stared at Gilda in horror. “What?”

“She killed my mother. I told you, you didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t I say, she’s not sweet unless you’re a pony?”

“But… How do you know that?”

Gilda glared. “I fucking watched, that’s how. I’ve come a long way, Applejack. I really shouldn’t be telling you this…”

“No,” insisted Applejack, “you should. What the hay did she do that for? Are you sure it was Princess Celestia?”

“Hold on, hear me out, okay? Yes, I’m sure. I don’t think she really had to but I can’t blame her because my mom was eating a pony at the time. We’d only just got it. Her. It was a mare.” Gilda winced. “In fact, I was helping to hold her down. She was pretty good, too, I’ll never forget that. Uh… real fresh.”

Applejack couldn’t breathe. She trembled, and couldn’t look away from Gilda’s ashamed, burning eyes.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” said Gilda. “I was very little at the time and I didn’t know any better. I wish I had. Remember how it shook me when your masochist shit started throwing you into, I guess it’s shock? I watched this pony do that before she died. I couldn’t understand why my mom said she wasn’t feeling pain but I didn’t really give a shit about it at the time, I was so little.”

Applejack was still staring. Gilda sighed.

“Look, you know this. Griffins used to eat ponies.” She poked Applejack’s rump with a talon. “You’re very delicious, and not just the way I want to eat you, baby. One pony, that could feed a whole family. My mom was fixing to do just that. Let’s just say your Princess Celestia doesn’t agree.”

“D… did you…”

“I’d like to say no,” said Gilda. “The truth is, I didn’t get much. It was my first time out with Mom hunting. She was really excited she’d got a pony on our first hunting trip, and she was so busy eating and lecturing me that she didn’t watch the sky, which is funny because part of it was teaching me about other griffins coming to take your kill. I’ll never forget it. She was in the middle of telling me the practical and moral reasons for eating some of it right away. You don’t want to let the prey get up and run around if you can help it, you take it into that death space and finish it off cleanly which is really the kindest thing…” Gilda gulped, and trailed off. “Ironic, really.”

Applejack’s heart was hammering. “Why is that, Gilda?”

“Well, she gave me a look and took another big bite of pony leg. The pony jerks but it—she—is just staring with this expression I didn’t see again until you started getting extra kinky on me, that stunned thing. I watched her die, right then. I don’t know how I knew, but I could tell. And then my Mom’s completely covered in magical fire so I can’t even see her, and she has time for one squawk and that’s it, she’s dead too. There’s bones, charred bones. There wasn’t even a shadow or anything to warn us. My Mom wasn’t the only good hunter. I look up, and your Princess Celestia is right there staring at me, just staring. I realize my mouth is full of pony flesh and there’s pony blood trickling down my chin. And I wait to die, too.”

After a pause, Applejack said, “It’s okay if you don’t wanna tell th’ whole thing…”

“No, I told this much,” said Gilda, “it’s just hard. She looks at me, and I’m just totally fucked, I’m prey now, right? And then she says this: ‘Please forgive me. I’m so terribly sorry,’ and it’s like she’s apologizing to me. To me, and I’m just a chick, all right? But she’s not so sorry that she left the pony! It lights up and floats up into the air, and away she goes, and I’m sitting there in the deep woods next to my Mom’s charred bones and some puddles of pony blood. I don’t even remember getting home. I do remember my Dad’s face when he saw me, though.”

Applejack’s mind was reeling. “How could you ever have ended up trying to be a pony, going to a pegasus flight camp, all that stuff? I cain’t rightly believe all this stuff! Sweet… well, you ain’t foolin, are ya? She ain’t so sweet about some things. Dang!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I respect that,” said Gilda. “You’ve only heard one side of it. My Dad’s the other side. Griffins have been divided over ponies as prey for generations, and my Mom and Dad never agreed. He was all torn up to lose her to your Princess but he’d been getting in bigger and bigger fights with Mom about whether I was going to be taught to hunt big or little game, and when Mom was killed going for big game he put his paw down and he took over my training. And he wasn’t just teaching me to stalk, either. He was teaching the bigger stuff, and eventually I learned.”

“What’s th’ bigger stuff?” said Applejack.

Gilda fixed her with a level gaze. “Ponies are people. Delicious as they are, they make societies like we do, and you gotta draw the line somewhere, and ponies aren’t game, they’re people. It helps that you’ve got pegasi. Almost no griffins want to hunt pegasi, we find it disturbing because their wings are so similar to ours—it’s mega creepy, dude.”

“Maybe I can see where this is going…”

“Oh yeah,” nodded Gilda. “My Dad was real strict about ponies being people—he died of natural causes, not by Princess Celestia, just so you know—and eventually I came around. I joined him. When it was time to go away to school, the pegasus flight camp was my idea, because I liked how radical that would be, and probably no other griffin would have gone along with it, but my Dad said yes. I’ve always wondered if your Princess pulled some strings… if she heard about it, and remembered me. Maybe I’ll never know.”

“She likes it when we learn,” said Applejack. “Maybe she did.”

“I loved pissing off the big-game griffins,” said Gilda. “It was like I got to rebel against all of society, with my Dad. I went into the Junior Speedsters flight camp ready to enjoy all the new experiences, even the bullshit ones like their little songs and chants. They had to change a couple of the songs and try to hide it—lines like ‘help evade the griffin plague’, all the kids knew what the real lines were supposed to be but they weren’t allowed to say ‘em. It was hard at first because I was trying to open myself up to new experiences and pony friends, but they were this herd that I was definitely not part of. And then I meet Rainbow Dash.”

Applejack chuckled. “Yeah. Huh! New experiences…”

“Dash… ahah. Heh…”

“Say no more. Ah kin guess where this story’s headin’!”

“Oh yeah. New experiences! Let’s just say, we bonded? She was just as rebellious, just as much of an outsider what with being a runt and Rainbow Crash and all that stuff, and I soon found out she was clumsy because she was hitting puberty like a hungry griffin hitting small game. I was too, so I got pretty worked up, and things started happening really fast. The things that pony can do with just a hoof and a tongue!”

Applejack nodded. “Yep! That’s my Dashie all over.”

“After that, I was all ponied out,” said Gilda. “No turning back. I became the biggest pony-head ever. And you know what? I’m glad your Princess protects you guys. The thing is, I still don’t want to see her, or that long flowing mane and tail, or hear that smarmy ‘sorry’ crap. Ponies can kick ass. That goes for you, too, Applejack. Other griffins, they just don’t know what you can do to a pussy with that thing of yours. Holy crap, I love it. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re just some lame wimpy pony because you’re a freakin’ stud horse in the sack!”

Applejack’s face fell. “Uh, thanks?”

“Sorry. I guess all of this is a lot to take in?”

Applejack stared for a moment, and then began to grin. Gilda hid her face in her talon.

“Don’t even say it…”

“Ah reckon I don’t have to, now,” grinned Applejack.

“You about ready to head home? I gotta clean up around here. I was, uh, doing private griffin stuff and I lost track of time and rushed out to get you. I gotta clean up.”

“Shucks, I’ll help you, sugarcube,” said Applejack.

“No!” squawked Gilda. “I’ll pick up after myself, okay? Don’t… just don’t. Are we good here? Maybe you’re needed back at the farm?”

Applejack made a sour face. “More’n likely.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Apple Bloom jumped up and down, as if she was trying to reach Applejack even before she was returned to solid ground. Her cries were so frantic that Applejack opened her eyes while still in mid-air to see what was happening.

“Big Macintosh din’t come back for dinner and we’re afraid he’s run away again an’ Rainbow Dash couldn’t find him and she’s gone to git you so she can look harder an’ Granny Smith went up to her room and shut th’ door!”

“Maaah!” cried Northern Spy, standing beside Apple Bloom, looking alarmed at the sight of her Mom returning in the talons of a big griffin.

Applejack’s hooves hit the ground hard. She braced herself, and looked down at the two upset fillies. She looked to the Sweet Apple Acres farmhouse, and Granny back in her room sulking. And she looked across the fields, to the west, to far Appleloosa.

Applejack sighed.

“Well, shit…”

“Applejack?”

Rainbow Dash trotted to the bed. The rumpled bedsheets told her Applejack and Gilda had fucked, and she sniffed, picking up the scents of passion, nodding her head approvingly.

And… something else?

“Applejack?”

Rainbow Dash flew over to the bathroom. No dice. No ponies or griffins either. Where the hell had they gone?

And again, that hint of something else, something terribly wrong.

Rainbow trotted to the kitchen… and slowed down. The hint was clearer. Something bad had happened. Sweet Celestia, something bad had happened to Applejack and Gilda! What could it possibly have been? Her senses began sounding alarms. She hesitantly approached the kitchen, and every step of the way, the warnings got louder.

Rainbow Dash entered her own kitchen, and stopped in her tracks. She stared, aghast. No, it hadn’t been something bad happening to Applejack and Gilda, but all the same…

One brown bunny foot lay on her countertop, dripping blood from its severed end. The toes splayed out, twisted first with agony and then the rigor of death.

Oh, thought Dash, frozen. Yeah. Right. I forgot.

Griffins don’t eat hay.

Now You Fucked Up

“Applejack? Could I have a word with you?” said Twilight, rearing and putting her hooves on the fence.

Applejack wiped her brow with the back of a hoof and glared at the lavender intruder, and Twilight shied away stammering, “If, if that’s all right with you, and I don’t mean to distract you from your work—I’m sorry, I can see this isn’t a good time. Is this a good time?”

Applejack snorted. “Good time? Hah!”

“Are you okay, Applejack? You look really bad. Like, really, really bad…”

“Flatterer!” grumbled Applejack.

“You’re mad, I’ll go away,” said Twilight. Her voice was tremulous and small, like she’d had a flashback to the days when she had dated Applejack, and had fallen hard and created a huge mess of the whole thing. Her lip quivered. Applejack saw this, and sagged.

“Aw, hang on, Twilight? Gimme a minute. Yeah, I know. It’s pers’nal. Ain’t no concern of yours. We’ll handle it…”

“Um, okay,” said Twilight. She hesitated, and added, “…do you need a hug?”

Applejack’s eyes went wide, momentarily, and she stared at Twilight like she’d been slapped. She muttered, “That’s either th’ best idea in all Equestria, or th’ worst…”

“Huh?”

“Nothin’,” said Applejack. She hesitated, and gave Twilight a hard look. “Kin I help you? I got somepony I’d like to be turnin’ to for such things. Cute lil’ blue pegasus pony, ya mighta seen her. What do YOU need from me?”

Twilight’s eyes widened at the gruffness, and she lifted her head. “Fine, we’ll do it that way. Fluttershy came and talked to me, Applejack, and she says Gilda the Griffin is back in town. What do you know about that? She says Gilda is staying with you, in fact.”

“An’ where’s the harm in that?” said Applejack. “You got a problem with Gilda? Suddenly it’s against th’ law to be a griffin in Ponyville?”

Twilight sighed in exasperation. “I didn’t say that. Did I say that? I only…”

“So what’s th’ damn problem, then?”

Twilight looked sharply at her friend. “I was going to say, we need to consider the feelings of some of the townsponies. I’m surprised you don’t know that, as it’s typically earth ponies who object to griffins. Historically, pegasi haven’t had a problem with them, and we unicorns defend ourselves with our magic, but earth ponies have been pretty helpless.”

“Oh, yeah?” challenged Applejack.

“Applejack, what is with you?” said Twilight in disbelief. “You haven’t been this bad since you tried to harvest an entire orchard by yourself. That isn’t happening again, is it?”

“Nope,” said Applejack unblinkingly. “Everythin’s jes’ fine, thanks fer askin’.”

“Big Macintosh is here to help you? I heard he was away. Apple Bloom was very excited on his return, I know that.”

“Off visitin’ a friend,” lied Applejack, looking Twilight directly in the eye with a skill born of pure desperation. Only a bead of sweat on her brow revealed the strain.

“Oh, good,” said Twilight vaguely. “Er… three of the flower ponies pulled me aside on my way here, Applejack. I guess I shouldn’t be calling them flower ponies, should I? It sounds better than ‘foolish earth pony mares constantly panicking about things’.”

“Know ‘em,” snorted Applejack. She did. They’d gone into hysterics over a stampede of cattle, of parasprites, and of bunnies. Dust motes seemed not out of the question.

“One of them wanted to know, if I fought a griffin, who would win. I wasn’t sure what to say, really. Uhh… I told her I would win,” said Twilight. “It’s probably true. Why didn’t she feel better? I was ready to protect her!”

“Gossipin’ fools!” blurted Applejack, her eyes wide in dismay. “There ain’t gonna be no fight! Everythin’s all fine here, thanks fer askin’, don’t you be startin’ no fight! Don’t you hurt Gilda!”

“I won’t, I won’t! I haven’t done anything, have I?” protested Twilight. “I just don’t understand why that wouldn’t comfort the earth pony. I mean, flower pony… oh, you know the ones! Roseluck or something. I get them mixed up.”

Applejack glowered at nothing. “It ain’t soothin’ her on account of she ain’t being attacked by no griffin in th’ first place. You can’t fight a thing in her own fool mind. Seem like a lot of us got that problem.”

Twilight waited, but Applejack wasn’t talking, just staring dully at the grass with a look of resentment. Finally, Twilight said in a soft voice, “Will you try to remember some of the townsponies aren’t comfortable around griffins? Please?”

Applejack made a face. “Ah noticed.”

That got a laugh out of Twilight. “I know it might be confusing, but a lot of ponies just aren’t as strong, or as brave, as you are! Bear that in mind, okay?”

Applejack was nodding frantically. “Oh, all righty! Ah sure will, an’ I guess it’s true what you say. Ain’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me, I got some pressin’ business to attend to…”

The tremor in her voice alerted Twilight, whose ears swiveled forward abruptly. “Something is wrong. I can hear it in your voice. Is something bad happening? Can I help?”

“Naw,” protested Applejack, off her guard and no longer evading Twilight’s interest. “That’s okay.”

“Is something wrong with the barn? Or maybe you need help with Northern Spy?” guessed Twilight. “Come on! Applejack, where are you about to go, that’s got you so worried?”

Trapped, Applejack reverted to her most basic nature, and told the simple truth—or some of it, at least.

“Ah’m goin’ to talk to Dashie, in bed!”

Twilight stared for a moment, and then burst out laughing, missing the strange expression of mingled relief and misery on Applejack’s face. “Ahahahaha! I’d be worried too! Don’t be afraid. She’ll be gentle! …ish!”

“Okay. Okay,” said Applejack. “Okay…”

As Twilight trotted off, Applejack burst out, “Twi!”

“Yes?” blinked the unicorn, turning to face her friend again.

“How come you’re all speakin’ for the townsponies all of a sudden? You’re actin’ like they’re supposed to turn to you. Who tole you that, Twilight Sparkle?”

At that, Twilight dropped her gaze, bashfully. She dug at the dirt with a forehoof, and replied, “Nopony did. I thought I should get out in front of it. And I didn’t tell them to turn to me, they just do! It’s like they’re learning they have an exceptionally powerful unicorn in their midst, and they’re learning to make use of me. Two powerful unicorns, technically, as they have Trixie too, and we can magemeld to accomplish really big tasks.”

“Uh-huh,” said Applejack weakly.

“Trixie’s helped me understand better who I really am,” said Twilight. “I really think ponies should be taking care of things themselves. I’m proud they turned to me instead of running to Princess Celestia with this! It means we’re all a little more self-reliant, don’t you think?”

“Um…”

“It was probably going to be my responsibility to talk to you. So much is, these days! We’re really growing up as a community. I’m sure the ponies are going to ask me to do something about Gilda being here. When they do, I’m just going to tell them that you have the griffin situation under control, and to leave it to you and Rainbow. Okay?”

“Uhh… sure, you go ahead an’ do that!” said Applejack, rallying. She held her head high, her jaw a little too tight, her eyes mercifully dry for a few more seconds.

“I will!” said Twilight, and trotted off again, her cute rump bouncing in the noonday sun as she returned to her Ponyville and her Trixie.

Applejack watched her go, and then began walking unsteadily toward the house. She moved like she was, at the same time, desperate to go join Rainbow and afraid to. She dragged her hooves walking up the stairs, bumping them on the steps clumsily.

The room was dark. Rainbow had pulled the shades again. She was a dark lump under the covers, Northern Spy atop looking up curiously at Applejack as she entered.

“Rainbow?” said Applejack, hesitantly.

No reply.

“Honey? Please talk t’ me. I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me. And I got to help you, somehow…”

Rainbow stirred, and pulled the covers even more over her head. Spy nosed at them, her little ears quirked to the side. She whacked Rainbow with a tiny forehoof, but the despairing pegasus did not respond.

Applejack couldn’t bear it. She stepped forward on trembling hooves, and took the corner of the bedspread in her teeth, and to the astonishment of Northern Spy, Applejack slowly drew the covers off the bed. Spy slid along with them, glancing this way and that in alarm. She gazed wide-eyed at Applejack, decided it was a game, and lit the room with a diminutive filly smile. Then, the mattress ran out, and Spy tumbled to the floor with a squeak, and bounced up, offended.

Applejack had no time or attention to spare. She was already walking forward, looking terrified.

“Rainbow? Please get up, Rainbow. Please!”

“Why?” replied Dash, leadenly.

“On account of we need you. Ah need you…”

Dash sniffled, rustling her wings slightly. Applejack’s heart lurched to see it—the same sleek body, the same silky mane, the same exquisite pegasus beauty as before, but gloom poured off Rainbow like a bath of poison.

“Please, my darlin’,” begged Applejack. “If you won’t get up, can ya talk a lil’? Can ya gimme a hint?”

“Big Macintosh was right,” mumbled Rainbow Dash.

“Beg pardon?”

Dash sighed, her eyes flooding with tears. “It’s just… dammit!”

Applejack moved closer. “Please! Let me help you feel better.”

At that, Rainbow shook her head helplessly. “That’s just it. There’s no way. I need to resign myself to it.”

“To what?”

Rainbow turned her head, and Applejack’s heart was wrung to see the agony in Dash’s eyes. “I… I thought I had a family…” she managed, and then the blue pegasus broke down completely, her face twisting, bawling in Applejack’s embrace while Spy looked on, startled.

“Oh, Rainbow!” sobbed Applejack. “It’s okay, honey, let it out…”

“Yeah, right!” wailed Dash. “That’ll help!”

Applejack was shaking, clinging to her beloved as if she too was drowning. “But maybe it will?”

Dash gritted her teeth. “DON’T try to sugar-coat it, okay? I can do this. I have to d… do this…”

“But… do what, darlin’?”

Rainbow’s head lifted. She looked into Applejack’s eyes with a bleak determination Applejack had last seen the day Rainbow Dash set off to distract a full-grown dragon, believing she would be killed doing so.

“I’m like… your wife, Applejack. I’m a mother. I’m gonna stay in this house, even though Big Macintosh is gone, even though Granny hates me. I’m gonna try and take care of what I can. I’ll take care of Spy. It’s just going to have to be that, okay? Not the other thing. I j… just thought I h… had a…”

Applejack stared at the wall, looking haunted, holding Rainbow as she wept.

“Rainbow, what mus’ I do? I’ll do anything. I can’t stand to see you this way. Maybe it ain’t so bad…”

She blinked. Rainbow was shaking her head violently. She mumbled into Applejack’s chest, “No, you can’t, you shouldn’t, you mustn’t…”

“What, beloved? What is it?”

Rainbow wouldn’t answer.

“Dashie?”

Applejack got a hoof under Rainbow’s chin. She lifted the adorable little face, to find it both despairing and raging, Dash shaking her head and trying to twist it away so she didn’t have to look in Applejack’s eyes.

“Rainbow Dash, you tell me what has you so upset, right now!”

“Fine!” wailed Dash, and fixed Applejack with a burning, tearful gaze. “This isn’t a family! It isn’t love and caring or anything like that, it’s been telling you how to live all your life and hurting you and now it’s driven your brother away for being different! It’s gonna screw up Spy to be around, you need to run away with me and Spy and we’ll go have a real family that knows how to be pony!”

Applejack’s jaw dropped in shock.

As she watched, Rainbow Dash’s stare crumbled away in a tide of self-loathing, first the anger breaking down, then the gaze dropping, and when her voice came again it was back to the crushed, spiritless misery as if that had never left.

“And I have no right even to suggest something like that. I am a stinking motherless pegasus who doesn’t belong anywhere and doesn’t even know what a family is, and this is probably all there is and all there ever was, or will be. Pretend I didn’t say anything. I’ll just deal, okay? I’ll… deal with it. Somehow.”

Applejack was shaking again. “Oh, Rainbow,” she said in a tremulous, soft voice. “Oh, Rainbow…”

“Shut up, shut up! It’s totally wrong of me to ask. It would be better if I just died, or never got born. Oops, too late!” Dash laughed raucously, falsely.

Applejack seemed frozen. She couldn’t look away, though Dash had turned her head. Eventually, the silence got to Dash, who looked up.

“What?”

Applejack gulped. “Ah trust you…”

Rainbow Dash bared her teeth.

“Yeah, well… don’t!”

Dash shoved Applejack out of the way, jumping from the bed only to grab the bedcovers and drag them back. She buried herself beneath them, and became a cerulean lump once more, concealing herself from a world she could no longer bear even to look at.

Applejack gulped again. She spoke almost inaudibly, her mouth dry.

“Oh, Rainbow…”

Applejack walked, blinking, out into the yard of Sweet Apple Acres. The world seemed to shimmer and vibrate, too real, echoing her shrieking nerves. She stood for a moment, staring at nothing and lost in thought.

“Hey babe!” The squawk shattered her bleak musings, and she leapt in the air and landed, legs splayed, shaking and wild-eyed.

Gilda swooped down. “Boy, am I glad to see you! I am so bored, cooped up in Dash’s place. Speaking of Dash, I haven’t seen her around, what’s she up to?”

“She’s in bed,” blurted Applejack, trying to get control of herself.

“Hot damn! Lead me to her!”

“No! Ah mean, she’s restin’. Yeah. Dashie needs her rest…”

“Don’t tell me,” winked Gilda, “she’s been having a little too much debilitating fun? You do know that pegasi can fly even after you’ve fucked ‘em so much they can’t walk, right?”

“Sump’n like that,” said Applejack. She wiped her brow with the back of a hoof, trying to figure out where to begin. If Big Macintosh wasn’t coming back, Granny wasn’t going to waver from her position: she was going to deny he ever existed. The idea terrified Applejack more than anything she’d ever known. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to return. Rainbow claimed Granny hated her as well, but she was the one pony Granny would allow to talk to her when all hell broke loose. Of course, whatever she’d said to Rainbow had led to Rainbow’s emotional destruction, and a nosedive Applejack felt utterly helpless to protect her from. And then there was Apple Bloom, who still hadn’t registered what really happened, and whom Applejack would have to explain things to, because she was bound to ask why everypony was letting Granny be crazy. It hadn’t occurred to her that an Apple could become an un-pony for sexual misconduct. Maybe that was what Dashie knew about the private talk she’d had with Granny. It was a good thing Granny didn’t know the ways Applejack and Gilda got it on, then, because she was clearly next. It was just a matter of time…

“Hey. Hey!” squawked Gilda. “You okay? You look sick.”

“Ain’t nothin’!” protested Applejack. “Ah’m okay! Yeah. I’m th’ strong pony, ever’pony knows that.” She thought to herself, Apple Bloom could take over the farm—but she would be alone, with just Granny—who would likely be denying the existence of both her brother and her sister, at that point. She could get help for the farm work, Apple Bloom could, but that wouldn’t help on the lonely nights with half her family gone.

“Not just ponies know that,” smiled Gilda. She frowned, then. “You do look sick. Kid getting you down? They can be a talonful. Well, griffin chicks can.”

And then there was Spy. Rainbow was probably right about Spy. It wasn’t a healthy situation for a growing foal, was it? “Uhh…” said Applejack, “that’s it, yeah. Pow’ful exhaustin’, that filly. Chicks? Ain’t you griffins mostly big cats?”

“We go by the head,” said Gilda. “Want a break from all that?”

Applejack didn’t answer for a moment. Then, she said, “Gilda? You ever had a choice to make, that you can’t go back from no-how, an’ it’s a real tough choice?”

Gilda blinked at her. “Funny you should mention it. I live here now, in Ponyville, in Dash’s house. You could say I made my choice. I’m not sure it’s that I can’t go back, it’s more like why would I want to?”

“Ain’t sure I could go back,” breathed Applejack, as if to herself. “Somethin’ dies either way.”

“Sounds depressing. Want to not think about it for a while, and go do something else?”

Applejack trembled. “Aw, hell yeah!”

And, just like that, her body was seized in strong griffin arms, and the ground was dropping away beneath her as Gilda carried her off to the cloud house she’d turned into a griffin love-nest.

Applejack’s eyes were wide open and stayed wide open, and she gazed down at the toylike countryside, feeling nothing, expressionless.

That was new.

Gilda’s belly was soft. Gilda’s vagina was musky and feverish, already glistening with feline ooze.

“Oh, yeah, baby… nnnnh!”

Applejack tenderly licked the poor labia that couldn’t flip outward by themselves. Such alien parts, so strange and different. The strangeness felt right. For a moment, Applejack felt like the world didn’t exist. She was just there, a trembling and vulnerable mare, nuzzling and licking some pussy that happened to be griffin pussy, losing herself in the experience. All she had left was this oasis of strange alien sex, where she could find herself again through silently devoting herself, mare-ishly, to the vagina of her exotic lover…

“Hey! Hhhh… good warmup, now where’s that bit?”

Applejack blinked, yanked back to reality. “Huh?”

“The bit! Oh, crap, you didn’t forget it, did you? I’m gonna flip out in a few seconds if you keep doing that and I don’t get some dicking…”

Applejack’s eyes were wide. “Got it in m’hat. Been carryin’ it that way for a while now. Though I reckon it makes ya stalliony when ya do that.” She thought to herself, just like everypony needs from me, now. It’s the only thing that's allowed anymore, either way…

…so something already died, din't it?

Gilda licked her beak, her eyes gleaming. “Music to my ears. Whip it out.”

Her pony lover stared at her for a minute, and Gilda was about to ask what was the matter, but then Applejack bowed her head. It seemed like there was a tear in her eye, but it could have been a trick of the light. She doffed her hat, and the shiny metal bit fell out, and she took it in her teeth with a curious reluctance.

“Woohoo!” squawked Gilda. She made to flip onto all fours, a safer position for her partner, but before she could do so, a powerful equine foreleg caught her and flipped her onto her back again, spread-eagled under the now erect pony stallion Applejack had become.

Applejack flipped her hat back onto her head, a grim look in her eyes, and pounded it down firmly. She shifted her hind legs, her tail flicking, and snorted, baring her teeth around the bit.

Gilda’s beak gaped. “Whoa…” she breathed, all quivery at the sight. “Holy crap. Be gentle!”

Applejack’s nostrils flared, and her hips swung forward with inexorable force.

“GwwAAAHHH!” shrieked Gilda, as the equine cock-head rammed against her pubis, prying her wide and shoving in effortlessly. She reeled, her head exploding in fireworks, already near orgasm and driven hard by the fierce, stallionish entry. “Oh my fucking GAWWD be careful, aahhh!”

She felt Applejack’s body over her, and squirmed as pony weight came down on her, pinning her to the bed. Applejack was clinging to her tenderly, but shaking real bad, her tail flicking outrageously. Gilda felt something wet dripping on her. Tears?

“Hey what the nggYAAAHH!”

Applejack’s body doubled, tenderly nudging the swollen horsecock deeper, in to where it pressed Gilda’s cervix: that feline trigger that drove her into a berserker frenzy. Applejack knew this. Didn’t she? It had been explained, perhaps not in so many words.

Gilda fought for coherence. “Ahhh, baby! Just, just, if you could UHHHH!”

Between her legs, that pony body had doubled up again, as the forelegs strained her tight and the weight pinned her down. Applejack’s pony cock rammed deep, so deep, deeper than it had ever dared to go. Gilda writhed, vision whiting out, triggered still harder. Her pony was intentionally doing this! Why?

“Baby!” gasped Gilda. “Applejack! Careful, it YAAAHHH!”

The tempo was so sedate—Applejack would pause, seemingly lost in some kind of daze, but then the forelegs would tighten, squeezing Gilda ruthlessly, and that solid, equine body would just shove, harder and harder, no longer showing the slightest restraint. Horse cocks were too big to entirely fit inside a griffin, or indeed another pony. That was why they had such a devastating effect on the griffin cervix, something usually prodded only glancingly by the most impassioned griffin dicks. This was different. Gilda was ravaged beyond anything she’d imagined. That humongous bulk would tug partly out of her, teasingly, and then shove right to her depths with equine force, as if Applejack was trying to make her flip out in orgasm…

When Gilda recovered from the last languid thrust, and knew where she was, she saw a wall of orange, streaked with tears. It was Applejack’s neck. Applejack had been weeping, silently. Applejack was pressing her throat against Gilda’s beak. Suddenly, Gilda understood it all.

“No…” choked Gilda.

Applejack shifted her left rear hoof… and put her back into it, beginning to thrust in earnest.

Gilda screamed, her body responding with a storm of erotic overload that threatened to overwhelm her senses completely, and she fought for control even as she felt herself turned into a helpless fucktoy, that massive horsecock tugging nearly out of her in a dizzying seismic shift, and then swinging forward to brutally thud against her cervix and trigger her griffin responses. Her scream was muffled as Applejack pressed pony throat ever more firmly against the sharp-edged beak, seemingly lost in a mad and impulsive frenzy of her own. Applejack pounded Gilda in a tempo that built and built in speed and ferocity.

All Gilda could do was clamp her beak shut, leaking tears of her own, and hold it clamped shut, her head twisted to the side in desperate attempts to keep it clear of Applejack’s vulnerable throat, and she held her beak tightly shut even as the explosions blew her skull apart—and she screamed through that tightly shut beak as horsecock rammed her insides and blew all of her corks at once—and Gilda turned into a writhing, kicking wild animal under Applejack, exploding in violence in just a few incandescent seconds while Applejack squealed and gushed a geyser of hot horsecome into her, body shuddering in an explosive pony orgasm that exceeded anything Gilda had seen her experience. Applejack bucked into Gilda, convulsing in a savage climax and unloading in a massive spurt that flooded Gilda’s feline womb and spurted out around the edges, even as Gilda thrashed and clawed.

Gilda fainted.

Applejack panted, not sure where or who she was, or anything. She had a sense she’d just gone way too far. She felt lightheaded, light all over in fact, and her back hurt, her chest hurt from squeezing Gilda—and that fantasy, if it was a fantasy, she surely got carried away there, imagining Gilda rippin’ her throat up. Her throat was fine, awful dry though. Her back hurt. No, it was her belly. She felt awful light…

Applejack looked under herself, as Gilda stirred and made a pitiful anguished chirping noise.

Applejack went very quiet, and very pale.

“Ah fucked up…” she said, softly, almost reverently.

Gilda was still holding her beak tightly shut. Her eyes were clamped shut, too, and she was shaking. She made another griffin noise.

“Uhh, Gilda? We got a problem.”

Gilda’s eyes popped open. Fearfully, they fixed on Applejack’s throat.

“Naw,” said Applejack, her own eyes beginning to glaze over. “Further down.”

Gilda’s eyes traced down, and her body stiffened as she looked at the dangling piles of pony gut. Applejack’s belly was torn open, spilling viscera onto Gilda’s body.

“Oh, no, no, no…” moaned Gilda.

“Ah really fucked up,” said Applejack, trembling as the pain began to flood her. “Ah guess it’s been good…”

“No!” wailed Gilda, and as Applejack began to collapse, she guided her over into a position lying on her side. “Oh my God! Oh, shit! I tried so hard, oh my God!”

“Changed m’ mind…” managed Applejack, her eyes starting to roll back in her head.

“What?”

“Ah fucked up… don’t wanna go now… shit…”

Gilda, reeling, struggled free and whirled, lunging for Applejack’s belly. Applejack chuckled weakly, seeing it.

“Go ‘head… guess I get t’ know how that feels…”

“The fuck are you talking about?” hissed Gilda.

“Eat me, go on, I’m done for, it’s over…”

Gilda whirled again, raging at Applejack with tear-streaked eyes. “Fuck you! How dare you? Hold fucking still, I think everything’s still intact. Griffins have a thing called surgery, you might not be done, please tell me you’re not really done!”

Applejack’s eyes were stunned. “Uhhh… us too, a lil’. Not much call for it. Them ain’t th’ pink bits I’m used to seein’.” She shuddered, dizzy and blinded with pain.

Gilda was inspecting the damage. “Oh, fuck. Oh, man. I swear nothing’s torn open, it’s just out. Maybe I… Okay. This might feel weird, dude.”

“Wh…aaaaaghhh!”

Applejack jolted and bucked on the red-soaked bedspread as Gilda firmly thrust her insides back inside her, wadding up sheets and pressing them against the wound. Her eyes rolled back, and she went limp.

“Thread,” hissed Gilda. She tried to get up, and fell over, still too obliterated by her experience to support her own weight properly. She yowled in frustration. “Ponies! They have no fucking talons, they can’t sew… wait! That dressmaker pony, the unicorn!”

Gilda staggered out of the room, barely able to walk. She charged out of Dash’s house, bouncing off the door-frame, and flung herself into space, power-diving towards the Carousel Boutique. After a while, in the distance, the sound of glass smashing could be heard. Applejack lay limp on the bed, breathing shallowly, the wad of bedsheets against her belly steadily becoming redder.

Applejack woke to a dull red roar of constant pain, that didn’t just stay steady but flared and flashed and stabbed.

She looked down to see an outlandish sight. Gilda had thread held in her beak, and a needle in her talons. She was bending over Applejack’s belly, and she was literally sewing it back together with neat little stitches, thrusting the needle through her skin like it was cloth. That was the stabbing pain—the other roar of pain was inside.

“Oh, lordy…”

“Back with us?” said Gilda, concentrating. “Probably was a mercy you were out for so long. Don’t even fucking ask me to stop, it won’t happen. I looked real carefully and nothing in there was torn, which is some kind of miracle. I’d just changed the sheets and they were clean. I’m almost sure you’ll get through this, so hold still because I’m almost done here.”

Applejack shook, gritting her teeth. “Sweet Cel…”

“I bet she wishes she took me out when she had the chance,” snarled Gilda. “Or she would, if she knew. Holy crap. How the fuck am I gonna explain this?”

“Dunno,” managed Applejack. Even that took everything she had. She lay her head flat, shuddering as the bright sharp little pain stabbed and stabbed.

“That’s right. Relax,” said Gilda. “You’re gonna have to rest up for a while even if this goes incredibly well.”

Applejack winced as the needle pain moved to a new location. She craned her neck around, looking for a brief moment before she had to lay out flat again. “…y’ got Bucky, but tick… tickl…”

“What’s that?”

The edges of Applejack’s vision were getting dark and blurry. “M’ leg, Bucky. But Tickle and Softy… got away…”

The needle paused. Gilda was leaning over her, looking concerned. “Is this you going delirious on me? Who’s Bucky? Who’s Softy?”

Applejack struggled to explain. “Aw, hell, d… don’t tell anypony about that. Bucky, yeah, they know that part…” She breathed evenly for a few seconds, gathering her strength. “Names. Them legs is Bucky McGillicuddy an’ Kicks McGee. Bucky took a claw pretty good.”

“It looks worse than it is,” said Gilda. “It’s just messy, there’s not that much real damage. Your belly got the worst of it. Who’s Tickle and S… actually, I must be even more of a complete idiot than I thought, it’s not hard to guess, is it?”

Applejack nodded. “Pony tits.” She breathed for a while, her ears laid back, trying to get strength to respond. The strength came. “When I was a filly an’ started to git sexy, I thought th’ one liked bein’ tickled and th’ other seemed more softer? Please don’t tell nopony! I wouldn’t ever have said it… I ain’t myself right now. I ain’t never told nopony them soppy names.” Her voice rasped, dryly.

“Not even Dash?” blinked Gilda.

Applejack tried to lift her head and stare at Gilda, but she was still too weak. Her eyes turned to gaze, startled, at her savage lover. “Naw. Now that you mention it, that seems funny. Why din’t I ever tell her that? Her of all ponies? I got so used to stayin’ safe and hidin’ them feelin’s, I guess it never come up.”

“Are you okay with me finishing? It won’t be long.”

“Yeah, all right,” said Applejack, and looked away. The sharp little pains stabbed for a while, and then stopped.

“I’m gonna keep some pressure on it with these wadded-up sheets,” said Gilda, “and I want to let you rest. If you’ve got it in you, though, I… need you to explain what happened.” She slunk around, catching Applejack’s eye, and her expression was troubled. “It’s just that, if all I mean to you is something to sexually hurt you or k… kill you…”

Applejack’s lip quivered. “Oh, naw, that ain’t how it is, that ain’t it at all!”

Gilda didn’t look reassured. “You say that, but you did what you did, and I’m responsible for what happened then. It could’ve been even worse. I’m amazed that you survived what I did do to you. I realize I didn’t warn you except for, well, pretty much every fucking time we had sex, but if you didn’t know what could happen from a maddened griffin orgasm—why were you pressing your neck against my beak like that?”

She waited for an answer, and waited, and waited—watching Applejack’s startled, vulnerable eyes dart and blink at a series of thoughts that clearly passed through that pony brain while the lips remained sealed.

“Are you trying to think up an excuse, or a story?” said Gilda.

“Nope,” said Applejack. She looked shocked, perhaps awed, the luminous green eyes wide.

“What the hell is all this about, Applejack?”

“About? Ah am about love again,” said Applejack, with a quiet earnestness. “It’s good. I hope it’s not too late…”

“What are you talking about? Compared to what?”

“Fear,” said Applejack, simply.

Gilda stared. “I don’t understand you. You were about fear? You tried to kill yourself through fucking because of fear?”

Applejack gave her a sorrowful look. “Ah am so sorry. I din’t even see it happenin’ or nothin’. No faith, no hope, no love…” She trailed off, a tear coming to her eye. “Ah jes’ was bein’ attacked every which way and I couldn’t win, I couldn’t defeat th’ fear in everypony else. And it ain’t about fear beating fear. We got to save their hearts, calm them, make it safe and let everythin’ settle down and they’ll come to their senses like th’ good ponies they are.” Applejack gulped. “I hope it ain’t too late, I really do. It’s got to be not too late.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” demanded Gilda, her wings fluttering anxiously. “Maybe you’re delirious. Or maybe I am. You were fighting fear in everypony?”

“We are all flighty critters, we pony folk, Gilda. Even the best of us.” Applejack grew quiet and thoughtful.

“Even you, huh?” said Gilda.

“Even my ol’ Granny,” corrected Applejack. “We see somethin’ out of place an’ we panic and imagine all sorts o’ things and we’re off and runnin’, stampedin’. And you can run full tilt standin’ still. Or sittin’ in a chair denyin’ your grandfoal ever existed. Or hidin’ under the covers and not leavin’ your bed…”

“You’re a weird pony, Applejack,” said Gilda.

That got her a stern look from her wounded, but undaunted, pony.

“Ah am about love, Gilda. I AIN’T about fear. And I am going to bring th’ love back and help the ones I love. But I gotta think…”

“Rest, you mean!” protested Gilda.

“Think, I said. I’ll need to go find Big Macintosh, that’s for certain. We can’t heal with him missin’, Granny got to face him an’ see he’s still the same pony that ever he was. If I get Granny back, Dashie will follow, an’ Apple Bloom. An’ we got to have the Apple family solid if Twilight is tellin’ me the truth.”

“About what?” blinked the griffin.

Applejack’s gaze was sorrowful again. “She thinks the town is gonna panic, ‘cos of you. I know them ponies, an’ she’s prob’ly right. But what can she do all by herself? She’s a pow’ful magic unicorn sure enough, but the problem is, that won’t help. She’s a weapon, and they don’t need no weapon, they need to stop panickin’ an’ settle down. An’… oh dear. Twi’s thinkin’ her power will make th’ townsponies feel better, but when th’ threat ain’t a threat, except in their heads?”

Gilda’s face was a study. She stared at the lovely, injured pony who lay there nearly disemboweled yet claiming the griffin in town wasn’t a threat. She licked her beak nervously, lashing her tail. “You think they’ll come after me?”

“Ah’m sayin’ Twi probl’y can’t stop ‘em. She don’t understand such things.”

“What are we gonna do, then?”

Applejack stirred, and winced. “Ow. Kin I get up? Kin I walk? I got to write Dashie a note, she got paper or somethin’ around here?”

“I don’t think you should,” protested Gilda. “Maybe you can. What are you doing?”

“Get me a pencil or somethin’.”

Gilda whirled and leapt, rushing off only to return almost immediately with paper and a pencil held in her formidable talons. Applejack struggled for a moment, and then pulled herself off the bed, thumping heavily to the floor.

“Oh my God! Let me help you get back in…”

“Gimme that there paper!” demanded Applejack.

Gilda handed it over, and Applejack spread it out on the checkerboard-tiled floor and took the pencil in her teeth. Frowning with concentration, she scrawled out her message. Gilda read along as she wrote.

“Rainbow, come meet me in Appleloosa,” wrote Applejack. “It’s not what you think, you don’t have to bring Spy. I love you and we’re gonna get through this and save everypony, just get out here and help me!”

Finishing, she spat the pencil out, and struggled again, kicking her legs. “Hey, take it easy,” said Gilda, but the earth pony mare wasn’t listening. She got her hooves under her, and she stood, panting, eyes crossing with the pain. “How do ah look?”

Gilda stared at her. “How are you able to stand? That would be badass even for a griffin, dude. What the fuck are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?”

“Appleloosa.”

“Oh, come on…”

“I’m serious!” said Applejack. “Get me to Appleloosa. Except you best drop me outside town and let me go there on my own. I want you safe up here, there ain’t no tellin’ what’s going on in Ponyville. Swear you’ll stay inside until I git things under control out there.”

“But what the hell?” squawked Gilda. Applejack glared.

“I got to go get m’brother back, before he gets far. I think I know some places he mighta gone. There ain’t no time to dilly-dally, neither. I gotta go right now. You give that note to Dashie, maybe leave it at th’ house and fly straight back here, okay? Leave it in th’ mailbox and git back here right away! Understand?”

Gilda flinched at the intensity. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know, but I want you SAFE. I’m about love, remember? We need th’ Apple family back in action to guide th’ town, not all twisted up and useless. I’ll get out to Appleloosa and meet up with Big Macintosh and Braeburn. Rainbow will come as soon as she reads my note, and she’ll help me convince Big Macintosh to come back, and we’re gonna dig up whatever’s worryin’ Granny so bad. Hell, we’ll get Rainbow to fuck him in front of Granny if that’s what it takes. I don’t even give a shit anymore, there’s things more important than whether my love is a slutty pegasus who loves earth pony dick, which ah knew anyways so there ain’t no sense in bein’ so damn fussy about it…”

Gilda’s eyes were wide. “Holy crap! Uh, yeah, I enjoy Dash being a slutty pegasus too. What’s going on down there at your place? Applejack!”

She got a fierce, stallionish gaze for her pains. “You stay out of it!” Applejack demanded. “Stay up here, stay safe! You don’t know what th’ ponies are capable of when they get together and get a lil’ stampedey. Let’s jes’ say things could get real dicey. I got to bring my family back. If anypony can steer a Ponyville stampede, it’s us! And ah fear we got us a Ponyville stampede brewin’.”

“Really?” said Gilda uncertainly. “I don’t know how to put this, Applejack, but I just nearly gutted you when I didn’t even want to. I’m having a hard time imagining how even the whole town could pose any threat to me.”

Applejack sighed, and the earnest tone she took next was not fierce or dominant, yet it shook the hapless griffin worse than any fit of rage. “Please! Don’t go runnin’ around town, okay? It ain’t safe for you. It ain’t! If the ponies are stampeding they won’t think or see reason and they will destroy anything that’s different from them.” She shuddered. “They’ll run right over you.”

Gilda’s beak dangled open in amazement. “You’re serious.”

“Stay safe! An’ hide them hoppin’ bunny dinners,” winked Applejack.

“I already do,” said Gilda, wide-eyed.

“Good!” Applejack took a few experimental steps, wincing. “I b’leeve this will work. Ow… Next thing is, you gotta fly me out to the edge of town without nopony seein’ me like this, an’ drop off the note for Dashie, and then you git your birdkitty butt right back here, understand me?”

“What, now?”

Applejack glared.

“Now’s good.”

Gilda swooped down upon Sweet Apple Acres, glancing this way and that. Applejack had been so dreadfully serious. It was insane, but all the same Gilda was thoroughly spooked.

She placed the letter in the Apples’ mailbox, and looked around again, and banged the door with a balled-up talon. Then, she leapt two feet in the air, looking behind her in a panic at an unexpected sound. It took Gilda several seconds to work out it had been the echo off the barn startling her.

She stood there, listening, and there was no response from inside, and every second her panic grew.

“Fuck this fuckin’ lame shit,” quavered Gilda, and with a spring and a bound, she was back in the air, racing for Dash’s house, where she would bolt inside, slam the door, and try to hide under the covers before realizing how much of a mess they were.

Behind her, a yellow form with a long, flowing pink mane peered out from behind a cloud, far above Sweet Apple Acres. Fluttershy bit her lip, fretting, trying to make sense of what she’d just seen.

Applejack walked steadily, fighting the urge to trot or gallop. Her body was already furious with her even for the walking, and she was getting dizzy. Earth pony tenacity was all that kept her upright. She ran over possible arguments in her head, walking just a little bit faster as the meadows of Mareheim began to give way to the scrub and brush of Appleloosa.

Then, suddenly, she trod on something soft and time stopped in a fracture of horror as the hiss rang out and a sharp rattle exploded into her ears.

SNAKE!

Applejack leapt aside, whirling to face the danger, and it rose up and struck out at her as she flung herself back another few feet in a mad leap. It was still coming. She reared, and both forehooves came down in a sickening crunch…

Applejack panted. The deadly snake lay crushed under her hoof.

“Sheeit,” she muttered. Then, her eyes widened, and she peered fearfully under herself. It wasn’t just her imagination. She was leaking.

Applejack looked around frantically, but there was nothing but sagebrush and prairie. She pressed a forehoof to her injury, awkwardly, fighting through the pain. If she could get to Appleloosa, still… just get to Appleloosa, somehow…

She took a cautious step with Bucky, pain searing through her. Then, Kicks, gently. She thought to herself, maybe this will work—and pressing her reopened wound tightly, she hopped forward with her one good foreleg.

Sutures tore, weakened by the fight with the snake, giving way one by one. Applejack’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed, hitting the dirt only a moment after her insides did.

There was nothing but the rasp of her breathing for a moment, and then Applejack’s foreleg flailed, kicking the air. She lay on her side, struggling, trying to rise. When that proved impossible, Applejack dragged herself along, refusing to give up, her whole world at stake.

She got six inches. Another inch, as she poured sweat. Another few inches…

“…Dashie…” she croaked.

Applejack went limp, her mouth still forming the name of her beloved. Silence fell, as her breathing weakened and slowed.

And just as it was fading into nothingness, a costumed form appeared on the crest of a nearby hill, scanning the prairie. It cut a laughably overdramatic figure, swathed in green and blue silks like some Saddle Arabian out of an overly florid pony tale, if there had ever been a Saddle Arabian who wore a skintight ninja suit complete with superhero cape.

The cloaked figure gasped, and let out a little shriek of horror…

…and Lyra charged forward at a full gallop, her nub of a horn glowing brightly as she sounded her alarm.

The Horseshoe Drops

Rainbow woke. It was dim. She wondered if it was morning, or just afternoon. She wondered what sort of horrible pony would ask herself a question like that. It was no wonder Applejack had given up on her and wandered away. She’d have given up on herself, with relief. It was strange that Applejack had, though…

“Rainbow Dash?” called Apple Bloom, from downstairs.

Rainbow winced, and buried her head under the pillow. Poor Apple Bloom. It was hard to listen to the hopeful note in her voice. It couldn’t last. Maybe if she just stayed in bed and never said anything again, Apple Bloom could go on believing in a world that was a pretty lie…

“Rainbow Dash! There’s a letter for you! Only it’s like a note or somethin’!” called Apple Bloom.

Little hooves trotted up the stairs. Spy bounced to her own hooves and ran excitedly to the door. Apple Bloom burst in, bringing light with her. Dash peered from between the pillow and the bed, at the two fillies frisking with excitement. It was all so adorable she wanted to throw up.

“Git outta there, Rainbow Dash!” demanded Apple Bloom. “This here is from Applejack, I reckon!”

Dash sat up, the pillow falling to the side. “What? A letter? Why a letter?”

“I don’t know! It’s kinda more of a note! An’ it says she needs your help, and that you’re gonna go to Appleloosa and save ever’pony! Read it, read it!”

Dash spread the note out on the bed with a hoof, and read it. Her face dropped in dismay with each line, and she shook her head weakly. “How… how…”

“Ain’tcha gonna go? My big sister needs you!”

Dash stared into the darkness of her bedroom—hers and Applejack’s bedroom. That pony was beyond belief. You just could not stop her. She was the strong one, all right. And here she came again, up to some scheme, fighting for what she called a family.

“Rainbow Dash!” wailed Apple Bloom, as Rainbow remained silent.

And why shouldn’t she? Who was more entitled to show what being a family really meant?

And why should she fight that fight alone?

“Rainbow…”

“Easy, kiddo,” snapped Dash, her eyes narrowing. If it had to be a fight, she knew which side she was on—which side she’d die for. So be it. At least it wouldn’t be boring. Lying in bed was boring.

“Are ya gonna go help my big sister?” squeaked Apple Bloom. “Please tell me you are, she says she needs your help!”

She caught her breath. Dash’s eyes burned into her like some pegasus warrior preparing for a final battle.

“Fucking right I am,” snarled Dash, clambering out of bed and limbering up her ungroomed wings.

Apple Bloom bounced, squealing with excitement. “I’ll take care of Spy! Me an’ Granny, we’ll take care of Northern Spy, go and help Applejack!”

Rainbow froze for a moment. She gulped. “Yeah. You do that. You and Granny, you can take care of Spy. I’ll be back.” She gulped again.

“What’s th’ matter?” said Apple Bloom. “I know Granny ain’t herself…”

“No, she is,” growled Dash darkly. “She is completely herself, Apple Bloom. That’s the problem.” She shivered. “You go and tell her that I’m trusting her with MY foal. Tell her I’ll be back. Understand? I think I know what Applejack’s up to. I’m not sure what Granny will think of it. But she’s gonna take care of my baby until the family is together again, and she’s not gonna screw it up.”

Rainbow Dash gulped, trembling.

“Or else,” she hissed through gritted teeth.

With that, she set off, so worked up that she wouldn’t wait for the stairs or the front door. Rainbow Dash turned into a cerulean blur and smashed straight through the bedroom window, ripping the curtains away with her passage, and the warm light of dusk poured into the room along with the sounds of the countryside and a fresh breeze.

“Wow!” squeaked Apple Bloom, and then darted forward to snag Spy’s tail, for the spunky foal had charged forward after her mother. “Oh no y’ don’t! Y’ ain’t no pegasus, y’ cain’t fly!” she said through firmly clamped teeth.

Spy looked around at her in outrage, but her aunt Apple Bloom glowered back just as fierce, and Spy subsided, blinking cutely at the older filly.

Apple Bloom spat out the powder-blue tail. “C’mon, Spy, let’s go talk t’ Granny.”

Out around Mareheim, evening was coming on. Flight Lightning banked, weary, completing a lateral scan of the area and rotating to head for home before it became too dark to see.

She quirked an ear against the roar of wind blowing it back, for she heard an eerie crackling noise, like the sound of high-speed flight compressed and concentrated into an essence of slipstream, faint and then suddenly very loud…

A speck mushroomed in the distance, and then it became a light blue form streaking across the sky—and as the sound peaked, a circular rainbow burst out from the hurtling pegasus pony above and there was just a multicolored streak in the air and a thunderclap that sent Flight Lightning tumbling until she regained her equilibrium, grateful it wasn’t so dark that she’d have to guess which way was up.

And then, the streak curved in the distance, and cut out, and before long Rainbow Dash zoomed up, panting. “Flight Lightning?” she said. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing, Dash,” said Flight.

“Yeah, first, have you seen Applejack? I’ve been out by Appleloosa. I’m supposed to meet her. Have you seen her?”

“No. Have you seen Braeburn?”

Dash blinked, dumbfounded. “What are you doing looking for Braeburn? I think me and Applejack are going to be looking for him. Why you?”

“It’s for Scoots,” said Flight Lightning. “Kid can’t leave it alone. I’m gonna have to find him.”

“Huh?” said Dash.

Flight blinked. “We never told you Braeburn is Scootaloo’s father?”

The news seemed to stun Dash. “What? What the fuck? Stop, wait. Who is what now?”

“She… well, she gets her wings from him. As you know. That worked out awesome, we don’t need to go over that…”

Rainbow Dash wasn’t concerned with Scootaloo’s wings. “Braeburn’s the one who fucked you? He’s run away with Big Macintosh!”

Flight sighed. “He’s good at running away. I thought I had him this last time, but it’s like he just vanished. I don’t know how he does it.”

Rainbow looked stricken. “And now Applejack’s vanished. Maybe she found out where he went?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Dash,” said Flight. “But maybe we’re searching for the same things. Except I’m exhausted—I’ve been flying search patterns for the last three hours. I gotta take a break.”

“Come back to my place. Sweet Apple Acres, I mean,” said Rainbow Dash. “I want to know exactly what’s been happening with good ol’ Braeburn…”

“Eeeee!” screamed Rarity. Fluttershy, passing by the Carousel Boutique, flapped madly in alarm and Pinkie Pie, already twitchy, leapt three feet in the air and assumed several untoward shapes before thudding to the ground, panting and wild-eyed.

“Rarity!” cried Fluttershy. “Rarity, are you okay?”

“Eeeeee!”

The two mares, hotly pursued by their excited foal, charged around and burst in the front door, scanning the place for trouble. It was quiet now, and dark as evening fell more and more heavily upon Ponyville, and they peered nervously around shadowy dressmaker’s dummies and creepy bolts of cloth.

“There’s a light on in there!” hissed Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy nodded, and slunk toward the room with its door ajar. Pinkie followed, her knees knocking like castanets. Rock bounced, merrily.

Three high-pitched pony screams split the air, followed by a colt giggle. Rarity had flung open the door, and they’d all startled each other, to Rock’s great amusement. He flipped and capered, as the adults stared.

“Rarity, are you okay?” managed Pinkie.

“Oh, darlings! Forgive me, I did not mean to upset you–but look at this, just look at it!”

She led them in, and gestured with a forehoof at sewing supplies strewn across the floor, on a glittery carpet of broken glass beneath a smashed window. “I have been robbed, pillaged, ransacked! Such a thing has never happened in Ponyville before, never!”

Pinkie made a face. “Other than Gilda stealing apples from a cart, that stinker! You remember, Fluttershy, it was the same day that she roared at you.”

Fluttershy winced. “Oh, yes. We should try and be open-minded, though. Didn’t you tell me that Gilda is back in Ponyville?”

“Is she?” blinked Rarity. “Oh, dear. Should I be keeping Sweetie Belle in? She’s away at a sleep-over. She and Scootaloo were staying with Apple Bloom tonight. They said she was upset and needed reassurance, which is a fine sentiment though it may possibly also be a cloak for mischief. At any rate, Sweetie is out.”

Pinkie was thinking hard, and muttered, “Come on, sense!”

“I beg your pardon, darling?”

Pinkie blinked. “Oh! Don’t mind me. The ol’ Pinkie Sense has been acting up, and I hoped maybe I could get a clue that would answer your question. About whether you should keep her at home!” Her eyes unfocussed. “Three will be two, and one will be lost and will find…” She blinked again. “What? Did I say something, you guys? I fuzzed out for a moment there.”

Rarity stared at her. “You said three will be two, darling. To which three do you refer, and just what do you mean by, ‘will be two’?”

“Uhhh…”

“She hasn’t been well,” apologized Fluttershy. “I’ve been feeding her dandelion tea.”

“As punishment?” said Rarity.

“No, it’s good for you.”

“I could say the same thing for punishment,” said Rarity wryly. “At least, I used to think so. Pinkie, you’ve come to see if I am well. I am dismayed and burglarized, but otherwise fit as the proverbial fiddle. Are you well?”

Pinkie gave her a sad look. “Not really, Rarity. My Pinkie Sense is going crazy, and I’m a nervous wreck, and it’s just not funny… gahhh!”

Her last expostulation wasn’t to Rarity, but to Rock Candy. He had leapt up onto the table beneath the window, and dove through it into the darkness.

“YOU GET BACK IN HERE!” squealed Pinkie, beside herself.

“Oh, but be careful of the glass, Rock honey!” cried Fluttershy.

Before they could say another thing, their precious foal returned with a bound, back through the window again. He bore something in his mouth, which he presented to Pinkie, waggling his eyebrows. She ignored it, pleading with him, “Don’t do that, you little maniac!”

“He’s got a chicken feather,” said Rarity.

Fluttershy took stock of the situation. “Rock!” she cried, and stared at him in a peculiar way. Rarity stiffened, watching his reaction, for he went unexpectedly docile and trotted over to stand beside his mother. Fluttershy turned to Pinkie. “Do I have to do you as well?”

“Uh-uh,” said Pinkie meekly. “I’ll calm down.”

“What is this, Fluttershy?” asked Rarity, and Fluttershy blushed and looked away.

“I wouldn’t like to say. I think we can all be calmer now. Rock, don’t step on the pieces of glass, dear. Why do you have a chicken feather?”

“What would a chicken be doing smashing my window?” said Rarity.

“Getting to the other side?” said Pinkie. She twitched. “Sorry.”

Rarity smiled. “At least you’re more yourself! This is a mystery, however. Chicken couture is a laughable concept at best, and I see no reason…”

“That’s no chicken feather,” said Fluttershy. She was trembling, staring hard at Rock’s prize.

“What?”

“That’s a griffin feather,” said Fluttershy.

“It is?” said Pinkie.

Fluttershy was squinting at the feather as if trying to pin it down with gaze alone. “I keep chickens. I’ve seen plenty of chicken feathers, and that is not any sort of a chicken feather. I’m almost certain it’s a griffin feather. What else could it be?”

“I’m not sure, darling,” said Rarity uncertainly. “You’ve just told me Gilda the Griffin is back in Ponyville. Are you now telling me that she is robbing my boutique? Whatever for?”

“What did she rob that fruit stand for?” said Pinkie. “Maybe she just thinks it’s cool to steal and break things.” She twitched again, horribly.

Fluttershy stood up very straight. “We’ve got to go and talk to Applejack and Rainbow Dash. This has gone far enough. Come on, Pinkie, come on Rock!”

“Are you well, Pinkie Pie?” asked Rarity. “You’re not looking at anything in this room anymore.”

“I’m fine!” said Pinkie, brightly. “The blood, all the blood soaked right through! Come on, let’s go!”

She gazed expectantly at her pegasus mate and unicorn friend. They stared back, aghast, their jaws dangling.

Rarity gulped. “What… the pony HELL was that, Pinkie Pie?”

“What?” blinked Pinkie. “I fuzzed out again. Maybe I need a nap. Were we going to go straight to Applejack’s place, Fluttershy?”

The butter-yellow pegasus bit her lip. “You need more dandelion tea. Lots of it.”

“Awww!”

“But,” said Fluttershy, “you’re right, this can’t wait. Come on, and please don’t say more disturbing nightmarish things if you can possibly help it?”

“What’s so disturbing about naps?” complained Pinkie Pie. She trotted out the door, Rock capering and sticking close by her, carrying his little white feather. He seemed totally unfazed by any of it, except that he seemed to be staying closer to Pinkie than he had been, hovering protectively around her. She, in turn, seemed to move as if she was increasingly in a dream. Fluttershy took up the rear, her jaw set, a worried look on her face.

Rarity stood absolutely still, watching them go. She listened to their hooves fade down the hall, and out her front door, and she heard the front door close. She held still, poised, for another few seconds: listening, alone, as silence fell.

And then, Rarity fled to her bedroom and hid under her bed, whimpering.

“She’s going to try her best! She rips its little head off to be nice!” protested Pinkie.

Fluttershy gulped. “Lay down, Pinkie, just lay down, lay down and please don’t talk any more…”

“What? I thought you liked me, Fluttershy! Chains, chains, apples gone dark and cold!”

Pinkie had gone delirious on the walk home—if delirium it was. The dazed look was upon her more often than not, and she flipped between lucid awareness and creepy raving without noticing it, not knowing what she was saying. Rock made no comment, indeed he’d yet to say his first word, but he’d gone serious and just watched Pinkie carefully.

“Rock Candy, dear one?” said Fluttershy, biting her lip anxiously.

He quirked an ear.

“Stay with her and don’t let her run away! I’ve got to go talk to Rainbow Dash. I’ve known her for longer, maybe she will listen. I’m worried that if I talk to both of them, Dash and Applejack I mean, they’ll tell me there’s nothing to worry about but there IS and if I can persuade Rainbow, maybe the two of us can talk sense to Applejack…”

“She tasted the claws and they were sweet but she drank too deeply of their sweetness!”

“Pinkieee!” wailed Fluttershy. “Enough!”

“I’m sorry!” said Pinkie. “What did I say? I can’t seem to remember anything. When will he, when will he? Lost to the sun and the moon!”

“Never mind. Rock! Please sit on her until I get back. Pinkie, stay! I’ve got to go to Sweet Apple Acres.” Fluttershy gulped. “Where Gilda is, maybe.”

“She was sitting next to Granny Smith,” volunteered Pinkie. “They both looked really uncomfortable.”

“Well, that was coherent,” said Fluttershy, “and less creepy.”

“He’s dead to her, or soon will be, and she is ever so relieved! They all are! When it’s funny!”

Fluttershy squealed. “Rock! Up!”

Rock glanced at his mother, and leapt up to sprawl on top of his other mother, who beamed at him and said “Hi there!” in a cheerful tone. He looked to Fluttershy for further instructions.

“Stay there until I get back!”

Rock flicked his tail, and began nuzzling Pinkie’s face.

“I suppose that will have to do. Oh, when will you begin to talk, dear little Rock Candy?”

“Dunno,” said Pinkie. “He does pretty well without it. He’s like a silent comic.”

Rock mugged at her, and she giggled. Fluttershy slipped out her cottage door, and took to the air.

She’d set off toward Sweet Apple Acres, but beyond it in the distance she saw the cloud that held Rainbow’s house, and for a moment she struggled with her conscience. Applejack would be at Sweet Apple Acres. So would Gilda, apparently, so far as she knew. Rainbow Dash, too—she’d seen Applejack pleasuring Dash through the window of their master bedroom so many times. It was a favorite viewing subject of hers, they were lovely together. They were probably all at Sweet Apple Acres, thought Fluttershy.

But just possibly, she might catch Dash at home, away from the others… and there was no harm in checking.

Fluttershy passed over Sweet Apple Acres and flew on, Rainbow’s house steadily growing nearer.

“Hello?” called Fluttershy.

No answer.

Her heart was pounding for some reason. She stepped further inside, and peered around. It was dead silent, and dark. Rainbow wouldn’t be sitting in the dark. Fluttershy turned her search elsewhere.

She slunk around the outside of the house, trembling. Rainbow hadn’t taken care of the cirrus gardens one bit, which saddened Fluttershy: her Ponyville gardens were all very well, but she’d encouraged Rainbow to plant cirrus as a sort of nod to the world she’d foregone, and it would’ve been nice if Dash had kept it up. The cloudbeds were bare, or at least they appeared to be in the moonlit darkness. Clouds kept passing in front of the moon and making Dash’s house foreboding and frightening.

When Fluttershy heard the door opening, on the other side of the house, she gave a faint squeak and rushed into the air, flying back around the house to greet Rainbow and begin her conversation.

As she approached the front door, the magic lanterns indoors that Twilight had installed for reading purposes flared brightly. There was a loud squawk, and Fluttershy froze in midair, staring.

Gilda the Griffon was standing there in Rainbow’s front room, squinting and rubbing her eyes with one talon. She’d plainly blinded herself by looking at the light while turning it on.

A bunny kicked frantically, held in her other talon.

Fluttershy couldn’t even breathe. She stared, and then as Gilda began to turn, she scooted up out of sight, backing away, but she couldn’t flee. She didn’t recognize the bunny, but it was clearly in danger, and something had to be done. Fluttershy rushed forward again to where a window overlooked Dash’s front hall.

She got there in time to see Gilda’s other talon close around the bunny’s neck, and the convulsive yank in two directions. The bunny’s body went limp. Its head went flying in a spray of arterial blood.

Fluttershy choked, going white and nearly falling out of the sky. Her stomach churned and flipped, agonizingly. She’d have thrown up—but ponies couldn’t, no matter how badly they needed to.

Gilda’s head turned, and she peered around huntedly, but it seemed her eyes still hadn’t adjusted. She rubbed them with that free talon that had just performed bunny decapitation, and she muttered, “The things I do for you, Dash… oh, crap, the floor!”

She dropped the corpse and scrambled for a towel to clean up her mess, distracted—but Fluttershy had already fled, racing like a feathery bullet straight back home to her mate and her foal.

“So how long has Applejack been away, then?” said Flight Lightning, settling on the downstairs couch as Rainbow Dash shut the front door of the big farmhouse. From upstairs came the sounds of fillies playing: Apple Bloom, her friends, and Spy caroused in Apple Bloom’s room.

“That’s just it,” said Rainbow Dash. “Can I get you anything? Hay, oats, apples? You know there’s gonna be apples, it’s kind of their thing here. Anyway, there’s this note.”

“I’m good,” said Flight. “Just resting up. What’s the note say?” She craned her neck, and Dash shoved the note across the floor to where Flight could see it. “Huh. It’s not what you think? What’s that mean?”

“Uh, sort of private. We were having a talk. The point is, Applejack said for me to meet her in Appleloosa, but then she wasn’t there! I’m gonna go back out to keep looking, because now I’m worried.”

“You look tired, Dash. Just saying…”

Dash sighed. “I am. I don’t know, it’s dark, maybe I should pick it back up first thing tomorrow. You were flying recon as well? Tell me what you saw, Lightning. It looks like we’ve got two—no, three—missing ponies out there. Big Macintosh, Braeburn, and now Applejack. You’re seriously telling me you didn’t see any of them?”

Flight bridled. “Damn it, Dash! It’s like they just disappeared off the face of Equestria. I would’ve thought you could see Big Macintosh from miles away, how could he have vanished? Now you’re telling me him and Braeburn are together?”

Dash glared at the floor. “That’s gone over real well in this household, you have no idea.”

“But I didn’t see either of them, anywhere. Or Applejack, before you ask. So where did they all go?” said Flight Lightning.

Unnoticed, the sounds of filly carousing had stopped. Three little heads peered around the corner of the stairs, joined by a fourth as Spy lived up to her name and joined them in spying on the grown-ups.

The pile of bedcovers shook. Pinkie Pie nosed at it, gently.

“Sweetie? Fluttywuttyprettybitty? What’s the matter, what happened to you?”

The pile sobbed, wrenchingly. Rock Candy tried to peek under it, but Fluttershy only cocooned herself more, frantically burying herself in bedsheets.

Pinkie gulped. This was serious. It was time for desperate measures. It was time for the last straw. She cleared her throat. Rock glanced at her curiously.

“Sticky Buns,” said Pinkie, deliberately.

The pile of bedsheets sat bolt upright, quivering in outrage. Fluttershy thrashed, uncovering herself with a few fierce sweeps of her forelegs. Her teeth were bared, her eyes fixed on Pinkie as she hissed, “How dare you?”

