Applejack blinked, holding the bucket in her mouth, and set it down so she could speak to her surprise guest.
“Aw, don’t you fret, lil’ scaper. Of course you can visit, whatever state y’all are in…”
“Applejack!” yelled a voice from upstairs.
Applejack winced, and settled her hat more firmly on her head, addressing Sweetie Belle once more. “I say, don’t you fret. We ain’t real fussy around here…”
“APPLEJACK!”
“Uh, most of us ain’t real fussy around here,” said Applejack, “and some of us is goin’ through a time, right now. In a minute, Dashie! I’m explainin’ something, it’s important!”
“But…” came the voice.
“Hold on!” barked Applejack. She turned back to Sweetie. “Ain’t nopony here will judge you for your natural feelin’s or how your body’s doin’ ya. Ah would just ask that you re-frain from carousin’, on account of there ain’t nopony here to carouse WITH. Mind you, child, it ain’t for me to tell you what to do with yourself. I ain’t your mother, nohow.”
Sweetie Belle smiled. Applejack frowned.
“Don’t git too giddy, child,” she said. “This ain’t just about you! Now, I ain’t Apple Bloom’s Ma either, but between me and Granny we’re about as close to it as you could ask, an’ I’m tellin’ you, no carousin’! Apple Bloom is not playin’ them games yet. Do we understand each other, missy?”
She gave Sweetie Belle a very sharp look, and Sweetie retreated a step. “Um… Yes, ma’am!”
“Ah won’t have it! Not in this house! Understand?” demanded Applejack.
Sweetie Belle nodded frantically. “Understood!”
“Applejack!” wailed the voice from upstairs.
“Will you hang on?” called Applejack. “I’m almost…”
“Huuurrrk!”
Applejack blanched, her jaw dropping.
“The.. bucket…” sobbed Dash from the bedroom, but Applejack had already seized the bucket’s handle in her mouth and was stampeding up the stairs, past Apple Bloom, who’d heard the conversation and was coming down to see.
“Oh, hi, Sweetie Belle—how nice! Now what brings ya around these parts on this fine day?”
Sweetie narrowed her eyes. The sarcasm was gentle, but the doorway Sweetie stood in was open upon a grim March evening. Snow still covered the ground, but it was being eroded by a morose grey drizzle interspersed with more snow, the overcast hadn’t lifted all day, and the whole thing was enough to drive ponies with cabin fever stark raving mad.
“I’m sure,” continued Apple Bloom, “it ain’t about you trying to make trouble around here with some nonexistent magic thing my big sister’s supposed to have.”
“Of course not!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle, her hind legs quivering. It was kind of true. She had no interest in a nonexistent magic thing. An existing one, on the other hand…
“And what’s up with jes’ one troublemaker honorin’ us with her presence? Seem like I don’t see good ol’ Scootaloo standin’ before me, huh?”
“Oh, no,” said Sweetie Belle, truthfully.
“Good!” grumped Apple Bloom.
An orange head and magenta mane immediately popped around the side of the door.
“What do you mean, good?”
Apple Bloom smiled a lazy, dangerous smile. “Ah mean, I got your number, Scootaloo. I ain’t no dumb pony. We voted, us Crusaders did, on whether to carry out your secret plan. It weren’t unanimous. So then we voted on whether a vote gotta be unanimous. That weren’t unanimous neither. Around about then ya hit me in th’ nose and negotiations got noisier…”
“So?” declared Scootaloo.
“So I know what yer up to, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. I love you both more than anything, I want you to know that. So much, that I will not allow y’all to go to th’ wrong. And I’m tellin’ you, so long as I stand here, you two are not gettin’ one step inside this h…”
“Land sakes!” cried Granny Smith, who’d hobbled over. “What the hay is the problem, child?”
Apple Bloom gasped. “Uh, I’d rather not say, Granny, it’s personal!”
“Then don’t,” snapped Granny Smith, tartly. “But you two children come in right now and stop holdin’ that dern door open! Ain’t you got any sense at all?”
Apple Bloom’s eyes widened. A tremendous smirk gradually crept over Scootaloo’s face—and, chin held high, she trotted into Sweet Apple Acres, stopping only to shake the snow from her wings all over Apple Bloom.
Sweetie Belle followed, glancing sidelong at Apple Bloom. “I’m sorry…”
“Sure y’are,” said Apple Bloom, weakly.
“It’s going to be fine, everything will be perfectly okay.”
“Sure it will,” said Apple Bloom, taking a deep breath, and girding herself for the battle of her life.
Applejack looped the rag around her hoof, spat on the floor, and polished, while Rainbow Dash watched unhappily from over her bucket.
“There we go. All cleaned up, nice an’…”
“Stop sounding like that!” protested Rainbow.
“Like what?”
“Like…” Dash shook her head. “Stop acting like you’re taking care of me!”
Applejack glowered at her. “We’ve been over this, honey. Happens ah AM. Now, you can like it or you can not like it, but all th’ same, you got to face it. Okay?”
Dash sulked, over her malodorous bucket. Eventually, she spoke again. “You shouldn’t have told me not to fly.”
“Consarn it, Rainbow! Carrot Top ain’t speakin’ to us no more! That’s twice now you’ve thrown up on her! Besides which, it just ain’t safe, why won’t you do what Fluttershy tole you ta do?”
“Oh, right, that’s just perfect. Rainbow Dash, hobbling along supporting her weight with a cloud! Are you kidding me? Get this straight, these wings will always be able to lift me, no matter wh.. rrrgh! hhhh!”
“Oh, darlin’! Is it them hick contractions again?” lamented Applejack.
