Princess Celestia’s chest heaved, a scarlet flush on her face. She smiled dopily at the stallion lying beside her, breathing similarly hard.
In the bed, entwined, were Princess Celestia and one of her harem's many consorts. This one was an older stallion, turning grey, mane falling out, a face with more than its fair share of gnarls and scars, and a nascent cataract in one of his black eyes. He had a few missing teeth, which gave him a jigsaw smile. His eyes bore lines that spoke to years of hard living, and his lips had little chaps and wrinkles, scars and scabs from being bitten at -- a nervous habit since foalhood. Despite a face that could gall a griffon, his eyes burned like warm little coals. His embrace was tender, and he nuzzled his princess gently between his forelegs, letting her mane splay across his shoulders. His grasp was sure -- neither too confining nor loose. Within it, the princess of the day gently traced lines on his upper barrel, kneading into his hearty chestnut coat.
The two lay together, not moving much. The smell of sweat and more primal things radiated from their spent bodies. They enjoyed the mutual shared softness and warmth radiating from each other like embers from the heart of a hot campfire smouldering away following a blazing bonfire bash the previous evening.
The stallion's head rested on her heaving, luxurious, white chest, his hoof in hers. He snuggled her, still shuddering a little bit, a murky blush on his chestnut cheeks and the biggest grin stretching his lips. Her face bore a wide, beaming grin accented by a scarlet sash from cheek to cheer, lightning her up almost a luminescent, cheery cherry red. They were nude as could be, only a blanket protecting the slightest shred of their modesty, not that anypony with even slightly functional ears, or nostrils, or eyes, could have failed to register what had just transpired between the two. As he warmly snuggled into her chest, she absentmindedly caressed his goldenrod mane, twirling it around her hoof. Random groans and moans made their way from them as some kind of secret almost language, gentle and primal, intimate even, spoken by all, understood by none.
She kissed the top of his head. He sighed, crossing his leg between hers. "Thank you, Just Fact."
"My pleasure, Princess."
"Stop it," the solar goddess giggled with a sound like two thousand happily clinking crystal cups, swiping at her chestnut-coated mate with a pathetic flail of her gorgeously manicured hood.
As you wish, your majesty."
"Majesty? Since when did you get all formal with me?"
"Am I being too stiff, your royal tightness?"
"TIGHTNESS? Excuse me, my dear consort, your purpose is to make me gasp, albeit in a very different manner."
"Aren't you enjoying gasping further, your hole-iness?"
"Fine. Celestia."
"Really, are you that uncomfortable with me?"
"No, Cellybeans."
"That's more like it, you tease."
"Well, you're a royal tease, a divine tease in fact."
"Takes one to know one."
"Stop it, you -- your princess demands."
"Since when has that worked in the twenty-one years you've known me inside and out?"
"Well, I happen to be the one that raises and lowers the sun every single day. I also have the power to banish you instantly, unilaterally to the moon."
"You always say that."
"I could have you chained in the dungeon with just a word.
He laughed like a a rusty hinge, "Don't you know whips and chains just excite me?"
"Yes, and it never fails to confuse me, considering your background, one time prisoner of the Bremane government."
"What else you got, my pink pony princess?"
"Oh, I could order you to marry me..."
"Oh, my darling, please do."
"- and then subject you to deal with the nobles every day for the rest of your years. Blueblood always gets drunk at hearthswarming and becomes the most charming, eloquent pony in the land." Celestia flashed a devil's grin.
"Fair point."
The beautiful alicorn caressed the ugly earth pony. He was not attractive, no, but Celestia didn't care in the least. His body was always warm like a gently crackling hearth. His coat was not quite the softest, it was indeed a bit wirey plus sparse in places. He wasn't suave, nor did his words make her weak in the knees, nor did his intimate touch wrack her nerves in pleasure; he gave enough to make her call his name, but nothing to cause a solar coronal ejection, though she gave him more than enough in return to leave him still sensitive and shuddering. There were two things he did very well. First, he was, contrary to appearances, a cuddle bug par excellence. Secondly, he was a special stallion in a very particular fashion. She did not seek him often, but when she did, she had very particular needs that absolutely had to be met. Right now, despite their recent activity, that time had not yet come to pass. She was just enjoying the prelude to something frankly she wish did not have to happen.
"Hold me, Fact." He complied, turning onto his side to wrap his other leg around her and holding her tight.
"I got you, Celly."
"Good."
"So, what's got you all bothered?"
She shushed him with a kiss. "Please, not now. Just hold me for a while."