Pinkie grinned ingratiatingly, backing away a step. “Er, now that I have your attention…”

Fluttershy’s eyes were drenched in tears, but suddenly furious. “Don’t you ever, ever…”

“What?” yelped Pinkie. “You didn’t even have a problem with it until I admitted how squicked out I was that day, and suddenly it’s the worst thing ever?”

“To mention that, in front of the foal…”

Pinkie rallied. “Fluttershy, stop it! What is the matter with you? It’s okay for him to see you traumatized until you can’t even talk and you’re just crying, that’s fine with you, but oh dear, we can’t talk about your sweet rump completely drenched in stallion batter until it looked like a donut, that would be wrong! It took hours for us to get your tail silky again, and the whole time we were just flopping you around because you were so damn limp and sated you were like a big pegasus huggy pillow, only filled from stuffing instead of filled with stuffing! Tongue drooling out on one end and the cream filling drooling out the other, and as gross as it was, Fluttershy, that was a truly happy joyous day—but we can’t mention that in front of baby, oh no—even though that’s what made him! Would you get your priorities straight?”

“Stop it,” hissed Fluttershy, her wings all ruffled.

“He doesn’t even talk, you silly,” scolded Pinkie, “we’re in the clear for now.”

“But what if he understood some of it?”

They turned to look at Rock Candy. He gave them a huge, goofy smile that took the concept of ‘incomprehension’ and went on from there into ‘sublime foalish innocence’ and right to the edge of ‘outright mockery’.

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. “Hmmmm…”

“Anyway,” said Pinkie, “it did the job. You’re back with us. Now, tell me!”

“What do you mean?” began Fluttershy, and then her eyes widened, filling with tears. “Ahh! The bunny, the poor bunny!” She began to tremble again.

Pinkie didn’t let their argument faze her—she was right there, hugging her beloved silly pegasus, squeezing her reassuringly tight. “Easy, whisperwings. Easy. What bunny? What happened to the bunny?”

“She… she ripped its little head off! With her terrible claws! I watched!”

“Who did?” said Pinkie, and then smacked herself in the head with a hoof. “I did not just say that. Gilda, right? You saw Gilda do this? Which one, which bunny was it? Darn it, I was just sort of almost slightly starting to begin to get along with Angel!”

Fluttershy shook her head, inconsolable. “It was a strange bunny, not one of ours. I’m sure. Almost sure. Please can we go out and check?”

“Absolutely, Fluttershy. Right now? Do you want to go count them right now?”

“And Rock must stay inside! They’ve all got to stay inside and be safe!”

Pinkie made a face. “That’s going to be really tough.” She glanced at Rock, and he looked back without smiling. She amended, “Or at least, tough on him. He doesn’t understand any of this.”

“Bets?” muttered Fluttershy, darkly.

“Shh, you. We’re going to go make sure all your bunnies are safe. Then we’re going to come back inside, where Rock will be waiting for us, and we’re gonna shut the door and push some furniture in front of it. And then we’re both gonna get some sleep.” Pinkie yawned. “I’m exhausted, poofytail.”

Fluttershy pouted, her eyes still brimming with tears. “You’re the one with the poofy tail. That poor bunny, it had a poofy tail…”

“Shh,” soothed Pinkie. “You take care of me and Rock, well now I’m gonna take care of you. Let’s go make sure all your bunnies are good, and then I’m putting you to bed. Maybe this is what my Pinkie Sense was doing, warning us about a scary monster running around eating everypony.”

“Every-bunny,” corrected Fluttershy, with a sniffle.

“We’ll see about that, buster!” said Pinkie, bravely. “She better not try it!”

Fluttershy glowered at the floor. “I am going to have a WORD with Rainbow Dash.”

Rock sat thoughtfully, as his Moms slipped outside to count and recount bunnies.

“So, it’s true, then,” said Scootaloo. “My Dad and your brother, totally doin’ it.”

Apple Bloom gazed at her, teary-eyed. “Ah don’t even care about that no more, Scootaloo. I was a silly foal to git so worked up about it. I don’t mind if Big Macintosh wants to do that awful stuff, I jes’ want him back home!”

Sweetie hugged her. “They’ll bring him back! It sounds like Applejack went off to find him. Maybe she’s still looking.”

They sat in Apple Bloom’s room, going over what they’d learned, Northern Spy off in the corner chewing on a pencil and flicking her little tail around.

“Should she be doing that? Hey!” said Scootaloo. “Short stuff! Quit it!”

“Naw, it’s all right,” said Apple Bloom, “I got a spare one for me to chew. How we gonna get my brother back, you guys? Do ya think Rainbow Dash and Applejack kin do it?”

“I think we should let them try,” said Sweetie Belle. “They’re grown-ups and they know what they’re doing. Rainbow Dash is very fast! If Scootaloo’s mom is helping her, they can search way more than we ever could.”

Scootaloo pouted. “Yeah, well, I can fly a little bit now. And if they’re so great, why haven’t they found him yet?”

“Mebbe it got dark?” suggested Apple Bloom. “Rainbow said she ain’t goin’ out again until mornin’.”

“I hope Applejack found somewhere safe to spend the night,” said Sweetie fretfully. “Rarity says she isn’t the most clever pony. She took it back but I think she was right.”

Apple Bloom glowered at her. “You got a problem with my big sister? She’s th’ smartest bravest an’ best pony in all of Equestria, you take it back too!”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Sweetie Belle. “We’ve had that argument like a million times, let’s not have it again now. Anyway, it’s not like it means anything. Rarity is helping Derpy Hooves with something, and Derpy is just wonderful, and she’s really stupid!”

Apple Bloom blinked. “Helpin’ her with somethin’? What’s she helping Derpy do, deliver mail? That’s all she does!”

Sweetie glanced at Scootaloo, and hesitantly explained, “I’m not certain, but I think Derpy wants to do, well… what we’re doing. I think Rarity is helping her be pretty. At which she is exemplary,” she concluded.

“Huh,” said Apple Bloom. “She gonna fix that eye from derpin’? I’d pay ta see that.”

Sweetie sniffed. “Maybe you can’t appreciate the work of a real artiste! I saw them leaving for Fillydelphia. Derpy’s eye was still funny, but she was so pretty! She just glowed, and she was so happy and proud.” She sighed. “Maybe she’s just a mail pony, but she’s super nice, the sweetest pony you ever met. And she doesn’t knock things over or break things that much more than, well… than me. You should be nice to Derpy. She’ll always be nice to you!”

“Sure,” said Apple Bloom indulgently. “So Rarity’s helpin’ her canoodle? I guess she got more excuse for it, bein’ a grown-up and all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Scootaloo, but Sweetie Belle hastily interceded.

“You’re right that she’s a grown-up. So are we, now!” she said. “And you will be, too. I’m sure it’ll happen very soon.”

Apple Bloom snorted. “Y’all kin keep it, far as I’m concerned. An’ don’t you start nothin’ in here, this is my room! An’ the foal is present, too! All y’all misbehavin’ up a storm.”

“So, Rainbow Dash is going to go back out tomorrow and find Applejack?” said Sweetie hastily, hoping to change the subject.

“And Braeburn!” added Scootaloo, angrily. “And from the way they were talking, that’s much harder to do!”

“Oh yeah?” challenged Apple Bloom.

“Yeah,” said Scootaloo. Her voice turned wistful. “My Dad is some kind of amazing outlaw cowpony who can hide from anypony and just vanish away on the wind, and not even care. He’s the awesome-est!”

“Thought Rainbow Dash was th’ awesome-est,” teased Apple Bloom. “Which she ain’t, on account of that ain’t how you spell Applejack!”

Scootaloo glared at her. “Fine, they both are. Satisfied?”

“If Rainbow Dash and Braeburn got in a fight, who would win?” said Apple Bloom.

“That would never happen!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Girls,” stammered Sweetie Belle, “settle down. We’re here to comfort Apple Bloom since her family’s acting weird…”

“Oh yeah?” said Scootaloo. “Well, I think she’s acting weird! She’s trying to pick a fight with me!”

“Technically, that’s more her and you acting the same way you do every day,” said Sweetie Belle, uncertainly.

Apple Bloom wasn’t listening to soothing unicorn logic. She smirked at Scootaloo, much reassured by the old familiar Cutie Mark Crusader rough-and-tumble. “I ain’t pickin’ no fight with you. I’m jes’ sayin’, from the sound of it, Rainbow Dash is gonna give Braeburn what fer! And you know what? It serves him right for canoodlin’ with my big brother!”

Sweetie winced. She counted to one-half, and sure enough, by then Scootaloo had flung herself at Apple Bloom and the two were tumbling across the floor, pummeling each other. Sweetie backed off, and walked quietly over to sit with Northern Spy, who glanced up with mild curiosity at her, and no curiosity for the filly brawl going on across the room.

“You and I can have a more civilized conversation, all right, Spy?” said Sweetie. “You’re not going to have any part of such rude shenanigans, right? You and I can be refined, sophisticated ponies and we’ll have our own little sleep-over, here on this side of the room.”

Northern Spy turned a calm ruby eye on her. Then she ducked her tiny head in an unhurried gesture, and Sweetie flinched as Apple Bloom’s body hurtled right over Spy and slammed into the wall behind her. Spy seemed unperturbed.

Apple Bloom bounced to her hooves, grinning, a trickle of blood coming from the corner of her mouth. “Is that all you got?” she cried ebulliently, and charged back into the fray.

Northern Spy glanced back at the stunned Sweetie. “Okay,” she said in her tiny foal voice, and continued determinedly chewing on her pencil.

“Well,” said Sweetie, and gulped. “I guess we’re all having fun in our own way…”

The air was soft, expectant, in Princess Luna’s chambers. It seemed to hang in anticipation for some momentous event, as if it had learned the ways of alicorns and knew when to expect dull routine and when to expect high drama.

It hadn’t long to wait.

There was a bright flash and a crackling pop, and Princess Luna reappeared, her magic aura surrounding two other ponies. One was her consort, Lyra, who pranced in excitement, her cape swirling around her. The other pony didn’t prance at all—she bled.

And that wasn’t the problem: the problem was that she didn’t bleed enough, not nearly enough.

“Clear a space!” cried Luna. “Get my book! It’s in the hallway, it’s called Equine Emergency Medicine, Fourth Edition…”

“Eeee!” squealed Lyra, manically. “We’re a hero!”

“Get that book!”

Lyra dashed out of the room, into the hall. Her hooves could be heard clattering back and forth. She poked her head back into the room. “What was the name again? I’m sorry, Princess, I can’t think!”

Luna panted, her horn glowing, rifling through Applejack’s insides like a thief ransacking a purse. “Then don’t! Leave the book. Get my sister!”

Lyra was gone as soon as she heard the direction the sentence was going. Luna trailed off helplessly.

“And have her… bring the royal physician…”

Luna cursed, and refocussed her efforts. She’d lost so much blood. Applejack lay like a dead thing, and her heart scarcely beat. A tiny magical nudge now and then helped it along when it stumbled. Luna dripped sweat. To misjudge that, to handle the poor mare’s beating heart clumsily, could so easily stop it forever.

Hooves pounded in the hallway. Vast wings shook the air, knocking books off the shelves and toppling potted plants and statuary.

“Luna, I’m here!” cried Princess Celestia. “You’re hurt?”

She burst into the room and skidded to a stop, aghast.

“Faithful Applejack…”

“Sister!” cried Luna. “Aid me!”

Celestia stood frozen for exactly two seconds, muttering under her breath. “…airway, circulation, shock, rebound tenderness…”

“Sister!”

“I’m here! Are you closing this terrible wound? You mustn’t close it yet!” said Celestia.

Lyra crept nearer, wide-eyed, watching Celestia’s mighty wings furl and unfurl. She spoke urgently, but with perfect calm and authority. It was only those vast white wings that revealed her anguish, that groped helplessly at the air as if longing to lift her away from the scene that she leaned ever closer to.

“I couldn’t, I’m trying to keep her heart beating,” sobbed Luna. “She’s lost so much blood!”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “She would. Is she breathing?”

Luna looked up at her, frantic. “I don’t know!”

Hearing that, Celestia suddenly moved around to Applejack’s head, tilting it back as if trying to prevent her from seeing her horrific injuries. Her hat came off, and Lyra shuddered in horror to see her handled so cavalierly, or perhaps it was seeing her make no protest at the loss of her hat.

Celestia had her face directly in front of Applejack’s motionless, pale face. She held very still for a moment, and then twisted back to speak to her sister.

“She’s breathing—just.”

Lyra made a choking, anguished noise, and suddenly Celestia was looking directly at her, and did not look pleased.

“Lyra. Wait outside, do nothing,” she ordered.

“Nooo!” wailed Lyra. “Please, please don’t!”

Celestia hesitated. “…very well. Sit still, do not do anything strange or impulsive or shout or wail or otherwise distract us. Do you understand, Lyra?”

Lyra’s lip quivered. “Y… yes, Princess.”

Celestia turned to her sister.

“I’ve tilted her head back, which opens what we call her airway—that’s A—to allow breathing, which is B. C is circulation, you say her heart is beating?”

“I have to watch it every second,” said Luna, “it keeps trying to stop. Why mustn’t we close the hole in her body?”

“I’ll be quick,” said Celestia, “but we must check her internal organs before sealing them up inside her.” She grimaced, concentrating, her horn glowing brightly as bits of glistening pony gut turned over with wet sounds. Lyra gagged, and then went silent at a furious glance from the Princess. It would’ve been unbearable to hear Applejack crying out as her internal organs, now external, were handled and touched. In some ways, it was worse that she lay unresponsive…

“Amazing,” said Celestia. “There’s nothing. Were some of these organs torn open, she would have been dead by now, perhaps. I would almost say she is an impossibly lucky mare, were that not laughable right now.”

Luna trembled. “We can put her back together?”

“We can try. Lyra!”

Lyra leapt to her hooves, shaking. “Yes?”

“Fetch ‘Equine Emergency Medicine, Fourth Edition’, right away. It will be on the second shelf of the bookshelf outside, third from the leftmost end. Bring it to us!”

Lyra rushed out into the hall a second time, repeating the title under her breath in a panicky monologue. She returned, levitating a book. “It wasn’t third from the leftmost end!”

This seemed to shock Princess Celestia. “But… it belongs third from the leftmost… oh, never mind! Bring it here, thank goodness you found it! Where was it? You must tell me!”

“Your wings blew it off the bookshelf onto the ground!”

Celestia stared. Luna gave a shaky little laugh. “Disorder, sister? Please disregard it and help us, prithee!”

The stately alicorn shook herself, and her magic took the tome from Lyra’s mental grasp. “Of course, dear sister! Attend to her heart. It is a mercy she cannot feel this. Curse it, I don’t wish to lay the book against her poor body…”

She blinked. Lyra had taken the book and was helpfully levitating it, anxiously watching to see if she’d done it right.

“Yes, Lyra. Like that. Page five hundred and twenty-seven, then five hundred and twenty-nine. I’ll tell you when.”

Lyra held the book obediently, enthralled, and she watched as Princess Celestia patiently reassembled Applejack’s insides, all without a hint of protest or complaint from the horribly wounded earth pony.

The book wavered, just a bit, before Lyra caught herself.

She’d realized that this entire time, she’d never once thought of Applejack as a flathead magicless earth pony.

Lyra went very, very solemn and quiet as she watched the Princesses work.

“In truth, we demur from calling it beautiful…” said Luna.

Princess Celestia sighed. “Yes. The poor thing! I fear it will hurt, though we may be lucky in that regard.”

Applejack lay just as they’d left her, chin up, hat off, head back, breathing shallowly. She was very pale, but with all the blood she’d lost, that was to be expected—and her heart beat weakly, but Princess Luna said she’d not coaxed it along for a whole five minutes, and declared herself almost prepared to leave her to it, while obviously settling in for a long vigil all the same.

Applejack’s belly was crossed by a set of shocking scars, legacy of the book’s directions for surgical cantrips. Celestia had described them as old school, yet she’d used them anyhow even while vowing that she’d have physicians develop newer magical sutures, ones that left no marks.

“When’s she gonna wake up?” asked Lyra, fretfully. Applejack’s silence worried her.

“My concern,” said Princess Celestia, “is more, what did this to her?”

“I can sustain her life indefinitely,” said Luna, “if I concentrate. I must watch for signs of flagging. She cannot eat or drink while unconscious, and if she drifts away too far, there will be no returning and she will die.”

“No!” squeaked Lyra. “Why won’t she come back? Maybe if I slap her?”

“Don’t you dare!” snapped Luna. “She has been through enough today!”

“But she has to come back, to get better! What if I yell?” said Lyra. “HEY APPLEJACK…”

She felt herself grabbed up by the scruff of the mane, and dragged into the hall. The color of the magic said it was Princess Celestia who’d seized her, and in another moment Celestia herself strode out to confront her, cornering her against the wall and glaring.

“You behave!” demanded the Princess. “This is serious! Do you not think we want our dear friend, our Element Bearer, to return to us?”

“I, I, but, but…” stammered Lyra.

“She can’t hear you, or us. Your shouts are of no avail, Lyra! It may be a thing called coma. In six hours we may call it that. Even then, I forbid shouting and slapping! Her body may need to heal some of its injuries before she can regain consciousness. You shall not interfere!”

Lyra stared up at the Princess, terrified, and Celestia sighed and dropped her gaze. “Lyra, if she could not respond to the things I had to do within her body, she certainly shall not respond to you shouting at her. To manipulate liver, kidneys, stomach in such a way is inconceivable agony, yet she did not so much as twitch.”

Lyra shuddered, but Celestia pressed on.

“She can’t hear you, or us. Be quiet and let Princess Luna concentrate. She will not sleep while faithful Applejack lies near death. You may attend her in an orderly fashion, and that is against my better judgement… no, that is not right. Say, rather, that it is against my wiser judgement. It may in truth be my better judgement, and I will allow you to attend them. I can see that you must.”

Lyra gave a little, frightened nod.

Princess Celestia sighed, and looked terribly old and tired, all of a sudden. “Ponyville sleeps, Lyra. Night lies heavily upon Equestria, as duty lies heavily upon me. You may sleep, if you can. You have done well, if foolishly, and at the very least you have done no harm—comfort yourself, thus. Tomorrow after dawn, if Luna deems it fitting, you may accompany me to Ponyville.”

Lyra blinked. “What?”

“It would be a mercy,” said Celestia. “You may decline if you wish, but Luna will most likely be watching our patient here, and I would appreciate your company.”

Before Lyra could think, she’d blurted, “But you don’t like me and you don’t appreciate my company!”

Celestia winced. “Perhaps that has been so—but this is different. I must go and inform Applejack’s family.”

When Ponies Attack

Fluttershy fully intended to be the first pony awake at Sweet Apple Acres, so she could speak to Rainbow Dash about what she’d seen. She’d risen before dawn, and flown alone through the last minutes of night so she could arrive at the farmhouse before even the Apples were awake.

She hadn’t bargained on seeing an orange pegasus head pop up above tree level, and drop back out of sight—and she was even less prepared to see it reappear, with a white unicorn head somewhat lower down, and the glimpse of a red mane below that.

Fluttershy swooped down to investigate, just in time to see the process repeat itself.

The three Cutie Mark Crusaders were running in a tightly spaced line, concentrating fiercely. Then, Applebloom ducked her head just as Sweetie leapt up in a bound, her head tucked between Scootaloo’s legs, her forelegs awkwardly clutching her young lover’s hind legs. Apple Bloom made a powerful leap in turn, her head shoving up against Sweetie’s personal areas, and Scootaloo’s wings buzzed madly, creating a storm of lift—and all three little ponies, clinging together in a rather colorful way, soared up into the air, farther than Fluttershy would have believed possible.

As they arced over the peak of their ascent, they peered around to the best of their ability, and Sweetie gave a little shriek when she spotted Fluttershy approaching. Apple Bloom was looking at the ground, and Scootaloo was past noticing anything, for she was clearly working her wings far past their normal abilities and couldn’t dial back the crazed effort until the three fillies were safely touching ground again.

They landed with a heavy thump. Sweetie squeaked, “Girls! Fluttershy is here!”

Apple Bloom spat out dirt ingested through her impressive faceplant. “Hi, Fluttershy, how are you this mornin’?”

Scootaloo was groaning. “I think I better rest a little bit before we try that again. Argh, my wings!”

“What on earth are you doing?” said Fluttershy. “Is it some sort of, um… improper thing I shouldn’t be asking about?”

Apple Bloom gaped at her. Scootaloo looked confused. Sweetie Belle, recently sandwiched between two fillies, wouldn’t meet Fluttershy’s eye.

“What the heck you talkin’ about, Fluttershy?” said Apple Bloom. “We’re just learnin ta jump extra high!”

“Oh, really?” said Fluttershy. “And whose idea was this, yours?”

“Mostly!” said Apple Bloom. “I figured it would help us look. Sweetie come up with what you might call th’ configuration, an’ Scootaloo’s the muscle!”

Sweetie repressed the hint of a sly smile. “No, really, we just want to all jump high into the air for a better vantage point, and thanks to Scootaloo’s amazing flying abilities all three of us can reach nearly the treetops with ease!”

“That’s easy for you to say,” grumbled Scootaloo.

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Fluttershy. “What do you need to see in the treetops? Are you watching birds now?”

“We’re watching ponies,” said Scootaloo belligerently. “And we’re gonna find him first! And Apple Bloom can stop talking about Rainbow Dash and my Dad fighting, ‘cause it’s not even gonna happen, since we’ll find him first and talk to him!”

Fluttershy blinked. “What?”

Apple Bloom grinned. “Why should th’ grownups have all th’ fun? We’re gonna go on a quest to find Braeburn, Scootaloo’s Dad!”

Fluttershy blanched. “Eeep! You mustn’t!”

“You always say that,” complained Scootaloo.

“Uhhh,” said Apple Bloom, “th’ last time she had a perty good point. Is there another cockatrice in the forest, Fluttershy?”

“Worse! A terrible, savage griffin!”

Apple Bloom blinked at the trembling pegasus, and then laughed. “Haw! I think you need to hang around with us Apple folk, Fluttershy. We ain’t scared of no griffins! Heck, we have ‘em over for dinner!”

“But…” quavered Fluttershy. She was pretty sure she knew which griffin Apple Bloom meant. “Please listen to me, it’s very important! You ponies must stay inside and certainly not go on some foolish quest. I can’t explain more now. I must go speak to Rainbow Dash. Promise me you will stay safe!”

Apple Bloom hesitated, reading her eyes. “We ain’t safe? What are we missin’ here? Is it some other griffin we don’t know about, Fluttershy, a wild one?”

Fluttershy seized the opportunity. “Yes! I am warning you about a wild one. Now will you listen?”

Sweetie’s eyes were wide. “Somepony should do something about it, then! We can’t have wild griffins in Ponyville. Maybe Twilight Sparkle will fight it!”

“Maybe we kin get Gilda to fight him!” suggested Apple Bloom. “She’s real friendly-like!”

Fluttershy gulped. “You just stay inside, okay? Just stay home! Now, is Rainbow Dash in?”

“Sure!” said Apple Bloom. “She’s gettin’ breakfast, she’s goin’ on a quest too! We’re all goin’ out to find Braeburn. Except Scootaloo wants to find him first, on account of she’s skeert Rainbow Dash will kick his tail for him!”

Scootaloo glowered. “I am not! They’re not going to fight, they’re both too awesome. I just want to find him ‘cause… I just want to find him, okay? Shut up!”

Sweetie gave her special somepony a worried look—and an uncomfortable observation. “Scootaloo, are you scared he won’t want you, because he ran away? Is that why you want to find him first, in case Rainbow says something wrong or your mom fights with him again?”

Scootaloo’s glower got much worse, and she whirled and turned her back on her friends, sulking.

Apple Bloom nudged Sweetie Belle. “For all th’ canoodling y’all doing with her, you still got the tact of a mail pony…”

“Scootaloo?” said Sweetie hesitantly.

“Girls!” said Fluttershy. “Inside! I need you to go in and stay there until everything’s safe again.”

The three fillies reluctantly drifted back towards Sweet Apple Acres, glancing back over their shoulders, as Fluttershy followed them and hurried them along. “Quickly! Please? That’s the way! Good girls!”

As they obediently filed in the front door, Scootaloo turned and, chafing at being called a good girl, asserted, “Rainbow Dash could kick any griffin’s butt, even a wild one!”

A laugh came from inside. “Probably!” quipped Dash. “Unless I thought of something even better to do with it!”

“Rainbow Dash, I must speak with you, okay?” said Fluttershy. “Upstairs, girls! Grown-ups have to talk now!”

The Crusaders exchanged glances and promptly charged up the stairs, disappearing from sight and making diminishing filly hoofbeats in the direction of Apple Bloom’s room—or, diminishing hoofbeats, at any rate. Fluttershy turned from the stairs and faced Rainbow Dash as she came into the living room, limbering up her cerulean wings.

“What’s up, Fluttershy? I only have a minute, I’ve got to start flying some major search patterns after I hook up with Flight Lightning and we work out coverage.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath. “Rainbow, all my bunnies are safe, just so you know. I am keeping them inside, as you suggested.”

“Oh, good! That ought to…”

“And I know WHY you said that,” snapped Fluttershy, advancing on her friend.

Dash blinked. “Huh? You don’t need to know why, everything ought to be okay. I was just being cautious, but I actually trust her.”

“You trust Gilda?” hissed Fluttershy. “I watched her tear the head off a helpless bunny, just last night. Did you trust her to do that, too?”

Dash stared, and then face-hooved. “Oh, sweet Celestia. This is going to sound kind of weird and gross, Fluttershy, but yeah! I don’t like it either, but yeah, they do that. I made damn sure she wouldn’t do it to any of yours! She tells me she’s hunting out near griffin country. I believe her.”

“Why are you flying search patterns?” demanded Fluttershy.

“We’re trying to find Braeburn. At least, Flight Lightning is trying to find him for Scootaloo,” explained Dash, “and probably also because she likes the way he fucks, but I’m trying to find him because Big Macintosh is missing.”

Fluttershy gasped. “Oh, no!”

“Tell me about it,” grumbled Dash. “That cowpony is too sexy, and that’s me saying it. It’s too sexy if he causes trouble seducing both mares and stallions. I wish we’d taken the trouble to get Big Macintosh laid some more, he probably went off looking for Braeburn for a little more cowpony bucking. And you know, both me and you, we can vouch for the big red thunder, right?”

“No, Rainbow Dash!”

Dash blinked again. “Don’t even tell me you’ve forgotten. I guess it was less traumatic for you, huh? I know Pinkie has you taken care of, believe me I know how amazing she is. With me, he kinda blew my mind but then my life went to shit right away when Applejack dumped me, which thanks for reminding me of by the way…”

“No, that’s not what I mean!” cried Fluttershy, shaking. “I think I know where Big Macintosh went!”

Dash’s jaw dropped. “What? Where?”

“In that wicked Gilda’s belly!” said Fluttershy.

Rainbow stared at her for a moment. Then, she swallowed, painfully. “Fuck you. Fuck you, okay? I don’t need your prejudiced bullshit…”

“No, listen! Gilda is vicious. She kills bunnies. Now Big Macintosh is missing. Griffins used to eat ponies, Rainbow Dash! I can’t believe that you would forget this obvious thing!”

“Gilda’s my friend!” yelled Dash. “How about you get out of here? Go tell it to Pinkie Pie. Maybe she’ll talk some sense into you. I need to get in the air and look for Braeburn and Applejack!”

She froze, for Fluttershy had stepped forward, eyes burning in a way Dash had never seen, and she stared helplessly into those eyes, ceasing to argue and not knowing why.

“Tell me everything you know about the absence of Big Macintosh, Braeburn and Applejack, Rainbow Dash,” commanded Fluttershy.

Dash gulped. “Big Macintosh has been missing since yesterday. We haven’t seen Braeburn for a while but Big Macintosh pretty much admitted he was getting mounted by Braeburn. Applejack left me a note telling me to get out to Appleloosa. We’re going to search for them and bring Big Macintosh home so Granny Smith has to deal with him.”

“Where is Applejack?” demanded Fluttershy, still staring.

“She said she was in Appleloosa, but when I got there, nopony had seen her.”

Fluttershy dropped her gaze, and a tear formed in her eye. Rainbow blinked, released from the mysterious compulsion, and stammered, “W… what the heck are you d… How’d you do that? Why do you need to know all that?”

Fluttershy gritted her teeth, her legs shaking, her wings ruffled up. “I have some painful things to tell you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Big Macintosh and Applejack are dead, Rainbow Dash. Gilda got them. I don’t know about Braeburn, if he’s out by Appleloosa he may still be alive. Big Macintosh never got to Appleloosa, and I think Applejack never made it out of Ponyville alive.”

Dash had gone pale, and her ears were back. “Stop it. Stop saying stuff like that! How dare you tell me…”

“I know it!” insisted Fluttershy. “It’s hard to believe, but you must, or more ponies will die!”

Rainbow shook her head, stamped a forehoof. “You have no proof! You’re just making this up because Gilda ate a bunny. That’s what they do, they can’t eat grass like us!”

“You think Applejack wrote you a note?” challenged Fluttershy, not backing down. “Is that what you think? It was a pretty convincing note, huh, all about getting you out of town for a while, away from the scene of the crime?”

“There’s gonna be a crime right here if you don’t shut up, Fluttershy!”

“Applejack never wrote that note,” said Fluttershy, staring Dash right in the eye. “She never left it, either. Gilda forged it and left it to fool you and get you out of the way.”

“Shut the fuck u…”

“I watched her do it,” hissed Fluttershy, utter conviction in her tone and her stare freezing Rainbow Dash in her tracks.

Dash stared back, teeth bared.

“You have to listen to me when I tell you that Gilda is killing and eating the ponies we love, and you could be next,” said Fluttershy. “So could the fillies I’ve sent inside to stay in safety here. They need to stay indoors, and you need to join me. I need your help bringing Gilda to justice, because I’m not as strong or brave as you. I can’t possibly fight her, but maybe you can. All of Ponyville depends on you now, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow was shaking her head. She wrenched her gaze away from Fluttershy’s, and her eyes were tearing up—not so much from grief at Fluttershy’s news, so much as sheer agony. The darkness was back upon her, using Fluttershy’s voice, oozing like poison into her veins, crooning its insinuating, sickly-sweet song to tell her that life was like this after all, hope was a lie, the most horrible possibilities were inevitably the truth.

“No, no way,” moaned Dash, “no way, no FUCKING way…”

“I’m sorry,” said Fluttershy. “I know it must hurt, but we need you on our side more than ever now.”

“No! We have sex with her, dammit! She wants to be a pony herself!”

“It’s a ruse!” hissed Fluttershy, her eyes flashing. “It’s a ruse, and it worked, it got her Applejack, poor Applejack. And all those poor bunnies!”

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth, her eyes squeezed shut and running with tears from the agony of her tortured thoughts, and then she snapped. “Get out!” she shrieked, charging Fluttershy, kicking out at her with forehooves, attacking the old friend who’d turned into such a nightmare-bringer. “Get out, get out, get OUT!”

Fluttershy’s nerve had failed as soon as Dash’s hoof whacked her in the ear. She squealed, panicked, and ran back out the door. Outside, she blasted into the sky in a storm of hysterically flapping yellow wings, sobbing and wailing, bound for home where her mate and foal awaited her.

Rainbow Dash stamped the ground, shaking violently. She couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop her mind from whirling, showing pictures of all the things that Fluttershy had told her were true.

Rainbow screamed a horrible scream that hung in the air and echoed through the house even after she’d blasted through the door herself and taken to the sky, weeping, turning to her search mission with redoubled conviction, vowing to not rest or eat or even slow down until she’d found every single pony that Fluttershy was lying about.

The sound of her anguished scream faded.

Three little filly heads peered around the corner of the stairs, stunned. A fourth joined them: Northern Spy had woken up.

Apple Bloom licked her lips. Her mouth had gone dry. Her mind was a scary blank, and the world around her didn’t seem real at all.

“I’mma wake up in just a moment. You wait. I know this here’s a dream,” she said. “Such things cain’t happen. You kin stop pretendin’ we’re here on th’ stairs ‘cause I’m gonna wake right up…”

Northern Spy nudged her. Sweetie Belle nuzzled her, and said, “Come on, let’s go back to your room.”

Scootaloo hesitated. “But… Braeburn’s out there some where, and if this Gilda the griffin is…”

“Scootaloo!” said Sweetie Belle. “Shh! Help me get Apple Bloom back to her room.”

“Ain’t prop’ly my room ‘cos it’s a dream, this all is jes’ only a dream,” insisted Apple Bloom, even as her friends and her little niece coaxed and herded her back towards her room.

She got all of halfway down the hall before sobbing, and becoming hysterical. Their herding became hugging, and carrying. She whacked Scootaloo on the chin in her struggles. Scootaloo didn’t utter a word of complaint. She just wrestled Apple Bloom into her room, and joined up with Sweetie in hugging her distraught friend and helping her ride out the first wave of her crushing grief.

“We shouldn’t have listened,” sniffled Sweetie Belle. “But how could we have known?”

“Braeburn’s out there somewhere,” said Scootaloo, so quietly that none of the others heard her.

A little while after Rainbow Dash had vanished over the horizon, two figures appeared on the road, walking solemnly—or at least one did. Princess Celestia trudged heavily, her head bowed. Lyra, by her side, moved skittishly, her nerves making her run ahead and then wait for the Princess to catch up, looking anxiously back at her charge.

The Princess walked on, in her orderly fashion. Her expression hinted delicately that she’d had second thoughts about her plan to bring Lyra, but that she was too polite to rescind her decision. It was the expression of somepony expecting to be consoled by a cute puppy who could also be expected to mess on the floor: a sort of resigned benevolence.

Lyra had the presence of mind to let Princess Celestia knock on the door. The knock was answered by two sets of little hooves running down the stairs, and the door was opened by Sweetie Belle’s magic and Scootaloo’s teeth on the pull-ring, both awkwardly used at the same time. The magic tickled Scootaloo’s nose and caused her to sneeze.

“Princess Celestia!” squeaked Sweetie Belle. “To what do we owe this nice visit? Hi, Lyra!”

Celestia lifted her head. “Where are Apple Bloom, Granny Smith, and Big Macintosh? I must speak with them, and I would rather not repeat my tale over and over.”

Scootaloo ran back up the stairs, calling, “Apple Bloom! Princess Celestia is here! Granny Smith! Wake up!”

Celestia blinked. “Why does she not call Apple Bloom’s brother? Is he already awake, perhaps?”

“That’s sort of the problem,” said Sweetie Belle, wincing. “We kind of can’t.”

Princess Celestia gave a start, her eyes flying wide. “Ah! And Rainbow Dash! I grow old, rigid in my thinking. How could I have thought only of her blood relatives? Oh, dear, we had better call Rainbow Dash as well. As if this could not be more difficult and painful…”

Lyra reared and hugged her. Princess Celestia had gone quite red in the face.

“We kind of can’t do that either,” admitted Sweetie Belle. “Oh! Here’s Apple Bloom!”

Apple Bloom stumbled down the stairs as if hypnotized, staring into Celestia’s eyes with great and desperate intensity. Her lip quivered, and she nearly lost her footing, but she forced herself onward, walking up to the Princess with a sense of occasion, gulping, her eyes tearing up.

Scootaloo followed close behind, saying “Easy there, Apple Bloom.”

Apple Bloom cleared her throat. “Princess. Ya got… sump’n ta tell me, Princess?”

“I would prefer,” said Celestia gently, “to wait until the adults are here, child.”

Apple Bloom gritted her teeth. “Ain’t no child, Princess. Even if I ain’t stickin’ things in my hooha like these critters. You got somethin’ to say?”

“Please wait until we’re joined by your Granny Smith and your brother?”

“You might be waitin’ a spell,” growled Apple Bloom. “Sounds like you won’t talk to me? You’re waitin’ for th’ mare of the house to arrive? Or th’ stallion, though damn if I know what Big Macintosh counts hisself as these days. Maybe that won’t be troublin’ him no more!” She laughed, though it came out like a sob.

Princess Celestia blinked, puzzled. Apple Bloom was getting more and more fierce, to the concern of her Crusader friends. “Something like that,” said Celestia, cautiously.

“Ah think maybe Ah’m it,” said Apple Bloom. “Again, you got somethin’ to say to me, Princess?”

“I beg your pardon, child?”

Apple Bloom gritted her teeth again, and though her eyes were tearing up, they burned a hole right through her Princess.

“If you’re sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’, Ah am the mistress of this here house. I din’t ask for it, an’ I don’t want it. But I am my sister’s blood an’ I am the mare of the house and you’re gonna talk to me. So start talkin’!”

She braced herself, her little legs shaking. Princess Celestia gazed at her sorrowfully, opened her mouth, and found herself too choked up to speak. There was something so heroic about the stubborn little filly, following in her sister’s hoofsteps and taking on the burden of the Sweet Apple Acres ranch in the midst of tragedy.

“Your sister Applejack…” began Celestia awkwardly.

Apple Bloom sobbed, loudly, but would not back away or look down.

“…has been very, very badly injured.”

Scootaloo’s and Sweetie’s eyes widened. Apple Bloom’s were beginning to dull from pain overload, but a moment later, they widened too. She made a choking noise, and spat on the ground heedless of the royal presence, and she blurted “Say that again!”

“Applejack has been hurt terribly. She was attacked by something…”

Apple Bloom’s jaw dropped. “You said hurt! You din’t say killed! Fluttershy, she said she was killed an’ ate up! She ain’t? She… she ain’t dead?”

Behind her, Granny Smith was coming down the stairs. “What’s all this, child? Princess Celestia! Say that again, will you?”

Celestia sighed. “Must I tell it again and again? Can we at least fetch Big Macintosh before I resume?”

“Who?” said Granny bitterly.

Apple Bloom paid no attention. She was hopping up and down. “She ain’t, she ain’t, my sister ain’t dead! Oh my gosh! Oh, Princess Celestia!”

“Do not rejoice!” protested the Princess. “Applejack was attacked by a savage creature, which tore her open! My sister Luna, even now, watches over her healing. She will not wake, and we fear for her life, and I must impose upon you the gravity of the situation!”

“But we know about that,” said Sweetie Belle. “That’s why Rainbow Dash has rushed off! We heard all about the wild griffin that’s hurting and eating ponies, and we thought he ate Applejack and Big Macintosh like Fluttershy said, and now you’re telling us that she got away! Of course we’re happy, we thought everything was lost!”

Granny Smith looked stunned. “What’s all this now?”

“Applejack has been terribly wounded…” began Princess Celestia.

“And Braeburn is still out there somewhere and Rainbow Dash and my mom are trying to find him!” said Scootaloo.

“And…” began Apple Bloom, and froze. “Aw, hell, that’s right! Big Macintosh was doin’ fine an’ then one day he weren’t there and th’ plow was just sittin’ in the fields…”

What happened to Granny Smith then was striking. They could see her putting two and two together. Applejack attacked. Danger in the fields and woods of Ponyville, danger so grave as to take even Applejack down. And her grandcolt, the grandcolt she’d turned from and disowned, the baby colt she’d thought had simply run away to be wanton and immoral…

“Oh, baby, forgive me,” muttered Granny weakly.

“Ma’am,” said Princess Celestia, “are you well? I bring upsetting news. I am concerned for its impact on your family.”

“No, I ain’t,” said Granny. “I ain’t well atall. Oh, my.” Her face twisted in anguish that swept over her in a merciless tide. “He ain’t dead ta me, oh no. Pore baby, he’s jes’ dead… and that’s why he din’t come back… and I never once thought… oh, hell!”

Princess Celestia fluttered her wings in distress. “Granny, calm yourself! What can I do? I can’t bear to bring you such ill tidings, yet I had to! Do you need to come and see Applejack? We cannot disturb her rest, for fear of shaking her tenuous hold on life, but you shall visit her if that will help.”

Granny gulped. “Won’t make up for… oh, pore Big Macintosh! But Ah cain’t lose them both! An’ young Apple Bloom…”

Apple Bloom whirled and faced Granny. “I thunk I was th’ mare of the household. Well, Ah’m mare enough for this! Yes we are visitin’ Applejack, right now! There’s an awful lot o’ farm work ta do but come with me, we are goin’ to go see Applejack with Princess Celestia. Then we’re comin’ back home an’ gittin’ to work, and you’re gonna help me even if you kin only do a lil’. So can you, Sweetie Belle, an’ so can you, Scootaloo!”

Granny gaped at her little granddaughter, and then all at once she began to weep and tremble. “Aw, lil’ darlin’. Life surely do go on, don’t it? There’s always an Apple mare, always. It’s in th’ blood, somehow.”

Apple Bloom held her head high. “Applejack’s coming back. But until then, Ah am boss mare, an’ I’m tellin’ you to come with me an’ go see her. Hop to it!”

Granny seemed weakened. She muttered, “Ah let my poor babies down, an’ it were th’ death of one of ‘em and near th’ death of the other. I ain’t in no position ta argue, not me.”

“I’d like to hear more about what happened to Big Macintosh,” said Princess Celestia, shaken. “This is more terrible than I had imagined, yet I cannot deny the consequences I’ve seen with my own eyes.”

“Fluttershy will tell ya all about it,” said Apple Bloom, “but Princess, lead us to Applejack. Right this instant! In case…” she said, and then she choked up and Sweetie hugged her tightly.

Celestia turned, without another word, and with Lyra close by her side, led the somber procession of ponies out of the house, down the road, and toward Canterlot. It was a long walk, but none offered a word of complaint, and none wavered from their goal.

Except Scootaloo, who kept looking anxiously toward the horizon when the others weren’t watching.

Fluttershy peered around the edge of her front door, trembling. Then, she squealed, and tried to push her way back inside, fruitlessly.

She had no chance against the earth pony who opposed her—a pink pony, with a set jaw and long, straight hair.

“Come on, Fluttershy!” said Pinkie, nee Pinkamena Diane Pie, forcing her beloved out into the deceptively mild air of Ponyville. “Move your little rump! I don’t care if you hop or skip as long as you help me warn the other ponies! This is important!”

“Important?” squeaked Fluttershy. “Try deadly, and scary, and please can I go back and hide under my bed some more?”

“No, you can’t!” snapped Pinkamena, and then facehooved. Her lip quivered. “I… I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I can’t bear to hurt you, but this is serious. We’ll have a big cake and a big tub of pudding afterwards and everything will be okay, but BEFORE that happens we have to warn the town, and if it’s just me doing it, ponies could die from not hearing about it fast enough!”

“Well, why don’t you zip around faster than Rainbow Dash, then, if it’s so important?”

“I don’t have it in me,” said Pinkamena Diane Pie. “I’ve got to protect all the ponies I love. At least I stopped fuzzing out all the time, but that makes me sad. We’ve got to get through this, somehow. Maybe if the town is safe, then I’ll feel like myself again.” She gulped. “I want to be singing and smiling and full of love and I can’t, Fluttershy, I can’t. I’m too frightened, and it hurts too much.”

Rock Candy had come up behind them, and nuzzled his mother, blinking at her peculiar new hairstyle. She stroked him with a forehoof, and looked beseechingly at Fluttershy. “You said we’ve lost Applejack and Big Macintosh. Do you have any idea what that will do to this town? If any more ponies die, I don’t think we can ever recover. I feel kind of like we can’t recover now.” She gulped again. “You’ve got to help me warn them. It’s just terrible!”

Fluttershy trembled, staring at her beloved mate. “You’re right. Can… can we go together?”

“And take twice as long?” said Pinkamena. “Brilliant.”

Fluttershy pouted. “I’ll take the pegasi and the center of town. That will cover many, many houses, and I can sound the alarm from the air.”

Pinkamena nodded. “That leaves me the farm houses and the area by the Everfree. I’m okay with that. I think I can run extra fast if I’m attacked. I hope so, anyway. Rock, you are staying home! Thank you for the cuddles and we will be back for more. Go inside! Don’t open the door for anypony but us!”

Rock Candy looked solemnly at her, and then turned and went into the cottage, as he was asked.

“Such a good boy. All right, Fluttershy—fly, don’t let anything stop you!”

Pinkamena pounded along the road, looking grim and annoyed, calling, “Fluttershy!”

As she approached the town and crossed one of the bridges that ringed it, she pulled up abruptly, staring. Her sweet pegasus was not flying around sounding the alarm, nor was she cowering from the danger. Instead, she was sprawled on a park bench, sobbing, and Rock was with her. Pinkamena galloped up. “What happened? Rock, what are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t send him home by himself!” sniffled Fluttershy. “Now that you’re here let’s bring him home, okay? How did it go for you?”

Pinkamena glowered. “Bad. They gave me hugs! I mean, hugs are a very good thing and normally I am happy to get them, but they just would not listen! Some of them thought I was making a big joke and I couldn’t get through to them at all. Carrot Top wanted me to sing her my song.”

Fluttershy wiped her eyes with the back of a hoof. “Did you?”

“Sort of! I sang, big monsters are coming to eat you up and not even have your carrots as garnish or dessert or anything, so you better hide, la la la!”

Fluttershy stared. “You’re joking. Really?”

“I was upset,” said Pinkamena. “She was totally offended and kicked me out. How did your part go?”

Fluttershy’s lip quivered. “They didn’t hear me! I flew and shouted as loudly as I could and not a pony noticed me. Then, when I started to fly at them and grab them and plead with them to hide somewhere safe, they l… laughed!”

Pinkamena stared into space, sourly. “Something tells me that we are not among the great alarm givers. Applejack would have everypony in town locked up in her barn by now. She’d herd them or something. She’s amazing…”

“But,” objected Fluttershy, “she’s…”

They looked at each other, and began to cry. Rock hopped up frantically, trying to hug both Moms in turn.

“Applejack, noo!” wailed Pinkamena. “Please can it not be true?”

“Oh, Rock!” sobbed Fluttershy. “Let’s get you home!”

“We’ve got to convince the town,” said Pinkamena. “We’ve got to! What can we possibly do?”

Fluttershy was shaking, but she lifted her head. “Maybe if we watched Gilda doing something terrible, we would have evidence? She was staying in Rainbow Dash’s house.” She glanced huntedly at the sky, trying to shield Rock Candy with her wing.

“I don’t think we can shake Rock. He can tell something’s wrong,” said Pinkie. “Let’s all three of us head that way. Keep an eye out because we mustn’t be the next victims, but maybe we’ve got to catch her eating somepony to be believed.”

“That’s horrible!”

Pinkamena twitched. “As horrible as letting it keep on happening, over and over and over, and not stopping it? How many have we lost so far?”

Fluttershy winced. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

They headed nervously in the direction of Dash’s cloud house, Fluttershy barely able to walk for trembling, Pinkie doggedly sheltering Rock every step of the way. A few townsponies gawked or snickered, but the odd trio ignored them: set on their mission, heading back over the bridge and onward to the outskirts of town.

As they crossed the crest of a hill and came in view of Dash’s cloud house, Fluttershy made a faint squeal of horror that she frantically suppressed, and Pinkamena hissed and just about sat on Rock. The house wasn’t empty. A winged figure was coming out of it, brown with a white head, clearly Gilda. It was hard to tell if she’d seen them—she seemed to be carrying something bulky in her talons.

“Take cover!” whispered Fluttershy. “Stay down!”

Then she flew up deliberately, even as Pinkie whispered “Fluttershy, no!” in desperation. All she could do was watch Fluttershy cautiously soar higher, following Gilda as the wild griffin carried her burden away from Dash’s house and away from the three secret observers.

Pinkie died a thousand deaths there in the cheerful afternoon sun as she waited for Fluttershy’s return. She watched, terrified, as Gilda appeared in the sky again and returned to the cloud house alone and shut herself in. Finally, mercifully, her pegasus came back, just as silently as she’d left.

“I know what she did,” said Fluttershy. “I need your help. You’re stronger than me.”

“I’ll do anything, Fluttershy,” said Pinkamena. “I was so scared, don’t ever do that again! I wanted to yell, but then Gilda would have heard it and she’d have caught you for sure…”

“She won’t catch me,” said Fluttershy. “I’m good at watching. You know that. She didn’t spot me, and I totally watched her, and I think we’ve got her. I think she buried a dead body!”

Pinkamena stared at her. “Fluttershy, she eats ponies, she doesn’t bury them. That’s kind of the point, duh!”

“I don’t care, I know what I saw! Maybe she buries the bones! She wrapped them up in something, I know that. If we bring pony bones back to town, everypony will have to listen to us! Come with me. I’ll show you where she buried them. She picked a good spot for hiding dead pony parts. I mean, good if you didn’t have an observant pegasus watching your every move…”

They slunk along, staying under cover as much as possible, along the edge of the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy guided them through heavy underbrush, nearly impassable except by air. She flew up and directed Pinkie who clambered through hedge and scrub getting leaves and twigs tangled in her mane but pushing on unstoppably. Rock followed in her path, bouncing with excitement.

“It’s over here,” whispered Fluttershy. “She really found a place, if you can’t fly it’s almost impossible. You have to go around these thorn bushes, and then she put a big rock on top of it…”

Pinkamena was sweating, glaring at the bushes. “Thorns are no fun!”

“I know,” said Fluttershy gently. “Not much farther now.”

Pinkie concentrated and tried to flatten herself out, but it seemed like she’d lost a little bit of her outrageousness in her grief and worry. She could only squeeze out of the way of the thorns like a normal pony might, and she cursed “Licorice! Tiny black pieces of licorice, skinny… ow! sticks of it!”

“Almost… there you go!”

Pinkamena stumbled out into a small clearing, heavily shaded by the overhanging trees. In the center, a large rock lay atop a mound of freshly turned earth. “Wonderful,” she said. “Was this her idea of a gravestone?”

“You must move the stone away,” said Fluttershy, hovering. “I’m not strong enough.”

Pinkie looked up, with a sour expression. “Well, you could help me!”

“I’m frightened to!” protested Fluttershy. “What if something terrible jumped out from under the rock?”

Pinkamena Diane Pie drew a deep breath. “And yet you are fine with me doing it? Fluttershy! Get down here right now and help me!”

Chastened, sulking, her pegasus mate hesitated no longer. The two ponies hauled at the rock, helped by their excited foal. “Rock! Don’t get near the rock!” cried Fluttershy, fretfully.

At this, Pinkamena snorted with brief laughter. “Now that’s unfair! Stay away from yourself, kid! Okay… almost… got it…”

The big stone rolled aside, and Rock scampered clear with room to spare. Pinkie panted, as did Fluttershy.

“Now you must dig, Pinkie Pie! I’m much too tired!”

Pinkie didn’t hesitate. She knew there was an element of truth in what Fluttershy said, and in addition the fabric of reality seemed to press heavily on her, demanding she complete her task. She stared at the ground, and then began to dig like a dog, and the earth flew away beneath her hooves.

“No, Rock!” she ordered. “Stay back, it could be yucky!”

Very soon, the texture of the earth changed. Something emerged under her hooves, dank, wadded, dark.

“That’s it!” cried Fluttershy. “Be careful, now!” Rock stared, fascinated.

Pinkamena glared up from under a fringe of sweaty mane. “What more do you think I’m gonna do to it?”

“Just bring it up and we will unwrap…” Fluttershy’s lip quivered suddenly. “Her…”

Pinkie dragged the wad of cloth up out of the hole, refusing to think about what it concealed. She feverishly spread it out, digging through the grimy folds. “She must have rubbed it in the dirt for a while!” she said, as she spread out the cloth.

Nothing was inside it, nothing at all. Pinkie and Fluttershy stared at each other.

“But I’m sure this is what she buried,” stammered Fluttershy. “It was right here! And she was so furtive, and this must be what she was hiding, and…”

Slowly, Pinkamena Diane Pie looked at her forehooves, dark with dirt. Very warm-colored dirt. Strangely red dirt… she looked down at the empty cloth again. Her crankiness began to drop away, that anger that had protected her from looking too closely at the situation she was in.

Rock suddenly looked very worried, and nuzzled her as she stared at her prize.

“The blood,” said Pinkie softly.

“I suppose maybe this is what she used to wipe up the blood from that poor bunny?” said Fluttershy. “I hope not. We need better proof! Can you do your creepy weird thing and get a sense of what this is? Not that I enjoy it, but desperate times call for desperate measures…”

“So much blood,” said Pinkie, and gulped. “Please, no…”

Rock stamped the ground, and butted Pinkie with his head. She didn’t respond, just sat blinking and gulping and staring at that cloth.

“I think you’re right, there’s too much. It can’t be from the bunny, or even a whole lot of bunnies,” said Fluttershy. “I knew it! I knew she was a horrible murdering monster! We have to get this back to town right away, and… Pinkie?”

Rock whimpered. Pinkie lifted her head. Her eyes glowed with fey madness.

“There will be more, there will be more! If we have our way, our wonderful pony way! Who can spare a little blood for the tale of Pinkamena Pie? They won’t listen! Sauce for the goose! Come and listen, come, it’s funny, laugh! Everything is terrible and the most terrible thing, why, it’s us!”

“Pinkie!” screamed Fluttershy, but it was too late. Pinkamena had plunged back through the bushes, and was galloping heedlessly through the Everfree back toward town. Rock charged after her, able to avoid injury by following the path his mother had made.

Fluttershy grabbed up the blood-soaked cloth. “Pinkie!” she screamed. She flew after her beloved, and caught up with her to see the madness undimmed, and rendered still more horrible by the beaming creepy smile and the drips of blood all trickling down her pink face from the thornbush’s resistance.

“Stop it! There’s blood all over you!” cried Fluttershy.

“There will be more, oh yes,” called Pinkie, “and I won’t be the one who stops it! They won’t listen, they won’t listen, murder by law, everything is wrong and you can’t help! It’s out of my hooves, la la!” She trotted on, heading straight back to Ponyville. Fluttershy bit her lip and flew after, and Rock stuck close by Pinkie, staring up fretfully at her.

Carrot Top was out in her fields. Her jaw dropped, and the hoe fell from her mouth. “Pinkie! Something attacked Pinkie!”

“Listen to me,” demanded Fluttershy. “You’ve got to come with me and we’ll get a gang of ponies and we have to go and attack Gilda!”

“That griffin?” stammered Carrot Top. “She did this? Look at her!”

“You will have her blood on your hooves!” called Pinkie, a huge mad smile on her face. “And that’s not nice at all!”

“What?” wailed Carrot Top.

“She has Applejack’s blood on her hooves!” said Fluttershy. “Because Gilda has it on her claws and killed Applejack! It's all over this cloth, it's our evidence! Gilda must have eaten her all up except for… hey! Wait!”

She stared in frustration. Carrot Top pounded away from them as she galloped into town in a panic, screaming shrilly. Pinkie resumed her incongruous trot, and Rock pursued her single-mindedly. Fluttershy gathered the cloth up in her forehooves, and the blood and dirt stained her yellow chest an ugly iron-oxide brown. She set off as well.

When she got into town, Pinkie was cornering Bon Bon in the street, beaming. “How does it feel to know you’ll be part of a blind hateful mob?”

“What’s the matter with you?” cried Bon Bon. “Leave me alone!”

“You could think twice, but you won’t, you won’t!” insisted Pinkie. Bon Bon bridled, her ears laid back at the smiling, blood-streaked visage.

“You’ve got to help me!” demanded Fluttershy. “This cloth is totally soaked in Applejack’s blood, and… hey!”

Bon Bon had galloped off. Pinkie’s grin widened. She reared, standing on her back hooves, kicking the air, and did a twirl.

“It begins!” she cried, and her eyes rolled back in her head, and Pinkamena Diane Pie fainted in the middle of the street, bleeding from all her thorn-induced injuries.

Rock wailed and dove, clinging to her and shaking her. Fluttershy hesitated a moment and then called, “Rock Candy!”

He looked up. She was staring at him in a peculiar way, a way that made him stop thinking and just listen and obey her instructions.

“Stay with her and don’t let her talk to anypony else, okay? I’ll be right back and we’ll take her home, but I have to get ponies to do something for me first.”

Rock nodded, tearful, and did as Fluttershy asked. He stayed with Pinkie, soothed by her regular, even breathing, feeling her heartbeat against him as it calmed from hysterical pounding to more of its normal throb. Fainting seemed to have helped Pinkie. Her face relaxed from its rictus grin, but in some ways it was no improvement, for she looked so sad.

He watched across the town square as his other mom confronted a mare with a red flower on her flank, only to stamp in frustration as the hapless pony screamed and ran. She turned to argue with a dark-maned elegant mare who bore a purple treble clef on her rump. This one didn’t run, but turned to a pegasus she was with, a big strong fellow dressed as a Royal Guard. That one’s eyes widened, as Fluttershy showed him the cloth and spoke at length. Rock couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the guard began to look more and more worried…

Gilda thought she’d settled her nerves down. She’d laughed at herself for being a cowardly griffin, though it wasn’t a very convincing laugh and the way it faded into the silence of Dash’s kitchen left her feeling even more jittery.

When the loud rapping erupted from the front door, she thought she’d end up clinging to the ceiling. Instead, her talons scraped on the floor tiles with a nerve-jangling screech that sent a spasm up her spine. She took a deep breath, and tried to sheathe her claws.

Gilda eyed the door warily, and pulled it open, to reveal two ponies standing on the walkway just outside the house. One was a big white pegasus dressed up in some sort of uniform. The other had no business being up on a cloud at all, for she was an earth pony, a pretty gray mare despite a severe case of long flowing dark mane and tail. She had lovely violet eyes, but Gilda didn’t like the way they were looking at her.

“Ma’am?” said the pegasus. “Can we speak with you for a moment?”

Gilda narrowed her eyes. “About what?”

“About, uh…” The pegasus broke off, whispering to the pretty mare. He turned back. “Papers. We’d just like to see if your griffin papers are in order.”

Gilda shifted her weight from talon to talon, uncomfortably. “I’ve never heard of griffin papers! What the fuck are you talking about?”

The pegasus flinched, and listened to the mare whisper something else. “Oh!” he said. “So you haven’t got griffin papers? You’d better come with us.”

“What for?” demanded Gilda.

The mare spoke up. “You should listen to what my boyfriend says! Trust me, it would be the easy way. You don’t want to see the hard way.” She nodded, solemnly.

“Oh yeah?”

The earth pony mare held her head high and proud, and stared back at Gilda, as if she was so confident in her pegasus boyfriend that she had no fear of an angry griffin directly in front of her. “Yes. Go with him. Stout Heart? I believe there is something you say at this point, isn’t there?”

He glanced at her. “Must you, Octavia?”

Octavia gave a little gasp. Her hind legs were trembling. “All right, I admit: I just want to hear you say it. Go on.”

Stout Heart sighed, and fixed Gilda with a fierce gaze. He rumbled, “Gilda Griffin, you are under arrest. Come with me.” He glanced back at his marefriend, who quivered with excitement. “Like that, dear?”

“Oooh, yes,” said Octavia. “Delicious.”

Gilda stared at the two in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Go away. Fuck you. Or go fuck each other, it looks and smells like that’s what you want to do right now. Piss off!”

Octavia grinned a tight little grin. “Later. Right now, you’re coming with my wonderful darling Stout Heart, peacefully, or you’ll be very very sorry.”

“Oh yeah?” hissed Gilda.

“I told you this was the easy way,” said Octavia with serene confidence. “We can do it the hard way if you like. We’re being nice. I’ve seen the hard way, and you don’t want to see it.”

Stout Heart stepped back a pace, biting his lip. A splintering sound filled the air. Gilda looked down to see that she was tearing up Rainbow Dash’s front step, her talons sinking deep into the painted wood. She looked up, and realized she was grinding her beak, her nerves jangling worse and worse. The afternoon was turning into a nightmare, and this stupid earth pony kept on smiling smugly at her, threatening her with hints about the fierceness of this police-pegasus who was already shying away from her.

If she knocked him aside, he’d still be able to catch the earth pony if she fell off the cloud. The sky awaited.

“Fuck your hard way,” snarled Gilda, and stepped forward one pace. Stout Heart stepped back, nervously, glancing between the griffin and his marefriend. Octavia didn’t budge.

“Last warning,” said Octavia, calmly.

“Fuck you, too,” hissed Gilda. Her talons dug into the steps and wood splintered and broke. Her hindquarters shifted their weight back and forth, her tail lashed. She thought to herself, hit him with your shoulder, keep the talons down, one good pounce and you’ll be clear…

Gilda leapt, and screaming yellow hell descended upon her before she even reached him.

She tumbled, the wind knocked out of her, panicking and lashing out in all directions. Octavia jumped back and plummeted through the cloud. Stout Heart dove in pursuit and reappeared in mere seconds carrying his mare, and watching from a safe distance. Octavia’s voice pealed out triumphantly. “Warned you!”

And all the while, Fluttershy snarled and wrestled with Gilda, long flowing pink mane flying in the breeze, kicking and biting like she herself was a wild animal.

Gilda writhed, nearly flinging the maddened pegasus off, but Fluttershy was biting her shoulder. She lashed out, and Fluttershy screamed, gashed deeply in the chest, her body whirling to sprawl helplessly across her attacker’s. Gilda’s hind claws came up, ready to instinctively gouge and tear at Fluttershy’s neck—and Fluttershy’s back hooves kicked out savagely, once, twice, slamming into Gilda’s head with sickening force.

Gilda thrashed in a final spasm and went totally limp, out cold.

Fluttershy stood panting, shaking, dripping blood. Octavia cheered. “You were right! She was a big criminal and we’ve caught her!”

“I hope you didn’t kill her,” said Stout Heart. “I didn’t want there to be a fight. This is bad all around.”

Fluttershy bent her head, staring hard at the comatose griffin whose eyes gazed vacantly at nothing. She looked up. “I didn’t. She’s unconscious but is not dead. I wish she was… but that wouldn’t make Applejack and Big Macintosh be alive again.” Her face twisted, and she began to cry.

Stout Heart set Octavia back on the path outside Dash’s front door, and addressed Fluttershy as she hung her head and wept. “You can carry Tavi back to Ponyville. I won’t ask you to carry this… thing. I can hardly believe it’s true. I guess we’ll be using the dungeon for the first time in a long time! Are you ready?”

“Just a moment,” said Fluttershy. She bent down, and took a breath, muscles on her neck standing out from the tension of her fury and grief. She whispered, very quietly and gently, “That… was for Applejack, poor Applejack.” She paused.

Stout Heart opened his mouth and then flinched. With blinding speed, Fluttershy had smashed Gilda in the head with a forehoof.

“And THAT’S for the BUNNIES!”

Stout Heart and Octavia stared, wide-eyed. Fluttershy gritted her teeth and slowly looked up at them, her eyes burning.

“Take her away.”

I'll Take No Denial

“How are you feeling, honey?” crooned Fluttershy, bending solicitously over Pinkie Pie who lay in bed, looking ragged and exhausted.

The only response was a groan. Rock Candy glanced up from his post atop his ailing mother, and smiled. He’d been dreadfully worried, struggling to get Pinkie home like some tiny sheepdog, but once he had her in bed and was sitting on her to prevent her escape he’d seemed much relieved.

Fluttershy was pretty sure she had him figured out.

“That’s right, Rock. Pink Mommy will stay inside where it’s safe. But you know, Winged Mommy was able to protect you both, and I promise the danger is gone now, okay?”

Pinkie coughed, squirming under the covers. Her eyes opened, a glint of pure blue through heavy-lidded slits, squinting up at her hovering mate.

“Do you need more blankets, love?” asked Fluttershy. “I understand you might want fewer because you’re sweating but you were also getting chills and I thought…”

“She didn’t do it,” said Pinkie hoarsely. She coughed again. Rock nuzzled her.

Fluttershy’s serene flight wavered. “I’m sorry?” she said.

Pinkie’s expression was grumpy. Her voice was weak, but clear. “What were you just telling Rock?” He cocked his head, then rolled off her, apparently satisfied she was well again.

“Just what I wanted to tell you. The danger is gone,” soothed Fluttershy, “and Gilda is under arrest. I, uh, I helped. I had no choice. It was rather exciting.”

“No, no. No. It’s not. I just went really deep into Pinkie Sense, and the danger is totally not gone. It’s getting worse. All I can remember is the idea of good ponies terribly changing…”

“Into kebabs?” snapped Fluttershy, tartly. “We’ve stopped that, thank you very much! It breaks my heart that we couldn't save Applejack and Big Macintosh, but there will be no more vanishing ponies.”

“Something’s very badly wrong,” insisted Pinkie. “It’s still wrong. You feel wrong! What are you doing looking at me like that? You’re being sarcastic and you’re holding your chin so high and what’s going on, Fluttershy, what happened?”

At that, Fluttershy came down to a graceful, silent landing on her slim little hooves. She dropped her gaze, and peered at Pinkie from under her bangs, and her expression was sulky and resentful. “I thought you’d be proud of me, Pinkie Pie. I saved us all. Iron Will would be proud of me, why can’t you? Sometimes when there’s a vicious monster, and it’s physically attacking a helpless pony right in front of you…”

Pinkie rubbed her eyes, groaning. She looked at Fluttershy more closely, and the pegasus’s yellow chest still showed the rust-colored stain from that telltale blood-soaked bedspread, but that wasn’t all. “Shy! Your chest! What happened to you?”

Fluttershy’s chin rose, scornfully, again. “Gilda happened to me, that’s what. It’s okay. I handled it.”

Rock looked worried again. Pinkie was shaking her head. “But… that’s impossible! I used my Pinkie Sense, and I drifted outward to get the feel of things and I felt… I don’t know how to describe it. This outpouring of pony hearts in sympathy from somewhere. They responded to… to Gilda’s tenderness…”

“So did I,” snapped Fluttershy. She pawed the floor with a forehoof, swishing her tail. “Where were they when I had to respond with a hoof to the head? I could have used their help, these pony hearts. I guess they were too busy pouring sympathy to notice when Gilda was about to tear Octavia’s boyfriend to pieces and eat him right in front of her. I’m sure that’s easy to miss, what with the leaping and hurling him to the ground and everything.” She blinked. “Well, to the cloud, anyway.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” objected Pinkie. “How can that be? Fluttershy, I’m telling you, she and Applejack are friends. Maybe very special friends, you know what I mean? And I know she’s extra special friends with Dashie. She can be a real jerk-face, but I saw her at Sweet Apple Acres and she was trying really hard to be nice. And I went into Pinkie Space super hard and I don’t know that Applejack is even dead! She… went away somewhere. It’s really weird, I can’t even tell you.” She shook her head in disbelief. “This is all wrong, somehow!”

“I saw her too,” hissed Fluttershy. “I saw her tear the head off a helpless bunny. Don’t you tell me she’s not a killer.”

Pinkie blinked. “That sucks. Is that why Rainbow Dash left you that note, saying to keep your bunnies inside?”

“Uh-huh,” said Fluttershy. “I bet she’s sorry now.”

Pinkie was thinking. Her long straight hair fell over her glowering, concentrating eyes. “But… the thing is… well, you take care of animals, Fluttershy. Don’t you?”

“The ones not being eaten by wild griffins, yes,” said Fluttershy haughtily.

“Well, then you must understand. Gilda’s like a big cat with a bird head. I wholly approve of keeping our bunnies and small woodland creatures safe, however much I think some of them deserve a wake-up call…”

Pinkie glared across the room. Angel Bunny stuck his tongue out at her. Meanwhile, two squirrels headed into the kitchen, and a hawk and eagle peered around the edge of the door.

“But,” continued Pinkie, “some animals eat other animals, not grass like us. You know this! Gilda gets it both ways, she’s a big cat but she’s also a bird of prey. Look! Fluffkin, there, look at him!”

The eagle gave a start, and cowered back behind the door a little. Fluttershy turned, and gave him a warm glowing smile, and called, “There you are! Fluffkin, sweetie, don’t be frightened, it’s just Pinkie! Nobody will hurt you!” She turned back. “What’s your point, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “Fluffkin is an eagle, Fluttershy. He eats bunnies too, and you love him just the same.”