Rainbow Dash had gone pale, and clutched her belly with her forelegs, her face screwed up in agony, ears back. “Take a wild guess!”
Applejack’s face twisted in woe, and she rushed over to cuddle her stricken mate. “Oh, Dashie! I’ll get ya some more water, they do say not drinkin’ water can make that there stuff worse…”
“Oh, yeah?” griped Rainbow Dash, head draped over Applejack’s shoulder. “You give me so much, I think that makes it worse too! I’m sick of… sick of…”
Applejack cuddled her love fiercely. “Oh, honey! It’s okay if you gotta cry, I know this is a hard time…”
“Hurrgk!”
Applejack’s face fell, and she stared wearily at the wall for a moment, still hugging Dash’s huge, now-quiet body. Eventually, she spoke.
“I reckon I shielded you from the worst of it, honey. And there ain’t far to go for the bucket…”
Rainbow Dash was blushing a dismayed purple. “I’ll, I’ll go get a drink of water. Uh, my mouth could use it.”
“You do that. And don’t fly!”
Dash’s jaw dropped in outrage. “What, not even in the house?”
“You are so heavy that it damn near blows the house down when you fly! Don’t you dare!”
Dash backed off, sulky. “All right, all right! Sheesh.”
“I mean it! You’re not to fly in here! I got enough to clean up!”
“Fine!” retorted Dash. She lumbered to her hooves, tossed her mane, and attempted to trot lightly out the door and down the stairs. The lightness didn’t work, for her hooves could barely leave the ground, but she managed a parting flick of her tail.
The stairs were a bitch, and Rainbow bit her lip trying to navigate them, and make the final turn to the ground floor. Finally, she glared back up the stairs rebelliously, and her wings roared into action—lifting her with a brutal outburst of wing power that nearly stripped the wallpaper off the walls, and allowing her to turn herself more elegantly.
Nose in the air, Rainbow Dash stepped decorously through the living room and into the kitchen.
“Well, hi there, Rainbow Dash!” said Apple Bloom.
“My sakes, ain’t that convenient?” said Granny Smith. “I was jes’ about to re-turn to my nap, little one, but can I get you somethin’? Glass o’ water, maybe?”
Dash yawned, stretching her wings, as Scootaloo watched admiringly. “Thanks, Granny Smith! That actually was just what I had in mind—don’t ask why.”
“Comin’ right up! There’s a little woodgie gudgie goo…”
Rainbow Dash winced as Granny’s hoof tickled her under the chin, and the gathered fillies giggled. The farther her pregnancy went, the more besotted the old mare became with her and her ungainly burden. Didn’t stop her from snapping tartly at everypony else, though.
“Yeah, yeah, all right! Thank you.”
Dash lay awkwardly on her side, for her legs were already tired again. The dark circles that showed under Applejack’s eyes these days were doubled, tripled for Dash, and for a moment her expression was woebegone as she gazed into space tallying the catalog of aches, pains and annoyances that beset her every moment. She smiled at Granny Smith, braced the glass between fore-hooves, drank.
“Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?” asked Sweetie Belle. “You look sad.”
Dash blinked, as Granny Smith excused herself and headed upstairs to her room.
“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom, “you look a mite peakied, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so. Anything we can do for y’all?”
“Well, I mind!” said Scootaloo. “You take that back, Rainbow Dash would never be ‘peakied’! That isn’t even a word, right Sweetie Belle?”
“I think it means agreeably stimulating. Or… engagingly provocative?” said Sweetie Belle uncertainly. “No, wait, that’s ‘piquant’. Is that the same thing?”
Rainbow cackled briefly. “I like it!” She ruffled Scootaloo’s mane with a hoof. “That’s right. I’ll never be peakied. I gotta hang around you kids more, can’t let the responsibility get me down. So what are you guys up to?”
Scootaloo’s eyes widened in startlement. “Nothing! We’re totally not up to anything. Why, what are you up to?”
Apple Bloom shot Scootaloo a glare. “That’s right. We’re jes’ sittin’ right here keepin’ an eye on each other like good lil’ ponies. We kin sit here all evening an’ still we won’t be doin’ nothing.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Sounds boring.”
“You think?” grumbled Scootaloo.
“Maybe you can answer some questions for us and keep us from being too bored!” suggested Sweetie Belle. This time it was Apple Bloom’s eyes that widened, but she didn’t get a chance to object.
“Apple Bloom!” cried Applejack from upstairs.
Apple Bloom gulped. “Yes, big sister?” she called back.
“You bring me up a change of sheets, right now, darlin’! I got some laundry that needs a-doin’ and you can help put the new sheets on, and then stomp in th’ washtub for me!”
Apple Bloom paled, as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle carefully kept a straight face.
“You hear, Apple Bloom?”
“I’m kinda busy right now…” called Apple Bloom.
“I ain’t askin’, Ah’m tellin’!” called Applejack. “Come on! I done scraped off th’ worst of it, I promise!”
“But…”
“You help your big sister, Apple Bloom!” called Granny Smith, from her room, and Apple Bloom gulped again.
“Go ahead, kiddo,” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ll keep these two occupied!”
Glancing back behind her the whole way, Apple Bloom trudged off to help Applejack.
“So…” said Scootaloo.
“So…” said Sweetie Belle.
Rainbow Dash glanced back and forth between them. “Yeah?”
Scootaloo glanced huntedly to where Apple Bloom had gone, and whispered to Dash, “So, when mares go with mares and make babies… does one of them get, you know—stalliony?”
