//------------------------------// // Chapter 71 // Story: The Perilous Romance of Swans // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Watching the movie, Gosling was absotootly horrified. That is to say, when the griffon wearing a plague doctor mask appeared on screen, Gosling’s nethers clenched and he let out an audible toot. After a fraction of a second of thought, he decided not to acknowledge it and just pretend that it didn’t happen, as it didn’t seem that Luna had heard it anyway. The revving chainsaw was just too loud. Gosling had never been fond of horror movies, and he couldn’t figure out why Luna called this a comedy. Far more horrifying was the fact that Luna was laughing. Big belly laughs. The griffon wearing the spooky plague doctor mask brought his chainsaw to bear upon the unfortunate earth pony and Gosling covered his face with one wing, peeking out from between his primaries. “Ugh.” Gosling tried to swallow the lump in his throat. Ancient buffalo burial grounds were no place to build a barn, any idiot knew that. He wasn’t sure if he could keep watching. Luna’s laughter was both loud and haunting. “How could you call this a comedy?” “Because, it is absurd!” Luna replied in booming voice. “It is clearly an absurdist comedy. And just look at the special effects! A mix of practical physical effects and some very impressive illusion spells. It actually looks like the chainsaw is being inserted into that poor earth pony’s rectum.” “It sure does.” Gosling felt his stomach lurch and he closed his eyes. The special effects were too good for him. He kept his wing raised between himself and the screen. Being a mostly black or otherwise dark pegasus, he would never, ever, under any circumstances go into a barn built over an ancient buffalo burial ground in the middle of the woods. He wasn’t sure if his virginity would protect him. As for Luna, he couldn’t stop thinking about how she had said she could regrow her hymen. The thought lurked in the back of his mind and he felt a full bodied sense of curiousity about alicorn anatomical quirks. He also wanted to know why they were so heavy, and how they managed to fly. The chainsaw went quiet, but now, the gut emptying sounds of an earth pony being skinned could be heard. The griffon wanted a pony suit—made from real ponies. Gosling let out a gibber of terror and wondered how he had ended up in this situation. This was some next level unrated, uncensored stuff. This was the sort of stuff his mother never let him watch, and now, he understood why. Once more peering out from between his primaries, Gosling tried to endure whatever came next. Kill count: one dead hick earth pony, one dead charcoal grey inner city pegasus, and one dark green unicorn mare that acted like a total slut. Each had died in some horrific manner, a chainsaw up the bum for the earth pony, the inner city pegasus, who was too stupid to live, somehow got tangled up in power lines that ran through the woods for some unknown reason, and the slutty unicorn mare died of a tragic hair dryer accident. Luna had laughed so hard that she was now disheveled looking. Her eyes were wide, almost manic looking, and Gosling had to wonder if she had cramps in her swollen face from the rictus grin she was sporting. Luna was having the time of her life, and as for himself, well, not so much. Thus, it was quite shocking when Luna’s laughter died all of a sudden, and she went very still. Gosling felt a growing sense of worry. Was one of her turns coming on? A change of mood? She was now trembling against him and clutching at him with her forelegs, both of them. Her manic rictus was gone—now, her lower lip was protruding in almost foalish expression of fear. No, terror. “Here comes the scary part,” Luna breathed. Ears perking, Gosling noticed the musical shift. It sounded like… it sounded like a porn groove. Something deep, with twangy bass, and funky. On screen, the pale pink, almost white pegasus mare was succumbing to the advances of a dark purple unicorn. She was timid, and virginal, and much ado had been made about the fact that she had never been bred. For the life of him, Gosling could not understand Luna’s sudden mood shift, but it was real. Oh boy, was it real. He could feel her damp sweatiness. She was clutching at him, grabbing him, turning him towards her, and then, in a very awkward turn of events, he found himself sitting on his haunches, pressed belly to belly with Luna, who was also sitting on her haunches. Oh crap, this was bad. The little soldier was already awake in his guardhouse. “She’s so young… so full of promise. She wants to go to beauty school and learn to be a stylist. She’s so smart… and he’s such a cad. He’s a knave, a roustabout, a wastrel… he is a vulgar thief of virginity and purity.” Yep. On screen, he was getting ready to mount her. The dark coloured thuggish pony was about to deflower the innocent almost white pony. He had somehow convinced her to give up the goods, telling her that he didn’t want to die a virgin, and she was dumb enough to fall for it. It was a pity rutting, no doubt. “All the good things she might be hinge upon this moment. She is young, so full of promise… so innocent and naive, she is far too young to be placed in a situation of such emotional intimacy… I can’t bear to watch!” Woah, Luna was actually freaked out. She was fine with chainsaw murders, but the porntastic sex scene that was about to unfold was about to be her undoing. Gosling had trouble reconciling what he was experiencing. Luna had issues. Right now, she was trying to climb him like a tree and Gosling had trouble keeping his balance as Luna groped him. Noisy, sloppy sounding, exagerated pornagraphic sex happed on the screen, actual sex. Not just clever camera angles to create a steamy love scene, but graphic, explicit sex that Gosling had never actually seen in such detail. Sure, he had looked in a few magazines, read a few books, but this… this was new. The subway was entering the lower downtown station. And his body responded. The soldier started to leave the guardhouse right as Luna pushed him over, and he fell back on the cushions, with Luna on top of him. She clung to him, her eyes closed, and the moist, humid heat of her velvety feminine body made everything worse. There was also the fact that she was crushing him. The date, such as it was, had gone south like the birds. Luna had tears flowing down her cheeks and Gosling was trapped. All he could think about was what was now between him and Luna. Had she even noticed? Would she have his head lopped off? Would he be a gelding? The blaring sounds of barnyard pornagraphy