Sweetie Drops cringed back, trying to figure out how to talk herself out of the predicament.
“Hey, look, over there!” she cried, but it didn’t work. Mayor Mare continued to stand in front of her, frozen in horror, staring.
Only a few feet separated Sweetie Drops and her charge from safety, but it might as well have been miles.
“Um,” said Sweetie Drops. “This is a crazy dream, okay? It’s me, Bon Bon, and if you close your eyes and shake your tail and don’t pay attention to any noises or funny things happening for the next four seconds, you’ll wake up with everything normal and me giving you a kiss…”
Lying wasn’t working as well as usual.
“Did you think you saw a changeling?” said Sweetie Drops. “Oh, my poor Mayor Mare! Why, I don’t see anything, and I’m definitely Bon Bon just like before, and there’s definitely not anything trembling against my leg. You must have a fever, or a cold, or some other sort of ailment that leads to seeing things that don’t exist! Also there was never a secret spy lair.”
Mayor Mare gulped. She wasn’t staring at Sweetie Drops, she was staring at the changeling fugitive, and Sweetie Drops didn’t like that one bit. It was making the little cutie shake like a leaf. She rallied.
“Look into my eyes,” said Sweetie Drops. “You’re growing sleepy, very sleepy…”
Mayor Mare didn’t look the least bit sleepy. She looked appalled. Still, she said nothing.
Sweetie Drops, out of brilliant secret agent tactics, snapped.
“OKAAY!” she whinnied, bursting into tears. “I give! This isn’t an optical illusion or you having a dream! It’s a real live baby changeling, but I’m keeping it, and you can’t stop me!”
Mayor Mare’s horror only increased, and still she didn’t move a muscle or make a sound.
Sweetie Drops whirled, and hugged the little changeling. “I know we’re supposed to be frightened of them but this one’s totally different! It won’t even eat love when I try to feed it, and it can’t turn into ponies or doesn’t want to, and it’s totally peaceful and I found it when I was working on the Case of the Mysterious Changeling At The Wedding, which is my job, so there!”
Slowly, Mayor Mare’s jaw began to drop, there being no other way to express her incredulity and dismay.
Sweetie Drops realized she had given herself away, and threw all her cards on the table in desperation. “And I know I’m supposed to be Bon Bon but even that is a lie because I’m Celestial Secret Agent Sweetie Drops, with a secret spy lair and everything, and I’m here to help the Princess take care of Ponyville! And not only that, I know she will back me up and let me keep the baby changeling in my secret lair because it’s a nice changeling and deserves our understanding and never hurt anypony! And you might think it’s not my place to say that ‘cos I’m only Bon Bon but I swear it’s not true, I’m a very smart and loyal secret agent and spy which is how come I know Celestia will listen to me when I tell her it’s okay, because the truth is… the truth is…”
Mayor Mare looked about ready to cry.
Sweetie Drops gulped.
“I’m so sorry, Mayor Mare,” she said, clinging to the trembling little changeling. “This must be so hard to understand. I swear I love you. That won’t ever change, ever…”
She took a deep breath, and said it.
“But the truth is, I’ve been leading a total secret life all this time.”
Mayor Mare gulped, her lip quivering piteously.
“Me too,” she said.
A green glowing flash lit the hallway, starting at her hooves and zipping up to her head, and Mayor Mare stood revealed in her full-grown changeling form.
Sweetie’s jaw dropped, the fading light still reflecting in her astonished eyes. “Guh,” she said.
“MOMMM!” shrieked the little changeling, and yanked free of Sweetie’s embrace, galloping tearfully into the waiting hug of its mother.
Sweetie plunked back onto her pony posterior, and gawked at the adorable tableau. The baby changeling sobbed and hiccupped, comforted by its Mom. And the grown-up adult changeling cuddled it tenderly, sitting there where her beloved Mayor Mare had been… but it didn’t look at the baby, for all that its touch spoke of love.
It just kept gazing at Sweetie, sitting there where ‘Bon Bon’ had been… and its deep, cool, glowing blue eyes glistened with tears, and not just that: their yearning softness spoke of love, and a kind of surrender.
Sweetie took a breath.
“Who are you?”
“Mayor Mare,” said the changeling. “Always. For you…”
The little changeling let out a wail, and hiccupped again. For the first time, the changeling Mom dropped her gaze. “Oh, Kevin! It’s okay, Kevin. We’re still here. Nopony is hurting us, it’s okay…”
Sweetie’s jaw had dropped again. “Kevin?!”
“It’s a nice name,” said the changeling defensively. “Don’t judge.”
Sweetie rose, and stepped closer. “You sound like Mayor Mare! And you talk like Mayor Mare.”
“I AM Mayor Mare!” protested Mayor Mare. “That’s my name now! I take care of things for the ponies.”
“What happened to the original Mayor Mare?” challenged Sweetie.
That got her a pout and a grumpy look. “Well, what happened to the original Bon Bon?”
“There wasn’t one!” said Sweetie Drops. “I just made it up and came to town and… oh. Really?”
“I am Mayor Mare,” said Mayor Mare. “I confess it’s not imaginative. Mayor because that was my fondest aspiration, and Mare because I proposed to live as a mare in every way while I helped ponies. It was a good plan. Is, I mean. I don’t know what you’re going to do now, but I couldn’t bear it any longer. I love you, Bon Bon, and seeing you protecting little Kevin, I loved you more than ever.”
“Sweetie Drops,” corrected Sweetie Drops.
“At least I stuck to one name,” retorted Mayor Mare. She winced. “I’m sorry. It really is still you, isn’t it? You even look sort of cranky, though I could always tell that was just your way.”
Sweetie pouted. “Oh, phoo! Yes, I am a little cranky. Here’s the thing, Mayor Mare. It’s just me here, but I love and respect Princess Celestia, and I’ll have to report to her eventually. Don’t be afraid: I know she is kind. But I still must know one thing. Are you here so that you and your child can feed on love from Ponyville?”
Mayor Mare looked her straight in the eye, with an expression Sweetie had never imagined a changeling could wear. It was a look of calm serenity, joy… and a quiet pride.
“No,” said Mayor Mare. “I thrive by GIVING love to all Ponyville. Including you… my love.”
Sweetie Drops sat back. “Keep talking. I see it, but I can hardly believe it.”
Mayor Mare took a deep breath, her insectile wings rustling dryly with nervousness, but her jaw set in determination. “At first I couldn’t believe it, either. It seems a lifetime ago… well, it is. Ponies are so cute! I couldn’t hurt them. And I didn’t want trouble, and I hid. It was madness, especially since I had a larva with me.”
“Erm… ew?” said Sweetie Drops.
That got her a grumpy look. “Kevin, to you. I won’t expect you to understand. Anyhow his carapace is lovely now. The point is, I just couldn’t prey any longer. So I hid, and stayed close to the dear sweet ponies, and I set out to starve with honor. And I tried to hasten the process by loving them with all my dorsal vessel.”