Dash’s jaw dropped. She stared at Scootaloo, then at Sweetie, then sniffed the air—grinned—and began guffawing with laughter. “Bahahaha! You really are just like me, aren’t ya, kid?”
“Oh my gosh, really?” squeaked Scootaloo, lighting up like Dash had given her a big hug.
Dash grinned. “Maybe a little TOO much like me! You better watch out. Which one of you is it? I refuse to sniff directly at you to check. Why do I think this is not a hypothetical question?”
Sweetie glanced at Scootaloo, and admitted, “It’s me—it’s just me. My big sister says it’s okay.”
Dash’s eyes bugged out. “Rarity? You have to resort to Rarity for…” She paused, face screwed up, thinking and remembering things she’d seen. “Whoa. Okay, first of all, is Rarity showing you all kinds of crazy things with like, straps and stuff?”
“Oh, no!” squeaked Sweetie. “Rarity says I shouldn’t let grown-ups show me anything about this!”
“All right,” said Dash. “Yeah, good, that’s a relief. Rarity’s pretty awesome. I think if that’s how it is, she’s leaving stuff out. Um… which is good! Like, definitely don’t ask Rarity about the stuff she’s not telling you, okay? Trust me on this. I’m sure she’s being totally appropriate, maybe a little too appropriate.”
“What’s TOO appropriate?” demanded Scootaloo.
Rainbow Dash began to answer, then hesitated. She glanced back from where she’d come, at the stairs to the second floor and the bedroom where Applejack still labored. “Okay. I might not have much time to say this, so listen up, and ask questions while you can! It’s good you came to me. I’d better fill you in on some things real quick that the other ponies might not be comfortable telling you about. ‘Cos when I was your age, I flew around trying stuff out, and I could’ve got in big trouble a couple of times, okay? You need to know some things and frankly I don’t have time to be prissy about it.”
Sweetie’s eyes widened in alarm. Scootaloo leaned closer, eyes gleaming.
“First thing—careful around the boy ponies! You should be safe enough alone or with other girls. You know, exploring the feelings. Be careful about letting the colts stick their dick in you!”
Sweetie gasped. Scootaloo hissed, “Got it! What else?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you what else. I was just getting to that. Scootaloo—nopony touches the wings!”
“What’s the matter with my wings?” demanded Scootaloo.
“Nothing’s the matter with them!” protested Dash. “In fact, it might be that, uh, since they’re smaller, like mine are powerful but not the biggest, those can be more sensitive… so yours might end up, uhhh… really, you know… really really sensitive…”
Scootaloo blinked in astonishment. Rainbow Dash had unexpectedly blushed crimson and couldn’t look at her. She said, “What? When this happens to me, they’re gonna hurt? Or break?”
Rainbow snorted with laughter again, not meeting her curious eyes. “They’re gonna break you, maybe! In a nice way? I can’t talk about this… look, the point is, part of sex for a pegasus involves the wings. You’ll totally know what I’m talking about. I’m telling you, don’t let boy pegasuses play with your wings in sex. Maybe, never let ANYPONY touch them. You might want to keep them pure. For when you meet your special somepony.” Dash’s voice had softened. “I did.”
“What about me? I don’t have wings!” said Sweetie.
Rainbow found it easier to look at Sweetie, while she regained her composure. “With you it’s the horn. I’m not super clear on the details, maybe Rarity can help if you ask very carefully?”
“Oh, that,” said Sweetie. “Rarity told me about how unicorns merge magic from their horns to make babies, and then do the thing with the penis. She didn’t turn all red and look away, either. Is the pegasus thing like that?”
Rainbow’s blush worsened, and she grinned wryly at the floor. “Figures! I can’t believe it, Rarity’s beating me. Yeah, that’s how it is. It’s about us being magical creatures. And just because you have the two stages, both of you, don’t let earth pony fillies play with bodysex with colts. Like, if Apple Bloom goes all crazy for it, keep her from the colts so she doesn’t get pregnant. Nopony wants that!”
“Says who?” challenged Scootaloo, but Sweetie cut her off, saying “We promise!” She glanced sharply at Scootaloo, and went on. “What else do we need to know?”
“That’s probably the important stuff…”
Scootaloo had rallied, and seized an advantage. “So you’re gonna let Rarity beat you? Come on, teach us more. So when it’s a mare and a mare, which one is the guy?”
Rainbow Dash blinked. “What? Depends. Maybe neither. Why?”
Scootaloo went for broke. “Well, I hate to say it, but since you are having a foal, doesn’t that make Applejack a guy? Where does she get the penis, Rainbow Dash?”
Sweetie frantically tried to shush Scootaloo, but it was too late. Dash’s eyes bugged out, and then she burst out laughing again. “Baaaahaha! From Twilight Sparkle! Special order! No, seriously, now I really gotta straighten you out. ‘Cos something tells me, that bugs you. Am I right? Huh?”
Scootaloo sulked. Dash grinned fondly at her.
“Well, I can put your mind at ease a little bit—though I can’t explain details. But I’m getting the feeling that you don’t like me being a submissive, girly, mare to Applejack? Well, I’m not. Or at least, only when I want to be. Got it?”
“What do you mean, when you want to be? Why would you want to be that?” demanded Scootaloo, offended.
“Listen. Kid. I understand completely, okay? You ARE just like me, or you’re gonna be. And that’s cool. You just want to kick ass and take names, right? All this stuff seems like it’s gonna put you into a box and make you have to be something you’re not. Right?”
Scootaloo glowered, as Sweetie looked on fretfully.