“No he doesn’t,” snapped Fluttershy.

“What?”

“He eats bird-seed,” claimed Fluttershy. “So does Cinnamon, there, the hawk. Don’t you, my darlings? They love me very much and they promised they won’t ever eat bunnies or anything like that, ever again. They eat bird-seed. It’s amazing how little bird-seed it takes to feed an eagle, they really eat no more than the sparrows or the chickadees and they’re no trouble at all.”

Pinkie’s jaw had dropped. She stared at the big, savage-looking eagle and the red-tailed hawk as if she’d never seen them before.

They had the decency to look extremely embarrassed.

“I think you might want to have a talk with them about that, sometime,” managed Pinkie. She realized that Angel Bunny was glaring at both of them. He turned back to her with what she recognized as a long-suffering look: the one animal, of the whole bunch, who presented Fluttershy with anything but the image of perfect peacefulness and harmony. Of course she loved him best of all, but it had never occurred to Pinkie that there was anything odd or disingenuous about the whole pacifistic menagerie until she saw Fluttershy informing her that the big, powerful eagle ate the same as a sparrow—fed on a diet of bird-seed and pure pony love.

Angel Bunny snorted, and hopped off to the kitchen. The eagle stepped hastily out of his path, and then glanced back at Pinkie in a panic—and his eyes pleaded with her, begging ‘don’t give me away’.

Pinkie gulped. “I think maybe I owe somebody an apology.”

“Yes, you do,” said Fluttershy, stepping over and petting the eagle’s head with a gentle hoof. He snuggled against her with a little sigh, and then looked embarrassed again.

“Not him,” said Pinkie. “Fluttershy, what the buck happened out there?”

A rich, fruity new voice broke in upon them, dripping with pleasure and curiosity. “Oh yes, please. I am, as they say, all ears…”

Pinkie’s head whipped around. Rock’s ears went back, and he cringed down behind Pinkie a little bit. Discord was sticking his head through the window and beaming a huge smile at them. Ever since Fluttershy had tamed him, he’d been an occasional visitor. They hadn’t heard him, because he hadn’t seen fit to actually open the window, he’d just stuck his head silently through the glass without breaking it.

Fluttershy was undaunted, and slightly stern. “Discord, what are you doing here? Are you being good?”

He slithered into the room, phasing cheerfully through the window, and it stretched and then wobbled back and forth like jelly for a moment after his passage. “I smelled the chaos. It was delicious! Oh, please, tell me what’s going on in this charming little town. I wasn’t sure it could even BE more of my favorite, but the emanations of uncontrol positively make me quiver all over. What have you done to this place, and can you please do more?”

“I’m trying to figure that out!” squeaked Pinkie. “Don’t interrupt!”

“What have you done to your hair?” crooned Discord. “I like it.”

Pinkie glowered at him. “Fluttershy! Explain what you did to Gilda, and what she was doing at the time.”

“Gladly!” retorted Fluttershy. “Whatever you say, I think Gilda killed and ate Applejack and Big Macintosh. I watched her tear the head off a bunny with my own eyes. She was jumping on Octavia’s boyfriend and she was going to eat everypony in Ponyville, so I was just kicking her in the head a little until she died.”

Discord heaved a deep, tremulous sigh. “Oh, my. I’m all squishy already…”

Gilda bit down, and the warm blood spurted into her mouth. Her mom squawked, “That’s the way, Gilda! Sweet, huh? This one’s lighter in color because it’s young. It’s rich, low in fat, and less salty, which means you should be eating these especially as you get old, whatever your Dad thinks. Take another bite. It’s actually cruel to not tear into ‘em because you’re helping it go into shock and die, and it will feel the pain more if you’re delicate about it. Big bites, don’t linger. Got that?”

She turned from her chick to sink her beak into the pony’s haunch. The pony shuddered, crying out in dazed protest despite her horrible injuries, and flailed a foreleg weakly—and Gilda obediently seized the upper part of that leg, between muscle and bone, and ripped off some more meat. She glanced over, up at the thing’s soft brown eyes, across the red-streaked sandy coat.

They weren’t brown eyes, though. They were green. The hat was brown. The hat?

Gilda’s beak dropped open. Suddenly, she wasn’t an innocent griffin chick. She was fully grown. The pony she crouched over wasn’t sandy-colored. It was orange. The red on its flank wasn’t just from her Mom tearing into her dinner, it was what they called a cutie mark, apples…

Gilda looked slowly up into Applejack’s eyes, and for a horrible moment she watched her pony lover die under her own claws and beak, suddenly inserted into that grim, suppressed childhood memory to take the place of the unnamed young mare her mother had taken down.

She heard the shriek as magical fire incinerated her mother. She turned to face her doom.

A long, flowing pink mane waved like a battle banner, and the yellow form descended upon her, baring teeth and rending her body apart effortlessly…

Gilda thrashed and woke with an anguished squawk. Her head was splitting, hurting ridiculously bad. The light glared, blinded her. She hurt all over. She was lying on something cold, stone-like. As her eyes adjusted, she saw bars of metal. She tried to sit up and banged her head on the roof of the cage, and behind her a terrifying snarling and baying burst forth, and Gilda twisted her head to see a large, frothing dog locked up in another cage right next to her. It flung itself against the side of its cage and she shrunk back as best she could.

“Holy crap!” squawked Gilda, and then grabbed her head, for the headache didn’t like her yelling one bit.

Outside the cage, she saw a unicorn pony dressed as a doctor, and a pegasus with a guardlike look about him. They were watching her closely.

“Applejack!” squawked Gilda. “I need to see Applejack, is she back yet from Appleloosa? She was going to Appleloosa, is she back? Did she get there okay?”

The ponies looked at each other. The doctor pony’s horn glowed, and he wrote a note on a pad of paper. They didn’t answer her, and the more desperately she stared, the more they looked away.

“But you don’t understand that she’s completely wrong!” pleaded Pinkie Pie, trotting alongside Discord as he walked down the street into the center of Ponyville.

“I never said she wasn’t,” replied Discord complacently. “Goodness, no. Friends can be completely wrong, didn’t you know that? Why, that’s practically what friends are for! What would be the point of friendship if you didn’t want to strangle them now and again?”

“I don’t want to strangle my friends!” screeched Pinkie, stamping the dirt with a forehoof.

Discord’s eyes twinkled. “Even me?”

Pinkie stuck out her lower lip. “Uh. Yeah, I guess you got me there. More like, you should get a spanking, and so should she!”

“Oooh! Kinky! I like it! Where do I sign up? Do I get to watch you spanking her? My oh my!”

“This isn’t a good time,” grumbled Pinkie Pie. She looked up to watch a screaming earth pony mare gallop toward her, a mare with daisies for a cutie mark. She ran straight up to Discord, looking back over her shoulder and whinnying, “Wild griffin! Wild griffin! The children!” in terror. Then she caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, stopped, reared, and ran straight back the way she’d come, still looking back over her shoulder, still screaming.

Discord cavorted, beside himself with glee. “You see that? You see? She flees in hysteria, from nothing. She sees me, she turns, she continues to flee, but this time it is back toward the supposed danger!” He heaved a great sigh of satisfaction. “Now THAT’S chaos!”

“It’s bad!” yelled Pinkie.

They were approaching Twilight’s house. Trixie Lulamoon stuck her head out the door, gasped, and disappeared, allowing the door to swing open. Discord pranced over happily and called, “Come out and enjoy the chaos, this time it’s all yours! I swear, I’ve done nothing in the least to cause it, do you mind terribly if I just… wallow in it for a while?”

Hooves drummed on the library floor. Twilight and Trixie appeared in the door, looking back and forth frantically at the galloping townsponies.

“What did you do to them?” cried Twilight.

“You’ve got to help me save Gilda, Twilight!” wailed Pinkie. “Everything’s going wrong!”

Twilight lost no time. She charged down the street, Trixie at her side, Pinkie on the other side. “What happened?”

“Fluttershy said Gilda killed Applejack and Big Macintosh!” yelled Pinkie, galloping.

Twilight whinnied in alarm, rearing and kicking the air. “She did WHAT?”

“But she didn’t, I’m sure of it!”

“Well, take me to Gilda, we’ll get to the bottom of this!”

Pinkie suddenly screeched to a halt. Twilight stumbled, trying to arrest her headlong gallop, whirled, and cried “What?”

“I thought you knew where she was!” said Pinkie Pie.

Behind them, Discord fell over laughing, thwapping his tail on the ground, and another pony ran screaming up to him and then back the direction she’d come. Twilight gave a little bray of frustration and stalked back, ignoring the stampeding townsponies, to confront him. “What do you know about all this?”

“Only that Fluttershy’s turned delightfully forceful, Pinkie Pie denies the whole thing, and the moment when you tripped over your own hooves was absolutely priceless! The look on your face!”

Trixie snarled. “Trixie is going to…”

“No, Trixie!” snapped Twilight. “He’s still a draconequus, watch it. Discord, Pinkie, what’s all this about killing Applejack?”

“Fluttershy says she’s dead, we dug up this bloody sheet that Gilda tried to secretly bury and hide, but I used my Pinkie Sense super hard and I don’t think Applejack died! She… she just… went away somewhere and didn’t come back?”

Twilight had turned a sickly shade of lilac, staring at Pinkie. Behind Pinkie, she saw Fluttershy approaching, Rock Candy in tow. Fluttershy looked serious, determined, angry. Pinkie’s eyes pleaded with Twilight, as Fluttershy walked up and spoke.

“Twilight Sparkle, I don’t know what Pinkie Pie has been telling you, but I’m pretty sure Gilda the griffin killed and ate not only Applejack, but also Big Macintosh. They’re both gone. We have the sheet she wrapped the bodies in, and I watched her kill a bunny with my own two eyes, and she tried to hide the sheet, and when we went to question her she tried to attack Stout Heart, the guard, and we had to knock her out.”

Twilight’s eyes were the size of dinner places, staring at Fluttershy. She turned to Pinkie, who’d been telling her it wasn’t true based only on Pinkie Sense. She turned back to Fluttershy, noticing the gash on her chest, the bloodstains, the set of her jaw.

“We put her in the veterinary kennel because Ponyville doesn’t have any jails,” said Fluttershy. She dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry if this is a lot to take in at once. I don’t like it either, but at least we stopped it before any more ponies died.”

“Applejack,” whimpered Twilight. Trixie hugged her, glaring at Fluttershy.

“It’s not true!” yelled Pinkie.

“Prove it,” said Fluttershy, stamping a hoof. “She nearly killed me, and she would have killed Stout Heart if I hadn’t jumped on her and kicked her in the head a whole bunch of times.”

Discord gave a hoot of delight. Fluttershy glared at him, and he looked bashful and quieted down.

Twilight Sparkle was gritting her teeth. She lifted her head. “You know what? That is exactly what we’ll do.”

“Good!” said Fluttershy, and then froze, for Twilight was skewering her with a ferocious glare, amplified by the dark circles under Twilight’s eyes and the air of ragged, edgy exhaustion she had after her ceaseless researches on the magic bit.

“No. We’re going to prove what REALLY happened. We’re going to scry, and mage-meld, and turn over all of Equestria if we have to, and we’re going to have a trial once we have real evidence what’s happened. All the ponies in this town are crazy, and I’m not going to believe anything anypony says without evidence.”

“I’ve got evidence!” insisted Fluttershy. “We dug up a bloody sheet. I bet you anything you care to name that it’s pony blood, that it’s Applejack’s blood, and that we caught Gilda just in time before she killed others!”

“Bring it,” said Twilight grimly. “We’re going to have a little talk with Miss Gilda Griffin.”

Pony after pony stopped galloping madly to and fro, as they saw Twilight marching down the street. Pinkie, Fluttershy, Trixie accompanied her, but somehow it was Twilight’s presence that got their attention, just as she had the day the sleeping dragon was discovered. She didn’t address the townsponies, but they followed her anyhow, and a stampede turned into a quiet and anxious crowd. A good half of them shied away as Twilight approached the veterinary kennel, but they reared up and peered through the windows, terrified and fascinated.

Twilight ignored them. Her full attention was on Gilda, who cowered in the back of a cage too small for her.

Everypony in the room leapt in startlement as the dog in the adjacent cage suddenly exploded in barking. Gilda jumped as well, banging her head on the top of the cage, and then subsided, shaking visibly. Trixie glared, her horn lit, and the dog’s barking was squelched by a firm magical grip around the muzzle.

“Okay,” said Twilight. “I’m not exactly sure what we’re going to do, but I know how we can start. This is a truth spell.” She concentrated, and a glowing sphere floated in the air, which Gilda regarded with panicky suspicion. Twilight continued, “Now, let’s have some statements. Exactly what happened here?”

Silence stretched out. Twilight stamped a hoof. “Come on! This is advanced magic but it’s not going to hurt you! It’ll ding, that’s all it’s going to do! Fluttershy, what’s this about a bedsheet?”

“Oh!” said Fluttershy. “I watched Gilda bury a bloody sheet. And rip the head off a helpless bunny!”

The sphere dinged, brightly, twice. The townsponies gasped.

“Really!” said Twilight. She turned to Gilda. “Did you bury that sheet Fluttershy’s talking about?”

Gilda licked her beak. She was trembling. “And what if I did?”

“Fluttershy’s accusing you of some pretty serious stuff,” said Twilight. The sphere dinged.

“Where’s Applejack? Can I talk to Applejack?” said Gilda. There was a stir.

“How did you know it was Applejack we’re talking about?” demanded Fluttershy, and the stir doubled. The windows were a sea of pony faces, staring in on the questioning.

Twilight looked exasperated. “Fluttershy, it sounds like she doesn’t even know where Applejack is.”

Fluttershy bridled, her expression one of outrage. “What she said wasn’t a statement! It was a question. You said your spell reacts to statements.”

They glanced at the sphere. It hesitated, and then dinged four times, rapidly.

“Fine,” said Twilight. “What kind of statements do you want her to make? Then we can go home.”

Fluttershy whirled, and demanded, “Is that pony blood on that sheet you buried?”

Gilda’s beak dropped open, but no sound came out.

“Aha!” cried Fluttershy. “I got you, you can’t answer that question!” The sphere dinged twice, cheerfully.

Twilight had gone pale. Gilda licked her beak, and repeated, “Have you seen Applejack? I’d rather not talk about that stuff until she can help me explain…”

The sphere dinged. Fluttershy pounced. “And if she’s dead, that’s never, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Yes, you’d rather not talk about it! Ding! What about the note?”

“What note?” squawked Gilda, looking back and forth in a panic.

“The more you talk, the more we have you,” said Fluttershy, and the sphere dinged at that too. “Don’t pretend not to understand. Rainbow Dash was sent a note, supposedly from Applejack, to lure her away to Appleloosa. Well, you left that note. Didn’t you?”

The sphere had chimed twice, once for each part of Fluttershy’s furious accusation. The stir and commotion in the room was turning ugly. Gilda, trapped, glanced back and forth among the shifting, stamping ponies, and she gulped.

Twilight was looking around as well. “Settle down, ponies! Gilda, you can say no, can’t you? If you didn’t leave a note like Fluttershy claims…”

“I saw her do it,” hissed Fluttershy. The sphere dinged. The crowd rumbled in anger.

“Whoa,” said Twilight. She turned to Gilda. “Is that true? Did you do that?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

The sphere dinged, the crowd growled, and Gilda cringed back, unable to face all those angry eyes. Twilight was looking around her, wide-eyed and alarmed. “Guys! We have to be civilized here! I’m not sure this sphere business was a good idea! Can you clear the room? We need to wrap this up, not sit around asking creepy questions and gossiping about notes!”

At that, Fluttershy lifted her head. “Gossip? You think just because I watched her trick Rainbow Dash it’s gossip? Fine, we can wrap this up right now! Gilda!”

Gilda stared at Fluttershy in a complete panic, and Fluttershy stepped forward, baring her teeth.

“Have you eaten pony flesh, Gilda? I think you have. Tell us.”

Gilda wouldn’t answer. Her eyes were very wide. She shook, in the cage, and could hardly breathe.

“All you have to do is say no, you haven’t,” added Fluttershy bitterly. “And then the magic thing will go ding and you’ll be safe. Unless…”

Ponies were cramming themselves against the windows, pressing forward in a crowd.

“Unless you can’t say that, because it would be a lie, and we’d all know it. Unless you’ve eaten pony, maybe very recently. Isn’t that right, Gilda? Say, ‘I have never eaten pony flesh’. Go on.” The spell continued to confirm Fluttershy’s every statement.

Gilda was shaking her head weakly. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she could not speak.

“Have you eaten pony flesh? Have you tasted pony blood?” asked Fluttershy. “Have you?”

Twilight Sparkle stamped her hoof, and her horn flared brightly. “That’s enough!” she squealed, and the sphere popped and was gone. “This is NOT how this was supposed to go!”

Gilda was sobbing, cringing against the back of the cage. “I want to see Applejack! Please!”

“Oh, now you do, I’m sure!” yelled Fluttershy, shaking with fury. “It’s a little too late for that, isn’t it? Why don’t you stick a claw down your throat and see if there’s any of her left!”

Twilight had turned to face the horde of angry, shoving ponies. “Get out of here, all of you! You too, Fluttershy, get out! Trixie, help! Clear the room!”

Trixie snarled, and her horn flared to life again, and between her efforts and Twilight’s, the crowd of ponies were forced back out the door, kicking and shouting. Twilight turned, sweating, and cried, “Trixie! Put up wards, I know you’re good at those! Block all the doors and windows, they’re gonna try to kill her!”

“Yes, Mistress! Go!” yelled Trixie, and Twilight shoved the mass of struggling, enraged ponies out onto the street. Blue light flared blindingly, and then all was silent except for the panting of Gilda and the whining of the formerly savage dog in the next cage, and a blue glow sealed every window and door. Trixie heaved a deep, exhausted sigh.

“They think…” choked Gilda, and sobbed. “No! Please don’t let it be true. No!”

Trixie turned, her eyes weary, and fixed the hapless griffin with a sharp, impatient look. “Trixie can do that spell too, Gilda. Let’s not fuck around. Have you eaten pony? And Trixie does not mean oral sex, Trixie refers to tearing flesh and drinking blood and making a pony die. Can you tell Trixie and her truth spell that you have never done that?”

Gilda just stared at her dumbly.

“They say you killed Applejack,” added Trixie. “They’re saying she’s dead now. They say you tried to hide a bedsheet or something, presumably soaked with her blood, and they have the sheet. It sounds like Applejack’s gone. Did you kill her?”

Gilda whimpered, eyes flooding with tears, and then turned away and curled up in a miserable ball.

Trixie snorted. “Mistress will find the truth here. Don’t try anything, including harm to yourself, or Trixie will bind you, uh, paw and claw. You’re lucky Mistress got to you first, if Trixie is any judge. Those ponies would have torn you apart.”

A sob was the only reply she got.

Derpy Hooves pranced down the Ponyville street, beaming her cockeyed smile, and Rarity could not help but smile back to see it. The dear sweet silly creature was simply delighted to try out new mane-styles and makeup, thrilled to turn herself over to Rarity’s ministrations. Yet, the task called for all of Rarity’s subtlety. She herself delighted in bold eyeshadows and elaborate coiffure, but found that Derpy seemed more beautiful when artifice was eschewed. Only the most delicate shades would do, the most seemingly artless stylings of that silky mane. It proved a fascinating and rewarding challenge. Rarity speculated idly whether the apex of Derpy Hooves’ unexpected beauty would be reached not with powder and brush, not with comb and gel, but simply with a stallion’s kiss that lit her from within…

Or perhaps it was simply her gratitude that skewed things, caused her to smile so winningly at her benefactor. Perhaps this produced an effect that would not transfer to the intended stallion beholders. Perhaps it was going all wrong!

“Uht!” snapped Rarity, looking stern. Derpy squeaked, and dropped her gaze, peering bashfully up at Rarity and pawing the ground with a hoof. Her lower lip quivered, her eyes glistened as if threatening to become tearful.

Rarity tried to hold the stern look, but she could not maintain it for long. The corner of her mouth quirked up. “False alarm, darling.”

“Uh, what does that mean, Rarity?”

“I was just testing. It’s not merely my own opinion: you are exquisite.”

Rarity’s stern look was ruined, then, for Derpy beamed at her with such innocent joy that Rarity could feel her mouth being wrenched into a matching foolish smile, which only got worse as Derpy bounced off all four hooves with a little “Eee!” of delight.

“Now come on, darling, your audience awaits. This time we shan’t risk Fillydelpia, but shall tread the safer waters of… oh!”

Two figures had appeared around the corner, then more. Trixie Lulamoon was marching down the street, her magic firmly holding a leash that attached to a heavy muzzle that wrapped awkwardly around the beak of a full-grown griffin. Rarity saw that it was Rainbow Dash’s friend Gilda, but it was Gilda rendered unrecognizable: her head encased in the straps that normally held the muzzle onto a large dog or savage beast, her posture beaten, her tail dragging as low as her trudging, stumbling gait. A crowd of glowering ponies followed them at a safe distance.

Rarity’s eyes gleamed with interest as Trixie approached, and she licked her lips. “Mistress! Kinky! May I join, or is it a private scene?”

She then cried out and fell back, for Trixie had reared and smacked her in the face with the back of a hoof, hard. Derpy screamed and cowered, but it was hard to tell what frightened her worse, the captured griffin or the fearsome captor. Trixie brandished her hoof, glaring.

“Shut up, Girl! This is serious! Keep your filthy mind to yourself, we’ll come get you when you’re needed!”

Trixie strode on, and Rarity found herself lying in the dirt, Derpy Hooves hovering over her and sobbing, “Rarity, no! She’s such a mean pony, I’m going to go and kick her, you watch!”

“No, Derpy! No!” blurted Rarity. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof, and it came away red. “Ow. Damned Mistress! No, Derpy, don’t you do anything! This is our way!”

Derpy shook her. “I need to help you, Rarity! She’s mean to you, Rarity!”

“Cease!” hissed Rarity, transfixing Derpy with a very dominant gaze. “Listen! Will you listen?”

Derpy’s jaw sagged. “I… I’m sorry, Rarity. I’m listening, Rarity.”

“Good.” Rarity gulped, her mouth a thin hard line of concentration. “How shall I put this? It is not your affair. Please pretend you saw nothing, it is personal. It is just our way of making each other happy, perhaps a curious and perverse way but our own. You must understand, it is all voluntary. I have agreed to this, Derpy. I have agreed in writing.”

Derpy’s face was filled with woe. “You… agreed? For mean Trixie to hit you?”

“Among other things, yes. It is, on occasion, mutual.” Rarity glowered, thinking back on the amazing challenges she’d faced in order to shake up the manically submissive Trixie Lulamoon in sub mode, and the savage and psychically scarring payback this inevitably provoked. Twilight’s concern was, indeed, warranted.

“It makes you happy?” said Derpy, piteously.

Rarity struggled to look reassuring and in-control. She had a feeling there was a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth, and that was a public display she’d thought would not transpire. “Yes, darling. It is our way of being happy.”

Derpy shuddered. Rarity realized that both her eyes were in focus, staring into Rarity’s with desperate urgency. She spoke, and her simple words stabbed Rarity’s heart like some shining, clean needle bearing an injection of painful truth.

“You don’t look happy. You looked happy before, and now you look sad. And you look worried, Rarity. Please don’t be sad?”

Rarity gulped, suddenly flung back into that head-space she’d occupied outside the club in Fillydelphia. What was the damndable power this fluffy, silly pegasus had, to ruin her good and familiar fun? Rarity gazed up at Derpy, and flinched, for the sun was behind her and it blinded her eyes. She squeezed them shut, and then felt a tender hoof wiping a tear away.

“Please don’t be sad, Rarity,” begged Derpy.

Rarity heaved a great sigh. “Oh, Derpy darling!” Impetuously, she hugged the kindly pegasus, splaying her wings awkwardly from the embrace and causing a sharp gasp and sudden return to earth for her. The thump was surprisingly heavy: though Derpy was a pegasus, her bottom was unusually plush and shapely, requiring strong and supple wings to cart it around. Rarity shook herself, released Derpy and looked deeply into her startled eyes.

“I shall not be sad, darling. Come! Something is up, I’ll warrant. If she is not enjoying the pleasures of that griffin as I thought, if it is no provocative game, if it is indeed serious: then it must be serious indeed!”

Derpy bounced up, excited. “Let’s go and see what it is, Rarity!”

Rarity found herself smiling again. She reared and galloped off, hearing the flapping of soft, firm wings behind her, and in a jiffy she’d reached the town offices, where Trixie had been heading. The crowd was intense, and Rarity shoved her way through it, finding surprising difficulty. She wasn’t used to townsponies being so forceful. She heard wings over her, and felt hooves on her flanks: somehow she could tell it was only Derpy, clinging to her for reassurance, so she did not look back or so much as flick her tail in offense.

The two made their way toward the front, where an argument was underway.

“No, we don’t need to chain her up, Fluttershy!” snapped Twilight Sparkle. “Look at her, she’s not doing anything. Take that muzzle off, Trixie, let her talk. You can tie her to that fence if you really want to. Not in any creepy way, understand? And would you put that down, please, Fluttershy?”

“It’s the evidence,” said Fluttershy. “You should cast a spell to identify whose blood it is. And since she did this how can you say we shouldn’t chain her up? Do you know how much damage a wild griffin can do in just a split second?”

Trixie nodded, and her horn glowed as she bound Gilda to the stout wooden fence, using the lashings from the muzzle. Gilda didn’t resist, and looked crushed, broken.

“Do I look like I go around casting spells to identify blood?” retorted Twilight. “Give me a couple days and I’m sure I could research one. We don’t have that kind of time. Look at all these ponies! We’ve got to address this situation before it gets even worse.”

“I can, darling,” called Rarity clearly, and above her, Derpy gasped.

Twilight’s head whipped around. “Who was that?”

“It is Rarity. I know such a spell, darling.”

Derpy stared in unabashed wonder. Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “Girl, if you…”

“Consarn,” snapped Rarity. She gritted her teeth and stared down Trixie, defying her to bring private bondage pleasures into this public scenario.

Trixie blinked, her eyes widened, and then she cowered back. “Yes, Mistress!”

“Not now,” snapped Rarity. “Twilight, you need a bloodstain identified?”

“Uh, yes. How come you know how to cast a spell like…”

Twilight trailed off, looking into Rarity’s confident smile. The ponies around her had shied away, leaving space for Derpy to hover close, watching anxiously. Rarity didn’t flinch.

“I withdraw the question,” said Twilight, shaking her head. “Of course you can do that. Rarity, will you please tell us whose blood is on the sheet Fluttershy is carrying?”

Rarity’s horn lit. She concentrated, with her eyes shut, and a look of horror ran across her face. Derpy hugged her as she swallowed, cleared her throat, spoke.

“That’s Applejack’s blood, Twilight. I’m certain of it. Lots of blood.” She gulped again. “So very much.” Her face twitched again, anguish flashing across it. “What is this, Twilight? What has happened? Please tell me nothing has happened to Applejack, I cannot bear it…”

“We all have to be brave, Rarity,” said Fluttershy. “We’ve caught the criminal who did it.”

Rarity’s ears were laid back, and she looked helplessly at Twilight, who nodded and said, “It’s hard to tell what exactly happened, but circumstantial evidence suggests that Gilda here killed Applejack, and possibly Big Macintosh.”

Rarity shuddered again, crying out “No!”, as Gilda stared dully into space.

“It’s only circumstantial evidence,” insisted Twilight. “We have to know more. Thank you for helping, I can see it was painful for you…”

Hooves galloped in the distance, coming closer. Fluttershy turned on Twilight angrily. “What more do you want? Now we even know it was Applejack’s blood! If she ate Applejack up, there won’t be a body! I insist that we punish Gilda for murder, right away!”

“Noo, Applejack!” wailed Rarity, as Derpy clung to her trying frantically to comfort. “How can I survive if you are gone? I cannot bear it, I shall never feel safe again, never!”

“Rarity, calm down!” yelled Twilight, looking frazzled. “It hurts me too, okay? But we have to go through this process, we’re having a trial! Pull yourself together!”

“But Applejack is dead!” cried Rarity to the uncaring wind, her howl of anguish echoing off all the nearby buildings.

Five ponies burst into the crowd, two adults and three small ponies.

“Oh no, she ain’t!” yelled Apple Bloom triumphantly.

“Who said that?” snapped Twilight.

“Quick, guys, make a… thanks!” came Apple Bloom’s voice from inside the milling crowd. Her head appeared on a level with the adult ponies, for she was standing on Scootaloo’s and Sweetie Belle’s backs. She repeated, “Oh, no, she ain’t! I jes’ come straight from Canterlot and Applejack ain’t daid! She’s in a thing called a coma and we can’t wake her! What’s goin’ on here then?”

“She’s not dead?” cried both Rarity and Gilda, together.

“Hell naw!”

Rarity swooned, and Derpy followed her to the ground, sheltering her from the throng of ponies. Fluttershy rushed over to the newcomers. “Why is she in a coma? What happened?”

“Some wild critter ripped her all up, that’s what!” cried Apple Bloom.

The crowd gasped. Fluttershy turned toward Gilda, her eyes burning. “And we know who that was, don’t we?”

“Sure,” said Apple Bloom, “it’s th’ wild griffin, now we got to go hunt that thing down and give it what for…”

“I think,” said Twilight, “Fluttershy’s taken care of that.”

She stood, her ears quirked in dismay and confusion, and the crowd parted so that Apple Bloom could see the captive, and Apple Bloom looked and her jaw dropped. “But that ain’t th’ one, we was gonna get Gilda there to help us FIGHT the…”

Fluttershy ignored her. “Twilight, we could still be looking at murder if Applejack does not survive her injuries. I would like to suggest that we call it attempted murder and possibly murder of bunny if that’s a thing, and we’ll go on with the trial. We have our evidence, and now we have proof that there’s a victim!”

Twilight Sparkle gulped. She exchanged a glance with Trixie. She nodded. “Yeah, we’d better go on,” she said, and then squeaked, for Granny Smith was suddenly in her face.

“That what this is? A trial? For killin’ Applejack and pore Big Macintosh? Well, then, Ah accuse!” Granny whirled, and pointed a hoof at Gilda. “Ah always knew that critter was poison! Should have knowed somethin’ was up when pore Big Macintosh disappeared, but ah was dreamin’, curse me, an’ I ain’t got time for that now! You may have ate up my grandcolt, you monster, but you din’t get both of ‘em, at least not yet you ain’t! Ah accuse you!”

Gilda cowered. “But I didn’t… she asked me to, uh, or sort of forced me to… we were…” She gulped, looking shattered. “I need to talk to Applejack! Please, bring her, I can’t even explain this without her! You wouldn’t fucking believe me for a minute!”

“We can’t wake her!” yelled Granny. “She may die!”

Apple Bloom hopped up and down on her friends’ backs as Scootaloo cursed and fidgeted. “Ah’m tellin’ you, the real killer is still out there!” She shifted to Sweetie’s back, and demanded, “How you know it’s Gilda here? What makes you think that?”

Fluttershy turned to her. “We don’t think, we know! It’s the bedsheets, Apple Bloom, the bedsheets are the answer! Soaked with Applejack’s blood, buried by Gilda in the dark of night, dug up by Pinkie Pie and they’re right here! It’s the bedsheets!”

Apple Bloom glared back, truculent. Beside her, Lyra’s eyes went very wide. “The bedsheets,” she breathed. “It’s the bedsheets…”

Apple Bloom squeaked and dropped out of sight, falling off Sweetie’s back. Lyra had whirled, knocking them over, and was fighting her way through the crowd like a maniac, provoking shouts and panic.

“Let her go!” cried Twilight. “She’s excitable, sorta weird, be careful, give her some space!” She took a deep breath. “In fact, everypony settle down, right now! Stop freaking out!” Her horn glowed, and she turned from side to side, prancing fiercely. “We are not doing this today, you’re all too excited! We are going to come back first thing tomorrow and you’re all going to go and get some sleep tonight and calm down! You too, Granny! It’s perfectly safe, we have Gilda in our custody and we’re going to do this right, got it? Stop panicking! Trixie, be ready to help me with them, okay?”

Trixie licked her lips. “No need, Mistress.”

The crowd of ponies sat on their haunches, staring at Twilight. She looked them over.

“The real killer is still out there, ready to strike again!” cried Apple Bloom, jumping up and down. The crowd stirred, restlessly.

“I need Applejack!” wailed Gilda.

Sweetie Belle began to look around, more and more frantically. “Scootaloo? Scootaloo! Where’s Scootaloo?”

The pegasus filly was gone. There was no sign of her, no hint of where she’d gone. All that could be seen was Lyra, in the distance, still galloping full tilt towards Sweet Apple Acres.

As Twilight ordered the crowd to disperse, as Trixie muzzled the frantic griffin once more, as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle cast about in desperation for their lost companion crying “No, Scootaloo, come back! Don’t try and find Braeburn on your own, please!” and the townsponies milled, not really prepared to return to their homes…

Lyra kicked the door of Sweet Apple Acres open, and charged in, looking around and sniffing. She disappeared up the stairs, and returned with a wadded mass of bedsheets from the unmade bed that Rainbow Dash had been sleeping in. Her horn glowed as she carried them in a desperate magical grip. She tried to bundle them more tightly, hoping to enclose the most whiffy stale parts and shield them from the breeze, and she found herself hoping that Dash, that crazy sex-mad pegasus, had clopped in that bed. Whatever it took, to reach a mare that could no longer see and hear through the coma…

It was a crazy idea, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work.

Lyra galloped madly down the road, past Ponyville, bound for Canterlot.

Rainbow Posse

Rainbow Dash blasted across the sky, a deafening prismatic boom following in her wake.

Tears leaked from her eyes, from more than just the effort. How could Fluttershy say such things? That stuff couldn’t happen! She wanted to fly back and kick Fluttershy’s quivery yellow butt, and at the same time her bones were chilled with an unspeakable terror. If that was true, her life was over—yet she had a foal to protect, it couldn’t ever be just about Rainbow Dash anymore.

Dash could feel herself pushing harder and harder, speed accelerating impossibly, and she harshly reminded herself to slow down and watch. To spot Big Macintosh, to spot Applejack out here would give the lie to Fluttershy’s claims. For that matter, Braeburn—damn Braeburn! That maddening hunk of stallion. Things in Appleloosa should have stayed in Appleloosa, but no, he apparently had to come out to Ponyville and work that other side of the fence he was so happy to say he’d jump for a pretty tail… it had seemed so cool and radical and awesome until it got personal, until it involved family…

Rainbow Dash looked ahead, and the trees on the prairie weren’t all the same. A pony searching the ground might not think to look, certainly wouldn’t be on the scene in time to see, but a pony rocketing across the treetops at Rainbow Dash speed could be just in time to spot something completely unexpected.

She could spot a cowpony rump, and a dangling tail, clambering up into one of the trees where no earth pony should be able to go. She could even spot a large red spot, cutie mark of a pony who packed a big tasty juice-squirting treat and just loved to share it with all the mares—whether expert or amateur.

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. She began to scream, a pegasus battle cry, as she gathered her pegasus magic that let her smash through the sound barrier without injury, the magic that formed a spear-head and split off into chromatic rings and trails, and she arched up high over the prairie, and she shrieked her wordless song of destruction as her target mushroomed in her vision and she accelerated brutally and smashed directly down into the tree, becoming a ball of raw velocity magic and temporarily losing her physical form in the impact, her rainboom encasing her in incandescent energy for just a bare instant.

The tree fucking exploded—as Rainbow Dash knew it would. She was stunned briefly by the crash but shook her head, fighting to clear it, looking around. She saw a staggering form, his vest askew, his russet mane and cowpony hat smouldering. He was just as dazed as she was, but he was still trying to get away.

Rainbow Dash squealed, all her pent-up feelings venting themselves in one cathartic burst—and she leapt and tackled him physically, bowling him over and pinning him, spread-eagled, to the ground.

His jaw fell open as he stared into the ruby eyes of Doom.

“B… Bluebird?” he stammered, wide-eyed.

“You’ve got some explaining to do, Braeburn,” gritted Rainbow Dash.

Braeburn licked his lips, blinking rapidly.

“And don’t even fucking think of making up some story! This is serious!” she snarled.

His eyes flew wide again.

“Aw, Bluebird, ah would never! Darlin, I saw you comin’ and I thunk maybe you wanted to do it again like we done that first time, the first an’ only time I might add, and that’s a damned shame with such a lovely pony lady. Ah swear I ain’t been thinkin’ of nopony else all this time. Now some might say you’re a mite rough but I say, allowances for enthusiasm and that enthusiasm, darlin’, is shared, let me tell you…”

Dash shook her head, her ears laid back in exasperation. “No! Cut the bullshit, Braeburn, that’s not what I’m here for!”

He gasped. “Bullshit? What? You forgot! How kin you forget the happiest night of my life, dear lil’ Bluebird of sticky happiness that haunts my dreams…”

“Big Macintosh!” yelled Rainbow Dash, and Braeburn froze just for an instant.

“Ain’t familiar with that name, Bluebird,” he said, and his eyes were grim behind the smile. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

“You can’t just run off with innocent ponies, Braeburn! Just because ponies like you and me are a little on the awesome radical side…”

Something clicked, and his gaze was smouldering and sensuous again, just like that. “You’re tellin’ me! Fly down an’ explode for me again. Ah liked it. Think I’m foolin’?”

He did pelvic thrusts. Dash squeaked, for she felt his erection beginning to grow against her belly. Braeburn would hump a cactus if it winked at him right, he was incorrigible and she knew that danger and provocation turned him on like no other pony… like almost no other pony, admitted Dash.

She glowered at him, though the frank interest buoyed her spirits. “Cut it out. This is serious.”

“Define serious,” retorted the cowpony stallion, his gaze fierce and untamed. “This here ain’t serious? Seem like you was impressed once!”

He flinched, then, for Rainbow Dash grimaced and punched the ground beside him with a forehoof. Then, he was staring into those ruby eyes again, inches from his.

“I don’t know what you think happened,” said Rainbow Dash. “I don’t care what’s been happening between you and Big Macintosh. You might say I sympathize with you more than anypony, though I have a friend named Flight Lightning who could argue with that. I’m not mad at Big Macintosh but we’ve got to bring him home, back to his family, and it’s important—both for us, and for him.”

Braeburn’s eyes had gone cold and his mouth was tight. “Keep talkin’. Let’s hear it. Go on.”

“So you admit you ran off with Big Macintosh!”

“I ain’t admittin’ shit, Bluebird. That ain’t a name to me, I don’t know no Big Macintosh. I want to know why you kicked my tail in so hard, that’s all.”

Rainbow Dash gathered her thoughts. “Okay, that’s nopony you know, huh? Try this on for size. I know a very nice pony, who’s had some trouble with mares before. Let’s say he meets a stallion, a real sexy and free-thinking stallion who can really show him a good time. Let’s say his family struggles to deal with this stuff, they’re not laid back about such things like a decent pegasus ought to be and they give him a hard time about it…”

“Too long of a story,” complained Braeburn. “Let’s fuck. You know I’m jes’ that kind of a stud-horse, don’tcha? Have a heart.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Dash. “Listen! This family, they upset the pony I’m talking about, and he runs off, because he’s not really that experienced, and it hurts him really bad that they turned on him…”

That got through. Braeburn stayed tight-lipped and rebellious, but something in his eyes showed pain. Dash saw it.

“Oh, yeah. It hurt him really bad. He might have cried, I don’t know. He might,” said Dash, “have even run away to someone he loved, believing he had nowhere else to go.”

“Don’t know who you’re talkin’ about,” said Braeburn. “Maybe you could rub your belly on me a lil’ bit? You know I ain’t good for but one thing, and time’s a wastin’.”

“Oh, no you don’t. I’m onto you!”

“Naw,” said Braeburn with a twinkle, “not yet you ain’t. Not prop’ly you ain’t. Now, scoot forward a lil’ and lower that sweet cooch and Ah can be into you in a jiffy, an’ then you’ll be onto me. Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s been so long, darlin’!”

“Don’t darling me,” snapped Dash, forcing herself not to smile. “You’re trying to be a huge slut-pony on purpose to weasel out of talking to me! Do you know how I know that? Huh?”

Braeburn stopped trying to rub his cock against her tits and belly. “What’s this here? All right, how, Bluebird? And Ah am offended on your behalf, that you could imply I wouldn’t be th’ hugest slut-pony in all Equestria for that fine lil’ blue…”

Dash cut him off. “Because I’d do the same thing. It’s not gonna work, Braeburn. I’m onto you. I know what you did, and you can’t run anymore, and I’m gonna tell you why—because I was the same way.”

Rainbow Dash could feel that Braeburn’s determined attempt at a hard-on was flagging. The wild cowpony heartbreaker had one major weapon, but she was steadily disarming him of that weapon. Rainbow pressed on, holding her body clear of his undercarriage even as he squirmed and tried to distract her with sex.

“So there’s the runaway pony, right, and the other pony. And the runaway pony was real sweet and loved that other pony, and you know what? Maybe this other pony loved him back. I know, sounds crazy, huh?” said Rainbow. “Maybe they were planning to run away and live a wild, awesome life. But something tells me it wasn’t that simple…”

Braeburn wouldn’t even speak, anymore. He glared, his eyes troubled.

“Maybe the other pony tried really hard to make things okay for this pony, this runaway pony. Maybe he gave him all the love he could, not just lots of great sex but you know, cuddles and campfires and romantic evenings. And all the while, he would see in this other pony’s eyes the hurt, so much hurt. And he couldn’t help. Because the other pony had lost something that couldn’t be replaced—his family. And some of us didn’t have that. We look at that stuff and wonder where we fit in. We can’t really understand what they have, and we’re confused and freaked out when they lose it and act like the world’s totally ended. It’s like these ponies, they have this incredible foundation that we don’t have. And we cover it up with awesomeness and sex and stuff, but we can be lonely too…”

Braeburn was trembling. Rainbow wouldn’t stop.

“And that’s why I understand how this other pony must have felt. I think he wanted to start being a family for that first sweet pony, to not be so lonely anymore, and he reached out to try to love him. And I think it must have hurt when it wasn’t enough, when that first pony still hurt and cried at night…”

“That’ll do, Bluebird,” muttered Braeburn.

“…and when his love couldn’t replace what that pony had lost…”

“Ah said, that’ll DO!” roared Braeburn. His eyes burned. “Git off me! Ah don’t know any of these ponies and don’t care to, take your stories and to hell with ‘em!”

“Shut up! Listen,” demanded Dash. “The solution is very simple.”

“Oh, y’think so? Go be hated and scorned, that’s good. That’s very simple, thank ya kindly, Bluebird…”

“No!” snapped Dash. “Listen! We’re fixing it. We’re on his side too. Do you understand, Braeburn? Look at me. You know me. Do you honestly see me as one of those jerk ponies treating Bi… treating this runaway pony like he’s bad and wrong?”

That stopped Braeburn in his tracks. He paused, and then he said, “Keep talkin’.”

“Dude,” said Dash. “I don’t care if he’s gay. I kinda think he’s like you and works both ways, because he fucked the hell out of me one time and I even got a foal from it…”

Braeburn winced, and muttered, “…damn hair-trigger pegasus pussies…”

“What?”

“Nothin’. Keep talkin’!”

Dash went for broke. “Big Macintosh is miserable. Don’t even argue, I know it’s true. We have to bring him back home, but it can’t be like before. It can’t EVER be like before, because he’s changed, whether he knows it or not. He’s cut loose, he can’t ever look at Granny Smith and think she has the same kind of power over him that she once had, because he’s taken that step for his own independence. But his family loves him. They really do, Braeburn. Some of them have to be taught. They’re just gonna have to deal with it. They’re miserable too, with things this way. He’s got to come home as a new pony and let them learn who he is all over again. I realize it’s hard, but it’s the right thing for him.”

Braeburn swallowed. “Supposin’ this other pony don’t want to lose that runaway pony you talked about? Y’ever consider that, Bluebird? What if the other pony never saw such a sweet flower of pony tenderness? Some blooms come from strange places.”

Rainbow Dash smirked. “You love him more than me! Cool.” Something about the situation, straddling and mastering a wild cowpony stallion every bit as radical and awesome as herself, grounded her. She smiled down at Braeburn, once more content in her own skin, feeling confident and ready to deliver the coup de grace, finally back as the star of her own personal movie.

“Hey! Ain’t but what you might call hypothetical,” insisted Braeburn. “An’ you ain’t answered my question!”

“Yeah, that’s the other hard part,” admitted Rainbow. “I think the other pony needs to come join the family too, because all this just shows how lonely he must be. It’s not so hard, really. Heck, I did it, and you know me!”

Braeburn’s jaw dropped. Hastily, Rainbow explained herself, filling in the details.

“Maybe this other pony’s even got, like, a whole other awesome family he could have, of terrific amazing ponies. Maybe he could have just all kinds of family? With me in it, so you know it’s gotta be pretty awesome, right? Family that understands him for what he is. Like that runaway pony’s family can learn to understand him for what HE is.”

Rainbow Dash gazed down with some concern at Braeburn. The cowpony’s brain seemed to have shorted out. He’d even quit making the teasing pelvic thrusts that he’d been determinedly making the entire time.

“You okay, there, Braeburn? Here, you forgot to be naughty, now I’m worried I broke you. How’s this?” Rainbow lowered her hips, and sensuously rubbed her pony tits against Braeburn’s forgotten and withdrawn erection in a helpful way. “Does that help remind you who you’re talking to? I shouldn’t do more, though, I think Applejack would be mad at me.”

Braeburn gulped. His eyes were very wide. “Aw, Bluebird. You gone crazy or somethin’? What are you tryin’ to say here?”

“We need you,” said Dash. “We need Big Macintosh back, but not alone. You obviously mean a lot to him, and I know a couple other ponies who are super lonely and they need you too. And we can totally deal with you being just who you are. I mean, I would know, okay? Remember that night? Out by the campfire? Two outrageous slut-ponies going after each other? It was brutal!”

Braeburn began to smile. “Y’ teased me so bad, Bluebird…”

“And I flew up into a tree and winked at you from up there,” grinned Dash. “I liked what I saw, bigtime, so I tried to work you into a frenzy. I’m pretty sure I dripped on you, even. I tried to!”

“Aw yeah,” smiled Braeburn. “You sure did, you vixen. Nectar of th’ gods. You’re seein’ Applejack now? Were you datin’ her back then?”

“I totally wanted to!” said Dash. “Maybe that was part of why I was so worked up. All those romantic runs in the woods…”

“Sure,” said Braeburn indulgently. “Guess I got the benefit of all that. Ah’ll never forget the look on your face when I climbed up that tree after ya.”

“How can you even do that?” laughed Dash. “That’s crazy!”

“Ah’m full of surprises.”

“Oh yeah,” smiled Dash. “I’ll never forget holding onto the tree trunk, with you balancing on some branches behind me, your forelegs around me. Do you know how hard it was to not kick out when that thing started to slide in?”

Braeburn grinned. “Ya shook like a leaf, Bluebird. Ah’ll never forget them noises you made, ever. You near fell out of th’ tree! We had to stop and go back to th’ ground. You still needed th’ tree, though. We put your back up to it!”

“I never did it like that!” squeaked Rainbow, happily. “It was so awkward at first but you said you knew what you were doing. Where did you learn how to do it that way?”

Braeburn smiled, wickedly. “Well, now, all you got to do is lift the mare up. Lil’ cutie like you, light like a pegasus, ain’t no thing. Belly to belly means them wings is clear even if they go as stiff as they did go, Bluebird. And they did, ‘cos I saw that plain. You just lift the lucky mare up, back her against the tree, and lower her gently onto a Big. Ole. Hook.” He licked his lips.

“It’s not a hook shape, though,” objected Dash. “It’s like a… a bomb of penis! Brutal!”

“You weren’t complainin’. No, hang on, there was a couple times when you was all cryin’ out, stop, no, I can’t. That was me gettin’ up to speed, with your back braced against that tree. Uhh… should I have done? Stopped, I mean? I thought stoppin’ weren’t what you really wanted, to be honest.”

Rainbow’s eyes popped. “What? No! Oh Celestia no. I’d have killed you. What I meant was, I thought I was gonna die from heart failure. Didn’t you notice the kicking and writhing and screaming and stuff? My body tried to crush your dick with clenches, but it couldn’t. How could it? I oozed a puddle, remember? You dropped me in it and I smacked you with a hoof when I woke up. It got in my feathers. Never spooge on the wings!”

“Fair enough. That puddle wasn’t all pussy juice, Bluebird, so I accept th’ reprimand. I thought you wouldn’t notice, on account of y’all screamed and fainted jes’ before I was done. Hope I din’t leave you too sore in there, ‘cos that’s a concern, Bluebird, with me. Damndest thing, I never saw a pair of wings bristle out that way. Was it from rubbin’ against th’ bark of the tree? I was tryin’ not to do that, ‘cos of, well, you know.”

“You held me up,” purred Dash, her eyes half-lidded and sultry. “Even while you came in me, you held me so nicely.” She fluttered her wings, never dropping her gaze.

“Course ah did,” crooned Braeburn fondly. “And I know not to touch them feathers. Didn’t need to, either. You was clenchin’ and comin’ to beat th’ band even as you passed out. Sweet Celestia, Bluebird, you are fine! I’m not sure you was awake to notice, but darlin’, I went off like a cannon. Want you to know that. Proper flooded that sexy blue body with pony come.” He licked his lips, waggling his eyebrows.

Rainbow smiled at him. “Good. Now go and get Big Macintosh, and we’ll head back to Ponyville.”

The smile dropped off Braeburn’s face like a switch had been thrown. “What?”

“Well, I just proved that I’m the same Rainbow I ever was, right? So come on. Family’s awesome, dude. I thought my new family was all screwed up, but now I’m gonna fight to straighten it out, and you should help. You and your new family can all help, they’re pegasuses like me!”

Braeburn looked stunned again, and then laughed. “Aw! Now that you put it that way, how kin I resist? I surrender, Bluebird. Jes’ one thing?”

“Yeah?” blinked Dash.

“Rematch,” purred Braeburn seductively. “After the way we been talkin’, how can you not? For old time’s sake. Nopony’s gotta know. You’ve brought it all back to me, Bluebird. Please honor me with your delicious favors… an’ flavors… an’ feels.”

Rainbow Dash gazed fondly at him, still straddling him intimately. “Nope.”

Braeburn’s eyes widened. “Beg your pardon?”

“I could say no way, not a chance, but you might not understand why I’m saying it,” said Rainbow. “I told you all that to remind you that I’m like you, not so that I could get frisky with you. Let me tell you what I think would happen if I did. You think you’re gonna give me a hug, some fondling, get playful, tease me—hoof between my legs, get me excited, then the next thing you know, I’m crosseyed with horny and want to fuck—then, you get on me and give me that totally awesome cock, and after a lot of screaming and thrashing and losing my pony mind I pass out like I did that other time. You’ll go to any length to make me faint from coming too much, even worse than you did before. I remember how good you were and you might not have been trying your hardest. I’m pretty responsive, dude, it’s a serious risk combining Rainbow Dash with a stallion that good in the sack. Passing out is, like, totally a thing.”

Braeburn’s ears were quirked to the side. “Ah don’t understand why this would be a BAD…”

“And then you’re gonna run away.”

Braeburn stared, speechless.

“Right?” said Dash. “With Big Macintosh.”

No reaction.

“You’re not the only one who can use sexual awesomeness as a weapon, dude,” said Dash smugly. “I needed to make Pinkie Pie take a nap once. She was trying to make forty cakes. It’s a long story.”

She smiled at him. Braeburn gulped. “An’ if I can’t persuade you to enjoy a lil’ recreatin’…”

“Then you can’t leave me unconscious, and I can and will follow you and Big Macintosh anywhere you can go. I can fly, remember? I know you would never hurt me, you’ve never lifted a hoof to anypony. You can’t take me out with sex if I don’t let you start on me. So, you have to let me talk to Big Macintosh and tell him what we’re trying to do for him.”

Braeburn just stared up at her. His ears were splayed to the side in chagrin and perplexity. Then, he heaved a big, resigned sigh.

“You gotta let me up, Bluebird.”

“You can’t get away! I can fly really fast!”

“No,” said Braeburn gravely. “It ain’t that. I have a signal to give. Then we shall see what we shall see.”

Warily, Rainbow rolled off him, watching his every move. Braeburn rolled over, stood up, shook the dirt off. He stood for a moment as if in reverence, and then he walked slowly, an eye on Rainbow Dash, over to some nearby trees. There, he hopped in the air, and seemingly danced on the earth, drumming the sod with a deft pattern of twinkling hoofbeats Rainbow recognized as steps from one of his Wild West dances. Not Mild West, either. This was one of the late-night dances, when sweating cowponies really shook their tails.

Five feet from where Braeburn danced, earth fountained into the air. Soil churned, and a familiar red pony head appeared, digging out of the ground with astonishing dexterity. Big Macintosh seemed to burst from the earth as if fired from a spring, his powerful body making light of the dirt-digging, and he flung himself at Braeburn with a curious little squeak of delight, only to freeze in his tracks as he spotted, past his cowpony lover, Rainbow Dash sitting and watching.

Braeburn turned, and there was both a tear and a twinkle in his eye. “Ah go up when trouble strikes—but Princess here is jes’ great at going down!”

Dash snorted with laughter in spite of herself, at the innuendo. Her giggle ran out of steam real fast, though, as she watched Big Macintosh. His expression crumbled, and the hurt of embarrassment was just the beginning, for he looked at Braeburn and anger would have been easier to bear than that horrible, crushing look of betrayal and loss…

“Whoa,” said Rainbow Dash. “Hey. Big Macintosh. Hey! Hear me out, okay?”

Big Macintosh didn’t listen to her. He simply rushed over to Braeburn, and seized him like some long-lost doll, wrapping the tough cowpony up in a frantic clinging embrace and bursting into silent, miserable tears.

Braeburn hugged back, awkwardly, though he struggled to breathe at the same time. “Hhh! Princ! ess! Easy there!”

“No!” sobbed Big Macintosh, the deep voice incongruous with the forlorn and fillyish look on his face.

“I ain’t goin’ anywheres, Princess,” said Braeburn, “so how about you hear th’ little blue pony out? Come on. Fer me?”

Big Macintosh looked up into Braeburn’s face, and Braeburn gave him a tender little kiss on the lips, his own eyes glistening. “You don’t even know what she’s gonna say, twinklehooves. Be brave. Would I betray you?”

Big Macintosh glanced over at Rainbow in a panicky way, his face so vulnerable. She sat quietly, hoping not to blow it.

“Talk to her, Rainbow Dash,” said Braeburn.

Dash blinked. “Seriously?” she blurted. “Her? I mean, is that how we should be…”

Braeburn cut her off with a sharp look. “Well, Ah hear YOU grow a dick, so how about makin’ a few allowances, Mister Dash?”

Rainbow’s eyes were wide. “Uh, yeah. Got me there. Totally. Wow…”

“Ah cain’t go back,” whimpered Big Macintosh.

“Easy now, Princess,” soothed Braeburn, holding him close.

Big Macintosh struggled. “They can’t have me!”

“No, listen, Big Macintosh, listen!” cried Dash. “It’s not like that at all! We’re not gonna try and change you, we’re totally not.”

He was struggling, but it seemed halfhearted, as if despair was preying on him so heavily that he hadn’t the energy to fight it off. Then, he shoved Braeburn away, and collapsed on the ground, curling up in a huge red ball.

“Gon’ be a FAKE stallion, can’t bear it, Ah should jes’ die,” he blurted. He covered his head with his hooves.

Rainbow Dash and Braeburn exchanged a glance, and both dove to comfort the massive red pony.

“Aw, now, Princess, ain’t so. You’re the realest pony I ever met,” soothed Braeburn.

Dash didn’t bat an eyelash at this, she just joined in. “We miss you, Big Macintosh, everypony misses you, that’s why I had to come and find you. We’re all out trying to find you and bring you home!”

A tearful stallion eye blinked. “All?”

“Um,” said Dash, “certainly me and Applejack. Didn’t you know your sister would try to find you? And I bet Apple Bloom would search for you if she could. It’s not her fault that she’s too little to do that.”

Big Macintosh looked at her for another moment, and then buried his face in his hooves again. “I ain’t leavin’ him. Ain’t leavin’ Braeburn. Oh, Celestia, I lost everythin’ but I can’t bear to leave him, so just you go away, Rainbow Dash…”

Braeburn swallowed, and shook Big Macintosh’s shoulder. When that got no response, he did it again. Finally, his Princess looked up at him, to see a quavery smile, wide and too-bright eyes, a cowpony biting his bottom lip in sheer anxiety and trying to speak.

“Th… That’s…” began Braeburn, and bit his lip again. Rainbow Dash held her breath, and Big Macintosh gazed into his lover’s eyes, entranced and startled.

“That’s why Ah’m… comin’ with you,” said Braeburn, shaking.

Big Macintosh’s eyes were huge. “But they won’t let you. They won’t let you, Braeburn.”

“Ah think we ain’t quite alone no more, Princess. Somepony’s gonna fight for us so’s we can be together.”

“But who would defy Granny Smith for m…”

Big Macintosh slowly turned, as if seeing Rainbow Dash for the first time. She stood, wings erect from the stallions’ romantic talk, a crazy grin growing and growing on her little face, and she started to think up a suitably impressive Dashian remark that fit the situation. It had to be perfect. She cleared her throat.

“Who else but the awesome, and intensely fuckable, Rainbow D… OOF!”

Rainbow gasped for breath, unexpectedly tackled by a stallion twice her size and swept into an impetuous, childish hug that nearly squeezed the life out of her. She flailed a forehoof helplessly. Big Macintosh was sobbing, shaking, crushing her in his forelegs in transports of gratitude. Dash’s eyes rolled back in her head a bit, since she’d rarely been pounced so aggressively, and Mac stank of sweaty male horse, and the way his forelegs wrapped around her and crushed her to his powerful chest also happened to crush her w…

Braeburn hauled on Big Macintosh’s hooves, shifting his grip, and Rainbow’s wing was no longer squished boldly against her by Macintosh’s powerful equine limb. It sprang free, quiveringly erect, but was no longer being handled.

Rainbow panted. “Th… thanks!”

“There y’ go, Bluebird. He ain’t done ya, did he?”

She shook her head, feeling Big Macintosh tremble. “Nah. I’m not quite that responsive, Braeburn, he’s not trying to make me horny and he’s not trying to get me pregnant so this time he hasn’t done my wings in quite that way. Pretty close! Wow! Actually did you know that wasn’t his fault at all? It was Applejack the whole time. From earlier that morning, and boy did she mean it.” She hugged Big Macintosh back, nuzzling under his chin. “I never thought such a horrible mess could have led to something so wonderful.”

Big Macintosh was beginning to get a grip again. He wept, gazing helplessly at Dash and Braeburn in turn. “How ya gonna convince Granny? She hates me. Apple Bloom don’t wanna hear it, Applejack’s all upset and it’s prob’ly my fault…”

Rainbow Dash beeped his nose with a hoof. “Leave that to me.”

“What do Ah even do, Rainbow? Ah don’t even know where to begin.”

“I think first you trust me. Both of you, okay? It’s gonna be weird. I have to bring you to Ponyville and make Granny deal with it, and I gotta talk to Flight Lightning bigtime. She’s a true pegasus like me, she’s not going to try to get between y… um, actually she just might but not in a bad way, okay? She… Whoa. Wow. Okay, now I think I’m actually envious…”

Big Macintosh looked at Braeburn, who was blushing and who muttered, “Lil’ Bluebird here, she tells me I’ll have more family on m’ side than jes’ you and her. Does that upset you, Princess? Ain’t sure what to think, m’self.”

“Braeburn?” said Big Macintosh gently. “What ya sayin’?”

“Uhh… I kinda did what you done, once. I got on a sweet pegasus filly and there was what you might call a lil’ accident.”

Braeburn couldn’t meet Big Macintosh’s eyes, and the huge red stallion considered things, unblinking, taking in his gay lover’s anxiety and shame with a deep, soulful stare. He bent his head slightly, and he kissed Braeburn on the side of his face, since Braeburn wouldn’t turn to meet him.

“Ah know the kind,” rumbled Big Macintosh softly, releasing Dash. “Braeburn? Don’t fret, Braeburn. Ah kin help you. I know how that works.”

Braeburn’s eyes peered sideways at his Princess. “Y’ ain’t mad?”

“Who’s your most special somepony?” replied Big Macintosh sternly.

Braeburn looked around frantically, blushing scarlet. His eyes caught Rainbow Dash’s, and they begged forgiveness. They lifted to the sky, and all the time, Big Macintosh patiently waited, unperturbed.

“Dammit,” said Braeburn. “Don’t you hurt nopony with it! Ain’t fair to make a stallion say such things!”

“The truth, y’mean?” said Big Macintosh.

Braeburn stamped the ground, in exasperation. “Fine!” He turned to Big Macintosh, and Rainbow Dash was startled to see the eternal slutpony’s lip quivering. “Fine! Ah love you, Princess. Cain’t help it. I want to be your world. You are my breakfast, lunch an’ dinner, and all other ponies is jes’ dessert.” He glanced at Rainbow Dash, his ears back. “No offense, but… dammit! Dammit, Princess…”

Dash snickered. She reared and gave Braeburn a little hug. “I’m a specially awesome dessert. Full of whipped cream. Or churned butter? Whatever. Take it easy, I have my own special somepony, remember? Oh, and I have Pinkie, I guess. She’s kind of paired off too, though. Gosh. How’d all that happen?”

“Ah don’t know, Bluebird,” said Braeburn. “I din’t reckon it would happen to me. What am I gonna tell Lil’ Bird? I ain’t even seen the lil’ pumpkin-seed she squirted out!”

Dash’s jaw dropped. “Squirted out? Really? Are you fucking kidding me? Dude!”

Big Macintosh ignored her, his eyes only on Braeburn. “Will you stay with me?”

“Always,” said Braeburn. “Always.”

Big Macintosh nuzzled him. “Don’t worry. Ah love a whole mess o’ ponies. Is it so different from what you do?”

“Y’mean, fuckin’ a whole mess of pretty tails?” blinked Braeburn.

Big Macintosh frowned. “Maybe this is actually gon’ be good for you, Braeburn. You shouldn’t love jes’ only me. You shouldn’t not love th’ ponies you fuck! Ah wondered about that. Ain’t you got no tender feelin’s for them other ponies you make happy?”

Braeburn looked vulnerable, off balance. “Uhh… honey, Princess, I din’t reckon on fallin’ in love with you neither. Ah know the prairie winds howl emptier these days, but ain’t that just the way it is? Y’know, when you get old an’ tired an’ alone?”

Big Macintosh glanced somberly over to Rainbow Dash, who was practically tying herself in knots trying not to jump into the conversation, and then back at Braeburn. “You ain’t gonna be alone no more, Braeburn. I guess we’re gonna bring you home.”

“Okay, I give up!” squeaked Dash. “Why don’t you have a pet name for him? Braeburn has pet names for everypony and everything! His one for you is really cute, but why don’t you have a special name for him? Or… oh horseapples, is it just that you won’t say it in front of me? I’m sorry!”

Big Macintosh shook his head. “Naw.” His eyes softened. “There ain’t no name in all Equestria as perty as ‘Braeburn’. You’re a silly pony to think any different.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped again. She stared at Braeburn. He was blushing dreadfully, but he looked so happy. “O-kay,” she said. “Braeburn it is…”

“Course it is,” said Big Macintosh.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” said Braeburn. “Cos I’m scared shitless, pardon mah fancy. Lil’ Bird’s a sweet lil’ pegasus but she been scarin’ me, I don’t even know what she expects, and this kid? Kin you imagine what a cross between me and such a pushy pegasus would be like? Is it a colt or a filly? Hell, I don’t even know that!”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Uhhh… actually, that’s a really interesting question and I’m not sure she knows either.”

Braeburn moaned. “Is it too late to head for th’ horizon?”

“Nothin’ doin’,” said Big Macintosh. He glanced at Dash. “Do I know th’ tyke?”

“Of course! Maybe you don’t know her mom. The mare’s Flight Lightning. The kid’s Scootaloo, you know her! Braeburn sired Scootaloo.”

Big Macintosh’s eyes widened. “Oh! Figures.” He nodded. “Ayep. Ah see it.”

Braeburn kicked at the dirt. “What’s so damn funny?”

“You’ll see,” chuckled Big Macintosh.

Rainbow grinned. Big Macintosh seemed to have forgotten his fear of facing Granny, and was rapidly returning to his old familiar self as he thought about the Ponyville ponies he knew so well. He was smiling a little smile, as if some basic part of his world had fallen back in place. Rainbow realized she was smiling as well. Having Braeburn around was a dose of awesome and radical you didn’t generally get as a pony mom, much less a pony mom trying to fit into a very traditional earth pony family. She felt more like herself than she had in months.

“Trust us,” said Rainbow Dash, “and come on, we should start heading back to Ponyville. It’s getting dark. I’m hoping Applejack made it home safely. That’s got to be where she is by now. I know she didn’t find you, and I haven’t seen her anywhere out here.”

The three ponies began walking back from Appleloosa, Braeburn peering over his shoulder at the empty prairie behind, searching it, hunting with his eyes for something like freedom or pride or victory.

But the only thing left out there was emptiness and the lonely wind.

Braeburn turned his head back, and trotted to catch up with his beloved, and with the adorable sexy pegasus whose company he deeply enjoyed, and the wind howled all the lonelier without him.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dash.

Braeburn’s ears were alert, scanning to and fro. “We’re bein’ hunted.”

“What?” cried Big Macintosh, alarmed.

“Ssh!” hissed Braeburn. “Ah’ll protect ya.”

“Me too,” proclaimed Dash. “I can totally do that! Did I tell you that I fought a dragon?”

“You did?” said Braebrun. “When was that, Bluebird?”

“Well, I say fought, I sort of offered to fuck her and then she let me go…”

Braeburn’s ears were splayed out in horror. “Dang! Y’all ought to be more careful. Not sure even Ah would try that. Um. Well.” He blinked, shook himself. “That’s as may be, but right now, you hush. Ah want to stalk this critter, and ain’t neither of you prepared to do that like I kin.”

“Oh yeah?” said Dash, but then hesitated, staring down Braeburn’s cocky gaze. “Er—yeah, okay, knock yourself out.”

“Lay low,” ordered Braeburn, and slunk into the tall grass like a snake, not making a sound.

Dash looked around. The area was a dense thicket of grass and foliage on the outskirts of Mareheim, at least halfway to Ponyville, and night was falling. She felt eyes watching her from everywhere, but could see none of them. Big Macintosh trembled, spooked by the growing darkness of the evening.

Rainbow oofed, as Big Macintosh clutched her. A ripple in the grass that could have been the night breeze had turned and headed straight for them…

“Bluebird?” whispered Braeburn, emerging. “Might need your help here.”

Dash pushed aside Big Macintosh’s clinging hooves, her ears alert. “Sure. Yeah. To do what? You got it.”

“That thing’s more wary than Ah expected. I’mma be over by that tree. You cut around th’ back way, drive it to me, all right? Ah reckon it’s out takin’ cover in that ravine.”

Bushes rustled. Braeburn’s eyes narrowed. “There it go again. When we ain’t lookin’ it sneaks up. Come on, Bluebird.”

A strange light lit up Rainbow’s ruby eyes, and she grinned madly and crept off like a cat, barely stirring the grass. The effect was ruined by her wings sticking up. Braeburn snorted quietly with laughter and vanished into the foliage again, and all was quiet.

Big Macintosh sat alone against a tree, his ears laid back in terror.

