> Soarin Smells Sweetly
>  by darf
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three Horses Walk Into a Bar.

Yes, it's the setup to a bad joke.

It's also the name of the local bar.

Most ponies just call it 'Three Horses' for short.

Usually, if you say the whole name, you're just doing it for effect.

Trying to confuse somepony.

Soarin' floated in—floated, not walked, in a literal way, not having had anything to drink yet. Normally you'd expect a horde of groupies to crowd in around him, orbiting like backwashed particles in a clear glass. But this early, almost nopony else was comfortable enough with their liquored solitude to show their face. Only desperates and irreverents hobbled in at this hour, and usually hobbled out only when closing time rolled around at the end of the day.

For what it was worth, Soarin' didn't fly by with any plans to stay that long. Just passing by for a little pick-me-up before practice.

Soarin' approached the bar idly, as though he was more interested in inspecting the lacquer finish for nicks than ordering a drink. In accordance with the pantomime, the bartender seemed to pay him no attention, busying himself by polishing an already clean glass. The two ponies formed either half of a peculiar unspoken agreement, predicated on Soarin' being the first one to broach the subject of alcohol.

"Morning, Al," Soarin said. 

"Morning," the bartender said back.

His full name was 'Pony Al'. Soarin had supposed aloud at some point in the past that he must be close or distant family to Pony Joe, but Al had flatly assured him there was no relation. 'Sometimes parents just get lazy', he'd said by way of explanation. Try as he might, Soarin couldn't picture a pair of parents so unconcerned with their child's overall well-being that they couldn't even bother to name him. It was like a foal, naming their pet 'kitty' or 'puppy', or 'reticulated stink beetle'. A function label on top of a theoretically infinitely more interesting subject.

"How's business?" Soarin asked. He leaned on the bar with his foreleg, prompting a raised eyebrow from Al as he did so.

"Fine," Al said back, his voice barely more than a grumble.

"That's good," Soarin said.

"Mhm."

If you listened very, very carefully... you still couldn't hear the sound of Al polishing the glass. A damp rag on glass doesn't make that much noise, you see, and given the acoustics of the bar...

Nevermind.

Soarin cleared his throat loudly and perfunctorally. He already had all the attention from the bartender he was going to get.

"Ahem," Soarin said quietly.

"Somethin' I can help you with?" Al asked.

"Well, now that you mention it," Soarin said, leaning even further over the bar "I just so happened to be in the neighbourhood and thought I might stop by for a, a pick-me-up before practice, if you catch my—"

Al had plunked a glass down and begun to pour before Soarin finished his sentence. Soarin's attention hung on the glass as it slid down the bar until it was only a few inches from his waiting hoof.

"The usual," Al said. He'd found something else to polish in the interim and was busying himself with it.

Soarin inspected the drink. It was bright orange and smelled of citrus and bad decisions.

He took a sip.

Tasted about the same.

Perfect.

Soarin took a few bits out of his saddlebag and laid them on the bar.

Al appraised the payment from a distance before setting down his rag and coming over to collect the bits. He counted them again between both hooves.

"Thanks," he said with an extra 'grunt' at the end for 'thank you'.

Soarin nodded. He took his drink between both hooves and turned around to look for a dark, unoccupied corner where he could enjoy his breakfast.

Given how unoccupied the bar was, it only took him a few seconds to spot an appropriate seat. But as he walked in a beeline to the small booth at the far end, barely lit by a single dingy, halfway malfunctioning bulb, Soarin smelled something far sweeter and more intense than the beverage in his hooves—indeed, more intense than any drink he'd ever had, even including the nefarious concoctions conjured up in his college days...

What was that smell?

As with appearances, Soarin told himself not to stare or sniff too pointedly. He wanted to find the source of that fragrance, yes, but if he got up and started snorking and sniffing around like an over-eager mule, there was a good chance he'd scare off whatever was contributing the flowery aroma to the normally drab bar-room palette of dusty seat-covers and greasy, overcooked food. Even with just a little smell, Soarin could feel the fragrance wrapping around his senses like a kraken's tentacles, gradually pulling him deeper in deeper into reverence for this new and indescribable scent. Soarin wasn't normally one for perfumes, colognes, anything that smelled too much aside from a fresh-baked apple pie... but this smell was even better than that, and possibly better than any pie Soarin could have ever imagined. It was pervasive, permanent and elusive simultaneously.

Whatever and wherever it was, Soarin wanted to find it.

"Ohmygosh. Is that... are you really... are you a Wonderbolt?"

It was at that point normally that Soarin would have grabbed the rest of his drink and dashed away with speed to rival a falling comet... but while he was intensely studying the fragments of perfume-like particles left in his nostrils, somehow his temper seemed subdued, the urgency of every action lessened just a little bit. Surely there was no reason to take off just from a fan, no doubt looking for an autograph? Soarin could use a little ego-stroking to start his day, along with the 'Orange Devil' he was only halfway through.

When he looked up from his table, the inside of Soarin's head lit up like an unchecked brush-fire.

Was the scent coming from him?

'Him', in this case being the fan standing only a few feet away from Soarin's table. Apparently they were uninterested in waiting for a response, and had instead decided to inspect the pony they were sure was famous up close, rather than from afar. Within a few feet, sure enough, their eyes lit up with that familiar 'star-struck' awe, their pupils widening as though they were deeply in love. Without waiting for an invitation, they ran the rest of the way to Soarin's table, practically jumping for joy on their way over.

Despite their speed, Soarin still had a chance to get a good look at them, including when they had mostly settled and relegated themselves simply to swaying from side to side on all fours like an excited foal, or perhaps one who was trying to hold in the need to go to the bathroom. For a reason he couldn't quite articulate, Soarin felt provoked to study this pony intensely, to try and capture every inch of their appearance and essence in his memory, as though he was sure it would remain important far into the future. But how to describe something so it would remain forever? Soarin didn't consider himself much of a writer, and as a matter of fact was barely capable of reading proper Equestrian on the best of days. Still, he had to give it a shot...

Well, they were orange. That was a start. The same shade as his drink, really. Heh. That was a bit of an odd coincidence, though...

An earth pony. That wasn't odd. Soarin had learned the Wonderbolts had fans in all genres of Equestria's occupants, including ponies who could only enjoy their daring feats of flight from afar. And since Three Horses was a grounded bar, really, anypony could have walked in if they wanted to.

Their cutie mark... an orange-and-white swirled candy, overtop a tropical oasis scene, a desert-island kind of bob, with a palm tree and the bright sun overtop, the blue sea at the bottom, and the sensation of a surfable wave just around the corner... Soarin wasn't sure he'd ever seen such a beautiful cutie mark in his life. He wondered, if he licked it, would it tasted even sweeter than his drink?

The pony's mane was the hardest colour to pinpoint, a kind of light blonde, that seemed to taper at times into strawberry, or lighter orange, or even a slight, damp grey... it seemed to shimmer, too, making it hard to pinpoint the specific value of any strand before it had wavered and flickered into a different one. Soarin could have stared into it all day, forgotten about his drink until the ice melted and the cup left that troublesome white ring on the table because he'd forgotten his coaster...

Hello. Hello.

Hello?

Oh. Somepony was speaking to him.

"Hello?"

Yes, it must be them. He'd better say something back.

"Oh."

That was a good start.

Soarin came back into his body all of a sudden. He knew he was holding his drink, and that the pony he'd been studying had gotten close enough to speak to him, and was now trying to do so. Where had he gone just then? Somewhere that smelled even more of oranges and sweet vanilla ice cream...

"Hello," Soarin said. Had he already had that much to drink? Maybe they'd started making them stronger since he'd come in, uh... yesterday.

"Oh my gosh. You're Soarin, aren't you? From the Wonderbolts?"

He was. It was, in all essence, what could traditionally be considered a 'stupid question'... but he didn't feel as snarky as he usually did. Where was the joy in poking fun at a fan's question? They weren't a teammate, no spunk in them to fire back with a quip of their own. Besides which, Soarin felt interested in answering questions, even if they remained simple.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm him... I mean, I'm me. Soarin, I mean."

Why did his head feel full of apple pie?

"Wow." The fan-pony who reminded him of a creamsicle seemed bashful, as though they were even to make eye contact with somepony so famous and important. They kept looking down at the ground and shuffling their hooves in the nonexistent dirt of the... well, okay, the bar floor was a little dirty, nothing dense enough that the hoof left—okay, fine, like lines in the dust, traced in little circles on the playground...

Soarin found himself staring into the circles, despite being otherwise utterly interested in the pony in front of him instead.

"It's an honor to meet you," they said. 

Soarin's eyes followed their lips as they moved, intensely studying each little motion that comprised a single syllable's breath from their lungs. 

Was it him, or did their breath smell of citrus and ice cream?

"No problem," Soarin said. "It's always nice to meet a fan."

"Wow," they said again. Nothing further. Just an oblique kind of staring, the sort of a young colt fascinated by somepony much bigger and stronger. An older folk to show them the ropes. Take a cute baby bird under your wing and nurse them until they're ready to fly in formation and follow your every word...

Soarin found himself salivating. He rubbed the spittle off his chin with his hoof absentmindedly, not finding himself to care overmuch whether or not the pony in front of him saw.

"Yeah," Soarin said, as though continuing a line of conversation that had gone on only in his head. "Just stopped by to say, uh, hi, before practice... me and the barkeep are old friends, you see..."

The creamsicle pony nodded, wide-eyed, awed and star-struck in entirety.

"Uh-huh," they said. "Hey... do you want me to buy you a drink?"