filled his ears. Lots of whinnying, lots of nickering, and far too many wet splats. “Luna,” Gosling whispered as he struggled to draw air into his lungs, “I’m so sorry.” “I will not hold against you what you now hold against me,” Luna replied. Above him, Luna squirmed as she clung to him, making everything worse. The feel of her, the scent of her, and the sounds of the movie playing, all of it emboldened his little soldier. Gosling gasped, sucking in some much needed air, and tried not to think about what his instincts were screaming at him to do. In this position, it would not be difficult to take Luna. “Gosling, if you took me right now, I would not begrudge you.” For one very long second, Gosling thought about it, then replied, “No, Luna, I wanna survive this horror movie, I got a strike against me, being a dark pony.” Much to his surprise, Luna laughed. She laughed as she cried, and he could not make out what she might be feeling. He didn’t understand Luna, she had come undone by the mere idea of porn, but she had been fine with graphic murder and death. And now, she had given him an invitation to bone her silly. Somewhere, in the middle of all of this turmoil and confusion, Gosling realised that what little friendship that he had with Luna was far too precious to him to risk. He gripped her, hugging her, pulling her even closer to him, and he felt her tensing. But he did not take her. Hoping to reassure her, he spoke a few words into her neck, pressing his muzzle against her. “When you get better, we’ll do this. But not till then. I want to love you, but I want to be your friend even more.” Much to his relief, the movie died. The sound of somepony’s plot being pounded ended, and without the glow of the movie screen, the room plunged into darkness. Luna was still above him, crushing him, and his little soldier was still feeling mighty bold. He held Luna as she clung to him and just tried not to think about the issue, the rigid, throbbing issue between them. Closing his eyes, not needing to see in the darkness, he caressed her neck with his muzzle and rubbed her back with his forelegs. The feathers of her wings ruffled against his touch. “It might be better if you just took me and got it over with. Then I could stop worrying about it. Maybe I wouldn’t have nightmares about it anymore if we just got it over with. I don’t need to like it, I just need to endure it. It is my obligation to you once we marry.” Luna’s confession was little more than breathy, hissy whispers in the dark. Gosling wanted her so bad that it was hurting him. Parts of him ached. He gritted his teeth together for a moment, then shook his head. Summoning up all of his willpower, he said, “No, Luna, you’re sick. I don’t mean to say that you are disgusting, just that you are unwell. And you don’t take advantage of sick ponies, ‘cause that’s wrong. When you get better, I’ll be here waiting.” “Do you promise?” Luna asked as she clutched Gosling’s body in the dark. “I give you my word, Luna.” “But do you swear it?” Gosling began to realise that this was just part of the same sickness. Instead of confusion, he responded with patience. “Look, I don’t know how to convince you, but yes, I swear it. Right now, I could be taking you and I ain’t. If that don’t show that I’m dedicated, I don’t know what else to do.” Luna began sobbing and Gosling just lay there, crushed beneath the alicorn above him. She weighed a ton, there was no two ways around it. The urge still plagued him. Even with his inexperience, he knew that in the position that he and Luna were in, it wouldn’t be hard, not at all. The temptation was every bit as painful as the physical aspect. Even worse was the fact that Luna would allow it to happen. As strong as she was, as powerful as she was, with her magic that allowed her to toss around the moon, she would let it happen. For the very first time, it occurred to Gosling just how frail Luna was. The thought crushed him even more so than Luna’s body did. Celestia needed a husband and a father for the foals she hoped to rear. Gosling understood that and it made everything easy. It was a simple need with a simple solution. Luna, on the other hoof, she didn’t need a husband right now. No, she needed something else. She needed a friend, someone to carry her along until she got better. In the back of Gosling’s mind, he realised that Luna might not get better for a long time, if ever. Luna’s full body sobbing caused parts of her to rub against him and that wasn’t helping matters none. Gosling also worried about if the guards might be listening, and if so, what did they think he was doing to her? The very thought disturbed him. “Hey,” Gosling whispered as he placed his muzzle closer to Luna’s ear. “Hey, how about we get you sorted out, and then maybe we could go for a walk.” He paused and thought of Luna’s condition. “Or… wait, I know, I could strap myself into a chariot and I could pull you around Canterlot. Just no cracking the whip, please.” “You would pull me around in a chariot?” Luna lifted her head and her horn glowed with a faint light. She sniffled and her lower lip quivered. “You’d do that for me?” “Yeah.” Gosling was worried about how much more of Luna’s body rubbing up against him he could take. “I’d like that.” Luna rolled off of Gosling and lay on her back beside him. Heaving a sigh of relief, Gosling knew that he would be grateful for the cool night air. He lay there, parts of him limp with relief, other parts of him as hard as stone. He felt Luna snuggling up against his side and he wasn’t sure if any further stimulation was a good idea. In the faint light provided by her horn, he could see her face and the illumination caused her tears to glisten with reflected brilliance. “Gosling…” “Yeah?” “When you pooted earlier…” Gosling squeezed his eyes shut. “You didn’t say anything, and I knew that there was something I liked about you.” “Oh.” “Twilight has a game… she calls it crop dusting.” Gosling opened up his eyes and looked Luna in the face. “Perhaps you’d like to play with us sometime. It is a game that friends play, or so Twilight says.” “I’d like that. We need to crop dust Cadance.” “Oh, agreed.” Luna sniffled and her lower lip quivered a little less. “A good coordinated strike on Celestia… she’d have no way of knowing whodunit.” “I like the way you think.” “The engagement gala is coming, Luna.” “I just hope I’m in the right mood.” “If you’re not, Twilight and I will just crop dust you.” “I think I like you a little more.” “If we had foals, Luna…” “Yes?” “We could have a little army of crop dusters.” “I like the way you think… now, about that chariot ride…”