He whimpered faintly, glancing to and fro, eyes wide. Not even an insect stirred. Then, he heard a faint rustling. No, it was two different sources of rustling. The one was furtive and ominous, like a snake or some poisonous spider crawling through the grass, and the other was larger and also had quivering blue feathers sticking up. Rainbow Dash clearly found her job exciting. Big Macintosh could just barely see her dainty wingtips as she crept around behind the scary thing…

Dash began to creep back toward Big Macintosh. Not toward Braeburn, wherever he was. Big Macintosh stared in horror, as the unexplained stirring in the grass turned and began to approach him.

Dash stamped the ground. The mysterious presence froze. Dash moved closer, and Big Macintosh held his breath.

Then, there was a faint motion to the right of both Dash and the thing, so delicate that it could have been a passing breeze. Yet, still, the thing seemed to notice. It pivoted, unseen except for the motion of the grass stalks, and then without warning it began to sprint directly towards Big Macintosh, as both Dash and the hidden Braeburn charged.

Big Macintosh screamed like a filly as the unseen threat plunged toward him. The grass and underbrush churned, a cowpony hat flying into the air only to dangle from a shrub, and Big Macintosh cowered against the tree as fierce eyes came into view…

Scootaloo plunged out of the long grass, only to be seized by the tail and swung into the air by a triumphant Braeburn. He reared, holding her clear of the ground, and she screeched in outrage and began pounding the crap out of his stallionly chest with her hooves, dangling upside-down. The high-pitched shrieking became intelligible words.

“LET ME GO! I’m on a quest! To save my Dad from a horrible monster that’s killing everypony! You fucking idiot, stupid head, it’ll kill you too! Let me go right now or I’ll fuckin’ kick all your teeth in! I’ll rip your stinking head off! Then I’ll poo down your neck, then I’ll totally kill you even more, let me GOOO!”

Rainbow Dash galloped up, and screeched to a halt, staring in astonishment. Scootaloo saw her, and her anger doubled.

“Rainbow Dash!” she yelled, outraged. “What are you doing running around with cute horses when you’re supposed to be RESCUING my DA…”

Scootaloo froze. She stared up between her legs at the handsome stallion who had her by the tail. She squinted at the chest she’d been pummeling. She sniffed at it, taking in the unbathed cowpony perfume of the prairie, remembering a scent picked up off her mom’s dock and croup. Her eyes widened more than they ever had in her whole entire life.

“DAD!” shrieked Scootaloo, and seized Braeburn in an upside-down embrace, her forelegs hugging his chest and her hind legs wrapping around his neck.

Braeburn looked stunned. His jaw dropped, and Scootaloo’s tail fell free. She didn’t let go.

“Is this…” he managed.

“This is,” confirmed Rainbow Dash. “Hey! Kid! Let go before you choke the poor guy!”

“No!” squeaked Scootaloo.

“Okay, how about, let go so he can look at your face for a change?”

Braeburn’s eyes were wide, and his chin was high as he desperately tried to avoid staring down at what was apparently his own foal’s business end. Scootaloo suddenly realized her position, and her face went from orange to scarlet. She let go hastily, and her tiny wings weren’t up to speed for it, and she fell on her head. “Ow!”

“Aw, shit, did it break?” stammered Braeburn, shying away from the sprawled pile of pegasus filly. Scootaloo thrashed and regained her hooves, and the next moment she’d flung herself at Braeburn again, wrapping forelegs around his neck and hugging him manically.

“No way! Never!” she cried. “Not broken! Aw yeah. I saved you! You gotta come home where it’s safe!”

“Rainbow, is this a colt or a filly? I swear Ah was scared to look and right now Ah don’t dare ta guess,” said Braeburn, gulping.

Dash smirked. “I told you, that’s a tricky question. This is Scootaloo. She’s all yours. Her mom’s pretty awesome too, but you knew that already.”

Big Macintosh gulped. “Um, Rainbow… what’s up with that?” He gestured nervously with a hoof. Scootaloo’s wings were rigidly erect as she hugged her long-lost other Dad.

Dash gave Big Macintosh a very sharp look. “Watch it. You’re not a pegasus. Be nice and don’t say anything later, okay? It’s not what you think. Sometimes when we’re very excited and pleased… put it this way, I don’t blame her. Oh, and don’t touch or I’ll seriously kick your head in, she’s really vulnerable right now.”

Big Macintosh nodded, dutifully.

Braeburn looked down at the clinging orange pony, noticing the wild little mane, the cuts and scratches from underbrush, the supple form of an adolescent filly, the blazing eyes and little mouth going a mile a minute.

“We have to get you back to town ‘cos there’s this wild griffin killing ponies and it got Big Macintosh and Applejack except it didn’t get Big Macintosh ‘cos that’s him over there and they caught Gilda but it can’t be Gilda because we were gonna ask Gilda to help us find the real one…”

Dash had gone still. “Whoa… whoa, Scootaloo, what’s this? What did you say about Applejack?”

Scootaloo turned her head. Her eyes were exultant but glistened with tears from the battle of strong emotions. “They say the wild griffin ate her! I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash, I would have saved her too if I found her! I did the best I could!”

Dash’s ears were laid back flat against her head. “Slow the fuck down. Who said this? How do you know? What wild griffin?”

“Fluttershy came and told you about the wild griffin, and you screamed and flew off! I had to come and help when I found out they got Gilda by mistake!”

“WHO did?”

“Ponies did! Twilight Sparkle and Trixie got her! She was all tied up in this mask and stuff!”

Rainbow Dash stared at nothing for a moment, her face mirroring the chaos of her feelings, and then turned back to Scootaloo. “But kid, Gilda is the one Fluttershy got all bent out of shape about! Gilda IS the wild griffin they’re talking about!”

Scootaloo blinked. “She is?”

“Who got her?” demanded Dash. “Tied up? Twilight got her? Define ‘got’! What happened to Gilda?”

Scootaloo stammered, still hugging Braeburn. “I saw Trixie and Twilight with her! It looked like they were gonna capture her and put her in a dungeon. What do you mean, Gilda’s the one? How can she have killed Big Macintosh when he’s right there? How could she have hurt Applejack?”

Dash held still a moment, and then unexpectedly laughed. “Maybe she’ll enjoy Trixie’s hospitality! Hoo boy. I wish I could watch! For your information, kid, they have it all wrong. She’s dating Applejack, and they’re real close, get me? I don’t know what’s going on, but she would never hurt Applejack. What’s more, I’m sure she’s safe with Twilight Sparkle. Except she might end up some kind of science experiment! I wish I could watch that too. Wow. Good times! I think Twilight’s… imaginative.”

Dash licked her lips and waggled her eyebrows. Scootaloo glowered at her on general principles, and then the worried look crept back.

“So do you mean… that everything’s going to be okay?”

Rainbow Dash grinned at her little friend and fan, and at Braeburn, and over at Big Macintosh for good measure. “Everything’s going to be totally okay. Gilda’s in good hooves. Applejack’s probably home by now,” she added, an ear twitching subconsciously as she went on into assumptions she hadn’t tested, “and we’ll straighten out Granny Smith, don’t you worry. Scootaloo, let’s get you home to your mom.”

With that, the small group of ponies began to amble toward home in Ponyville, unhurriedly. There seemed to be no reason to hurry. Big Macintosh hung back, fretful, but Braeburn’s loving gaze called him on, and on he came.

“Pssst!” whispered Dash, to Scootaloo. She made wing-lowering gestures. Scootaloo squeaked in alarm, and went red in the face as she tried to do likewise, and Rainbow Dash looked tactfully away with a wry little smile.

Braeburn didn’t seem worried by that, but all the same he looked worried. He’d fetched his hat from the stray shrub it had landed on, but he kept shifting it around with a forehoof, and his eyes were anxious. Finally, he spoke in a low tone to Scootaloo, whose little ear perked eagerly to hear him.

“Ah… hope you don’t mind, that I been known to um… hop on your mom and go to town?”

Rainbow Dash guffawed, and both Braeburn and Scootaloo gave her an offended look. She smirked back. “Talk about the one pony least entitled to complain about that!”

Scootaloo ignored her. “Huh? What are you talking about?” She blushed and nuzzled up at his neck. “Dad?”

“Er,” said Braeburn. “Ah mean… Ah don’t know much about how you are, lil’ scaper, an’ I would hate to offend yer sensibilities, but on th’ other hand if I’m gonna spend a lotta time with y’all, Ah would hope that…”

“What are you saying?” whined Scootaloo. “Spit it out, Dad!”

Braeburn gulped. “Here I ain’t even sure how grown-up a pony you are or nothin’, and I… Aw, hell. Scootaloo, kin I have sex with your Mom?”

He looked down at Scootaloo. She grinned up at him.

“Fuck her senseless! She’s way nicer when you do.”

Braeburn’s jaw dropped, and then he grinned back and ruffled her mane with a hoof. She giggled, and trotted along beside him, and both father and daughter’s hooves lifted high with ebullient good spirits.

Scootaloo glanced back up at him, in sudden alarm.

“Can you not ever tell my Mom that I said that, though?”

Braeburn blinked in startlement, and then gave his filly an even more earnest smile.

“Ah reckon your secret’s safe with me… Lil’ Scaper.”

The little group ambled off into the night, unhurriedly.

Off With Her Head!

Lyra’s hooves pounded the road in a desperate, mad clattering, her nerves accelerating her pace every minute. What if she was too late? That would be a terrible irony, if she of all ponies couldn’t make it in time. It wasn’t for nothing that she’d won Running of the Leaves three times in a row. She was young, toned and healthy, and her tendency toward nervous energy had always translated to the most natural activity for a pony: to run.

Now, she ran for her life—or, more accurately, for Applejack’s life. Her flanks sweated, her breath frothed, and yet she goaded herself on, barely clinging to the wadded-up bedsheet in her magical grasp. Briefly, she fretted that once she got to the royal castle, she’d reek so much that the bedsheet would be useless. Sweat dripped into her eyes, and she redoubled her efforts, delicate green nostrils flaring as she fought for breath and galloped madly along.

The guards at the castle gates stood aside, wordlessly. Lyra had never dared ask what Princess Luna had given them by way of explanation. It must have been quite some explanation, for Lyra half expected them to come to her aid, yet they fairly leapt out of her path and asked nothing of her. She briefly pictured Luna saying, “Let the cute little crazy unicorn pony do anything she wishes, or answer to us—and thou dost not wish to answer to us!” and dismissed the notion without breaking her stride.

Oddly, she’d got the word ‘crazy’ wrong (Princess Luna had said ‘green’) but was otherwise spot-on.

The castle hallways swirled around her as she sprinted, hooves slipping as she skidded around corners. Up some stairs, down another corridor—some way ahead, she heard her beloved’s voice raised in peremptory command. “Who comes? What fool gallops within our peaceful palace?”

Lyra put her head down and threw everything she had into the last stretch, imagining Applejack silently expiring mere moments before she arrived.

Luna leapt to her hooves, her wings flaring out with a weighty pomf as her little unicorn ran into the room. She stared at Lyra, her mouth agape, her eyes horrified.

Lyra pulled up, looking around only to see Applejack lying there still motionless on the bed, where she’d been placed after the suture cantrips were complete… and with a squeak of final effort, Lyra marshalled her magic forces and flung the bedsheet towards the stricken earth pony. She stared wildly at nothing, triumphant as the sheet fluttered to the floor midway between them, and then Lyra’s eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, her tottering limbs all giving way at once.

Princess Luna gasped and rushed forward, balancing with strong wingbeats while she grabbed up her little pony lover and cradled her in deep-blue forelegs. She pulled back Lyra’s eyelid with deft alicorn magic and began to check for life signs, but there was no mistaking Lyra’s condition: far from being dead, Luna could just about hear her loving heart pounding from across the room. Lyra drew woeful, rasping breaths, and her body was so hot it reminded Luna of intimate moments. Luna stared down at her beloved, and then her gaze slipped away to register Lyra’s prize.

The princess’s eyes filled with tears. “Ah! Thou art so ineffably sweet, little pony. That we doubted you, that we feared your prejudice! You did not need to hurry so, dear one. Ah! Lyra, creature of such great love, not least toward your earth pony friend! She cannot see how faithfully you brought forth her own blanket… er, make that bedsheet, for some reason.”

Luna snuggled Lyra closer. Her sweet unicorn was limp as a rag, plainly exhausted, not even waking when cuddled and kissed.

“Methinks our mint-green lovely was confused? And it is not cold in here, dear one, certainly not so cold as to warrant the frantic bringing of quilts! Ah! Lyra! Let us settle you, and then attend to your kind gift.”

As Princess Luna nestled Lyra into an open spot on the massive bed, clear of Applejack’s still form, Lyra stirred and mewled, struggling.

“Peace,” said Princess Luna. Her hoof stroked Lyra’s fretful head. Her horn glowed, issuing forth soothing waves, softening Lyra’s awareness. “Peace, and rest.”

With a gasp and a flutter of her eyelids, Lyra passed out again, and soon began to snore, Luna watching attentively.

After a while, Princess Luna glanced over at the small lump of wadded cloth.

She drew a breath. “Maidservan…” she began, but the word that had begun as a clear command directed toward a goal of laundering, trailed off as she glanced at Lyra again. Her unicorn lay stricken, as motionless as her earth pony friend, but far from comatose: indeed, in glorious and rather sexy health and vigor. She was only exhausted from a deeply touching marathon sprint, and could awaken at any point.

If she did, and she didn’t see that bedsheet in place comforting Applejack, she’d doubtless be terribly hurt.

Princess Luna rose, and her horn glowed. She lifted and unfolded the bedsheet. Where had Lyra gotten it, anyhow? It smelled quite pegasus-y. Luna wrinkled her nose delicately, but with no great distaste. In truth, it reminded her of the tale she’d told Lyra. Should she ever mate with Lyra and allow herself to be weakened and impregnated through Lyra’s horn discharge, she’d very likely need plenty of pegasi for her wings, and it’d probably smell even worse. And perhaps Applejack liked it—she did have a foal with Rainbow Dash, after all, and this was probably Dash’s inimitable athlete’s stink.

And so, Princess Luna draped Applejack decorously in the bedsheet, tucking her in warm and snug, and returned to Lyra’s side, where she stroked that elegant, luminous green body with a tender hoof and marveled at the miracle of sentimentality and tolerance. Truly, Lyra had overcome her prejudices against earth ponies. All would be well. Luna bent, tears in her eyes, and kissed the sweet, foal-like nub of Lyra’s barely-regrown horn.

Behind her, unseen, Applejack’s ear flicked a tiny amount.

Luna’s eyes were closed as she meditated on her beloved, and her pause was the pause of the immortal and timeless. She had nothing better to do than to lie with her very own mortal unicorn pony and bask in her endearing, fragile, wondrous presence, and she did so, entranced.

The bedsheet was draping Applejack’s forelegs, while her head lay softly on a pillow, hat placed at a respectful distance but available at need. Applejack’s nostril twitched. Her legs had been laid out in such a way to resemble a neck-stretched sprawl: Princess Celestia had been feeling her pulse by delicately nuzzling her throat. Nopony had rearranged Applejack’s legs, and now they were not only in a slightly unnatural position, but covered in several folds of bedsheet.

Applejack drew her foreleg up into a more comfortable position, unthinkingly. The folds of bedsheet came along with it. Scent was released as the fabric got dragged up next to Applejack’s face.

Princess Luna’s ears perked straight up. She’d just heard a faint sound from behind her, and a snuffling. And then, half a word!

“Rainb…”

Luna’s head whipped around, and her eyes flooded with tears again. Applejack was stirring, dazed, that poor mistreated orange body moving under its own volition.

Quickly, delicately, silently, Princess Luna moved across the bed to join her. Her delicacy was sufficient: Lyra did not wake.

“Wh…”

“Shh,” soothed Princess Luna. “You’re safe now. You’ve been terribly hurt, dear Applejack, but here you are safe and protected.”

Applejack sniffed, a confused look on her face. “…Rainbow?”

“We’ll bring her for you. She will be so pleased that you are well! We promise that she will join you as soon as she can. Pray lie quietly, you are still healing…”

“B… Big Macintosh!” managed Applejack, trying to rise. She winced, her eyes rolling back in her head, and sagged again. “Aw, horseapples…”

Luna’s eyes went wide. “Oh. Oh, my. Applejack, your family believed they had lost both you and your brother. They fear he has been attacked, perhaps by the same creature that attacked you?”

Applejack blinked, then snorted. “Whut? Like hell! Big Macintosh run off with Braeburn! Ah gotta go out Appleloosa way, bring him back.” She tried to rise again, screwing up her face against the obvious pain this caused.

“Nay! Cease! Applejack!” said Princess Luna. “Desist! You must lay still. You will heal quickly from our cantrips, but for now, do not rise! We shall fetch him.”

Applejack looked up at Luna. “Ya will?”

“Indeed. Immediately. Is he in danger, Applejack? Shall we fly in haste to fetch him here this instant?”

Applejack considered this, through a haze of pain and grogginess. The corner of her mouth turned up. “Uh… naw. Shucks. Pore thing! Ya know we got to, all Ponyville depends on th’ Apples bein’ the foundation, but all the same, takin’ him away from Braeburn? It’s a shame. We ain’t deserved our Big Macintosh lately.” She shook her head. “An’ yet there ain’t no way around it. Horseapples. Uh, beggin’ yer pardon!”

“Please, calm yourself, dear Applejack,” said Princess Luna. “Your lapse is forgiven—provided you rest and heal! Have we an agreement?”

Applejack was looking around. “Hey! Ain’t that Lyra? She looks plumb tuckered out, what’s she been doin’?” Her eyes widened in dismay. “Dang! Almost forgot. I bet she’s… uh, I mean you and she… Ain’t said nothin’! No ma’am! Lyra looks jes’ fine, well satisfied… uh, Ah mean, rested!”

Luna, head held high, looked down upon Applejack, whose lip began to quiver. Then, before the hapless earth mare could die more than a few hundred deaths, Luna betrayed the hint of a smirk, which grew until she was snorting with royal amusement.

“Indeed, fair Applejack. But you misjudge her. We should say thou hast insulted her, if it could be said that such devoted attention to the royal person were insult! Thou dost not suggest this, surely? That the good unicorn is… degraded, by pursuance of her happy duty?”

Applejack blushed scarlet. “Aw, shucks! Naw, I ain’t suggesting nothin’, Ah swear it! Ain’t degradin’ a-tall, why, if it were me, I’m sure I’d jes’ have lots of fun divin’ between yer sweet…” Applejack went from red to pale, and her ears went back like she’d received an electric shock as she caught herself. “Uhhh… Ah declines ta answer on the grounds of what the HELL am I sayin’?”

At this, Princess Luna laughed openly. She nuzzled Applejack’s face until the country pony would look up at her, which took some time. “Be not distressed, fair Applejack. Indeed, young Lyra may take many liberties, yet we are teasing thee, nothing more. It is not wantonness that has brought Lyra to this pass.”

Applejack blinked, reassured. “Then, whut?”

“An errand of mercy. She ran to fetch you this sheet, to comfort you in your travail.”

That got another blink. “Ain’t no travail, this here’s a bed. Hang on! Ah smelled Rainbow Dash, somehow! Ya think…?”

Both her eyes and Luna’s turned toward the bedsheet that still covered Applejack. They sniffed the air. Applejack began to beam with delight.

“Aw, yeah! Ah did smell my Dashie! Ah would go to death an’ through it an’ back for my Dashie! You know what this Lyra’s done? She knew! She done it on purpose, did young Lyra!”

Luna’s jaw dangled in awe. “Miraculous little unicorn! Oh, she has done well! Why did we not think of it? Gad, what a benevolent stench!”

Applejack snorted. “Yeah. Ain’t the freshest! Ah been too troubled to do th’ laundry, and o’ course Dashie, even in the best of times she ain’t prop’ly domestic or nothin’. Granny expects it from her anyhoof. I try to help her at least make an effort. Been slackin’. Dang.” She frowned. “Yeah. It’s a mighty burden. Ah guess I got to pick it up again?”

Princess Luna blinked. “To what do you refer, fair Applejack? What burden is this?”

“Aw, jes… everythin’,” said Applejack, and sighed. “Don’t tell anypony, but it’d be nice to just stay right here and not have ta leave. Don’t worry, I’ll be outta your mane in a jiffy! Ah will resume my duties as boss mare. It ain’t so bad.” She stared into space, bleakly. “Ah reckon it ain’t much compared to what you do, Princess.”

“Do you wish to stay here?” asked Luna, gently. “To rest, and heal?”

Applejack’s voice was soft, fillyish. “Kin I? For a lil’ bit longer?”

Luna lifted her chin, and gazed down authoritatively. “WE DECREE IT,” she boomed.

At that point, two pony faces were transformed with emotion.

Applejack’s face lit up with relief and gratitude. Tears came to her eyes at the thought of respite from wrestling with the family, literally fighting Granny, dealing with Rainbow and Apple Bloom and little Spy, tearing Big Macintosh from his doomed relationship with a known slutpony who probably cared nothing for him, brazening it out against a Ponyville that had to see a strong Apple boss mare… Applejack wept, openly, at the offer of refuge.

At the same time, Lyra woke. She blinked blearily at the Princess and at Applejack, and then her eyes widened, as she remembered.

“Applejack!” she wailed, clambering awkwardly across the bed with cramped, wearied limbs.

“Yes!” said Luna. “Is it not wonderful? Your clever plan worked, my sweet Lyra! We are so proud!”

Lyra ignored her, and the Princess’s smile wavered and dropped. The unicorn was still frantic, still desperate. “Applejack! It’s Gilda, they’ve got Gilda!”

Applejack froze. “Whut? Who got what now?”

“They think Gilda did this to you!” cried Lyra. “They might hurt her, I think! The whole town’s in an uproar!”

Luna gasped. Applejack went white with shock. She stared into Lyra’s anxious, wide eyes for a moment, and then she spoke.

“Gimme mah hat,” she snarled, and her jaw was set.

Lyra’s horn glowed, and then it was joined by Princess Luna’s. The two of them seized Applejack’s hat, and planted it on her head, and waited.

“Princess? Ah reckon one more pony liberty won’t hurt ya none. Giddyup!”

“We… do not understand?”

Applejack’s mouth smiled, a little. Her eyes were grim. “I’mma ride you back to Ponyville, on account of I cain’t run for it. Get up now! Maybe it ain’t th’ nicest way to have an earth pony on your back but we are goin’ for a ride!”

Luna’s eyes widened, and then she’d whirled and was standing, her tail flicking, facing her balcony. Applejack heaved herself up into a standing position, jumped, and mounted her, not just covering her but scooting forward on her abused belly until she straddled Luna’s back, fore and hind legs wrapped around her Princess.

“OWWWW! That bucking hurt!” she yelled, gritted her teeth, and thumped Luna’s sides with her rear hooves. “Hyah! Git on!”

Luna gave one great bound, and the two took the air, racing toward Ponyville.

Behind them, Lyra stared, utterly stunned. Her jaw dangled in horror and amazement. Her eyes were wide as dinner plates. Tears glimmered at the corners that weren’t sure if they were tears of outrage, insult, arousal, or just plain awesome. Lyra’s mind spun, taking in what had just happened.

She shook herself, whinnied sharply, and began to charge out of the castle and follow them by the road. Halfway down the first hallway, she winced and switched to a determined trot.

They would be fine, but Celestia help whoever got in their way!

“Please, Mistress! Trixie thinks you should go to bed, stop digging up ceremonial things!”

Twilight Sparkle sighed in frustration. “No! We have to do this right. Princess Celestia is going to be here, I’m sure of it. She has to understand that Ponyville can take care of itself. We’re a society, not a… a nursery! Or a magic kindergarten!”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed. “Still on the magic kindergarten? It’s always the magic kindergarten with you, Mistress.”

Twilight stomped a hoof. “It made a big impression, okay? Now help me decide where we should display the Elements. They’re kept in this book, but I want them out and visible as a sign of our authority to do this, and I want them shiny. Polish them, Trixie! And no pretend rebellion, I really mean it. I’ll punish you later if you’re good, for now polish these things, okay?”

Trixie sulked, her horn glowing steadily. “Trixie may not be in a pretend rebellion…”

“D… do you really think Applejack is dead?” croaked Gilda, feebly.

Trixie glared over at her. Gilda lay in the corner, in despair and also in a cage of force that Trixie was generating. She hadn’t spoken since Twilight and Trixie had driven all the townsponies out of Twilight’s house.

Twilight glanced sharply over as well. “Ah! Gilda, I’ve been doing some reading. I think I should caution you that you don’t have to say anything that might incriminate you. Actually, if you ask me, what Rarity had to say incriminated you just fine and I doubt there’s much to add. You could be bullshitting us, so save your breath. Or I can get out the truth spell again if you want. Are you gonna be able to tell it you didn’t kill Applejack?”

Gilda twitched miserably, but didn’t speak.

“We’re doing this by the book,” said Twilight. “I think that’s probably better for you. We’ll have a real trial, and introduce the sheet th… that was drenched in Applejack’s blood, as evidence.” She hesitated, and then added, “If you did kill Applejack, you need to be really grateful that we’re doing it by the book. When I get upset I can do this magical fire thing. I think it’s probably a very painful way to die. In fact, how about you go back to being quiet again?”

Twilight was trembling. Trixie saw it, trotted over and hugged her tightly, without wavering in her casting of Gilda’s magical prison. “Easy, Mistress,” she said, bracingly.

“Right,” said Twilight. She shook herself. “Polish these Elements, and set them up on that shelf there please. I’ve got to look up ancient Canterlot records. Ponies around here don’t go around soaking bedsheets in each others’ blood very much.” Her face twisted in anguish, and then she controlled her feelings and trotted off toward another bookshelf. “But there are historical precedents.”

“I loved her,” muttered Gilda.

Twilight’s mouth was a hard line, and her ears were back. “There are historical precedents for THAT, too. I strongly suggest you be quiet, Gilda Griffin.”

A shadow passed across the window. Trixie glanced at it. The townsponies were restless, still milling about. She returned her attention to her captive.

Rarity and Derpy trotted into town, chatting animatedly.

“I don’t think you should of done it, Rarity. I don’t understand!”

Rarity hmphed, slamming her hooves down with angry assertiveness. “Oh, nonsense. It didn’t do him a bit of harm! He got off lightly. That stallion was no gentleman!”

“But what did he do?” pleaded Derpy.

Rarity turned, to stare at her. “You can’t be serious, darling. Were we seeing the same oaf? I suggested he take a minute to chat up my charming companion, and he said… he said…”

Derpy blinked, and her eyes swapped cockeyed focal points. “He said,” she began, and her voice took on a distinctly oafish tone, “Well let me ask you this, do you have any whores that are less retarded?”

Rarity squeaked in outrage. “So you did hear every word! Then you surely must understand why he needed a pie in the face, even at the cost of my own dignity!”

“They threw us out,” complained Derpy, “and you wouldn’t stop yelling and kicking them even when I asked!”

“But don’t you understand how hideously insulting that wretched mule was to you?”

Derpy blinked again. “He wasn’t a mule, Rarity! He was a pony like us. Except he was a dumb-head meanie. Haven’t you ever seen those before, Rarity?”

That stopped the formerly elegant, but now seething and disheveled unicorn. “Let me get this straight, Derpy darling. You are aware that stallion sneered at you and treated you with contempt, then. Do you even care?”

“No,” said Derpy decidedly. “Lots of ponies are more cleverer than me, Rarity. And lots of ponies are nice good ponies. But sometimes the cleverest ones are mean stupid-heads.” She hesitated, and then began to frown. “Even some of the most wonderful, super smart ones… like Dusk S… oh phooey!”

Rarity’s lip quivered. “Oh, Derpy! You really are such a good pony. And of course you’re right, it’s a mercy you’re seeing it now. I’m terribly worried that poor Twilight will never get past her hasty assumptions about you, though it is rather her loss, the foolish creature. My, yes. Courage, darling! We shall go out again, and again, until we find a pony worthy of you!”

Derpy hopped and squeed. “Yay!” she cried, but then she hesitated, looking down the road. “Rarity? Why are a bunch of ponies marching toward us?”

“Oh, heavens!” gasped Rarity. “They’ve come for me. I shall resist! I defy you!” she cried, at the approaching figures.

“No they haven’t,” said Derpy. “They’re the ponies we know, the ones that live here in Ponyville.”

They were, indeed, but Rarity quickly realised that they seemed different. Granny Smith and Fluttershy led them, though Fluttershy was flanked by an expostulating Pinkie Pie and a capering Rock Candy. They marched, leading a large, silent horde of walking ponies, towards Twilight Sparkle’s house.

Granny arthritically reared and banged the door with her forehooves. “Open up!” she whinnied.

The door opened. Trixie peered out, glowering. “Stop that! Twilight is reading archaic court records! What do you want?”

Granny glared back, twice as bad. “Turn the killer griffin over! She’s pret-near kilt two of my grandchildren, won’t be killin’ again!”

Derpy Hooves gasped, and Rarity winced and muttered, “Oh my. This is not good, darling.”

“How can she say that? Things like that can’t happen!” squeaked Derpy, and began squeezing through the crowd, apparently to argue with Granny. Her face was a mask of dismay rendered more piteous by the big stunned-looking eyes, but her mouth was determination drawn in a single grim line. The proposition clearly offended Derpy to the core.

Rarity moaned, and set after her, glancing around with alarm at the once-familiar townsponies. The tone of the gathering reminded her of some very lively nights spent in Fillydelphia behind locked doors, and to see that emotional tone echoed in the streets of Ponyville was deeply disturbing. It felt like the whole world was out of joint, toppling to destruction. She could feel the panic and fury, and Rarity knew better than anypony what secrets lurked in the hearts around her.

“Come away, Derpy!” she begged. “Let us not be here! It is a throwback to the terrible days of windigoes and savagery!”

Derpy wasn’t listening. She confronted Granny, as Trixie blocked the door. “You shouldn’t say stuff like that, Granny Smith! It’s mean, Granny Smith!”

“Hold your peace, you consarned fool pegasus!” retorted Granny Smith. “Why, that pony right next to you proved it! That griffin soaked a sheet in my grandfilly’s blood and you will not stand in mah way if you know what’s best for ye!”

“But,” protested Rarity, “must you? I mean, yes, it’s horrible, but there must be some explanation! If Applejack were here…”

Granny spat, in contempt. “I saw my poor little Applejack, lyin’ there with her hat off an’ hardly breathin’ and you are not going to wait for her to come back and say yeah, that griffin done it! If Princess Celestia weren’t able to bring her back by now, my grandchild’s gonna join her brother an’ I am DONE with watchin’ that creature lay waste to mah family! Git out of the way!”

“But if she didn’t do it?” cried Rarity.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” wailed Pinkie, from somewhere in the crowd.

Granny Smith gritted her teeth, and glared from under lowered brows. She spoke, at first quietly.

“How old are you, child? Do you remember the early days of Ponyville? Do you remember the days before Ponyville? Before our kind civilized the land and made it safe for the colts and fillies? I’m old, lil’ miss Rarity, dang old. Ah have seen things you ain’t. Ah have seen the sight of a pony torn limb from limb by ravenous griffins. They tear you up but they don’t kill ya right off, but they’ll start eatin’ ya anyhow, jes’ so long as you cain’t get away…”

Rarity gulped. Behind her, the townsponies began to shove and panic. Granny’s voice built and built.

“Ah have seen the wounds torn by the deadly griffin claws an’ talons, rendin’ pony flesh and spillin’ blood, an’ I have seen th’ half-eaten corpses from when we drove th’ bastards away from their kills, AN’ I have seen them wounds AGAIN up close and personal, showin’ through even after the Princess did her best, and I am TELLING you this Gilda Griffin TORE APART MY BABY with her cruel sharp claws and you gone GIT OUTTA MAH WAY…”

Granny was shaking with rage, confronting Derpy who cowered, whimpering. Rarity began to move to shelter Derpy, meeting Granny’s stare with the only other stare present that could be that fierce and dominant, and then behind the crowd she heard a scream.

“No, y’all get outta MY way!”

Over the tops of the milling, enraged ponies came a small filly, with a big pink bow in her red hair that had come mostly undone. She paid it no mind at all, she just jumped on pony backs and heads until she came to the front, and she shoved her face right into Granny’s and yelled, “You’re WRONG!”

“Shut up, chile! I ain’t wrong! I saw what I saw, I know what I know!”

“And I know what I know, and Gilda didn’t do it!” yelled Apple Bloom. “You’re letting the real criminal go, how many times do I have to say it?”

There was a motion behind Trixie. Twilight Sparkle’s head peered out her door. “What’s going on here? You all, go back to your homes!”

“Won’t!” snarled Granny. “Turn over that griffin, young lady!”

“Don’t do it!” squealed Apple Bloom. “She’s innocent!”

Granny butted heads with Apple Bloom, who wouldn’t budge, and shouted, “Your brother’s DAID! Your sister’s GONNA be daid soon! How can you stand there and…”

“The hell Ah am!” came a familiar voice from above.

Applejack wouldn’t wait for Princess Luna to land. She saw her Granny and her little sister fighting at the center of a vast crowd of angry ponies, and she flung herself from Luna’s back impetuously, misjudged her step, and slammed to the ground, letting out a scream of agony but fighting her way to her feet again.

“Applejack!” wailed Princess Luna. “We worked so hard to heal you!”

Applejack wouldn’t listen, either. She regained her hooves, shaking and grimacing with pain. She stalked forward, jaw set, and stumbled, for she was nearly passing out. The herd of ponies drew back in horror to let her pass. She made it up to Granny and Apple Bloom, and she demanded, “What the hay is goin’ on here?”

There was a commotion inside Twilight’s house, and Trixie glanced over her shoulder grumpily and shifted her cage of force. Gilda, scrambling forward as best she could, made it up to the door and stared out desperately at first Applejack, and then at a massive crowd of ponies whose eyes impaled her with hatred.

“You see that? You see?” accused Granny Smith, and indeed the ponies could see the jagged scar. There were gagging noises. It wasn’t gory in the least, but after Granny’s soliloquy, every pony could see the scar and imagine claws tearing into their beloved Applejack. They could see the agony she was still in, and they held their breath, their tension escalating unbearably, watching, listening.

“Tell them it ain’t so!” cried Apple Bloom.

“Tell the truth!” snarled Granny Smith.

“Truth?” blinked Twilight. “You asked for it!”

She concentrated, and the familiar glowing sphere appeared, reflected in the too-wide, unblinking eyes of countless townsponies, and Twilight’s voice rang out with authority.

“Let’s sort this out right now! Applejack, we can all see your terrible injuries. Before ponies do things they might regret—this is a truth spell, everypony, pay attention! Applejack, did Gilda do this to you?”

Applejack looked startled.

“Well, yeah,” she blurted, “but…”

The truth spell went ‘Ting!’ in the expectant silence.

The crowd exploded.

Derpy Hooves screamed. She was caught between the library, and the charging pony crowd. They’d gone totally crazy, worked up to hysteria and set off by the truth spell’s confirmation of Granny’s terrible story, and rather than flee, more than half the crowd charged the door as if they were trapped with the deadly griffin and only immediate violence would save them. Derpy went down under a storm of trampling bodies.

Rarity shrieked, and dove without hesitation directly under the falling hooves. She physically interposed herself, yowling in pain as hooves trampled her head, her horn, her body, but she provided a pony shield for Derpy all the same. Rarity kicked out with a free foreleg, but soon had to devote all her efforts to sheltering Derpy, for the crowd was piling up on top of both of them. Derpy whimpered, feeling blood from her protector trickle onto her face as the stampeding ponies pummeled and trampled them both.

Fluttershy wasn’t among that crowd. She’d been caught up in the reaction, and she’d reared with her wings flared and begun to charge with the others, but two things stopped her. One was Pinkie, weeping and trying to wrestle her aside. Fluttershy was almost prepared to push Pinkie away and attack, but the second thing rocked her beyond expectations.

Rock, her colt, had her by the tail. He was pulling her back, and he looked very serious. She glanced back at him, did a double-take, looked again at Applejack, and her eyes went wide.

Applejack was very much alive. She’d just admitted that Gilda had done these terrible things… but she looked miserable, horrified at the mob’s actions. Fluttershy saw Applejack, face contorted in agony, shove past the horde of attacking ponies to try and get into the library, to try and get to Gilda Griffon. Fluttershy saw the expression on Gilda’s face as she struggled to reach Applejack…

“Let me through!” begged Applejack, helplessly. Gilda disappeared from sight, Trixie’s magic forcing her back into the library, her eyes locked with Applejack’s until the last moment. They’d looked on each other like lovers dragged apart across a battlefield. Fluttershy watched it all, heard Gilda’s squawk of dismay and Applejack’s scream, “Gilda!” in response. It was not accusation, it was a heartfelt cry of anguish.

Fluttershy’s mind began to crumble, as the story she’d built fractured, and revealed an unexplained but undeniable reality underneath—one that spoke in emotions and expressions, one that told her how horribly wrong she’d been.

She began to totter backwards, pulled by Rock, and then pushed by her mate Pinkie away from the stampeding ponies, and she didn’t resist them any more—and every second, her eyes grew more haunted and guilty.

As Fluttershy staggered backwards out of the fight, Twilight Sparkle raged in her doorway, Trixie beside her. Over them, Princess Luna flew, but her presence wasn’t calming anypony—they’d long been wary of her, too, and her presence seemed to only alarm the furious ponies more.

“Stop it!” squealed Twilight, her ears back. “You’re trying to lynch Gilda! I don’t believe that is your destiny! Now maybe we can’t have a nice trial like I was preparing for, but that doesn’t mean we can do this your way! We have to come together on this and work out something that will satisfy everypony! The spirit of friendship demands that you listen to each other and not just run with your hotheaded assumption! We have to do this the proper way! WILL YOU… errrh! Fine, we’ll do it the hard way, I’ll magic some sense into you! Celestia’s gonna kill me… how do I even phrase this?”

Twilight’s horn lit like a beacon. Luna gasped at the sudden surge of magic around them. Inside the library, the Elements of Harmony began to glow, and floated into the air.

Twilight screwed her face up in concentration and incanted loudly and desperately to the crowd, casting her spell of unity with every shred of magic she could summon…

“From all of us together, together we are friends: with the marks of our destinies made one, there is magic without end!”

A bolt of lightning speared out from inside the library, where the Elements of Harmony floated. It incinerated Twilight in a single blinding flash of light. She was gone. Not only that, Princess Luna had also vanished at the same moment.

Trixie screamed. Applejack fought her way forward, kicking at the crowd despite her physical agony, uncovering a trampled and bloody Rarity and an unharmed but stunned Derpy Hooves. Gilda, freed of her magic prison by the lapse of Trixie’s attention, scrambled forward to meet Applejack at the door, and seized her in a hysterical, sobbing embrace. Applejack disappeared into the library with a wail of pain and dismay, and then was lost to sight.

Trixie Lulamoon stood between the stunned crowd, and Twilight’s library, alone. She blinked, as Rarity dragged Derpy frantically to safety away from the scene. She gulped, looking around, wondering where her Mistress had gone. It had looked like a massive discharge of magic: a teleport, or a jump between planes. Twilight was gone, but could well be alive somewhere.

She glanced behind her, and saw what the crowd could not see: Gilda and Applejack clinging to each other for dear life. Her ear twitched, and then she heard a movement.

Trixie looked back around, and the herd of ponies was pressing forward, eyes crazed and filled with vengeance. Somewhere behind them, she heard a pathetic cry, “Um, maybe we have all sort of done a very bad and wrong thing!” and a squeal of rage, “You won’t listen! Why won’t you listen?” The herd paid no attention. They’d seen one of their own injured, they knew who’d done it, and they’d just watched the last pony they’d defer to, vaporised in a flash of light. Perhaps they thought Gilda had done that, too.

Trixie stared out at them for just a moment, stricken, left completely alone. The pack of ponies moved in, growling. She glanced behind her at the pony-griffin hug, then quickly back at the advancing horde. She couldn’t put up a magical ward against all of them at once—her horn would burn off from the energies required, and there was no power source to meld with or draw from, anyhow. They’d over-run her, trample her as they had Rarity, in their madness, and she couldn’t hold them off forever.

Trixie Lulamoon’s lip curled. Her teeth bared in a snarl. Her horn flicked on like the crack of doom, and a few ponies in the front row flinched, even as the others pressed forward without a second thought.

“Come on, then,” she hissed, bracing herself in the doorway. “Trixie dares you.”

Alicornspace

Twilight Sparkle returned to awareness, drifting through a luminous, aqua-colored void. For a moment, she couldn’t interpret a thing she saw. The long hours of grueling, sleepless study had left her drained, only raw determination and pure unicorn crankiness had kept her going, and now some sort of magical discharge had left her stunned and floating in space. She felt no pain, but perhaps that was what happened when you were killed. Twilight winced, rebelling at the thought.

“Hello?” she said. “Where am I? What is this place?”

The place echoed, but in a peculiar way that hardly seemed connected to anything as mundane as a pony voice. Strange glows wafted past her, and she craned her neck around, seeking some form of explanation. The air dripped with magic, if it was even air at all. It was mysterious, unreal, and it smelled like…

It smelled like forever.

Twilight just stared for a moment, forgetting everything, suspended in luminous nothingness. It wasn’t dreamlike, though it seemed like it would surely have to be. It was more insidious than that. Every second she spent watching the entrancing magical glows was another second drifting away from a previous existence that rapidly lost relevance. Her previous life seemed the dream, and this—this was more real than anything she’d known.

Twilight turned her head, and she saw Princess Luna—also there in this wondrous place, also looking around herself in confusion—and then, Twilight’s ears perked straight up as a crooning voice insinuated its way through the floating void.

“Congratulations, Twilight. I knew you could do it!”

Luna whinnied in alarm and galloped madly off, crying “Celestia! Sister!”

Twilight stood on emptiness, frozen with shock. That voice, that so-familiar voice, continued.

“Now, I doubt you expected to meet ME here…”

The figure became more clear, seen through the wavy distortion. Unfortunately, its body stubbornly persisted in being wavy—and distorted.

“Discord?” demanded Twilight. “What have you done, Discord? Let me go this instant, this isn’t funny!”

Discord approached, face wreathed in smiles. “Oh, but it is! It’s terribly funny. I’m sure Celly never imagined this!”

“Put me back!” squealed Twilight. She tried to stamp a hoof, and merely tumbled through space, turning a lavender-green as she lost track of what ‘down’ meant.

“But I didn’t bring you here,” said Discord pleasantly. “It’s hardly fair to demand I put you back, when I’m not the one that transported you, and I, and dear little Luna, to this place. Is it?”

“Well, if you didn’t bring me here, who did?”

“You did,” said Discord, and Twilight stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

The noise of approaching hooves was strangely altered in this place. The galloping was transformed to airy whuffing sounds, that seemed to echo and morph into colors somehow. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna appeared through the wavy distortions, looking panicked and out of sorts.

Twilight glared at them. “If somepony doesn’t start explaining things in about two seconds, I’m gonna get mad, and I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know what I’m gonna do, but it’ll be really bad! I’m warning you!”

“Celestia! Luna!” cried Discord happily, receiving glares in response. “I presume dear Cadance is freshening up a bit before making her illustrious appearance? That is courteous.”

“What is HAPPENING?” shrieked Twilight, stamping her hoof and tumbling through space again. “What are you doing? I’m in the middle of something that’s kind of important, okay? I’m sure it was important, and I almost remember what it was! I am occupied!”

“So is Cadance, if I’m any judge,” said Discord. He tut-tutted. “Ah! There she is! Not even flushed and sweaty—I say, well done!”

“Stop it!” hissed Celestia, looking stricken. Behind her, Princess Cadance trotted up, rather red in the face, and refusing to meet Twilight’s panicky gaze.

“I want to know what you’re doing to me!” wailed Twilight.

“WE are doing nothing to you,” snapped Discord with sudden curtness. “If you’d like my advice, I suggest you exhale, and go limp. If you struggle, it will hurt, and it won’t change the outcome one iota, trust me. Oh, look away, Celestia, if this upsets you so much! You should have seen this coming. I knew this would happen from the moment your dear little protege turned me to stone against my will…”

Princess Celestia gulped, her throat working with anxiety, her eyes wide and horrified and fixed with dreadful fascination on Twilight and Twilight alone.

“Not like this,” she whimpered. “Please, not like this.”

“What did you expect?” retorted Discord. “You and your rigid thinking, your supposed consistency that’s nothing more than a cloak for stultification and pretty lies…”

Twilight looked at Princess Celestia and began to really panic. Her mouth tasted of bile. Inside her, she felt her magic ramping up toward some end. Then, she glanced down and squeaked cutely, for she saw a tendril of her magic emerging painlessly from her chest. It began to form ribbons that swirled around her, and the swirling grew more intense.

“What do I do?” screamed Twilight.

Princess Celestia was shaking, biting her lip, but she answered all the same. “What Discord told you. Breathe out, try to relax.”

“What?!?”

“Oh, my little Twilight!” sobbed Princess Celestia, the tears beginning to flow. “Baby!”

Discord narrowed his eyes. “Thought so. Your precious Order breaks down once again, Celly, and this is no foal of yours.”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t follow the instructions.

She drew in a deep breath, and kicked out against the swirling magic, but it only drew closer. She heard Luna gasp, and thought she saw her hugging Celestia, but then the ribbons of magic redoubled and drew closer, binding her, whirling her within a cocoon that seemed to burn without pain. It was like her body didn’t exist to the tightening loops of magic, but they bound against her unicorn magic and she felt it fizzing, resisting.

Twilight screamed, as the cocoon drew tighter. It was seemingly made out of her own magic, true, but it was also crushing her magic inside her: a violation, a horrible perversion of what it felt like to take a horngasm. Those merged with her magic and brought it to its fullest, intoxicating, orgasmic peaks. This felt like it was compressing her magic, wresting it away from her extremities and into a tiny, shrieking core next to—no, into—her heart, and she could feel it wasn’t supposed to do that, felt like a shell around her essential self that was clamped within a horrible vise of imploding magic that suddenly accelerated to crush her very being as her vision was lost to the blinding swirls and

Princess Celestia, blinded by tears, looked away at last. Discord gazed in frank appreciation. Cadance and Luna trembled as they watched.

Twilight writhed savagely in the grip of the tightening magic and then, with a cry that was very difficult to interpret—that could have been ultimate pain or ultimate pleasure—she exploded in light, with a dull whump and scintillating shower of thaumic sparks. Gradually, teasingly, the swirls of sated magic ebbed away.

The only sound was Princess Celestia’s sobs. Then, Discord’s voice cut through, strangely gentle.

“Oh, go ahead and look, my sweet. It’s not so bad. I’d say she got off lightly. Hmph.”

Celestia’s eyes flew open, to rest upon a lavender form that stood in floating unspace before her. It was undeniably Twilight Sparkle: perhaps a little slimmer and more sculpted, elongated, possessing a fetching set of purple wings that she hadn’t noticed yet, but it was still Twilight Sparkle. Celestia couldn’t even blink, much less look away.

“I can see how your nature made this difficult for you, Celly,” said Discord with a curious tenderness. “Anything could have happened, as we know. Perhaps it was her nature, in turn, that kept her so recognizable.” He winced, grimacing as if in pain. “Curse her, the lucky beast. Still, I suppose she was already a mare, wasn’t she?”

“Damn you!” choked Princess Celestia, and Discord’s face hardened in anger.

“Well, she was,” he snapped. “So are you going to shun her, too, or is she just that terribly special to you? She, too, is transformed and changed. Surely it is time to turn from her in disgust, rejecting her despicable new form. As you always do. Don’t you? Hmm?”

“It’s different,” managed Celestia.

Discord’s expression mingled fury and betrayal. “You… you faithless…” He turned away, grimacing again.

Twilight looked back and forth between them in shock. She’d never seen Discord so angry—she’d never seen him angry at all, and it was terrifying. She flapped her wings in alarm, and then gave a shriek and craned her neck around, staring wide-eyed at the new limbs that now were part of her. She could feel her magic field extending into them, and she folded her trembling coverts, reeling at all the new sensations.

Discord, seeing this, gave a rich but somehow bitter chuckle. “Oh yes, Twilight Sparkle. Wings. Your dear friend Princess Cadance can tell you many things about the uses,” and he licked his lips, “of those new toys. Can’t you, Alicorn of…”

“Stop it!” blurted Cadance, and hid her scarlet face behind one of her own wings.

“Well, it’s time,” retorted Discord. “If you don’t tell her, I will. If that troubles you, I am oh so terribly sorry.” The bitterness was no longer subtle. He continued, “And then perhaps we can leave here and go about our charming, twisted, magic-infested lives, hmmm?”

Twilight quit staring at her wings. She marched up to Discord, and demanded, “What just happened? You’re talking about it like you know what this is.”

“Quite,” sneered Discord.

“You’re a Princess, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, her voice quavering with emotion.

Discord snorted. “Cover story! Spare her. You’re an Alicorn, Twilight. The magic has you.”

Twilight blinked, glancing back at Celestia. “You mean… like how you’re the Princess of the Sun? And Luna, of the Moon? Like that? So, what am I Princess of?”

Discord folded his mismatched arms and fixed Twilight with an unflinching gaze. “Let’s not mince words. Screw Princesses. This is Alicorn Space. You’ve joined us here through the exercise of a particularly resonant spell, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. That means we’ve got the Alicorns of Order, Service, Sex, Chaos, and I’m guessing from what you were doing and how you are acting that you’re our new Alicorn of Leadership. Charmed, I’m sure. You can make up your own tasteful euphemism on your own time.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “What are you talking about? I can see the Princesses are here, but why are you including yourself when you’re not even an alicorn, and what are these new names? They have nothing to do with the original ones! Order? Service? It’s Sun, Moon, um… Love…” She trailed off. The only alicorn who’d meet her eyes was Luna, who looked sad but determined as she hugged Celestia.

Twilight turned back to Discord, glaring into his wry little smile. “Keep talking. I mean it. I want an explanation, and I want it right now. First of all, who the fuck are you, that you’re here? It looks like it’s all Princesses except you. Explain!”

Discord’s smile grew. “Hah! Called it. You’re Leadership or I’m a mule. And you couldn’t be more wrong, dear Twilight. Do you know who I am? Who I was?”

Twilight snarled, her horn glowing. The glow surrounded Discord. He giggled.

“Oh, that’s good! I feel the conviction, how delicious! Don’t even waste the effort of compelling me, Alicorn of Leadership, I’ll tell you willingly. I… am Starswirl the Bearded…”

The glow flicked off, and Twilight could only stare in dumbfounded shock as Discord continued.

“And the Alicorn of Chaos… and, I might add, the pretty pony Princess of Unintended Consequences… who did not ask for any of this.”

Twilight blinked, and then blinked again. “But… excuse me, but you don’t look like a pony.”

“You’ve not seen my dreadful true form, Twilight my dear,” purred Discord in his rich baritone.

“And there! Listen to you! You don’t sound like a Princess to me. And hah! I’ve got you! Starswirl the Bearded was a stallion, not a Princess!”

That got a wince out of Discord—and, oddly, a sob from Princess Celestia. Discord muttered, “I believe the operative word in your statement would be ‘was’. And I’ve been able to get the voice back, thank you for noticing: it is a point of some pride with me, Miss Sparkle.”

“Alicorns are female,” said Princess Luna gently. “We think it is because the magic is a creative force and seeks forms that could in turn create life out of themselves. If a male unicorn achieves alicornhood, the magic renders him female, as if he had never been a colt at all.”

Twilight whirled to stare at Luna. “Oh, you know about this? What do you know about it? I’d rather get it from you than Discord.”

Discord snorted. “Regrettably, you shan’t be ‘getting it’ from either of us now that the magic has had its delightful way.”

Luna met Twilight’s eyes, and said gravely, “When Celestia and I were unicorns, I was her little brother. It was a very, very long time ago.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped again. Discord snorted. “Cadance joined them some time after. I won’t bother to speculate how SHE achieved the transformation—we can guess. And thousands of years later, I was born and lived as Starswirl the Bearded, a truly fine specimen of stallionhood indeed, and I was Princess Celestia’s…”

“No, please!” sobbed Celestia.

“Lover,” concluded Discord.

Twilight’s neck might as well have snapped off, from the way she was whipping it back and forth. She took in Celestia’s misery, Luna’s staunch protectiveness, the overwhelming embarrassment of Cadance, Discord’s haughty and judgemental stare.

Discord’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes, Miss Sparkle. I fucked your Princess gloriously, before the terrible events that reduced me to this mockery of a state. In fact, such was my demise, something I can simultaneously boast of and bitterly regret. In a sense, dear Twilight, it is indeed all her fault.” Celestia sobbed, again.

Twilight addressed Discord. “This is ridiculous. I don’t know whether to believe any of this. What do you mean, your dreadful true form? A draconequus isn’t dreadful enough for you? You’re here, anyway, whatever this place is. Also, you’re making Princess Celestia cry, which is starting to make me really angry. If you want me to believe this stuff, show yourself! The draconequus thing, it’s a big fake?”

Discord winced. “It’s the best I can do. It reflects how I feel about my fate. My true form is appalling. I’m a brilliant unicorn scholar, not to mention I’m supposed to have a member that can reduce a Princess to a quivering puddle, damn it, and to be transformed for eternity into a thing like that…”

“Show her,” came a miserable voice. Twilight glanced over. Princess Celestia had lifted her head. Tears filled her eyes, but her jaw was firm. “Show her, Starswirl.”

“Oh! Oh, really? NOW you’ll give me the courtesy of using my real n…”

“Show her!”

Discord sagged. He lifted his leonine arm, and he snapped his pawpads, and there was a flash.

Before Twilight stood an exquisitely beautiful female alicorn, as slender and elegant as Cadance, but smaller. Every contour of her luminous ice-blue body cried femininity. Her luscious jade eyes glared murderously, full of bitterness and resentment. Her mane bore strange patterns, like ferns or seahorses.

She opened her mouth, and nopony interrupted as she spoke in an intoxicating, breathy alto, directly to Twilight.

“I was like you,” she said. “A prodigy. It seemed only fitting that I become Celestia’s lover, a fine masculine fellow like me, and we knew of the dangers should she arc with me. I may say it made things exciting, to make love to a creature gushing magic that could turn one to ash. If I slipped up, I would surely die from Celestia’s torrents of horncome. I was so good at making her squirt until she passed out, never once opening my own horn to her. I was always about self-control, self-mastery. Ironic. It was a glorious life, spurting a unicorn stallion’s seed into the womb of such an incomparably magical creature…”

Celestia whimpered. Twilight saw that the Princess’s ears were back in shame and alarm, that she was trying to look at the exquisite little creature but something in the patterns of that mane and tail seemed to frighten her. She couldn’t even look at them. Discord—or Starswirl—continued, in that so-feminine voice.

“Perhaps too glorious. Then that one terrible, fateful day came. She was so beautiful, clenching feverishly around my maleness, her little cries ringing so sweetly on my ears…”

Celestia shook her head, helplessly, as the lovely little alicorn girl pressed on, her magenta-and-lilac mane wafting around her, those jade eyes burning a hole in Celestia’s turned-away face.

“I was losing control. I knew it,” said Discord. “If I did not suppress my horn’s release, I was going to die, and all at once I was filled with a sense of how utterly worth it such a death would be. To devote oneself to one’s mare, to drive her to the peaks of ecstacy, to be consumed by magical fire even as one throbbed and gushed a stallion’s gift to her depths…” The lovely creature licked her lips, trembling. “My come would fill her womb, hers would incinerate me, and there would be no stallion in all of history who ever died a more glorious death. She was beginning to squirt magic, and she writhed and went mad, gripping me with that amazing Princess-pussy, its glorious slickened pinks seizing my massive cock in transports of ecstacy, and I knew I could not resist flinging myself into the fires of her passion. I do not know if she would have held back, or could have. I do know that my powerful stallion’s body gave her no choice, for as I came, I rammed myself to her depths with a shout. Do you remember what I shouted, dear Celestia?”

Celestia was dripping tears, shaking, red-faced. Twilight had her face screwed up in annoyance. Discord continued.

“I cried, from one to another, another to one. A mark of one’s destiny singled out alone, fulfilled! And with that, I allowed my magic to burst forth from my horn. I was so pent up it felt like I’d exploded. It was the most amazing sensation I had ever felt in my life… at least, it was the most amazing until my Princess’s arc found it, and slammed into my brain with a force that blew my mind apart, fulfilled me utterly, and tore my body to shreds in a flood of delicious, overwhelming, unbearable alicorn horngasm… vaporizing me in a surge of irresistible, incandescent magic, doubtless lighting her from within through the luminance of my deeply buried, massive cock…”

“Not really a powerful stallion body,” said Luna unexpectedly.

The petite alicorn Princess drew herself up to her full diminutive height in offense. “I beg your pardon?”

Cadance nodded, looking annoyed. “She’s right, it wasn’t. You were no athlete.”

Luna snorted. “Be honest, Starswirl. You were a fat wizard pony. I mean, yes, we know you were fat locally like nopony ever was, but you made it sound like you were some Royal Guard or something, and that’s not…”

“Shut up,” said little Princess Discord. “I was powerful, damn you!” She trembled, squeezing her eyes shut, gritting her teeth. “I died, Twilight Sparkle. I died a STALLION like no stallion has ever been. And then, I discover that Equestrian magic has somehow seized upon my sacrifice, perhaps in amusement at the enormous joke that would be played on me. I thought I had everything worked out. My Princess was the Princess of Order, I was her virile and hugely powerful stallion and the greatest wizard history has ever known, and I died the greatest stallion to ever live, and I was well satisfied…”

She choked up, and the others watched as Starswirl, once a stallion to end all stallions and now a lovely delicate alicorn mare, got control of her voice again. When it returned, it was a bitter hiss of self-loathing.

“Can you blame me for settling upon a new form that communicated how I felt about my fate… when I woke up in THIS place and discovered I would spend all Eternity as the spirit of Chaos in the body of a delicate filly with feathery fluffy wings and winking horse-vagina?”

“We tried to help you,” stammered Celestia, scarlet with shame.

Alicorn Discord whirled on her, raging. “You abandoned me! You couldn’t bear the sight of me any more than I could stand the sight of myself!” She stamped a delicate little hoof, and tumbled like Twilight had, except that Discord’s lithe and sensuous form made Twilight look crude and blocky by comparison. She righted herself with a few flaps of her exquisite wings, blinked her heavily lashed eyelids, glared at Celestia while flaring her delicate little nostrils. She was about as manly as a raging kitten, and just as adorable.

Celestia began to lift her head and glare back. “I had just lost the stallion I loved more than life itself! The stallion of my dreams, jewel of countless pony lifetimes! My dream unicorn, damn it!”

“Lost, hell!” squealed Discord. “I was still there, and you wouldn’t help at all! No wonder your little brother ended up turning on you, I know Luna was watching how you treated me! Even the wonderful Alicorn of Second Banana couldn’t stomach that! You lost that wonderful horsecock and that’s all you loved me for, wasn’t it? That’s what you lost!”

Cadance piped up. “It wasn’t that good of a penis, Discord, get over it!”

The lovely little pale-blue alicorn whirled on Cadance. “Oh, really? How would you know? How often did you try to get a taste of it, Alicorn of Sex, she whose advances were always rejected? I was faithful! Unto death! All the orgies you wallow in, and you still can’t reach the peaks to which I brought Celestia. What’s your record by now? Three pegasi chewing each wing, was it, and another pegasus thrust up your pussy ‘til he’s coming out your neck, and Shining Armor fucking you up the ass?”

Twilight Sparkle had heard enough. She screamed, stamped the air and consequently tumbled in the floating void. With a supple flap of her powerful new wings, she righted herself, and flew over to where Discord and Cadance were facing off.

“Stop it!” she demanded. “I can’t believe this! You’re acting like a bunch of… of bitchy fillies! What’s wrong with you?”

At that, all the alicorns fell silent, shame-faced. Finally, Luna spoke.

“Twilight… we are. Indeed, we are that bunch of immortal, bitchy fillies. Even those of us who started as unicorn colts…”

“Stallions,” corrected Discord, tossing a curl of her mane out of her ravishing green eyes with a flounce.

“Whatever,” sighed Luna. She gazed imploringly at Twilight. “Please, please try to understand. Maybe I accept it more easily because I’m the Alicorn of Service? I would always do anything for my beloved sister. Now I will do anything for my beloved sister, but I in turn am her beloved sister. Not counting the things the Lulamoons invented for me, of course…”

Discord’s lovely alicorn head whipped around. That sensuous feminine voice said, “What are you talking about, Luna? What do you mean, things?”

“The point is,” said Luna hastily, “we are still ponies, Twilight. We have far more power, but all we are is ponies. With our great powers, the mortal ponies treat us as gods. We outlive countless pony lifetimes, we acquire wisdom, yet for all that our origins are those of simple unicorns…”

“Speak for yourself,” snapped Discord in her silky voice. “I was the mightiest unicorn stallion of my age, thank you. What things are these you speak of? Tell me about these things.”

Luna pressed on. “The point is, Twilight, we aren’t gods! Prithee, try to accept it: we remain ponies with pony hearts and pony drives, the same longings and fears and desires that reside within thy heart, but magic has made us its own, and we are helpless to resist it. And that same magic has chosen you, and brought you here to become one of us. Indeed, all we can do is try to comfort you through this change. We cannot turn you back, any more than Starswirl here can become a true stallion again and resume his mortal life as Celestia’s consort.”

Twilight was silent. Luna went on, gently. “Magic does such powerful things with us, Twilight. We can but accept its inexorable tides. Mayhap there is even beauty in it, if you are wise enough to seek beauty.”

“Can I turn back to a draconequus now?” asked Discord, a tremor of emotion in her cute little voice. “I think she gets the idea, and I can’t stand being in this horrible body.”

Twilight looked over Discord’s true alicorn-mare form, and she bridled at the attention, shying away and lifting a forehoof with a flutter of her neat, shapely wings. “Don’t look at me!” she protested. “I swear I’ll do something very chaotic at you, I don’t care what I promised Fluttershy. This is simply awful and are you quite finished humiliating me?”

Twilight snorted. “Go ahead. You’re adorable, though. If you hate being adorable, fine.”

“Fine!” squealed Discord, and tried to snap her hoof. Nothing happened, and she pouted, shook the hoof (even that action being oddly graceful), and finally clapped both forehooves together. There was a flash of magic and the familiar draconequus form appeared, looking extremely cranky.

Twilight blinked, thinking of something. She glanced at Cadance, eyes narrowed. “Clap your hooves… and do a little shake?”

Cadance reddened. “You were adorable, too.”

“I was a filly!” squealed Twilight, her ears back. “I trusted you! Now I find out you’re the Alicorn of Sex, teaching me to wiggle my bum?”

“I would never have let anypony touch you!” protested Cadance.

“Not when she can do a little shake for them herself,” smirked Discord, his rich baritone back in place. “Privately.”

Cadance laid her ears back. “Lay off! Dickless!” she hissed.

Twilight was still thinking. “Did he say three pegasi for each wing? And another one… and my big brother, up her… Cadance!”

Cadance was scarlet with embarrassment again, but she held her head high. “Shining is very happy. Very very happy. Leave us alone!”

Twilight flapped her new wings again. They’d been showing an unsettling tendency to stand up stiff as she pictured, with horror, the logistics of Cadance’s debauchery. “Hmph! Brothers! Please don’t ever tell me any more. But… well, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re probably right.”

Discord sighed. “As much as I hate to agree about that… yes, I’m sure she is. It was not distaste for Cadance’s charms that drove my faithfulness during life. It was love for my Princess. I chose the one most glorious mare in the universe and would have no lesser.” He sulked, glowering at silent Celestia.

“Technically, you’re still alive,” said Twilight. “Wait, did she call you dickless? The way you talk, I always thought you were a male draconequus.”

Discord looked even more unhappy. “The magic is formidable. No matter how I transformed, nothing I did would restore my masculinity. Luna may be happy with that: I am not, Twilight Sparkle. At least my voice can reflect the truth of me.”

“So, you desperately want a penis again, but you still have, what did you say, a winking horsevagina between your legs?”

“Technically,” corrected Discord, “it is tucked under my left wing where nopony would think to look, and reduced in size to that of a squirrel or similarly-sized rodent. I cannot remove it from my person, so I choose to exile it, and I would ask you not to speak of it to anypony, and to permit me the dignity of the pronoun, ‘he’, I was born with.” He twitched. “Particularly not to Fluttershy. As chaotic as it would be to have a chipmunk fucking my wing-vagina, some things confound even me.”

Luna opened her mouth, uncertainly. She didn’t even get a word out. Celestia was in her face, trembling, hissing “Don’t you dare!”

Discord lifted an eyebrow. Luna cringed, and squeaked, “But…”

“Just don’t, Luna!”

Discord stared at her, angrily. “Oh, how very authoritative, Miss Alicorn of Order, oh Miss Sun Princess! Go right ahead and steamroller your faithful second fiddle as usual, we’ll all w…” He froze. “Oh, wait a minute. Wait just a minute.”

Celestia squeezed her eyes shut, grimacing.

“You don’t want me to hear what Princess Luna has to say,” said Discord thoughtfully, “and she spoke of the Lulamoons making something for her… and she specified I could not become a true stallion again, emphasis on the true… Twilight Sparkle!”

Twilight jumped. “What?”

“What are they talking about? I more than suspect you know. Be so good as to confirm my suspicions?”

“Don’t…” began Celestia, but Twilight’s glance stopped her, and Twilight spoke directly to her, ignoring Discord.

“Alicorn of Order, huh?” she said. “I can see that now. I’m very sorry, Princess Celestia, but I’ve seen some wonderful things come into my life that weren’t about order at all. I think maybe you’re being hard on Discord for kinda creepy personal reasons, and order isn’t the same thing as fair. Besides, it always seemed like you two had some kind of history, and now I know more about that! How bad did you ditch him, Princess? I mean, when he became a cute mare alicorn?”

Celestia wilted, looking away from Twilight. Luna spoke up, protectively. “Celestia has always been straight, as they say, even when we were unicorns. What happened was not her fault, and it hurt her as badly as it hurt him! Prithee, have mercy for the troubling of her feelings…”

Twilight frowned. “Me finding the love of my life troubled her feelings. The ponies of Ponyville having magic bits seems to trouble her feelings a whole lot, she’s forbidden us to have them. I’ve been up for two days trying to track down the provenance of their thaumic source to satisfy her. Now I find out Princess Celestia is just a sort of super-unicorn? And I’m one too? And she runs around making things orderly, that’s her real cutie mark?”

Celestia sagged, until she was lying on the lack of ground, legs outstretched forlornly, head drooping in obvious despair.

Luna gulped. “You can write your own cutie mark now, Twilight. Alicorns can do that, it’s your nature you cannot resist. Er… Please understand that our beloved sister has maintained her order for thousands of years, Twilight, mostly with our devoted help. It is not ours to defy her. We regret our one-time rebellion bitterly, and the most painful consequence it bore was the abandoning of our sister to fate, dooming her to watch over Equestria alone.”

“Oh, I could tell you about abandoning,” said Discord bitterly. “I could tell you about alone. Try being abandoned by your love and locked up with your thoughts as a stone statue for a thousand years or so, then talk to me about being alone. I’m not sorry for her at all.”

“Cease!” commanded Luna imperiously. “You fought her in your rage and frustration, remember? We did not wish to imprison you! And we are all locked up with our thoughts for thousands upon thousands of years! Sister did not willingly create your current form, it were naught but sad accident!”

“She didn’t love me enough to stay with me after that sad accident!”

“You didn’t love her either,” said Cadance unexpectedly. They all turned to look at her, and she continued. “You were in love with your own power and importance. You played her like a musical instrument, you loved nothing more than having her fawn over you, but you didn’t love her as a person, Starswirl. That’s why she couldn’t handle you changing so much. You weren’t friends.”