It's way too early for me to get tipsy, Soarin felt himself saying in his head. The words tried out in his voice didn't fit right, didn't sound like something he overly wanted to say. He waited for another supply from his internal script.

"Sure," he said, the word working its way around and out his tongue like a thick, tropical syrup. "I've still got a little while before I need to go."

If it was possible, the orange pony's eyes lit up even brighter. Soarin found himself staring without word or reason, just looking into the endless expanse that was somepony else's countenance, getting lost in every little furrow and crevice of their brow and jaw, finding himself more or less suddenly in understanding of how portraiture could provide such endless fascination to art-ponies throughout history...

"Great," the fan-pony said. They pushed up a little against Soarin, close enough he could feel their body, slightly warmer than his own. "What should I get you?"

"I'll have a... a..."

"A sunset sparkle?"

Something with orange and cream swirl. Sunfire liked to get it from time to time on their nights out. He remembered it, vaguely.

"Sure." That felt right too.

"Great. Why don't you grab a table and I'll be back in a second?"

"Okay," Soarin said. He sat down at a nearby table, much more well-lit than the one he'd previously occupied. Somehow, now, the illumination didn't bother him. He was happy to sit here all day, if it came down to it. What was the rush to do anything, to get to a practice that would be basically the same as yesterday's? He already knew how to fly, what was the point in practicing it so much... besides which, somepony—a fan, no less—was here to enjoy his company, was getting him a drink even... he felt like somepony in control of his dreams after years of fruitless practice, able to look down and study his hooves and remember the clock on the wall and the passages of books he'd had on his shelf but never read... altogether, to steer an invisible ship in a limitless, tumultuous sea.

Soarin's head felt fuzzy. He'd never been particularly good at fancy talking or flowery words. So why were there so many of them in his head all of a sudden?

The orange pony reappeared in the corner of Soarin's eye as though they'd been waiting for the perfect moment between his thoughts to pop up; like a waitress at a café who actually made sure you were finished swallowing your bite of food before asking you how your order was. Soarin moved his hoof—his hoof moved? Perhaps he was just observing it—to his head and scratched.

Nopony else was in there, right? Plunk, plunk. He tapped his skull a few times for good measure.

"Everything okay?"

They had a voice like afternoon schnapps and the bite of a pillow-case.

Huh?

"Oh." Soarin stopped bonking his own noggin and looked down at the drink somepony had gotten him. This pony. Thank you. Say thank you. "Thank you," he said. "It looks great."

The orange pony sat down across the small table, close enough that their hooves would have touched underneath if he hadn't kept them close to his seat. 

Nevertheless, Soarin felt as though they had already started bonking their limbs against each other. Only inches separated them, Soarin could have reached across and run his hoof along the bright orange coat and up into the frazzled, shimmering mane...

"... by the way, in case you were wondering."

Soarin blinked several times. He hadn't started his drink yet, had he?

"Sorry? I uh... got distracted for a second. By work. Thinking about work."

"It must be tough having to practice so hard every day." The orange pony leaned forward, propping himself up on the table with his forelegs bent.

"Oh, it's really, uh... hard." Soarin blinked. He took a sip of his drink. It tasted like heaven. "What were you saying though? I feel like I missed it."

The orange pony giggled.

"I was just telling you my name, silly. In case you were wondering."

"Oh." Blink. Drink. A slow, contemplative swallow, savouring the taste as it ran down his throat. Mhmm. "What was your name, then?"

The orange pony leaned even closer over the table, close enough that the whisper which escaped his lips could be heard only between the two of them.

"Why don't you just call me... Orange Dream."

Soarin nodded, his pupils heavily dilated, his eyes staring forward but simultaneously nowhere in particular.

"Okay," he said. "Orange... Orange Dream. That's a... nice name."

Orange Dream giggled, high-pitched and playful.

"Thank you. Yours is pretty fantastic too... I couldn't think of a better name for one of the fastest ponies in Equestria. Maybe the fastest."

Soarin's face felt hot. He couldn't tell if it was from blush or his drink.

"Aw, shucks. Thanks. I don't think I'm all that, but..."

"Nonsense!" Orange Dream extended a hoof all the way, so that it laid overtop of Soarin's, the one not tending to his drink, and the two of them were touching, like that, the heat and electricity between their bodies all at once connected. "You're definitely the fastest member of the Wonderbolts... and the coolest."

Soarin chuckled. Geez, his face was warm.

All fine though, right? He had a drink, a good drink, better have another sip... and he wasn't late for anything. He was precisely where he wanted to be.

"I feel like I could use another drink," Soarin said, the words escaping his mouth before his head had fully parsed them.

Orange Dream's smile was as sweet and surreptitious as the drink he'd ordered.

"Well," he said, "I have a great liquor cabinet back at my place. I could make you tons of drinks, if you wanted to come back with me..."

Soarin was out of his seat, drink finished in a single swig before Orange Dream had even finished his sentence. The alcohol burned slightly against his lips and the back of his throat, but it was a good burn, the kind that made him feel alive, able to control and concentrate the soft sensation of pain like an early earth-pony wafting fire about with a piece of muddy stick...

"Yes," he said. "That sounds... that sounds great."

Orange Dream smiled even wider.

"Oh, yes," he said. "It does sound pretty great to me."

The two of them shared a chuckle, though Soarin wasn't really sure what they were laughing at.
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It occurred to Soarin as he followed Orange Dream through the simple wooden front door that normally, after meeting a fan and having things go so well, the two of them would have gone back to hisplace instead, a nice little fully-paid-for bachelor apartment suite in Cloudsdale, with the attire made of haphazard remnants from college days and flying victories just the way he liked it. He would know where everything was, and have an implicit sense of power, be able to offer more drinks and ogle the newcomer as they situated themselves on the couch, no doubt studying the accolades adoring the walls and getting even more hot and bothered with admiration for the Wonderbolt they were theoretically about to be boned by...

This wasn't bad, though. It was just... different.

Orange's place was quite nice, for one, a quaint little home on the outskirts of Ponyville's residential boundary. Soarin didn't spend much time on the ground, and even less just plowing through the houses of random residents, but he guessed that the place had cost a pretty pile of bits, given how well the state of it held up. Only a single story, but with nice wooden fixtures on the... was he a real estate agent all of a sudden? Well, there was a nice fluffy red couch, so he sat down on it, the same way the other pony usually did. Now was about the point he'd offer them—

"Would you like something to drink?" Orange Dream's voice drifted sweetly from the kitchen to the living room, hanging in the air with a vague melodious tone that stuck in Soarin's ear about the same as syrup. It made his legs clench together and the hair on the back of his neck stand up in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever noticed it doing so before. Like he was about to be pounced and devoured by a very large, toothy apparition in the Everfree. The thought worried him less than he imagined it ought to.

"Yes, please," he answered back. Bits of conversational script seemed to be filtering through his head in more cumbersome ways than usual. Possibly they were being gummed up by all the honey, or syrup, or whatever it was... though, wasn't that just a metaphor?

Soarin scratched his head. He was no good with metaphors. Pie was simpler.

The drink Orange Dream brought out between his hooves was bright green with a little pink umbrella sticking out of the top. Soarin inhaled deeply as he took it inbetween his own hooves, and caught a strong fragrance of mint, on top of a wispy, wavy flavour-smell he couldn't quite place. He took a sip, and felt like he'd just taken a swig of sweet-tasting, bubbly toothpaste. He took another sip, and licked his lips afterwards. As a kid, he'd always enjoyed eating the bubblegum flavoured toothpaste when his parents weren't paying attention. Sometimes, as an adult, he still caught himself putting on an extra big gob just to swish it around in his mouth.

"What is this?" Soarin asked. He took a third sip, already halfway through the drink. The umbrella bobbled cutely along the side of the glass. "It's really good." Sip. Sip.

Orange Dream smiled sweetly.

"Oh, just a little something I made myself. I call it the 'kudzu swallow'... it really creeps up on you, heh..."

Soarin smiled goofily. He was aware there had been some kind of joke made, but wasn't feeling collected enough to say he'd followed it at all.

"Heh," he said, for good measure. Just in case. Sip.

Huh. Where had his drink gone? It seemed only a few seconds ago he'd started it, now the entire thing had vanished. Just the ice was clinking around at the bottom, stained faintly with effervescent green, and the little umbrella trapped inbetween...

"Would you like another one?" Orange Dream asked. When he asked, he leaned so close that Soarin could feel hot breath on his cheek. It made him shuffle in his seat, doing his best to keep his hind legs clenched unsuspiciously together.

"Yes. I mean, uh, yes, please." Soarin offered his empty glass, and shivered when Orange Dream's hoof touched against his own during the transfer. Another thing... normally, Soarin would never find himself tongue-tied when doing a meet-and-greet—well, maybe more of a 'meat-and-greet', all things considered... the point was that fans got nervous around him, not the other way around.

Things felt heavy. It was a sentence that didn't do a good job of translating Soarin's current state of mind... his body felt heavy, when he thought of getting up from his seat, when he reached for the drink he'd forgotten wasn't there, was being refilled in the kitchen... and his head was swimming too, in a sort of familiar way that felt like a combination between alcohol buzz and the stuffy-sensing inability to process simple information that came after eating too many pies in one sitting. Soarin swooned a little on the couch, leaning against the fluffy back of it for balance. Maybe he ought to go lie down somewhere, yes, that seemed like a good idea...

"Here," Orange Dream said. He was back, with another drink in his hooves, and one for himself too. Two. That was two drinks.