Sweetie Drops blinked.
“Heart, to you,” said Mayor Mare. “We’re sort of a bag of goo in a shell: it’s hard to explain to mammals.”
“You can explain that later,” said Sweetie Drops. “What happened, Mayor Mare?”
Mayor Mare’s eyes softened into a grateful gaze. “Something wonderful, Bon B… Sweetie. Something wonderful. Maybe I do need to explain a little about changelings? The dorsal vessel pumps our goo to the top, and then it sort of flows over our organs and sustains them. There’s no specific direction required, it just has to circulate.”
“But how does that…” began Sweetie Drops, and then her jaw dropped and her eyes went wider than they’d ever gone. “YOU MEAN?”
“I do,” said Mayor Mare with quiet certainty. “I am living proof, and I’m teaching Kevin the same thing. A changeling can survive just as well by loving others. It’s the flow, the circulation that matters, not the direction. It has all been worth it, every last second. I know the truth now to the core of my thorax, and if we survive, one day I and my child will change the world.”
Sweetie gawked at the serene, benevolent changeling that was Mayor Mare, and then her emotions overwhelmed her. “EEEEE!” she squealed, rushed forward and snuggled the smiling bugpony, her little pony heart going pitter-pat. “Eeee, I love you so much! That is so awesome!”
Mayor Mare gave a little, ecstatic sigh, and tenderly stroked Sweetie’s mane with a holey, chitinous hoof.
Then, Sweetie blinked. “Now wait a minute! Wait just one second.”
“Which?” asked Mayor Mare, the luminous blue eyes blinking.
“Sh! No, I mean… that can’t be true! It can’t be true because I love you so much! I’m loving you more right now, so how can you possibly not be eating any of that if it’s a flow? I mean, it’s not hurting me, but wait a minute! What you say CAN’T be true.” She poked experimentally at Mayor Mare’s slim, translucent green belly.
“Oh, phoo,” said Mayor Mare, embarrassedly, with a toss of her antennae. “I won’t be fool enough to deny it. Your love is delicious. And yes, I give it right back, but I can’t prove my story by you, darling, not in a million years. However! You’ve not thought things through, dear Agent Sweetie. What, precisely, do I do in Ponyville?”
Sweetie frowned. “You’re Mayor Mare. It’s amazing to think of it now, but even before I came to town you were Mayor. Since you’ve always been a changeling, that means you got love before you ever met me, perhaps from your job. But that makes no sense at all because… oh!”
Mayor Mare nodded solemnly. “You’ve got it. I’m their Mayor, and all day long ponies come to me with troubles and problems and expect my help. Ever since we were together, it’s frustrated you that they don’t express more gratitude, don’t love me for what I do for them. That’s the nature of politics, I’m afraid, you only meet them when they’re cross with you. But do you see? Every day I do my best to help guide the ponies, even if they’re ungrateful or cross… because I love them. And I never fail to love them… because that keeps me alive and well.”
Sweetie Drops gawked at her wonderful Mayor Mare again, stars in her eyes. It all added up, and it was so beautiful, inside and out.
Mayor Mare scuffed a bug hoof on the floor embarrassedly. “Rather ponylike, in fact, which is something I enjoy about it. And yes, you’re different, but you’re my mate. I’ve indulged, there’s nothing so wrong with that. It all balances out, and one can hardly be blamed, after a week of bread and water, if one is enthusiastic for… sweets.”
“Oh, wow,” said Sweetie Drops. “The Princess is going to be so happy! She loves making peace… and she loves creatures like you!”
“And I love you,” said Mayor Mare, “but also, I’m so grateful! Now I don’t have to hide Kevin from you. I promise, I’m teaching him to love others and not to become copies of ponies. It’s actually a lot harder to make up a pony out of your head, but I’ve become so used to being Mayor Mare that it’s no trouble anymore. Little Kevin will eventually invent a pony to be, but I can’t tell you how happy I am that you could accept him just as he was. He’s my little squishgrub, yes he is!”
Sweetie’s ears were quirked sideways at the odd terms of endearment, but she smiled. She did chide the Mayor, “It doesn’t go both ways, though!”
The luminous blue eyes blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“All I mean is, I tried to feed him out in the Everfree Forest and he wouldn’t let me! Maybe he doesn’t trust me?”
Kevin’s cute little blue glowy eyes blinked at her, as Mayor Changeling hastened to explain.
“He was just being good! It shows he respects you as a pony. I asked him not to eat love around Ponyville, and it seems he has been good to his chkktrxxtvv.”
“Say what?” gawked Sweetie Drops.
“Changeling talk,” said the Mayor dismissively. “He can’t really talk pony yet, but he’s getting better. Yes you are!”
“Well, now that we’re all friends,” said Sweetie, “do I get to feed him? I told him I would and it’s like I’m not keeping my promise.”
“Awww!” said Mayor Mare. “Just a moment…”
She whispered some weird sounding crackly noises to Kevin, whose eyes widened. Then, he turned to Sweetie, eyes still wide, lower lip poking out in a chitinous pout, looking as vulnerable as a lost kitten, if kittens had black shiny carapaces.
“Go on,” said Mayor Mare. “I told him it was okay.”
Sweetie Drops gave a little squee, nuzzled Kevin’s nose, and drank in those big cute baby changeling eyes, admiring the little cutie who was so good and nice and kind.
Kevin made a little trilling sound, closing his eyes for a moment and wriggling with pleasure, the most adorable baby bugpony in Ponyville or anywhere else. Sweetie squeed again, overwhelmed with the cuteness. Kevin’s eyes flicked open, went wide and startled…
“Hurrrk!”
Kevin barfed rainbows and glowy ethereal stuff all over the floor.
Mayor Mare bopped Sweetie with a holey hoof. “Not so much! He’s not used to how sweet and strong yours is. Poor baby!”
“I’m sorry!” squeaked Sweetie Drops.
“It’s okay,” said Mayor Mare, “it will dissipate. And he will adjust, I promise.” She nuzzled her chastened Sweetie Drops. “You know he’s been getting it secondhoof, all this time.”
Sweetie Drops snuggled against her cozy new bugfamily, and let out a little sigh of contentment.
Princess Celestia was going to be so proud!
“What’s the matter, Big Macintosh?” asked Octavia, politely.
“Nothin’,” replied the morose farm-pony.
Octavia regarded him skeptically, then turned back to her companion. “But, Scratchie, make up your mind! Do you want to go, or don’t you? It’s been ages since I’ve been on tour, and it sounds delightful.”
“Oh, it is,” moaned Vinyl Scratch, “it’s a whole other world! That’s the exact problem!”