“Well, let me tell you something to take with you, kid. When you do get a sexuality—and you will—it’s gonna be your own. You’ll figure it out. Don’t let anypony tell you what to do or what to be. And some things are not your business—but you need to know that I can be having Applejack’s foal, and I can willingly go mare real hard for her ‘cos she’s amazing, but all the same—I can still lay it down, kid. Be told. I can give as good as I get, if you know what I mean, and when you grow up you gotta go out there and demand just as much freedom to be you.”
Sweetie’s eyes were widened in confused awe, but Scootaloo continued to sulk, and then rounded on Rainbow Dash. “You’re just being more confusing! I don’t know what you mean! Are you saying Applejack has a penis, except so do you? Then why isn’t she pregnant, and not you?”
“Settle down!” said Dash. “You know why? Because I wanted to bear her foal more than anything. Uh, and also things got a little confusing, with the wing stuff I warned you about. Be careful who you play with!”
“But who has the…” began Scootaloo, but trailed off, as Sweetie was gesturing madly towards the stairwell—and the three fell silent, as Applejack and Apple Bloom came trotting down the stairs, balancing baskets of laundry on their backs.
“They givin’ you a hard time, Rainbow?” remarked Applejack as she passed.
Dash smirked. “Total third degree. Don’t worry, it’s cool…”
They watched the two country ponies head off, into the scullery, Apple Bloom glancing suspiciously behind her again as she went.
Applejack turned her head. “Come on, now, Apple Bloom. Don’t you worry. They can entertain themselves for a spell without you.”
“That’s jes’ what ah’m afraid of…”
Applejack laughed. “Come on, you varmint!” she insisted. Apple Bloom followed her, and the door closed behind both of them.
Rainbow Dash turned to Scootaloo and Sweetie.
“I better be quick. Both because we might get interrupted again, and because I gotta take a leak… I hope you find plenty of ponies who can tell you how the sex parts work, or how they THINK they have to work. Some might even talk only about colts and fillies… aha, Sweetie, you’re looking down, I bet I just totally busted Rarity. Is that true? Did she only tell you about colts and fillies, all the time knowing that I’m with Applejack, knowing that Fluttershy is with Pinkie?”
Sweetie nodded, bashfully.
“Ha! Got to give her credit for warning you about the part that could get you pregnant, but she’s cheating you. Listen. There are lots of things you can do with other ponies, and you don’t necessarily have to be mares or stallions or anything. You gotta find your own path. Maybe that’s like the usual way, maybe it’s real different. The important thing is love—and paying attention! I haven’t always been great at that. Oh, and show your feelings—Applejack hasn’t always been great at that. You have to talk stuff out, and there is nothing, NOTHING you can’t talk about. You can be anything, and you can talk about anything. Promise me that’s how you guys are gonna do this stuff, ‘cos I want to see you grow up right!”
They stared at her, dumbfounded. Rainbow blushed.
“Or, at least, what I think is right. I just thought somepony better tell you that you could be yourselves, in case that’s a little different from usual, like it was with me. Maybe it wasn’t my place to say it…”
“Y’all okay in there?” called Applejack, who’d heard a raised voice and then quiet.
“We’re fine!” yelled Rainbow Dash, her ears back.
“All righty!”
Rainbow shook her mane. “I hope I didn’t just get in trouble. It shouldn’t get you in trouble, trying to tell kids they can grow up to be whatever they are… I better think of something to make it up to Applejack in case she thinks I went too far.”
“You didn’t!” insisted Scootaloo, loyally. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash!”
“Yes, thank you Rainbow Dash!” said Sweetie Belle. “We promise to be us!”
“And now I really need to take a leak… one side!”
The fillies scuttled back as Rainbow Dash rolled onto her hooves and lumbered toward the door. As she stepped outside, they exchanged a look—and bolted for the stairs.
Apple Bloom tramped away in the washtub, stomping the dirty laundry in a little pony frenzy. Her hair-bow had come undone, and dangled ignored by her neck as she pranced in the soapy water.
“Whoa, there, girl!” laughed Applejack. “Ya fixin’ to wash th’ whole room?”
“Sorry!” said Apple Bloom, and slowed down.
“That ought to be enough, sugarcube. We’ll let it soak for a spell. Thankee kindly! You’re a treasure an’ no mistake.”
Apple Bloom stepped out of the tub, shook her mane, and began to sprint out of the room, but was stopped by a yell. “Hey! Hold it right there!”
She froze, and Applejack walked up and gave her a look. “What don’t we do? Hm?”
“Uhhh… track muddy or soapy water all over the house?”
“Shake off them hooves at least.”
Apple Bloom did so, one hoof at a time, and pranced her hooves dry on the mat.
“Good girl! Now let’s go join your lil’ friends.”
The room was empty. The two country girls froze, startled.
“Now what the hay…” said Applejack.
Apple Bloom bit her lip, and trotted in place, beside herself with anxiety.
“Dashie’s holdin’ her water about as well as an old sock with a hole in th’ end,” said Applejack. “You figure she went out to do her business?”
Apple Bloom could only stare, because she didn’t trust her voice to not go into hysterics.
“I’m gonna go check,” said Applejack, trotting to the door and pulling it open with her teeth on the handle.
“Good! You do that!” squeaked Apple Bloom, and as Applejack walked out into the darkening rain, calling “Dashie?”, Apple Bloom whirled and bolted up the stairs as fast as she could run.
There was nopony in sight outside, though there was a heart-shaped piss-hole in the snow that had probably taken considerable hip-dexterity to make.
“Dashie?”
Apple Bloom burst through the door into her sister’s room and screeched to a halt, her expression a battle between horror and implicit mayhem.
On the bed, her sister’s bed, lay Scootaloo. She laid on her back, a shiny thing in her mouth, legs spread.