Soarin smiled obliviously, staring into Orange Dream's eyes.

"Huh?" he said. He couldn't quite remember what they had been talking about.

"Here," Orange Dream said again. "Your drink." He giggled as he handed the green glass over, smiling wide as he watched Soarin indulge in a deep first draught.

"Mhm," Soarin said, wiping his mouth with his forearm, still leaving a little smear of green on the left side of his upper lip. "Did I mention this was really good?"

Orange Dream giggled again. His forearm moved surreptitiously and without notice over the back of the couch and around Soarin's torso. Pulled him close enough that the two of them were touching, legs brushing against each other on the couch.

"Yes," he said, "you may have mentioned that."

Soarin took a pause from his drink to sniff the air, pointedly and loudly. "Mmm," he said again, his eyes squeezed shut like he was savouring the smell of a freshly baked pie. Sniff. Sniff. "Is that some kind of cologne you're wearing?" Sniff. Sniff. Sniff. "I smelled it in the bar, I think." Sniff. "It smells really good."

Orange Dream just smiled.

"Oh, does it?" His face was painted in perfect innocence. "It's just something I threw on this morning... nothing fancy, in my opinion."

Soarin seemed to have forgotten about his drink. His hooves lowered it to the table as if on automatic, then returned to his sides, rubbing along the fuzzy red couch nervously, like he was trying very hard to focus on that part of his body instead of another one.

"Well," Soarin said, "it smells good. I mean, really good." Soarin noticed his tongue hanging out of his mouth, just the way it would have with pie—and, just like with a fresh pie, Soarin did nothing to correct it. He wanted to take in as many delicious molecules of the scented air as possible, the most amazing precursor to the moment when his lips finally parted and touched the crust of his delicious desire...

Woah. He'd almost fallen off the couch. Maybe... maybe he'd had too much to drink?

"Sorry," Soarin said, not apologizing for anything other than his light-headedness in particular, knowing he'd not done much of anything wrong but still would be better off saying sorry. "I'm just feeling a little... is there somewhere I could lie down for a little bit?"

Orange Dream's smile, at the corners, revealed the slightest hint of two very tiny, but very pointed little fangs.

"I think that could be arranged," he said, words slow and sinuous.

Like a single unit, the two of them got up from the couch. Soarin let himself be steered around the living room, down the unlit hallway to the open door, where Orange Dream ushered him in quietly, shutting and locking the door behind them.

Soarin's second drink remained unfinished on the living room table.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hot and cold. Soarin felt hot and cold at the same time. Like standing next to an open window with the heater on. He wondered if this was a metaphor for something, or if he was just feeling weird. 

"Make yourself comfortable," Orange Dream said.

Soarin did so, by sitting down on the edge of the bed, albeit a little too far on the edge to make himself that comfortable. It reminded him a little of first visits to bedrooms during dating age still in school, when you were never sure whether an invisible line existed between you and anything else in the room. Being in somepony else's room was a privilege, being invited there all the more so.

Soarin ran his hoof along the blankets and bedspread. It felt nice. Soft. The blankets were a soft brown. Soarin found them inoffensive to look at, almost pleasant, just in their plainness. Soft, thick blanket. Soarin liked the way they felt. They felt good.

Orange Dream's hoof was on his leg.

"Hey," Orange Dream said.

Soarin had played this out before, but usually in the other part. He was the one with the hoof on the leg, the one pushing forward and leaning so that his presence loomed, so they could both feel the heat of each others' breath, and any alcohol in them was sure to swirl and swish around into the bubbling mix of body chemistry that made a pony long for somepony else next to them, to be even closer than physics allowed, to pull them into you wholly and completely, so that when the white-hot light vanished, there was only one pony left, and never again would anyone complain of feeling half-filled or empty again. Soarin liked that part.

He felt empty a lot, it seemed.

"Oh," Soarin said. "Uh. Hey." He wasn't really sure what else to say. Maybe that much was obvious.

"Don't worry," Orange Dream said, leaning his face so close their lips were almost touching. "You don't have to talk right now."

"Okay," Soarin said.

Orange Dream kissed him. A soft, barely-there touching of lips at first, leaving Soarin to beg and linger at the edge of the gesture, until he couldn't take anymore, and he was the one leaning in even more, wrapping his legs around Orange Dream's body and pulling him until the two halves of their magnetic coupling could be linked, and... and some other mushy stuff that was moving too fast for Soarin to recite it. His whole body felt like it had swallowed too many drinks to count, and his head was swirling, all this from just a kiss, his tongue was hanging out and drooling like a complete idiot...

Oh. 

Orange Dream had stopped kissing him a few seconds ago. Soarin's mouth had been lingering open in the air, smooching nothing, for a little while. He felt the hot flush of blush in his cheeks, which seemed to join the rest of his body in the general theme of 'heating up'. Hot and cold. The only part of him that felt cold was a little piece in the center of his head, the tiny doubt that was so small it could no longer be translated into words. Worries, fears... what was all the fuss? It was so much easier just to let your consciousness coast into a vast ocean and float, whatever came your way was simply what ought to have happened...

"Hey," Orange Dream said.

Soarin blinked and came back to reality, at least partially. He blinked a few times to make sure he was still in the same room he'd started in. Part of him felt like he was floating. Most of him, in fact.

"Huh?"

Orange Dream further up onto the bed and laid down with his hooves behind his head, like he was lounging pool-side on vacation, or just generally waiting to be attended to by some servant or another.

Soarin's attention was drawn immediately to the sizeable distraction poking up from between Orange Dream's hind legs.

It looked... a lot bigger than he was used to.

Much bigger than his, that was certain.

Why should that be a big deal?

Soarin shook his head to nopony in particular. His own cock wasn't even close to hard, more-so seem to be intensely interested in remaining as flaccid as possible and hiding between his legs until the encounter was over. Seeing somepony else—a fan, no less—stand him up so effortlessly only added to the muddled mix of emotional soup swilling about in Soarin's cerebellum. He found his head swaying from side to side, like there was an ephemeral bit of water lodged in either ear he was trying to dislodge by intuition. More consciously, he could only stare at Orange Dream's hulking prick. He wasn't familiar with shame and arousal coupling so close together. Part of him was already starting to like it.

"Like what you see?" Orange asked casually. He didn't even seem to bat an eyelash at Soarin's overcome demeanor, as though he was used to seeing this sort of response in the bedroom.

Soarin took a few extra seconds to process the question through his constant drooling, then a few extra seconds to come up with a responds that could survive the haze of his adrenaline and arousal.

"Yes," was all he said, and licked his lips.

"Why don't you show me how much you like it."

Soarin's cock, still nowhere near full hardness, twitched involuntarily between his legs. He liked that feeling—that somepony else had his dick by a string, theirs to pull and play with just by the force of their words alone. Their words, and the enormous, engorged, veiny, bulging cock inbetween their legs...

Soarin made an attempt to wipe the drool of his chin, but some of it still remained. He payed it no further mind as he lowered himself to the bed, prowling like an awkward serpent, slithering closer and closer to his prey, until...

"Wow." Soarin's voice came out breathless, his whole body caught for a moment in awe.

Without another word, he opened his mouth and leaned down towards his prize.

Even the head was thicker than he could have imagined. It barely fit. His lips hurt, his tongue couldn't figure out what to do around the bulky shaft, and there was so much more to go, he'd never felt anything like it... Soarin grunted as he steeled himself further, forcing as much of Orange Dream's throbbing prick into his mouth as he could manage, then taking a few seconds to breathe before attempting to force himself to take even more, his throat bulging and screaming at him to stop, but the fire burning inbetween his legs and in his chest and the back of his brain was too bright, and there was nothing that could have convinced him to stop until he was finished, until he had the whole thing down his throat, until he could smell the warm, heavy musk of Orange Dream's balls nestled next to his nose, hear the satisfied groan of somepony whose cock had been swallowed whole...

Half-hard, Soarin felt himself start cumming involuntarily. His semi-flaccid prick jerked and clenched, dribbling a slow-moving but hefty in volume stream of cum down the inside of his legs and onto the clean bedding beneath.

Orange Dream barely raised an eyebrow. He watched Soarin cumming with something like a detached, mild amusement, the same way a parent might watch a child bounce for joy when they were allowed a cookie for dessert. Ponies always looked so desperate and innocent when they let themselves cum like that...

Soarin didn't stop sucking, nor did his tongue cease its swirling movement as best it could manage around Orange Dream's shaft. But he began to moan girlishly around the big piece of dick-meat in his mouth, making soft whimpers amidst gurgles as he rocked his head up and down, managing finally to work all the way down, until his nose was full of the funky musk of Orange's ball-sweat, and just another half an inch would have been sure to make Soarin gag. But right now, he could manage, and what's more, finally begin slobbering on the healthy knob he'd manage to work down his throat. Mhmmm...

Orange Dream put a hoof on the back of Soarin's head as the wingpony went to work, gurgling and drooling gratuitously as he worked Orange's cock, making a show out of the spectacle as spectacular as any Wonderbolt's show. Orange Dream, for what it was worth, only moved his hips slightly, but the look on his face said he was pleased in a way nopony could accurately articulate. It rang of snakes and sweet, spun sugar.

It seemed the blowjob could have gone on forever, if Orange was willing, and Soarin would have been just as content to occupy himself as a pony-shaped throat-fucking vessel until the sun set... but Orange Dream yanked Soarin's head off with a hoof in his mane, seemingly irreverent for the amount of pain it would cause, and Soarin seemingly unconcerned as well, possibly even enjoying the forceful jerking around.