“Explain,” ordered Octavia. “You can’t be thinking there’s a language barrier? She spoke pony quite well, though there was something odd about her diction I haven’t worked out.”
“Count the syllables,” retorted Vinyl. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Oh my gaawwwwwd Tavi, I want to go to Neighpon as much as you do! Seeing Hina-rin just filled me with homesickness.”
“Do you think my composing will offend them?” asked Octavia. “I make no apology for my subject matter, but if I am honest I must admit my work is… visceral. If you’re telling me Neighpon would object to being lovingly ravaged with musical penis…”
“Oh, no, no, that’s why it would be such a good tour! Um, it might be best for you to open for me,” suggested Vinyl. “Not because your music is in any way less good! But because ponies dance all night to my music. And do other things… you’ll see! You would be the perfect warm-up or inspiration. I’d like to get some records made of your playing so I can DJ you in there on top of the beat and make it a whole combined experience.”
Octavia squeed demurely, and gave a little trot in place, her body exploding in a spectacular display of jiggle and wiggle and ripple and wobble. Then, she controlled her enthusiasm, and gave Vinyl a look.
“It sounds wonderful. So, what EVER is the problem, Vinyl Scratch? Or, perhaps I should say, whatever is the problem, DJ Pon-3? You want to do this as much as I do.”
Scratch pouted. “Protocol. It’s not like Ponyville. It’s more formal. You know how you carry your cello around? And I carry my decks? Of course you do, you remember when Lyra visited us, you were charmed when she helped me carry the decks home. Tavi, that wouldn’t be okay in Neighpon. Things are done a certain way there.”
“How do you mean, Scratchie?” asked Octavia. “I don’t see a problem with making friends. And of course I can carry my cello, how would I perform if I couldn’t?”
“You’d have another pony carry it for you, because you are a gifted musician worthy of respect and special treatment,” said Vinyl. “It would be a great honor for the pony carrying, and they’d take more care of it than you yourself do. It’d be a pony who understood your instrument is like a person or an extension of you, and to fail in hospitality to you and your instrument would bring shame upon the entire town and be a disgrace.”
“Oh, come on,” snorted Octavia. “It’s no trouble.”
“No, really!” protested Vinyl Scratch. “And same with my decks! And I don’t know about you, Tavi, but as much as I love Neighpon I’m not having a different stranger pony carry my decks at each gig. It’s not that they would hurt the decks, even! It’s… it just feels icky, ya know? I can’t do it. So I can’t tour Neighpon, because they wouldn’t be happy if I was seen carrying my decks like a roadie, but I don’t know a single Neighpon roadie…”
“I begin to see your concern,” said Octavia thoughtfully. “My cello would tolerate it for love of me and our great works together, but it does seem rude.”
“And, and…” said Vinyl Scratch helplessly, “they’re Ponyville decks, you know? I think they’d get homesick and I don’t want strangers touching them, especially not a new stranger in each town! And how could I find a Ponyville roadie who was ready to drop everything and go on a tour of Neighpon? There isn’t even such a thing as a Ponyville roadie!”
“Ahem?!” came a deep voice.
The two musical ponies turned their heads to see a strange sight: Big Macintosh, trotting in place, his lip quivering with yearning, a wordless plea in his eyes. He looked completely frantic.
“Did you say… Neighpon?” he blurted, his voice quavering even to say the magic word.
Octavia glanced at DJ Pon-3, and lifted one elegant eyebrow…
They’d put Kevin to bed in the secret spy lair: like any small child given sweets, he’d buzzed around madly for a while and then crashed. In his case that was literal, but the principle was the same.
Shades drawn, Sweetie Drops and Mayor Mare got to know each other all over again.
“So…” said Sweetie Drops, narrowing her eyes lovingly as she gave her changeling lover a nose-nuzzle. “Tell me…”
“I’ll tell you to give it a rest!” protested Mayor Mare. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be over-plump with love when you live in a carapace? I swear, you like me better now than you did before. I’m loving you back as hard as I can, but I just can’t keep up!”
Sweetie nickered. “Poor sweet bugpony. I always did want excitement and strange things. And go ahead and try, but you’ll never love as hard as an earth pony mare in love.”
“I’ll throw up, like Kevin did,” threatened Mayor Mare. “All over you. So there!”
“Then I will be nearly as beautiful as you,” replied Sweetie Drops. “Until it dissipates. But I’ll make more. No, I mean… Tell me why you ran away.”
Mayor Mare blinked her lovely internally glowing eyes. “I beg your pardon, dear?”
“The day the Kirin came to town,” explained Sweetie. “You didn’t run away from the Kirin. But you ran away from the magic bit. Why? I wasn’t there to see it, but I can make some guesses. What exactly were you thinking… ‘Mayor Mare’?”
Mayor Mare took a deep breath. “Oooooh. You’re good.”
That made Sweetie Drops squee and trot in place with delight, but right away she returned to her questioning. “What happened? I bet I can tell you. Back when I was with Lyra, we had one of those, and I know what they do. What happened to YOU related to a magic bit? Is it something that, if I’d been there, I would’ve been onto you?”
Mayor Mare hung her head. “Oh, gosh. Secret Agent Sweetie, thank goodness you love us, because I think you probably would’ve figured it out then and there. I’ll never forget that day. Twilight and Trixie Lulamoon had just offended the Kirin, and that frightened me. I wondered if an angry Kirin would cast about for wickedness and find me hiding in plain sight as a pony. And then, Trixie tossed me the magic bit… me! And, fool that I am, I caught it in my teeth.”
“No!” squealed Sweetie, entranced.
“Oh, yes. And it’s not what it did… you’ll remember, I first noticed you when you’d used a magic bit on Lyra and she’d blown a hole in your house. I know what they do. You were straddling her still. Remember, I asked if she would volunteer for the Ponyville Defense League?”
“I hope she’s happy,” said Sweetie Drops. “According to Princess Celestia, she is. Huh! It seems like forever ago. I still remember shaking my head and telling her she wasn’t observant.” She shook her head again. “Who knew? Not only were my mysteries far deeper than even a secret romance, but so were yours!”
“So, I grabbed a magic bit,” said Mayor Mare, “and a big horse cock sprang into existence…”
“How big?” pressed Sweetie Drops.
Mayor Mare rolled her eyes. “We’re lesbians, dear, since when is that your concern?”
“Lesbians who can grow our own dildos that have sensation,” corrected Sweetie happily. “What’s not to like about that? We can still do all the other things, silly! So what was it like?”
“I’ll tell you,” scolded Mayor Mare. “I wasn’t finished. A big horse cock sprang into existence… with a GREEN FLASH. Getting the picture, dear secret agent of mine?”
Sweetie’s mouth was an O and her eyes were wide. “Oooooo…” Then, she smirked. “I’d have had you. Green changeling glow? Like an unwanted… transformation? I’ve had one of those bits… well, the use of one. Since when do they glow or flash green? Busted!”