Sweetie was in sneak position, caught creeping trepidatiously towards Scootaloo’s crotch. Her eyes were very wide, and her lip quivered as she took in Apple Bloom’s irate gaze.
And between Scootaloo’s legs drooped a magically induced penis, russet-orange shading to magenta at the tip, half-erect if that… lolling foolishly across her inner thigh, and quivering with her heartbeat.
There was a moment of silence.
“Awww,” said Scootaloo. “We w’re j’st g’tting it to w’rk!”
“Ah will kill both of you,” said Apple Bloom, in a building litany of fury. “Ah will beat you to death with each other’s fool heads, I will rip that there thing off and choke you both with it…”
Scootaloo glared at Apple Bloom, biting down harder. And blinked. The penis had swelled up a little. It still lolled foolishly, but it looked like it was trying to stand up.
“It l’kes y’r yelling! Ha!”
Apple Bloom stepped forward, gritting her teeth in a snarl, as a thud from outside shook the house…
“Dashie?” called Applejack.
“Check this out!” came a voice from above.
Applejack glanced up in alarm, to see Rainbow Dash grinning and teetering on a scrap of rain-cloud. Her wings fluttered as she coaxed it groundward.
“I think I can even whack it and get some little bitty lightning zaps out of it! For when the kids are mischeivous, right?”
“You git down here right now!” demanded Applejack. “You’re not to fly!”
Dash rolled her eyes. “Exactly! Give me a minute, the thing is cranky. White clouds are so docile compared to this stuff. I dunno, though, maybe I should save a patch of this storm cloud. I think it suits me…”
“Right now! Rainbow Dash!” pleaded Applejack.
“Well, you could be a little more grateful,” complained Dash. “It’s all very well for Fluttershy to support herself with fluffy cumulus, but you know I can’t face that. I think it’s, like, a real breakthrough that I figured out how to do this kinda thing my way. Almost there… you gotta admit, radicalness factor is good, right? And all I need is a little balancing practice and I won’t… whooa!”
Applejack went white, seeing Dash’s weight shift, seeing her lover topple off the cranky-looking tuft of thundercloud… and she dove forward in a frantic, desperate lunge.
The cloud tuft squirted one way, and Rainbow fell the other, wings whipping out, but too low to easily catch herself without time for a few good wingbeats—and she landed squarely on Applejack’s outstretched body, grinding her into the slush.
“Oof!” said Dash. “Slipped out from under me! Thanks, AJ… uh, Applejack… uh… Boss? I think I might as well go in now and… wait for another day… to…”
Applejack struggled to her hooves, panting and wincing in obvious pain from the crushing force of her pregnant mate slamming her into the ground, and turned to face Dash.
Her eyes were filled with rage, her teeth bared.
“Git inside. Now!”
Dash retreated a pace, her ears laid back…
Apple Bloom was losing her shit.
“PUT. IT. BACK!” she hissed, big ominous spaces between the words. “What the hay is wrong with you?”
Instead of moving towards the drawer, Scootaloo rolled and got to her hooves, advancing towards Apple Bloom. The penis swung under her, and started to jut forward but didn’t quite make it. It bobbled confusedly, as if it wasn’t sure whether to be stiff or limp, as Scootaloo demanded, “M’ke me!”
“What is it, messin’ with your brain?” snarled Apple Bloom. “And you, stop starin’ at it, Sweetie Belle! It’s disgustin’!”
Sweetie began to argue, “No it isn’t…” but then all three fillies froze in their tracks.
The door banged open downstairs, and the house was suddenly full of angry shouting, and ponies galloping up the stairs toward them.
“It’s not fair! You’re being totally unreasonable!”
“Unreasonable? Me, unreasonable? How dare you say them words, you almost splatted like a rotten pumpkin!”
“What?! That’s what I am to you now? A rotten pumpkin?”
“Seem like that’s what your head resemble!”
Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had one instant to respond, as the adult ponies thundered toward them.
“Under th’ bed!” squeaked Apple Bloom.
The bedroom door slammed open so hard it banged against the wall, and Rainbow Dash ran in, looking back over her shoulder in outrage, as three little pony tails disappeared from sight under the bed.
Applejack appeared in the doorway, nostrils flared, snorting in fury, and stalked forward.
“Do I got to tie you up with my rope? Huh? What’s it gonna take, Rainbow? This whole family is countin’ on th’ blessing of a new foal, and you are endangerin’ him every step of th’ way!”
“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you!” screamed Rainbow Dash, shaking. “I was trying to be more safe! I was gonna stop flying! For YOU!”
“It ain’t about me, and that’s a real nice way to stop flyin’, ain’t it? Let’s all just go up to th’ clouds and then stop flyin’! That’s great!”
Applejack’s countenance was fierce. She stamped a hoof against the floor with a resounding bang, and she glared. The tendons stood out in her neck, the dark circles under her eyes added grimness to her look, and she showed the effect of every grueling week of the long, cooped-up, frustrating winter. Applejack had worked impossibly hard to rein in her temper over the dark, cold months stuck indoors away from her fields, and everything suggested that she was right at the end of her rope.
It was nothing, nothing… compared to the rage of Rainbow Dash.
Rainbow shook, teeth gritted, her head low, fixing Applejack with a murderous stare. Her ears were pinned back so hard it was like she was wearing a pony helmet, completely flattened against her head. Breath hissed through her teeth. And while Applejack’s posture was haughty and proud, her head raised high and contemptuous in her outburst of temper, Dash’s glowering slouch didn’t look submissive, and her flattened ears didn’t look submissive. The impression was more that Dash trembled a hairsbreath from whirling around and kicking Applejack in the chin—or rearing with flying hooves and striking down her infuriating mate.