"Hey," Orange said again.

Soarin's eyes went wide, like a puppy waiting for instruction.

"Why don't you position yourself properly at the top of the bed, and I'll give you a reward for doing such a good job warming up my cock?"

This tone had crept in surreptitiously, without Soarin even being aware it was something he'd always wanted. His cock twitched inbetween his legs as he nodded fervently, hopping further up on the bed and taking position on all fours, bending his head down so it almost touched the headboard, and sticking his ass up so far he was sure Orange Dream had a perfect display to treat him, Soarin's taut, muscular butt spread as wide as his hind legs could manage, his cum-covered, half-hard cock still twitching involuntarily between his legs. Dripping a little bit of cum on the bed, which was rapidly becoming in need of a wash.

There wasn't much need for further words between them. In a position like this, one pony did one thing, and one pony did another. It was a gesture Soarin had replicated hundreds of times, albeit often at the other end of the coupling. He wasn't used to this, and therefore found himself yearning for it all the more. He wanted to be bent over like this, he wanted to be the one with his head tucked low, unable to see what was going on behind him, given the complete sense of power away, until there was nothing he could do but wait and twitch and tremble and clench and breathe so deep he was sure his chest might explode...

Ah. Soarin sucked in a sharp hiss of breath as he felt Orange Dream's cock prod against his ass.

"Shhh," was all Orange Dream whispered back. It was more than enough, made Soarin's head fill with fuzz and swoon like he'd swallowed a full swig of his drink back at the bar. Warm, comforting, just like the blankets he'd admired on sitting down...

There was lots of moisture, far more than even Soarin's fervent drooling could have left. Maybe there'd been a bedside bottle of lube he'd missed, maybe Orange Dream had been dribbling spit into the crack of Soarin's ass for minutes while staring it down, possibly time had stopped moving and none of this made sense at all. Soarin just knew his head was down, he could feel the head of the enormous prick he'd only minutes ago struggled to down now poking into the sensitive entrance to his rear end. He felt his natural reflex, to tense, to seize up, and then fought it, taking deep breaths and relaxing as much as possible, to take away as much of the struggle from penetration as was possible.

Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, given how smoothly the rest of the night had flowed, Soarin felt Orange Dream's cock slip into almost painlessly, from one instant out to another in, the whole of Soarin's ass filled up with the hot shaft he'd slobbered to lube up, as though he'd been dreaming of the thing sliding into him the whole night.

It was difficult to do anything other than breathe. Soarin's whole body clenched up, his ass seemed intent on squeezing the cock inside it until a whole load of cum got milked out. Similarly, Soarin's cock was stirring of its own accord, twitching into almost-there erections and then curling down to a flaccid whimper. He felt so desperate, so horny, like he'd never wanted anything more in his life than the cock in his ass... and yet still, couldn't get it up all the way, reminding him of the first times in puberty he'd woken up to sticky bedsheets and questions about the stallions in his dreams. 

"No, it doesn't hurt," Soarin said, answering a question that hadn't been asked. He was so used to this part, he'd just assumed Orange would have asked, the same way he did when he was getting ready to plow somepony into unconsciousness from behind...

"That's good," Orange Dream said. At least he was still there, hadn't dissociated into a state where Soarin's ass was the only thing he could focus on.

Soarin didn't seem to be doing very well on the other end of the equation though. His vocabulary was down to almost single syllables now, his whole body screamed at him to bounce and rock himself incessantly on the prick that was shoved inside him, but, at the same time, knowing if he moved even an inch, he'd feel the engorged head of Orange Dream's prick shove up against his prostate, and the limp wiggles his cock had been performing would transcend to more half-hard milking, his balls surging and squeezing to get the sticky stuff out his shaft. The idea of cumming again without being all the way hard hit him with another wave of embarrassment, the same hot-and-heavy 'I shouldn't want this' feeling that had overwhelmed him before, the first time the jizz had begun to leak out of the limp head of his cock...

"Oh, fuck..." Soarin normally swore under his breath when he was the one doing the pounding, but now his voice game out loud and high-pitched, so sharp and genuine the fear of being overwhelmed was almost palpable in every syllable.

Orange Dream started to fuck him, then, in earnest. And, like clockwork, Soarin's cock gave one last defiant clench before it began to spray and dribble cum down the insides of his legs again. Even more than last time, it seemed, as though somehow his balls had managed to save it up.

Though Soarin couldn't see Orange's face, if he'd turned his head, he would have caught a faint, fanged smile.

Unbeknownst to Soarin, though he could certainly feel it physically, without knowing much of what was going on... well, Orange Dream's cock was certainly a lot slicker inside Soarin's ass than would have been normally expected, and even though he hadn't cum yet, his cock was doing a perfect job sliding in and out of Soarin's tender asshole, making him quiver like a shivering little filly each time the head slammed home inside him as deep as it could go. 

But there was a lot going on with Orange's cock aside from its size, hardness, and sheer slipperiness. All the while he'd been fucking Soarin's ass, without mentioning a word of it, his cock had begun to leak and dribble its own special liquid, much more syrupy and sweet than Soarin's cum, though it was certainly more flavourful now that he'd added mangos to his regular diet... Orange Dream's cock was even more swollen, a single bulge at the base that seemed to have emerged from nowhere. It made his cock look even more obscene, probably would have caused Soarin to have even more of a convalescent fit if he'd managed a look at it... the firm, singular bulge at the base, that began to move up, slowly, as if on a predetermined delivery schedule, until it was at the very tip of Orange Dream's enormous shaft, adding more bulge to the tip, so that each time he slammed the head of his cock into Soarin's prostate, the pegasus pony shrieked even louder, so loud any neighbours surely would have heard if Orange Dream's house hadn't been so out of the way, and unbordered by any sort of nosy nearby occupants. There were only the two of them to hear Soarin's hysterical panting and moaning, as though his second orgasm had stretched out into a third, and that into a fourth, and that one into a potentially infinite horizon as long as Orange Dream kept pounding, kept slamming his cock home, spreading Soarin's ass wider and wider with each ram, the bulge at his tip so swollen it must surely be ready to come out any second...

Pop.

Soarin couldn't have seen anything, of course. His eyes were rolling back in his head, his cock clenched so tight trying to wring out its final drips of semen that his entire body felt like it was a metal wire wound around a single point. Soarin imagined a hyper-condensed piece of something floating in space amidst nothing, the entire matter of the universe smooshed down to a single atom. Then wring it dry. That was what his prostate felt like.

He couldn't have noticed the bulge when it had appeared, nor when it disappeared. Only had the vaguest sensation of awareness of the slick, slippery, honey-like fluid pouring from his ass, mixed with Orange's 'cum' and the remnants of their frantic penetration, a slurrious mixture of various means of lubricant.

Finally, Orange Dream pulled his cock out. Miraculously, Soarin felt no less full, though his cock finally seemed to take the signal to stop cumming. For now.

Without asking for permission, Soarin collapsed forward onto the bed, slamming down in a pool of his own juices and cum. The proverbial wetspot, which he didn't mind occupying even a bit. His mind was incapable of minding anything at present.

He felt full. That was a good feeling.

Orange Dream smiled as he nuzzled his muzzle against the back of Soarin's neck. Miraculously, Soarin seemed already to be drifting to sleep, like some heavy, heady chemical was working its way into his brain and walking him down the path to a fitful night among the clouds...

"Smells yummy," Soarin said absentmindedly, licking his lips before yawning. He grabbed the nearest patch of blanket and clutched it tight to his body, like a stuffed animal. His nostrils flared as the scent of honey and rich, foreign spices mingled in his nose.

"Sleep tight," Orange Dream whispered.

The next morning... maybe eggs, for breakfast?
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soarin woke up feeling full and empty at the same time. Stuffed and hollow. Hot and cold. He'd woken up a lot during the night, turning over expecting to grab a hoofful of his familiar bedding and blankets and instead finding himself next to a barely recognizable orange pony, who would sigh and press their body backwards when Soarin wrapped his foreleg around their chest, and that would help him get back to sleep, at least for a bit.

He wondered if he'd already gotten up and eaten breakfast. Still, something smelled good, presumably wafting down the halfway under the crack in the bedroom door. Soarin couldn't tell if the fragrant spiced accents were from the potential food on the fry or the perpetual perfume that seemed to linger around Orange Dream wherever he went. Soarin absentmindedly buried his nose in Orange's pillow and inhaled deeply, shivering as the captivating scent washed over his senses, fixing him to the spot and making parts of him tingle he didn't know existed.

Part of him wanted to get up, but more of him seemed uninterested in responding to his internal requests. He would ask a limb to move, and instead of moving instantly, it would think about it for a while, decide if it really felt like moving, and then move if all the variables lined up properly. Idling thoughts drifted in and out of the front of Soarin's consciousness, mostly mingling with the urge for a hearty breakfast, followed by slipping back under the covers with somepony sturdy and orange to cling to in the meanwhile.

"Soarin?" 

A voice like currant-honey crept under the door. Soarin's whole body tingled, even though he wasn't sure how to describe the sensation itself, like he was shivering from the inside out. 

"I'm here," he said, maybe more quickly than he meant to. It seemed important to answer promptly, to make sure not to leave his fan... they were still that, weren't they? Or maybe he was their fan now... don't leave them waiting, in any case. Soarin pulled the blankets up tight under his chin, feeling anxious for a reason he couldn't articulate.

