The cockerel started the day by making itself busy with screeching its hoarse soliloquy over Sweet Apple Acres. Daybreaker, as she sat up in bed with her eyes barely open, was instantly reminded that she hated that pesky piece of poultry more than the moon itself, and after having once spent a long and hard hour contemplating the pros and cons of sleeping over in the farmhouse, that had been the only con she could have possibly thought of.
Of course, the entirety of the pro list was filled with sweet nothings about her darling Big Macintosh. MacIntosh. McIntosh. By herself, she really should ask him how he spelt his name, sometime.
The aforementioned stallion moaned in his sleep. There wasn’t a doubt in Daybreaker’s mind that he hadn’t been awoken by the cockerel too, but today was his day off, which - as she had said the night before - warranted a lie-in. Besides, he had stopped his snoring just a few moments prior.
Daybreaker had found it absolutely, incredibly, indescribably vexing the first couple of nights she had spent with her beloved Big Mac, after having just woken up or otherwise. She had grown used to it, though - perhaps with the help of a temporary soundproofing spell or two on her own ears - whether he was snoring like a hog or emitting tiny neighs or whistles through his teeth.
Daybreaker looked down at Big Mac and grinned to herself. Upon his sweet little red face was a sleepy smile, and clutched in between his forehooves and chest was a tattered grey stuffed-doll. Daybreaker’s smirk fell the second she saw it.
Okay, perhaps Smarty Pants was her second con.
For one, it reeked of that bitter pungence of sulphur that every deactivated love-spell did. Daybreaker could only assume that Big Mac had grown used to the smell, and could no longer detect it, or he simply couldn’t smell it because of his earth pony heritage. She could only hope it was the latter.
As she ignited her horn to bring the Smarty Pants doll to her with a scowl, Big Mac turned over and faced her with his eyes closed. He had allowed Daybreaker to take the doll out of his grasp because he trusted her.
Daybreaker’s heart melted, which only made her hatred for the wretched doll explode even further, which then made her mane and tail flare up, which then made her panic in fear of burning another set of her dear Big Mac’s sheets.
Big Mac never let go of Smarty Pants as he slept. He never left his bedroom before making sure it - she, as he referred to it/her as - was tucked in and comfy. He even sometimes held it in his mouth by the scruff of the neck, which was somehow magically comparable to both a parent and a child.
It was as if Smarty Pants had made Daybreaker the other mare! Why, the little stuffed tart had earned Big Mac’s love and affection much easier and long before Daybreaker ever had.
Granted, one had been a fiery, narcissistic Empress and the other had not, but the point still stood.
In fact, Daybreaker would bet anything that Big Mac’s beloved ragdoll was glaring victoriously through her beady little vixen button-eyes.
Vixen Eyes, she should have been called.
Big Mac gripped onto the blanket as a substitute for his little grey doll, and Daybreaker felt everything that she had within her ease. She smiled sweetly, baring her glossy fangs, and tucked Smarty Pants back under her darling Big Mac’s arm. Then, she slid back down into a laying position on her left side as she deftly kissed his forehead before folding her hind legs up to stop her hooves dangling off the foot of the bed and elongated a wing to blanket Big Mac herself.
Big Mac had once said that he thought of her body heat as a bubble bath, which obviously meant that he found her inviting. She had found a sort of bubbly pride in that. She had lowered her body temperature to a less scalding climate a week or so after befriending the little red pony.
He hugged Smarty Pants gently and smiled just as such. For such a large, strong pony, he certainly was extremely gentle: gentle-spoken, gentle-eyed, gentle to touch. If anything that could belong to a pony - noun, verb or otherwise - if it was in reference to Big Mac, it was gentle. Even his anger was impossibly gentle.
Daybreaker figured that, being gentle in every nature, was what Big Mac brought from his size. When not in the wake of the likes of her, Discord, etcetera, Big Mac was a large pony. With that largeness came gentleness, one could suppose. He’d most likely been taught to act us such, too, Daybreaker had guessed.
In fact, he had been living by some sort of ‘be gentle with others’ mantra for so long, that when Daybreaker had treated him with a gentleness of which she reminded herself of once using the more and more she relearnt it - both inside and outside of the bedroom... and orchard, but if that was ever stated aloud, it certainly wasn’t for the likes of Granny Smith to hear - he had been quite surprised.
She remembered Big Mac’s flustered face, his bright red blush that made his freckles almost completely transparent against the rest of his coat, and what nerves he had lassoed up for the occasion diminishing before her eyes. Oh, how she had relished it. The two had practised together until Big Mac was excellent on his back.
You didn’t hear that from her, though.
Perhaps, Daybreaker let her crimson and amber eyes glaze over in thought, she should don her spiky vermillion regalia that cladded a plain wooden chair in the corner of the room next to Big Mac’s work-collar and head downstairs to make Big Mac breakfast in bed. She was still yet to see his emerald eyes, though, and decided that she’d do it later, after he had had his well-deserved lie-in.