Changelings didn’t blush, but Mayor Mare looked abashed. “Thank goodness I never saw it again. It was just that one time and that’s one time too many!”
This didn’t get the reaction she’d expected. Sweetie Drops looked tragic, and said, “Okay, if you mean it.”
“What?”
“Well, since you hate them and it probably traumatized you…”
“Sweetie Drops, you sneaky little spy pony,” gasped Mayor Mare, “did you steal it from where it lay?”
“Oh, no! No no!” protested Sweetie Drops. “I ended up asking around and getting more of the story. And you know I used to use one with Lyra, and as near as I can tell from the accounts of witnesses, Trixie gave that one to YOU. So I had to track down where it had gone…”
“Really! I assure you, it didn’t traumatize me, except with the fear of terrible exposure. I’ve never even tried having a mare penis, though they seem alarmingly popular in Ponyville. Where had it gone, then?”
“That was a lucky break,” said Sweetie Drops. “It turns out Derpy Hooves had asked for it, and everypony said okay, and she’d trotted off home with her new toy…”
“Oh, dear, you took it from her? Derpy is a sweet thing, and I’m sure she would give it back but that seems awful to ask of her! Please tell me you didn’t force Derpy to return what she’d been given. She doesn’t understand things as well as most ponies…”
“Not exactly. I was worried for just that reason, but Derpy gave it to me quite willingly. Want to hear why? You’ll never forget it once you hear it.”
“I think I had better hear it, then,” said Mayor Mare.
“Remember, Rarity has a magic bit, and they alternate use of that one. More than Lyra was willing to do for me,” grumbled Sweetie Drops, sounding very Bon Bon for a moment. “As soon as I mentioned it, Derpy said, ‘oh yeah you’re super into just mares! Do you want it?’ without any prompting at all.”
Mayor Mare blinked. “Really! Did it not please her, somehow?”
Sweetie giggled. “Derpy said they never used it except for sword fighting.”
“Oh, my!”
“It gets better,” said Sweetie Drops. “Then she told me if you bite two of them at once… let’s just say she became the weirdest boy alicorn ever, until Rarity made her stop. And she told me, Rarity doesn’t want to have two bits in the house ever again, even if it’s funny, so she’d hidden it outside and was that okay?”
“Oh, dear,” said Mayor Mare, looking a bit stunned. “That’s very… royal?”
“Poor Rarity,” giggled Sweetie Drops. “I can just picture her face. It’s a mercy the other ponies never discovered that. It gives me a healthy respect for Derpy Hooves, mind you: I’m sure she expected both penises to appear in the usual place, which implies she meant to serve Rarity with both of them.” She pondered this. “I daresay if it was like that, Rarity would have let her. However, we have Derpy’s word that the second penis appeared in a completely different place, and in my professional opinion any unicorn would’ve been upset by the spectacle. Rarity’s only scandalous in certain ways. She cultivates the shocking in tightly defined areas. Derpy with two horsecocks between her legs would be a fearsome sight already. Derpy rampant with a… yes, I can well believe Rarity would give way to hysterics and refuse to have two bits in the house, poor thing.”
“And so it is not in her house?” asked Mayor Mare.
“And so it is in mine,” said Sweetie. “Shall I get it?”
Mayor Mare’s luminous blue changeling eyes blinked, and she made a curious little chittering noise in excitement. “What do you want to do?”
By way of answering, Sweetie trotted off to the bedroom, and the entranced changeling followed with little clicks of her holey, chitinous hooves on the floor.
Sweetie Drops nosed into a drawer, and then turned triumphantly, bit in her teeth, grinning as a beefy solid magic mare-cock jutted forth from between her hind legs. “L’dy’s choice!”
“Oh, my!” gasped her changeling lover, just like Mayor Mare would have said it. With a green flash, she turned into the Mayor Mare that Ponyville knew, but then she was drawing back, raising a foreleg, looking worried. “Sweetie?”
“Y’s?”
“I’m a lesbian, Sweetie,” said Mayor Mare. “You know we’ve sometimes played with toys or the dinner vegetables but… Honey, I’m made for licks and kisses, and especially made for giving pleasure to other mares. When I say that I mean it quite literally, as you know. I invented and made Mayor Mare, and I’m a lesbian, and you know I have a cute little excitable fillyish pussy because I made it up out of my own head, expecting it to be used by tongues.” She gulped. “I am not MADE for THAT.”
“Oh,” said Sweetie Drops disappointedly. “Do you w’nt to use it on me?”
“You’re still a mare, though, and I won’t say I’m not tempted,” said Mayor Mare, her eyes wide. “Dear Celestia, is that ever a toy and a half. You have sensation with it? So using it would give you pleasure?”
“V’ry much so,” confirmed Sweetie Drops. “But th’ts okay, r’lly…”
“Wait,” said Mayor Mare. “I am a changeling, after all. I can accomodate this.”
Sweetie Drops blinked. “Wh’t are you going to do? Change? Into what?”
Mayor Mare’s eyes narrowed with a look of wicked glee such as the benevolent mayor pony had never shown, and the changeling’s light glinted in her eyes.
“Anything,” she boasted, proudly.
“Ooo!” squeaked Sweetie through the bit. She trotted in place, the stallionhood bouncing against her belly, and Mayor Mare’s eyes devoured it hungrily, game for a challenge.
The challenge was provided immediately. “An Ursa M’jor!” suggested Sweetie Drops.
“WHAT?”
Sweetie drooped. “W’ll, if I’m so big, that’s m’ch bigger so it wouldn’t h’rt you…”
“That wouldn’t fit in your house!” protested Mayor Mare. “And I can push the size a little but there are limits, Bon B… Sweetie Drops!”
Sweetie considered. “Bon Bon? Y’ know, me? I g’t some sp’ce in mine, I bet I could t’ke this.”
Mayor Mare narrowed her eyes. “Narcissistic much, dearest? Though I suppose that would get around my reservations…”
“R’servations?” asked Sweetie, cock still cheerfully throbbing away under her.
“I don’t want to do existing ponies,” said Mayor Mare. “I consider it rude and too much like the worst aspects of my changeling heritage. But if it’s you, I can hardly say it’s against your will, is it?”
Sweetie thought, hard. “N’t ponies. I kn’w! Be a griffin.”
Mayor Mare’s eyes widened. “Sweetie! You really must be a secret agent. I’ve never heard of a pony growing a dick and fucking a griffin!”
“R’nbow Dash,” countered Sweetie, confidently. “Pl’se?”
“Dear Celestia, you’re serious,” said Mayor Mare.
Sweetie turned, and placed the magic bit gently on her bed, and the bulky marecock withdrew. She turned to her beloved. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. But ever since I reported to the Princess about… I guess you wouldn’t have heard of it. Do you know when the griffin Gilda was visiting the Apples, and townsponies were worried about her?”