"Breakfast is ready," came the drawl, back under the door, seemingly unconcerned with the world at large. "If you want to drag yourself out of bed, there's a plate waiting for you..."

Getting up seemed like a good idea, suddenly. Breakfast was ready, after all.

"Okay," Soarin said. He got up, having to take a few second to steady himself as he attempted to exit the bed. His legs felt wobbly, his hooves slippery, like they weren't all the way underneath him at once... Still, he made it to the bedroom door, and then down the hallway. The fuzz seemed to move from his limbs to the front of his head, clouding his senses with more of the mingling perfume mixed with the breakfast aromas. Soarin wasn't sure which bit of the smells wafting across his palette were the ones to focus on, and he felt a headache creeping on, deep down in the tissue, a confused ambling from smell to smell...

When he sat down at the table, Soarin looked down at his breakfast plate.

It appeared to be some sort of mixed vegetarian grill, seasoned with spices that combined into a heavenly rainbow Soarin was helpless to pull apart. All he knew was that it smelled like heaven, and the worries of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, would all wash away if he had just a single bite.

He took one.

It was better than he could have imagined.

There was a nagging voice, somewhere, not one Soarin could recognize or place, certainly it wasn't his, and certainly it wasn't Orange Dream, whose melodious tone would have captured his attention instantly. It was more like the addendum to a cumbersome filing system, a tiny, secretary-like voice reminding him of something that was completely unnecessary to remember. Wings, clouds, something to do with flying... he'd missed practice yesterday, hadn't he? Was that it?

Well, that was nothing to worry about. He didn't feel worried, at least. He felt like he was right where he should be.

There could have been a practice today. Probably there was one tomorrow. Soarin felt miraculously unconcerned with material things like where he was, what he was supposed to be doing. He took another bite of the syrup-drenched greens on his plate, shut his eyes and sighed.

"I've got some ponies I'd like you to meet today," Orange Dream said nonchalantly. He was still working at the stove, flipping little sprigs of celery and carved carrots into each other, letting the steam and scented fumes wafted around him like smoke to a wizard's entrance.

"Mhm?" Soarin tilted his head with a collection of green strands hanging from his mouth. He slurped them up inelegantly, making as much noise as possible. Table manners had never been on his list of priorities.

"Just some friends of mine," Orange Dream went on. He finished the last flip of the pan's contents and flicked the stove burner off, waiting for a few seconds before turning the pan upright and dumping the contents onto a plate of his own. If Soarin had been capable of an occupied and intense attention, he might have noticed substantially less syrup and seasoning on Orange's plate than his own... but that was out of reach for now, and instead, it was just the two of them sitting down to breakfast next to each other. A cozy morning moment. "I have a feeling you'll get along great."

Soarin nodded. He'd somehow managed to finish the entire contents of his plate without even noticing. He couldn't tell if he was still hungry or not.

"Here," Orange said, offering Soarin another fully-decked, syrup-drenched plate from out of nowhere. "I had a feeling you'd be hungry after last night... heh."

Soarin's mouth began to water involuntarily before he'd even taken the plate in his hooves. It was a tremendous difficulty to resist just shoving his face into the fragrant bouquet and chowing down like a cow on cut grass... but he managed to retain at least that bit of dignity, and restrained himself to customary, albeit very large, bites off his fork.

"That sounds good," Soarin said through his mouthful of greens. It seemed important to answer, even though he didn't have anything meaningful to add.

Twitch.

And he was starting to feel hard, for some reason. Hard, hot, and sweaty. Maybe he needed a shower—

Orange Dream's hoof on the back of Soarin's neck felt cool and inviting. He relaxed backwards into the gesture, slumping a little in his chair as Orange ran his hooves around Soarin's shoulders, tickling his ears and giggling as Soarin shivered even more intensely. Eventually his hoof settled to tracing little circles in the fluff of Soarin's chest, making him whimper and shut his eyes as he wiggled needily in his chair.

It seemed like Orange's hoof was about to take an even more intense direction, beginning to circle lower and lower until it was almost between—

But then the doorbell rang, and Orange's hoof stopped.

"Ah," he said. "That'll be them now."

He left Soarin in his chair, whimpering and wriggling with a desperate tinge to his sighs.

"Glad to see you made it without much trouble." Soarin could hear Orange's voice from the other room, familiar, like greeting an old friend. Somepony he didn't recognize answered back.

"Wasn't too much of an issue... after last time I made a map so I wouldn't get lost."

"Always thinking ahead, heh-heh."

"You know it."

It seemed like the two of their voices were pairing in the air to exchange information without words. Soarin felt like there were pieces of the conversation being left out that he couldn't hear or understand. Not a different language but like... somepony speaking in code in plain daylight, using normal words in a way you couldn't comprehend.

"Just come into the kitchen, I'd love to introduce you to my new friend."

"And mine! He was a bit of a hassle to get here... kept pawing at my crotch on the coach ride. Couldn't keep his hooves to himself!"

Orange Dream and the unfamiliar voice shared a laugh.

"That sounds like my kind of company. You've done a good job with him, it seems."

"Yes, maybe too good... see, there he goes again! Would you stop? We're around company!"

Soarin heard another laugh from Orange, accompanied by a whimper from a third voice, high and needy.

"Oh, don't worry too much about manners. I did invite you here for a reason after all..."

"Yes, well. Let's just get acquainted first before things descend into complete debauchery."

Soarin heard the third voice let out a disappointed groan, followed by hoofsteps as the three-pony party made their way to the kitchen

"Soma," Orange Dream said, gesturing to a green unicorn just stepping into view, "I'd like you to meet Soarin. I'm sure you've seen his performances with the—"

"Wonderbolts, yes, I recognize him already." Soma stepped close, from the doorframe until he was only inches away from Soarin's seat. An intangible heat seemed to drift from his body, and it made Soarin feel hot and prickly. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Soarin. Braeburn, why don't you introduce yourself as well?"

Soma gestured with one hoof towards Soarin's hooves resting on the kitchen floor. Seemingly from nowhere, a homely but incredibly frazzled looking earth pony crept through the kitchen doorway. He moved low on all fours, somewhat like a timid puppy, and when he walked towards Soarin's chair, he seemed to creep, keeping his nose low to the ground and refusing to look anypony else in the eye.

It took a few seconds for Soarin to notice the hard, veiny, dripping shaft dangling between the earth-pony's legs.

It made Soarin's cock twitch on its own, longing to get so hard, to join in the potential fun and attention. Seeing somepony else that hard... there was no way to deny the effect it had on your body. Soarin's was already getting hot and fuzzy.

"It seems like the two of them should get along quite well," Soma said with an appraising grin. He was wearing a pair of small spectacles, hanging low on the bridge of his nose, that made him look a bit like a museum curator, or an auctioneer at a very boring venue.

"Soarin, don't you think you should properly introduce yourself to your new friend?" Orange Dream asked. His voice seemed to quiver and hover in the air, resonating like a harmonic bar struck to ring out in perpetuity.

Soarin felt that introducing himself would be a very good idea.

"Hi," he said. "My name's—"

Soarin felt his words catch in his throat, along with the sensation of somepony's parted lips sliding smoothly and expertly over the whole of his not-yet-hard cock. Which, by the feeling of it, was stiffening rapidly by the second.

Braeburn looked up from underneath the breakfast table, his head between Soarin's legs, his mouth pursed around Soarin's rapidly hardening shaft. Braeburn's eyes were wide and emerald, making him look a lot like a begging puppy, emphasized by his position underneath the table.

Soarin wanted to continue the greeting he'd started, but the words he'd had in mind at the beginning were filtering out just as rapidly as his cock was growing hard. There was something so vulnerable about the feeling of being sucked up when you weren't even a little bit hard, how easily somepony could just slurp and slather their tongue around your shaft, until you started to grow in their mouth, and suddenly there was enough hardness to poke out between their lips, it would be a struggle for them to take the whole thing... how biology worked like this was a mystery to Soarin, but he didn't need to understand it to be swept up in its machinations. 

Blood was rushing swiftly to his cock, stiffening it up straight in Braeburn's mouth. Braeburn didn't seem even slightly perturbed by the increased challenge of thickness. He took to it eagerly, making his mouth wider, but still tightly sealing his lips around Soarin's veiny shaft as he bobbed his head up and down. 

Looking down between his legs, Soarin could only hold the adorable image of Braeburn's puckered lips for a moment before his body surged with overwhelming arousal, his head rolling back and eyes clenching shut of their own accord. Even though the introductory blowjob had just started moments ago, Soarin could already feel his balls clenching prematurely against his body, somehow having refilled with an even bigger stored-up load than the day before. Soarin's hooves naturally made their way to the back of Braeburn's head, running through his mane as the earth pony slobbed and bobbed insistently up and down on Soarin's cock.

Though he felt only vaguely present in the kitchen chair his body still occupied, Soarin could still ever-so-slightly make out Orange Dream's voice behind him.

"It seems like they're getting along well so far."

"Indeed."

When Soarin blinked again, there were two cocks in front of him, one he was familiar with from the night before, the second new, a comfortable-sized green shaft, no doubt attached to the unicorn guest who'd brought Braeburn in.

Soarin didn't need any instruction. His mouth opened on its own, his tongue lolling out immediately as he began to trade attention between the two pricks dangling in front of him. Just like last night, Orange's was intimidating even before it was fully hard, but the unicorn, Soma's, was much more manageable, giving Soarin's mouth and lips a break every now and then to keep the soreness from overwhelming. It didn't take long for both cocks to be fluidly lubed up with what seemed like gallons of Soarin's dribbling spit, seemingly taking cue from Braeburn's ministrations on his own cock and applying them immediately. That was good behaviour. Sure to receive a reward at some point.