Daybreaker recalled making pancakes for that angsty-emo sister of hers almost daily for breakfast-slash-supper as she started her day shift and her Sister ended her own. It had been back before the whole eternal-night ridiculousness had come around.
Daybreaker - then much less powerful and stunning - had noticed the gradual change between their typically pleasant and empathetic breakfast-slash-suppers to ones which included passive-aggressive remarks, ignoring the other or screaming down the dining table.
Never in a million years would Daybreaker have guessed that she’d be waking up next to a beautiful red farmpony and stroking his mane as she encouraged him to lie-in and enjoy his day off with great hedonism.
Daybreaker gave her sweet Big Mac’s nose a small kiss. The stallion nuzzled under her chin with the top of his head, which elicited a small chuckle from her. Daybreaker stifled herself; Big Mac nuzzled again, and so she squeezed him gingerly. The action compressed Smarty Pants between them to the point where, if she was a real mare, she’d have suffocated.
However, she was not, which further helped to ease Daybreaker’s mind and left both the tattered old thing and her dear Big Mac unharmed.
“Morn’n, Sugar.” Daybreaker felt Big Mac moan against her fur as his cheeks contracted into a smile. She replayed her stallion’s croaky morning-voice - his first two words of the day - in her head as she ignited her horn in scarlet to delicately play with his ruffled hay-coloured mane.
“Ssh...” Daybreaker made a sound not dissimilar to a hissing vat of steam, making sure to keep it slow and quiet and long as she rubbed circles on the small of Big Mac’s back in an almost identical fashion. She squeezed him lightly again; the only thing keeping them entirely apart was that silly little Vixen Eyes. “Go back to sleep, my darling.”
Despite the relaxed nature of their embrace, Daybreaker kept her grip. She didn’t intend on hurting him, and if she had - or was, whatever - he’d have told her, but rather the opposite. Big Mac knew this, otherwise he’d have objected by now. In fact, by holding him so securely she was protecting him. It was her way of showing that he was safe with her, that she’d never hurt him and that she wouldn’t let anything else hurt him, either. Timberwolves, evil villains, rogue dragons, time; it seemed as though nothing could touch him when he was wrapped up in between her forelegs like this.
Mostly because she wouldn’t let it.
If it was up to her, all she and her darling Big Mac would do was hug hug hug, and kiss kiss kiss, and touch touch touch, and picnic picnic picnic, and- well, the point could be taken from there.
Time went on by the amber light in the window turning into a clear, brilliant blue. Daybreaker had to admit - as much as it hurt her, so it would remain internal for now and -ever - Discord was a natural at raising the sun and lowering the moon, and vise-versa. He may as well have been called Concord. That sickeningly sweet Butterby of his probably had something to do with that.
Although, a part of her wished that he’d do it much more slowly, gradually, instead of just as quick as a snap of his fingers. Doing it properly to secure pretty sunsets and splitting sunrises were rare for Equestria. It was the Celestia-part in the back of Daybreaker’s mind that worried, surely. The rest of her was much more acrimonious.
The higher the sun crept in the sky - now at a much more subtle pace - the further the space between Big Mac and Daybreaker became, and unfortunately, the covers went with him.
Once upon a time, Daybreaker would have broken out in a wrathful fury, and the whole surroundings - covers included - would have been burnt to an ashy crisp. Now, as she sat up in bed, she was calm, and grinned to herself in silence. She could think of anyone who deserved those cosy covers more than her darling Big Mac, and with them bundled around him in a shapeless heap, she couldn’t wrack her brains for anything cuter, either.
Daybreaker ignited her horn as she got out of bed, dressed herself in her sharp vermillion armour as quietly as she could, and cautiously opened the creaking bedroom door to head downstairs. She gave her sleeping Big Mac another grin - much more petite and smiley than the last - before slowly shutting the door behind her.
Daybreaker made sure to wake Big Mac up by tenderly kissing his ear and cheek, and nudging a careful hoof into his back. The red stallion moaned as he pried open his eyes and sat up, scrubbing at one of his eyes with a large shaven hoof as he smacked his lips.
Daybreaker smiled at him and flew back to the front of the bed with a single flap of her great wings. “Good morning, my gorgeous little pony!” She exclaimed. “I’ve made breakfast!” A trill of song broke through the ambient silence of the farmhouse.
With that said - or, rather, sung - she placed the mahogany-coloured breakfast tray over Big Mac’s lap. On it, the breakfast collection consisted of a large white plate of seven pancakes, each generously sized and fluffy and half-doused in syrup, with the top pancake portraying a resting place for a heart with a cute smiley face made out of apple slices; a knife and fork next to a tall glass of orange juice; a thin white vase with a singular lily inside, and a folded white tea towel with dark navy check-lines.
“Ya di’n’ have t’ do this,” he said at last, and given the bashful inflection in his husky morning-tone, it was evident that if his coat wasn’t red enough as it was, he’d be the prime example-picture of the official Equestrian dictionary’s definition of the word diffident.
If dictionaries were illustrated, that was. If they were, perhaps ponies would have actually read them. Daybreaker would have for Big Mac’s face alone.