“Of course,” said Mayor Mare.
Sweetie sighed dreamily. “I don’t know whether they’d have been more or less worried if they knew the truth. Mayor, that griffin was taking it from both Rainbow Dash AND Applejack! They would bring a bit to where she was, which I believe may have been Rainbow Dash’s cloud house, and go to town. I can’t really prove it, it’s partly deduction and partly the background knowledge you can get if you’re a Celestial Agent and can look things up in the Canterlot Library. Those ponies took to dick like a fish to water, they’re both incredibly butch, or perhaps switch is a better term? And it can’t have been Gilda using it, because griffin penises are smaller and spiny and there was never any sign of abrasion on or in Dash or Applejack. I mean, other than the lacerations.”
Mayor Mare’s face was a mask of dismay. “Oh, Sweetie! It sounds awful!”
Sweetie Drops trotted in place with a squee. “But that’s just it! Talk about adventure! It must have been so good if they really went through with it even after Dash got claw injuries, and I’m sure you wouldn’t rip me up with big claws but logically what that ALSO suggests is that Gilda got off bigtime! When Gilda got arrested, she and Applejack fought to get to each other through a rioting crowd of ponies! So romantic… anyway, I’ve never heard of anything so exciting so would you be a griffin for me? A Mayor Griffin. With a big enough vagina that I can make love to you that way.”
Mayor Mare cringed. “Oh, Sweetie. They’re so fierce! And it would be easier for me to pick one I’ve seen but I don’t want to do that. I’d rather not pick Gilda, even if she… my goodness. She really did that?”
“I got close enough that I could check out her private parts, when they were leading her off to jail!” said Sweetie Drops proudly. “She was all upset and under arrest besides, but she had definitely taken pony dick! It looked kinda stretched and used. Well, it ought to have!”
“What did you mean, lacerations?” demanded Mayor Mare. “Is that what Applejack was talking about when she relinquished her job as Boss Mare? She’d been injured, there was no doubt of that.”
Sweetie’s giddy mood subsided. “Uh, yeah. That’s part of how I know what they were doing.” She sighed, wistfully. “I think it’s too dangerous with a real griffin. Applejack was badly hurt. As near as I can work out, and Princess Celestia’s confirmed some of it, Applejack was belly to belly with her, which brought Gilda’s claws to bear, and when griffins orgasm they can go nuts.”
“Hmmmm,” said Mayor Mare, skeptically.
“I promise, I don’t want to get hurt, Mayor Mare,” said Sweetie Drops, “but I live for excitement and awesomeness, and I’m a highly trained secret agent pony, and I’m telling you, that is the hottest thing ever. Plus, as Bon Bon when I was with Lyra I used a magic bit myself. So I know what it’s like making love to a mare until she loses her mind and flips out… as you saw! And so that’s always been my dream. To be as awesome and daring as Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and fuck a griffin.”
Mayor Mare frowned at her, concern in her gaze. There was a green flash, and she stood again as the changeling, and frowned worse, a look of extreme concentration on her face…
With another green flash, Mayor Mare stood as a pure white griffin with pretty fluffy wings, changeling-blue irises in her eyes, and big fluffy paws.
She lifted a hind paw, splaying the pads, and nothing pointy came out. “I’ll have you know,” she chided, “it was very difficult to think up a declawed griffin girl with a pony-sized vagina, but I love you, so let’s give it a try.”
“Yay!” squeed Sweetie Drops, seized the bit, and romped over with horsecock swinging merrily.
Mayor Mare’s griffin eyes bugged out. “GAHHH!” she yowled, and scrabbled away in a panic. “Wait, wait! Slow dowwwwn!”
Sweetie halted. “I’m s’rry! I j’st… oooh, you’re s’xy!”
Mayor Mare panted, wild-eyed. “There is that… dear me! This body goes weak in the tarsus to be jumped on that way…”
Sweetie Drops blinked. “T’rsus?”
Mayor Mare gathered her wits. “Changeling limbs… on a pony I think you would say wobbly in the hocks. Errrmm. Dear me,” she said, and reached down between her legs. Her tail thrashed, then swished hard to the side and quivered there. “Nnnnhh! Did I say hocks? She’s wobbly in the… Dear me, I had no idea lady griffins were so ravenous!”
“Um… y’y?” suggested Sweetie Drops, holding the bit in her teeth.
The snowy griffin’s tail lashed, and she regarded Sweetie with narrowed, lusty eyes. “Hmmm. I am fairly sure I designed this griffin acceptably.” She shuddered, and touched her feline vagina again, and groaned with satisfaction. “I made her pelvis a little more roomy to handle pony girth,” she said, “so that shouldn’t be a problem. H—how long is that thing?”
Sweetie Drops turned to the side obligingly, reared a little and lifted a foreleg, biting down harder to show her equine length.
The snowy, lissome griffin shuddered all over. “NNNNHH!” she moaned. With an elegant, silken motion, she sprang to all fours, stalking back and forth in a frenzy. “Want!” she meowled, “naow!”
“Y’y!” cheered Sweetie Drops.
“Wait, wait!” protested Mayor Mare. She whirled and presented at Sweetie, and then appeared to do push-ups, hunkering to the floor and then trying to stand on all four legs and then pressing low again. “Aghh! I don’t want to risk belly to belly, but I can’t control her body, it’s sticking her ass in the air like no pony ever would!”
Sweetie had stars in her eyes. “Oooo! H’ld still… wait, you s’d she doesn’t have claws!”
Mayor Mare blinked. “Oh!” she mewed, sprang lithely onto the bed and reclined on her back, squirming lewdly. “Mreowll!”
Sweetie hopped up onto the bed, straddled her. Mayor Birdkitty reached up, fondling Sweetie’s body with griffin talons, her soft hindpaws curling up to wrap around Sweetie’s waist.
She glanced at her forelegs, across fur and then birdy legs and then the daunting talons, and looked up fretfully into Sweetie’s eyes. “Oops.”
“No pr’blem,” said Sweetie Drops, and her hips tenderly pressed forward.
“EYOWWL!” cried Mayor Mare, grabbing Sweetie’s forelegs with her talons, her tail snapping hard to the side and vibrating. Her eyes rolled back in her head as Sweetie Drops’ bulky ponycock squeezed into her awaiting, juicy griffin pussy and began to sensuously push deeper. “GAHH! CELESTIA!”
That slowed Sweetie Drops down. She peered down at the lovely white griffin, into the frantic and lust-crazed blue eyes, and said, “I’d r’ther not do her, please? It doesn’t s’m right. The gr’fin w’ll be fine.”
“No,” panted Mayor Mare, “I mean… rrrhh! Uhhh! ngyAAAH!”