Sure enough, Orange Dream reached out and patted Soarin on the head, once both he and the guest had been fully lubed and hardened up.

"Good job," he said, praising Soarin like a pet in training.

Soarin's cock twitched one final time in Braeburn's mouth before he began to spray a hot load of cum down the earth pony's throat.

Braeburn didn't bat an eyelash, though he did let out a long, steady moan as he began to swallow Soarin's thick, creamy jism. There wasn't a drop that escaped his steady guzzling, and Soarin's moans mingled with Brae's muffled whimpering noises to coat the kitchen in a soundscape of arousal. 

Beside the two of them, Soma and Orange Dream's cocks bobbed respectively, eager for their own attention.

Again, as if he'd been trained for it, Braeburn got up from the kitchen floor as soon as the final drop of Soarin's cum had flowed down his throat. He wiped his mouth with his hoof, once, then licked his lips, letting out another 'mmm' as he savoured the remnants of jizz remaining. Then, like a performing show dog, he got up from underneath the kitchen table and took his place beside it, lowering his head to the floor and raising his cinnamon-orange rear-end high, his hind legs spread wide to give full and perfect access for anypony behind him.

Soarin had just cum, and yet already, he could feel himself getting hard again. There was something coursing inside him, from the inside out, everything tingled and sizzled a little more, like each touch was on fire, a bolt of lightning that was coursing through his skin, making his cock ache and twitch and dribble precum down the side like a malfunctioning fountain...

"Soarin," came Orange Dream's voice from somewhere beside his ear. "Don't be rude. Follow Braeburn's lead, it's unkind to leave our guest waiting."

"Yes, sorry," Soarin sputtered, his words hot and clumsy from his mouth, his brain full of images of white stains on bedsheets and cooling apple pie from who knows how far away. Soarin got off the chair he'd been sitting on since beginning breakfast, his legs wobbling again as they met the tile. His whole body felt drained from the enthusiastic suckling of Braeburn's lips, and yet, his cock was hard again, his balls were churning with another load, they felt heavy and in desperate need of attention.

Soarin took his place next to Braeburn, the two of them lined up like a pair of service holes for free use. Soarin found himself shaking just from the sensation of somepony's body next to him, the half-arousing, half-intimidating shake, was he spread enough, was his ass taut enough, was he as presentable and respectable a spectacle as the partner pony to his side? He wasn't sure. He needed to be sure.

Soma's cock lined up with the entrance to Soarin's asshole without fanfare—there was enough lubrication between the both of them that any pause would have been purely performatory. Even still, Soarin wasn't used to being stuffed full just like that, and the sensation of going from empty to completely packed to the fullest inch was something his body grappled with in parts. Again, the secretarial voice of warnings and caution was buried, drowned out by the flaming hot cries urging him to give in instead of hold out. He'd gone from empty to full,  just like that, and all it took was a little concession in his mind to see how right it was. He had a purpose now. He had a fit.

Soarin couldn't help but turn his head to watch Orange at Braeburn's behind. His tongue hung out of his mouth so low it almost touched the tile, slavering over the site of Orange's cock ready to plunge inside another pony. Braeburn was cooing softly and waggling his butt to look even more inviting, and Soarin found himself mimicking the motion subconsciously, shaking his own butt back and forth to help stimulate the cock lodged inside him.

Behind him, Soma groaned approvingly.

"This one is so... tight," the unicorn said between grunts. He let out a little 'ungh' each time he slammed himself forward, grabbing hard onto the side of Soarin's butt and using the extra traction to make his thrusts more powerful, pounding a lot harder than Soarin was used to, harder even than he'd gotten it last night.

But he'd gotten a compliment. He was doing a good job. He was doing something right.

Soarin had heard a number of analogies over the years which attempted to describe the sensation of being penetrated mercilessly from behind like this, but none of them quite equaled up to the experience itself. Even with just words alone, you couldn't describe it; you could say what was happening, named the individual component parts, and still fail to live up to the sensations coursing through your body. It didn't help that, since last night, Soarin's experiences with sex had gone suddenly upwards in terms of intensity, so immersed in the sensation of being taken that there was nothing he could do to escape it, even in the remotest corners of his mind. It helped also that there was so much lube, everything got so slippery, there was no risk of roughness or tearing or having to stop for a moment because somepony was hurt... if Soarin had felt something hurt, he probably wouldn't have mentioned it anyway. Nothing in him wanted to stop this, no matter which pony was behind him. He was in service now, doing something much more important than the flight practice already vanishing at the back of his memory.

Hot, fuzzy, floaty. Soarin turned his head to the side occasionally to watch Orange Dream making use of Braeburn's well-presented backside. Still, Soarin found himself taking little cues from the movement, shaking himself in certain ways or whimpering more loudly when Soma bottomed out in his ass. Each grunt from behind him was a cheer, a clap of encouragement, the same sounds that spurred him forward when he was flying skyward. 

Even more occasionally, he would catch Orange Dream looking at him, throwing a wink or a nod that made Soarin's body tingle and shiver even more than the cock inside him did.

Though it felt like he could have stayed in position all day, for weeks, maybe, as though he'd finally found something more interesting to dedicate his life to than the Wonderbolts, Soarin couldn't help but notice the sudden increase in pace of the unicorn who had mounted him; the extra grunts and shuddering, more awkward directions of his thrusting. Soarin could feel Soma's hooves clench onto him even tighter, guiding his cock into place for what felt like the last few familiar thrusts of a pending eruption.

There was no warning, not even a grunted signal into his ear. Soarin just felt his ass begin to fill up even more, a soon-to-become-familiar sensation of being flooded with hot, sticky goo. One type of fullness to another, the edge of feeling bloated, looking down at his stomach and wondering if it was possible to see it swell up from the sheer volume of sticky stuff being pumped inside him. It wasn't just content to remain inside, he could feel it dripping out of his ass too, pouring down slick and slimy over Soma's cock, more lube than ever could have been necessary, and then more on top of that. 

It was the only right thing in the world to give in to the sensations demanding to overwhelm. Soarin did just that: his ass clenched around Soma's cock as his own prick began to twitch and slap against his belly, firing spurt after spurt of hot white cum onto his coat, getting his fur sticky, catching a few shots as high up as his chin, the majority painting his stomach before the last few drops trickled from his head to the kitchen floor. Already, the room reeked of sex, and now there would be no removing the aroma, save the mix of sweet perfumes sported by the two ponies currently engaged in plowing from behind.

His eyes struggling not to roll back in his head, Soarin turned to watch Orange Dream's face, clenched in perpetual bliss as his hips rocked gently back and forth, not moving in proper thrusts, but gentle half-inches, no doubt swishing around the sticky mix of fluids inside Braeburn's well-prepared ass. 

Braeburn, for his part, seemed to be in a state of perpetual orgasm. If he'd been just inches away from coming when he'd shown up first, now he was over the edge and swimming in the ocean underneath the cliffside, his face an untranslatable look of distorted bliss, tongue hanging out and lolling from side to side with his head and the motions of his body as it shook. From time to time he would let out a meek-sounding whimper, but seemed mostly content to enjoy his perpetual sexual servitude in relative silence. 

"Had a good time?" Orange Dream asked to the pony behind Soarin, seemingly irreverent to the pegasus in front of him.

Soma nodded behind Soarin's back and raised his hoof to wipe a collection of sweat off his forehead.

"Damn," he said, withdrawing his cock with 'plop' as the built-up collection of goopy fluids finally poured from Soarin's gaping hole to join the sticky spot he'd started on the kitchen floor. "You did a good job with him so far."

"Yours too," Orange said. "Does that mean you're—"

"Finished?" Soma shook his head, sporting a grin that, given enough time around him or any other 'pony' in his 'occupation', would become fiendishly familiar. "No, not quite. Let's have them go at each other, shall we?"

Orange Dream's eyes widened, his mouth falling open for a moment before curling into a mischievous smirk. 

"Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" He cleared his throat. His own cock had somehow slipped out of Braeburn without Soarin being able to stare, and was now hanging, limp but still intimidating in size, with a long trickle of cum and jelly-juice dangling from the tip to the floor.

When Orange Dream turned towards Soarin, Soarin felt his head get heavy, his heart begin to beat faster, and his cock twitch between his legs.

"Soarin," Orange said, his voice as sweet as the spiced-honey-currant perfume that wafted from his presence "why don't you be a dear and show a last bit of hospitality to one of our guests... our new friend?"

Soarin didn't need to speak. He just nodded, collecting himself up off the floor and moving for the first time of the day without stuttering like he was about to tumble at any second.

Braeburn didn't seem to notice him approaching at first. His eyes were glazed over, his attention set on a point on the horizon far beyond the walls he was presently housed in. Even when Soarin began to gently suckle at his cock, cleaning it softly with his lips and tongue, Braeburn didn't stir. It took Soarin's hoof reaching below the base of Brae's shaft, pressing gingerly and tugging ever-so-slightly at his balls. That was enough to snap Braeburn back from whatever vision he had been immersed in, to have him blink and pause for just a moment before rearing his head back, his body suddenly and completely immersed in the sensation of the pursed lips suckling his shaft, along with Soarin's hoof gently massaging his apparently extra-sensitive nuts.