Silence fell.

Discord gulped. “S… strong words from the Alicorn of Fuck,” he stammered.

“I know lust,” said Cadance simply. “You still lust over Celestia, to this day, and lust without friendship would frighten anypony. You needle and taunt her, you long to perform acts of lust and conquer her body again, you crave the feeling of power you used to have for the asking… but when have you simply wished to make Celestia happy?”

That stopped Discord completely. “I… what has that got to do with… er,” he said. “But I’m sure she enjoyed, positively basked in my great powers. Why, I could get her squirting from both ends in forty-five seconds if I’d started with some tongue work first, if she wasn’t such a baby about it I could have showed you…”

“Look at her,” interrupted Cadance.

They did. Princess Celestia was red with shame, staring at nothing, and as they watched, a tear trickled down her cheek.

“Even when you were a living stallion,” said Cadance, “Celestia didn’t enjoy you boasting like that, and now you’re doing it in front of Twilight. I remember when you joined us as an alicorn, and I remember you carried on acting just the same way, and Celestia doesn’t go for mares, and still you pressed her!”

Luna nodded. “Dark times. In truth, we’d expected trouble even before you transformed yourself into a draconequus and began to boast about the pleasure curves of your left horn. Starswirl, were you mad? Celestia does not seek perverse toys!”

Discord sulked. “Cadance does!”

“That has nothing to do with it!” retorted Cadance, her ears back. “Listen, I’m sorry I was after you so much when you were alive. I know that made everything worse, I just… it’s my nature, okay? You made it sound so epic. But that was just desperation, with the goofy horn! And those two base bulges are too large, you’re overcompensating. And the pointy end is just scary!”

Discord sulked worse. “With the power of Chaos, I can guide it safely between your cervical folds and penetrate literally into your womb. Isn’t that the hottest thing ever?”

Every single natural female alicorn present squealed in dismay, from Cadance to Twilight to Celestia. Discord stared blankly at them.

Luna gave him a sour look. “You’ve been so busy trying to reject your female parts, you have no idea what they’re like. Forsooth, if you’d bothered to use them you’d have figured some of these things out. We spent our mortal days as a male entertaining just such dimwitted fantasies, we remain familiar with that point of view even now, and still we felt our mare-parts cringe within us, sirrah.”

“I don’t understand vaginas?” said Discord plainitively. “Even though I’m cursed with one of the stupid, lube-oozing things myself?”

“Neigh,” said Luna gravely, “thou dost not understand mareparts. Thy loss, truly.”

“Well, then,” said Discord brightly. “I can fix that. Twilight!”

Twilight jumped. “What? Oh sweet Celestia, don’t tell me you want to practice on me! No way!”

“Oh, no, no,” said Discord. “Instead, tell me something, if you would be so kind.”

“What?”

A little halfsmile twisted Discord’s lip as he sprang his trap.

“Tell me about these magic bits you admitted Ponyville has, which Luna earlier suggested that the Lulamoon clan invented. The ones that will not make you a TRUE stallion, but which apparently make you a non-true stallion from the emphasis Luna placed on the word, and from the suggestion that she is Celestia’s sister except under the influence of what, I now conclude, are these same magic bits you speak of.”

Twilight Sparkle stared at Discord, stunned. None of the other alicorns so much as shifted a wing. Twilight licked her lips, trapped, not daring to speak, until an unexpected voice heavy with resignation broke in.

“Tell him, Twilight,” said Princess Celestia, without lifting her head.

“What?” squeaked Twilight.

“You aren’t used to us,” said Celestia. “We have crossed conversational swords for thousands of years. From the moment you said the word ‘bits’, it was a foregone conclusion. You tell him.” She glanced bitterly over at Discord, who looked nonplussed, and added, “It changes nothing. Nothing!”

Twilight backed away, ruffling her wings nervously. “And what if I don’t want to?”

“I am happy to wait until you change your mind,” offered Discord, with a quirk of his ear and a flick of his draconic tail. “I’m just as immortal as you are, and you’re in a bigger hurry. The sooner we are all prepared to dismiss Alicorn Space with our magemeld, the sooner you can get back to your business in Ponyville.”

Twilight’s eyes widened, and she gasped, remembering. “Trixie! The villagers… oh my gosh! I’ve got to get back there right away, how do I leave here?”

Discord crossed his arms. “Tell me about the bits. I can guess a lot, so it won’t take long. I won’t join the dismissal meld until you do, so we could wait here an eternity instead.”

“And how am I supposed to go back like this?” squealed Twilight frantically. “I’m what, an Alicorn of Leadership?”

“From watching how you’ve been with Celly, and the way Ponyville treats you,” said Discord, “I would think that was obvious.”

“But I don’t want to be the Alicorn of Leadership!”

“Oh, I’ll just tell the magic, then,” said Discord bitterly, “I’m sure it’ll understand. You think I wanted to become Chaos?”

“Tell him!” pleaded Luna. “He wanted you to tell him, and Applejack is badly hurt, and she hit the ground pretty hard…”

Celestia’s eyes flew wide. “Faithful Applejack! But surely we had her convalescing in bed after I healed everything I could?”

Luna’s face was dark with embarrassment. “When she awoke, she heard about Gilda Griffin and demanded I take her to Ponyville without delay. And the village is in an uproar…”

Celestia rose, ruffling her wings. “No!”

Discord’s arms were still folded. “You and your mortal ponies. I’m still not going to let us return until you tell me what these bits are.”

“Can he do that?” squeaked Twilight.

“Your transformation called us all here,” said Celestia, “and the final stage is a little mage-meld with all of us. Then the magic is satisfied and we can go. Stop us? Yes, I’m afraid he can.” She glowered at Discord.

“Fine!” said Twilight. She turned to Discord. “The magic bits came from Trixie, she made the first one. Except that apparently they were invented for Luna lots and lots of years ago. I totally wouldn’t have guessed she was Celestia’s little brother once, though! The first one blew up, and then we made some more. Celestia doesn’t like them, but she’s not the boss of me, and Ponyville really has to stand on its own hooves. Anyway, the magic bits: you bite them, and then a penis grows out of you. You can feel it and everything, and it even comes, though the stuff goes away again when you let the bit go.”

“Grows out of you,” questioned Discord intensely. “How? Where?”

“We think it extends off your clitoris,” said Twilight. “It doesn’t use your own mass, it draws it from somewhere. We’re tracking down the thaumic provenance, is that enough, can we GO?”

Discord blinked, unhurried. “Really!” He made a face. “I’ll have to relocate my vagina to the normal place. And make it full size. Otherwise, I’ll sprout a tiny penis under my wing.” A goofy smile gradually broke across his face, as he contemplated this prospect.

“Discord!” begged Twilight.

Discord began giggling, then gave way to uproarious laughter, rolling around on the no-ground and thwapping the floating orbs of light with his tail. “Oh, now that’s Chaos! Oh, think of the possibilities!”

“Discord!” yelled Princess Luna. “Thou demented wretch!”

“And since I can transform into any form with my chaos magic…”

“SWIRLIE!” squealed Princess Celestia, staring right at him. At that, both she and Discord froze, looking absolutely shocked, and there was silence as they gazed into each other’s eyes.

He shook himself. “Right. Far be it from me, etcetera. Forming up?”

“What do I do?” wailed Twilight. “How am I supposed to be an Alicorn of Leadership? They’ll kill me! Ponyville has a Mayor already!”

“Why don’t you call it Community?” said Princess Celestia, resignedly. “You can be the Princess of Community, and rule Ponyville, perhaps more than just Ponyville. We’ve never had a leadership alicorn, I’ve been the closest thing to it. You’ve been pulling that direction since you started the thing with the bits and I tried to stop you. I can no longer stand in your way.” Celestia sighed. “I’m just the Alicorn of Order, Twilight. Keeping the Sun orderly is a lot easier than managing ponies, which I suppose I had better let you do. I don’t envy you.”

Twilight gulped. “You’re sorry for me? I’m in that much trouble now, huh?”

“I suppose you are,” said Celestia. “I’ll help. I’m sorry this has come upon you, Twilight. But… I’m just a bit relieved.” She hung her head sadly. “You’ll lead them wonderfully, I’m sure. Forgive my emotion, it’s hard to watch your child leave the nest. But how wonderful it is that you won’t have to leave me in the larger sense!”

Cadance seized Twilight in a hug, then shook her. “Picture Ponyville! We’re all forming images of the places we left, creating a matrix of destination. Go home and fix whatever’s wrong. Do you need me there? Do you need Princess Celestia?”

Twilight looked at Celestia, startled. Celestia looked back, and then dropped her gaze, saying, “Perhaps you ponies can indeed, as you say, stand on your own hooves, even in your own disorderly way. Truly, I never have been the boss of you, not since you were very small. Oh, Twilight!” Her voice throbbed with earnestness and love. “I never wanted to rule you! I only wanted order and serenity. It is my nature and my joy.”

Discord was watching her thoughtfully, but didn’t speak.

“We shall announce thy new Princesshood to awaiting ears!” proclaimed Princess Luna.

Twilight’s ear twitched, and she made a face. “How about no? In fact, you be quiet, you’re going to return to Ponyville with me, right? Well, stay back, let me handle this.”

“Will you not require assistance?” said Luna. “Have you such resolute support at home that my aid is unwarranted?”

Twilight thought of Trixie.

“Yes. I have. Come on, Alicorns!” she said. “That means you, too, Discord! Focus, and let’s blow this joint!”

There was a crackle, and a fivefold foop.

The glowing orbs floated on, timeless and alone once more.

New Morning

Pinkie sighed. “I don’t know, baby. Keep in mind it’s me saying this, and you remember what I went through with Cranky, right? I just feel maybe it might be a good idea to take it easy, try not to expect…”

“No!” sobbed Fluttershy. “I can’t bear it! I need to know there are no hard feelings between me and her.”

Pinkie gave her a skeptical look. “You kicked the crap out of her, squishybuns.”

Fluttershy sulked. “I didn’t mean to!”

The skeptical look intensified. “You did. You were really proud of yourself. It creeped me out, Fluttershy, it was totally unlike you.”

That got a major pegasus pout. “Not really. Not when things are very wrong in the world. I got upset at the Grand Galloping Gala when the animals simply would not be nice to me, and I was being totally nice to them, and they wouldn’t listen!”

“Oh, right,” said Pinkie Pie, “that.”

“And I was very cross with you and Rarity that one day, and I was ever so sorry afterwards and you completely forgave me and understood, didn’t you?”

Pinkie’s ears laid back. “Uh-huh…” she said, remembering.

“And that time when Twilight Sparkle had the nerve to practice levitating using my poor innocent animals, and I shook my hoof in her face and threatened her about what I would do to her if anything happened to them! And she completely forgave me and understood it was just because I was so frightened for them. Didn’t she?”

Pinkie gulped. “Sure, Fluttershy…” she said, and twitched. “Gee. Maybe we need to have a talk about you and your temper. And, um, about what’s reasonable to expect from ponies? And griffins.”

Fluttershy’s lip quivered. Her eyes filled with tears, and she wailed, “You don’t believe in me! You think I’m a bad pony!”

Pinkie didn’t lose a second. She seized her mate in a hug, and stroked her mane as she sobbed, and murmured reassurances, but her eyes were dry and slightly narrowed.

This again…

The trembling pegasus quieted under Pinkie’s comforting touch, as always responding to determined love and affection. Pinkie could feel it. Not that it was a hardship to fondle Fluttershy—there was always something magical about cuddling and stroking Fluttershy—it was a fantasy Pinkie’d had for years and years, never believing it was possible. Now she had her dream mare, the most intensely feminine pony Pinkie had ever known, and she had no regrets on that score. Every day was a blessing and a joy, just to spend with her soul mate and such an apex of pony girlyness.

However, it did pose challenges Pinkie hadn’t planned for.

“Feeling better, flitterfeathers?” she sighed.

Fluttershy nodded a delicate little nod.

“Because you can come back to me and have somepony who loves you no matter what?” suggested Pinkie.

Fluttershy shook her head. Pinkie blinked, and said “Huh?”

“Because,” said Fluttershy, “I just know Gilda will forgive me. She has to, because she was hurting bunnies, so she must understand she kind of deserved it anyway!”

Pinkie Pie stared at her. “Are you loco in the coco?!” she squeaked. Rock was directing a skeptical look Fluttershy’s way, as well.

“But I can’t rest until everything is nice and full of love!”

Pinkie shook her. “Stop it! Gilda isn’t your job, Fluttershy, you’ll just make it worse!”

“But…”

“You just want her to love YOU!”

That got through. Fluttershy stared at Pinkie, those huge lush eyes wide and shocked. Before she could pivot to more lamenting, Pinkie laid into her. “Fluttershy, the trouble with you is, you’re so scared that you won’t get anything—that you want everything! I really, really need you to get a grip, okay? For me! Let’s start with the basics, like when I’m starting a recipe for a cake I put in a cup of sugar…”

“A cup of flour,” corrected Fluttershy, sulkily.

“I said when I’M starting a recipe, and don’t interrupt me! We’ll start with the basics. We love you just the way you are, Fluttershy. Me and Rock, we’re your cheering section. That’s the start, and that’s not gonna change. Are you with me so far?”

“I’m with you forever,” mumbled Fluttershy, looking cranky. “Except I think you’re going to be mean to me now. But I probably deserve it.”

Pinkie sighed, and pressed on. “Hold that thought, buttertunnel. Second point. I, Pinkie Pie, am not Gilda the Griffin. Right? I mean, that should be really obvious, what with me not being a big meanie-pants.”

“Neither of you wear any pants,” said Fluttershy. “So there!”

“I wore a skirt at the Grand Galloping Gala! Stay with me, Fluttershy, it’s important. So first, I love you forever, and second I’m not Gilda. Right. So, third—Gilda doesn’t love you one bit.”

Fluttershy pouted, and Pinkie shook her again. “Understand? The first time she saw you, she screamed in your face and made you run away crying! Then, you got in a fight and you beat the heck out of her and pretty much made HER run away crying, except you knocked her out cold…”

“She was trying to hurt Stout Heart!” protested Fluttershy.

“Remember what she said yesterday, when you were finally able to talk to her? When we were all hanging out, after you two made up? She said she was only trying to knock him off the cloud and run away. I think maybe ‘away’ is a good direction for Gilda Griffin, but the point is, you hurt her bigtime, Fluttershy.”

“So?” challenged Fluttershy.

“So, there is no reason she should think you’re a nice pony. Ever.”

Fluttershy sagged. Her lip quivered. Rock was watching attentively.

“Maybe it’s easier for me to see the problem here,” said Pinkie, “because I get the same thing. Don’t you remember Cranky? I was lucky I was able to find his long-lost love. Gosh, Fluttershy, what if she wasn’t living in Ponyville? That is so lucky it’s, like, too lucky. I can’t even take credit for that. I should have been able to calm down and let Cranky do his thing without bugging him so much. It was only special Pinkie magic that saved me, and a hit song and the fact that it was totally my episode.”

Fluttershy gave her a boggled look. “What?”

Pinkie shook her head dismissively. “Fluttershy, my point is that you and Gilda are just not going to get along. I think she mentioned something about a long flowing mane bothering her. Would you cut off your mane and tail to make her feel better? Or, you know, cut them short?”

“What? No! Why does she want that? It’s not fair for Gilda to ask that, I spend hours washing my mane and letting the spa ponies condition it…”

“Whoa!” said Pinkie. “Stop! Listen to me. She didn’t ask anything of the sort! I’m telling you, that bothers her and I know because she said so last night. She didn’t say why, maybe something with a long flowing mane hurt her when she was little? Your mane upsets her, and she is not asking you to change it. It’s just gonna have to upset her, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy bridled. “That’s not nice. I should find some way…”

“And her eating bunnies upsets you,” said Pinkie.

Fluttershy stopped mid-sentence. “Yes.”

“Even when it’s way out in griffin country.”

“Yes. It’s just wrong.”

“That’s not gonna change either, Fluttershy. Even if Gilda didn’t do that—and remember, she’ll get sick eating birdseed—other griffins will.”

Fluttershy was silent, sad.

Pinkie went on, implacably. “You don’t have to like each other. But I want Gilda to let you go on being Fluttershy, with the long flowing mane and tail and maybe even that mama-bear thing where you clobbered her for getting physical with an innocent pony… and I want you to let Gilda go on being a griffin, somewhere that isn’t Ponyville.”

No response.

“I don’t want her to love you, or even like you,” said Pinkie. “I got that covered and I don’t need her for that. I want her to respect you…”

Fluttershy glanced up and met Pinkie’s eyes, and Pinkie finished the thought.

“And I don’t want you to like her. I don’t like her either. What I want is for you to respect her right back. Then you won’t fight.”

Pinkie waited. For once, her opinionated pegasus beloved wasn’t arguing. She was thinking. She bit her lip, and Pinkie repressed a treacherous squee: it was so hard to keep from going bouncy with devotion and love for her delicious sweet darling, but Flutterbutter concealed some razor-sharp edges and that had become dangerous. She had to get through, somehow, or resign herself to loving an endearing monster.

Fluttershy gulped. “She attacks ponies, hurts bunnies. Kills them. How can I let things like that happen in my world, Pinkie Pie?”

“Your world starts with us, Fluttershy,” said Pinkie, pulling Rock into a three-pony hug. “Your world is us, and Ponyville, and our pony friends. Griffin country isn’t your world anymore, okay?”

Fluttershy was thinking again, looking extremely frustrated and more than a little frightened.

“You can protect YOUR world,” added Pinkie. “You’re good at that. Gilda said you were an honorary griffin! She’s always gonna be scared of you, I think. Maybe she’ll tell the other griffins to watch out and never hunt near Ponyville or the terrible Fluttershy will get them and eat them all up!”

Fluttershy made a face, but the thought seemed to cheer her.

“So,” said Pinkie, “let griffin country be NOT your world. Okay? Can they have a place too? Is it okay if there’s a place in Equestria that’s not nice for you, if you still have a home you can count on?”

She watched Fluttershy’s expression, holding her breath.

“…okay,” grumbled Fluttershy. “It’s against my better judgement, Pinkie Pie. And not really fair to ask. But okay.”

Pinkie heaved a huge sigh of relief, and hugged her. A bizarre series of blinks and twitches rushed across Pinkie’s eyelids and ears.

“Oh!” squeaked Fluttershy. “Is that your Sense? What happened?”

Pinkie shook herself. “Gosh! It’s almost as though somewhere millions of griffins cried out in gratitude, because they weren’t going to get beat up or maybe killed by a vengeful pony who needed the whole world to be her personal safe place!”

Fluttershy’s jaw dropped. “Pinkieee!” she wailed. “That’s mean! I already said I wasn’t going to hurt them or anything!”

“Sorry!” said Pinkie, and hugged tighter. “Sorry! I’m so sorry. It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, Fluttershy…”

Pinkie’s ear twitched again, with that very complicated but unmistakable feeling, and she snuggled her beautiful pegasus darling in relief, knowing the Sense didn’t lie—that Fluttershy had taken that first step away from the danger zone.

What she’d said had indeed been mean.

But it was also true.

Trixie Lulamoon woke to find herself alone in bed.

Her eyes flew wide, and she looked around in a panic, but Twilight was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even a note—but had there been, what would it even say? “Bye, I’m letting things take me away from you again”?

Trixie squeezed her eyes shut in defiance of the world around her and the thoughts that plagued her, and clung to what control she had.

It’d been building up for a long time, long before this alicorn business with the wings and all the new power.

Long ago, Twilight had wanted that earth pony Applejack, and lost her to the pegasus Rainbow Dash. Trixie had claimed Twilight at the deepest pit of her despair, after preventing her from committing murder—and as little as Trixie cared for most ponies, what Twilight had intended was murder, pony-cide in full awareness and intent. That lovely drive and determination had been focused on a dark, dark end, and it’d taken everything Trixie had, to break that obsession and stop her beloved from the act.

Trixie had managed to redirect Twilight’s attention to her own ‘end’, and Twilight had found it good. Yet all the same, it fed Trixie’s grovelling slave-mindedness to know that she had been second best, if that.

Then, Trixie had been kidnapped by Princess Luna, and Trixie had finally seen real evidence of what she meant to her lover. Twilight had been terrifying as she faced down her rival. Apparently she’d been a wreck in Trixie’s absence: it seemed odd, as Twilight found it so easy to treat Trixie like furniture. But then, Twilight had a knack for treating all ponies like furniture…

Trixie shook her head, trying to shake the thought out. No! That wasn’t fair. She just had some peculiar kind of detachment. That quirky brain, so bright, so needy for affection, and yet Twilight had no more comprehension of others’ feelings than a pet cat. There was a part of her that just soaked up the love and trotted on her way, pursuing those projects and checklists. In some ways that made it more magical when Twilight did love Trixie back, but the more Trixie thrived, the less maintenance Twilight gave.

Trixie’s eyes teared up, and she glowered at the ceiling.

And then there was Girl.

Rarity had invited herself into the relationship not one day after Trixie had been reunited with her beloved. It had seemed like such a glorious thing, too. Suddenly, there was another unicorn, so wise and mature, subbing to both of them, providing lesson after lesson in the proper way to dominate or submit. So ingenious, so adventurous, so delicious, dripping with elegance yet packing a terrifyingly thick and potent horsecock in the magically induced sack: Rarity had been a real find, kicking off a spectacular phase of Trixie’s life.

And yet, something had been lost at the same time, and the loss was a canker that hurt more and more.

It wasn’t fair to blame Twilight. That endearing innocence made her accept the situation, and try to do her best by it, and so she devoted herself to Trixie and also to Rarity and tried to fulfill their needs. Trixie just needed her Twilight to be there, her north star, healthy and happy and in charge. Rarity seemed to need an ever-increasing diet of shame and degradation, penance for some ill-defined crime that drove her on ruthlessly, doubtless having to do with her foal Sweetie Belle who turned out to be not sister but daughter.

Trixie winced. That was around the time that Twilight really began to stress out.

Something about the obligations of meeting Rarity’s need for abuse while also keeping things appropriate for Sweetie had hurt Twilight badly. Rarity had flung herself back into the games with renewed vigor but a strange hunger, as if they weren’t reaching her the way they used to. The old rules weren’t working, and Rarity gave no indication of any way to fix them, and Trixie could see Twilight getting more and more uncertain by the day. She had a contract, with everything spelled out in writing, and it no longer seemed to correspond with reality.

Trixie frowned miserably, going over the thoughts in silence one more time, getting no more answer than before.

Escalating with Rarity wasn’t helping. Girl had been very cross when Trixie had struck her in the street. Of course, that was a public space, Trixie reminded herself. And Trixie had overstepped her bounds even had it been private: her anger over that griffin prisoner turning up (even while Twilight struggled with bit research) had pushed her too far. Girl hadn’t meant to be disrespectful and flippant. She’d been walking on air with that pegasus, the stupid one, and hadn’t intended offense.

Trixie rubbed her temple, just below her horn, with a hoof. Trixie’s brain hurt. It was all too difficult and complicated, even before Twilight had cast that last fatal spell and been transformed. And now Twilight wasn’t in bed, resting, but somewhere else.

Trixie gasped. What if Twilight had suffered some further magical transformation? None of them could count on anything anymore, that was the problem. Everything shifted and changed, and Twilight took that very poorly, and Trixie couldn’t bear to see it. What if something else had happened?

With a little squeal of dismay, Trixie jumped to her hooves and out of bed, clattering across the floor to run down the stairs, crying “Mistress!”

“Hsss!” came a furious reply.

Trixie froze. Twilight was glaring at her from the study nook, behind the lectern. She looked awful, like she hadn’t slept for a minute before rolling out of bed, leaving Trixie, and returning to her research on the provenance of the magic bits.

“I’m WORKING!”

Trixie’s lip quivered. She gazed defenselessly at Twilight, her ears back, and then slowly turned and slunk away, as quietly as possible. Twilight returned to her concentration. From the glow around her horn, she was really going for it.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight called. “I can’t rest yet. All our friends have these bits! I have to find out what powers them. I have to find out if they’re really dangerous before anypony else gets hurt, it was me who created them!”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Trixie wiped away tears with the back of her hoof, and realized she was looking at the couch. There would be no curling up on that couch, however. Girl was on it, her broken leg resting comfortably, half-healed by Twilight (not that she’d been grateful for that, waving the thing around so!) and snuggled by that pegasus—Derpy, was it? The one that had come into their house demanding sex with Twilight.

And there she was, that same pegasus. The new addition, apparently. Girl’s new pet. One more level of complicated to trouble their lives.

Trixie Lulamoon’s eyes darkened. She gritted her teeth. Her horn lit. It’d be easier to draw power from Twilight, but Mistress couldn’t spare it. Trixie’s eyes glowed white, very weakly, as she concentrated for all she was worth, exerting her not inconsiderable power to the fullest…

Outside the library, in a soft and clean stretch of grass, Rarity and Derpy Hooves appeared, in exactly the same poses and positions they’d held. She’d placed them so carefully that even Rarity’s injured leg didn’t feel a single twinge. A breeze stirred Derpy’s ash-blonde mane. Rarity’s ear flicked. Neither pony woke from their slumber.

Inside the library, the couch was empty, and Trixie hopped up and curled up in the warm spot previously occupied by Rarity. She blinked away another tear, glancing at Twilight with a sulky look, but Twilight was still working.

Trixie settled down to wait.

Derpy blinked sleepily. She crossed her eyes, but not in the usual way—rather in an attempt to focus. There was a butterfly sitting on her nose. It was a lovely blue, like Rarity’s eyes.

Derpy tried for a moment to figure out what a butterfly was doing in Twilight’s house, before she realized she wasn’t there anymore. She was lying in the grass, cuddling Rarity. Derpy whickered gently, fluffing her wings, nuzzling the nape of Rarity’s neck.

The alabaster head moved, the elegant little horn pivoting in a graceful arc. “Hrrmmm?”

“Good morning, Rarity!”

Rarity stirred, then winced. “Ouch! Damndable forelimb. Good morning, Derpy, I… where are we?”

“We’re on the grass, Rarity!”

“Well, I can see that, darling,” snapped Rarity. “However, I distinctly remember the events of last night, and Twilight attempting to heal my leg, and my concern is this: WHY are we on the grass? I would have expected the offer of shelter, not simply leaving me where I lay!”

“I don’t know,” said Derpy. “I thought we were on the couch.” She gave Rarity a plainitive look.

“Couch. What couch?” said Rarity.

“Twilight Sparkle’s couch! Me and Twilight and Trixie and Sweetie Belle all carried you indoors after you’d fainted. Sweetie went home by herself once she knew you were safe. Is that okay? I stayed with you, Rarity!”

Rarity’s ears were back. “Indeed you did. Are you telling me they did bring me inside? I know that couch, though I am more accustomed to sharing Twilight’s bed—don’t pout, Derpy, it is just our way. They brought me indoors? This is not indoors, darling. Dew dampens this grass, and while it is a pleasing snack it is no couch substitute. Who put us out here?”

Derpy hung her head. “I don’t know, Rarity.”

Rarity’s nose was high, and she glared out at the world as she considered her situation. “Well. Well. WELL!”

“Yes, that’s it over there, Rarity. Would you like some water from it?”

“No, Derpy, that’s not what I… rrrrh! WELL!”

“You shouldn’t be angry at the well, maybe you might want some water after you have breakfast?”

Rarity gritted her teeth, her eyes blazing… but when she saw Derpy flinch and cower, she dipped her head and forced herself to be calm, saying “Pray forgive me, darling, I have had a… a rude shock!”

“Are you angry at me, Rarity?”

Rarity shook her head. “Of course not. However, SOME ponies,” she hissed, “should feel my wrath! I cannot believe they had the audacity, the AUDACITY to dump me—me!—on the damp soil, next to a garden of very undistinguished and ill-cared-for flowers. Has she no sense of propriety? Scenes have a beginning and an end! One does not simply replace one’s daily life with an unbroken expanse of… what is it, Derpy?”

Derpy was frowning. “It’s gonna be okay, Rarity. Don’t be so angry, Rarity.”

“But my owners have irresponsibly abused their position! Cruelly placing me outdoors when they know I have been injured and…”

She stopped, shocked. Derpy had placed a gentle hoof to her lips.

“Don’t be angry, Rarity. My Mama told me that if I stay angry with mean ponies, I’ll just stay hurt. But if I stay with the ponies that love me, the mean ponies can just go and be sad and mean somewhere else, and it won’t matter.”

The sapphire eyes were wide, vulnerable. “Good heavens,” said Rarity.

“I promise, it’s true,” said Derpy. “Please don’t be angry? I don’t want you to stay hurt, Rarity.”

Rarity blinked, for dew had apparently got in her eye somehow. “Good heavens. Well!”

“Yes, I know, it’s over—”

“—of course it is, and thank you, though I don’t need any water at the moment, darling,” said Rarity. “Goodness! Hmph! Help me up, please? Yesterday I rose to my hooves unassisted, and though I suffer less today I don’t relish this journey.”

“Where are you going, Rarity?” said Derpy, trying to brace her as she struggled to rise.

“I am going home, Derpy!” snapped Rarity. “I have better places to be! Did you say Sweetie went home last night?”

Derpy nodded. “Yes, Rarity! She’s okay. She was worried about you!”

“That makes one pony who was,” muttered Rarity darkly. She glanced up at Derpy, and amended herself. “Two, rather. Well, guess what, Derpy Hooves?”

“What, Rarity?”

“We are going back to Fillydelphia, and we will BOTH find nice ponies to fuck, do you hear me? Not like the ones in this dump!” she brayed at the silent library.

“Yay!” said Derpy, and then added reprovingly, “You’re being angry again. Are we going to the Carousel Boutique?”

“Yes, yes we are. And yes, I am, Derpy, I’m sorry. We’ll show them. Oof! That’s the way,” said Rarity, balancing on three legs and holding her injured foreleg at just the right dangle so it wouldn’t damage itself further.

“Who’s going to fix your leg, Rarity?” asked Derpy, trotting fretfully in place. “We can’t leave it that way!”

“Obviously not dear Twilight, for it is beyond her capacities,” said Rarity scornfully. “Perhaps Princess Celestia can oblige. I suspect the spell Twilight attempted was from the royal library. Ah, yes… the touch of a properly royal healer… then, perhaps later, the touch of a fine stallion, one for each of us… for lovely Rarity, and her charming, hah, WINGmare… hmm?”

Derpy bounced. “Eeee! But we have to fix your leg, Rarity!”

“Help me get home. Then, if you would be so good as to fly to Canterlot and fetch the Princess? I know it’s a long way and I don’t want to seem unreasonable…”

Rarity oofed, frantically trying to keep her injured leg clear, for Derpy Hooves had pounced and wrapped her in a glowingly affectionate embrace, wings quivering and held high. Rarity giggled. “I must take that as a ‘yes’!”

“Yes, Rarity! Come on, Rarity! I’m going to help you get home now.”

Rarity hobbled off, leaning on the bubbly pegasus. Though the jolts sent painful shocks through her, by the time she’d got ten feet she was smiling. It didn’t occur to her how odd it was, that she was smiling in spite of the physical agony—rather than because of it.

“Should I…” said Derpy.

“Yes! Yes, please,” said Rarity. She caught sight of herself in a mirror and winced: she’d be entertaining Princess Celestia with a mane that looked like a rats’ nest that had been used as a mop for a dreadful plumbing accident involving a toilet. But there was no helping it… not unless she had Derpy stay behind and wash her mane before pursuing her errand of mercy…

Derpy hesitated. “Did you want something else, Rarity? You look not sure.”

“Oh no no,” said Rarity decidedly. “Please do fly off to bring Princess Celestia. I’m sure she’ll be happy to help. Unless it is too much trouble to do that for me?”

Derpy didn’t answer in words. She expressed her opinion by galloping for the door, and bursting through it, only to be met by a shriek, immediately followed by a “THE HAY?!”

Rarity’s eyes flew wide. “Applejack!”

That reassuring head with its funny hat poked in the open door. “Rarity? Derpy Hooves just bust through here like she was a one-pony stampede! You scare her or somethin’?”

“No, darling, not in the least. Did she fly?”

“Flew straight off Canterlot way without even stoppin’ to look at me!”

“Oh, good,” said Rarity. “She’s fetching Princess Celestia, it may take a while.”

Applejack ambled in, looking around. “You reckon she’ll get lost? I could go fetch Dashie, she could get to Canterlot in a few minutes for ya.”

“No,” said Rarity. “I am in good hooves: Derpy will get there, and certainly she will not get lost, she’s the mail pony, silly Applejack!”

Applejack gave her a sidelong glance. “Uh-huh. All righty then. Ah won’t bring up our local mail mix-ups or nothin’, we can keep my Dashie as what you may call a fall-back position. Glad to see you at home, Rarity.” She dug at the floor with a hoof, awkwardly. “Er… I was wonderin’ if…”

“It shan’t feel like home until I’ve had a bath, mane treatment, tail treatment, and hooficure, not to mention a horn polish,” said Rarity. “And I cannot have the hooficure until Princess Celestia has healed my foreleg. Oh, don’t scrape, darling, what’s the matter with you?”

“What?” blinked Applejack. “I thought you was with Twilight! She ain’t fixed you up a second time? They brought you into her place an’ everything!”

Rarity’s eyes flashed. “So I hear! Events have been… let us say, disturbing. I am not ‘with’ Twilight, and I believe Princess Celestia will be more my ally in the matter.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. She stared at Rarity, who met her gaze and reflected it back with steely determination. Applejack shook her head. “Why do I get the feelin’ the unicorn crazy jes’ left another casualty?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sorry,” said Applejack. “Yeah, events been disturbin’ an’ no mistake. You weren’t awake for all th’ festivities?” She winced.

“I awoke,” said Rarity primly, “upon the grass. I have no idea what happened last night, nor did I see any ‘festivities’, unless blades of grass count as festivities. Let me be clear: they do not.”

Unexpectedly, Applejack lit up at those words. Her eyes widened, and a wild beaming smile crept upon her face bit by bit. “Well, dang. So as far as you’re concerned, Ponyville’s jes’ the same as it was yesterday. An’ to you Ah’m still… well, dang!”

“On the contrary, Twilight Sparkle’s showed herself to be a faithless winged wretch and I’ve washed my hooves of her, and that Trixie Lulamoon! They haven’t the least idea of legitimate scene boundaries, apparently! Amateurs!”

Applejack continued to smile, drinking in the sight of Rarity with a strange eagerness. “Awww. Well, it’s okay, Rarity. Heck, I still care for ya! I would never break faith with you. An’ ah…ah’m still an important pony, right? Don’t that make it even better?”

“Better? Better? I’ll have to go back to Fillydelphia, win back respect at my nightclub after the shame of bringing Derpy Hooves there only to cut short what would have been a shattering, devastating, hideous, glorious scene…”

“But we love you, sugarcube. Ah know you kin do it. An’ you can believe me, right? On account of, ah’m the b—b— th’ boss Apple mare! An’ that means I matter.”

Rarity glanced warily at her friend. Applejack was trembling, and her eyes were too bright. The adorable country grin was too wide. Something was up. “Applejack? What were these ‘festivities’ you speak of?”

The grin dropped away like flicking a switch.

“Nothin’,” said Applejack.

“Applejack?” pressed Rarity. “Why are you here? Did you want to talk to me about something, Applejack?”

“Uhh… nope!” said Applejack. “Ah just thought, bein’ a pony of compassion AN’ consequence, it be-hooved me to trot on over here to see if you was okay. I thunk Twilight woulda fixed you up, to be honest! An’ then I could… uh… I guess, check to see if Twilight fixed you up good? Which she din’t, so I’m right glad I paid this visit!”

“You believed I was going to be in perfect health,” said Rarity, “so you rushed over first thing in the morning, ignoring your chores, just to see if I was enjoying my restored condition?”

“Sure!” said Applejack, eyes too wide, grin pasted on. “Ain’t that just the sorta thing you’d expect ol’ faithful Applejack to do?”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed. She bared her teeth.

“Derpy will return soon, with Celestia, and I haven’t time for this nonsense.”

Applejack bridled. “Nonsense? Of all th’—Ah took time out of my boss mare duties to come check on you, and this is th’ thanks Ah get?”

“You’ve never said that before, either! Since when have you postured in this foolish manner, Applejack? Tell me what happened last night that’s making you behave like this!”

“Ah will jes’ be on my way!”

“Tell me!” demanded Rarity. “Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“Good day to you!” cried Applejack, her eyes tearing up, but then she let out a squeal. Rarity’s horn had lit up, and unicorn magic grabbed her by the ear. “Hey!”

“Rarity has seen topping from the bottom before, young lady, but never from you! You SHALL tell me, this instant! Into the inner sanctum with you, go on!”

Applejack struggled, but Rarity was behind her, hopping three-legged, and the country pony couldn’t bear to physically wrestle a unicorn with a broken leg. Instead, she dashed into Rarity’s inner room and whirled to face the exit, but it was too late—Rarity had hobbled through and shut the door firmly behind her with an ominous click. She glared, commanding eyes glinting under glowering brows, an alarming battered apparition with her mane still disheveled and ruined, and obviously not caring one iota.

“Tell me what happened yesterday,” said Rarity. “Did you do something bad? Did you come here to be punished?”

Applejack gulped. “How dare you? Bossin’ me like this? I got half a mind to…”

“You’re hiding something! Don’t lie to me!”

“Lie? Lie? You… you pointy-headed mule!”

Both Rarity and Applejack froze, shocked, for a moment. Then, Rarity’s lip curled up in a smile, and she became chillingly calm.

“You do want to be punished. I’ve never seen you even consider a slur of that nature: for some reason you want to be punished very badly indeed. You may not leave until you have confessed, which I’m sure is what you really want, and why you came to me. Don’t deny it, it is too obvious, darling.”

Applejack flinched. “W—what give you that idea? I ain’t actin’ like no pony wantin’ punishment. Ah’m a…”

Rarity hopped a step closer. “You’re acting strangely! I can’t let you leave until I’ve unearthed the truth!”

“Ah tole you, Ah…”

“I have a truth spell, just like Twilight’s,” interrupted Rarity, though it was only a bluff. “Please be so good as to tell me everything is fine, into the teeth of that spell—my dear Element of Honesty.”

Applejack stood at bay, trembling, staring Rarity in the eye—and then she’d flung herself to the floor in a fit of despair, crying “Aw, it ain’t, it ain’t fine at all! You got me, Ah made all that up! Ah jes’ needed to feel like ah mattered for a lil’ bit more!”

Rarity hopped closer, her eyes flashing. “Made all that up. Made up what? Don’t lie to me, Applejack, I shall have the full story out of you! What happened yesterday?”

“Weren’t jes’ yesterday,” sobbed Applejack.

“Noted! But that is not what I asked. I asked, what happened yesterday? Answer! I don’t need to whip you, darling. Your spirit is broken, and you SHALL obey! And,” blinked Rarity, “that is extremely odd in its own right, isn’t it? Never mind. Speak!”

“Ah lost th’ Boss job!”

“Good heavens,” said Rarity. “Do they take your hat away? Who on earth did this, those Flim Flam characters?”

“Naw! She let me keep th’ hat. It was Apple Bloom! She’s th’ new Apple boss mare!”

Rarity’s jaw dangled. “Guh. Are you joking?”

Applejack wriggled on the floor, despairingly. “Naw! I got beat by my own lil’ sister, now I don’t count for nothin’!”

Suddenly, Rarity’s face was right next to hers, staring. “Applejack, what happened to you? What you say is impossible. You’re the strongest mare in Ponyville, you would never fall to the challenge of even another pony, much less a filly like Apple Bloom! And yet, you are on my floor in a pitiable state, and clearly you’re telling me the truth at last, but it’s impossible! How could Apple Bloom possibly defeat you?”

Applejack shuddered. “Ah… ah…”

“Tell me,” ordered Rarity, sternly.

“Ah were already defeated, Rarity,” admitted Applejack. Tears came to her eyes. “They caught me, asked me about this here scar.”

“Oh!” squeaked Rarity. “Goodness! And you flopped right down onto it, are you all right? I see it’s been magically healed.”

Applejack sniffled. “Aw, that ain’t so bad. Don’t feel it so much now. But I am not all right, Rarity! Help me understand! I let things get on top of me so much that ah wanted to die! Rarity, I got with Gilda in such a way that I knew she would hurt me, and I pushed her until she din’t know what she was doin’ and cut loose! Ah… ah was holdin’ my neck against her beak and everything… Ah was tryin’ ta get hurt, to get killed. That’s wrong! Ain’t it?”

Rarity was very quiet.

Applejack gulped. “Ain’t it?”

“You let things get on top of you,” mused Rarity. “Boss mare, authority figure, responsible, turned to by all Ponyville.” She thought back over some of the characters she’d known in Fillydelphia. It was always the ones under terrible pressure who went to the club to vent, to have control wrested from them at last. She’d never made the connection to Applejack, but now it was starkly obvious.

“An’ now I’m nothin’,” said Applejack weakly. “An’ I still did hurt the ponies I love. When I admitted I was wantin’ for Gilda to kill me, and then I looked in Dashie’s eyes…”

“And that is why you came to me,” said Rarity. “I, the virtuoso of pain and shame, dark mistress of Fillydelphia’s finest clubs, dominant unparalleled, submissive carpet beneath Ponyville’s trampling hooves. You came to me.” She looked all of that, her burning eyes transfixing Applejack’s soul.

“Yep,” said Applejack. “Ah don’t know what to do. Then I thunk I could still get a few moments of bein’ the Applejack everypony trusted so much with everythin’, ‘cos you din’t know shit about it, but you wormed th’ truth out of me, dammit!”

“And you want to be brought to justice. You seek a higher authority.”

Applejack winced. “Aw, hell, ya gonna give me a whippin’, ain’t you?”

“Do you deserve that?” demanded Rarity.

“Ah—”

“Silence!” cried Rarity. “It was a hypothetical question and not for such as you to answer! YOUR judgement is not being asked for today.”

“Aw, crap…”

“Are you prepared to submit to Rarity’s judgement, country mare?”

“Kin you even use a whip with that busted leg? No, wait, y’all use them unicorn horns, Ah’m in for it now…”

“Close your eyes!” commanded Rarity, imperiously.

Applejack whimpered, and squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been on the verge of hiding her face in her hooves, anyhow. Her ears laid back, then quirked up at the sound of some faint metallic clinking noises, and Rarity’s hooves hobbling nearer.

“Don’t you open them! Let me confirm: you acted out on your anxieties and pressures, seeking the escape of death in a moment of strong emotion, blinded by your own woes. Is that true?”

“Uh-huh,” admitted Applejack. Her tail flicked, and she cringed at a scraping noise that sounded like a blade. “Oh, lordy!”

“Stay there! And you have come here for Rarity’s judgement, after your own judgement proved so fallible.”

“Fallible?”

“Your judgement sucked, darling,” purred Rarity. “You shan’t be trusted with it here. Did you, or did you not, betray the trust of those who loved you? Did you work yourself into a state, seeking no advice nor guidance from anypony, fretting over your problems alone until you decreed yourself judge, jury and executioner?”

“Uhh, Gilda were more th’ executioner. She din’t want to be, Ah hurt her too by it…”

“Stop! Here, you do not make such decisions! I will weigh the injury to Gilda as part of your guilt. I have known griffins in Fillydelphia and understand how they see things.”

“Gilda don’t want to be no griffin!” protested Applejack, and then squealed. Rarity had nipped her ear. She grovelled against the floor.

“Then that is her burden to bear, and she is not here. You are. Are you prepared to accept Rarity’s judgement and the consequences thereof?”

Applejack felt Rarity’s breath against her ear. That voice rang out with such authority, masterful. She cringed, still squeezing her eyes shut as directed. “Uhhh… what you gone do?”

Rarity nipped her ear again, and Applejack yowled and began trembling all over. “Aaagh! Aw hell, ah gittin’ a whippin’ or some such…”

“Do you accept Rarity’s judgement of you?”

“Yes!” wailed Applejack, pressing herself against the floor submissively. “Yes! Ah give!”

“You will cease to pursue situations of self-harm,” ordered Rarity. “You’ve been relieved of boss mare duties? Very well, you shall accept that! Before we go further, Applejack, before you receive Rarity’s consequences in full, you will agree to these things!”

“Ah do! Ah agree!” moaned Applejack. “Aw, I cain’t stand it! What you gone do to punish me? I jes’ know it’ll hurt! But I deserve ta get hurt!”

She squalled, as Rarity nipped her ear a third time and cried “Deserve? Rarity will decide what you deserve!”

Applejack was hyperventilating, flat on the floor, hooves clamping her hat onto her head as if it was some protective helmet and Rarity was a bomb about to fall on her.

“You agree not to seek self-destruction, you agree to accept the events that have transpired?” declaimed Rarity.

“Uh-huh!” squeaked Applejack in a fillyish voice.

“Are you prepared to accept Rarity’s judgement and Rarity’s consequences?” boomed the tyrannical unicorn.

A tear leaked out from Applejack’s tight-squeezed eyes. “Yes’m!”

There was a terrible pause, and then…

Applejack felt a kiss on the end of her muzzle.

Her eyes flew open, to see tears in Rarity’s radiant sapphire gaze.

“You are forgiven,” said Rarity earnestly. “I love you… and Applejack, that is because you are a loving, sweet mare… who deserves to be loved.”

Applejack’s mind reeled, her lip quivered, and then all at once she burst into noisy weeping, clinging to Rarity who hugged back as best she could with her one good foreleg. “There, there,” Rarity soothed. “And remember, you were ready to accept ANY consequence! You must accept it, I insist! We love you!”

“Oh, Rarity!” sobbed Applejack. “How could you fool me like that?” Then she yiped, for Rarity had delicately nipped her ear a fourth time. “Dang! Ya hungry for ear or somethin’? Ow!”

“That was a warning!” snapped Rarity. “I was NOT fooling! You were prepared to obey me and I expect that obedience, young lady! You may be inexperienced in these things, and a hard case besides, but I took pains to reduce you to a state where you would accept my command—don’t you take control back!”

Applejack gulped. “Yes’m!”

Rarity’s manner changed completely. “Gooood. Lovely darling,” she said, stroking Applejack’s mane with her good foreleg, “how do you feel right now?”

Applejack’s eyes were wide. “Um… ah feel like a lil’ innocent filly. Is this what y’all do this crazy business for?”

“And not,” suggested Rarity, “like an old and guilty mare burdened by her own duties and sins?”

Applejack winced, and Rarity immediately cuddled her again. “There, there. Rarity will protect you, yes she will! Applejack does not have to take care of everypony right now. Applejack can go out and help ponies, and if she fails she can just try again. Won’t that be nice, hmmm? Applejack can be that little, innocent filly. Forget the burdens! Your mind has been freed of them, you have been judged and you have paid your price.”

“That th’ only price, Rarity? Now that you got me at last?” said Applejack in a tiny voice.

“I beg your pardon, darling?”

“Well… we was datin’ once and never done nothin’ like this. Ya gonna make me your lil’ filly in other ways now? Wouldn’t blame ya.” Her eyes were wide and accepting.

Rarity smiled.

“Oh, Applejack. Darling… this is more intimate. I know you have your Rainbow at home to turn to. I’ve just walked—well, hobbled—away from a complicated relationship with two other unicorns; at one point it was three other unicorns all bursting out with magic penises in all directions. I don’t need anything of the sort from you… all I need from you today is your promise to take care of yourself, to be gentle with yourself. Because I love you.” Rarity smiled wryly. “Anyhow, I have already conquered your marehood. That is not what we just did here, together.”

“Uh-huh,” said Applejack in the fillyish voice.

“Do you understand? I’m gearing up to reconquer Fillydelphia, my old stomping grounds. I’m good at this, darling, so very good. I’ve used my expertise and capacities as a uniquely skilled dominant to reduce you to a vulnerable state, and in that moment of greatest suggestibility, I delivered a message of love that I hope will resonate and stay with you,” said Rarity earnestly. “I’ve always known how strong and stubborn you were. Truly, I should have guessed what drove you that mercilessly. That time is done, darling. Your life has changed. It is time for you to love and be loved without conditions or reservations. You need not prove anything to us now.”

Applejack sniffled. She was crying again. Rarity cuddled her tenderly.

“You see? Your old ways need not bind you any longer. I’ve shown you the truth and set you free! Love is there for you, all around you. You don’t need to perform miracles to earn it, silly Applejack!”

The country pony mumbled something into Rarity’s neck. Rarity bent her head. “What did you say, darling?”

The deep green eyes met sapphire.

“Neither do you,” said Applejack simply.

Rarity’s jaw dropped. She looked stunned, as her many impassioned words turned around on her and fitted perfectly all the same.

“Good… heavens.”

There was a muffled banging at the door.

“Rarity! I brought Princess Celestia! Rarity!” called Derpy Hooves, from outside the soundproofed room.

Applejack wriggled free of the embrace and jumped to her hooves, helping Rarity up. It took some doing, for Rarity behaved as if she was in shock, her eyes wide and unfocussed. They opened the door, and Derpy rushed in to hug Rarity, only to have Princess Celestia’s magic hoist her cutely by the tail and scold her for leaping upon an injured pony with a hurt leg. Derpy was absolutely adorable dangling upside-down, but then she was adorable any way you wanted to count it.

Applejack sat, feeling awed and overwhelmed, watching the Princess and the ponies. Celestia knew just what to do, and her manner was orderly and reassuring in its settled certainty. It was a little like Rarity herself: the total confidence let you sit back and trust that she would do what was called for. Derpy certainly wasn’t arguing. She sat, wings lifted high, gazing at Rarity, who proffered her foreleg into Celestia’s magical grasp and sat quietly allowing the Princess to do her healing work.

Rarity wasn’t meeting Derpy’s eyes. Applejack thought she seemed frightened, almost terrified, as if she’d been taken unexpectedly into a state much like Applejack had reached—the abrupt revelation of a vast new world both hopeful and alarmingly changed. She glanced back at Derpy, to see that golden gaze still drinking in Rarity with absolute trustingness, with no fear or even comprehension of the white unicorn’s dark and perverse depths. She, so obviously, saw only Rarity’s precious heart…

“Applejack!” called Princess Celestia.

“Erk!” said Applejack, looking around. The Princess looked amused.

“Goodness! If I did not know of your relationship with Rainbow Dash, and the lovely foal you had together, I would suspect you had grown sweet on dear little Derpy Hooves!”

“Not me!” blurted Applejack, and then winced. Rarity stared even more fixedly at nothing, and was beginning to blush.

“I was just telling you,” said Celestia, “that I’d finished setting Rarity’s bones. The cantrip requires practice, but I’ve had many thousands of years to acquire that. Just to be sure, Rarity should not undertake great exertions. She is a unicorn, so that simplifies things. If she requires assistance lifting things too heavy for her magic, do you think there might be somepony attending her? It should only be for a few weeks, but she should have an adult pony on hoof in case she needs help.”

“I reckon!” said Applejack, and winced again. Rarity was cherry red and wouldn’t meet anypony’s eyes.

Celestia noticed this. “I’m sorry. Was there something untoward in my suggestion? I merely…”

“How about you come on this way, Princess?” said Applejack. “It’s been a funny ol’ morning. Mighty grateful to you, Rarity! We’ll be on our way!”

“By all means, faithful Applejack,” said Celestia. “It warms my heart to see you thriving and recovering, you’re looking better already. Does it hurt, still?”

“Naw. Ah don’t have ta hurt, now,” said Applejack. “C’mon, this is mebbe an awkward time to be here.”

“Oh, in that case we shall depart,” said Celestia. “Come along, Derpy, we…”

“Nope,” said Applejack firmly.

Celestia shut her mouth. She glanced at Rarity, and her eyebrows lifted. She glanced at Derpy, and they lifted more. She glanced at Applejack.

Applejack gave a jerk of her head, toward the door, and Princess Celestia took the hint immediately.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality! And for allowing me to heal you! It’s no trouble at all, where would I be if I could not keep in practice? We shall, ah, bid you adieu. Enjoy yoursel… oh. Um. Forgive me, I’ve no intention of coarseness…” Celestia was peering around the room, and everywhere she looked were more suggestive devices and bondage gear.

Applejack was chuckling. “Come on, Princess! Ya jes’ makin’ it worse!”

“Ah… toodles!” called Princess Celestia, and practically scampered out of the inner sanctum, Applejack hot on her hooves. The door clicked firmly shut behind them, and Derpy hadn’t budged an inch the entire time, even when Princess Celestia had called her.

Outside the Carousel Boutique, Princess Celestia finally slowed down, shaking out her wings and folding them primly to her sides. Applejack trotted up behind her, still chuckling.

“Good heavens,” said Celestia. “Are they going to… to…”

“Ah reckon!” said Applejack brightly. “An’ you know what? I bet you that’s a good thing, too!”

“With whips and chains and bizarre mechanical dildos?” gasped Celestia. She’d gone quite red, herself.

Applejack hesitated. “You know what? Ah don’t think so. I don’t think Derpy would want that stuff.”

“I’d have thought not!” said Celestia. “But what of Rarity? Alarming, amazing Rarity?”

Applejack thought.

“Princess… ah don’t think she needs it as much as she thought she did.”

“And… is that good?” said Celestia cautiously. “I’m trying not to judge ponies when they behave in these ways. It’s… difficult. I don’t want to assume, or intrude.”

Applejack thought some more.

“Yeah, it’s good. Everypony’s got their needs—but in the end, we all got to grow.”

They walked on.

Derpy Desires

Rarity stood in the center of her inner sanctum, surrounded by all the trappings of her sickness and glorious perversion, and stared trembling at the wall. She could feel Derpy watching her, that golden gaze drinking her in. Slowly, ever so slowly, Rarity dared shift her gaze, face scarlet with embarrassment, heart pounding, until she so very nearly met Derpy’s lovely derpy eyes…

“Boo!”

“AAAIIGH!” shrieked Rarity, trotting madly in place and coming to rest with hooves braced as if an earthquake had struck her.

Derpy giggled infectuously, and pranced over with a huge beaming smile. “I got you, I got you! What’s the matter, Rarity? There’s nothing to be afraid of here!”

“Oh! Oh my! Oh, you startled me!” gasped Rarity. “What did you do that for? Derpyyy!”

“It was funny!” said Derpy, and gave Rarity a hug. “I’m sorry Rarity! I didn’t know it would make you upset! I promise I won’t scare you, Rarity!”

Rarity was still trembling. Her face burned, feeling the affectionate press of warm, firm, pegasus flesh, and she could not stop hyperventilating. “It’s… it’s all right, Derpy. It’s all right. H—hold me?”

“I am, silly!” laughed Derpy. She hesitated, and added, “So how come you’re still shaking?”

Rarity gulped. “Derpy Hooves… I think I love you.”

“I love you too, Rarity! We’re going to have lots of fun in Fillydelphia, you promised! You’re the best pony ever, even if you act kind of crazy sometimes. Even if I don’t understand you very good, I still love you right b…”

Derpy trailed off, her eyes widening, and for a moment, they converged to meet Rarity’s, trapped by the sapphire gaze.

That gaze seethed with desperation and passion. Rarity’s sensuous voice shook as she made herself clear.

“I think you know what I mean, darling. Screw Fillydelphia. Derpy Hooves, I want you for my own!”

There was a terrible hesitation.

Derpy’s left eye wandered. It drifted off, even while she held Rarity’s gaze with the right, and it wandered casually over to Rarity’s bed, centered in the inner sanctum, where it took in a sturdy block and tackle, conveniently located for Trixie-hoisting.

Derpy blinked. She dropped her gaze, and she looked around, and everywhere she looked her eyes fell upon whips, padded hoof-cuffs, the detritus of scene after scene. A gleaming blade, lying next to a sliced grapefruit, forgotten and dried up. Spurs, their metal points glittering dangerously in the warm, silent darkness.

Derpy wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Rarity? What does that mean? Um… I don’t want to play with some of these things, Rarity…”

The formerly elegant white unicorn stood, trembling, lip quivering, unable to look away. That hesitation, that worry in Derpy’s sweet sideways eyes, had suddenly become the most unbearable torment ever: worse than anything her toys could do to her. It had all backfired upon her, as it had done once before. Even her selfish cry of ‘I want you for my own’ brought back her accursed follies and vague half-suppressed memories of her shame. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, could only stand helplessly and wait for the dear wall-eyed angel to turn away and leave her to her despair.

Derpy, wings folded, stepped back one pace, and Rarity shook worse and then let out a horrible scream, shamed beyond endurance.

“I’m AWFUL! I am the worst pony! Leave me I say, leave me to my wretched filthy existence, I don’t deserve to OOF!”

Derpy was hugging her again, this time with wings furled and a serious face.

“Rarity, calm down, Rarity! Don’t cry, Rarity! And you didn’t answer me, and I don’t have to play with things I don’t want to, Rarity! My Mama told me so! You better not be mad at me for that!”

Derpy’s voice had been stern in a completely unique but still authoritative way, and she was laying down the adorable law, firmly disciplining even as she hugged the frantic unicorn tight. Derpy blinked, startled at the result she got. “Oh! Oh! Oh, Derpy! Nhh!” cried Rarity.

“You’re doing orgasms, Rarity, stop that! What’s the matter with you?”

“Ngaaaagh! Ahhnnn! Oh! Scold me! Shame me! No, don’t! Can’t stop! nnnhh! Sorry!” wailed Rarity, coming all the harder as the shame flooded her. “Oh, I’m so nnnRRH! sorry! I’m… Waaaaaahhhh!”

Derpy hugged Rarity’s shuddering body to her, stroking her disheveled mane, frowning fiercely at some whips scattered across the floor. She didn’t let go, though she could tell Rarity was being jolted with orgasms the whole time, even while she was bawling her eyes out. She just hung on and waited, and eventually the jolts and shudders subsided. Rarity had gone quiet, standing miserably, her head draped onto Derpy’s shoulder with none of her usual life and fire.

Derpy nudged Rarity over into a sitting position, holding her while Rarity shivered with a few more orgasms, and then backed away. Rarity made no attempt to follow as Derpy sat facing her, she just stared like a condemned prisoner, eyes drenched with tears, lip quivering pitiably.

“Rarity, your brain is even derpier than how mine is,” said Derpy firmly.

Rarity could only nod, miserably.

“I love you anyway so let’s start over. I think a lot of these things in here are for hurting ponies, and you get big orgasms from being hurt, ‘cos I saw it. You got orgasms from me scolding you, too. Do you only want to hurt me?”

Rarity jerked in shock and began shaking her head frantically. “No! No, I… no, Derpy! I don’t! There’s something about you that… I have never wanted you to enter this world of mine, it’s not about that, I…”

“Then how come you want me if you don’t want me? And how come you do stuff to get hurt?”

Rarity sniffled, peering up at Derpy, her head hanging. “Oh, Derpy! When I was just a filly I did a terrible thing. Except it wasn’t just me doing it—but it was my idea—but he should have known—and now I must be punished, except it’s not that I want from you, if only I could—oh! It’s no good. Oh!” she sobbed. “It’s no good, no good at all!”

“Is it like me playing with thunder clouds?” pressed Derpy, stamping a hoof onto the floor to reclaim Rarity’s attention. “I’m not s’posed to do that. I get so itchy and can’t even stand it and I have to go jump on clouds! And the lightning hits me and gives me a big zap in my vagina and I feel better for a while but I’m not s’posed to! Are you doing something like that?”

“…maybe,” sniffled Rarity.

“Well, how come you do it? I don’t have a special somepony, but you’re beautiful! And all those ponies in Fillydelphia act like they know you and think you’re super important. And I thought you did stuff with Twilight Sparkle and Trixie, you said that you did! How come you don’t have a somepony to have nice sex with? How come you have really big orgasms from getting hurt? It doesn’t even make sense! You should have something good!”

“No,” said Rarity. She wiped her eye with the back of a hoof. Her mascara had run, the last vestige of her beauty: the bruises covered her body, her mane and tail were long gone into rat’s nest status, her eyes had escaped destruction but now her weeping had ruined them. She had nothing. “No, I most certainly should not.”

Derpy stamped a hoof again. “Yes you should!”

Rarity thought back on her life: the childish seduction of Daddy, the birth of Sweetie Belle, the exile and relinquishing of her foal to her parents: the devotion to her struggling career, the desperate search for vindication and the secret search for ever-harsher punishment. Always driven by that raw selfishness that reared its head to this very day… always that crude cry of ‘MINE!’, whether it was that first taste of stallion, the elixir of success, or now… an innocent heart.

“I am a very bad pony. I deserve exactly what I have been given: a stomping, the contempt of my Mistresses, the refuge of my club in Fillydelphia.” Rarity sighed. “And yes, really big orgasms. But all the same, nothing good.”

Derpy glared. “Why?”

“Because there’s nothing good about me, Derpy Hooves!” snarled Rarity, her eyes flashing in return.

Derpy looked around at the trappings of Rarity’s secret life, at the petulant unicorn pony that glowered at her, and Derpy sighed—but not in resignation. She gave a sigh like someone settling down to hard but necessary work, and she rose to her hooves and walked toward Rarity. Rarity cowered back, and squeaked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m petting you, Rarity,” said Derpy, and she was. She’d flopped Rarity over onto her side, and was stroking her body tenderly.

“But…”

“You love me enough that you protect me from hurting,” said Derpy firmly. “Then you said you want me for your own. And then you went all crazy and weird! But I still love you anyway, so there. I know Twilight has that metal thing for getting a penis, and I really want that Dusk Shine penis inside my vagina for sex, but right now I don’t care about that. I love you and I want to know if you can feel good without crying and hurting, even if you’re just a mare like me, so I’m petting you. I want to make you feel sexy nicely!”

Rarity’s eyes were wide. “Oh! But…”

“Shhh,” said Derpy. “Maybe ponies don’t always get what they want, but my Mama told me there would be a place for me. And I love you a whole lot, Rarity. I always imagined doing this with somepony, which was Dusk Shine, and I’d get to touch him all over just like this and then… you know. I love you, Rarity, and you are a good pony, and if you want me to be your own, then my Mama was right—and you are the place for me.”

Rarity trembled, biting her lip. “I don’t know, Derpy. So strange. How can you… uhh! Derpy, you’re stroking my breasts and talking about the place your Mama wished for you! How can you have such thoughts, do they not clash? Ew!”

Derpy blinked in perplexity, pulling her hoof back from between Rarity’s legs. “How come? My Mama wanted me to meet a special magical pony who would love me and then I’d do the things other ponies do! She told me to be really patient and I was, and you’re the magicalest pony ever and you love me! You prob’ly even want me to touch you all sexy! Rarity, my Mama would think I was in the totally right place! What place did your Mama want you to be that’s so different?”

Rarity’s eyes dropped, and filmed with tears again. She didn’t blink, but she couldn’t meet Derpy’s gaze at all.

Rarity spoke.

“My Mama said I should writhe in agony, in pony hell. For stealing the love of her husband, and not even being ashamed.”

Derpy froze, staring in disbelief.

Rarity’s eyes slowly lifted, vulnerable. “It was true. I did that. I was no more than a filly, and I thought the world was mine. I thought I could just take him, because I was beautiful and she was ugly compared to me.” She gulped. “But I was the one who was ugly… and I learned to be ashamed.”

Derpy’s gaze did not diverge. It clung to Rarity’s, not looking away.

“I think she doesn’t remember saying that,” said Rarity. “But all the same… I suppose I have obeyed, haven’t I?”

Then, she oofed. Derpy had just about bowled her over with a hug, clinging to her. The sweet pegasus was shaking, weeping.

“Oh, Rarity! No, Rarity, no, no! Be with me, don’t be there! Not that, Rarity, please, no, don’t hurt, please!”

It threw the floodgates open again, and Rarity’s mascara was further washed away in torrents of tears, and she clung to Derpy, bawling like a foal, wrapped in that firm embrace, limp in Derpy’s naive and childishly passionate grip. Derpy was squeezing all the breath out of her and she didn’t care, she flung herself with abandon into the embrace as Derpy Hooves sobbed and cried out incoherent grief and squished her, and Rarity began to feel a strange calm that she’d never felt before. It was like being sheltered in the eye of a hurricane, grey wings flapping around her, swaddled in mad passionate love and protected. There was something about Derpy’s earnestness, that complete lack of pretense, that inability to deceive, that got right to her on a deep and irresistible level.

Eventually, Derpy quieted, and her fierce hugging gentled. Eventually, Rarity pulled away enough to meet Derpy’s eyes again.

“Hold me,” said Rarity, earnestly. “If I may choose, I shall join you. In your place. May I?”

“But you are my place!” said Derpy. “The place for my heart.”

For a while the ponies clung and cuddled anew, and Rarity stroked Derpy’s body and was stroked in turn, in a strange and powerful mood split between raw comfort and naked passion. Derpy felt so right, and was so stubbornly, unshakeably there against her, like she could never be taken away: a somepony who’d come into Rarity’s life and become a trusty foundation, a true friend and then suddenly much more.

“Unnh!” cried Derpy, and Rarity realized with a shock that she was fondling those grey wings.

“Oh!” gasped Rarity. “I am so sorry, darling, I know what that means! Ah… or at least, what it means to most pegasi! Had I been thinking, I should have asked about…”

“Do more!” squeaked Derpy.

Rarity hesitated. “Well, I would like to be certain you understand the nature of…”

Derpy looked yearningly at her. “It’s just for your special somepony, everypony knows that! You should pet my wings, Rarity, because you are my special somepony! Please!”

“Twist my hoof, why don’t you,” purred Rarity wickedly. “You don’t have to beg me, darling. And I have skills.” She drew Derpy close, nuzzling her while her fore-hoof repeatedly stroked Derpy’s quiveringly erect wings. “How does this feel?”

“Oh! Oh, Rarity, ohhh! AH!”

Rarity left off, staring in wonder, sniffing the air. “Good heavens. Only that? Only that got you off, Derpy, so easily?”

Derpy panted, her eyes even more sideways than usual, her mane disheveled. Then, she tossed her head, got up, and jumped onto Rarity’s bed, kicking some hoof-cuffs to the floor. She flipped over and wriggled on her back, batting her eyelashes at Rarity, and called out, “More!”

Rarity giggled. “Look at you! Ready for round two, so quickly? My little pega-slut!”

That got her a frown. “Those are hurty words, Rarity! Don’t say that, just rub my wings some more. I want to come again! It felt so good!”

“Oh, I’m sorry! But… darling, it’s different in private. At the club, we always used to delight in slutty pegasi and consider them among the finest things in life, virtuosi of eager carnality…”

Derpy pouted. “We’re not at a club and what’s a carnality and you should come over here and rub my wings some more! Please? Nopony ever did, you gotta, please don’t do it just a little and then stop!”

Rarity stepped closer. “Of course. You don’t want to rest for a moment? I wouldn’t want to tire you out, there’s no rush, is there?”

Derpy wriggled again, her sturdy wings flapping against the bed and lifting her slightly off it. “I’m a tough pony, Rarity! I fly all over the place and I bump into stuff and don’t even mind, and I can carry heavy things! Please do my wings more. I can take a licking!”

Rarity’s eyes flashed, and she darted forward.

“Eeek!” squealed Derpy, thrashing on the bed. “Rarity! What are you…” Her eyes went very wide. “Oh! Uhhh! Oh, Rarity, ahhh!”

Between her legs, Rarity’s head caressed and rubbed the inside of her thighs, wandering up to nuzzle Derpy’s lovely snug breasts, suckling on tidy grey nipples, then lowering to devote her attention to the exquisite pegasus vagina displayed for her. Derpy’s tail thrashed against the bed, and then her whole body lifted up: her wings so erect that Derpy rested on them like some tripod, kicking the air, braced by wings and Rarity’s face as the impassioned alabaster unicorn fiercely ate her out, tongue pressing into Derpy’s creamy vulva, slurping up the juices she’d exuded during the wing play, and then suckling ferociously on her jutting mare’s clitoris.