"Sure thing," he creaked back. His voice was like old, sandy floorboards with more than a little bit of a metallic rasp. If one saw him in the harem, he would likely be thought part of the staff, but no, Just Fact was a full consort, badge, retainer, and everything, despite looking and sounding like some hard-bitten refugee horse from Chechneghia of Afghneignistan, the kind that showed up looking gaunt in robes and a turban, having eaten nothing for five days in the desert, a nearly haunted look in the eye, coat a few tatters short of haggard. Doubtlessly the ugliest bastard to ever bed a princess, but still one trusted where nopony else could be.
They lay together for a while, their bodies now calming. He kissed Celestia's tender, pearly throat with little pecks, sweet, yet just a little too heavy to be entirely innocent. She purred a little bit in response, clutching him to her, barrel to barrel. He responded by caressing her cheek, humming happily. "Please, not so much, Fact. Just... just let me rest..." He kissed her cheek to affirm.
"I'll be here."
"I know you will." Princess Celestia shut her eyes with a sigh. "Talk to you soon, Just," she yawned, turning away from him. He held onto her and waited. There were worse times and places to be left hanging. He could have done any number of things while his princess slept, but he didn't. She had asked him to be there. He said he would be. It was exactly as simple as that. He gently caressed her, holding her close, savoring her warmth, whispering her name and sweet nothings into her ears, and when her sleep seemed uneasy, stroking her mane until the tremors passed.
This was his place, his duty. When her fears became too much, he was there. When doubt besieged her, he was there. When she just needed someone to hold her tight, he was definitely there. And after all that passed and she hungered for more intimate things, he was there, too.
And so he waited. And waited. He waited, watching the yellow midday shadows grow long and amber, slanting from their upright poise. He waited until the light began its first sign of fading. And then yet longer still he waited as sure as seeds wait for the winter's snow to melt.
Then, at last, his princess stirred in his embrace. She stretched out, yawning, "That was a nice nap. I hope I didn't keep you long."
He rasped back, "Not at all, your snooziness. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?"
She hesitated. Then, she heavily sighed, "I don't know if I have the will to do what is best for my ponies, for Equestria."
He fixed a stare at her. The jovial softness was gone from his face, but not the tenderness of his embrace. "For Equestria or for the ponies?"
"Equestria's ponies."
"You know as good as I the country and the folk are distinct. Which is it? Give me something to work with."
"My little ponies."
He nodded, humming, croaking, "I see. And what are you worried about that makes it conflict with Equestria?"
"I want what is best for my ponies, but it will be terrible for them, too."
"How terrible?"
She hugged him closer. "Conquest. Diaspora. Pogrom. Oppression. Millions, billions, with the others included, will die across centuries, if not millennia, for my faint hope."
"Which is...?" He could almost tease it out of her.
"To see them spread to the stars."
"Why can't they do that from Equestria?"
"Because Equestria is too perfect. You know it from just your own experiences in life. This is paradise. No war. No famine. No hardship. No enemies. They live safe, protected by the seas on the east and west, the mountains to the north, the deserts to the south, and by their princess at the heart of it all. They could linger here a billion years as if in a dream. They have nothing to push them, nothing to incite that explorer spirit that brought them here in those eons long past. Can you undestand that, with your background? Can you support it?"
Just Fact readjusted himself to nuzzle her better. "Yes, if the alternatives mean extinction."
"Yes, sooner or later, it does..." Celestia averted her gaze.
He made her meet his eyes again. "It's not even a question then -- you have to make it happen."
"But it's not a sure thing, either. It's a long shot, a very long shot."
"How long?"
"Your penis has a greater chance of growing several inches."
"Well just you wait," he purrs, kissing her pale throat, brushing his leg between her thighs. "Nothing is set in stone yet."
She blushed and snorted. Laughter. It died quickly.
"Is it better to let something die kindly or to hurt it a lot to just maybe save it?"
"Well, I'm mortal, so of course I'm going to tell you the latter if there's no context. Just one life and there won't be another. If the situation isn't hopeless, why act as if there is no hope?"
"It's not the doom that bothers me -- it's that I have to decide all this now."
“Why now? Why not a year? Why not a decade? Or a century or millennium?”
“Because events in play right now are going to force change in our world.”
“With the frantic diplomatic negotiations you’ve sent Kibitz to deal with? Or the secret mission you’ve sent your troopers on on?”
“One and the same.” She arches an eyebrow, “And how did you know the second?”
He smiles and shrugs, “I know who to listen to. No worries, very few ponies know, and none with let it leave the palace.” He stops for a long moment, then he looks at her, his eyes boring into her soul, “I understand; having once been a refugee, I know nopony who sees such times and makes hard choices wishes for them. You're more like us than you keep telling me."