Rainbow squinted her eyes shut with a horrible grimace, drawing a breath, fighting to speak coherently. “I was… doing… what Fluttershy told me to do…”
“Bit late for that now, ain’t it?” yelled Applejack. “If I hain’t been there, boom! I am damned if I am gonna allow it! I thought I could trust you, Rainbow! I guess I jes’ can’t!”
Rainbow made a strangled, painful noise, her eyes still shut as she tried to fight off her outrage. Her wings flapped violently, as if she’d instinctively tried to take to the air, and then arched out, poised for a launch, as she crouched lower—and let out a wordless scream.
And then, the words poured out of her, unstoppably.
“Get out! Go away, get out of my sight! I hate you, you suck at being a mate, I can’t do anything to please you! I’m sorry I ever loved you—I must have been wrong! Go away!”
Applejack’s head lifted higher, her face locked in a terrible scowl. She didn’t move a muscle at first, just stared down at Dash who crouched shaking in rage, looking like she was about to attack…
Applejack gave a little nod, mouth clamped tightly shut, still looking mad enough to spit. She turned around, very slowly and deliberately, and she walked away, each step echoing in the silence of the house, her slush-stained hips canting easily as she strode out of the room, and out of Dash’s sight.
Applejack’s steady walk didn’t slow as she headed down the stairs. It paused as she pulled the door open, and then resumed as she left the house—and then, there was a subdued bang, as Applejack pulled the door closed again. She wouldn’t have been able to kick it shut in any event, for it opened inward. And she hadn’t slammed it in an over-the-top, rageful way. Applejack had shut the door behind her with only the force necessary.
And a little more—just to make the point.
The kids under the bed listened, terrified, as Rainbow Dash banged a forehoof on the floor. This apparently wasn’t enough for her, and they clutched each other as Dash let out a horrible scream that surely tore her larynx up inside. It wasn’t the sort of scream like you’d hear from a pony being terribly injured—it was what you’d expect to hear from a pony about to inflict the injury, and the Crusaders cowered, waiting for Rainbow Dash to charge outside and try to attack Applejack.
But there was only silence.
Then, a weak, mewling, keening sound.
“…mmmmmmm…”
A faint noise merged with Dash’s voice. Sweetie Belle saw the cause. A teardrop splashed against the floorboards, soaked up instantly by the bone-dry wood, that had dried right up after a winter of fires in the fireplace with ponies huddled together for warmth.
“…aaaaaaaaahhh, mnaaaaaaaahh…”
Rainbow’s cry built and built, like she was trying to suppress it and just couldn’t.
Apple Bloom glared at Scootaloo, who still had the stolen bit in her mouth. Scootaloo looked stricken. Gently, she put the bit down, feeling what had become a fully stiff penis shrink quietly up and go away. Scootaloo bowed her head, grimacing as she heard Dash’s voice.
“…nwwwaaaaahh, aaaaahahah, haaaaahhh… Haaaaaahhh…”
It was horrible, gut-wrenching. She seemed stuck there, wailing in more and more agony, trapped between her fiercely expressed words and their obvious consequences, and then suddenly she was not. The Crusaders heard a scraping noise, the clatter of hooves against floorboards: Rainbow Dash was staggering forward, unfreezing from her internal battle between pride and pain, and pain had won—conclusively.
“….waaaaaah! Nuuuu, Applejaaaack! Nuuuu… come baaaaack…”
They listened as the despairing pegasus stumbled blindly down the stairs, her hoof-falls heavy from the weight of her advanced pregnancy. She pulled the door open, and staggered out into the snow, and they could hear no more.
Apple Bloom drew a deep breath.
“Put it back, Scootaloo. Right now. Ah am ashamed of you both.”
Scootaloo bent her head, and grasped the bit again. She winced, as an erection shot out and scrunched against the floor, but she wriggled sidewise from under the bed and zipped over to the bedside dresser, putting the bit down for a moment, pulling the drawer open, grabbing the bit with another sproing of penis that both Apple Bloom and Sweetie stared at—and placing it in the drawer, nudging it closed again with her nose.
Apple Bloom nodded, a sour look on her face.
“Nah GIT!” she hissed, and Scootaloo and Sweetie got. In less than ten seconds flat, the bedroom was empty. It would have been quicker, except that Scootaloo hesitated, to look down the stairs where Rainbow Dash had gone—and was dragged off by the ear, thanks to an impatient Apple Bloom.
Rainbow Dash pulled the door open, and staggered out into the snow, looking this way and that, trying to choke off her own bawling for long enough to focus, blinking away tears and wiping them with a hoof. Surely there would be a trail in the snow that she could follow forever until she dropped dead?
No, realized Dash. It wouldn’t take nearly that long. Applejack sat in the snow, facing away, no more than twenty feet from the house. She had to hear Dash’s crying, but she didn’t turn, or respond, at all.
Dash gulped, heart leaping to her throat. She’d said brutal, unforgivable things, but Applejack had only been driven this far. Hesitantly, Rainbow Dash took a step, and then froze, for she’d imagined Applejack rising to her hooves and continuing to walk away, and she felt sure she would die right there if that happened.
But it didn’t, and Dash forced herself to take another step, and another, trembling and dumb with terror but all the same moving closer and closer, until she could see Applejack’s face.
Applejack stared straight ahead. Her expression was grim and weary, and tears streaked her cheeks, but her jaw was set. Rainbow’s lower lip quivered as she searched helplessly for something to say to beg forgiveness, but then she cowered back as Applejack, still staring into space, opened her mouth to speak.