“YAAAAAH!” screamed Derpy, thrashing and kicking as she was flung into a still more savage orgasm, her tender marepussy squirting fluid quicker than Rarity could lick it up. Even as her wings supported her, they ruffled out in spasms that rocked her body, and then all at once the sweet pegasus went limp, flumping down onto the bed in an equine puddle, limbs and frazzled wings sprawled as freely as her ash-blonde mane against the cozy mattress.

Rarity smiled into the stunned look she found. “Mmmm.” She licked her lips, and shivered with pleasure. “Ahnnn… Remind me later that I’m no longer cross with Twilight and Trixie. How can I be, when they taught me this?”

Derpy twitched. “What WAS that?”

Rarity beamed. “Pussy-eating, darling! My worst nemesis of sexual acts, forbidden, dreaded, untouchable: and yet Trixie always demanded it anyhow to degrade me, and who could have guessed the rewards? It was all worth it. Oh, Derpy, I cannot express how lovely it is to exercise that skill upon your person, and drink in the fountain of your utter ecstacy! Remember, I must give, not the reverse, that’s crucial. It’s just my way, for personal reasons. I shall let you rest, now, for it… you… Derpy?”

Derpy blinked blearily, squirmed deliciously, got up and swayed drunkenly on the soft bed. Her mouth hung open as if it was still emitting cries of joy, and she focussed first one eye, then the other, on Rarity whose ears were back in astonishment.

“That felt so good that you should have some, Rarity!”

“Oh!” squeaked Rarity, as Derpy moved in. “But I only… Derpy, I learned to do that from the girls and I’m glad of it, but it’s not meant to be… oh!”

She scrabbled backward across the bed, heart pounding, as Derpy moved closer. Derpy obviously hadn’t grasped a word of the explanation, and Rarity didn’t dare offend her. “That’s quite all right, darling, stay there, just a moment… eeep! Please, darling, I truly don’t wish to seem ungrateful, but, butbutbut—”

And then, Derpy’s tongue thrust lovingly into her inflamed vagina, and the past seized her.

Rarity drew breath in a throttled shriek at the feeling. Suddenly, her history reared up within her and grabbed her by the gonads, opening a window through a painful time that had scarred her life. For a moment it was too hideous to bear, too horrible for her to react. Derpy Hooves was licking her vagina with foolish, innocent eagerness, obviously entranced by its beauty, totally locked in the moment and given over to erotic devotion, everything about her presence speaking of quivering fascination with Rarity’s pert pussy—and she wasn’t alone.

To Rarity, she wore a double exposure, because somepony else had once done exactly that, on the night before a terrible morning of shame and exposure. It had been the night her life died, though she did not know it at the time. She’d only known that her experiments of sharing her body had brought greater and greater rewards, firstly with the oversized penis, then the licking and her ecstacies on the end of his tongue, then enticing him to try inserting his hard penis again now that she felt all slippery inside… and then, the building chaos as he gradually abandoned control and began to fuck her wildly, shattering her mind with orgasmic bliss beyond anything she’d imagined… and finally that moment, in the shuddering eternity of tension after that last throb and gush of semen, when they both let go and arced violently and sealed her fate forever. Had horngasm and impregnation been the punishment for corrupting him? He had to have known what it did. She was a fool and had known nothing but unbearable pleasure, that night.

Rarity squealed, trying to squirm away, as Derpy latched onto her pussy and ate her out with naive enthusiasm—for it reminded her of Daddy, and of joys buried behind a lifetime of Pony Hell. It all came back at once.

The only thing he’d said, the whole time, was ‘Mom wouldn’t like it’, right at the start. He’d looked so frightened. All the same, his cock kept on getting gloriously bigger and bigger under the tender kneading of her youthful hooves, and he’d not uttered one more word of argument—even when the first attempt had led to frustration, his massive shaft refusing to slide more than a little way into her frantic tautness. But then he’d laid her back and his head had dipped down between her legs, perhaps thinking that would appease her, perhaps already plotting her eventual fate…

It was no use. The shame alone would have done it, even if she hadn’t been worked up and emotionally naked. She shrieked and banged her head against the soft mattress again and again, shaking and juddering for second after second as she orgasmed under Derpy Hooves’ eager tongue. Rarity nearly blacked out, sucked into a swirling daze of emotional chaos as Derpy playfully nibbled on her clitoris, then excitedly thrust her tongue into her seething cauldron of marehood and licked up all the unicorn juices she could reach.

Then, it stopped, and Rarity collapsed on the bed—but before she could burst into tears, she was seized in another hug, and Derpy was crowing something exultantly, her wings aloft once more—and what she had to say rocked Rarity’s world.

Derpy said, “I knew I could do it right!”

Rarity’s eyes went wide with realization.

This wasn’t Daddy doing something wrong. This wasn’t some pony from the clubs. This was a very special pegasus, one she loved madly and had steadily fallen for, during their attempts to get Derpy laid. This was the pegasus she wanted more than anything, the silly featherbrain with a heart of gold, and if anypony was officially allowed to suckle her clitoris, it would be her—especially after the performance she’d put on with Rarity doing exactly that to her, mere seconds before.

She’d brought back memories before Rarity’s pain, memories of arrogant lewd innocence and flaunting fillyhood, torturous memories simply because they were the last instants of unbearable ecstacy before the fall. Derpy Hooves had made Rarity’s buried past live again. Yet, Derpy was not part of shame, nor was she part of an immature arrogance and sexual experimentation that had been tragically misdirected. Derpy was also not a morally-impaired childlike Father being led along all too willingly into disaster. Derpy was hugging her joyously, licking her lips of Rarity’s juices in her own way with none of the abashedness Daddy had revealed, not betraying a furtive knowledge that she’d done wrong because she hadn’t done a thing wrong. She had pleasured a pony she loved deeply, and spectacularly returned a sexual favor she’d only just learned. She was incapable of treachery and loyal beyond question.

Rarity trusted her.

Rarity lay, quivering in the aftershocks of her filthy shameful orgasm, and realized with a shock that Daddy was no longer the one pony to love her body the most, no longer the only one to worship her sexually in that urgent, simple, unguarded way. It was heartbreaking and liberating all at the same time. His memory had been cast from its pedestal, for Derpy Hooves had matched his earnest innocent glee, after all the intervening years of debauchery and harsh judgement.

And… it wasn’t a shameful orgasm at all. Derpy had celebrated her body with naive delight, like she was the most lovely pony in all Equestria, and taken her to climax without hurting or belittling her… and there was nothing, nothing wrong with it. There would be no punishment, this time.

Rarity gulped, tearing up, her lip quivering. Derpy kept on hugging her, a warm and accepting presence, and there was such a comforting reality to her. She wasn’t a creature of lurking memory, painted in physical ecstacy and shaded with impending doom, holding joys never to be matched. She wasn’t a dreadful monster of mingled innocence and guilt, like Daddy. Derpy was here with her, unruffled by anything she’d become in her travels, stubbornly refusing to hurt or be hurt: resolute, faithful and pure. She saw through to the injured filly Rarity had been, and led her out of the darkness with unwavering determination. And… it had been every bit as good.

“Did you like it?” asked Derpy. “You still didn’t say if you liked it.”

Rarity gulped again. She gazed at Derpy Hooves. “I did.”

“Yay!” cried Derpy. “Because you’re my special somepony and the most wonderful magical pony ever, and besides you taste really good. Can I do it some more?”

Rarity gave a little scream. “Eeee! Please, not right now? I’m still shaking! Oh, sweet Celestia, I’m still shaking…”

“I love you, Rarity!”

“Oh my… I love you too, Derpy. It’s… all a bit of a shock…”

“I love you even if you don’t grow a penis like Dusk Shine, which would have felt really good I think, I mean if I had ended up with Dusk Shine. Except for I didn’t end up with Dusk Shine, and I think the things you do must be just as good, even if you don’t grow a penis…”

“But I never said that, darling,” interrupted Rarity. “Don’t assume! I’ve got one of the bits too, I’ll have you know. That’s it over there.”

Derpy’s head whipped around, and she stared at the little cylinder of metal.

She looked back, and her eyes were very wide.

Twilight Sparkle lifted her head, and her horn stopped glowing. She stared around dully, heavy dark circles under her eyes.

She got up. She looked over at the couch. Rarity and Derpy were gone. She hadn’t noticed their departure. Trixie was sleeping there instead. She looked so innocent.

As if any of them could be called innocent…

Twilight trudged past her, over to a particular bookshelf. She winced as her overstrained horn lit again, and a glow suffused the bookcase.

She stepped forward, through the now-insubstantial bookcase, and down the stairs behind it, and disappeared from view.

Her hooves made no sound on the stairs. Magic secret passageways could do that. If one was hiding, one would not want one’s hooves to give one away. Or one’s claws…

A glow awaited her. The door was cracked open. He kept doing that, though she begged him not to. If the door was open and he was awake, he could be heard… but in turn, he could hear her, and she couldn’t bear to deny him that.

The glow widened, as the door was thrown wide.

“Twilight!” cried Spike. “It’s been forever! I know I’m not supposed to, but I was going to sneak up the stairs and go looking for you! What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Spike!” sobbed Twilight. “I failed!”

Spike darted forward, and then stopped, staring at her wings. “Whoa. What happened to you, Twilight?”

“I got turned into a Princess. And it didn’t even help!” she brayed. “I solved the problem, and there’s nothing I can do to fix things!”

“Uh, Twilight,” said Spike. “Usually you come in here and close the door before talking. I guess you failing means it doesn’t matter any more, but…”

There was a noise back up the stairs, a grunt of surprise. Then, a cry of “Where are you?”

“Yeah,” said Spike, “this won’t end well.”

“Spike!” came the voice. “I hear Spike! Twilight! Spike! Where are you?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” moaned Twilight, and the sound carried up the darkened magic-muffled stairwell.

There was an immediate commotion upstairs, a banging that made Spike jump, though Twilight’s head hung limply, not reacting. Trixie was kicking at the bookshelves. A shaft of light cut through. Then, more light—then, Trixie had forced herself through the wreckage of the secret door and was galloping heedlessly down the stairs. She came into the light, and she pulled up short, staring at Spike and Twilight.

“You said he was away on Canterlot business!” she squealed.

“I failed, Trixie,” mumbled Twilight.

“Hey,” said Spike. “Come in here, get comfortable. Tell me what happened. Seriously.”

Twilight stumbled after him, dragging her hooves. Trixie tagged along, looking alarmed. The glowing doorway proved to be a cozy little apartment nook, full of empty ice cream containers and books. Trixie looked around in all directions, her ears laid back in astonishment.

“Why did you do this, Twilight? Did you make this place? Why did you hide Spike?”

“She’s trying to fix those magic bit things!” explained Spike. “I have to stay away from their influence and other ponies that use them, until she figures out how they work.”

Trixie’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“Ever since Princess Celestia yelled at her, she’s been worried about them. Then she went away to search for you, Trixie, and when she came back she said I deserved a rest. And we had this place, it came with the house. I got all the ice cream and books I wanted, and Twilight promised she’d get things to be less crazy and then I could come back and everything would be like it used to be again, but I needed to lay low for a while and let her deal with it. I should consider it totally her problem, and stay out of the way until she gave the all-clear…”

“She stowed you away down here to keep you away from the magic bits? How could you agree to that?” said Trixie.

“It was for my own good!” said Spike. “Twilight needed my support—and total loyalty. And nobody out-loyals ol’ Spikearoonie! Nobody!”

“But she couldn’t handle things by herself, Spike!” cried Trixie.

Spike looked at her. “I guess not! She was trying really hard and kept telling me to nap more and wait, but this time she says she failed. What does that mean, ‘failed’, Twilight? I hope you don’t think I’m going to just stay down here forever. I might be a dragon but there’s only so much napping even I can do, and I actually miss cleaning up your books by now. I slept for… I’m not even sure how long. It was great! So what does ‘failed’ mean?”

They looked at Twilight. She peered forlornly up at them from under the fringe of her bangs.

“I can’t make the bits be harmless,” she said. “I found out what powers them, and I can’t fix it.”

“What?” asked Trixie gently.

“Us,” said Twilight. “It’s us. The sexuality, the pleasure, the aggressiveness, even the exploding under too much stress or misuse. It’s just us…”

Trixie blinked. “How do you mean? What told you that, after all your research?”

“I did something I probably couldn’t have done before I was an alicorn,” said Twilight. “I reached out with my magic, and I tapped into Pinkie’s Sense. I didn’t used to believe in that, but now I do. I don’t envy her, either. I don’t understand how she’s still sane, even.”

“That’s debatable,” said Trixie wryly. “But how could it…”

“The bits are metaphorical,” mumbled Twilight. “Pinkie Sense says they’re nothing but a metaphor for adolescent sexuality, the coming of age and being confronted with powerful instinctive drives that are difficult to come to terms with. I’ve been trying to control them all this time and find some neat and definable way to make them harmless, but it can’t be done. To use them means opening yourself to a whole other level of life responsibility without safeguards, and that means Princess Celestia was right about them. They can’t be made safe. I should destroy them.”

Trixie walked forward, and nuzzled Twilight’s hanging head, horn delicately scraping horn.

“Or… we could just live with them,” she suggested.

Twilight blinked. “You’re kidding. Trixie, what are you saying? You want to give ponies over to these powerful, instinctive drives? We’ve got to be better than that! Princess Celestia knew it would lead to trouble, and we got loads of trouble from it already! How can you say we should just LIVE with them? They’re my fault! Well, originally your fault. But then they were my fault!”

Trixie frowned. “Mistress, there were powerful instinctive drives before you came along, and there will be such drives after you’re… well, maybe not you, but there will be powerful instinctive drives after I’m gone. You’ve sent Spike to take long dragon naps down here, and you thought you would stop pony instincts before he came back? Trixie has heard crazy talk before, but this is on a whole new level!”

Twilight laid her ears back. “I’m responsible for Spike. I didn’t want him to be affected. What if it had affected him somehow?”

Spike and Trixie exchanged a glance, remembering a long-past evening, when Trixie had first joined the family—an evening when Twilight had commanded Trixie to accept Spike’s orders, without question or conditions. Neither had spoken of the liberties Spike had taken with Trixie, because all he’d done was to peek at her pony vag, feeling no inclination to do more than appease his simple draconic curiosity.

“Twilight,” said Spike, “I don’t think so. I’m getting used to the idea that you ponies do yucky stuff with each other, but honestly I’m happy to stay out of your way while you do it. Why do you think I agreed to nap down here?”

“You’re not mad?” said Twilight.

“I’m bored,” said Spike. “I can avoid your yucky vagina stuff just as well upstairs, and still see my pony friends. Is Rarity okay? You always say she’s fine but you won’t talk about it.”

This time it was Trixie and Twilight exchanging meaningful looks. Spike had been kept in the dark as Rarity pursued her downward spiral, from the moment she’d moved in with her bondage contract. It was all too clear how the ‘business in Canterlot’ had extended week after week, month after month. Twilight had known the whole time that Rarity was upstairs, or at the Carousel Boutique being flogged, or squealing in orgasm in her inner sanctum, or finally being exposed as Sweetie Belle’s true mother—and had never been able to break it to Spike.

“Yeah,” said Trixie at last. “Rarity’s fine. She’s been through some stuff, but I think she’s okay now.”

That got a reaction. “Oh no!” cried Spike. “And I just kept on napping, darn it, how could I? She needs me! What happened?”

More unicorn glances.

“Rarity’s actually Sweetie Belle’s mom, Spike,” said Trixie. “They’re okay, but it was a big shock. And Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had foals. They’re cute kids.”

Spike’s jaw dropped.

“And Rarity’s seeing Derpy Hooves now,” added Trixie. “She still loves you, though. She thinks you’re working in Canterlot. We all did.”

“I’m so sorry, Spike,” said Twilight, tearing up.

Spike shut his mouth, and stuck out his lower lip in a pout. “I’m coming back upstairs right now,” he said. “I don’t care what you guys are doing up there, I’m gonna be part of it. Maybe I can keep you in check!”

At that, Trixie laughed. “Maybe you should, Spike! Are you serious, you napped for a year? A whole year?”

“Hey,” said Spike, thumping his chest with a little claw. “Dragon here, dragons live for hundreds and hundreds of years. Maybe even a thousand, sometimes. We have to sleep to store up draconic awesomeness! I never got nearly enough sleep until now, didn’t you notice? I feel great! Are YOU serious? Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had foals? Who’s the father?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story! Come on, let’s get out of here. After you, number one assistant…”

“Oh, no,” replied Spike, gesturing grandly. “After you!”

Trixie began to trot up the stairs, and looked back. “Twilight? Are you coming?”

“…Twilight?” she said, uncertainly. Twilight was staring at nothing, with her ears back, and wearing a bleak, hopeless expression.

“Come on, Twilight,” said Spike. “We can’t wait forever!”

“That’s the same thing?” squeaked Derpy Hooves. She hopped off the bed and trotted over to inspect it.

“Indeed it is,” said Rarity. “That one is my very own.” She followed, though her legs were wobbly from her intense climax. “Erm… though I shall have to warn you, it does not manifest like Twilight’s. But I have had good reports of it. No complaints.” Her ears laid back. “Ahh… or, not many complaints.”

Derpy’s eyes were wide. “What does that mean, Rarity? Is it a good penis, that it makes? What’s manifest?”

“Oh, phoo. I’ll just say it: it’s slightly large. But it’s perfectly…”

“What’s large, Rarity? Because I wanted to be with Dusk Shine, I called him Dusk Shine, because I saw Twilight having sex with Trixie and I thought that wouldn’t hurt because it was such a good penis and not too big.”

Rarity’s face was a study in chagrin. “Honestly, darling, you may be selling yourself short. A marehood is capable of…”

“How large, Rarity? Larger than the one Twilight makes?”

“Yes, larger than the one Twilight makes.”

“How MUCH larger?” pressed Derpy.

Rarity was blushing. “A lot larger, Derpy.”

“I saw Applejack make a penis and have sex with Rainbow Dash once, in the woods,” said Derpy. “As big as that?”

Rarity gulped. “I, too, am familiar with what Applejack boasts…”

“Not as big as that?”

“Bigger,” admitted Rarity, scarlet.

Derpy stuck out her lower lip, and glowered in frustration.

“No way!”

“Oh, Derpy!” cried Rarity, in dismay. “You’ve talked so much about how you want to experience the delights of pony penis, though admittedly with rather a fixation on one particular specimen. If only you would trust me about it! I promise, there is no danger!”

“That doesn’t make sense, though, Rarity! I saw the one Applejack makes. How can you say it wouldn’t hurt? It’s so big!”

Rarity’s ears felt like they would be pinned back for the rest of her life. “Ahh… in fact, I did not say that, darling. I feel quite sure—well, fairly sure—that it would be worth it. Can you imagine screaming out, ‘oh, that hurts so good’?”

Derpy gave her a very skeptical look. “No. That sounds like you’re being even more derpier than me again, Rarity.”

“But darling, where do you think foals emerge? The nostrils?”

Derpy blinked, and her eyes swapped focal points. “The cabbage patch, silly! My Mama said so!”

“What?” snapped Rarity.

“You go to the cabbage patch, on a night when the moon is really dark…”

“Oh, sweet Celestia,” muttered Rarity, brushing her ragged mane out of her eyes.

“My Mama said so,” insisted Derpy. “And she taught me all the right things. And she said I was a pretty pony!”

Derpy hesitated, for Rarity’d met her gaze with an equally fierce and determined one.

“Derpy Hooves, I have just fondled your wings until you came, and then devoured your tender marehood until you came twice as hard! I suckled upon your clitoris as it repeatedly jutted out against my adoring tongue. Your Mama never taught you THAT!” Rarity gulped. “…d—did she?”

“No!” squeaked Derpy, shocked.

Rarity twitched, making a rueful face. “I thought not. Be grateful for that, darling… but listen carefully. You are not merely a pretty pony.”

“I’m not?”

“Oh, Mama was right about that, Derpy,” reassured Rarity, “but there is more, more than she was prepared to teach you. You are a devastatingly beautiful, sexy mare, fully responsive, your body ripe for foaling and craving the stallion’s gift. I, Rarity, know about all these things! We mares cannot impregnate each other, even with the aid of magic bits, but I would have you learn the ways of your body and respect them—and then, perhaps, you may understand your sex urges a little better.”

Derpy’s eyes were wide, and for a moment they both met Rarity’s. “Tell me. It felt amazing, Rarity.”

“I know,” said Rarity bleakly, looking haunted. “I wish somepony had taught me more than that, when I was little. I learned that it felt amazing before I’d learned anything else. Thank heavens I can give you more than blind rutting.”

“Aww! Don’t look sad!” begged Derpy. “If it makes you sad that I don’t know more stuff, you should tell me!”

Rarity brightened. “I will! Indeed I will, and then we shall see what we shall see. All right. Firstly, you’ve spoken so many damn times of Twilight mating with Trixie, and you’ve been fixated upon the idea of Twilight’s penis thrusting into Trixie’s or your vagina…”

Derpy wriggled, and Rarity shot her a warning glance. “Steady, Derpy. What you clearly don’t understand is the purpose. You imagine this endlessly and it fires your loins, but you probably don’t even know what that thing does, do you?”

Derpy pouted. “Yes I do. It pushes right in, I saw it! It pushes deep! I can’t stop thinking about what that would feel like.” She trembled, eyes dreamy.

“Well, you know how you exude fluids when aroused?” suggested Rarity.

“What’s exude?”

“You get wet,” corrected Rarity impatiently. “I’m sorry, I’ll have to mind my erudition, darling. Onward! My point is, the penis does a similar thing. It squirts!”

Derpy’s eyes widened. “Pee? Real stallions pee from there, Mama said so!”

“It squirts come! Which is also the name for the orgasm you experience. Come is also called semen, or seed, and that is what it does. It plants seeds inside you, in a place called a womb.”

Derpy’s face was scrunched up cutely in concentration. “And if it plants stuff, and you got cranky about the cabbage patch and said you’d tell me stuff Mama didn’t know, and seed goes inside there… eeep! Oh my gosh, Rarity, do baby foals come out of vaginas?”

Rarity beamed, hugging her. “Oh, gold star, darling! You’re not only beautiful, you’re clever! They do!”

Derpy looked appalled. “When? Do they drip back out and then you put them in the cabbage patch to grow?”

“Would you leave the cabbage patch out of this?” cried Rarity, ears back. “They certainly do not! Foals grow inside you. Why would you put them in a cabbage patch?”

“I saw foals before, Rarity! They can’t possibly come out that hole, you’re making it up!”

Rarity fixed her with a level gaze. “Derpy Hooves, I have a foal. Sweetie Belle is actually my own baby, born years and years ago. You know her. I swear to you, she came out of that same unicorn vagina you just stuffed your face into. I won’t say it was easy, but it was damned well worth it. You came out of one, yourself!”

Derpy had stopped arguing. She just stared, in awe and terror.

“Here’s how it all starts,” said Rarity. “The penis thrusts in. It feels amazing, which is doubtless why we put up with the alarming consequences. It gushes semen, which fertilizes an ovum: consider this the mare version of what the stallion brings, hmm? Your body must contribute its part. On top of all that, a unicorn must take a magic discharge into her horn to ovulate, and a pegasus must be seized by the wing: this is why your wings stand erect, and why touching them produces such similar results. It is part of the pegasus way of sex.”

“What’s seized?” asked Derpy. “Is that what you did?”

Rarity hesitated. “Ah. No, I wouldn’t call it that. I was fondling and stroking. Among pegasi, you’ll find they tend to use their mouths: specifically, biting the root of the wing with their teeth. I would not have done that out of the blue, for any sophisticated pony knows it to be the very apex of intimacy among…”

She trailed off. You could almost hear the ‘pomf’—the moment Derpy had imagined jaws closing upon her wing-shank, her wings had shot up vertically, where they vibrated, feathers tingling and bristling out. Derpy looked stunned, her jaw dangling, her eyes even more unfocussed than usual.

Derpy reeled her jaw in, and licked her lips. “S…show me?”

“Goodness,” said Rarity. “But I was explaining, not demonstrating! I’d hoped I would get to the part where I could explain that a larger penis wasn’t to be unduly feared. On reflection, it might indeed be wise for us to progress gradually. I mean… not to put too fine a point on it, darling, but I alarmed Applejack with my girth. I would have to exert the greatest self-control and caution…”

Derpy was trembling. She jumped right out of bed, and stood with her wings bolt erect. “Show me! Rarity, please! Please?”

“Show you… the stallionhood?” suggested Rarity.

Derpy shook her head wildly. “No! I’m scared of that. You said teeth, on my wing! I never saw anypony do that or even thought about it and now you said it and oh please, Rarity, show me! Oh!”

Rarity’s ears were quirked back, but she smiled. “My little pega-sl… mm, yes, I won’t say it twice. But maybe you can learn there’s no shame in sluttiness, in the right place. And my most private of sanctums is surely that right place, no? Look at you, Derpy Hooves, with your wings trembling and sticking straight up. Luscious. Just look at the state of you…”

Derpy whimpered. “Don’t tease, that’s mean! Touch me!”

Rarity panted, then took a deep breath, and moved forward, her tail flicking about excitedly. “I would love to,” she said, licking her lips, heart pounding. Then, she stopped talking, and closed her lips on a quivering feather, and gave it a little tug.

“Unhh!” moaned Derpy, her whole body shuddering.

Rarity’s eyes were wild. She did it again, and her adorable pegasus jerked and shook like she’d been struck by lightning—and Rarity trembled, in turn, as if she could feel every delicious tremor—and then she could wait no longer.

Rarity tilted her head decorously, lowered it, opened her mouth, and grasped the base of Derpy’s wing firmly between her teeth.

“Haaaahhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Aaaaahhhh!”

The reaction was immediate. Derpy heaved great hyperventilating breaths, like in-drawn screams, her head arching back in either shock or ecstacy—possibly quite a lot of both. Rarity had seen that before, seen a pony so galvanized by a scene that they nearly exploded with the force of their erotic reaction. The stroking she’d done before had brought Derpy off wonderfully, but this struck her on a whole different level. Rarity moaned through her teeth, imagining vividly what it had to be like for Derpy. The yearning, virginal pegasus, seized for the first time by the wing, gasping incredulously as her body kicked into action. Her insides churning to life, gushing with the fluids of mating, turgid with expectancy, delivering to the womb her first egg. That feeling, alien but akin to taking a first horngasm… snug dark places deep inside her pony belly, suddenly preparing to be impregnated by what her body insisted must surely be a glorious hulking stallion…

Derpy Hooves was shaking, panting, as Rarity sensuously gnawed on her wing shank. Her gaze had gone totally sideways in both directions as her body flooded her with new urgencies. Then she blinked, still shaking all over, feeling like her head was going to explode. And not just her head—something else was making demands, too, louder and louder.

“…do it…” she managed.

“Rrrmmm?” said Rarity, with a mouthful of wing.

“Penis me!”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “Mmm!”

“…do it, do it, do it, oh Rarity oh please I don’t even care, DO IT…”

Rarity released her wing. Derpy trembled, her tail flicking madly and her pussy winking as Rarity inspected her nethers. She was in a mood Rarity recognized at a glance and thought of as ‘blow me away, plow-horse’: standing well braced and shaking like a leaf, her pussy gaping wetly and so relaxed that it felt like molten jelly to the hoof. Derpy’s vagina winked a frantic semaphore, clit jutting forth outrageously. Rarity licked it, and got a frantic wail and a trickle of mare ooze for her pains.

“Oh, lovely, darling!” cried Rarity in admiration.

Derpy turned her head, eyes frantic, and squealed with her ears laid back—and Rarity heaved herself up, mounting that bubbly pegasus rump, her horn shining out as the magic bit soared through the air toward her.

Derpy began to shriek breathlessly, over and over, as the bit clinked in Rarity’s teeth.

“Tr’st me,” ordered Rarity, and her hips swung forward, and there was an almighty juicy squelch—and everything froze into stillness.

The sensation was beyond belief. Rarity’s eyes crossed with sheer pleasure. So slick, so enfolding, so damn firm and tight…

Derpy’s eyes went totally straight, and she stared into infinity, unable to breathe for a moment, stunned senseless by the erotic impact of Rarity’s massive horsecock abruptly splitting her.

Rarity reeled, shook, forced herself to use words. “…Derpy?”

Derpy heaved in a harrowing, deep breath, and vented it in a wailing, visceral cry.

“…SO GOOD!”

Rarity teared up with relief, and hugged Derpy’s body with her forelegs, though something about the situation was nagging at her. Derpy’s firm rump squeezed at the sides of her bulky shaft, and that was a delicious sensation too, and that too brought up some sort of memory. And then, Derpy cried out again, and Rarity’s heart nearly stopped.

“Push it deeper, please!” begged Derpy, as if it was a matter of life or death.

Rarity had said that once, word for word, except she’d added one more word: “Daddy”.

Derpy squealed, trying to shove back against Rarity’s monster phallus, and Rarity gulped and tried to get her bearings. She was in a double exposure again. Cautiously, she shifted her hips, and the swollen horsecock slid a little further into Derpy’s juicy tightness, and her new lover shuddered and let out a moan Rarity would never forget. It spoke of utter, sheer pleasure. Derpy’s virgin pussy was crazy tight, but she’d been worked up to such a pitch that there was nothing ambiguous about her experience.

Rarity knew that was possible, even for a first time with an oversized cock, if you were in a state of unbearable arousal and had been turned to a quivering gooey puddle inside, by oral sex… because she had experienced the exact same thing, on that wonderful, terrible night.

She bit her lip, and cautiously tugged her magic cock a few inches out, trembling as she felt Derpy clenching eagerly against it, felt Derpy’s ass wriggling and squirming around her penetrating shaft: she didn’t want to get carried away, felt the experience should be about Derpy’s pleasure, tried to keep a level head. The double exposure haunted her still: Daddy, too, had begun just that cautiously. But he hadn’t stayed that way for long, and she was going to be different, for Derpy…

Derpy let out a shuddering wail, her body writhing in transports of intense pleasure, and Rarity whimpered and felt her hips instinctively shove forward, like her body was trying to double up and plunge incautiously to Derpy’s depths.

Derpy gasped, tensing. The sensations on Rarity’s cock redoubled, and she tried to pull back out, and Derpy screamed joyously as the thick horsecock slid against all her inner surfaces and she banged a forehoof on the floor, her body swaying as Rarity held her, and her wings were quiveringly erect against Rarity’s face and before Rarity could think, she’d followed that withdrawal with another deep, instinctual thrust, even though she was trying to moderate her actions and stay in control.

Derpy was panting, tossing her head like she was reeling drunk, staggering and setting her hooves well apart and bracing herself. Her lovely bottom shoved backwards against Rarity’s crotch, and Rarity felt that delicious pegasus pussy clench down like it was trying to jerk her off and Rarity’s body doubled again, going along with the motions but not to follow them, going opposite to Derpy’s excited shoves and plunging the huge stallionhood urgently deep into Derpy’s quivering vagina, and Rarity tried to get a grip as Derpy heaved another hyperventilating breath…

Rarity’s ears were split by the most beautiful, wanton shriek of mare pleasure she’d ever imagined, and Derpy’s body convulsed under her, going berserk on her hapless swollen stallionhood, gushing with a slippery elixir that she could hear spurting out between them and splashing to the floor, and Rarity’s vision went red and white and something primal and dark took her with a grip that could not be denied.

Derpy couldn’t stop screaming in ecstacy, because even as she began to come harder than she’d ever come before, her wonderful Rarity went mad and began snarling and hunching and shoving that oversized cock all the way into her again and again, stuffing Derpy squelchingly, gushingly full, swelling to pelvis-creakingly alarming bulk, and Derpy was exploding so hard with come that she didn’t even care and she screamed herself hoarse and…

Rarity went totally motionless, and the double exposure in her mind did just the same. She wasn’t trying to mimic him, didn’t want to, but she’d rushed up to the brink of a frighteningly huge orgasm, and in her memory she felt him hesitate and go horribly stiff in exactly the same way, felt Derpy go rigid with shock just as she once had.

Rarity gave one pitiful whimper, and that too was an echo, a double exposure.

Rarity’s whole body shook, as she came and blasted a brutal gush of stallion-seed deep inside Derpy’s body, and Derpy’s hoarse shriek of release hung in the air just as young Rarity’s once had. And Rarity could feel the climax smash into Derpy’s psyche, delivering a peak she would be hard pressed ever to match, that huge throbbing stallion cock pumping come into her virgin pussy and drenching her womb for the very first time ever, making her Rarity’s mare and flooding her completely with Rarity’s seed until it spurted and gushed out the edges.

And Rarity gave an anguished little sob, still in double exposure, just as he had… and magic spurted out of her horn, to spill harmlessly over the floor.

She hadn’t been able to hold any of it back, even the horngasm. She just adored Derpy too damn much.

Once she’d committed to the act, it had sucked her under and buried her in animal passion, right down to the final moment. It was more powerful than either of them. If Derpy had been unhappy, had resisted, if Derpy didn’t love her so intensely, if she had not loved Derpy so much in return, she would surely have been able to hold back—but she’d gone up like tinder in the inferno of their mingled lust and love.

Tears welled in Rarity’s eyes. That made it twice, now. Both times, she had been mad with desire, but also full of adoration—devotion. She knew in her bones it was true—and she knew something else, at last. She knew Daddy hadn’t arced with her on purpose. He had done what she asked, because he loved her, and because he was a lusty foolish horse too and wanted her fillyish body just as badly as she wanted his. He did not set out to make her pregnant, and might have hoped to restrain himself, to a point. But at the end neither pony could resist, any more than fire could freeze, because they’d loved and wanted each other beyond caution or wisdom.

As Rarity forgave him for their shared folly, she quietly forgave herself, too.

Derpy wobbled. “Gonna… fall over…” she managed. At that, Rarity spit the bit out, and the massive horsecock shrank out of Derpy with another filthy squelch, followed by a gush of stallioncome that poured out of her vagina only to vanish before it hit the floor. Some of it stayed, because quite a lot of the mingled fluids had been Derpy’s. Rarity dismounted, staggering, and coaxed Derpy toward the bed. Derpy barely made it before collapsing in a feathery heap. As she sprawled onto the soft mattress she melted against it in bliss, gazing up at Rarity with wide, worshipful eyes… just like Rarity, filly womb full of pony come, had gazed up lovingly at Daddy’s guilty face, the night before her perfect world ended.

Double exposure—but it would be different now, totally different. To forgive was not to condone: she would not return to the well of sins, didn’t need to. She could be Derpy’s mate without shame. Nothing prevented her from openly loving Derpy Hooves, and nothing prevented Derpy from loving her back, and they were allowed to share their bodies with each other. She had escaped Pony Hell at last.

Rarity joined Derpy in bed, and snuggled up against Derpy’s trembling, fevered form, her sapphire eyes glowing with a love that was strangely confident, a confidence she had never felt before.

No… that wasn’t true. Double exposure, even then. It echoed that first naive, devoted, doomed love she’d clung to for years.

But this one, she could keep.

“Rarity,” said Derpy, her voice trembling with awe and wonder.

“Yes,” said Rarity, simply. “Yes.”

“Mine,” breathed Derpy.

“Yours.”

The Circle Almost Circled

“Rarity came by this morning,” said Trixie.

“Mm,” said Twilight.

“She was very kind,” said Trixie. “She will not return to us, but she promised Trixie she held no hard feelings. You know—about Trixie’s unpardonable rudeness? Oh, and she was walking normally. Not like that time Trixie placed her outside, even though her leg was still broken…”

“Mm,” said Twilight, not rising to the bait.

Trixie went on, anxiously. “Trixie was amused to note that it was the grey pegasus not walking normally. Rarity was carrying her hindquarters with magic, when she wasn’t flying. They were travelling to Canterlot, to see Princess Celestia for more healing. It seems Girl unleashed her bit upon this Derpy last night and there were consequences…”

Twilight didn’t react. Trixie goaded her further.

“Dreadful consequences,” she insinuated, “just as you feared. Trixie suspects Girl rammed her whole monstrous penis up Derpy’s little grey cunt. Trixie is horrified! Are you horrified too, Mistress? Do you want to punish all of us very hard?” Trixie bit her lip. She’d been hinting things ever since Twilight had got up, but she was getting nothing back. No response, no matter what bait she dangled—love, sex, punishment, it was all the same.

Perhaps, she thought, trying sex again would help? She passed in front of Twilight’s face, flicking her tail just right, saying “Trixie will make you some breakfast, Mistress. Would you like to eat?”

She felt her body wink at her beloved, just as she’d hoped, unicorn vagina splaying out perkily before the new alicorn’s eyes to entice and arouse. Trixie wished she’d spent some time toying with herself so she’d be more glisteny and moist but it would have to do…

Twilight turned her head away, with a pained look, and Trixie’s heart sank.

“Mistress!”

“What’s the matter?” said Twilight leadenly.

“Trixie would ask the same question of you! What happened? Trixie cannot bear this, not for one more moment!”

“It’s not what happened,” admitted Twilight. “It’s what will happen.”

Trixie’s ears drooped. “Oh. Trixie was afraid of this. As an alicorn… you are not mortal, are you? Has Mistress been thinking about that?”

“Yeah. I’m so sorry, Trixie. Please forgive me? It’s just… the better you are, the worse this is.”

The blue unicorn’s eyes were frantic. “Trixie can be awful! Appalling! Simply unbearable!”

Twilight snorted. “Won’t help. It will be cute.”

“Cute?” cried Trixie, stamping a hoof. “Cute?!”

“Please don’t make this even more difficult than it has to be,” said Twilight.

Trixie sat down heavily on her haunches, staring at her beloved, racking her brain for some sort of tactic. “Fine! So Trixie is mortal. So is your Spike, so is everypony in this town! Does Mistress propose to just sit here and wait for us all to die?”

Twilight sagged. “I was considering it.”

“Mistress was sulking! Mistress deserves a spanking!”

She stopped. Twilight had given her a sour look.

“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? You’re so quick to assume that’s who I am.”

Trixie froze, staring, and Twilight added, “I’m not even sure that’s who you are… or who you’re supposed to be. And it’s killing me, Trixie, it’s killing me, because now I need to be sure. All I wanted was to do what was right. I’m the fucking Alicorn of Leadership, I have to take responsibility and think about where all this has taken us. It’s time to start asking some hard questions, whether we like it or not.”

“Trixie didn’t mean to…”

“Cut that out,” said Twilight bitterly. “Talk like a normal pony. Game time is over.”

The Great And Powerful Trixie stared at Twilight, stunned at the abrupt repudiation of their whole bizarre life, and for a moment Trixie’s soul died within her, helpless against the sudden overwhelming hurt, the brusque denial of her reality.

Only for a moment, though.

“D… do you respect my…” began Trixie.

“Authority? I thought I’d made that clear. Game time is ov…”

Twilight trailed off. Trixie was baring her gritted teeth, her eyes burning, completely insulted.

“No, Twilight Sparkle. Trixie wasn’t going to say that! Let me finish. Do you respect my intelligence?”

That jolted Twilight. She blinked, licked her lips, dropped her gaze. “Um, I suppose I do?”

“Yes or no. Trixie assumed she… oh, I’m sorry, you wanted me to speak your language, didn’t you? I assumed I did not have your contempt. I thought that perhaps after I outwitted Princess Luna and saved you and the other ponies that time, after you’d charged in with a foalish frontal attack, I warranted some of your respect. I need you to tell me now whether you were faking. I can’t imagine why—unless in your desire to please and be accepted, you’ve been living a complete lie just to impress me!”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. She gazed into Trixie’s fierce eyes, and was flooded with shame, feeling like a tiny filly being scolded in front of the class.

Trixie wouldn’t let up. “You say game time is over. I say, I know who I am, Twilight Sparkle, and I have done my best to bring that to our relationship, and I thought you were doing likewise! We’ve learned so much, from each other, from Girl, and now you think you can cast it all aside and say it’s a game? If I have not known the truth of you, Twilight, then who the pony hell are you, really?”

Twilight could barely meet Trixie’s eyes. “I… but that’s just it! That’s what I have to figure out! And I don’t KNOW!” she wailed, and covered her face with her hooves.

Trixie sat, watching her cry, and sighed deeply. She drooped, gathering her thoughts, growing calmer again.

“Of course you don’t. Poor Mistress. So innocent, so curious, so powerful but so naive,” said Trixie. “Let it out, that’s the way. Let it out and then we can talk.”

“What good will that do? I’m leading ponies all wrong!” sobbed Twilight, flapping her wings spasmodically. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m a monster who’s gonna live forever, and you’re gonna die, and what point is there to any of this?”

“Shh,” said Trixie, moving over to begin petting Twilight’s body. “Trixie has a secret about forever that is very important. Trixie will love you forever. Trixie will always, always be yours.” Her voice was tender.

“Overemotional sentimental garbage that doesn’t mean a… oh!”

Trixie had smacked her, sharply. Twilight’s eyes flew open, and Trixie’s gaze was anything but mindlessly soppy.

“Watch it!” she snapped. “Do you not realize whom you are speaking to? Did we not, just now, speak of your disrespect for Trixie’s intelligence? You are so much like Trixie! Your infuriating brain seizes upon things and won’t let go, and it is blinding you to the simple and obvious truth: obvious, except to silly young alicorn girls full of their own angst! Grow up, Twilight Sparkle!”

Twilight stared, shocked. She gulped. “Okay, you’ve got my attention. But… so you really expect me to be cowed into submission and just wallow in a whole bunch of emotionalism and ignore the fact that you’re gonna die?”

“Neigh,” said Trixie gravely. “I shall not die… thanks to you.”

Twilight blinked. “New alicorns happen rarely, Trixie! I mean, forgive me for saying it but you’ve never had quite the magical power I can put out, and I don’t understand how you can be so confident you’ll hit on some amazing insight that contributes to magic itself…”

Trixie was shaking her head. “I won’t. I’m not you, Twilight, I can’t do that. That is not what Trixie meant, at all. There are things you don’t understand yet.”

“Fine!” retorted Twilight. “Explain, then!”

Trixie took a deep breath, and Twilight could feel her mind whirring.

“Trixie was born a little unicorn filly to a sad, strange mare who spent her days lost in morbid thoughts. Her mother’s feelings were not Trixie’s fault. They were not anypony’s fault, they raged and ruined and eventually destroyed her, but before that day, Trixie drank deeply of this mother’s milk and of a world where there was no explanation for anything, no way to know if Mother was paying attention or present inside even her own head that day. Nothing was certain. Trixie was alone in some strange and deep way, except when she was punished, when her misdeeds brought her and her mother together in the simplicity of blame and contrition and forgiveness.”

“You’re saying…” ventured Twilight.

“Sh! It was not enough, Twilight Sparkle. Mother died. Trixie was fostered by other ponies, and when she came of age, she fell in love with a glorious unicorn mare who echoed her mother’s self-absorbed nature. And right from the beginning, she found sexual release in scorn and submission and thus her die was cast: Trixie built the foundations of herself on this uneasy ground. And this, too, was not Trixie’s fault: it was all she had to work with. Do you understand? Trixie is what she is, did the best she could. Just as Trixie’s mother did the best she could with what she had, until the end. Do you understand, Twilight?”

Twilight gulped. “Go on.”

“Of course. Trixie lost this first lover, when she dared call on that mare to broaden her view of the world. That one could not grow. Trixie’s mother could not grow. But Trixie has grown! Yet the growth still rests on the seeds planted so long ago, built on a past that cannot be changed. Trixie accepts this. It is like looking upon another pony, named Trixie, distinct and outside oneself, in some ways immutable: and yet the growth driven by that same Trixie’s agile mind and fierce determination has been intense, allowing Trixie to become new things never before imagined by pony kind! And so Trixie is Great and Powerful, but Trixie is also Trixie. Trixie is all of this, and understands herself, and bravely addresses the challenges of her life. Whether it is hecklers at a magic show—or foalish children summoning an Ursa Minor, which Trixie thought was an Ursa Major, and courageously battled anyway—or whether it is falling in love with her great rival Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s eyes were wide. Trixie’s became gentle.

“Oh, yes, Twilight. Trixie fell in love with you and it was not entirely blind submission. There is a part of Trixie that sits back and judges, always, and she saw this: Twilight Sparkle is powerful beyond imagining, deliciously sexy, but possessing a curious innocence Trixie never had. Twilight Sparkle is loved, but doesn’t believe it: Twilight Sparkle cares, but doesn’t trust herself easily. Twilight combines a blinding intelligence with that childlike naivete. Trixie fell in love.”

Twilight was past arguing. Her mate was effortlessly taking her psyche apart, inspecting the bits with a compassionate eye, smiling.

“There is a weakness to that lack of terrible experience. Twilight blunders into things, makes mistakes, doubts herself because there is so much she’s never done. She has spent her whole life in study and books, sheltered, led by her curious brain. Trixie spent much time in books too, hiding from the battering of the world and the bludgeoning of her own harsh needs. Like but unlike… shared understanding, but underneath, so very different. And now… another difference, and an opportunity that Trixie can understand deep in her heart, yet Twilight cannot.”

“What is it, Trixie?” said Twilight, hesitantly. She could see that Trixie Lulamoon was beginning to cry.

“You are a baby again, Twilight, a baby alicorn. You’ve barely begun to learn what it is to be a unicorn mare, and now you start again, the first precious spark of a very long life as a beautiful, magical creature all ponies will adore. And Trixie loves you, Twilight. …I love you. I am here with you at your new birth. I have that honor.”

Twilight’s heart was pounding. Trixie’s sincerity was so raw, so meaningful it was choking her up.

“Trixie is yours as you take your first steps into this new world, as they shape you, just as Trixie’s whole life was shaped by her poor mother and her first love. And Trixie has learned a thing or two about love, about consensuality, about responsibility to oneself and others, about being true to yourself. Trixie has even learned how to learn! Girl taught us so much about that! And Trixie is strong enough to teach, to guide!”

Trixie’s voice had lifted, bit by bit, until she was weeping and declaiming proudly in her classic Great And Powerful voice, and Twilight listened, wide-eyed, soaking it in.

“Yes, it is Trixie who is blessed to be with Twilight Sparkle at this delicate, this impressionable time, and Trixie does not fear the responsibility, neigh, she rejoices! For Trixie loves Twilight, is devoted to her from the moment of her rebirth as an alicorn, through all the years Trixie shall live! And when Trixie dies, it will be with joy in her heart and deep gratitude for every last second of her life, that life which prepared her for this and brought her forth to be with you! Twilight Sparkle, Trixie commands that you not fear the future we share—not any of it, not even what you may see as the end of it! For… fo… f…”

Twilight gasped. Suddenly, Trixie was streaming tears, fighting to get her last few words out, and Twilight moved in and held her, and Trixie finished her speech with soft, trembling earnestness, right into Twilight’s listening ear.

“…for I can love you NOW, and because you will carry that through all your endless life—my love for you WILL live forever.”

“I hardly know what to say,” said Twilight. They’d been clinging together for half an hour, weeping for joy—or mostly joy. It might as well be joy, she thought, because it was all okay, every bit of it.

Trixie quirked an ear. “Trixie doesn’t remember giving Twilight permission to speak!” She giggled, as Twilight smacked her bottom.

“Oh, you! I can see we’re going to have a dash of naughty in our lives. So, you think training an alicorn to do bondage is a good thing to unleash upon eternity, huh?” She frowned. “I guess I wouldn’t be the first.”

Trixie was unruffled. “But with a fully fledged, personal grasp of consensuality? Leadership that comprehends what it is like to defer and submit, as well as command? Yes, Trixie does think that is fitting.”

Twilight smirked. “Seriously? A purple alicorn that likes to be spanked and fucked? That’s your idea of a good eternity?”

“Mmmm,” crooned Trixie. She lifted an eyebrow. “Mind you, Mistress, do not forget consensuality. Think of it as a purple alicorn of leadership who can LET herself be spanked and fucked in an appropriate manner, at appropriate times. How is that not the best thing ever?”

Twilight wriggled. “I feel like I’ve been, I don’t know, psychically spanked?”

“Oh, you have,” purred Trixie. “Was it good?”

“Very,” said Twilight. “I think I understand, at least a little. I’m so fucking glad I have you, Trixie. I feel all quivery inside.”

Trixie sniffed the air. “Hah! Trixie believes it. Are protestations of eternal love your new fetish, Twilight?”

“Mmmmmmaybe?”

Trixie snorted with amusement and nuzzled Twilight’s wings. “How convenient! Get used to them. Trixie is sure you shall be enjoying them forever…”

Twilight wriggled more and moaned, “Ohhhh! Right there!”

“Ooooh!” crooned Trixie. “We like that, huh? Are we a slutty little alicorn? Hmmm?”

Twilight gazed back at her lover through smouldering, half-lidded eyes. “Uh-huh,” she breathed, in a fillyish little voice. “What are you gonna do to me?” She batted her eyelashes, playing innocent, teasing.

Trixie gave the wickedest smile, and lunged foward, seizing Twilight’s wing between her teeth.

“Huhhhh!” cried Twilight, her body involuntarily writhing, tail lashing as Trixie bit down on her wing-base. “Ahhhh! Oh Trixie aahhhh!”

“Rar!” said Trixie, twisting her head. “I’m g’nna eat you up! Mmm, alicorn w’ngs! It’s wh’ts f’r dinner!”

Twilight squealed. “Oh, Trixie! Why do my little wingies feel so funny?”

At that, Trixie boggled. She released Twilight’s wing, looked up, and demanded, “Mistress, what the buck was that?”

Twilight began to blush a deeper and deeper shade of purple. “Um. Well. Since I’m, you know, a new alicorn and everything… I guess you caught me, huh? I just, you know, was pretending… um, that I was a much littler pony, oh gosh I’m so fucking turned on, you know a much much littler pony who didn’t understand but you grabbed her by the wing and, and…”

Trixie blinked. Twilight’s wings were so erect, and Twilight was blushing so hard, as Trixie put the pieces together. Mistress and her private thoughts, as usual, only this time Trixie could guess. Little wingies, huh?

But, then, didn’t it just figure? Twilight had always been safe. Not for her, the real betrayal of trust, the dislocation and damage: she could not imagine truly untrustworthy protector figures, so she was free to fantasize hotly about her innocence being taken. Twilight Sparkle, always obsessively in control and lovingly indulged, protected and nurtured, could fantasize about rape and find it arousing: she could imagine being an innocent filly thrust from foalhood into sexuality through no intention of her own. To her, there could be no reality of a voracious and powerful adult where a protector should be. There could be no world stripped of safety.

For all her naivete, Twilight’s world had been so solidly constructed by her attentive parents and trustworthy, loving mentor Princess Celestia, that her anxieties were always of failing to live up to their wishes and she had no concept of betrayal by them at all. She pictured a sort of sexual kindling within her own filly flesh, entirely from the outside, where she wasn’t responsible for any of it and didn’t have to be anxious about her choices. And yet Twilight would have to make choices, more and more of them, and live with their consequences—and she was doing it, though it frightened her.

Trixie thought about some of the ponies she’d known in her travels, especially before she’d met Twilight. She thought about Rarity, with her alarming abusive past and her harsh reaction when Twilight had pretended to be a filly. She thought about Twilight’s parents… and lastly about the creature she’d so often mistrusted and scorned, Princess Celestia, who’d raised Twilight.

Trixie bowed her head, even while Twilight looked on anxiously. Trixie hadn’t given Princess Celestia nearly enough credit. She shed a little tear as she realized just how well cared for, her Twilight had been.

And… since she had been protected that well, her Twilight was now free to fantasize as she pleased… and pretend what she liked.

“Trixie?” said Twilight. “Did I say something wrong? Oh gosh, I can tell I did, I’m sorry…”

“Mistress?”

“Seriously, we can just call it off, I can tell I totally ruined the mood and you look really grim now…”

“Mistress!” said Trixie sternly.

Twilight gulped. “Yeah?”

“Don’t tell Girl that we do this,” ordered Trixie. “It doesn’t mean the same thing to her. Think about it sometime… but not right now, we’re busy.”

“We are?”

Trixie began to smile, a fond wicked smirk creeping across her face. “Trixie thinks there is a certain alicorn filly… who has never felt the grip of big strong jaws on her little wingie.”

She watched as Twilight’s eyes widened, that delicious shapely alicorn body squirming, those large firm wings groping the air and then, with irresistible force, springing up to quivering verticality again. Twilight’s blush flared up as well, but Trixie could tell it was from sheer, very adult, erotic heat.

“Gosh,” said Twilight. “I wonder who that could be.”

Trixie nuzzled her wing, rewarded by a sudden panting—oh, this was indeed one of Twilight’s pet fantasies! She opened her mouth again, moving into position…

“Oh, Celestia! The bit, Trixie, get the bit quick quick quick, I’m gonna come, I want you in me…”

Trixie’s ears went back. “But I’m going to clamp my jaws onto your little wingie! Trixie has only one mouth, dear one…”

Twilight squealed, tossing her head. “Just do it! Aaigh!”

Trixie jumped back, and Twilight leapt to her hooves with a great flapping of powerful lavender wings, her elegant new body shaking. She looked back in Trixie’s general direction, and squealed again, labia winking, her lovely rump quivering, a little squirt of pussy juice dripping to the floor. For a moment, Trixie boggled again. She’d never seen such an imperious, sex-crazed ‘innocent filly’ in all her life.

“But what do you expect Trixie to do? I mean, which thing, Twilight?”

“Everything!” cried Twilight. “Now! Before I come just thinking about it! Make it HAPPEN to me!”

Trixie stood still for a long moment, her mind racing, and then she’d whirled and bolted out of the room as fast as she could, racing downstairs and outdoors to the Ponyville streets.

“Trixiiieeee!”

“Just… ow! just a m… rrgh! Hang on!” called Trixie.

Twilight stamped the ground, winking again, but then she froze, as Trixie came back into the bedroom, looking absolutely smug and pleased with herself, a massive Lulamoon cock swinging beneath her.

She licked her upper lip, allowing her mouth to hang open, baring her teeth in appreciation of Twilight’s lusty scents.

Her magic bit remained, lashed tightly to her lower jaw with the pink ribbon that had once tied up Apple Bloom’s mane.

Twilight’s heart nearly stopped as Trixie trotted up to her, ears perked, nostrils flaring with obvious excitement. Her head dipped suddenly, and Twilight screamed and quivered with excitement as Trixie nipped her rump, and then there was a mysterious pause as Trixie studied her trembling hindquarters and she cried, “What, Trixie, what?”

“Y’r pelvis is narrower now,” said Trixie, shifting her jaw as if the strapped-on bit was uncomfortably tight. “Y’r gonna be smaller.”

Twilight gulped, alarmed, wondering if that was some sort of dealbreaker. “I’m sorry!”

Trixie bared her upper teeth in a fierce, exultant grin.

“I’m not!”

It all happened so fast, so explosively fast, after that.

Trixie heaved up onto her quivering, nipped rump and blue forelegs grabbed hungrily onto her trim alicorn waist…

Teeth clamped down onto her wing, sending bolts of erotic sensation right through her body straight to her…

Pussy turgid and electrified with need, promptly transfixed by the brutal, virile thrust of…

Massive cock, so massive, when did it get so thick and plunge so…

Deep into her body that seemed to churn in erotic frenzy…

Frenzy of that plunging cock, gnawing jaws, the hunger, in, IN…

Devouring and raping her hated innocence, stripping doubt…

Exposing the secret truth, making it real not a masturbating dream, not having to ask or explain, it’s happening and IN! so big so hard…

Taken, seized, raped, fucked FUCKED OH GOD FUCKED

As Trixie wrestled Twilight’s startlingly powerful wing in her jaws and crammed Lulamoon cock roughly into Twilight’s spasming clenching marehood, as she hung on for dear life to her hysterical, writhing alicorn, she knew she couldn’t keep it up for long, but she suspected she wouldn’t have to—and as she flared to full stiffness, wedged tight and grinding her teeth on Twilight’s thrashing wing, she felt everything in her body and psyche and even her magic give a huge aching throb—and Trixie cut loose, gushing horsecome against Twilight’s cervix and blasting magic from her horn, whinnying a wild cry as she unloaded with all she had, not holding back in the slightest.

It was like fucking an exploding bomb. It was glorious beyond expectation.

Twilight seemed to rise into the air, her whole body seizing up and convulsing around Trixie’s mad hunching thrusts, and she let out a guttural shriek that built and built… and then the room was filled with light. Twilight seemed to burst with magic, her eyes going blinding white, white radiance bursting from her mouth as she screamed, and her horn blasting forth a thick potent horngasm that twisted, found Trixie’s fiercest ejaculation and effortlessly overwhelmed it, slamming into Trixie’s horn every bit as savagely as Trixie’s cock thrust into Twilight’s depths.

And Trixie’s eyes flew wide, themselves emanating radiant light, and she clung to Twilight’s writhing body and doggedly continued to thrust her thick stallionhood into Twilight’s tight alicorn snatch even while the cock lit up and glowed with the rest of her, crackling with magic discharge, adding the fizz of raw magic to the gush of semen into alicorn womb and still thrusting, gushing, plunging…

With a mingled scream, Twilight and Trixie fainted, overstimulated, their minds snapping under the load of too much ecstacy.

They collapsed in a smouldering heap, limbs sprawled every which way. Twilight’s wings sagged, looking like lavender feather-dusters. Trixie stirred, blinked feebly with Twilight’s twitching wing-shank still in her mouth, and winced. That cock was still fucking huge, and it pinched like hell, and she felt Twilight’s body jolting around her in sweet stretched erotic agony that wouldn’t stay sweet for long.

Trixie summoned all the energy she could, and her horn lit. It felt like she’d lost maybe a couple of inches off the tip. Not so much as Lyra had, in her alicorn carousings, but sometimes the horns that gushed the most copiously were also fragile. Trixie was tough, and she knew she had enough magic left for what she had to do. She could see Twilight had also lost a bit of horn, and as her heart went out, her determination doubled. She couldn’t faint yet. She had to stay conscious for long enough to unstrap the bit from her jaw, and let poor lusty Twilight rest.

Sweating with the effort, Trixie unbound the pink ribbon from her jaw, and the bit fell away from her mouth, the brutally fat horsecock withdrawing. Twilight wailed sweetly but did not wake, as it tugged out of her and shrank away. Trixie sagged, panting, and looked dazedly at her beloved.

“Trixie can… always be… a little bit t… tougher than… than…”

The blue unicorn passed out, and unicorn and alicorn slept in an untidy tangle.

It was a delightful fall day, the colors warming towards dusk.

Rainbow stared, and her ear twitched. “Huh. Well. Right! Yeah.”

“What?” said Applejack. “It’s only Twilight an’ Trixie, sugarcube.” She squinted across the meadow, but it was still only Twilight and Trixie, lounging contentedly with a picnic basket. “Hey! Spike’s back from Canterlot!” And so he was: snacking on a few rubies and enjoying the afternoon breeze that stirred the unicorns’ manes.

“I saw,” said Rainbow. “And before you say anything, it isn’t that.” She had the oddest expression on her face.

“It ain’t? You look a mite peeved. What’s th’ matter?”

“Oh,” grumbled Dash, “whatever! Fine, I’ll just say it! Look at her wings.”

Applejack squinted. “I don’t see what’s… oh! Dang.” She chuckled. “My sakes!”

Across the meadow, Twilight nuzzled Trixie, and draped a wing lovingly over her body—but it wasn’t that which had upset Rainbow. On closer inspection, Twilight’s wings looked fluffy, because they were outrageously, shockingly unkempt, like she’d been struck by lightning. Both Applejack and Rainbow Dash knew quite well that the ‘lightning’ had probably been in the form of a magic penis. Applejack’s eyes widened: now that she was paying attention, she couldn’t help noticing it. “Whoof!”

Dash was flushed and looked cranky and unsettled. “I know, right? Somepony should talk to her. Can’t even fly like that, I’ll bet.”

Applejack tilted her head, smiling at her mate. “Aw, honey. Does it really bother you? I reckon they’re entitled. Should we leave?”

Rainbow pouted. “It’s just… it’s her wings, Applejack! I never saw anything so outrageous. She’s making me look like an old uptight granny.”

“Naw, our old uptight Granny’s at home mindin’ Spy and bein’ minded by Apple Bloom,” smiled Applejack. “An’ she ain’t so bad, now that things have blown over a mite. Come on, now. This was our time! If them unicorns is usin’ this meadow, we’ll jes’ find another.”

Rainbow kissed her. “Okay. I won’t let it get to me too much,” she said, pouting some more.

“Cain’t believe it’s gettin’ to you at all!” said Applejack, walking back onto the forest path, away from the clearing, Rainbow following and glancing back over her shoulder as she went.

“Yeah, well, it’s wings, okay?” protested Dash, her ears back. She glanced from side to side, and whispered furtively, “Actually it gets me all worked up and horny, but I shouldn’t be touching THOSE wings. But somebody’s gotta tell her to preen them. Not me! She’ll totally jump to the wrong conclusion if it’s me.”

“Would ya?” snickered Applejack.

“Hey!”

“Aw, c’mon, Dashie,” wheedled Applejack. “I like you worked up an’ horny. Fess up!”

Rainbow made a face. “Maybe. Those mares kinda drive me crazy though. They are good wings, don’t get me wrong. She probably doesn’t know they’re screaming ‘somepony just fucked me into a drooling puddle of horse!’ to any pegasus.”

“Maybe she don’t care, bein’ a Princess an’ all. Maybe she’s th’ Princess of bein’ fucked,” suggested Applejack.

Rainbow snorted. “Impossible. I’m the princess of that!” She flicked her tail and cast sidelong glances at Applejack. “You know that’s part of what we were going to do with our afternoon.”

“I dunno,” teased Applejack. “All of a sudden y’all gone prudish an’ moral-pony on me, just ‘cos of them wings.”

“I am not!” whined Rainbow, blushing. “It’s just… she’s… wait a minute. Are you trying to make me show you how unprudish I really am? Is that your game?

“Aw, yeah,” grinned Applejack. “Can’t you tell from my talkin’? We got us an agenda. What we want is obvious. What we need is a nice cozy spot.”

“Are you sure your belly isn’t bothering you?” pressed Dash, worriedly.

Applejack nuzzled her. “I promise. Princess Celestia done good. It’s gonna be okay. Did you know I had me a talk with Rarity?”

“Oh yeah? What about?”

Applejack frowned. “Actually I tried t’ bullshit her, but she called me on it. Talked about me givin’ up the boss mare thing. Rainbow, she helped me put it into some perspective. That there’s a kind pony—did ah mention she’s fuckin’ Derpy now?”

“No way!” squeaked Rainbow. “Really?”

Applejack nodded. “Ah seen ‘em today. Ain’t no way they din’t do th’ nasty, Derpy’s still walkin’ funny.” She chuckled.

“Oh, wow!” laughed Rainbow. “How the buck did she pull that one off? After all that talk about wanting Twi because of the smaller penis? Wow! I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall, holy crap that must have been crazy!”

“Or a Fluttershy on th’ wall,” winked Applejack. “An’ I bet I know how Rarity done it!”

“How? Lots of lube? Block and tackle? Tying Derpy down and creeping up real slow and dun dun DUNN?”

Applejack snickered. “Naw. Lemme give you a lil’ hint!”

Rainbow gasped. Applejack had dropped back and craned her neck over, to briefly seize Rainbow’s wing in her teeth and wrestle it around a little, and Dash flapped and squawked, going red in the face. “HEY!”

“Reckon it was that,” said Applejack nonchalantly, trotting on her way, leaving Dash standing shocked and red-faced.

Rainbow galloped forward. “How dare you take liberties like that! And then stop doing it! Applejaaack!”

Applejack trotted faster, giggling. “Somepony’s gettin’ a serious buckin’ before the day is out. Jes’ trying to concentrate your attention. ‘Cos you’re a lil’ bit flighty, lookin’ at that Twilight an’ all. Gotta keep you interested.”

Dash kept up, prancing with her hooves lifting high and her wings lifted higher. “I have to admit it’s good to see you feeling better. We finally get some time to ourselves! Talking to Rarity helped?”

“A lotta things helped. That was one of ‘em.” Applejack glanced over at her cerulean pegasus lover. “It’s good to see you feelin’ better too. What brought that on? ‘Cos let’s do a lot more, whatever it was. I feel like you’re back, Dashie.”

Dash blushed. “Kinda! Well… yeah, pretty much! I think a lot of it was hunting for Braeburn and Big Macintosh. And I did that for you, but it was also for me, do you know what I mean? I got out and did an amazing search pattern and I totally found them and brought them back to become part of the family. And now Scootaloo gets to have Braeburn around!”

“Terrifyin’ thought,” snorted Applejack. “But yep, that was pure Rainbow Dash awesome for ya.”

“No,” grinned Rainbow. “It was for YOU.”

They’d accelerated until they were cantering heedlessly through the forest, bounding over bushes and rocks like two lovestruck mountain goats and peering sideways at each other wearing silly grins, when suddenly Dash’s eyes widened, and she squeaked “Omigosh!” under her breath.

“Wh…” began Applejack, and a blue wing flicked out to cover her mouth. Peeking over the snuggly feathers, she saw it.

At first it was hard to make out what was happening. It seemed as if the orange form with magenta tail was wrestling something, something white that revealed glimpses of a pink and purple tail. It could only be Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, out in an obscure part of the forest, scuffling with glee and ignoring the older ponies as they galloped up.

Applejack’s stomach gave a lurch. Or not! There was no way that was a fight. Her eyes grew wider and wider.

It was Sweetie Belle’s rump she was staring at, some distance off. They were facing away, and Applejack was looking right at a tiny spot of glistening pink. Sweetie was hunkered down on the ground, nuzzling the dirt and sticking her ass in the air for her lover, and Scootaloo hadn’t been wrestling at all. Scootaloo had buried her face in Sweetie’s privates, eating her out with a great flapping of tiny wings, going to town with such wild abandon that it’d looked like a rough-and-tumble… and Sweetie was plainly an expectant puddle of ponyhood wanting more. Applejack saw Sweetie’s little vagina wink, as Scootaloo hunted for something on the ground by her side.

“Oh sweet Celestia,” breathed Applejack softly, and Dash pressed her wing tighter to Applejack’s mouth. “Sh!”

Scootaloo reared up, mounting upon Sweetie’s butt. “…ohmygosh!” breathed Dash, as her protege’s hips swung forward and a cry of unicorn ecstacy filtered through the trees and foliage.

“Dashie!” hissed Applejack, her ears laid back. “We gotta leave!”

Instead, Rainbow turned quickly and snapped at Applejack’s mane, grabbing it in her teeth just as Applejack had grabbed her tail so many times before… and Rainbow grinned a wicked grin, and whispered, “Who’s th’ prude now?”

Applejack’s horrified eyes could pick up Sweetie’s rump wriggling under Scootaloo, hear the little cries of delight and some of the wet noises, and she whimpered and tried to pull her mane free. “Aw, please… and keep your voice down, dammit!”

Rainbow just smiled and returned her attention approvingly to the spectacle. Scootaloo’s wings flapped boldly, but that wasn’t the startling thing. They couldn’t see exactly what she was plunging into Sweetie’s pussy, but there was no mistaking the truth: they’d borrowed, begged or stolen a bit of their own. That wasn’t the startling thing, either. The startling thing was Scootaloo’s motions. She moved and thrust with a preternatural confidence, a swaggering and masculine authority, breathing heavily through her teeth as they clamped around her illicit prize, and working her filly cock inside her lover with outrageous panache: drawing back and prodding the head repeatedly through Sweetie’s entrance with teasing jabs, sliding deep with every evidence of satisfaction, tensing up to stiffen herself, working it in every imaginable way. And all of it was obviously devoted purely to Sweetie Belle’s pleasure, Scootaloo’s attention fixated utterly and completely on her unicorn lover.