"Maybe you're more like me than you insist?" Something caught in the princess's throat. "But, Just, the events to set this in motion are already unfolding. Any day now, my decisions will see Equestria in flames or in fossil. These awful things, if I roll the dice, will be in your lifetime, and not some distant concern. Imagine this palace, this room, in flames, within three years. Three quarters of ponies will be dead within ten years. Within a century, we will be scattered to every corner of every continent, vagabonds and refugees. The entire world dances on the edge of a sword. And nopony knows the full extent of the danger involved. We cannot win what is upcoming. A thousand years and more will pass like this. Equestria will burn. Equus, the world, will burn, for those millennia. Billions will die. I’m too old for this shit." A single tear leaked down her face.
He got it with his tongue. "Such bitterness and salt does not suit you, Celery." She smiled. He smiled. Then they frowned. "I see..." He shrunk away. She hugged him tighter, kissing him softly on the lips. "But at the cost of ponies surviving from now to the end of time?"
"Potentially, yes." He said nothing. "Just Fact?" He was quiet and still as the grave. He was unreadable. And so, as he did while she rested, she did while he pondered. She held him, caressed him, gave him little pecks, boops, and kisses, and guarded her little earth pony stallion with her much larger alicorn pony mare frame. The size difference was symbolically like that of dam and foal -- mother and child. There was mutual love and mutual protection, duty and respect, admiration and care, inherent, unspoken.
Celestia ran her horn. The shadows fattened. The sky turned from amber to pink to blue to black. The stars first came out to twinkle, and then appeared the brilliant band of the galaxy. At long last, Just Fact stirred. He looked her in the eye with steely certainty. "Do it."
"Are you sure? Can you live with telling me to send billions to their deaths?"
"So that uncounted trillions can live on planets and stars not yet glimpsed? Yes."
"You are heartless."
"Not heartless. I am no sociopath; I am a pragmatist -- the difference is blurry, sometimes."
"Why do I keep you in my harem?"
"Because you value somepony who will always shoot straight and tell you what you must hear, no matter how little you like it."
"Correct. You being a foreign refugee makes you unlike anypony else. It's given you a different attitude and outlook, a perspective very few ponies in Equestria can understand -- you've been out there in the world, and you know just how bad it can be. And yet you remain optimistic, pushing for and choosing life and the long hope. How come?"
"Because I've seen how bad things can be and just how good things can be, too. The day the Bremane government mortared my town was the beginning of the worst part of my life, but had it never happened, I would have never come to Equestria, and had I not been the only one from my caravan to make it to Canterlot, we would never have met, and had you not taken pity on me then, we never would have bedded down together, and had that not occurred, I would have never become your consort, and had I never been your consort, you would never have learned to value and trust me, and if that were the case, we would not be having this conversation right now, and therefore, I would not be advising you to do what must be done to ensure the posterity of ponies. Through their atrocity, that misfortune, something infinitely greater was birthed."
She nodded. "And just like that twisted chain of causality, had my sister never become Nightmare Moon, we would not be reconciled and the realm healed, granted a delay of more than a thousand years."
"You can't have a nightmare if you never dream, but even though nightmares are terrible, dreams are wonderful, and ultimately, we all must decide what is an acceptable price for all the things we value and pleasures we enjoy."
"My my, my little pony, you are sounding like quite the optimist..."
"Now don't say that; you wouldn't want the other consorts and the staff thinking you were mad, would you?"
"But then they may come to also value you for your advice as I do."
"Anything else you value me for?" He waggled his eyebrows, trying his best to look sexy.
"Honestly not. Your face looks like a slab of raw red meat, you don't make me swoon, and you're only average in bed."
"Just is just average in the sack? Is that a fact? Not even standout bad?"
"Not even as bad as you look. Not even half as bad as your puns."
"And this is why I know you're not so above it all; millenia of experience, cosmic power rivaled by none, infinite wisdom, and you're still not above orgasms and bad jokes. I'm offended, even going half blind in one eye, I can see you're delusional about my looks; I'm clearly ugly enough to make you preemptively dry up like the San Palamino Desert. What a shame; I'm hurt that there's some handsome colt you have tucked away somewhere you spread your legs for just because he looks nice, you duplicitous, lascivious, fiend."
"Perhaps I am. It is good to be the princess sometimes, and I fear many more consorts like you would send the nobles into a panic."
"Pray tell me that's not your only secret."
Celestia's smile died instantly. "There is something else..."
"What is it?"
"I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"Not being able to see this through."
He laughed, "Cellotape, this is why I know you can do it -- you love all of us enough to give us not what we want, but what we need. I understand that better than anypony; had I confused want and need, hope and reality, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Nor if I had mistaken your appearance for your heart. But you tell me by ordering death I am saving life. Am I really saving lives?"
"Depends on who and how you ask. In terms of deaths ordered, no, you are killing."
"So this is murder?"