Sweetie studied her beloved. It was magical, though it was so unlike anything she’d have predicted: this was Mayor Mare, but Mayor Mare was a changeling and could become anything, even the most twisted fantasies such as balling griffin pussy. She was such a pretty griffin as her facefeathers bristled out and she ground her beak in climax, that sensuous feline body jerking and shuddering on the end of Sweetie’s marecock, clenching so hotly, predatory muscles spasming in the most exciting manner. Sweetie delivered a few hesitant thrusts, and the griffin lady seemed to explode in carnal fury, gripping her forelegs painfully with those talons.
Mayor Mare fought to speak coherently. “Bon Bon PLEASE! I mean Sweetie!” she wailed, gasping for breath.
“Wh’t?” asked Sweetie, entranced with the strangeness of the experience.
“Not like this!” begged Mayor Mare. “Ahhh! I’m dy! Ing of org! asm!”
“Aww,” said Sweetie through the bit. “It’s s’per sexy. Also ow, y’re claws hurt!”
“Give me something else! To be!” wailed Mayor Mare. “I can’t! Ahhh!”
“Am I too deep?” managed Sweetie, and prodded with her stallionhood experimentally.
Mayor Mare convulsed and let out a paint-peeling shriek, the jolt to her feline cervix blasting her with griffin sexual response: a species peculiarity completely outside her experience or imagination. For just an instant, the griffin body writhed and thrashed, and then there was a burst of green light…
Sweetie stared down, startled. She was very nearly balls-deep in Mayor Changeling, if she’d had balls. It felt like having your cock in warm pudding. Mayor Mare’s glowing blue changeling eyes gazed up at her, vulnerable and surrendering. Her carapace was trembling.
“Oh m’ g’sh,” said Sweetie Drops quietly. “Am I h’rting you? C’n you even do this? I c’n stop.”
Mayor Mare drew a shaky breath. “It’s okay… dear me! Never, ever, did I guess that griffins were so…”
“No, I m’n it!” protested Sweetie Drops. “My COCK is st’ck up you! What do I do?”
Mayor Mare bared her teeth in pleasure. “Ahnnn… don’t stop. How did you think we made larva?”
Sweetie’s ears were laid back against her head. She lifted herself up, and gazed down across Mayor Mare’s changeling body, unsure what she’d even see. She beheld a horsecock inserted into a somewhat less chitinous place between Mayor Mare’s elegant holey legs, some chitin plates tactfully folded to the side to permit this lewd entry, a glisten of weird membranes that were far more translucent than she’d expected.
She tentatively shifted her hips, and nearly dropped her bit right then, for she saw something moving within Mayor Mare’s see-through abdomen. That tender belly area wasn’t just a different color, it was translucent, and she could literally see her cock moving inside her lover in a blurry vague sort of way.
“ERRNNnnnh!” moaned Mayor Mare, and Sweetie felt a very odd sensation. Something inside her changeling amour throbbed, and she felt gelatinous goo circulate against her erection, separated from it by that mysterious membrane.
“Is th’t, uh,” asked Sweetie, “fr’gile?”
Mayor Mare squirmed more sensuously than anything with a carapace ought to squirm. “In the… right places… dear me! Oh beloved! No changeling female has ever, ever done this, not like this, not even wicked greedy Chrysalis ever dared…”
“No,” said Sweetie Drops stubbornly. “I m’n, do I just hold still, or thrust, or what? Is it s’fe for you?”
“Ohhhh!” moaned Mayor Mare. “I don’t care, fuck me, my beloved pony!”
Sweetie frowned. “Answ’r me! Will you break?”
Mayor Mare fixed her with a smouldering look, and Sweetie Drops gasped. Her changeling mate had tensed up and pinched her, unmercifully. It was right where she entered that bugpony body, and deeper inside there was only warm enfolding melting ooze held back by a sturdy membrane, even as she flared out inside her mate. One thing was for sure: with a bite like that, bugpony vagina wasn’t fragile. Sweetie Drops had no idea what ‘in the right places’ meant, but it wasn’t anywhere she could reach.
Once Mayor Mare had unpinched, Sweetie Drops stuck out her lower lip in a pout, wished herself luck in this daring new experiment in cross-species harmony, and began cautiously shifting her hips back and forth.
The reaction was astonishing, and not just because she could watch her hard horsecock through a translucent belly-window.
Mayor Mare jolted, her eyes going wide and frantic. She began to hyperventilate, her chitinous nostrils flaring, and she bared her teeth in a snarl of pleasure, the cute little fangs glinting against the black carapace. The more Sweetie Drops thrust, the more her bugpony lover seemed filled with energy and life.
Sweetie Drops wrinkled her brow, trying to feel through her deeply inserted horsecock whether Mayor Mare’s heart was pounding… or indeed, her ventral vessel, whatever it was they had.
She nearly dropped the bit in shock when she realized that SHE was Mayor Mare’s heart and doing the pounding for her.
There was no mistaking it once you figured out that secret. Mayor Mare had curled her long, lovely legs up under her, the better to let Sweetie penetrate her. The stiff, throbbing horsecock was plunging so deeply into changeling pussy that it thrust up past where that belly panel gave way to hard black shell. The ventral vessel throbbed, but all it really did was stir changeling fluids, circulate the goo inside Mayor Mare’s strange and wonderful body. And it’d been rendered completely irrelevant, because Sweetie Drops’ gentle thrusting was circulating Mayor Mare’s life fluids with a vengeance, churning her with a deep, powerful force completely beyond the normal strength of her buggy heart. Her pulse pounded slowly and irresistibly with the raw force of tireless earth pony hindquarters, driving the piston that sank again and again to the limits of Mayor Mare’s body.
The result was glorious… at least, if you were madly in love with a bugpony.
Mayor Mare reeled, not so much hysterical as galvanized. Her body shook, then vibrated. She seemed to light up from within, or perhaps it was just her eyes: the amount of love she was pouring into Sweetie made the delighted earth pony feel quite drunk, and the more Sweetie churned her inside fluids, the more power she had and the more passionately she wallowed in the joy of her lovemaking. Fragile? The lovely changeling was transfigured, filled with strength, nuzzling Sweetie’s neck with cries of ecstacy, squeezing at her cock in loving, insistent clenches, always right up at the base with very little pressure further in. Then, Mayor Mare began to heat up, and there was pressure in there at last, and Sweetie couldn’t tell if it was because she was going more bulky, or if Mayor Mare was simply filling with energy like a changeling bomb…
Mayor Mare began panting, the luminous eyes locked on Sweetie’s with a strange, passionate yearning, her pussy gripping more eagerly, some peculiar tickling enticing more plunges of pony penis.
Sweetie, sweating and thrilled, gave a little snarl of delight and began fucking her changeling lover in lustful boldness. A weird tight slurping filled the room, as Sweetie Drops began pounding Mayor Mare’s changeling pussy at the tempo of an excited stallion about to blow his load.