Soarin allowed himself a self-satisfied moan around Braeburn's cock as he felt it begin to harden in his mouth. This was another sensation he was used to experiencing from the other end, one he imagined had a million facets of its appeal to explore from either direction, but which he'd only taken for granted from one side. He was always the pony being sucked, feeling himself go from fully limp to all the way hard in a matter of seconds. It was the magic of sex, how just by touching somepony you could cause the earth to move in a tiny but permanent way...

Soarin shook his head. Braeburn's cock was hard in his mouth, and poor Braeburn was whimpering and bucking his hips upwards over and over again, struggling to get Soarin to focus again, to begin bobbing his head up and down and making more use of his tongue for slurping and sucking.

It only took a look from Orange Dream out of the corner of his eye to remind Soarin of the importance of his task. He closed his eyes and began to suck as though his life depended on it, which, whether or not it actually did, felt a very real and present circumstance in Soarin's heart and head. He payed extra attention to rubbing Braeburn's sack, feeling rewarded whenever he pushed a particularly perfect place and felt Braeburn's head flare in his mouth, or heard the poor earth-pony's tortured sounding groans, like it had been years since he'd last let out a load, when in fact it had probably been more like several minutes.

Even though Soarin didn't have much practice with his mouth, he was a fast learner—he'd always been fast, as a matter of fact. It only took a few more minutes until Braeburn was panting and grasping at the back of Soarin's head with his hooves, his hip-thrusts becoming more erratic, just as Soma's had when he was about to paint the inside of Soarin's ass with his sticky surprise.

Both ponies in service, Soarin and Braeburn, looked to their 'owners', their eyes mutually pleading and desperate. In tandem, Orange Dream and Soma nodded, giving the permission both their pets needed to cum.

It was Braeburn who fired off just a split-second earlier, near-instantly filling Soarin's mouth with the fiercest-firing bursts of jizz he'd ever experienced. It was so much to take all at once that Soarin started coughing, and jizz began to gush out between his lips and a little out his nostrils. It stung, but Soarin found himself enjoying the sensation for a reason he couldn't articulate, as every sensation in the litany since the last day had been. It was a new challenge, his struggle to swallow as much of Braeburn's hot, creamy jizz as he could, all while dealing with the fact that, yes, his own cock was about to start firing, he was cumming, no doubt about it...

Still... he'd gotten permission. No matter how messy the kitchen floor ended up.

With an animalistic grunt that came from deeper in his chest than he knew he had, Soarin began to cum, his cock throbbing so hard as it began to fire that it felt as though his entire body was being wrung in a vice, every muscle and nerve seizing up simultaneously until the last drop of cum was wrung out of his balls.

The sensation was, in no small sense, overpowering. Soarin went from attending the volume of cum being blasted into his mouth to suddenly falling back with his mouth dropping open, half of Braeburn's load that he hadn't swallowed falling like a thick syrup onto his chest, and spreading there with the rest of the goopy liquids that had collected during the session. Braeburn kept cumming even though Soarin's mouth had disappeared, and though his last shots weren't as volumous as the first, it was still enough to paint most of Soarin's lower half, leaving barely a single inch of his coat that wasn't sticky with cum or some combination of other liquids.

Like he'd collapsed into the wet spot the night before, Soarin fell into a familiar pool of goopy feeling-ness. He closed his eyes and sighed, feeling as though he could fall asleep on the spot without any pillow or blankets necessary.

On an only slightly-less-damp spot of the floor next to him, Braeburn curled around and cuddled up like a tiny terrier sleeping next to its big brother. Soon, the kitchen, still reeking of sex and sticky stuff, was filled with the soft sound of two snoring ponies.

Both of them still so worn out and gaping that, if you stood behind, you could just make out the outline of something small and oval shaped slipping deeper inside before it vanished...

"We'll let them sleep for a bit before they do the cleaning," Orange Dream said.

Soma, the green unicorn, nodded.

"Agreed. In the meantime, let's discuss some potential candidates I had in mind for our next, erm, 'meeting'..."
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warm. Soarin felt like he could have stood under the warm water all day. Nourishing, in a shameful way, not as though that made any sense. It just felt like he'd curled up under a comfy blanket the size of the entire world, and if he just slumped to the ground and let the warm wash cover him, it might rinse away everything. He wasn't sure he'd even be there to open his eyes again.

Well, that was all very immaterial. Physically, he was just standing in a shower. The 'club' shower, as he might refer to it to somepony else if he was explaining... what was it he was explaining again? Well, he wasn't explaining anything. He was just supposed to be getting clean, after practice.

That was another thing: Spitfire and Rainbow Dash and the rest of the squad had been very happy to see him. 'Relieved', was the way they'd put it. Soarin didn't personally see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't that peculiar for him to go on an unannounced vacation for a few days, was it? Besides which, he came back fine in the end. So fine, he could barely even remember why he'd felt he needed a vacation in the first place. 

Soft, warm water. Soarin let out a long sigh. His hooves were running absentmindedly over his body almost of their own accord. The small amount of soap he'd cleaned himself with was long since washed away by the water, along with much else. But still, he liked the feel of hooves on his body, even if they were his own... and with his eyes closed, and the right memory's remnant of spice and cinnamon, he could barely tell the difference between his own hooves and... and...

Oh dear. He'd gotten hard in the shower. Lucky there was nopony else in there with him to see at the moment.

Soarin shivered. Why did that thought make him feel so tingly all over?

Lately he found himself thinking strange and weird thoughts, even stranger and weirder than his usual fantasies about baked goods wearing bikinis... he would look over his shoulder more often, become seized with the urge to apologize even though nopony else was there. Become gripped with the urge to masturbate, impossible to find even a slight relief of tension or ability to focus until he'd 'taken care of business', sometimes more than once...

Still... it was just a shower. He could explore a little bit, and nopony would miss him for just a few minutes. Would they?

Already, his hooves were massaging his own balls, prompting a guttural sounding groan that echoed off the tiling of the expansive team-sized shower. If somepony else had been there, it would have been impossible for them to mistake the sound of tortured relief, wrenched from the depths that only depravity and overwhelming desire could dig.

But beyond that, like a high-pitched drone cutting through a silent night, there was one voice: a strong, clear, creamsicle-colored voice that made Soarin feel more at ease than any material construct could have. It was a voice from heaven, reassuring him, taking the weight off his wings and shoulders, allowing him to slip off every earthly constraint and simply be. It was a voice that rang, simultaneously, of servitude and freedom.

Mind your manners, it said simply.

Soarin nodded and resumed showering. He finished rinsing quickly and turned off the spray, then toweled off just as curtly.

Just in time, apparently, as the sound of hoofsteps on the shower tile grew closer by the second.

"Hey Soarin," came a familiar voice, yet still one he couldn't pin on top of a name. It was a co-flier, certainly, somepony he'd met and worked with, yet for some reason could no longer remember. They were just a face, now, an opportunity for following directions. "Everything okay in there? You've been in the shower a long time."

Soarin nodded to himself as he wrapped his towel around himself. Yep, doing fine. 

"Yep, doing fine," he said out loud after thinking it to himself. "Just drying off."

"Okey doke." The voice tried to sound relieved without letting on that it was worried. It was successful in neither. "Just, you know, wanted to check in on you."

"I'll be out in a second," Soarin said. He waited for the sigh of relief, followed by hoofsteps leaving on the tile. Soarin allowed himself a series of long, deep breaths, steadying in his chest, before he made his way out of the shower room, prepared to face whichever of his teammates would appear first.

Which, as it turned out to be, was Spitfire.

She gave him a familial pat on the back, maybe even a little harder than normal.

"Glad to see ya again, old buddy," Spitfire said. Spitfire was so emotional normally, it felt strange to see her couching her admissions, only letting on a little how worried she'd been in the first place. "It's not like you to just up and vanish like that."

"Not since my old pie chasing days," Soarin responded cheerfully. Somewhere, in the background, a low humming noise was beginning to grow louder, piquing his interest and challenging him to stay fixated on the conversation. But the noise was part of an equation running underneath it all, and the longer he focused, the more he could sense the vibration of the sound running through him, starting inside, making his entire body feel resonant and perfect and... 

"Well, just let us know before you take off next time and we won't be so worried." Spitfire rubbed a hoof playfully through Soarin's mane, roughing him up like they used to in the old days. The touch felt simultaneously supercharged and ephemeral, like Soarin was being caressed by a ghost.

"Sure thing boss," Soarin said. The humming was so loud now, he was unsure how everypony within a five mile radius couldn't hear it. But it was his hum. His for being a good boy. His for following directions. His for doing exactly what he was supposed to do.

Through the constant, reassuring tone, Soarin found his mind's eye drifting back to a memory of the evening prior. He'd been not too far away, and yet, to his teammates, may as well have been the entire earth dislocated.

Properly, he'd been down on the floor, polishing Orange Dream's cock clean with his mouth, paying special attention with his tongue along the underside of the head, and earning an approving moan for his efforts.

In the course of less than a week, Soarin felt like he'd gone through a university-level education in sucking dick. It turned out that having been on the receiving end of the gesture the majority of his romantic career meant Soarin's oral attentions had a number of techniques yet to unlock. It felt like he'd built up enough knowledge and execution that he could have taught a course in the subject if necessary, which is more than ever could have been said for his flying abilities.

One thing he had learned, first and foremost, was to make sure his attentions were wanted and needed before administering them. As desperate and delightful as the constant simpering attention from a whimpering submissive could be, it was important to remember that, above all, the pleasure of the pony in charge came first. Pony, creature, insect... the form was immaterial. What mattered was the authority.

