Equestria Dark: Tales of a New Appleloosan Stallion Water Salespony

Written by VelvetHeart

Rumble’d always achingly looked forward to being a grown stallion, just like his awesome big brother. He’d be huge, have this sweet scruff, and all the mares’d give him attention and do stuff for him, like buy him candy and do his homework.

Alas for Rumble, puberty had different plans for him. By the end of summer vacation, he could be heard plaintively complaining at the dinner table; “MoOoOo-oom! When you said I’d be growing up, I thought you meant I’d get bigger, not that I’d be growing stilts!” The awkward, long-legged gesturing that accompanied this statement only made his herd-parents and sisters laugh harder.

Luckily, the little colt soon began filling out, and poor Rumble’s wishes finally began coming true, if not quite how he imagined it: He now had the sudden undivided attention of the entire class whenever he so much as coughed or shifted in his chair, to the steadily-growing frustration of the teacher. It wasn’t his fault! He’d only accidentally dropped from his sheath once! And that was just for a little while, because he really, really needed to pee! Now it seemed like half the mares in school were just waiting for him to do it again so they could laugh at him or something.

And it was all made worse by the constant itching! He was growing scruff alright, but in all the wrong places; Rumble found himself constantly forced to keep from biting at the uneven little rings of fluff surrounding his ankles. Wasn’t it only Earth Ponies who were supposed to grow fetlocks?

The embarrassment, understandable. The itching, barely tolerable...

...but Rumble could’ve never even imagined he’d wake up to the feeling of his nose exploding! With a shriek, he kicked the covers from his body, forelegs clamping down on the masculine snout that had distorted his face those past few months in a futile effort to stop the liquid fire pouring through his nasal cavity. The door to his bedroom slammed open as one of his herdsisters practically broke the lock off in her hurry to get to him, only to stop mid-step, halfway into the room. With large eyes, she stared...

...while the fire in Rumble’s nose cooled.

...while others joined her in the doorway.

...until the young stallion finally looked down to see what had caught their eyes so.

And there it was, staring back at him in full and open display - completely turgid.  Right there in front of his herdsisters. Whatever pain lingered in his snout was quickly made a secondary concern as he desperately tried to cover himself, his face flushing.

“It’s OK, mom!” Windwhistler called out as one of the herd’s mature mares joined the pony traffic jam at Rumble’s door. She couldn’t help but giggle when she added, “Rumble just showed us he’s a grown stallion now!”

“Oh dear! Alright, all you young ones clear out. Give your little brother some peace.” It was Silver Lining, one of the original mares of the herd, who gently nudged the blushing Rumble out of his room and into the common area, where the other matronly mares of the herd were already gathered.

Stepping across the threshold was like stepping into a new world, one Rumble had never even known of before; although his nose still hurt a little, it was telling him things his eyes couldn’t possibly know. The mares, and even his own bloodmother, were painted in invisible stripes of his father’s scent, as if they were wearing warpaint that screamed Hardback’s message; ‘Mine!’

It was only after Rumble opened his eyes again that the horrifying truth of this sudden flood of information came to him: He’d just sniffed his mother!

He’d just sniffed his mother’s FLANKS!

In front of everypony! How could this get any more emb-

Something slapped his belly...

“Oh, our little colt is finally grown up!”

“I knew this day would come!”

At that moment, the limp-eared, horrified Rumble wished he was an earthpony - With a floor made of cloudstuff, it would still have been preferable to this.

The waiting room was small, almost cozy. The lights cast the room in warm shades of orange, and while the floor consisted of tiling (“In case of ‘accidents’,” his mom cheerfully supplied), everything else involved drapes and wall posters.

“Doctor Heartsglow will see you now,” the assistant chirped, gently leading the still-mortified Rumble through the door, and into the buildings single, somewhat-plush examination room.

“Well, hello there, young stallion, I’m Doctor Heartsglow,” the mare behind the desk said as she shuffled out and gave Rumble a professional smile.  “I’m sure you know why you’re here but - in case you don’t - you’re here because you’ve joined the ranks of the sexually mature stallions. That’s a very special, but very confusing moment, so I’m sure you’ll have a lot of questions. First, however, we have a few tests to perform, just to make sure.”

Those tests, surprisingly, mostly involved his snout. Little rags were scattered across the desk, and Rumble was made to guess which was which without looking, using only his nose to find each one. It proved remarkably easy. Soon he found himself identifying each by scent alone, or ‘pheromones’, as the doctor called it. Apparently he wasn’t like a dog - all that extra space in his snout was used mostly by ‘pheromone-receptors’, which meant he could now smell all kinds of signals that ponies gave off that mares couldn’t even notice, but he wouldn’t be able to, say, track an escaping criminal.

The rest seemed very similar to the normal medical examinations he went through as a colt: He was poked, probed, weighed, and measured. The measuring was a little different - again, his snout got the majority of the attention, but things got a little awkward when Rumble was asked to produce an erection for measuring. It got even more awkward when he failed, and Doctor Heartsglow was forced to use her surprisingly-well-trained skills to help the young stallion.

“It’s official, you’re no longer a colt. You’re a stallion now.” Doctor Heartsglow scribbled a few small notes on a clipboard. “Which means...” The doctor’s voice dropped to a husky purr, “...I’m going to have to teach you a few things about sex.”

It wasn’t that bad, it turned out. Rumble had a lot of questions answered, and the doctor did so without the faintest hint of judgement or shame. She even coaxed him into exploring both himself and her.

Unfortunately, the ‘Stal-ed’ visit did come with homework: A strange wooden plank with a large quantity of cloth rags stapled to it, along with a list of names. It contained the scent-flags of all the stallions living in the local area, and he was supposed to know all of them by the next visit, at which point he’d be asked to mark some pieces of cloth with his own scent for the official stallion registry.

Luckily, nopony would even know about Rumble’s embarrassment, or the fact that he was now officially a legal, sexually-mature stallion.

...It was in the school newspaper the next day.