Mayor Mare flipped out. She vibrated so hard Sweetie almost couldn’t see her, wings emitting weighty buzzes and lifting the two off the bed, and she began shrieking and raving in her strange buzzcrackle language, her eyes so wide they were shocked circles, so filled with energy that they lit the room like blue lamps. As Sweetie Drops vigorously fucked her, Mayor Mare withstood a climax that seemed enough to char her from the inside out and leave her a cinder, roasted against her own erotic porch light, and it kept going and going as the thrilled changeling surrendered entirely to her body’s pony possession…
Sweetie grunted, “UNH! HH! H! hh!” and screwed her eyes shut as she came. She felt her body throb and gush, blasting magic-induced stallioncome into her beloved Mayor Mare, and she felt Mayor Mare clutch at her with all her gangly legs and her curious pussy, and she heard Mayor Mare scream a beautiful ecstatic scream of sheer pleasure, shaking in Sweetie’s embrace, brought to a climax such as Sweetie had never given her.
Sweetie Drops opened her eyes.
Mayor Mare was gazing straight back, unblinking, her expression speaking of love nearly too great to be borne, a quiveringly intense post-coital glow that seemed to permeate her whole being.
Her lovely luminous blue eyes were positively hazy with orgasmic pleasure. Sweetie’d made her come so hard that she looked dazed, her eyes milky and fogged.
Sweetie Drops blinked.
Mayor Mare’s eyes really were milky and fogged, and it wasn’t just mood. They grew paler by the second, even as the expression melted into further bliss and Mayor Mare’s little tongue dangled to the side, unheeded.
Sweetie’s eyes tracked fearfully down her changeling lover’s body, so fevered and hot, her pulse now taken over by that ventral vessel that circulated her goo.
Through the translucent belly window, Sweetie watched stripes of white lazily circulate, like milk being mixed into coffee in slow motion. There was no horsecome left cooped up in some buggy womb. Mayor Mare’s body had accepted her stallion-load, allowing it to be fired through the membrane of her vagina right up at the end where it was stretched tightest, at the moment of greatest and fiercest coupling. Sweetie Drops had spurted gout after copious gout of horse semen directly into Mayor Mare’s insides, and it now lazily mixed with her goo and circulated past all her organs and had even oozed into her lovely eyes and turned them milky, and possibly half-blind from the opacity.
Sweetie, horrified, looked back up into those eyes.
“Ahhhnn…” moaned Mayor Mare. “How did you think we made larva?”
“Is it hurt’ng you?” said Sweetie in a tiny, frightened voice.
“Ahhhnnn!” crooned Mayor Mare, with a wriggle, and kissed her on the muzzle.
“Can you see?” asked Sweetie.
“I feel you everywhere!” purred Mayor Mare. “Oh beloved! Oh wonderful! Oh my love!”
“No I mean can you SEE?” repeated Sweetie Drops. “Y’r eyes are all funny!”
“It will pass,” said Mayor Mare. “I don’t think this can give me larva. Drone come is clearer.” Her eyes narrowed as she thought, still buzzed from the extraordinary energy burst she’d withstood. “I think it will show in my eyes even as a pony, drat it. They’ll be milky, clouded. Let’s do it again and find out! Obviously it isn’t hurting my vxxtkkbz.”
“Can you SEE?”
Mayor Mare kissed her again. “I don’t care. Not when I can feel like this feels…”
“If I l’t go of this bit,” said Sweetie Drops, “all of the magic horse c’me will disappear. It’s n’t real, so don’t worry, you’ll be able to see then…”
She gasped. Mayor Mare’s bugvagina had clamped down on her cock, and little blunt claws in there had grabbed its shank. Not to hurt it, just to keep it from withdrawing. Certain things about the clarity of that sensation, the tightness of that aperture’s grip, suddenly became revealed. She’d had that in there the whole time and Sweetie had mistaken it for just a tight muscle. It was no sphincter: it kneaded her cockbase as if milking it, and wouldn’t let her go, wrapping around hungrily to cajole further penetration, releasing to permit thrusting. Sweetie Drops had been getting a bugvagina hand job the whole time without knowing it.
Sweetie’s startled eyes met Mayor Mare’s. The changeling’s milky eyes pleaded.
“Not yet!” begged Mayor Mare. “Let it stay. I’m sorry! I can’t help doing that, I should have warned you! My body horrifies you, I know it! Why did I…”
She gasped. Through the fog of pony semen, she saw Sweetie Drops start to grin, and then she felt the horsecock stiffening, expanding despite anything the eager grasp of her pussyclaws could do to hold it. Bursting from her talonlike grip in swelling thickness, still thrust so deeply into her trembling thorax…
Sweetie’s body gave a shudder. In awe and wonder, Mayor Mare felt her pony lover spurt one last glob of ponycome into her, through the weakened membrane and the spot where it’d ruptured, to swirl in joyous merging with her insides. Rather than horrify her Sweetie Drops, her vagina revelation had given the secret agent mare a kinky jolt sufficient for one last comeshot.
She gazed up in wonder, her vision tenderly clouding as her body drank in the alien, opaque seed and circulated it everywhere.
“This is gonna be a v’ry w’nderful r’lationship,” said Sweetie Drops, and snuggled against her changeling queen, bit still firmly between her teeth.
The hillside was quiet. Rainbow Dash circled above it, still feeling blissed out from a glorious sexual rodeo with Applejack that left her pegasus pussy throbbing happily with eager use. They’d seen Essence off in style at the funeral, cried a little for her and for Fern Gully, and then sent a lot of love and pleasure her way afterwards and wished her well.
The hillside was green, dotted with reds and yellows from flowers that grew wherever they pleased, some orange dots, some lilac.
And one pink dot, much larger than a flower.
Rainbow Dash swooped down, and then slowed. It wasn’t like Pinkie to chill out on a hillside, so quietly. She was alone. That could be an okay thing, thought Dash, or it could be bad. Dash still remembered the freaky shit Pinkie had got up to…
She flew down, not to Pinkie directly, but to a spot nearby: and she landed, and walked cautiously over to where Pinkie lay.
Pinkie Pie watched her, eyes big and blue, saying nothing as she approached.
“Uh, hey, Pinkster,” said Dash. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” said Pinkie.
Her voice seemed oddly soft, as if some part of Fluttershy had become part of her. Dash retreated a step in alarm, then gathered her courage and walked closer. If she suddenly became a house, thought Dash, at least the hillside had room for it.
“Hey, thanks for, like, saving Ponyville and stuff?” said Dash. “We’re all grateful that you saved the day. Well, probably not Snowy Hocks. Um! I mean… Nobody blames you for killing Snowy Hocks because he was like the worst and cleverest vampire ever!”
“I know,” said Pinkie. “Fluttershy was right. He was a meanie.”