And, under Scootaloo, Sweetie could just barely be glimpsed—her body mostly concealed by foliage and the ravishing form of her filly pegasus—but she sang a lewd and shameless song that ranged from breathy squeals to shuddering low moans, kicking back a hoof at times, pounding the dirt with a forehoof in transports of bliss at other times, working up to a state of total unicorn meltdown with a spectacular wantonness that irresistibly reminded the onlookers of Rarity at her most gloriously filthy. But Sweetie’s manner of lovemaking added a new level of compelling power, for her cries seemed entirely devoid of Rarity’s guilt and desire for punishment. Sweetie Belle cried out a song of fuck like it was some aria from an opera, like she was the most glorious little pony in all Equestria and like the forest floor beneath her was blessed by her sweet secretions as they dripped from her dainty, taut fillyhood, coaxed out by the squelching penetrations of Scootaloo’s expertly wielded ponycock.

Applejack whimpered. “Dashie!” she hissed, as quietly as she could. “This is wrong, them’s foals! Let me go!”

Rainbow shook her head in wonder, watching Scootaloo’s hips and imaginative moves reduce Sweetie to jelly before their eyes. “Oh, no. Those are n’t foals anymore. Holy crap, Applejack,” she whispered. “Just look at her go. That unicorn’s not going to last thirty seconds at that rate…”

“Please?” begged Applejack, whispering into Dash’s ear. “Fine, they’re mares, kin we go?”

“They’ll hear us. Hold still. Wait for it…” breathed Rainbow. “Wait for it…”

Applejack whimpered, unable to look away. Scootaloo seemed to be getting tenser, Sweetie louder and bolder, but all the same the little pegasus didn’t rush: if anything, she slowed down, tantalized, provoked, and then as Sweetie began to howl and shake, Scootaloo thrust forward, deep into her unicorn lover, and held still with her body going rigid and stiff…

Sweetie let out an earsplitting squeak, jolting under her young lover.

“Wait for it…” hissed Rainbow, not letting go of Applejack’s mane.

Scootaloo’s body visibly spasmed. Sweetie screamed again, a soprano cry of unearthly ecstacy. They could see Scootaloo’s body jolt, and then give way to strangely tender nudges, like her whole physicality was guiding the spurts of ponycome to Sweetie’s eager depths, and as the pegasus seed coated every snug inch of her tender young womb…

“Eeeeh! Eeeh! Eeeh!”

The forest was lit with luminous gouts of magic from Sweetie’s horn.

“Now!” hissed Dash, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash cautiously turned and began sneaking away as quickly as they could, Applejack scarlet with embarrassment, Rainbow Dash wide-eyed with awe and respect. Very soon, they were lost to sight, for they accelerated as they headed out of earshot, leaving Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle alone in their private clearing.

Scootaloo panted through the bit in her teeth, clinging to her precious unicorn. “Whoo! I l’ve you so much, Sweetie.”

“Ahggg,” drooled Sweetie, her eyes unfocussed, face pressing the forest floor. She shook herself. “Ahnnn… I love you, Scootaloo. I’m very sorry about the distraction, thank you for not stopping. I actually liked it, really I did. I’m glad it didn’t bother you.”

Scootaloo wiped sweat from her brow with the back of a hoof. “Distraction? I love y’r voice, never stop that, baby. It’s the b’st thing ever.”

“No, I mean… oh! You didn’t hear…”

Scootaloo blinked. “Sweetie? What’s the m’tter?”

Sweetie Belle nuzzled the ground, quivering with ecstacy, feeling the firm throb of Scootaloo still deep within her, and hearing the faint receding of galloping hooves through the earth.

“Nothing’s the matter, Scootaloo. Kiss me.”

And she did, and the world was perfect.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash galloped on, giggling, for Applejack had decided to teach Dash a lesson by more wing-munching. “Serves you right for gittin’ excited watchin’ stuff of which you should never see!”

Dash squealed, dancing free of Applejack’s grip. “Says you! It was an education! Sweet Celestia, that was outrageous!”

“It ain’t appropriate!”

“Oh, and we’re appropriate, then?” challenged Dash.

Applejack blinked. “Got me there. We’re proper dirty when we gits our oats.”

“Or our apples?” giggled Rainbow.

“Hah! You’re gettin’ your apples. Maybe not inserted th’ usual way! Dang it, Dashie, why’d you have to set there watchin’?”

“I admit it was very rude, and we may owe them an apology if you can figure out how to give one, but all the same, DAMN…”

Applejack pouted, tossing her mane. “I know. Dammit! Made me feel like Granny Smith or somethin’. Sweetie’s so perty. Shouldn’t be allowed, her bein’ that damn hot! I remember when she was a newborn.”

“Scootaloo has it under control,” said Rainbow Dash.

“I’ll say.”

“Sweetie’s not the only hot pony in these woods…”

“Eeep!” Applejack squeaked, for Dashie had nipped her butt. “Oh, you… y’all have to catch me first!”

She charged off into a small clearing, and Dash pursued, but then the blue pegasus reared, screeching to a halt, flapping. “Whoa! Stop!”

Applejack glanced back. “Y’ ain’t catch me like that…”

“STOP!”

Applejack froze. Rainbow was standing motionless, and looked stunned. “What’s th’ matter?” said Applejack. “What’s wrong?”

“I never said it was wrong,” managed Rainbow, her voice wavering. “Look around. Look, Applejack!”

Applejack looked, and her eyes widened.

“I was right where you are,” said Rainbow. “You were right here. You stopped and stared at us, right where I’m standing now. Oh my gosh, Applejack. Oh my gosh!”

Applejack’s heart was pounding, not just from the run. “My sakes. You’re right, Dashie. It was right here. Oh my sweet Celestia, this is the lil divot ya dug in the ground! It’s grown over with grass but damn if it ain’t!”

Rainbow blinked. “Divot? What?”

Applejack looked up at her, eyes wide. “You remember. I jes’ about bust my butt hangin’ in there and still fuckin’, and you come harder and harder and jes’ before you flew off in loop-de-loops, you kicked at the ground with both forehooves and it was right here! Don’t you remember? You yanked right out from under me and I fell on my face.”

“Yeah…” breathed Dash, in wonder. “Did you say I sonic rain-gasmed?”

“Damndest thing. Never saw that again. What was that about?”

“Maybe it was just about that very first bit,” guessed Rainbow. “Or maybe it was about our very first time?”

“I never saw anypony so happy. You was beside yourself, just sayin’ I love you over and over so fast…”

“And I do,” said Rainbow, walking forward to join her mate. “I do. I remember I thought I was gonna die just from how wonderful everything was. I don’t even remember what I said, I was babbling.”

“Said you loved me forever.”

“It was true.”

“It IS true,” corrected Applejack, with a wry little smile.

Rainbow nuzzled Applejack’s neck, her eyes closed, her wings floating in a half-raised state. “We’ve been through so much since then, and look at us now, back here where it all started…”

“With a few more scars,” snorted Applejack, “an’ none th’ wiser, and havin’ fucked half o’ Ponyville between us!”

Rainbow giggled. “It’s been quite a ride. Don’t tell me you’re sorry? Not here, not now!”

Applejack snorted again, fighting back a treacherous smile. “Hmph! I reckon we coulda done some things more graceful-like. The messes we caused!”

“But here we are,” said Rainbow Dash, “back at the beginning, and we even have the magic bit with us because that was the whole point of today. Um… you do have it, right? We were going out to have sex, not to stumble across unicorns and fillies and all kinds of stuff.”

“Oh, Ah got it,” said Applejack. “It’s in my hat, o’ course. Well… figure you got another rain-gasm in ya? How’s about hunkering down, lil’ filly, an’ letting th’ formerly Boss Pony treat you to the ride of your life?” She doffed her hat, letting the gleaming bit fall out, and tamped it back onto her head with cocky authority—allowing herself to tap into her stallion-y tendencies once more like some female Braeburn, confident and sexy, ready to lay it down for her beloved mare.

Then she blinked, for Rainbow was staring at her in a funny way.

“But you are the ride of my life, Applejack,” said Rainbow. “And you always give me what I want. I get a good apple-bucking whenever I need it, but you mostly don’t ask for anything.”

Applejack’s ears went back, but not in dismay, just simple perplexity. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Well… I just saw this little pegasus pony… who was really getting into pleasuring her partner.”

“Oh my,” said Applejack. “Really? Y’all usin’ Scootaloo as a sexual role model? That’s disturbin’ on more levels than I can even tell ya!”

“Hush. And don’t even deny it, that was crazy hot.”

Applejack hesitated. “Yep. Dern them,” she admitted, “it was.”

Rainbow smiled, fixing Applejack with a determined look. “Crouch down, tail up—I’m going to do you like you were Sweetie Belle, until you come that hard. I’m not sure I have the moves, but I’m a quick study.”

“Uh… I won’t be squirtin’ no magic.”

“Not from that end!” smirked Rainbow Dash.

Applejack smacked her with a hoof, giggling. “You’re terrible!”

“You’re wonderful,” vowed Dash. “And warm. And you’ve been my stallion and my strong pony all this time… but don’t you remember, so long ago? It was right here. You wanted me on top of you, so bad. You begged to get fucked, Applejack. I promised you I would do it, and then I made you do me first.”

“Yep,” admitted Applejack. “I kin still remember how I felt. You did take care of me later, Dashie, but Ah will always be your stallion when you want stallionin’, jes’ know that. You got it for the askin’.”

“I made you wait for it,” said Dash. “Let’s start over! Let me leave you weak in the knees. Let me make love to you, Applejack, right here, right now. ‘Cos you’re all of those things—and you are right here—and this is right now.”

“Aw,” said Applejack, peering up bashfully and scuffing her hoof in the dirt. “Twist my hoof, why don’tcha…”

“Let’s lose that hair-tie. Why are you even still wearing it? Apple Bloom doesn’t wear that bow of hers anymore.”

Applejack frowned. “Habit? Ah guess ah’m just comfortable with it. Leastways, it keeps my mane from gettin’ tangled. Or maybe it’s ‘cos it feels so sexy to have ya take it off?”

Rainbow grinned. “Ooooh. I like it, that works. Allow me.” She daintily took the hair-tie between her teeth, and tugged it off, allowing Applejack’s golden mane to spill over her withers unfettered. Applejack tossed her head, letting her mane flow, and then glanced over at Dash questioningly. “And… I guess this is the time where I finally lose this hat… and become jes’ your lil’ filly?”

Rainbow studied her. Applejack’s lip was quivering, but her eyes yearned. She was clearly torn, wanting to totally submit, but heartbroken at losing that symbol. It seemed there was no right answer for the country mare, and she was bound to lose out one way or the other.

Except that her mate was the amazing Rainbow Dash—and Rainbow wasn’t too proud to learn from others.

“Leave it on,” ordered Dash, grinning. “You’re keeping it.”

Applejack’s eyes widened. “Oh my!”

“It’s quite a hat,” said Rainbow Dash. “I never saw one with a notch like that, like a, a… bite mark! And that funny crumpled place. It’s the funkiest coolest hat ever, Applejack.”

“Aw,” said Applejack. “You know, I ain’t ever crumpled it? It was that way when Ma had it, with that funny scrunch in the top. I don’t know what caused that, but outta respect I keep it jes’ the way I got it. Ma’s hat. Heck of a thing to live up to.” She sighed. “Which I hain’t… but I’m mighty grateful all the same. That hat will jes’ have to accept that I ain’t the mare my mother was.”

Rainbow snorted. “You are too. I don’t care whether you’re the boss of the farm. You’re everything to me.”

Applejack watched, as Dash bent and took the bit in her teeth. “Ain’cha gonna bite my ass? Ah mean, if y’ want.”

Rainbow raised her head high, grinning around the bit, her enlarged ponycock jutting forth happily. “No, n’t now. I told you, Sc’taloo showed me someth’ng. I d’nt need to make you weak, to be str’ng. And you D’NT have to be weak to be a MARE! Tail up!”

Applejack frisked, and flipped her tail up, revealing her lovely vagina and firmly toned butt. Rainbow frowned, thinking.

“Act’lly… lie on y’r belly, I’m pretty s’re that’s h’w it w’s.”

“Aw, Dashie, I really gotta wriggle in th’ dirt like Sweetie done?”

“Tr’st me,” said Rainbow Dash firmly.

Applejack gave a look, and she turned and flumped down on the ground with a weighty thud, resting her chin on her forehooves. “This better be good, sugarcube,” she said. Then her eyes widened. “Uhhh!” Rainbow had dropped the bit, and gone for her marehood, licking and nuzzling fervently. “Oh my!”

“Told you to trust me!” said Rainbow, and shoved her muzzle hungrily against Applejack’s quivering vulva, suckling on her clit.

“Ohh, unhh, mmmm… whooo!” cried Applejack. “Aw yeah! Hungry lil’ critter! Get on in there!”

Rainbow needed little encouragement. She ate out Applejack’s pussy like a pony possessed, and then twisted to grab the bit between her teeth and reared up, wings flapping wildly, to mount on Applejack’s rump. That orange pony posterior was even jutting into the air just like Sweetie’s had, and Rainbow grabbed on just like Scootaloo had… and hesitated, just like Scootaloo had.

Applejack’s head twisted around, to take in Rainbow’s look of concentration. “Sugarcube? Y’ all right?”

Rainbow smiled around the bit in her teeth. “Savor’ng the mom’nt,” she said.

Her hips shifted firmly forward, and Applejack let out a squeal of pleasure as the cerulean cock wedged into her juicy, winking puss.

“Ohmygosh Dashie! Aaahhh! Aaah!”

Rainbow concentrated, shifting her hooves. “D’mmit! Argh!”

Applejack tossed her head, trying to look back over her shoulder. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Th’t kid has… hips like Blossomforth… ow! Gotta get my hooves pl’ced right…”

“Aw, now, don’tcha be hurtin’ yourself with it? Unhhh! Oh Dashie… jes’ gimme the reg’lar way, it’s fine…”

Rainbow glowered. “No! I got this, I’m sure it’ll be awesome!”

“But ya shouldn’t have to… ohhhh!” wailed Applejack, as a gentle squelching sound began to grow. “R… Rainbow! Uhhh!”

Dash had sorted out her posture problems. She hunched over Applejack’s sprawled form, back arched high, and began to tenderly squeeze her cock-head through Applejack’s labia, over and over, with sensuous force. Applejack gasped and stuck her rump up to receive the gentle, firm thrusting, her hindquarters trembling as blue stallionhood poked into her.

“Ain’t ya gonna… ahhhh!”

Even as she asked, Rainbow sensed her mood, and the trim athlete’s hips swung forward, burying her full length in Apple pussy, letting her savor it, then sliding elegantly out for more pokings and insertings.

“Oh hell Rainbow, oh my, oh gosh…”

Rainbow Dash panted through her teeth, stubbornly mimicking the audaciously lithe motions of a younger and more supple pony, blissing out at the sensations this awarded her. It felt like she’d swollen up to huge proportions, and every time she penetrated Applejack it was a new delight, squeezing into that slick passionate marehood, sometimes buttery-soft and sometimes tensed up to delicious tautness.

“Argh!” squeaked Dash. Her cock had slipped low and popped right out, and she struggled to reposition it. “How c’n she aim so g’d?”

Applejack was shaking. “Don’ care, jes’ you keep doin’ that… ahhh!” she cried as Dash transfixed her again with another tender, sedate thrust. “Oh, Rainbow!”

“You l’ke?” grinned Dash.

Applejack moaned. “Sweet Celestia! Mebbe y’ shouldn’t, I’mma… I’mma…”

“Wh’t?” crooned Dash through the bit, not stopping her lewd, provocative motions. “C’me?”

Applejack shook her head frantically. “Not jes’ that! Oh lordy, Dashie, gettin’ so wild, makes me wanna…”

“Wh’t? Wh’t?”

“Ngaaah!” panted Applejack. “Wanna kick and buck an’ wave m’ hat, like I ain’t even no proper mare no more! Cut loose like a rodeo pony! Uhhh! Dashie aaahhh, ah cain’t stand it! Bite my ass, keep me in check! Quick! I’mma freak out, Dashie!”

She felt Dash’s forelegs wrap more tightly around her belly. The teasing, unpredictable penetrations continued, even as Dash hardened to teeth-gritting girth that would’ve been intolerable except for Applejack’s extreme slipperiness. That middle part of Dash’s cock, that had become alarmingly bulbous since the foaling, was now prying Applejack wide with each lingering thrust.

“Do it,” smirked Dash.

“Whut?”

“I’ll h’ld on. Wave y’r hat, go n’ts. Any way you w’nt.”

Applejack sucked in a deep panicky breath, her heart pounding. She knew that Rainbow meant every word, that Rainbow thought she was equal to the challenge. It seemed crazy, and she was certain that if she gave in, cut loose, she’d just explode from under Dashie and ruin everything. How could she refuse to do the whole mare thing of getting dominated and submitting to the stallion? What would even happen if she got mixed up and let herself flip out? Hell, it was hard enough to handle with her on top holding the bit, her flipping out as a mare would destroy everything within reach!

“Do it,” goaded Dash, still working that throbbing horsecock within her.

“But, but… aiiigh! But ah’ll buck you off me, ahhh Dashie let me think! This ain’t…”

“Th’n we’ll be even!” retorted Dash. “I did th’t to you, right h’re! Do it, do it, DO IT…”

Applejack shook wildly. “Gotta… hold still… let you… fuck me…”

The hard stallionhood kept wedging into her vagina, throbbing, moving with mocking grace. Dash’s forelegs tightened further.

“DO it…” demanded Rainbow Dash, her ears laying back as she felt Applejack’s body go rigid.

“But… aw! FINE!” squealed Applejack. Her hoof went up and seized her hat, in that curious trick of pony magic that allowed for a grasp on an object if you really, really needed to hold one. She screamed, her eyes squeezed shut, a war-cry that made Rainbow’s heart rejoice with the sheer savage passion of it. Then, Applejack gave in to whatever impulse presented itself, no matter what it was.

“YEEEAAHH!”

Rainbow grinned madly. Applejack was waving her hat in the air, her ears laid flat against her head, her body jolting and convulsing in sharp spasms.

“YEEEEHAW!”

She bucked in the air, flinging Rainbow physically upward, but Dash hung on like a rodeo rider, doubling up and shoving her erect horsecock deeply into Applejack just to stay mounted.

“AAAIIIIGH! AAHHH! DASHIE!”

Applejack had flattened herself against the ground again, her ass sticking up obscenely, the better to help Rainbow shove that cock deep. She was scrabbling in the dirt, writhing, and then she seemed to levitate right up again, her powerful body flinging Rainbow off… except that Rainbow was again able to hang on, keep her grip, keep on thrusting that stiffened stallionhood into Applejack’s clenching vagina.

“EEEEEEE! AUUGH! YAAAAH!”

They careened around the field, Rainbow clinging for dear life to the wildly bucking Applejack, who leapt and lunged, hat in hoof, her muscular hindquarters delivering bound after bound. It didn’t matter, for Rainbow flapped her wings madly and held on like a crazed limpet, except there was nothing remotely limp about the swollen, stiff cock she kept thrusting into Applejack as she clung, continually driving her mare utterly insane, staying mounted on Applejack’s orange hindquarters no matter how she jumped and bucked.

“GAAAHHH!”

Applejack collapsed, chest against the ground, butt still up and her tail thrashing against Rainbow’s crotch, and she launched into a climax that made Dash squeal, her frenzied marehood clenching irresistibly against the deeply plunged shaft.

Rainbow’s feathers all bristled out at once, and as Applejack pounded her hat repeatedly in the dirt, Rainbow drenched her womb with a torrent of ponycome… and Applejack finished her rodeo with a shuddering fusillade of orgasms so violent that she couldn’t even cry out or draw a breath. Her eyes rolled back in her head, she crushed her hat beneath her pounding hoof, and she collapsed like a building being demolished, tottering and sprawling to lie flat in the dirt, with Rainbow still mounted upon her and pumping endless gouts of spooge into her womb.

Rainbow Dash panted, grinning. Best rodeo ever. She winced. Also one of the roughest…

Applejack stirred, and Rainbow’s ears quirked forward worriedly. “Y’ okay, baby? Boss? Belov’d?”

“Ohhhh… ya rode me, Rainbow… ah din’t throw ya…”

“SO awes’me…” breathed Dash, twitching with pleasure as her body continued to unload, and then she blinked. “Applej’ck. Look.”

“Huh?” mumbled Applejack dazedly.

“Y’r hat, look! Look!”

Applejack squinted at the hat under her hoof, right next to her face, where she’d been pounding it in the dirt in transports of ecstacy while being ruthlessly fucked, after putting on an insane rodeo performance rather than act like a proper submissive mare.

The hat was folded up exactly where it had been scrunched, long ago. Every little irregularity was accounted for. That hat’s character had been formed through exactly the same method, and she’d never known it.

Applejack blinked, stunned. “Wal, fuck me…”

Rainbow began grinning wider and wider. “I did. It w’s awesome!”

“No, ah mean… sweet Celestia!”

“Sweet Apples, m’re like!”

Applejack’s shocked look didn’t fade. “But… Ah always thought it got that way from… farmin’ or somethin… Sweet Celestia!” She began to weep, her body shivering against the dirt, baring her teeth in anguish. “Ahhh!”

“D’nt cry, Applej’ck, it’s okay!” begged Rainbow. “J’st because y’r Mom fucked l’ke a ch’mpion and pounded h’r hat in th’ dirt when she c’me…”

“Naw, ain’t that, y’ fool horse! Argh!”

“Wh’t? Wh’t?”

Applejack turned her head, tears in her eyes. “At least wiggle that fuckin’ thing, dammit! I’mma pop like a balloon!”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Ohmygosh! S’rry!” she squeaked, and spat the bit out on the ground. The stallionhood shrank away and seemed to be flung out of Applejack’s vagina by a tidal wave of ponycome, which flooded out as soon as the pressure was relieved and the marehood uncorked.

“AW yeah there we go…” moaned Applejack.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry!” cried Rainbow, as Applejack panted, shuddering with relief, her country pussy gaping and a stream of magic semen still pouring cheerfully out of her to evaporate on the ground.

“Aw, yeah,” repeated Applejack. She turned her head and kissed her beloved. “You featherbrain! You know you come buckets ever since y’ had Spy!”

“Are you okay, did I hurt you?”

Applejack snorted weakly. “Ah might ask you the same question!”

They looked at each other, and began to grin more and more.

“Are you ever going to look at that hat quite the same?” said Dash.

“Naw, not quite,” grinned Applejack. “Th’ reason being, now I know it’s prop’ly mine!”

“Apple Bloom can have the farm so long as you inherited the hat, huh?”

“You know Ah’ll help with th’ farm,” chided Applejack gently. “I don’t need to be boss mare to do that.”

“So,” suggested Dash playfully, “you inherited the ability to fuck like a rodeo pony?”

Applejack snuggled against her pegasus lover, content.

“Call it… th’ spirit,” she said. “I reckon I got the better part of th’ deal. An’ you know what?”

“What?”

“Ah reckon she’s proud o’ me at last, Dashie.”

“I sure am,” smiled Rainbow Dash.

Granny Smith swept the floor, gazing out the window. What with all the carryin-on, the house was a mess. Well, she thought, when you had a big parade, folks got to cheer and th’ earth got to shake and then somepony had to sweep up after th’ elephants. No reason to burden th’ younguns with it.

She watched Applejack and Rainbow Dash approaching across the fields. They staggered and wobbled, and then fell down and began kissing and canoodling, right in the middle of the crops. Figured. Least they was happy.

A vast shadow loomed, and Granny looked up.

“Need a word with ya,” rumbled Big Macintosh.

Granny gave him a bitter look. “I don’t reckon you need a thing from me you cain’t git from other ponies, Big Macintosh.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, simply.

“Oh? What do you need that’s so special, pray tell?”

“Respect.”

Granny’s eyes dropped. “Aw, honey.”

“Ah mean it,” pressed Big Macintosh. “It ain’t right.”

Granny looked up at him, then, and a tear was in her eye. “Don’t shame me worse, chile. I got to live with what I done. Now that you’re back, Ah kin see you’re steppin’ tall and holdin’ your head up high. I din’t never think I would see you all growed up, and you stand with that cowpony like you’re a proper stallion. I was never able to give that to you, child. Never. I gave you old bones an’ lavender and I kept you my baby colt for too long.”

Big Macintosh bowed his head. “Din’t mean to hurt you, Granny.”

“Now don’t you weaken!” snapped Granny, tartly. “Ah’ll git by with my daft ol’ ways! You listen here. I am right grateful that I got to see you standin’ tall like a stallion before I passed on! Go ahead and do your gay thing, I cain’t deny you no more. If it’s your way, it’s your way, hear me? You got my respect, since you ask. Ah am jes’ sorry the world ain’t got more use for you, Big Macintosh. Ah’m sorry the world ain’t got more use for us!”

“Whut?” said Big Macintosh, startled.

“Everypony’s all runnin’ around with wings an’ horns and turnin’ into alicorns,” grumbled Granny. “Ah had hopes, child. Ain’t so many plain earth ponies gittin’ sired anymore. You live your life, it just makes me sad that I ain’t seein’ no more great-grandfoals. Ponyville’s passed us by.”

“I was needin’ to talk to you about that…” said Big Macintosh uncertainly.

“Child, if you gits magic to carry foals up yer ass you gonna be one sorry pony come next year,” snapped Granny. “Believe it!”

“No! No,” stammered Big Macintosh. “It’s somethin’ else. Mighty strange. So strange, I couldn’t hold with it, I jes’ had to see what you thought. Ah think I might like to do it all th’ same, but it’s pow’ful strange, Granny.”

Granny Smith blinked. “Now, what in tarnation?”

“Miss Lyra had a word with me today,” said Big Macintosh solemnly.

He bent, and began to whisper in Granny Smith’s ear, blushing, and he whispered for a very, very long time as he outlined what royal consort Lyra had proposed to him, in detail… and Granny Smith’s jaw dangled lower and lower in astonishment.

Finally, he was done. He looked Granny in the eye and said earnestly, “So… technical-like, ain’t that still an earth pony grandfoal?”

Granny gulped. She stared at him as if he’d grown about five extra heads, as she tried to square her sense of reality with this new role for the Ponyville heir stallion, scion of the proud Apple bloodline. Then, she began to laugh.

Big Macintosh stared in concern. He put out a hoof to steady Granny, as she laughed and laughed so hard she risked falling over, laughed until she was out of breath. Finally, she looked up at him, with her eyes crinkled up around the edges with hilarity.

“Go get ‘em, stud-boy!” chuckled Granny Smith, shaking her head in amazement.

-FIN-

(the story continues in the sequel Diamond's In The Rough, and a Kindle version can be downloaded here)

Flaming Death Spiral

“Ma!” came the little voice, and two pairs of green and ruby eyes flew wide in alarm.

Rainbow Dash’s expression soured, and she clung more tightly with her forelegs around Applejack’s waist.

“Awww, honey… no, please, naw, you jes’ let me deal with it…”

Dash gritted her teeth. “Rrrrrr!”

That got a reaction, for she was gritting her teeth on a slim, enchanted cylinder of metal. It was a magic bit, and it served a purpose. It brought to life a similarly enchanted appendage on Rainbow Dash; namely, a penis.

The reaction in question was horror, for the pressure on the bit caused Rainbow’s false stallionhood to harden inside Applejack, and the flare to expand… and something besides ponycock had come up.

“Eeeee, stoppit! Dashie!” squealed Applejack under her breath. “No!” Her right rear hoof lifted and kicked the air in dismay, her orange rump quivering as her vagina squeezed uselessly at the cerulean shaft, and she tossed her head, mane flying, for Rainbow wasn’t letting go of her, and she could see movement under the covers. Their baby was awake, and the thing about foals was, foals could jump right out of bed and run up to you demanding milk.

Applejack was prepared to give milk—indeed, she was delighted to—but she couldn’t bear the thought of nursing a foal while getting fucked at the same time. Something about the prospect horrified her to her core—a juicy, tight Apple core that Dash was busily wedging stallion-cock into. Dash gave one more shove, and Applejack twisted frantically under her lover, panicking…

Dash spit the bit out, and it clanged brightly on the wood floor of Applejack’s bedroom. “Fine! It’s your turn, anyway!”

When she’d released the magic artifact, her stallionhood had shrunk away to nothing, slurping out of Applejack, who stood with her legs trembling, giving Dash a look of mingled annoyance and apology. “Ah know it is my turn, sugarcube, don’t be cross…” she said, while their foal squirmed and kicked under the covers, trying to get from the cozy nest of fluffy blankets to the open air and then to Mom—either one. She was fussy, but not about that.

“It takes you so long to get back into it!” whined Dash, her wings flapping anxiously.

“Sshh…” said Applejack, looking over toward their bed.

A little pony head had lifted, and was looking beseechingly at her, pale green with pale blue mane, eyes as compellingly red as Dash’s own irises. The eyes were huge, hypnotic—hungry.

“Maaa!” cried Northern Spy, wriggling out from under the covers to stand, knobby-kneed, atop the bed. Her head still only came up as high as theirs, but she held it high as if she were standing on a throne, not just the biggest bed in Sweet Apple Acres.

Dash sulked. “Go on, then.”

Applejack’s ear flicked. “Don’t be that way, honey. Look on the bright side—at least I can do this!”

Dash’s ears went back. “Yeah, and Granny hates it…”

“That’s because Twilight helped me,” said Applejack serenely, and stepped forward to rub noses with their new foal.

Rainbow Dash’s sour look persisted, though she hated herself for it. Applejack had dropped her sexual arousal like a hot brick, to smoulder impotently on the floor—except it was Dash smouldering impotently, for Applejack didn’t like her using the bit while Spy was watching.

She tapped a hoof, eyes narrowed, as Spy nuzzled her mother (or one of them, anyway) and then hopped down off the bed with a clatter of tiny hooves and dove under Applejack’s belly—and she sighed, as Spy latched onto Applejack’s nipple and began sucking away, her throat gulping the milk lustily.

She watched Applejack quiver, shifting a hoof, her lovely orange rump tensing and then relaxing into the bliss of it as she nursed her foal, standing placidly as she felt her pony breast steadily drained of its life-giving milk.

Rainbow Dash made a face. She could also see Applejack’s tender vagina, still glistening from its recent happy exercise, sitting there pertly and mockingly between burnt-ochre ass-cheeks. It had felt amazing on Dash’s cock, tight and slick and feverishly excited to receive the plunging stallionhood. Applejack’s pussy was like a fantasy filly vagina, a country girl pussy nearly untouched by the world.

Of course, there was a reason for that. Applejack hadn’t given birth to Spy. Dash had. Applejack’s body hadn’t shoved a baby foal out through that ravishing mare vagina. That had been Dash’s problem. Just because two mares, pegasus magic and a semen donor could have a foal didn’t mean both of them gave birth. One got spared that, by necessity.

And as unfair as it was, Dash glowered, mightily pissed off, as Applejack relaxed into the warm cuddly daze of motherhood without having paid for it.

It was unfair because the situation was exactly what Dash had wanted. She’d quickly been driven to distraction by the constant, around-the-clock need to stand like some cow and be milked, and the kinky erotic twist of having a mouth sucking her nipple had got old even faster when it became a job. And it had become a job, and the incessant standing made her more and more frustrated, and not a week had gone by before she’d turned to Twilight Sparkle, begging for a way to get the all-too-willing Applejack involved.

Spy had been willing all along—she seemed to understand Applejack was also her mother, but could not work out why there was no milk offered and grew very frustrated.

And so life had changed, to accomodate Dash’s needs, and Applejack’s breasts swelled with milk and allowed her to nurse her baby. The first time, Dash had nuzzled Applejack’s face, drinking in the look of quivering, abject gratitude, kissing her and then licking the tears of joy away. Her marefriend wasn’t just helping, she was joining in something sacred—primal—and they felt it from head to hooves, just as much as they both gazed upon little Northern Spy’s radiance with awe and wonder, gaping at her perfect little light-green body, fluffy pale-blue mane, and those deep ruby eyes just like Rainbow’s. Allowing her to nurse, the first few times, was a profound, nearly religious experience.

It got old surprisingly quick.

Rainbow Dash glowered again. There was more to life than being a big soft mare-mama. She’d intended to keep her strengthened wings in shape, and she’d been able to resume workouts almost immediately. She’d also intended to maintain a sex life with her beloved marefriend, and that was proving more of a challenge.

Applejack’s butt tensed, and her tail swished. She let out a little moan. Northern Spy was suckling really hard, and somehow it stayed rewarding for the country mare longer than it did for the athlete pegasus. Applejack had explained how it wasn’t quite the same as being sexy, not the same at all in fact. Dash understood that part, but it was hard to not be drawn by sexy thoughts when you were looking at such a lovely marepussy that you’d just been plumbing the depths of, only to be interrupted.

Rainbow bent her head, sniffing. Applejack’s lips were still slightly parted, the glisten beginning to dry up, the firm supple flesh cooling off from its sex-maddened fever as her attention was distracted by her foal. Dash knew it would’ve been unfair to Applejack not to dismount. She’d been told that she’d gone up a size or two since the birth. Twilight had been annoyingly fascinated, and had spouted a lot of speculation on size correlations between magical erections and mare vaginas, until Dash smacked her with a hoof.

After all, ‘correlations’ meant that Dash’s pussy had been ruined and made bigger and looser, and that wasn’t much fun at all. Applejack got the best of all possible worlds—she got to be a nursing mother, a mare with a tight snug pussy that had never passed a foal, and to have a well-hung stallion for a mate. Dash got a stretched vagina, a foal sucking on her at all hours of the night, and a marefriend who’d abandon sex to take care of a baby.

Rainbow Dash made a face, and then sniffed at Applejack again, and a little half-smile snuck onto her face. Spy couldn’t see her, from that angle, and Applejack did have the prettiest marehood in all Ponyville—hell, all Equestria, thought Dash, loyally. She extended her tongue, and tucked it between Applejack’s lips, stroking tenderly from her lover’s still-engorged clitoris up across yielding pinkness to where she’d entered her beloved’s body, that enfolding darkness of eager flesh that waited its turn for celebration.

Applejack shuddered, her rump tensing, and she swatted Rainbow across the face with her tail. “Dashie! No!”

It was love that made Rainbow step back, because lust was telling her to drive her darling harder and really make her squirm. “But… awww! Not even a little?”

“In a minute,” pleaded Applejack. “We’ve had this conversation, sugar! Please?”

Dash sat back on her haunches. Her wings were up and quivering. She’d thrust her tongue partly into Applejack’s vagina, and she could still feel that wonderful firm grip, something that her own body had been cheated out of. The bit lay on the floor where she’d dropped it, but she knew it’d be at least half an hour before Applejack felt comfortable being sexy again.

“But… it’s my kid too, Applejack. Come on… think about it. She could probably drink even while I made love to you, and not bat an eyelash. I could be really gentle and careful…”

Applejack turned her head, and her expression was miserable and sulky. “Please don’t beg me. I cain’t see it, honest, my love, I just cain’t… please, please, jes’ you give me a minute…”

Dash’s face fell.

“I’m… gonna fly some laps.”

“I’m so sorry, Dashie. It’ll only be a minute. Ah’ll be right where ya left me?”

“Yeah, right,” said Dash, and began to trot out the bedroom door. She had to pivot sideways and shift her body to get through because her wings were so erect and she didn’t feel like scraping them on the door frame.

Downstairs, she wriggled and stretched, turned her head, and glared at her wings’ feathery stiffness.

“You heard her—you have to wait, same as me!”

Some more wriggling loosened them up enough to flap, and Dash was out the front door, taking the air as dawn began to break.

“You got it, kid! Just a little more!” said Flight Lightning.

Scootaloo strained, going red in the face, her tiny wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s.

“Now, start descending… no, open your eyes, honey, don’t squeeze ‘em like that…”

Scootaloo’s legs kicked madly, as if she was trying to gallop through the sky, and she bared her teeth, eyes still squeezed shut as she forced herself to her utter limits, clinging to the air for one more second as her mother looked on with concern that became alarm.

Scootaloo squeaked, and her wings froze up, strained to the point of cramping, and she dropped kicking out of the air—all of four feet, to bounce on the grass-covered earth.

Flight Lightning dove to land beside her. “Scoots! Ya okay?”

Scootaloo spat out a mouthful of grass. “I almost had it!”

Her mother gave her a look. “If you’re gonna eat grass, kid, you should have eaten it for breakfast when I served it. I told you, you’re going to need the energy, but you wouldn’t listen.”

The pegasus filly sulked. “I had important stuff to do! I’m fine, Mom.”

“Oh, Scoots,” said Flight, shaking her head. “I understand Sweetie Belle is important to you. Really, I get that. But I warned you not to skip breakfast…”

“I didn’t skip it!”

“You left more than half, and now look at you! Uh… I’m sorry, that came out wrong. What I mean is, you can’t just do everything on raw willpower, okay, kiddo? I’m glad I didn’t have you at higher altitude. Practice is done until…”

“But we just STARTED!”

“Until after lunch!” snapped Flight Lightning. “I’m serious, Scoots, I’m not training you if I think you’re gonna drop like that. There’s a reason I’m telling you not to go for it at your full effort. I know better than anypony how determined you are, okay? You can’t do that in the air. You’ve got to leave some reserves.”

Scootaloo pouted, not meeting her mother’s eyes. After a little pause, she said, “Can you go back and get my scooter for me?”

“You’re that spent, huh?”

Scootaloo glared at her resentfully, because it was true.

“I’ll make you a deal,” said Flight. “I go back and grab your scooter—and you hang out here and eat some of this grass, enough to make up for the breakfast you skipped.” She folded her hooves, gazing levelly at her filly.

“It’s not as good!”

“Oh, now you approve of my shopping choices?”

Scootaloo sulked, lowered her head, and cropped a little of the grass, munching on it with wrinkled nose.

Flight Lightning bent her head in turn and sampled the grass herself. “Mm… yeah, it’s not as good, but it’s okay. Sit tight, kiddo, I’ll be right back,” she said, and effortlessly took wing, heading back toward Ponyville.

In the distance, she saw a blue speck. Rainbow Dash? It approached—yes, Rainbow Dash.

“Hi there, Flight Lightning!” called Derpy Hooves, who was making her morning delivery rounds. She waved, and a letter fell out of her bag, unnoticed. Flight Lightning rolled her eyes while Dash raced closer, as if meaning to join them for a chat…

Derpy squeaked and dove out of the way, and Flight dodged. Rainbow Dash hadn’t joined them. She’d flown right through them as if they weren’t there—with her eyes tightly closed, the whole time.

“Hey!” yelled Flight Lightning, but Dash was already gone.

Flight glared, beat her wings fiercely, and took off after Dash. It wouldn’t be easy to catch the impossibly fast racing pegasus, but Flight soon realized Rainbow wasn’t really going for it. She was flying straight, with her eyes closed, and Flight Lightning redoubled her efforts and began to catch up, as Dash soared towards a stand of tall trees.

Flight’s jaw dropped. Rainbow Dash had come so close to one treetop that a leaf was whipped loose by the force of her near miss. Flight had to swoop wide to avoid it, for it wasn’t safe to cut it that close—if a branch swayed into your path, you could lose a wing to the impact. She struggled to make up the gap, staring worriedly after Dash, who seemed to be flying on without altering her course, presumably with her eyes still closed.

Something hit Flight’s nose as she raced up underneath Dash. It stung like hitting a raindrop at speed. A tear?

Flight Lightning realized they were heading for the cliffs. “Hey!” she yelled, again, her voice lost in the slipstream.

She watched, as Rainbow Dash picked up speed and gently arced over, starting to really haul ass—the cliffs her obvious target.

“No…” hissed Flight Lightning, and thrashed forward for all she was worth.

If Rainbow Dash had been really going for it, the story might have been very different. Flight Lightning knew she wasn’t a match for Dash’s peak abilities. However, she also thought she knew what was happening, cursed herself for not spotting it sooner, and sprained her hapless wings in an insane sprint just to catch up with the famed flyer, and though her eyes bulged out and her breath frothed from the effort, she matched Dash’s heightened speed, and chomped with grim determination on the rainbow tail that whipped in the slipstream behind her.

And she stalled, and dragged as hard as she could, causing both ponies to spin out of control.

“Wha…” squawked Dash, her eyes flying open. “What the… what the fuck?”

Then, she flapped madly, for the cliff rushed up as if eager to give them a big hug, and its embraces were excessively rough. Dash and Flight Lightning slammed into it with a dizzying thud, and dropped to a ledge decorated with dull brown rocks of various sizes.

Flight Lightning squealed breathlessly as she staggered off the ledge, but Dash reared up and grabbed her before she fell. It wasn’t so much about steadying her, as they could both fly; it was about seizing her.

“What the fuck was that for?” she yelled at the magenta pegasus: co-worker at Weather Patrol, mother of Scootaloo, and not previously given to aerial roughhousing. “Is this you attacking me again?”

Flight shook her head to clear it, and glared at Dash. “Funny, I could be asking the same thing of you, except I’m not going to! You know why?”

Dash glared back. “Why?” Her eyes were streaked with moisture that wasn’t entirely from the high winds of speed-flying.

Flight Lightning set her jaw. “Because I know what was happening. I went through it. Jig’s up, Dash. I know what you were doing.”

“All I was doing was having a morning fly!” protested Rainbow. “That’s just great of you to fly up and fuckin’ attack me just because I was seeing how far I could fly with my eyes cl…”

“Bullshit,” said Flight. “You knew where you were. Why’d you dive right then? You nearly hit a tree back there. I’m not letting you away from here until you talk.”

“About what?” challenged Dash.

Flight Lightning’s eyes narrowed. “Post-partum depression, Rainbow Dash. You aimed for the cliff. Maybe you didn’t open your eyes, but I think you knew it was there, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

Dash’s chin lifted, and her mouth opened as she began to deny everything—but Flight Lightning’s gaze was fierce and unrelenting, and Dash faltered, not speaking.

“Talk,” said Flight, wiping froth from her mouth and wincing at the strain to her wings.

Rainbow Dash slowly sagged, looking away, still raging but increasingly overcome with grief.

“Come on. What happened? Talk, Dash.”

The blue pegasus crumbled, feelings overwhelming her, but it seemed to make her angry as much as sad, every step of the way. Flight watched as Dash banged the ground of the rocky ledge with a forehoof, making a sharp clacking sound. It wasn’t good for hooves to do that, not with that amount of force. You could chip or even crack a hoof against the rock, or hurt your ankle. Dash apparently didn’t care.

“Look, I’m not leaving until you talk…”

“It’s such bullshit!” sobbed Rainbow. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

“I told you! Postpartum depression. So what happened?”

Rainbow wiped her eyes. “Applejack…”

“Givin’ you a hard time, huh?” said Flight.

“No! That’s just it. She’s being too wonderful, it’s pissing me off. Twilight did a magic thing to her that lets her nurse the foal… Spy, I mean, Northern Spy.” Rainbow Dash winced, realizing she was taking a strangely impersonal tone about her own progeny. “Look at me, I’m calling it the foal… her! Argh…”

Flight grabbed Dash again. “Steady, Dash. Hey, I called mine the ravening monster, so you’re not so bad off, right?”

Rainbow blinked, tearfully. “What? Scootaloo? When was that?”

“This morning. It’s a long story, about that little white unicorn filly, who Scoots will tell you about endlessly if you have a spare hour or two. Point is, we have our little ways, okay? You’re new to all this. Talk to me some more. So Applejack is so wonderful you’re flying at cliffs?”

Dash’s mouth tightened. “Why does it have to sound so fucking insane? Now that you put it that way…”

“Gold star!” declared Flight Lightning. “Exactly! Dash, your brain chemistry is going bonkers after your foaling. It’s telling you stuff that makes no logical sense. It’s making it real, in your head. That’s what insane IS. I had the same thing.”

Rainbow didn’t speak for a moment, and then lifted an eyebrow, looking sidelong at her friend. “You did?”

“Yeah.” Flight Lightning shook her head, marvelling. “This is giving me a whole new perspective on that. I thought I had very good reasons for feeling the way I did. My stallion straight-up abandoned me and Scoots the second he saw her wings. He knew I’d been ground-pounding. He was just done, he was out of there…”

“Who were you seeing?” asked Dash.

“Just this cowpony… wild guy. We need to look him up, I haven’t seen him in years. All of a sudden, Scoots is obsessed with flying, and it’s all because of this guy. She wants to be able to fly when she meets her other Dad for the first time. She’s got a ways to go.”

Dash nodded. “Yeah, I can imagine. She’s a pretty hopeless case.”

Flight Lightning glared. “Watch it.”

“Sorry!” squeaked Dash, eyes wide.

“Point is, now I think I understand those days a little better. To this day, I think back on that time, and it seems amazing I even made it through—but look at you, Dash, you’re going through the same feelings and you’ve got a stand-in. You know, for the standing? You know what I mean—all that nursing,” winked Flight Lightning. “I gotta believe you’re finding it just as maddening as I did.”

“Oh, Celestia,” moaned Dash, considering her sins. “I don’t appreciate Applejack enough, and then I turn around and say rude things to you. I’m being horrible, I’m so ungrateful, I suck so much…”

“Whoa!” ordered Flight. “Stop it! Stop that right now, think of nothing. Wipe your…” She heaved a big sigh. “You can do better than that, Flight. C’mere, Dash.”

Rainbow hesitated, and then leaned over and allowed her co-worker to hug her. Flight hugged firmly, hooves well clear of Dash’s powerful wings, stroking her mane—and chuckled.

“I’d have wanted a hug, back when it was me flipping out. Heh. Look at me, freakin’ scolding you at a time like this. You think you’re a jerk? I was gonna yell at you for feeling bad. Ridiculous. Retarded. Heh!” said Flight Lightning. “That’s MAIL pony retarded.”

The corner of Dash’s mouth twisted up. “Now who’s being hard on themselves?”

In the distance, Derpy Hooves flew away again, politely pretending she hadn’t heard. She’d counted her letters, twice, with difficulty, and worked out she’d dropped one, so she’d come back to get it. Dash, oblivious, favored Flight Lightning with a wry grin. “You are a jerk, though.”

“Yeah, but I’m your jerk,” grinned Flight.

“Maybe you’d understand this, then,” said Dash. “You know what’s making me the most crazy? You wouldn’t have had this, either, it’s a special thing that should be making life a lot nicer for me around about now. Me and Applejack have the magic bit, right? We can turn stallion on each other.”

Flight Lightning’s eyes widened. “I think I see where this is going. Don’t tell me—vag’s still recovering, but the cock’s going strong?”

“Better than ever,” said Dash smugly. She frowned. “Which is obnoxious, because Twilight says it’s a correlation, and it means I turned into more of a loose goose…”

“That’ll get better,” reassured Flight. “It’s not just about stretching, the pressure of your body around it counts for a lot. You’ll be fine. But it’s pissing you off for some reason?”

“Well, get this. Yeah, I can turn stallion, mount Applejack, but then you know what happens? Damn foal starts crying, and she drops everything and goes to deal with her! Like, every time!”

“It could be you having to do that,” pointed out Flight Lightning.

Dash glowered. “True. You’re right. Good point… but all the same, help me out here. How the fuck am I supposed to have sex NOW? I’ve got a kid, a marefriend, a big pegasus cock… and noplace to go!”

Behind Dash, the largest brown rock stirred, unfolding into a more familiar form.

Flight Lightning blanched. Her eyes flew wide, and she scrabbled backwards away from Dash as the blue pegasus stared in astonishment. She whispered, “Scoots…” and then without a moment’s hesitation, she’d dived off the ledge, and was sprinting back to where she’d left her semi-crippled, temporarily winded and flightless, small and vulnerable filly… and crying out anxiously, “Scoots! We’re gonna head home, okay, honey? Right now!”

Dash stared after her fleeing friend in astonishment, unable to understand what had been so terrifying. Then, she heard the soft breath behind her, and the world seemed to stop as her heart lurched, and slowly she turned to face her apparent fate…

“S’up,” purred Gilda.

Spin In

“Well, there they go,” said Trixie.

“Eh?” mumbled Twilight Sparkle, head bent over an agglomeration of wires and crystals.

Trixie blinked. “Girl and that pegasus, of course. Derpy, was it?”

“Oh. Good.”

Trixie blinked again. “Mistress?”

“What?” snapped Twilight, her tone edgy, brittle.

Trixie trembled. “May Trixie ask a somewhat personal question?”

Twilight heaved an exasperated sigh. “Rrrhhh! Okay. What is it, Trixie? Be quick.”

Trixie’s lip quivered.

“Are you okay, Mistress?”

Twilight’s eyes flared with anger, and she drew a deep breath, preparing to unleash a storm of invective—but before she could do it, she in turn blinked at an unexpected thought, and her first word wasn’t angry, but wary.

“Trixie? You are not a stupid unicorn. You have seen what I’m up against and the stuff I’ve got to do to get this whole situation under control. You know I didn’t sleep last night, and you know I’m far from okay, but you are still asking that like it’s a serious question. What am I missing here, Trixie? What do you mean by okay that isn’t the obvious stuff?”

Trixie sighed with relief. “Mistress is so intelligent!”

Twilight gave her a sour look. “It’s worthless if I can’t determine the power source for the bits and document it and their failure modes.”

“It’s Mistress’s failure modes Trixie worries about,” said Trixie.

“I swear, I’ll get some sleep once I’ve got this worked out…”

“No,” said Trixie. “It started before that.”

Twilight stared at her for a minute. Without blinking, she rested her head on her hoof, and her determined gaze was only accentuated by the dark circles under her eyes. “Explain,” she said. “And I mean right now, Trixie. Or I’ll NOT-punish you.”

“Trixie is serious!”

“So am I,” said Twilight.

Trixie gathered her thoughts. “It’s just that… Mistress, Trixie knows you as a mare of great compassion as well as amazing sexiness. Trixie expected to have to run interference, to chase off the gray pegasus and defend you from the impositions of what is clearly a very horny and eager pony.”

“And I appreciate it,” said Twilight, “you’re absolutely right, Rainbow Dash cannot bring random ponies to join our circle. I’m not sure involving Rarity was my greatest decision. Derpy Hooves is right out, and Rainbow is crazy to suggest it.”

“But…” said Trixie. “Well, Trixie expected to have to remind you of this from time to time. You are so sensitive and kind—yet Trixie has done nothing to hold you to the path, and you write off this Derpy Hooves so blithely!”

Twilight sighed. “Yeah.”

“Is it her race?” began Trixie, and then froze at a furious glance.

“Bite your tongue!” snarled Twilight. “Or, well, don’t bite it, whichever is worse. I thought you knew me better than that! Damn it, Trixie, you remember how bent out of shape I was over Applejack when all this started. It seems like a thousand years ago. Before that, I had a crazy sleepover with Rainbow Dash and she made me come until I was limp, with just a hoof! I am not a racist unicorn. Don’t even think that!”

Trixie was grovelling from the first words. “Mistress! Never! Trixie will never!”

“Good. You just pissed me off, Trixie—I ought to turn Rarity loose on you, except that I don’t approve of the way you two are escalating.”

“Trixie will do anything you wish, anything!”

Twilight pulled herself together, shaking. She muttered, “I’m so tired. How about you listen, carefully? Hear me out.”

Silence. Trixie barely breathed, eyes fixed utterly on her beloved Mistress.

“First,” said Twilight, “how likely do you think it is that I’m going to have sex with this Derpy pegasus?”

Trixie considered. “Not at all. You have been more and more sensitive to the, erm, details of our relationship with Girl. You seem to be under such a lot of strain, and show no signs of wishing more sex with other ponies. Trixie is not complaining! Trixie is yours, always.”

“Yes,” said Twilight, nodding approvingly. “Yet you say I’m not kind.”

Trixie hesitated. “To call Rainbow Dash a retarded pegasus is perhaps rude, because she isn’t one: she is about as clever as the usual pegasus. To say the same of this Derpy seems… well… because…”

Twilight winced. “Yeah. Because she kind of is, isn’t she? She’s not really a drooling cretin, she does pretty well all things considered. I’m told her mother took care of her for years, and now the whole town sort of does, but for all that she’s independent and delivers our mail passably well. Diligent, I’ll say that for her. Yeah, calling her retarded to her face is crossing a line. I realized it about five seconds after I said it. I was so busy yelling at Rainbow Dash that I wasn’t thinking.”

“You look stubborn,” said Trixie cautiously.

“Let me ask you this. Suppose I’m kind, compassionate, all the things you say. What happens when I show all those qualities to Derpy Hooves? Apologize, show some love and consideration like I would naturally want to do? Imagine it really bothers me, that I’d love to go and beg forgiveness and tell her she’s wonderful and has a good heart and lots of great qualities.”

Trixie looked ill. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah. If I show her that side of me, she’ll never fucking shake this crush, will she? I didn’t mean to, but I was an absolute jerk to Derpy Hooves and if it’s all the same to you I’d rather live with the consequences of that. Maybe she’ll pee on my mail or something. I doubt it, that’s one sweet pony and I don’t think she can be vindictive. I’d be more worried about Rainbow Dash that way, but if I apologize to her she’ll only tell me she’s not the one I should be apologizing to…”

“Oh, Mistress,” sighed Trixie.

“I’m gonna have to wait them out, that’s all there is to it. One day I can mend things with Derpy Hooves,” said Twilight. “Probably long after she finds some nice pony to fuck her silly. Which she isn’t, honestly. She’s slow, but Pinkie’s a lot more silly, or at least she was before she had a kid with Fluttershy. Derpy Hooves is pretty serious. She’s not smiling all the time because she’s an idiot, she’s smiling because she sees the specialness in ponies. We’re all pretty amazing to her.”

Trixie was crying. “Now Trixie wants to make nice to her. Trixie thought she was just bullying you to have sex with her.”

“Oh, she was,” said Twilight. She gave a little laugh. “Been there, done that. First crushes are really tough. Maybe Rarity can shake her.”

“Do you think we should mend things with Rainbow Dash?”

Twilight gave a wry smile. “No urgency there. One thing about Rainbow? That pony is hard to shock.”

Rainbow Dash stared at the severed bunny foot lying on her kitchen counter.

“Oh, sweet Celestia! Wait, not white, it’s not white, it can’t be Angel. Oh please let it not be Angel! No, it couldn’t possibly be…”

Behind her, she heard wings, and she turned a chalky shade of pale blue and shot out of the kitchen in a storm of mad flapping, squealing, “Don’t come in! Nothing to see h…”

It wasn’t some innocent Ponyville pegasus come to visit, though. It was the culprit—Gilda the Griffin.

“Oh, crap,” she squawked, looking winded.

“Gilda!” yelled Dash.

“I’ll get it! I just took Applejack home. I wanted to get back and clean up before you…”

“Clean up the blood, you mean! Clean up the blood and guts and… hurrgg…”

“Easy, Dash. Yeah! Clean up the blood. I wouldn’t ask you to do it, you’re a pony!”

“You can’t do this! Not around here!” protested Dash, trying not to be sick.

“Whoa, whoa, hold it, Dash. I’m not! You’re not letting me explain. I’m flying way out into griffin territory, to the North, to hunt. I’m not hunting around here, so settle the fuck down, okay?”

“They’re still bunnies!”

Gilda glared. “And I’m still a griffin. Problem?”

“You should…” began Dash, and trailed off.

Gilda stared levelly at her for a while, and then sighed. “Rainbow baby, I’ve been through all your shelves and cupboards. I’ve been through this whole kitchen. I can’t digest any of it. Okay? I don’t eat grass, or hay, or oats, or flowers. I eat little things that run around.”

“Run away, more like!” spat Dash.

“Not fast enough,” said Gilda. “As you saw. You know I’m a griffin, Dash! You’ve always known I’m a griffin! What did you think I ate? Rocks? I’m sorry I didn’t clean up better. I really am. But if there’s stuff you don’t want to think about, maybe you should not think about it!”

Dash gave her a hurt look, and then blasted out of the house like a bullet.

“Dammit, Dash!” yelled Gilda after her. “Lame! Who’s running away now?”

But Rainbow Dash was already out of sight.

“This way,” said Rarity. “And I must remind you, again: do not engage! We are here only to glean information about more suitable clubs. They come and go so quickly, darling, one must be quick. I have been away too long, and cannot pretend to be privy to current Fillydelphia night-life.”

Derpy blinked, trotting alongside Rarity. “But it’s not night-time, Rarity!”

Rarity’s smile was smug. “Won’t matter.”

“And if the clubs come and go… and you’re not sure whether they’ve gone away when you’re not looking… well, why do you think this one will be there even in the middle of the afternoon?”

“Won’t matter,” repeated Rarity. Her smirk grew more wicked. “This one never dies. You’ll see. Remember, say nothing!”

It was a simple black door, with no handle of any sort, down a small flight of dingy, unlit stairs. Derpy stared puzzledly at the door, and gave Rarity a look.

“Unicorns, darling. Rather… special unicorns. And their special friends. Speak to nopony and stay close by my side—and, perhaps, remember a glimpse of another world you’ll not see elsewhere.” She took a deep breath. “My… the memories. All right, Rarity, get in there…”

Her horn glowed, and inside the door, a latch lifted, the latch she knew was there. The door swung open, slowly, with an ostentatious and teeth-grinding creak.

Rarity made a face. “I swear, I’d oil it one day if I didn’t think it would cost me my horn. SO tacky. Well, come on!”

They walked into a murky, red-lit hellscape of banging, rasping music and milling dark forms with horns.

Derpy’s eyes were wide and seemed to point in even more directions than usual as she followed Rarity into the darkness. She stepped lightly, ruffling her wings as she skirted a short and burly earth pony whose head was enclosed in an arrangement of black straps that gagged him and cut off his vision to the sides. He drooled on the floor, a dull red ball wedged into his mouth. As Derpy goggled at this fellow, she blundered directly into a lovely white flank, and she squeaked and said, “I’m sorry, Rari… Ra…”

The unicorn looking down on her wasn’t Rarity at all. It was a white unicorn mare, and she was made up to look glamorous, but there the resemblance ended. There was a sneer to her lip, and some sort of tension about her, and she called out, “Why, Rarity, you’re back! You’ve brought us a toy? She’s mistaken me for you.” Her smile broadened. “That should count for at least five welts. Will you, or shall I?”

Rarity whirled, diverting her attention from the bartender whom she was beginning to question, and were she not already white, she would have blanched.

“Aftershock!” she cried. “What a pleasure to see your gentle face once more.”

The other white unicorn stiffened, and Rarity permitted herself a tight little grin. Got you, darling. Best to get her off balance from the start. It was no pleasure to see Aftershock. She’d turn up with her toys, abused and submissive mares without the experience to identify a rogue practitioner, and she would always have the wit to stay out of trouble, more was the pity. That was not so, for the ponies she brought. Aftershock tended to form a retinue of unofficial fans, stallions that liked to prey on the innocent, and so they formed a little clique of off-the-reservation kinkiness, and Aftershock never seemed to be one of the ponies taken to the hospital or thrown out of the club. She was the catalyst for things that were bad even for this place, clever enough not to be consumed herself by the reaction, and seeming to enjoy the sick scenes she indirectly created.

She strolled over to Rarity, as Derpy scrambled to rejoin her friend, bumping into a haggard and lean earth pony stallion on the way. “Oh, yes. Lovely as ever, Rarity, that manestyle never dates, whatever the other ponies say!”

“Neither do most of your friends,” purred Rarity, smiling, showing her metaphorical fangs—ah, Aftershock, so lacking in finesse. “Your opinion is most appreciated, darling. One must reach all levels of fashion sophistication, after all.”

She froze, as the haggard stallion headed over to join them, a few of his friends drifting in their direction as well. “This one bumped me!” he said. “Yours, Aftershock?”

Aftershock sniffed. “Please! Look at those eyes, look at that mane. This one’s Rarity’s.”

Their ears all perked up at once—and then their eyes widened, as Derpy spoke.

“I’m sorry. What’s the matter with my mane? It’s… nice, what Rarity did to it! I thought it was nice?”

“Oh, wow,” said the haggard stallion. “Listen.”

“Yeah,” said a tall unicorn stallion. “Now that’s good. Wow.”

Aftershock’s eyes widened. She glared at the males. “So predictable! Do you really believe this act? This… feeble charade? Rarity’s brought a much-plowed field, you fools, just as I’d expect from the second string dommes.”

“Derpy?” said Rarity, with careful nonchalance. “We are insulted. We should go.”

Derpy gave her a wide-eyed look of surprise, and then squeaked, ruffling her wings. The short, burly earth pony stallion in the creepy mask had shoved his face right up to her vagina, sniffing and eyeing her. He lifted his head, and shook it.

“What’s that, Crowbar?” said the haggard stallion. “You don’t think so? Tough luck for you, then, right?” He trotted around, and Derpy stared at him in shock as he studied her hindquarters, ears perked forward. “Hey guys! He’s right, I think. Damn, Rarity. Nice find!”

“Derpy?” said Rarity, a hint of desperation entering her tone.

“Is that your name for her?” said the tall unicorn. “Or hers for these pleasant afternoons we’ll spend together? It’s a little too perfect, isn’t it?”

Derpy blinked. “Huh? I, uh, it is a pleasant afternoon, thank you. What’s wrong with my name?”

The short, burly stallion grunted. The haggard one said, “Crowbar wants to know what you’re doing here.”

“Derpy!” pleaded Rarity.

“Uhh, Dusk Shine… that’s my name for him… wants me to see other stallions. Maybe first? I dunno. I kind of want to save myself for him though, okay?”

Rarity’s jaw dropped in horror. The three stallions’ eyes widened in glee. Another two shadowy forms began to drift in their direction.

Aftershock snorted. “You boys are so predictable.”

“And when did you bring us anything so good?” rasped the haggard stallion.

“It’s fake candy!” sneered Aftershock.

“Looks pretty sweet, who cares?” said the haggard stallion.

“Crowbar!” announced the tall unicorn. “You go last. Understand? You probably wouldn’t fit first off anyway, we’ll, ah, lubricate with some fluids. Don’t worry, ‘Derpy’, we’ll prepare you for ‘Dusk Shine’, very thoroughly. Step this way. Or, hell, why don’t you just stand still?”

Derpy, cornered and beginning to look dismayed, stared at him.

“Dibs,” rasped the haggard stallion.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said the tall unicorn. “Back off, Crowbar!” His horn glowed, and a field of force smacked the short, burly pony across the face-mask. Derpy stared in alarm at him, and then under him, for he’d dropped a frighteningly thick erection that was swinging forward at her even as she watched. Then, she whirled, flapping, for the haggard stallion was moving around behind her, rearing—and then whirled again, for she’d inadvertently turned her back on the short one, and she could see he was just the sort of stallion she least wanted to have mounting her.

Then, Rarity acted, as only she could.

“MINE!” she snarled, stamping the ground and facing the three—now five, with another four approaching—stallions down. Her eyes burned with dominant fire, her teeth were bared.

The tall unicorn’s jaw dropped. “Oh, you surely must be fooling, sweetness.”

Rarity’s eyes glittered. “Try me.”

“Is it Crowbar? I can tie him up if that’s worrying you. I’m not sure why you’d care if the pegasus is loosened a bit. Or a lot. She’s very convincing!”

Aftershock looked interested. “Goody! Is there popcorn? Rarity’s going to get in a fight and get thrown out!”

Rarity did not let herself be distracted by the other domme’s tauntings. She stared past trembling Derpy at the tall unicorn stallion, and said with dangerous quietness, “You heard me. Mine. Back off, or face punishment… my way.”

Crowbar whimpered, his eyes yearning. The unicorn stallion went pale. “I’m no sub, Rarity.”

“Then it will not be your pleasantest afternoon, will it?” Her horn lit, and he flinched, but all Rarity did was reach out to the bar. A small bowl of popcorn floated over, to be placed mockingly in front of Aftershock, and Rarity said, “There you are, darling, I’m sure it won’t make you much fatter. This may take a while.”

“Crowbar!” barked the tall unicorn. “Tremor! Go back to the table, right now.”

The short earth pony scuttled off, his terrifyingly thick ponycock swinging under him. The haggard one backed away, a sour look on his face.

Rarity dipped her head elegantly. “Thank you, darling. Ta-ta!”

Derpy stumbled over her own hooves, looking this way and that with very wide eyes, as Rarity prodded her unceremoniously toward the door. It opened to Rarity’s magic, and the two figures were silhouetted in the day’s brightness. The door shut firmly behind them.

“Shit,” said Tremor.

“Fake,” announced Aftershock. “I told you.”

“Hrmmmngg,” said Crowbar, sadly, through the ball gag, and his penis began to droop.

Derpy Hooves hugged Rarity. Rarity wept bitterly, curled up on the ground in the middle of the street in full neurotic unicorn meltdown.

“It’s okay, Rarity. It’s okay, Rarity. What happened, Rarity?”

Rarity wiped her streaming eyes, and then wailed to see her mascara smeared across her hoof, and, she knew, her face.

“Oh, Derpy, I’m so sorry! I just can’t stand it, I am vile, the most vile creature…”

“No you’re not,” said Derpy stubbornly.

“Derpy,” sniffled Rarity, “do you understand what happened down there in that bar?”

She stared bleakly as a luminous, proud smile stole across Derpy’s face, and her pegasus companion replied, “I think so!”

“Really,” said Rarity. “Really! Derpy Hooves, what do you think happened?”

Derpy’s eyes widened, and she glanced from side to side, which was particularly easy for her of all ponies to do, and she whispered to Rarity, “I think one of those stallions wanted to have sex with me!”

“Quite,” said Rarity weakly.

“In, in fact I think a couple of them did, Rarity! I feel more proud of myself now. Mama was right! I must be a very pretty pony. I even saw the penis of one of them! Though I would not want to choose him because he was much too big and anyway I need to be brave and go show Dusk Shine that I’m really a very pretty pony…”

“Oh, Derpy. Thank goodness I got you out of there. That really is not how it works in that place.” Rarity shuddered. Her face twisted, and she began to cry again.

“It’s okay, Rarity! Don’t cry, Rarity!”

“I shall take you home,” blubbered Rarity, “and I shall present myself to Mistress Twilight and plead utter failure and hope her punishment can aussage the shame I now feel, and the terrifying thing is, I’m not sure any amount would help, I am hideous, hideous!”

“What’s aussage?” said Derpy, fretfully. “Please don’t cry!”

“You cannot begin to understand!” wailed Rarity.

“Tell me,” said Derpy firmly.

That stopped the hysterical unicorn. She stared, and said, “But you wouldn’t understand. Truly, you wouldn’t.”

“But I can listen. My Mama said, sometimes it’s good just to listen and care.”

Rarity couldn’t look away. “But, Derpy, it’s about what I did for a moment. I can’t bear it, truly I can’t. It’s too horrible.”

Derpy stamped a hoof, glaring at Rarity and a nearby wall. “Tell me! I’ll bear it with you. It can’t be that bad because you are such a nice pony.”

“I’m not.” Rarity shuddered again, looking haunted. “I am so very not.”

“Rarity, I’m warning you!”

Rarity’s eyes narrowed, and she gazed sidelong at Derpy. “On your head be it, then. Did you notice the little pause before I interceded, pretending to claim you, so we could escape?”

“I guess so? You’re a silly pony, I’m not yours! But I’m not their special somepony either, so I guess it’s okay? I’m not mad, Rarity.”

“You should be,” said Rarity bitterly. “Your charming rescuer spent seconds—seconds!—standing there, imagining just what would transpire were I frozen to the spot and too shocked to act.”

“What’s that, Rarity?”

“Let me be clear,” said Rarity. “I vividly pictured myself cowering, weeping. Watching…” Her voice dropped lower and lower, bitter with shame. “…masturbating.”