“Rarity told me there’d be days like this.”
Rainbow whimpered, lost for words.
Applejack sighed. Her eyes shut and squeezed a few more tears out with a wince, as if those tears hurt an awful lot to shed. They opened again, still fixed on the unguessable distance.
She raised a foreleg like it was very heavy, and reached out toward Rainbow, offering its sheltering embrace.
“C’mere,” she said. She sighed. “Dashie. C’mere. Ain’t gonna bite ‘cha.”
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, and her lip quivered—and then she’d rushed awkwardly over to press against Applejack, her head under Applejack’s chin, racked with ugly, ungainly sobs as her love held her close.
It seemed, after a while, like she’d settle down, but when she’d quieted a little, Applejack took the opportunity to inform her, “Ah will ALWAYS love you” and she was off again, wailing until she got hiccups and wobbled on her hooves.
“Easy there…” said Applejack. “Ya need to lay down? Aw, damn it, wish I could put down a sheet or somethin’…”
“Yeah… no, don’t worry about it… I’m always so hot all the time, it should be okay.”
Dash lowered herself and rolled onto her side in the snow, and sure enough, a mist of steam rose up around her.
“Wull… I guess jes’ this once. Darlin’.”
Dash looked up at Applejack, her lip quivering. “I’m sorry…”
“Ah tole you. Rarity warned me there’d be days like this. She weren’t foolin’.”
“How does she know?” asked Dash.
Applejack shook her head. “Dunno. But I want you to know somethin’… if I can’t keep both of you in th’ world, which I will do at all costs, so’s you know… Ah will choose you.”
Dash looked stunned. “Oh my gosh, Applejack, don’t say that. Don’t think stuff like that…”
“You hush. I’mma follow you around now, it ain’t for that much longer. You go on and have your freedom, you wouldn’t be you without it. Use them clouds or your wings or whatever ya gotta do. But git used to one thing: I want you both. An’ every time you fall from the sky, I will be there.” Applejack gulped, and continued. “I will be there to break your fall. No matter how high up it started from…”
“Shhh…” said Dash softly. “No more falling. I promise.” She considered, and added, “You would, wouldn’t you? You really would.”
“I…” began Applejack, and her voice cracked. “My baby…”
Rainbow Dash reached out, and Applejack crumpled to bury her face against Dash’s chest, shaking in silent tears as Dash petted her neck.
“I know,” said Rainbow Dash.
Applejack sniffled. “Both of ‘em, in fact, if you wanna get what you call technical…”
“I can learn, I swear,” said Dash. “I won’t forget this. You’re right, it can’t be for that much longer, this is getting ridiculous. I don’t know, though. I’m not sure it’ll change… afterwards. I’m… not really my own pony anymore…”
“I’m sorry,” said Applejack.
“No, don’t misunderstand!” said Rainbow Dash. “I’ve never felt so… valuable. Precious.” She gulped. “I’m, like, all the fucking Wonderbolts at once, all of a sudden.”
“In my eyes,” said Applejack, simply. Then she gave a little chuckle, adding, “I bet the biggest ambition you ever had was to BE fuckin’ all the Wonderbolts at once.” She nudged her lover, smirking.
Rainbow Dash cast her eyes downward, demurely. “Of course.” She glanced sidelong at Applejack, her coyness a gentle veil over the mending of her turbulent heart. “It took you to get me to dream BIG…”
Applejack sighed again, but more happily, and nuzzled Dash’s body, willingly joining her love in the healing balms of post-fight snuggles and cozyness. She knew they wouldn’t talk difficult things over for a little while, not until feelings had cooled—or at least, until negative feelings had cooled. Other sorts of feelings came flooding out as if they’d been pressed down by the fear and anger and could no longer be confined.
Applejack rubbed her face against Dash’s, wiping her tears off on pegasus cheekbone as both ponies smiled quivery smiles.
“Even if you can’t always use them wings th’ way you want… can we use ‘em a lil’ in another way?”
Dash’s wings lifted a little at the words.
“Twist my hoof, why don’t you…”
Reverently, Applejack helped Rainbow Dash to her hooves, and, pressed flank to flank, the two proceeded back into the house, and awkwardly up the stairs with fillyish giggles, into their waiting bedroom.
Scootaloo wouldn’t have stopped, were it not for the noise. And she would not have looked, except that the door wasn’t closed properly. It was cracked open, and it had been Rainbow Dash’s voice, without question. And the noise was a moan, a shuddering moan almost like Rainbow was in great pain—but different.
Scootaloo was fetching a dish of water, for the Crusaders were attempting the role of Cutie Mark Watercolor Painters with Apple Bloom determinedly taking the lead, but when she heard the noise and saw the door, she had to peek.
She froze, with a faint dismayed squeak, and her wings sprang up, and she just stared in fascinated horror and disbelief.
Rainbow Dash lay on the bed, her belly facing the door. Scootaloo couldn’t see her head, or most of Applejack, who lay behind her, a foreleg wrapping around Dash’s pregnant bulk. What was all too visible was Dash’s crotch, and Scootaloo gulped. Rainbow’s vagina was drooling a sort of ooze, and kept winking open in a freaky way, and it was all creepy and swelled up—the bottom part was poking out and Scootaloo almost thought she could look up inside her hero’s personal bits, which seemed almost purplish except where they winked open to a gleaming, flushed pink.
That wasn’t the half of it.