At first, even this tenet had been a difficulty for Soarin. His mouth was over-eager, slavering constantly for something to fill it up, and the moment he was allowed to affix his lips to Orange Dream's shaft and begin coaxing it into hardness, an invisible, impossibly-large vacancy inside him felt filled up, before he'd even taken the tip onto his tongue. 

Despite constant searching, there was nothing Soarin felt he could directly compare the act to. Possibly a kitten, mewling for its mother, or a baby bird, opening its beak, eyes closed, waiting for whatever would be offered forward? Soarin did find himself closing his eyes a lot as his mouth worked, he'd keep Orange's cock in view until there were scant inches between them, and then close his eyes, lean further forward, his lips parting, shivering along his entire body the first moment skin touched against skin.

When Orange was soft, it was Soarin's job to make him hard. That was something else he couldn't find a proper comparison, he couldn't think of anything in his life that resembled the act of gently coaxing another colt's cock into readiness. Soarin could appreciate the gesture from the opposite side, recall the few times he'd not yet been hard, waiting for a groupie to fall to the floor and attend to his shaft the same way he was now doing to Orange Dream. Little gestures would encourage him, show that he was steering in the right direction, muffled moans or Orange Dream's hooves running through his mane.

Once things had started getting hard, Soarin could use his cock more. He liked to pay special attention to circling around the base of Orange's shaft, appreciating the way the cock in his mouth got harder and harder, twitching from time to time as Soarin's tongue attended to it. At this point he was usually rock hard himself, overly-sensitive, whimpering of his own accord as he attempted to keep his cock from even barely touching the insides of his legs. Usually this was a futile process, and Soarin often felt himself get erect long before the cock he was attending to had reached full hardness. That was part of the fun though—his meager attempts to keep himself from becoming overly aroused, all while bringing Orange Dream's cock to full hardness.

Master, owner, sympathetic overseer... Soarin didn't have a particular word in mind for how he felt toward Orange Dreams, the growing dominion that linked them together like an invisible thread. Already, days had gone without meaning, potentially whole lifetimes while Soarin was being steered through his training. Potentially this was an exercise that would last an entire lifetime, accompanied by Soarin's increasing obedience and a low, satisfying humming that grew louder all the time.

'Make sure to pay attention to every bit of your charge,' Orange Dream had instructed several times previous. The thought popped into the back of Soarin's head like the snippet of a melody he'd long-since forgotten, and instantly, his hooves and mouth became more intense and interested, gently caressing Orange's balls with one of his hooves while giving invested strokes along Orange's rapidly hardening shaft. Proper oral attention was more involved than any other task Soarin could recollect, minus maybe the infinitesimal corrections to wing-angle and speed he needed to attend to when flying at top speed. Possibly everything in life related to a component of that comparison, something Soarin could see in his periphery but not ever connect the lines to. Maybe a perfect blowjob was a perfect race in flight, steadying himself at the starting line, feeling the nervous twitch in his wings as his whole body began to tingle.

While Soarin's mouth was busy with its ministrations, Orange Dream liked to narrate, dictate what was working and wasn't, and where the torrid turmoil between the two of them might eventually lead, if not affixed permanently in Orange Dream's sweaty but well-decorated bedroom.

"You're doing a very good job for somepony so new," Orange Dream would say, complimenting Soarin in the softest, slightest ways, but always being rewarded with a contended sounding mewl while Soarin's lips were wrapped around his cock. Naturally, the two exchanges coupled with each other, every compliment turning into a new incentive for Soarin to follow, one good turn deserving another.

Simply, there wasn't much else Soarin wanted to occupy himself with anymore. Flying was a dream he had many years ago, and if asked by his new owner, yes, he liked that word the most, he would have stayed here for years, forever, mouth open, panting on the ground, no purpose to his existence but to provide a receptacle for Orange Dream to drain his balls into.

That was all without the narration Orange Dream had eventually provided, a storybook unfolding while Soarin's lips worked their magic, desperately content to continue until they'd drained every last drop of semen from Orange's sack.

"I want to tell you what's going to happen," Orange Dream had said once. Soarin didn't remember the day. He remembered other things, stories and commands slotting into gaps of each other like an absurd, awful jigsaw puzzle. Possibly things would have been simpler if he could have just closed his eyes and thought of clouds. But it was better to pay attention.

Soarin had looked up just then, a sad kitten's eyes and his face distraught, a constant longing for approval and reassurance.

"Don't get distracted," Orange Dream had said, and pushed Soarin's head back down into place with one of his hooves. Normally this kind of intense direction was unnecessary. Even though it indicated an underlying frustration, and therefore pushing Soarin further in the direction close to 'punishment', he couldn't help but savour the force, the way his body became a vessel for use instead of something he owned. If he could have watched himself from above, a horny, desperate mess, writhing and whimpering on the ground, ready to be used from any direction like a bunch of holes attached to a pony's body...

Soarin began to shiver intermittently and continuously as he sucked at Orange Dream's cock. His own prick had begun to twitch along with the shivers, and was dribbling a steady trickle of precum down onto the bedroom floor between Soarin's legs.

"Eventually, everypony in the world will be as happy as you," Orange Dream went on. He began to rock his hips back and forth intermittently to the motion of Soarin's bobbing head, making the bedsprings creak ever so slightly in rhythm to the obscene act. Soarin's made soft gurgling noises in his throat as he did his best not to choke on Orange Dream's oversized dong.

Soarin wanted to ask what Orange Dream meant, but his mouth was fully occupied. And so, he continued without pause.

"Anypony can be happy as long as they have a purpose... someone or something greater than them, to serve as a guide." Orange Dream ran a hoof almost-lovingly through Soarin's mane, a long moan his reward. Orange Dream, despite his air of continual composure, began to fall apart at the edges ever so slightly when he was close to cumming. The outlines of his disguise would begin to flicker, revealing black, chitinous growths and the occasional pockmarked section riddled with holes.

Sometimes, as Orange Dream was cumming, Soarin swore he could see a million ponies in the place of one, and all those in the place of a mysterious, hybrid creature, its limbs writhing and mutating as it thrashed in place.

"Swallow," Orange Dream grunted gruffly as he smashed Soarin's face down with both hooves. 

There was barely room for the wing-pony to move at all, so he contented himself to miniature wiggles, making sure to apply just a slight amount of friction and force to the cock slammed down his throat.

The moment he felt a hot spurt of cum at the back of his throat, Soarin's own cock began twitching furiously, spraying a continual long stream of clear-white jizm onto the bedroom floor.

Within seconds, the load in Soarin's throat was too much. He struggled his best to make sure not a single drop escaped his lips, but within seconds that was impossible, and a torrent of sticky warm cum was pouring down his chest, getting stuck in his fur and mingling with his own fluids as they pooled below. 

If it could have stayed like that... Soarin didn't know if he'd ever wake up.

"Hey, Soarin. Glad to see you back, buddy."

And where was he again?

Soarin blinked several times. The Wonderbolts' changing room came back into view. Possibly it had never vanished, though Soarin's eyes had been attuned to a different frequency, matching the one buzzing and humming inside him, somehow imperceptible to everypony else.

"Oh," Soarin said. It was Thunderlane. Thunderlane. Why did he remember to pay special attention to... "Hey, Thunderlane." Big, masculine, standing only a few feet away. Soarin felt tiny lightning trickles surging through his head, aiming at different nerve endings, only curtailed by a high, clear voice, cutting through even the constant hum.

'Be patient', it said, Orange Dream's voice buried in his subconsious, cutting through storm and cloud and delivering the hyperliminal. 'Everything will fall into place eventually.'

Soarin spent an extra long time studying his teammates physique. That was part of the beauty of consciousness—that no matter how loud the hum in the back of your head, or no matter how fierce the instructions, no matter how far away the soft taste of skin on your lips, hardening and dripping salty fluid... no, you could wait. All you had to do was listen.

"Not like you to take off like that so often anymore. Didja get up to anything exciting while you were gone?" Thunderlane asked. He was leaning against one of the changing room lockers, looking on-purpose or accidentally like a buff teenage colt ready to seduce his mark between classes. 

Whether or not Soarin fit the description of a school-age filly, he still felt the chills run up his spine, the little quiver of his legs threatening to give out spontaneously.

"Naw, not really," Soarin answered back. Hum, vibrate, soft sticky honey that filled his senses with a permanent intoxicating aroma. "Just met some new friends, hung out for a little while out of town."

"Must have been some great friends to be gone for so long," Thunderlane replied with a chuckle. He seemed content to stand in place against the lockers, accidentally or on-purpose giving Soarin a perfect view of his toned physique, each muscle stretched to slight definition in the position.

Hot nights. New voices, unfamiliar, and the need to be touched, everywhere, all over, forever. To kneel and beg and feel the hum lock you into place.

"Yeah," Soarin said. "They definitely were." Soarin shut the locker he'd been standing next to and wrapped a towel around his waist. "Maybe you'd like to come hang out with us next time?"

Thunderlane's face contorted for a moment. Whether he noticed it fully, or could even place it, there would be the slight hint of sugar and cinnamon wafting under his nose about now—and, if he listened very hard, the tiniest, most almost imperceptible hum in the background...

"Sure," Thunderlane said, only just a little too quickly. "That sound's great, actually."

Soarin smiled. He'd only been back less than a day, and already, he felt like he was doing far more in the service of a greater goal than anything he could have accomplished with his wings and teammates, flapping around clouds and making a general spectacle of themselves.

All that was left was a continuation... a low hum, and patience.

Soarin felt he could have a lot of patience now.