Derpy’s eyes widened. Then she smiled, and it lit up the dingy street. “You silly pony, it’s not bad to masturbate! You shouldn’t get wet stuff on the mail, though. Or drip it on pony heads as you fly by, ‘cos they get mad.”

“They take turns, those ones,” said Rarity darkly. “High Strung goes first. He has problems maintaining an erection and demands first crack at virgin pussy. Tremor goes next, and he bites ears, viciously. And then they send in Crowbar, and the crowd watch the hapless mare struggle and scream. He is a little ‘special’, not unlike you. He’s also very, very strong and hangs on like a limpet, and once he’s mounted he will penetrate, whether or not damage is done, once he gets worked up enough about it.” She gulped, adding, “The crowd finishes off what’s left.”

Derpy stared at her. “I don’t want any of that. That sounds mean!”

“I think ‘mean’ is a very good description, yes,” said Rarity, her lip quivering and eyes brimming.

Derpy broke into another smile, and hugged Rarity. “And that’s why you said ‘mine!’ and took me away! You must have been fooling them and telling them they can’t do that to me! Thank you, Rarity! I love you, Rarity!”

This produced another guilt-racked wail from the hapless unicorn, completely unable to square her momentary weakness and fevered fantasy interlude with the presence of the innocent who would have been defiled and wrecked. Rarity bawled, venting her guilt not through elaborate play scenarios and acting out her punishments, but through experiencing it directly and being forgiven just as directly, something she had never sought or been able to seek, something too emotionally raw to be endured. She shook like a leaf being blown by a pony stampede, comforted in her anguish by the same pony she’d momentarily abandoned in the worst sort of betrayal.

“Do you feel better now?” asked Derpy, eventually.

“I’m not sure,” said Rarity weakly. “For the love of Celestia, let’s go home, Derpy. I would not have believed this town could feel so unsafe to me. It is like your presence strips something away, and the things I’d willingly experience myself seem horrific and not to be borne.”

Derpy blinked at her.

“Huh?”

Rarity sighed. “Let’s go home,” she said. “Maybe we can try some other town? Or I can ask Applejack, perhaps, if she knows any nice stallions in line with your preferences. Damn it, I don’t think I know a single nice stallion. To think I’d have told you, yesterday, that I knew many such! I do know many eager stallions, and I wouldn’t trust a damned one of them with your maidenhead.”

“Oh! Oh! I think I know what that is! It’s a vagina part. But I think I let thunder clouds blow it up.”

Rarity winced. “Indeed. I daresay that’s gentler treatment than you might have received today…”

They began, haltingly, to walk back to Ponyville, Derpy instinctively sheltering Rarity’s body with a wing.

“I feel so much more confident as a mare now, Rarity!”

“Oh, good,” said Rarity bleakly.

“When we get back you can tell Dusk, I mean Twilight, that I’m a pretty pony and other boy ponies think so!”

“Perhaps that will appease her. Or buy me some more time,” said Rarity forlornly, and they walked on.

Tawny wings beat the air. Applejack squinted up into the afternoon sun.

“Hey, baby,” she said. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Did Rainbow Dash come here?”

“Naw,” said Applejack, “not since this mornin’. Why? What’s wrong? Somethin’ wrong?”

Gilda ruffled her head-feathers with a talon. “Uh, not really, I just gotta…”

“Don’t you lie to me!” snapped Applejack. The dark circles showed under her eyes. “What happened?”

“No, really, it’s nothing you ever need to know about,” began Gilda, and then sagged. “Wrong thing to say, huh?”

“Y’all gonna tell me what’s happenin’. Now’s good. Start a-squawkin’.”

“Can we go somewhere private?” said Gilda, glancing around nervously. “I don’t want this to get out, not after the way Dash reacted.”

The two companions, earth pony and bashful predator, made their way out to the south fields, walking up the hillside. Birds chirped cheerily around them, and nopony could be seen anywhere nearby, including nosy pegasi in the air.

“Satisfied?” said Applejack.

“Yeah, all right.”

“Talk.”

Gilda gulped. “I’ll just say it. I eat bunnies.”

Applejack gazed levelly at her, not blinking. It spurred the anxious griffin to further explanations.

“You gotta understand, that’s the best game out by griffin territories. I don’t know how they manage to keep such populations but the place is filthy with bunnies. You can’t blame me for going for it, right? I could try for smaller game, but it’s harder to spot from the air, and it becomes a lot of work. Maybe I’m just too lazy. I should be trying to adapt to the sensibilities of ponies, I know. It’s gonna make it hard. But that’s the problem, Applejack, and I’m sorry if it upsets you or makes you uncomfortable. I need to tell you.”

“What is?” said Applejack. “Tell me whut?”

“But… I told you. I eat bunnies. Cute little bunnies.”

Gilda looked vulnerable, wallowing in self-imposed guilt in order to take the pony point of view. Applejack snorted, contemptuously.

“Good!”

“What?” squawked Gilda.

“You heard me. Ain’t you noticed that I’m a farmer? Them things tear up the gardens, they’re a damn plague. Good! Eat more. Maybe they’ll learn. Doubtful, though.”

“Holy crap. Are you sure you’re a pony?”

“Sure I’m a pony,” said Applejack. “Ah am also a farmer. Seems to me there’s some ponies in this town what ain’t got a lick of sense. They expect to have their lettuces an’ carrots an’ such, and where do they think them things come from? An’ they keep rabbits and let ‘em run around loose and I ain’t allowed to do nothin’ about it. They’re pests, I gotta work twice as hard to deal with ‘em. Had me herdin’ the buggers one time. Me! Din’t end well.”

“Wow,” said Gilda. “Wow. Did you attack them?”

“Naw,” said Applejack. “But all th’ same, they knew. Oh, they knew, all righty.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Gilda. “Holy crap, I feel so much better, Applejack. I mean, just knowing you don’t think less of me for what I eat.”

Applejack glanced from side to side, furtively, but nopony was around to overhear. She whispered to Gilda, “Bucked one in the head, once.”

“Oh, you are shittin’ me…”

“Naw. Ah did. Caught it stealin’ lettuces. Wild one, not a pet one.”

Gilda leaned in. “Did you stop it from stealing lettuces?”

“Killed it stone daid. So yep, you could say that…”

Gilda squealed in glee. Applejack frowned. “Don’t tell Fluttershy, ever,” she said. “Ah don’t make no habit of it.”

“What did you do? You are like the best pony ever! Did you eat it? Was it good? You’re like an honorary griffin, even more than Dash!”

“Naw,” said Applejack. “Ah buried it. Din’t give much of a eulogy, mind you. All’s I could think to say was, ‘those weren’t YOUR lettuces!’ and I reckon it figured that out. Maybe not. Its head was kinda flat.” She shifted her weight, lifting first one rear hoof and then the other off the ground, hindquarters flexing. “Kicks an’ Bucky don’t talk quietly.”

Gilda drank her in, pupils wildly dilated. “Ohhh. You are so radical. That’s amazing!”

“Well, it would upset Fluttershy, so kindly don’t spread that around, okay? Ah’m supposed to ask them bunnies to leave, and be firm.” She snorted. “We just got different ideas o’ firm, maybe.”

“If you buck any more, can I have them?” begged Gilda. “I have to fly so far to hunt! This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship…”

Applejack jerked. She twitched again, her eyes flying wide at some private thought that seemed to dismay her. “Uhhh… Gosh, I better not. Them townsponies might not take too kindly to it. They think they know me…”

“Awww,” said Gilda.

“Ah thought ah knew me,” breathed Applejack, under her breath. Her legs were trembling, and her eyes haunted, and she shut her mouth tightly, refusing to speak another word, trying to think of anything but the conversation she’d just had…

…because the words she was cutting off were, “If you kill any more, can I watch?”

Rainbow Dash blasted through the air, back the way she came, rehearsing the little speech she had in mind.

“I totally… no, no how about make that, ‘I mostly understand where you’re coming from, Gilda’. Don’t bullshit her, you were about to spew grass, you don’t totally understand. Right. I mostly understand where you’re coming from, Gilda, but I need you to understand that this is my house, even if I’m not living there right now, and that makes it a pony house. And you can’t expect any pony to…”

The cloud house zoomed closer. Dash gulped.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

Rainbow Dash flew in the door, pulling up and announcing, “Gilda, I…”

The room was empty. Dash stared, dumbfounded, for she’d been so set on her plans that she hadn’t considered Gilda might leave.

Then, Dash’s jaw dropped in horror, for the room wasn’t empty anymore.

A bunny hopped into view, from the kitchen. It blinked at her, and scratched its ear with its paw. It decided she wasn’t interesting, turned, and hopped off towards Dash’s bedroom.

“Oh, noooo,” moaned Rainbow Dash. “No, no…”

She sagged, planting her blue rump on the floor with a thud, her brain whirling. She hadn’t told Gilda about the new rules yet. So this bunny was Gilda’s dinner, a dinner she had no idea she wasn’t allowed to have at the house. And it wasn’t specifically that Gilda was going to have it for dinner, it was that Rainbow Dash’s house was not the place for rending flesh and drinking blood. Gilda would have to take the bunny back away again, back out to the griffin territories where it came from. It would die there, and not here.

The bunny hopped back into view. It blinked cutely at Rainbow. Rainbow stared at it with her ears back, peering out of the side of her eye as if it was a horrific object. It gave her a disgusted look and hopped away again. Of course, it wasn’t a horrific object yet. And it didn’t know what was going to happen to it, from the claws that had presumably carried it up here for later consumption, the same claws that had tickled Dash’s privates and caressed her face. Now Rainbow was getting acquainted with something else, another living breathing thing that would have a very different experience from those griffin talons…

She was shaking, not seeing clearly because her eyes were flooding with tears. Just because she hadn’t told Gilda, just because it wasn’t fair to Gilda to change the rules without telling her, this creature was going to die. She could smell its fur, and the light herbivorous scent of the dump it had taken in her kitchen, and because she was loyal to her friend and considerate of her needs, she was going to sit there and do nothing but tell Gilda to take the poor bunny away before she killed it…

Dash banged a hoof on the floor. The bunny peeked around the side of the doorway to the bedroom, and then continued to ignore her. It had put up with a massive predator carrying it around, it wasn’t about to be impressed by some winged pony.

It squeaked in alarm and changed its mind in a hurry when Dash thundered into the room and grabbed it up between her forelegs. She pinched its ear between her hooves, grappling for a hold, and it let out a chilling scream like some foal, and bit her.

“Hold still!” hissed Dash, a hastily written note clenched in her teeth. “This is for your own good!”

The bunny struggled as rooms of the house rushed by, and then as Dash broke into the open air, it looked down and froze. Getting loose was all well and good, but not thousands of feet in the air, it wasn’t.

It held very still, as Rainbow Dash raced to her destination at near-rainboom speeds, and it shut its eyes. Surprisingly soon, a scratchy little voice was speaking to it, in words it couldn’t understand, not being a tame bunny that spoke Pony.

“It’s okay, little fella. We’re here. You can look! Go on.”

The bunny opened its eyes. It was outside a little cottage, and on the ground. It bit Rainbow Dash again, and jumped free, running over to look at the garden it saw.

“This is Fluttershy’s place, you’ll be safe here. Don’t leave! I gotta get home, okay? I’m gonna pick up after you, and I want to talk to my friend…”

The bunny ignored her, and she blasted off, a blue streak heading back to her home.

Then, the streak retraced itself, and Dash was back.

“Almost forgot!”

She tucked the written note into Fluttershy’s mailbox.

“Sorry, Derpy, I know you hate it when we do letters without you, but this one’s too urgent to wait.”

Dash raced off again, to the sound of a bunny tearing into one of many half-eaten lettuces faithfully planted by Fluttershy. She liked to serve them in salads, for picky eaters like Angel Bunny. All too often, they never made it that far.

The afternoon’s light gradually faded.

“Not much farther now,” cooed Fluttershy. “Almost there!”

Rock Candy stumbled along after his mother, in a most peculiar way. He staggered as if drunk on salt or too sleepy to stay on his hooves, stretching out his legs and waving them around in an ostentatious display of ‘carry me, I am too tired to walk’.

Pinkie Pie brought up the rear, and butted his rump with the top of her head, causing him to scramble forward hastily and look back at her before resuming his groggy parade.

“Hah!” said Pinkie. “Thought so, buster. No dice! You’re too big to carry, and besides you’re totally faking! Can’t fool a fooler!”

“Oh, Pinkie, don’t do that! His little bones are not as sturdy as yours!” cried Fluttershy.

Pinkie gave her a long-suffering, yet affectionate look. “Cooterpie, that kid can do a double flip—or one and a half, really, because he lands on his head!”

“And you shouldn’t call me things like that in front of him. He’ll pick them up, and other parents will be cross with us.”

“He doesn’t talk yet,” said Pinkie. She looked somewhat frazzled, and spoke a little more curtly than usual.

“He will,” said Fluttershy. “Please? Be nice, and gentle. Baby foals and other innocent creatures should be treated with kindness and gentleness whether they can understand it or not, Pinkie. It’s important. Once you learn how to live, you try to pass it on to others. I am never cross with our baby, am I, dear little Rock?”

Pinkie rolled her eyes, as Rock licked Fluttershy’s nose. “He’s got you wrapped around his hoof, slickylickybits.”

“Shh. That is where I should be,” said Fluttershy. Then, she blinked. “Well, hello. Whose little friend are you?”

The bunny sat up, studying her. She studied it right back. “I’ve never seen that one before.”

“How can you tell?” said Pinkie. She then flinched, for her tail had begin twitching violently. “Augh! There it goes again!”

“It must be a false alarm, Pinkie,” soothed Fluttershy. “Nothing has been falling, the last six times it happened. Oh, look! Why is there mail? This isn’t Derpy’s usual time for delivering it!”

Pinkie wasn’t listening. She was gazing up at the sky, her eyes wild and skittish. “What do you want from me? Huh? Fall, already, whatever you are!”

Fluttershy had drawn the note from the mailbox, and laid it on the ground, where Rock had promptly sat down on it. “Oh, Rock, darling, do please move? Pretty please?” she begged. “I’ll ask, and plead, but I’m not sure I have time to entreat properly and I would like to see what this letter says! Please?”

He rolled away obligingly, flipping to his hooves with a spring and a bound, and Fluttershy read aloud, “Dear Fluttershy. Please keep your bunnies indoors at all times. Very important. No reason, love, Rainbow Dash.” She blinked. “Well! I was not aware Dashie was prejudiced against bunnies, much less to the point of not wanting even to see them! I am sorry, but I think that is just a little bit rude. I’ll speak to her about it, because that is just unreasonable.”

“It’s not that,” said Pinkie. Her teeth chattered.

“I’m sorry?” said Fluttershy.

“Something’s happening. Maybe that’s why my Pinkie Sense is going crazy. Weird notes. Awkward Apples. Random unexplained bunnies…”

“Bunnies require no explanation,” said Fluttershy. “They are just bunnies! What more could you ask from them?”

“I don’t know!” squeaked Pinkie. She winced, and repeated herself more calmly, “I don’t know. I just know something’s happening and it’s not good, Fluttershy, it’s not good. I better protect you and Rock. But how can I protect you when I don’t know what’s gonna fall?”

“Oh, Pinkie,” said Fluttershy indulgently.

“I mean it!”

“Oh, all right. How about I fix you some lovely daisy soup, my beloved darling, and put you to bed? All this twitching, with nothing happening, is leaving you a nervous wreck. Let me take care of you?”

Pinkie had hit the dirt again at another fierce tail-twitch. She gazed up at her mate frantically. “But… falling! Things! Bad! Weird!”

“Not another word! You need some rest and curative flower soup. I think dandelion, actually.”

Pinkie made a face. “That stuff’s so bitter!”

“It’s good for you,” said Fluttershy firmly. “And since you are so worried, I will fly around and see if I can find anything falling, or whatever else is happening to trouble you.”

“I know Rainbow Dash’s friend Gilda is in town. Staying with the Apple family, or something like that.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Maybe Ponyville’s standards are falling, then, to put up with a big meanie like that. Come along! Mama Fluttershy has two babies to care for tonight, and one of them must drink her dandelion soup and get big and strong again!”

Pinkie didn’t object. She said, to herself, “Got to go deeper. Deeper into the Pinkie Sense, find out what’s happening. Deeper! This chapter is usually where things really go off the hook. Wait, what am I talking about?” Her eye twitched.

“You’re feverish, darling,” said Fluttershy. She frowned, and added, “Or at least very Pinkie-ish! Come inside. I’m putting you to bed while I make you some soup!”

Pinkie accompanied Fluttershy willingly, trembling, comforted by Fluttershy’s soft wing across her withers. They went inside, and shut the door, leaving the bunny outside eating another lettuce.

“There you are!” cried Applejack.

Dash reared and whinnied in alarm. Applejack had come halfway to town, looking for her. They were fairly near the kids’ clubhouse, and Dash hadn’t been expecting the love of her life to spring out from behind a tree.

“Oh, honey, your leg! What’s happened to your leg?”

Rainbow tried to hide the bite marks. Explaining the bunny would mean explaining what it was doing in her house, which would mean telling Applejack unthinkable things about the griffin she was fucking. Dash winced anew, thinking about it, and said “Nothing! I, uh, hit it on a door.”

“Doors got teeth? Aw, now, Rainbow…”

“I said, I hit it on a door! Uh, it was a sharp door. Like pointy, splinters, you know. Don’t ask!” Seriously, don’t ask, she thought.

Applejack’s face showed her distress. “Well… all right, but we gonna have a talk, missy.”

“Fine! Come on. Let’s go home.”

They didn’t reach it. Apple Bloom ran to met them, and both Applejack and Dash blanched to see the look on her face.

“Help, help!” she cried. “Granny Smith!”

“Oh sweet Celestia, she died?” stammered Applejack.

“She’s gone crazy!”

Then they were all running, stampeding back to what was left of Applejack’s family, in a blur of panic and mad galloping. Applejack thundered into the house, to see Rainbow panting, working her wings and staring at Granny Smith, who sat quietly in a chair with an odd expression on her face, showing no signs of madness.

Applejack panted. “Granny? How ya doin’?”

“Dandy, thanks fer askin’,” replied Granny.

Apple Bloom ran in, her filly legs not equal to her big sister’s full gallop. “Ask—hhh—askher!” she gasped.

“Ask her what, sugarcube?” said Applejack.

Apple Bloom turned, gazing imploringly at Granny. “Granny, ain’t you worried about Big Macintosh bein’ missing again? You know, your grandcolt?”

Granny licked her lips, seeming to gather her thoughts.

“Don’t be so damn silly, child. You know I ain’t got no grandcolt.”

“See? See?” wailed Apple Bloom. “She done went crazy! She don’t know her own family!”

Had Apple Bloom been less upset, she might have seen the look of fear on Rainbow Dash’s face, looking at her beloved Applejack. Applejack had gone chalk white, looking stunned, staring at Granny and shaking her head weakly. She knew, somehow, what Granny was really saying.

“G-go to your room, Apple Bloom! Right now!” ordered Applejack.

“But we gotta do somethin’! Take her to the hospital, right away! Git help!”

“Rainbow!” cried Applejack, desperately.

Rainbow Dash hurried over, and began to coax, then wrestle the hysterical Apple Bloom up the stairs. “Come on, you heard her, leave this to the big ponies, come ON… do what she said, we need you to do that for us okay sport?” She limped a little from the injuries she’d refused to explain. Upstairs, Spy cried out, “Maaaaah!”, as Dash got Apple Bloom past the master bedroom and down the hall towards her own room. The door slammed on the two of them.

Applejack turned back toward Granny Smith, who regarded her through slitted, truculent eyes. There was so much veiled rage in those eyes. It was easy to tell that this had been Applesauce’s mother. It took family, someone who’d known Granny Smith for a lifetime, to sense behind that rage and pick up a hint of the hurt, the grief, the despair that had driven her to this intolerable place: but to sense it was all Applejack could do. On the outside, all was sheer hate, tightly bound up in proper behavior, no longer caring to appease anypony’s sensibilities. Inside, that faint scent of a poisonous, crushing despair that told Applejack, as clearly as if she’d said it aloud, that no further bullying would be any use.

Applejack stared at Granny Smith. Granny sat very straight and stared back.

“So,” said Applejack finally. “So… you ain’t got no grandcolt, huh?”

Granny licked her lips again. A vein in her forehead throbbed.

“None t’ speak of,” she said.

Turn The Stampede

Trixie Lulamoon’s head hung low. Blood dripped from her nose, and her eyes crossed a little, but she forced them straight and gritted her teeth, willing her magical ward to hold for another few seconds as the maddened townsponies charged it.

Behind their tumultuous forms, Apple Bloom squealed and flung herself bodily at Granny Smith, forcing her back. “Don’t you dare! We need to stop this! Come on, Sweetie Belle! Applejack! Help me make them stop!” And sure enough, beside the enraged filly was her little unicorn friend, looking distraught but joining with Apple Bloom in her valiant effort to turn the stampede, starting with Granny. Sweetie kept glancing to the side, where Rarity had dragged Derpy. She’d been moving very strangely, and had become lost to sight behind the milling bodies, and Sweetie’s loyalties were plainly divided.

There was a shower of sparks from overhead, and two figures appeared, flying low over the churning stampede of ponies as it crashed against the house and Trixie’s faltering wards.

“Stop this right now!” cried Twilight Sparkle in a clear, commanding voice, and Trixie lifted her head and saw the two winged forms above her. The wards winked out as Trixie gazed upon her Twilight, transformed. Trixie almost fell over, making a dry little scuffling noise as she cast a shaking hoof out to catch herself—and the sound could be heard, for every one of the townsponies had also stopped in their tracks to stare up at the regal, hovering creatures, and the only other noise was a pitiful sobbing from behind that crowd, and a chirping of crickets in the violence-shattered night.

Trixie slowly turned her head… and stared directly at Princess Luna.

“You… what did you do to her?” she croaked. She swallowed, tossing her mane, and her rage built. “What did you DO? You… you’ve TAKEN MY TWILIGHT…” Her body shuddered visibly as her horn flared into blinding brightness, and the crowd gasped expecting to see what nopony there had ever seen, what nopony should ever have to see, the death-bolt of a brilliant unicorn wizard: that last desperate resort, the dumping of one’s entire life-force into a magical attack. Trixie Lulamoon, believing her life was lost and her mate destroyed, bared her teeth and began to build that one fatal bolt that could, perhaps, even obliterate a full-grown alicorn… and then a wall of lavender blocked her sight, as she was tackled from above by Twilight Sparkle, who swooped down and knocked her to the ground. Trixie flailed, pinned down and helpless.

Twilight turned her head and squealed “Leave!” and above her, Princess Luna whirled and fled. Twilight turned, grabbing Trixie. “Listen! It’s me! Feel me! Smell me! Taste… okay, not that so much, not in front of everypony. Trixie, this is Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! Hello?”

All of Ponyville stared in astonishment at the huge, flapping purple wings, at the frantic scene played out on the library doorstep. From behind Trixie, there was a commotion and Applejack appeared in the doorway, looking haggard and concerned.

“Sweet Celestia, Twi,” she blurted, “look at you!” The unseen crying continued, somewhere out of sight.

“What did she do to you?” wailed Trixie, her momentum broken, her magical energies spent.

“She didn’t do anything!” yelled Twilight. “I did this myself, okay? I’m the new Princess! I’m kind of her boss now or something—it’s complicated! Now what’s going on here?”

Applejack looked out at the pony crowd, which looked back, stunned. They’d unthinkingly obeyed Twilight’s command to stop, just as they’d unthinkingly charged to attack the threat of the dangerous griffin.

“Uhh… ain’t nothin’ goin’ on right at the moment. Thank goodness! It looks like they kicked nine kinds o’ hell out of her!” She turned her head, calling back into the library. “You stay back! You hear? I’mma protect you if it’s th’ last thing I do! This here’s all my fault, Gilda!”

At the sound of that name, the crowd of townsponies stirred, upset and restless. Twilight let go of Trixie, and leapt to her hooves, facing them. “Don’t you dare! Don’t start that again, do you hear me? We’re gonna do this properly, I had a checklist, a checklist!”

They fell back in dismay, and finally revealed the source of that pitiful sobbing.

Derpy Hooves stared woefully up, eyes streaming with tears, bent over the grimacing form of Rarity. Rarity had dragged Derpy by the mane, away from the stampede, after sheltering the wall-eyed pegasus with her own body. She’d got Derpy safely out of harm’s way using just her teeth, her magic, and three very determined hooves.

It was plain to see why she’d moved so oddly while dragging Derpy to safety. She lay on her left side, sweating and disheveled, and with her right foreleg bent in an extra place. Sweetie Belle shrieked.

Twilight went pale, and began to walk forward, muttering, “I guess it’s time to find out what powers I really have!” The other ponies made way for her—even Sweetie Belle, who looked up imploringly at Twilight with her lip quivering, distressed beyond words.

“Hello… darling,” managed Rarity. “Nice… wings. Forgive my not shaking your hoof, I have had a little too much fun today.”

“She protected me!” said Derpy. “Rarity protected me from getting stepped on!”

Twilight looked over Derpy, who blushed and shied away from that intelligent, critical gaze. Then, Twilight studied Rarity, shaking her head gently. From broken foreleg to ruined mane and tail to the amazing collection of cuts and bruises, the fashionista was wrecked and demolished in every sense. Every sense, except one: her eyes were exultant, glowing with pride.

“You sure did, didn’t you?” said Twilight, gently.

“Yes!” replied Rarity, through a fierce, slightly mad grin.

Sweetie’s eyes got wider and wider as she looked back and forth between her Mom, and the sweet foolish pegasus that clung to her. As she took in Rarity’s amazing smile, Sweetie began to mirror it, her little face transformed as if she was looking upon something very beautiful and unexpected, but welcome all the same.

Twilight glanced back at Trixie, who was watching everything. She turned back. “I guess it all worked out, huh? We’re gonna miss you… ’girl’.”

At that, Rarity blinked, the crazy smile dropping away. She made as if to stand, and then grimaced horribly and abandoned the attempt, Derpy steadying her. “I’m not sure what you mean, Twilight. Just what are you implying?”

Twilight gave her a look. “Seriously? Hmph! We’ll get back to that. For now, Rarity, let’s try a little first-time alicorn magic. Hold out that hoof, please.”

Rarity tossed her mane with a snort, narrowed her eyes, muttered “Scening out here, darling? Really?” and began to lift her foreleg. It didn’t get far before it bent at that unwanted extra joint, and swung loose, to cries of horror from the townsponies. Rarity’s ears had flattened against her head, but still she held her leg out for Twilight, despite the pain.

Twilight narrowed her eyes as well, concentrating. “I saw this in one of Princess Celestia’s books. Don’t fidget. This might hurt but I’ll try to be quick.”

“Spoilsport,” crooned Rarity drunkenly, trembling as Twilight’s horn began to glow.

The glow reached out confidently, enfolding the shattered limb, drawing it out. Rarity convulsed for a moment as the broken leg was handled, but then she forced herself into tense motionlessness, hissing breaths between her tightly clamped teeth even as Derpy wailed and clung to her battered body. As the townsponies watched, Twilight restored Rarity’s foreleg to perfect straightness, holding it in a firm magical grip. Rarity gasped, her eyes rolling back in her head, and began to shake and sweat uncontrollably, but Twilight was unrelenting, the glow from her horn doubling as she worked the healing cantrip for all she was worth. The tableau remained still for second after second until, finally, Twilight bowed her head. She released Rarity’s foreleg, and Rarity held it outstretched, staring at it. She glanced out at the huge crowd, who stood silently and watched in awe. Every townspony gazed entranced at Rarity and only Rarity, as she extended her hoof in a curiously elegant and courteous gesture.

“I think that’s it,” Twilight said humbly. “I’ll want to have Celestia come tomorrow and check my work. Rarity, I suggest that you not attempt any strenuous activity for at least…”

There was a tiny delicate cracking noise, and the leg bent over at the break and dangled once more, swinging back and forth cheerfully.

“AHHNNN!” moaned Rarity. “Ngggh! Hhhh! Ohhh! Ahnnn!” As Twilight watched in horror, her jaw dropping, Rarity began shuddering all over and little globs of magic began spurting from her horn, as another spurt of vaginal ejaculation dripped across her lovely hindquarters to puddle on the ground. Derpy didn’t let go, even then: she just watched wide-eyed and held Rarity close as she orgasmed on and on, drained by her tribulations but still unicorn enough to squirt from both ends for a while, thanks to the so-piquant stimulation.

The onlookers were dumbfounded. Twilight’s jaw dangled in dismay. Trixie was shaking her head with the hint of a smile, and Applejack gulped, looking around. Apple Bloom was hugging Sweetie, who was scarlet with embarrassment.

Rarity’s shudders subsided, and she melted against the ground in a voluptuous manner, with one last sensuous quiver.

“Was it… good for you too? Ahnnnn…” she crooned.

“Y’all din’t see that,” said Applejack sternly, looking around at the shocked townsponies.

“Shit,” said Twilight Sparkle. “Can I get some help here? Let’s get her inside.”

Nopony moved. They just stared with comical looks of horror and dismay, and as the silence stretched out, Rarity lifted her sensuously lidded eyelashes and gazed out upon Ponyville gathered before her, Ponyville that had put her through so much, Ponyville that had shunned her for flaunting her kinkiness but turned avidly to her creations behind closed doors, Ponyville that had always judged her secretly and now stood before her, aghast at her final revelation.

Something else snapped within the harried fashionista.

Rarity writhed on the ground, kicking out and tossing Derpy off her with a squeak. She got her hind legs under her, struggled with her one good foreleg, and rose to three of her hooves… and advanced upon watching Ponyville with awkward little hops of her one front leg, laughing in their horrified faces and waving the broken limb at them, letting it bobble around.

“Hah! Judge me, will you? All your haughty propriety, and behind closed doors you are just as foul as I! Well, look, look! Do you see? Do you see what you have done?” declared Rarity triumphantly, wobbling and staggering. “You have scened with me at last, darlings! You were glorious filthy amateurs without a shred of decent practice, not so much as a damn safeword, and I survived your worst, do you hear me? Ahnnn! I came buckets under your trampling hooves, whether you like it or not! Treasure that thought, you miserable hypocrites, you’ll never get another chance with me! And I s… I s… I saved…”

Rarity’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed. Derpy had been staring in uncomprehending horror at her tirade, but screamed and rushed to her as she went over. So did Sweetie Belle, without hesitation.

“Get her inside!” commanded Twilight. “Trixie! With me!”

They concentrated and lifted limp Rarity off the ground, out of the little clearing the townsponies had made as they backed away from her outrageous performance. Sweetie Belle was right by their sides, helping, her little horn alight. Derpy followed them, trotting and flapping anxiously, without a glance for anypony else, and Twilight and Trixie let her. Sweetie reared and gave Derpy a big hug without breaking her own concentration, then turned and glared at the townsponies and squeaked, “So there!”

As they entered the library, there was another stir, for the townsponies saw Gilda in the doorway.

“Applejack!” called Twilight as she pushed past Gilda. “I saw you hugging the griffin. Sort this out, okay?”

Applejack turned to the townsponies, and gulped. They were pressing forward again, not in trampling panicking mode but with a certain tension all the same. She stood between Gilda and the townsponies, and faced Granny Smith.

“Y’ain’t dead,” said Granny Smith.

“Nope.”

“What the hell happened, girl?”

“Uhh,” said Applejack, “nothin’ you need to worry about. Go on home.”

She lifted a forehoof, shying away, for Apple Bloom had pushed through the crowd and was inspecting her belly wounds. “Din’t you say she done this to ya?”

“That’s my own business, Apple Bloom, you lay off!”

Granny bridled. “Like hell, girl! What about all that blood? We still lost Big Macintosh to this critter! Maybe it’s his blood on that sheet, and that crazy Rarity unicorn can’t tell one Apple from another?”

“A sheet?” snapped Applejack. “Bedsheet? Dash’s bed, up in them clouds? That were mine, my damn blood thank you, and here I am! Don’t you muddy the issue!”

“But Big Macintosh,” began Granny Smith, but Applejack cut her off.

“Big Macintosh ain’t dead! He run off to be with Braeburn, I reckon. Oh, don’t you make that face, Granny! Ah know it must be true! Gilda wouldn’t harm a hair on his hoof, y’all drove him off with your un-acceptin’ ways, an’ I can’t break you of it!”

Apple Bloom’s eyes were wide, and she was bouncing up and down. “Ya mean it? Is he really okay?”

“Consarn it,” cursed Granny, “some mis’rable kind of okay that is…”

Apple Bloom whirled to face her. “Stop that! When we thought Applejack was dead, Ah was th’ boss mare. Well, Ah’m still boss enough fer this! If we kin get Big Macintosh back, we GITTIN’ him back no matter what he do with his bottom, y’hear me? Ain’t that right, Applejack?”

“You expect me to go along with that?” demanded Granny Smith.

“Eyup,” came a new but familiar voice behind the crowd.

The herd of ponies parted, revealing Braeburn, Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash, and Big Macintosh standing there. Scootaloo stood proudly on Braeburn’s back and raked the crowd with her eyes. Big Macintosh was in front, between Dash and Braeburn. He held his head high, though his legs were shaking so badly it seemed like he might fall right over.

“Big Macintosh!” shrieked Apple Bloom, and ran to tackle him in an exuberant hug. He reared, hugging her back, his lip quivering and his eyes tearing up.

Rainbow Dash grinned, posing with flared wings and kicking the air in triumph, to Scootaloo’s obvious admiration. “Applejack! I got him! I answered your note, and I got him! I haven’t even slept, I was searching all this time! How’s that, huh? Pretty awesome? Also, I found a Braeburn, can we keep him?” She galloped over and seized Applejack, hugging her gleefully.

Applejack couldn’t help but cry out in pain, and Rainbow Dash froze.

“Wh… what’s wrong, Boss? I got him back, just like you s…”

She spotted the edge of a scar, looking down along Applejack’s body. She looked up into Applejack’s face, seeing the marks of pain, the tears. Slowly, Rainbow Dash stepped back, lowered her head, looked underneath Applejack at what had happened to her belly, seeing it for the first time.

Rainbow trembled. She turned. She looked behind Applejack, and Gilda backed up a step when she saw Rainbow’s eyes.

“I can explain…” stammered Gilda.

“No!” yelled Applejack, and intercepted Dash as she charged, wrestling with the maddened pegasus in spite of her own injuries. “Ow! Consarn it, OW, QUIT IT! Dashie! Stop, you are makin’ me worse!”

“Let me go!” raged Dash. “Those are claw wounds! She did this to you!”

“Tole you!” cried Granny Smith. “Ah tole you!”

Dash turned to look Applejack right in the eye. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kick her fucking ass, right now!”

“Ah WANTED her to do it!” yelled Applejack, and everypony went totally silent in shock.

Rainbow gulped. “Uh… you mind running that by me again, AJ?”

Applejack looked around at a sea of dismay. Her ears laid back. “You heard me,” she muttered. “Ah’m telling you, Ah made her do it. Weren’t her fault.”

Rainbow’s ears were back too, and she looked gutted. “But that c… can’t be true. What are you talking about, Applejack?” Applejack didn’t answer. Dash looked like she was falling from a very high place, without wings. “Applejack?”

Scootaloo had jumped down from Braeburn’s back to hug Apple Bloom, but now she looked up at Applejack’s obvious distress and her face fell. “Oh boy, this isn’t good.”

“You know how it is,” mumbled Applejack. “Did it yourself, got carried away once, din’cha? Playin’ rough. It were like that. I guess kinda… more. Seemed like th’ thing to do. At th’ time.”

“What the hell you sayin’, child?” demanded Granny Smith, and then froze at a sharp, bitter look from Applejack.

“You hold your peace,” said Applejack. “You’re a lot of it. Ah jes’ wanted to… it were jes’ a moment. A moment of weakness! Well, I can’t have weakness, can I? Ain’t for such as me! You can’t blame me, dammit, with all y’all carryin’ on and fightin’ and it’s always my job ta’ make everythin’ better an’ ah cain’t an’ I jes’ wanted to…”

She trailed off, looking sulky and hurt. Dash licked her lips. “Applejack? What are you saying?”

“Die,” muttered Applejack, looking away. “Jes’ for a moment! A moment of weakness on account of ah couldn’t help nopony nohow, Ah was losin’ my family this way an’ that, Ah always gotta be th’ strong one…”

“You are strong,” said Granny Smith, in a thin and shaky voice. “You are th’ strong one, ever since you was a filly. We all look up to you, Applejack.”

“A fat lot of good that did me when you was banishin’ my brother from your world!” retorted Applejack, eyes filling with tears. “How could you? Our family don’t mean nothin’ to ya unless it’s old school. Then you gave up on yourself, and that was worse! Nothin’ I said helped! When did I become so useless?”

“Y—you’re not useless, Applejack,” stammered Rainbow Dash.

“I watched my family die,” said Applejack bitterly, “all despairin’ an’ hatin’ an’ turnin’ away from each other. Even you, Rainbow. Without them, jes’ kill me on account of Ah’m dead inside anyways. Ah’m useless, I tell ya! I helped nothin’ an’ nopony.”

“Oh, my,” said Granny Smith. She’d gone pale. All of Ponyville was staring at the Apple boss mare as she stood, at bay, horribly wounded in the belly and, it seemed, in the heart.

A voice from the back of the herd called, “But you went and got us money to fix Town Hall!”

Applejack’s head snapped up. “They ain’t tole you? Ah failed! Ah couldn’t face y’all on account of you expected me to bring back that prize money! You mean to tell me they gave me credit for that? I have to do so much an’ now you tell me Ah ain’t even allowed t’ FAIL around here?”

From the back of the crowd, Mayor Mare stepped forward, looking bedraggled. “I… we thought it would keep pony spirits up, you’re quite the symbol to us. Yes, it was Bon Bon and I who provided the money. When they assumed it was you, we didn’t want to argue the point. Nopony cares so much about the generosity of some old mares, we were happy to do it. Please don’t talk this way, it’s distressing! We need you, Applejack. You’re a symbol of strength and courage to us all. You are the one pony everypony can always depend on!”

Applejack couldn’t speak for a moment. She gazed around at the crowd, as stricken as they were. Her hind legs shook as if she was moments from collapsing to the ground right in front of them, and when she spoke, it was with a wrenching earnestness. “Ah’m sorry… Ah’m so sorry… din’t realize how bad it would hurt y’all… ah was jes’ tryin’ to get… to get… to get OUT…” She began to cry, and dozens of ponies just stared helplessly, completely at a loss.

All but one.

“Applejack!” cried Apple Bloom. “You serious, big sister? I thought you wanted to be boss mare!”

Applejack shook her head in despair. “Nopony asked me! There was no choice, was there? Ah was jes’ a filly, an’ I got so good at it, and things jes’ went along…”

“Do you like it?” demanded Apple Bloom. “I thought you liked it! Tell me now, do you like it?”

“Hell no!” wailed Applejack. “Ah jes’ wanna be Dashie’s filly and not worry no more!”

The next thing she felt was small hooves leaping onto her back. Applejack twisted her neck, staring in astonishment, for Apple Bloom had jumped onto her, and instinctively she began to yell, “Hey!”

Filly teeth clamped down on her ear. Ponyville gasped.

Applejack shook her head. “What the hell, Apple Bloom? What’s th’ matter with you?”

Apple Bloom’s eyes were determined. “Y’ give?”

“Now what are you talkin’ about? Gimme a minute,” said Applejack, fighting to regain her composure. “Ah got this, Ah’m good…”

She squealed. Apple Bloom had bitten down, hard. Applejack reared, but her little sister clung to her neck, hanging onto her ear like a bulldog.

“Y’ GIVE?” repeated Apple Bloom, through her clenched teeth.

“What th’…” began Applejack, and then she looked around.

The whole town was watching in silence, and right in the front was Rainbow Dash, and Dash looked crushed, helpless. Applejack had never seen Dashie so hurt, and all the fight went out of her as she cast her mind over what she’d just done and said. As Apple Bloom bore down harder, Applejack realized the truth: the one thing she wanted most of all was for Dash to feel okay again. She also wanted her whole family to be well, and was obliged to fight for that, at any cost. The cost had been getting higher and higher. It didn’t matter, she cared nothing for herself and would throw her very life away trying to keep her family and her loved ones together, and she’d already gone that direction until she had no more self to sacrifice and her will to live was nothing but a black hole begging for respite.

And this was her reward: Rainbow Dash, the pony she loved above all else, looking into her eyes and seeing that void where love belonged.

She could not turn to Dash and say, “But I did it for you.” She had nothing left to say at all.

Applejack sagged. Apple Bloom’s hair bow had come completely undone. It fell, draping across her big sister’s mane, and she didn’t even care. Instead, she bit down harder and twisted her head, forcing another squeal out of Applejack as shards of pain rocked her tormented mind.

“Y’ GIVE?” demanded Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle had appeared at Twilight’s door. She ran over to Scootaloo, and they clung together, staring up at their friend as she dominated her elder.

“DO YOU…”

“Yeah!” wailed Applejack. “Ah give, Ah give!” She burst into tears, trembling, her face twisting in dismay.

Apple Bloom stared into the distance. She ceremoniously released Applejack’s ear, and gave it a little kiss.

“Ah am boss mare now, folks! Lay the fuck off mah sister, or y’all kin answer to me!”

Applejack collapsed to the ground, head in her hooves, her sister jumping off her back with a flourish of her tail, to gasps of awe from the crowd. Sweetie, then Scootaloo, shrieked.

Rainbow rushed forward to embrace her love. “It’s gonna be okay, Applejack, it’s gonna be okay…”

“Ah gotta… ah gotta straighten her out… she cain’t do this… oh Celestia, I’m so tired, it hurts so much but I jes’ GOT ta…”

“Applejack.” There was a strange tone in Dash’s voice.

“Whut?”

“Maybe you should look at this,” said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack blinked away tears, and followed Dash’s gaze, to the object of all Ponyville’s attention, Apple Bloom’s flank.

She’d never seen a cutie mark of three hearts sheltered within a big red apple before—an apple, she saw, that was also in the shape of a heart.

Then, Sweetie and Scootaloo were bowling Apple Bloom over, squealing with delight. “You did it! You did it!” they kept screaming. The crowd began to cheer.

Applejack trembled, going pale. “Aw, hell,” she said. She glanced at Granny Smith, and Granny looked stunned but not displeased. Applejack felt something slither across her back and she whinnied and kicked out with a cry of alarm, but Rainbow Dash was right there to hold and steady her.

“Easy, there, easy, baby! It’s only Apple Bloom’s ribbon.”

It was. It had slipped off her mane where it had fallen, and slid across her withers like a snake. Applejack gazed around, terrified, her lip quivering, surrounded by what seemed like strangers. It made no sense that they would look so deferentially to her little sister, that they would glance embarrassedly at her and look away. Then, Applejack realized she was weeping, trembling, and being comforted by Rainbow Dash in the middle of the street—and their behavior made a little more sense.

“It’s okay, Applejack,” soothed Dash, “it’s all gonna be okay.”

“Aw, hell…” quavered Applejack.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

Twilight had appeared at her door, staring out in astonishment. “What the heck just happened here? Why are they cheering? Whoa! Applejack, are you all right? You look like somepony just died!”

Rainbow fixed her with a glare. “Have a little respect, Twilight!”

“But what happened?”

“Well, she… HOLY CRAP!” squeaked Rainbow. Twilight had stepped forward, and her wings unfolded and spread.

“Oh! Um… there’s a new Princess in town, okay? I swear I’m totally normal in every way other than being immortal and the freaky powers and stuff. And these wings feel extremely weird, just saying!”

Dash twitched, looking stunned all over again. “Wow. Okay. Yeah. Right. Well, there’s a new boss Apple mare in town. Small but fierce, maybe you’ve met her…”

“TWILIGHT!” cried Apple Bloom, galloping up. “Hi! Lookit me!” She pirouetted, the Cutie Mark Crusaders frisking around her.

“You?” gasped Twilight Sparkle.

“It was time!” said Apple Bloom. “I seen my duty an’ I done it! T’was a mercy thing, now Ah’m the big cheese!”

Twilight gaped at her, but then a voice silenced everypony present.

“Apple Bloom?”

It was Applejack, and the voice trembled in terrible distress. Apple Bloom turned, to face her sister.

“Apple Bloom, d…” began Applejack, and choked up, unable to continue. Her face twisted while Dash hugged her comfortingly, and then she drove herself onwards as though she, too, was doing an awful duty that she could not put off any longer.

“…do I got to give you my hat?”

Apple Bloom looked at Applejack, startled, and Applejack gazed back in pitiful submission: not so much to the bold young mare who still wasn’t really her physical match, but submission to her own idea of what was fitting and proper, the same ideas that had haunted her for so many years and bound her in unyielding expectations. She’d blown it, given up the boss mare’s authority, and it was plain from Applejack’s eyes that she was also prepared to give up this token of her identity, and that it hurt her dreadfully even to consider it. Her lip quivered, her eyes were tearful, but she didn’t flinch.

Apple Bloom stared back, and the corner of her mouth turned up.

“Y’ don’t say,” she said quietly. “Wearin’ the hat, huh? Our mother’s hat? That there a symbol or somethin’, big sister?”

Applejack didn’t speak, but her gaze spoke for her.

“Funny thing about that,” said Apple Bloom thoughtfully. “Kinda important too, if ya ask me. Tells me a lot, that does. Ah guess you feel like you don’t deserve it no more?”

“Hey!” objected Rainbow Dash, angrily.

“Hush, you!” snapped Apple Bloom fiercely. “This is Apple family business! About the wonderful boss mare hat! Well, now, Applejack, listen up. Do you know th’ difference between you and me?”

Applejack blinked. “Huh?”

“Tole you, it’s important! Do you know the big difference between you and me, about that wonderful boss mare hat?”

“Uhhh… whut?” said Applejack, weakly.

Apple Bloom winked.

“AH don’t NEED one.”

She twirled around with a flounce of her tail, her untied mane flying free in the night breeze, and trotted off, accompanied by Sweetie and Scootaloo.

Applejack’s jaw dangled as the implications sank in. She saw the townsponies beginning to filter off, sleepy and tired after all their excitement. She saw Granny Smith gawping helplessly after the headstrong filly, plainly in no position to complain about her mane-style or anything else. She felt the familiar weight of her hat on her head, but it no longer carried the responsibility of being Boss Mare to Ponyville’s Apple Family. It was just her hat, now. Her very own. They were both retired, just like Granny—the pressure had moved on, as it always did.

She’d been the anomaly, taking leadership through tragedy and necessity. The old pattern had re-emerged, and a new mare had seized the reins by force of her own indomitable personality, and cast down her predecessor against her will, asserting her own rule. Applejack blinked away a tear that wasn’t sure whether it was grief or grateful.

Apple Bloom sure looked happy. She trotted off into the distance, followed by the townsponies, and they could hear her whinny in delight, prancing down the road.

Applejack’s ears quirked sideways in total befuddlement… and then she began to laugh.

Rainbow was still hugging her fiercely, and gave her a curious look. “What?” She glanced around, and saw a tiny green form. Northern Spy had made it out from Sweet Apple Acres, stayed out of trouble, and joined them. “Heya, Spy!” The foal snuggled up, nosing at Dash’s belly. “Yeah, gimme a minute, kiddo, I’ll be right with you. What’s so funny, Applejack?”

Applejack shook her head, as if to clear it. Her eyes, so recently tearful, showed a deep, wondrous, astonishment.

“Ah reckon… maybe things really are gonna be–”

“—okay,” said Spy in her wee, foalish voice.

Applejack reached out and snuggled Spy against her.

“Yep.”

They looked up, startled, at a pitiful squawk. Gilda was scrabbling at the ground, trying to resist as Trixie Lulamoon used her magic to forcibly push her out the door. A streamer of magic extended deeper into the library, some sort of power line leading to Twilight Sparkle. Trixie grunted, “Out you go! Trixie saw you hugging the earth pony, you don’t need to hide in our house, scat!”

Gilda tumbled over, and sprawled on the street as the door closed firmly behind her.

Rainbow snorted. “Graceful! Oh, stop looking at me like that, Gilda, Applejack explained what happened.”

Gilda pressed low to the ground. “Are they gone? The ponies?”

“Yep,” confirmed Applejack. “Aw, c’mere. I reckon I still got enough boss mare in me to keep you safe. And if Dashie ain’t gonna hurt you…”

Dash was studying Gilda, giving her a hard look. “First, I want you to tell me something, honestly. That time when I got mad and bucked the crap out of you, I wasn’t shy about giving you some good thumps to your insides and I paid a price for doing that. You hurt me, but not anywhere near as bad as what you did to Applejack. She’s hurt worse. I want to know why. Exactly what did she do to you, Gilda? Was it more crazy griffin fucking? Or maybe she’s the one that bucked you in the head? Did you fight? What really happened?”

Gilda cowered. Northern Spy got up, frisked over, and licked one of the long feathers that formed an overhanging crest from Gilda’s battered brow. When Gilda didn’t resist, Spy grabbed it in her mouth and yanked.

“Awk!”

Northern Spy trotted happily back to present Dash with the griffin feather, as Gilda frantically preened her head with a talon. “Goddammit, Dash…”

“She ain’t holdin’ out on ya,” said Applejack. “I, uh, well… Ah’m feelin’ much better now, but… two words. Full strength.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “Holy crap. From you? Have you even done me that hard?”

“Heck no!” protested Applejack. “Why would Ah do that? Dashie!”

“Damn,” said Dash. “Yeah, all right, Gilda, you’re forgiven. I know what that can do to you and I can’t even imagine what it must have been like. Don’t ever fucking do it again.”

“I was pretty worked up. I tried to control myself,” said Gilda. “She had her neck right against my beak and I was going, don’t bite, don’t bite. Well, I didn’t bite, at least.” Her face-feathers ruffled in an avian blush.

“What was that noise?” said Applejack, looking around.

Dash gave her a look. “That came from inside the library. Twilight and Trixie are in there, so I’ll give you one guess what they’re up to. If it was me guessing, I’d say Twilight is learning how to use wings. No, let me rephrase that. I’d say Trixie is learning how to use wings.” She smirked, licking her lips.

“Well, why not, I guess,” said Applejack. “You okay, Gilda?”

“I’m sorry,” said Gilda. Spy frisked up to her again. She shrank back warily, and then reached out a talon to scritch the foal’s mane. Spy reared up, shoving against the scritching talon with a little whinny of pleasure, and began prancing around, presenting her blue-maned nape for more scritches.

“Wow,” said Dash, her ears quirked. “Look at Spy go. She’s not scared at all.”

“She din’t grow up scared,” said Applejack. “Hey! Squirt! Go easy on her!”

Spy was rearing up, clambering onto Gilda. Applejack snapped at her tail and dragged her, protesting, off. “Hmph! Well, now what, Gilda Griffin? I guess you ain’t gettin’ thrown in no jail, huh?”

Gilda looked at her. “I’m going back.”

“Huh?”

Gilda sighed. “I used to think ponies were some sort of grass-eating miracle creatures. Us griffins, we were monsters, but you guys had a purity we could never have.” She gazed steadily at Applejack, then Rainbow Dash. “Maybe it’s just some ponies which are the grass-eating miracle creatures. I love you guys. Seriously. You stuck with me through all this. Except for Dash wanting to beat the crap out of me, but hey, honorary griffin, right? And you, too, Applejack. Honorary griffin. And probably this kid! Hey, one was enough!” she squawked at Spy, who was trying to get another headfeather.

“Awww,” said Applejack, blushing. “But you ain’t gonna stay with us?”

“No. I’ll visit you. I swear I will,” said Gilda. “I just… look, put it this way. I saw those ponies trample right over other fucking ponies, all right? A grey pegasus, and then this white unicorn dove in, and then they were just gone, dude. Imagine what they’d have done to me. I’m gonna be having nightmares for a while.”

Applejack made a face. “Oh yeah. Rarity. Huh.”

“What?”

“Let’s jes’ say we ain’t the most perverted ponies in th’ pasture an’ leave it at that?” She shook her head. “Dang. I kin jes’ about keep up with you, Gilda, but that mare kin scare me at times.”

Dash turned. “Oh boy. Rarity again? What did she do?”

“Ya missed it, Dashie. But it were pretty spectacular.”

“She got trampled by ponies,” offered Gilda. “They brought her into the library, along with that other pegasus, the grey one. That one was fine, though. That makes no fucking sense, what did Rarity do, shield her with her body? They trampled the shit out of her and the grey one didn’t have a scratch!”

Dash began to smile. “Wow. Who’d have thought that when I brought Derpy over to meet Twilight… wait a minute, though. That’s twice now you said trampled, Gilda, and you look like you took a real stomping. Did the townsponies really stampede on us? It sounds like they were pretty out of control. I didn’t see any of that.”

Applejack nodded, wincing. She looked bleak, for a moment, then shook herself and said, “Aw, well, critters is critters.”

Rainbow frowned. “Ponies shouldn’t act that way, though, it’s…”

“No!” interrupted Applejack. “Listen. Critters is critters!”

Both Gilda and Rainbow stared at her, and she went on.

“Everypony’s lookin’ for that perfect lover, or th’ perfect town to live in—you, Gilda, you thought you found the perfect species to be like on account of you were ashamed of bein’ a griffin. Well, ain’t no such thing. It’s jes’ us. Everywhere, far as you kin see, it’s jes’ ponies like us doin’ their best, which sometimes ain’t too hot. Try to forgive ‘em. Try to love th’ best in ‘em an’ be patient with th’ worst, because it might be your one chance at it.” She shook her head. “Looks like Ah survived my worst. Guess we all survived it.”

Rainbow hugged her. “Where you go, I go,” she said, which got her a concerned look from Applejack.

“Then Ah will have to go a lil’ more gently. What’s that noise?” said Applejack, glancing at the library.

“Wing lessons,” said Dash with a straight face.

“Yes,” Twilight had said. “Absolutely. Stay with her, right there. Can I get you a pillow?”

Derpy beamed up at Twilight and the adjacent wall. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle!”

“No more of that ‘Dusk Shine’ business, huh?”

That wiped the smile off the pegasus’s face. “Please don’t be mean to me, Twilight Sparkle.”

“I didn’t mean to… rghhhh!”

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Derpy, her wings rustling agitatedly.

Trixie had seized Twilight’s tail in her teeth, and pulled. “M’stress! Give her the p’llow and leave her alone.”

“She’s not alone, she’s with Rarity!” objected Twilight.

“Exactly!”

Twilight had followed Trixie’s lead. Sure enough, Derpy snuggled up to Rarity without hesitation, allowing the two unicorns—or the unicorn and the former unicorn—to head upstairs for some relative privacy.

“I still can’t quite believe it,” said Twilight. “Rarity’s so sophisticated. What do they see in each other?”

At that, Trixie hesitated. “Mistress—Trixie is not sure they see anything, yet. They feel, that is plain. You will remember that you’d ordered Girl to take this Derpy in hoof? Perhaps they are simply fast friends.”

“Rarity let herself be trampled by rampaging ponies for her!” objected Twilight.

“She enjoyed it. Good luck explaining that part to the pegasus!” said Trixie, wryly.

Twilight frowned. “Ooooh! That’s so frustrating, I was hoping at least something was going to come out right from all this!”

“But, Mistress…”

“But what?”

“But you’re here with me,” said Trixie. “You’re back.” She gulped. “If that is not enough, Trixie is sorry. But it is enough for Trixie.”

Twilight’s lip quivered, and then she’d rushed impulsively forward, met halfway, and she and Trixie were hugging like disaster victims.

“I’m so glad!” sobbed Twilight. “What must you have thought? When you saw me again, you looked awful!”

Trixie snorted in amusement. “Oh, Mistress! Always the soul of tact.”

“No, I mean… rrghhh!”

“Settle down,” said Trixie firmly. “You are all ruffled. These new wings you have are a mess, does it reflect your mood?”

“I don’t know,” said Twilight, as Trixie began firmly stroking her body with her hooves. “Mmmm…”

“Mistress is very tense, also. So many tight muscles… oh! These are new muscles, Twilight! Do they belong to your wings?”

“Ow! I guess they have to, huh? I should be grateful that I can fly at all, I guess the magic told me how. Too bad it didn’t give me better wing muscles to do it with!”

“Will you tell Trixie how it happened?”

“Absolutely. The first thing I noticed was that aaah!”

Trixie continued massaging the rigid tendons and wing muscles she’d found, and shushed Twilight. “Trixie did not mean right now. Lie still. Do I need to dominate you to make you relax?”

Twilight blinked. “Um. I’m not sure you can. Can you dominate an alicorn?”

Trixie smiled. “We’ll find out, won’t we? But for now, Mistress, let us address these wings of yours. Trixie has seen pegasi do this. Let’s see. This feather is clearly askew…”

“Unhhh!”

Trixie froze, glancing sideways at Twilight. All she’d done was grasp one feather in her teeth, and tug it into its correct position. Twilight stared back at her, eyes shocked, lips parted in a gasp.

Trixie began to grin a beautiful, wicked grin, the feather still held in her teeth.

“Lie still,” she ordered. “Th’s might t’ke a while.”

They were halfway back to Sweet Apple Acres, ambling along the road, when Gilda squawked and jumped back several feet, startling Spy. Gilda took cover behind Applejack, who turned and blinked at her. “Th’ hay, sugarcube?”

Gilda just cowered and stared, and Applejack and Rainbow Dash followed her gaze down the road, to see the last thing they expected to see: a matching, cringing posture from a butter-yellow pegasus, backed up by her unaccountably stern mate and bouncing baby foal.

“Fluttershy?” said Dash. “What are you doing, what’s the matter?”

“I’m sorry!” sobbed Fluttershy, pressing low to the ground, her wings trailing miserably. “I’m so sorry, Gilda!”

Gilda’s head popped up over Applejack’s rump. “Don’t let her get near me, okay?”

“You crazy or somethin’?” barked Applejack. “That there’s Fluttershy! Look at her! Now, why are you…” She trailed off, eyes widening.

Rainbow Dash was glancing back and forth between Gilda and Fluttershy, ears splayed in complete astonishment. “Wait a minute. I know there was a big crowd of ponies, and everypony was acting like they’d stampeded you. That’s what I thought happened. Are you seriously telling me that…”

“I’m sorry, okay?” wailed Fluttershy. “It was wrong of me and makes me just as bad as you! Which is very bad indeed! I could have killed you, I almost did!”

Gilda peered over Applejack’s firm rump with wide, wide eyes, not daring to leave the shelter of that earth pony body as if she thought Fluttershy might suddenly and randomly explode. Spy blinked confusedly at the spectacle, trying to figure out whether to be alarmed. Rainbow Dash stared at Gilda, then stared back at Fluttershy’s sulky misery, and then Dash exploded—her way.

“BAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! eeep! Ahahahaha, eep, eep!”

“It’s not funny!” yelled Fluttershy. “Don’t laugh at me! I did horrible bad things!”

Pinkie trotted over. “Dashie! I admit it’s kind of crazy, but please, stay with us, this is serious! Laughie time later, okay? Fluttershy needs to make a really big apology!”

“Oh my gosh! eeep! Fluttershy beat the living shit out of Gilda!” squeaked Dash, rolling around on the ground, Spy capering and whinnying with her. “Oof!” she added, as Rock Candy ran over and jumped on her, joining the rough-house.

“Easy there, honey,” said Applejack with some concern. Gilda was still hiding behind her butt, and she saw how upset Fluttershy seemed. “Take a deep breath, okay? Since when does Pinkie ask you not to laugh?”

“I did say later,” corrected Pinkie. “Laughing is good! But I’m gonna stick a cupcake in your eye if you don’t let Fluttershy make nice. She needs to say this and we all need to hear it.”

Applejack blinked. “So yer sayin’ it’s true? The one what beat up Gilda that bad, it was Fluttershy? Seriously?”

Rainbow Dash was getting control of herself. She bounced up, and fluttered over to Gilda, who cringed back slightly even from so friendly a pegasus. Dash studied Gilda’s face, the bruises and missing feathers that spoke of a horrible beating, and went on to inspect the powerful, predatory body, seeing evidence of further pummeling. She looked sharply over to Fluttershy, seeing for the first time that the gentle pegasus bore claw marks, cuts on her face and body.

Rainbow Dash’s jaw slowly dropped—before she reeled it in, gulped, and simply said, “HOW?”

“I said I was sorry,” said Fluttershy, looking away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“They cornered me in your doorway,” said Gilda. “This cop pegasus, and some kind of fancy mare who wasn’t even a pegasus. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t scared to be up on a cloud. I kinda thought if I knocked him out of the way, I could blow that joint. I did, too—I bodychecked him off the cloud, and his mare jumped back and took a big tumble, and sure enough he grabbed her. But then all of a sudden this monster is tearing me to fucking shreds…”

Rainbow squealed. “Eeeee! Bad ASS!”

“No! Just BAD!” cried Fluttershy.

“No,” corrected Pinkie, “just Flutterbutter BEING an ass…”

“But why would she do that?” said Applejack. “It ain’t like her nohow!”

Applejack and Rainbow looked at Fluttershy, who peered tearfully up at them.

“I thought she killed you,” she said to Applejack. Her face flashed into anger, unexpectedly. “And I know she killed a bunny!”

Gilda flinched, and squawked, “How do you know that? I went so far out of my way to hunt! I kept it strictly out around griffin country and inside Dash’s house where no ponies could ever see me!”

Applejack winced. “Ayep. There’s your problem, I reckon. Fluttershy, she’s good at seein’.”

“This is because she eats bunnies?” said Dash. “But Fluttershy, she’s a griffin! Would you rather she ate ponies? I don’t like it either but she’s just not made like you and me!”

Pinkie chimed in. “We need to have this conversation, Fluttiebuttie. Gilda can’t eat birdseed.” She gulped, and went on carefully. “In fact, you might find that some of our own pets would be happier and healthier if they didn’t just only eat birdseed. The hawk and the eagle, for instance, they’re definitely not getting their birdie vitamins on just birdseed.”

“Oh, but they couldn’t bear to go back to the way they were!” protested Fluttershy. “And what are they supposed to do, eat Angel? No way!”

“Oh, no no!” squeaked Pinkie. “No! I’m just saying, they are like Gilda. They can go somewhere far away from our home, like they already… um, just far away from Ponyville, okay? I think it won’t be that hard to convince ‘em. If we just explain that the reason they’re feeling sick and faint is that they are predator birds and they’ve been starving to death for years, never hunting for food like regular eagles and hawks…”

Fluttershy stared hard at Pinkie, who put on a determinedly innocent look.

“They’re feeling sick?”

“They’re afraid to tell you because they know what you’d think,” said Pinkie, trying to cross her hooves behind her back. “I think it’s really gross, too, but they’re your pets, flippylippy. You should care for them properly.”

“But I… ohh!” wailed Fluttershy. “I do everything wrong, I’m horrible!”

Pinkie quivered with sympathy, but held onto the stern look for dear life. “We’ll get to that, missy. Now, what have we learned?”

Gilda began to creep out from behind Applejack, watching, as Fluttershy grovelled in the dirt miserably.

“I, I, I learned I should never be strong!” cried Fluttershy. “Because I’m terrible and it just ruins everything! Maybe I should let scary monsters eat Angel and be done with it!”

“Whoa there!” said Applejack. “Settle down!”

Pinkie faced her. “Wrong answer! Fluttershy, it’s okay to be strong. But when you think you are so weak and helpless, when you’re desperate, you use your strength wrongly. You don’t know your own strength! You should learn. And you can’t learn by pretending to be weak and awful. Are you listening, Fluttershy?”

She broke off, as she watched something amazing happen.

Gilda’s limbs were trembling, her leonine tail drooped low, but she was creeping up to where Fluttershy lay. The stricken pegasus gazed up out of self-pitying, tearful eyes, but didn’t flinch or try to defend herself in any way. Gilda slunk nearer, shaking like a leaf, until she was beak to nose with her tormentor.

“Uh… you. Honorary griffin… okay?”

Fluttershy blinked, then did a double-take. “Ew!” she said, frowning.

“Yeah, but still,” said Gilda stubbornly. “I mean it. You are one mother of a fighter. Seriously. Honorary griffin?”

Fluttershy made a face, her expression darkening. “I am a mother. I’m the mother to this foal. If you touch him I’ll kill you all over again, okay?”

Gilda flinched, and Applejack snapped, “Hey! Gilda’s not going to do that! She, uh, she understands sparing foals. It’s, uh… a pony thing. Which we got in common. Ain’t that right, Gilda?”

“Yeah,” said Gilda. “Yeah, we’ve got that in common. Can you please stop glaring at me, uh, Fluttershy? You’re scaring the crap out of me again.”

Fluttershy’s face fell. “I’m sorry!”

“Me too, kid, me too.”

Gilda then oofed, for Rock Candy had bounced off her rump. Fluttershy shrieked, and begged, “Please, Rock, don’t do that!” and with Pinkie herding her and Rock one way, and Applejack coaxing Gilda the other, a comfortable distance was once again imposed, and both griffin and pegasus breathed a little more easily.

“Now was that so hard?” teased Rainbow Dash, as Spy clambered onto Gilda and stood on her back.

Pinkie’s eyes bugged out. “Are you kidding, Dashie? It was super ultra impossible-mode hard! It was hardy mcHardersons hard! Fluttershy, I’m telling you, you are such an incredibly tough nut to crack…”

“And an incredibly tough fighter that any griffin would be terrified of,” added Gilda.

“And a cuddly-wuddly big softie fluffypony!” concluded Rainbow Dash, and the others stared at her. “What? It’s all true!”

“No,” said Fluttershy softly. “No, more than any of that—I’m grateful.”

“Eh?” said Gilda.

“I’ve been terrible,” said Fluttershy, looking her victim in the eyes, “but I’m so grateful you’re okay and that I didn’t hurt you too badly. And my friends believed in me and brought me back from a very bad place, and I’m grateful to them as well. And most of all, I’m grateful I can turn over a new leaf and work on learning how to live so I don’t hurt other creatures ever again. Do you know the moment when I knew it had all gone wrong?”

“When was that, Fluttershy?” said Applejack.

“It was when I felt Rock holding me back—Rock Candy, my beloved foal. He can’t even talk yet, but all the same he understood somehow,” said Fluttershy. “And he would not let me go further. I could see in his eyes, he knew I was doing wrong, and he just was not going to let me be a bad pony. H—he believed in me when I didn’t know to believe in myself. And more than anypony else, my foal Rock taught me the difference between right and wrong.”

They all stared at the little white foal, who looked back insouciantly. Then he let out a tiny oof, for Pinkie had grabbed him up in a big hug, and tossed him in the air, where he flipped and landed in a comical heap.

“Oh, Pinkie,” cried Fluttershy, “don’t! He’ll hurt himself!”

“Not likely!” said Pinkie. “I think he gets that from me! He’s a tough little guy, and smart as a whip!”

“I don’t understand what’s supposed to be smart about those,” objected Fluttershy.

Pinkie blinked. “Oh, you could use one as twine, or swing from it, or tie knots in it to remember things, there’s bound to be lots of smart things you could do with one! I should get one from Rarity. Maybe I could keep you in check then, juiceygoosey!”

Fluttershy hmphed, and gathered Rock Candy up in a tender snuggle. “Don’t you listen. Oh, Rock! You’ve done so much, and you’re such a clever little pony, and all without a single word! When will we finally hear you say your first words?”

“When it’s funny?”

Four sets of adult pony eyes, one set of foal eyes and one set of griffin eyes widened unexpectedly, looking around for the source of the new voice.

Pinkie looked down, and Rock Candy looked up at her with an expression of bland innocence—yet, with an irrepressible twinkle in his gaze that gave him away.

She smiled, then beamed, then began to giggle harder and harder, and at last there was no mistaking it: it was laughie time, and all was well.