"Not if you go by ultimate net lives versus deaths, assuming we live in the best of all possible worlds. If a billion must die for a trillion to live, then by your actions, you are saving a thousand more lives than you destroy."
"So by doing that, I am effectively saving lives by killing. I see..."
"If you want to think of it that way, then yes, you are killing for life -- sorta like screwing for virginity, ain't it?"
She laughed. He laughed. They smiled and nuzzled. "Now you put it that way, I guess it kinda is the right thing to do."
"Is it? Only you can decide that. And you have a very, very, long time to figure all that out and see it through. It's a pity I won't be able to see what you ultimately decide and what happens."
"I wouldn't say that."
"Why?"
"Because you won't have to endure losing everypony you know and love time and time again. Nor letting yourself be occultated in exile for millenia so to be a legend that provides strength, waiting to one day return when the time is right for a resurgence."
He paused. He pursed his lips into a frown. "True, but I've lost ponies, too, and it hurts."
"Tens of thousands over the course of your life?"
"N-no. Just a few dozen. I don't envy you for that."
"I don't envy you either, having to die. If you told me I only had not even a century, I would go crazy. To me, that is so little time as to not happen at all."
"And I think of a hundred years as a lot of time."
"That's so strange."
"Why do you bear us mortals, then, if we hurt you so much and we're so weird?"
Celestia chucked, "Because you amuse me. You live like mad, even knowing you will sure die and soon. That is admirable."
"That's funny."
"What?" She looked at him, genuinely curious.
"I could say the opposite about you. You have more life that you know what to do with, and you insist on using it to live as little as possible. Spend millennia being a perfect porcelain statue of a pony princess, hide yourself away for thousands of years, mope about a temporary spat with your sister. Cheer up -- it's not like you're going to die. It’s not the end of the world, yet."
Celestia smiled even more. "Sometimes, I think you little ponies teach me more than I teach you."
"Oh? What's the lesson this time?"
"To not think, just enjoy what's there while it lasts. After all, every pony you meet once, you will eventually have a final meeting with, too."
"Do you know what I tell myself when I know there's trouble up ahead?"
"What?"
"That's future me's problem."
Celestia laughed, "Once upon a time, my most faithful student told me her baby dragon ate far too much ice cream, telling her it was future Spike's problem."
"Sounds like fun."
"It was, until it caught up with him."
"Sounds like life."
"That's what I was going to say, you uppity mortal."
"And operating on the logical fallacy of seniority equaling wisdom is something you could do well to beware of, you cantankerous goddess." He kissed her deep on the lips, shuffling into her warmth. They embraced. For a time, no more words were said.
White fur and brown fur mingled in a tangle of limbs and hair. The sky was pitch black as the heart of the night. Yet there was still some light. The stars had long since come out to play, and the galaxy was floating over their heads like a luminous banner. One day, ponies just like them would visit those stars and set hoof upon those worlds they could only gaze upon with the crudest of instruments at that moment, if they were right. And just maybe, one of them would gaze back in the direction of Equus and wonder about what long-transpired decision had lead to them being there, and where even was their ancient homeworld. If…
In that moment, though, that was all purely academic to the princess and her consort. He gave everything in the comfort of her majesty, holding her close, whispering sweet nothings into her ears, massaging her back, kissing her neck, cheeks, and mouth. The time for unpleasant words and dark thoughts was passing. A decision had been reached, to nobody's happiness, but it had been done -- it had to have been done. The future of ponykind rested in dark deeds and untold horrors, and would end with untold wonder and live spread among the stars, or in genocide and blood spilled on dusty earth. But for now, the two at the nucleus of that new fate could find some refuge with each other. One doomed to die, and the other doomed to live eternally. One who would always know too much and one who would always know too little. The curse of life could be called the curse of want, and the curse of death could be called the curse of stagnation. But together, those two curses, those two fears, the desire to do something before going forever into that good night, brought progress, not because of the limited time, but to spite it. This they understood. The tension in her limbs went out bit by bit as he teased happy reactions from her. His touch excited and relaxed the alicorn. Her little earth pony was very good with his hooves, and so warm and muscular, too.
Princess Celestia gradually felt a sunny glow return to her heart. She wrapped her forelegs around Just Fact. She inhaled deeply, sniffing his mane. Barley, he smelled like barley, a good, earthy smell. And just like the food he smelled like, her hungry lips could just eat him up. She wriggled a bit, smiling for the moment.
"Thank you, Just Fact."
"My pleasure, Celestia."
"Your pleasure? You would call talking me into making the most callous decision of my existence your pleasure? Truly, consort?"
"Well, no... I, I as your consort, just wanted to do you this little favor as I can."
"Do me on last favor."
"What, Celly?"
"Shut up and fuck me."