“Oh, but I did, my dear,” she opposed him playfully as she sat Smarty Pants up by the left side of him. “I used to make these for You-Know-Who, you know! Not in bed, of course. That’s for you, and you only, darling! I suppose it’s just my way of saying that I care.” The tea towel was tucked against Big Mac’s legs and stomach. “A pancake for each month we’ve been together! And the lily, because, well...” the two blushed.
Lily petals had been what she had covered the bed in as some sort of grand and romantic gesture - to which the surrounding candles helped a ton - for their first time consummating their love together. Quite dirtily, too, might she add.
Upon removing her pointy vermillion horseshoes, Daybreaker planted herself next to Big Mac on the bed. A small smile made its way to her fanged maw as she examined Big Mac’s coyly curling lips.
“I do hope you enjoy, darling,” Daybreaker continued, “it has been a while for me.”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac smiled his gratitude at her, and she knew that his reply meant that he would enjoy it. She kissed his temple as he reached for the fork.
An embarrassed heat rose to Daybreaker’s cheeks as she imagined the hassle Big Mac might have had cutting each pancake with his unopposable hooves, and so she used her magic to cut the stack into almost-identical sixths.
Big Mac reached for the fork again, and shovelled a piece of pancake into his mouth. Daybreaker eagerly awaited his verdict and, without a second thought, kissed away the fat dribble of syrup that had leaked out of the corner of his mouth.
Her darling Big Mac made an unintelligible sound of ecstasy, and it wasn’t until swallowing his third piece that he heartily responded to her patience: “Eeyup!”
Daybreaker refrained from lunging towards the ceiling in pure joy. A warmth contrastive to her typical fiery heat spread through her and amounted to her chest, tugging her lips upwards so that she bared her fangs elatedly. Instead of taking flight, she merely balanced on her haunches and clapped her front hooves together with a shrill, musical and exuberant laugh. “Oh, I’m so glad!”
After forcing through every memory she had to get the exact measurements for the mixture right, and making sure to handle each pancake with so much care and love that a Changeling would bloat, all Daybreaker could think of now was that it had all been worth it for her darling to enjoy a nice breakfast in bed.
Presumably his first.
When she brought herself back to earth, she smiled more equanimously, and pressed her forehead against her dear Big Mac’s. If he were a unicorn - or an alicorn, in the more fortunate case, come a hundred years time, even though realistically she wouldn’t have changed him like that for anything - their horns would be tapping and grinding and rubbing together as an endearing form of great intimacy. If he had wings, they’d be preening each other.
Big Mac had neither, of course, for he was an earth pony. He was Daybreaker’s red bundle of love and muscle and she absolutely adored him. Him, and everything about him. Sometimes, it felt as though they could never be close enough, while other times it felt as though they couldn’t be closer.
Love was fickle like that.
“Ah love ya, Sugar-pop,” Big Mac said as Daybreaker kissed his nose and rested her chin atop his head. Her whole body was forced to slouch awkwardly, as usual, but she hardly minded. Just touching him - even if it was only for a moment, which thankfully it wasn’t - was worth it.
Her nose scrunched up and she snorted in an effort to stifle a particularly loud laugh. “You’re such a goof, Big Mac!” She proclaimed. “You know I hate those sappy...” she looked down at him, and his mesmerising emerald eyes met her amber and red ones. She was like a moth to a flame instantly, which was ironic for obvious reasons. “By me, you’re absolutely radiant.”
Big Mac’s blush grew enough so that it almost covered up his freckles like makeup. There was a grin on his positively perfect muzzle. “Now, who’s bein’ sappy?”
“Well, if it’s a contest, my dear,” Daybreaker situated her nose in Big Mac’s messy hayfield-mane and inhaled deeply. She pulled back and kissed his lips, then his nose, and then his forehead. “You are wonderfully intoxicating.”
A deep giggle sounded, and Big Mac covered his enormous grin with a hoof as he closed his eyes. His blush had stopped suffocating his beautiful freckles, but Daybreaker knew that it was still there, as was hers. She noticed how he was a little more talkative than usual this morning, not that she minded, but it was worth noting. Perhaps it was the sugar.
“Eeyup,” Big Mac kissed her through his giggling. She laughed quietly in turn; his laughter had always had a rather contagious effect on her.
Daybreaker pressed their foreheads together again, but now they were also muzzle to muzzle, eyelash to eyelash. A small ache formed in the back of her next at the horribly formed angle, but she didn’t mind. Everything was perfectly fine as long as her dearest Big Mac was there.
“I love you, too, darling,” she said at last. “More and more, every day.”
“An’ tha’s jus’ corny, Sugar.” Big Mac didn’t pull away. He simply smiled as his giggling subsided, sighed, and closed his alluring green eyes.
Daybreaker grinned, but didn’t reveal her fangs. “I know.” She could feel his hot blush; his content; his fluttering heart. “It worked, though, didn’t it, my handsome little pony?”
Big Mac gently pulled away at last, and placed a wholesome kiss on her nose, which made it twitch. “Eeyup.”