“So,” said Dash awkwardly, “you’re talking to Fluttershy again? I mean, if you’re not that’s totally okay too! You don’t have to do anything weird to reality, either way is going to be fine with us, I hope it’s not bothering you too badly…”
“I am,” said Pinkie, with a slightly weary look at her old friend. “Things are better. Thank you for asking.”
“So you are okay,” said Dash, in obvious relief. “Um, how much better? Like, have you guys kissed and made up? Or, or other things you’re super good at, which are kind of like kissing except with other lips and a whole lot more intense?”
Pinkie sniffed the air, and her ear flicked. “Dashie, are you coming on to me? You smell good, like you’ve been having fun with Applejack. Are you asking for a sexual workout with my tongue?”
Dash’s wings sprang up. “I am ALWAYS prepared for that, Pinkie Pie!” she grinned.
“But do you want that,” asked Pinkie, “or am I just assuming that’s what you want from me?”
Rainbow Dash’s wings drooped.
“Um…”
Pinkie just kept gazing off into the distance. She spoke without strain, but almost like Rainbow wasn’t even there to hear her.
“I thought Fluttershy needed me,” she said. “I thought Fluttershy was this shy pony girl, easily hurt, somepony I needed to protect and take care of or her heart would be broken and she’d have nothing.”
“Pinkie…” said Rainbow.
“It was me,” said Pinkie softly. “That was me, Dashie, in spite of all the smiling and laughing. It was me. I was the one…”
Rainbow’s face was stricken with dismay, but she had no words for Pinkie: the language of flirtation and rowdy naughtiness wasn’t going to make sense this time.
Pinkie kept talking, quietly, like it didn’t matter all that much anymore. “My Fluttershy never existed, Dashie. She’s a vampire. She’s braver than I thought. And she does love me. I even have a place in her life. Even Zecora wants me for something, especially now. But I was making up ponies to love so that I would never have to look at myself.”
Dash gulped. “Uh… you’re awesome, Pinkie, everypony knows that.”
“Fluttershy didn’t need my love,” said Pinkie. “I didn’t even have the best love for her. I look at that zebra, Dursaa, and for him nothing’s changed, but she doesn’t look like my fantasy mare anymore. That shouldn’t matter but it did. When she rescued me from that scary Snowy Hocks, she wasn’t acting like the shy pegasus pony I imagined, either. The whole time, I was telling myself stories… and stories aren’t real, Dashie.”
Rainbow’s face couldn’t hold any more distress.
“But she saved me anyway,” said Pinkie Pie, “and I helped to save her, too. Dashie? It’s okay, don’t be sad. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’m making friends with Zecora, we have some things in common. And I do still love Fluttershy, I promise. Don’t worry, it’s safe to leave me thinking about this. I have an awful lot to think about now, but you can go.”
“Shyeah right!” said Dash. “As if! I have nowhere better to be right now than right here!”
Pinkie glanced at Rainbow, with a knowing look. She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you mean, you’re keeping an eye on the scary pink monster for Ponyville? Because when I get sad and wrong in the head, I’m the biggest bad that ever badded?”
That left Rainbow speechless for a moment. Awkwardly, she began to argue. “Not exactly… hey, you know when Twilight loses her mind, that’s pretty intense too! And when I get messed up, Pinkie, I leave a real blast radius, you know? It’s funny how Ponyville is, you shouldn’t feel bad just ‘cos we have to keep an eye on…”
Rainbow ground to a halt, red in the face.
“It’s true, isn’t it,” said Pinkie. “It’s not because I’m the special pony who brings laughter and joy everywhere she goes, who everypony wants to be around, who could never hurt or frighten anypony. I made that story up too. You’re keeping an eye on me because I’m scary and my powers are too strong. Maybe you’re the only pony brave enough to do that, for the good of Ponyville.”
“Aw, Pinkie Pie!” protested Dash, her ears back.
Pinkie considered this. “But that’s not true either, it can’t be. I don’t scare everypony. I never scare Fluttershy, no matter what. She loves me in her way, same as ever. Zecora’s even letting me have some fun, she says it just has to go both ways. I’m learning, Dashie. I don’t have to do freaky things just to earn my place. I have a place, sort of. Ponies don’t have to be scared of me now.”
Rainbow Dash blinked back tears, her lip quivering, as she returned Pinkie’s calm gaze. Cautiously, she lay down beside Pinkie on the hillside, listening to her old sweetheart’s every word.
“I’m glad you’re still brave enough to come and see if I’m okay,” said Pinkie. “It means a lot. You can tell the other ponies that I might be a little calmer now. I fit into the world better. I figured some things out and I know where I stand. It feels good, Dashie. I’m real. I love who Fluttershy really is, not just my fantasy of her. I’ve got Chasie to play with, and even Zecora, now, and the little zebra pegasus foal knows who I am. He’s not scared of me at all, and Rock’s feeling a lot better too. He says I’m out of danger. I’m kind of scared, Dashie, but I trust him. And I love all the ponies in this town… and I love you. Even if we mostly show it by breaking beds and wrecking the joint.”
“Aw, Pinkie…”
“It’s all right, Dashie. I don’t mind. We’ve always played like that, I like it. It doesn’t have to be more.”
“Pinkie…”
Pinkie Pie batted her eyelashes, and the clear blue eyes met the tearful ruby ones.
“Rainbow Dash,” she said, “I promise I’ll be okay. Is that enough?”
Dash shook her head.
“I just…” she stammered. “Please don’t be sad, Pinkie Pie? I can’t stand to see you hurting. I love you, too.”
Pinkie gazed at her pugnacious, brave, roughneck pegasus friend: her rowdy Rainbow who never turned down a romp in the sack, who preferred boasting to feelings, who was just as good at putting up a front as she was… but that mask was now dropped, undone by emotion. Rainbow Dash the forever awesome, flying down to check on the latest Ponyville danger, but frozen to the spot by the spectacle of a Pinkie Pie without the defenses they both relied upon so well. Rainbow Dash, her own bluster also abandoned, awkwardly blurting out the tenderness of her generous pegasus heart. Answering truth… with truth.
“Thought you might,” said Pinkie, and snuggled up against dear Dashie’s side without hesitation.
Softly, something new happened. As if given license by Pinkie Pie’s new vulnerability, Rainbow nuzzled her much-loved friend and at first hesitantly, then with growing conviction, reached out not with her foreleg but with her wing: that untouchable, intimate pegasus part which had once been so jealously guarded. And now, after raising a foal and rising above her own fears and insecurities, Rainbow Dash reached out to comfort and could do no less than to extend all of herself for her beloved Pinkie—enfolding her in warm feathers to hide her from the world until she felt brave once more.
Under that fluffy blue pegasus wing, Pinkie nestled: closing her eyes against her grateful tears, sheltered.
Jewels couldn’t have been more precious.