Applejack’s crotch was right behind Rainbow’s, and Scootaloo thought she could see the regular mare parts, but her attention was seized by a huge, ugly penis jutting out of Applejack. It was terrifying, like one of Scootaloo’s legs, not even a nice smooth cylinder but all bulges and veins, extending out to a scary thick blunt ending that seemed to expand even as Scootaloo watched.
Rainbow Dash moaned again, winking some more, and wriggled her hips. Applejack drew hers back, aiming that enormous scary shaft.
Down the hall, Sweetie poked her head out, and whispered, “Scootaloo?”
“…come here!” hissed Scootaloo. “Now!”
Sweetie ran up, her noises covered by Rainbow’s lewd moaning, and Scootaloo lowered her head to make room for Sweetie to peek as well. And Sweetie froze too, her eyes wide in shock.
Inside the room, Applejack’s hips pushed, and the bulky swollen flare shoved hard against Rainbow’s vagina, making her wail and writhe. The light glinted off her juicy marehood and gentle squelching noises merged with her cries, and then Applejack grunted and shoved harder…
Both fillies let out little shrieks of terror, but they were drowned out by Rainbow’s wild, ragged scream of pleasure. Applejack’s fat cock transfixed her, prying her marehood wide, vulva bulging out visibly to the sides as the stallion bulk crammed into her. She kicked her legs out behind, stretched in trembling tightness as if overcome with sweet agony.
And Applejack tugged a few inches of glistening shaft out for a moment—the friction tugging pegasus vagina along with it, forming a little cone tipped with labia around the withdrawing cock, evidence that the withdrawal dragged along Dash’s very insides—and then gave another mighty heave, and an impossible length of stallion cock shoved deeply into Rainbow, who convulsed and screamed a guttural, wordless cry in response.
It wasn’t a gentle, romantic shove. It was real stalliony. Dash reeled on the end of it, her mane unkempt.
Scootaloo’s and Sweetie’s faces were masks of horror and dismay. It wasn’t just how gross and glisteny and swole-up everything was, including Rainbow’s vajayjay—that was a gruesome shock, but more disgusting than anything else. No, it was the scale of things—the girth and length of that Applecock was terrifying and right out of their league—and it was the whole vibe. It didn’t seem like a fun game, it seemed horribly serious and loaded with intense, powerful emotions they couldn’t begin to imagine. Scootaloo’s look of dismay kept on getting worse and worse, as she watched her hero squirm on the end of what seemed like a sudden extra pony leg.
Sweetie gulped, for something in her soul resonated with Rainbow Dash’s lusty cries of ecstacy even while she recoiled, certain her little body would not survive such treatment. Her legs shook, and went weak in the knees over the conflicting desires to on the one hand do what Dash was doing, and on the other hand not to be killed doing it.
She had never had her body get in a fight with her mind, her heart, and her common sense all at once before. Everything about herself, everything she valued and respected rose up in rebellion, demanding she look away, insisting this was bad behavior, pleading that it was the height of uncouth and physically dangerous besides.
And that one part of her body ignored all reason and kept repeating, me next…
Apple Bloom poked her head out of her room. “Now what are you… oh, no, you don’t!”
Scootaloo and Sweetie tried to look apologetically at her, to move away, but they couldn’t—their lips quivered and their eyes were forlorn as they continued to stare like hypnotised creatures at the obscene, vivid, primal scene revealed through the crack in the door. Perhaps if it had been a still tableaux they’d have had a chance, but Applejack was getting into it more and more, and the alarmingly huge stallionhood plunged again and again into Rainbow Dash, to her indecent delight—gleaming with Dash’s juices, Dash’s labia quivering and splaying again and again in mare-ly winks around the intruding bulk, the sounds blending with Dash’s lusty cries.
Apple Bloom ran up, and went to drag Sweetie Belle out of the way, but in so doing, her eye reached the crack in the door, and she made the mistake of glancing inside… just in time to see Applejack’s half-hidden head move behind Dash’s erect wing, her teeth glint against trembling feathers, her jaws close on Rainbow Dash’s wing shank…
All three Crusaders stared, stunned, as Rainbow’s body jerked and her scream split the air, and then Applejack convulsed as well, and the fillies cringed as earth pony hips rammed forward, thrusting the oversized stallion-pole to the hilt in thrashing Dash, the base swelling up to stretch Rainbow’s labia achingly tight around Applejack’s spurting bulk. And for a moment, not one Crusader could move, as the grown-ups contorted and writhed and throbbed and clutched against each other in a cacophony of shrieks and grunts.
Scootaloo couldn’t stop staring at Rainbow’s wing, seized in Applejack’s teeth, shank locked in place, upper coverts groping the air drunkenly, feathers splaying and shivering as Rainbow emitted wild quivery cries. This was what lay behind Dash’s blushing, Scootaloo realized. This was something overwhelming and even sacred and she was butting in on it. There was no way it was okay for her to be seeing this.
Apple Bloom shook her head fiercely, and seized Scootaloo’s ear in her teeth. “Y’re done here!” she whispered hotly. “That w’s more’n enough!” She began to drag Scootaloo away.
Scootaloo didn’t resist. Her expression was stricken, appalled. “That… it… how could it, how… so big, so icky…”
Apple Bloom triumphantly dragged a defeated Scootaloo back to her room for safe keeping and the gentler pleasures of watercolors.
She returned, to more gently drag a stunned and staring Sweetie Belle away in turn, and Sweetie offered no argument or resistance.
Then, a little while, an observation, and a shameful confession after that, she returned furtively with a rag, and wiped up a little puddle of filly juice from where Sweetie had been standing… and snuck back off without making a sound, to rejoin her sorely chastened friends.
Peace returned to Sweet Apple Acres.