//------------------------------//
// Dappled Caramel 
// Story: Dappled Caramel 
// by Harp's'ong 
//------------------------------//

     He licked his lips and nibbled on the other pony’s ear. Brushed his warm breath inside and said, “Oh yeah… you like that, don’t you?”
The pegasus beneath him groaned and said, “Oh I’m such a naughty pony! Please don’t punish me with that big

Doctor Dapples cursed and crumpled up the page of his most recent story. Not his most original piece, but tonight he tried to broaden his horizons. Though the clop market was an eager if sometimes disturbing market, he could not break into it. Even with the stories that screamed of it happening! He always cut them off before the seedy scenes. He just couldn’t write them. He knew plenty about sex.
No one argued the unicorn hadn’t been around.
He just couldn’t come around to putting the stuff on the page.
He paced about his workspace, glancing at the pages to the unfinished story so far. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I’ll come back to it later. Not like it’s gonna go anywhere, anyways.” He almost flinched when he finished speaking. Celestia why did he phrase it like that?
It would go somewhere, it’d make the front page of Quarterly Clop. He just needed to go somewhere first, clear his head and try to get his thoughts back on track.

Caramel hummed and swayed on his hooves in front of a novelty saddle shop while inside Wind Whistler shopped around. They meant to take a little vacation to Manehatten, however, their trip became a little derailed when their train did. Nothing disastrous occurred, the thing was in the middle of stopping at the Whinnywood station outside of town, it hit something on the track and tipped. A few ponies got bruised noggins and a heap of indignation, but everyone made it out okay. They’d have the track cleared in the morning, and best of all they refunded Caramel and Wind Whistler’s tickets and bought rooms for them at a local hotel.
Wind Whistler still wasn’t pleased, even though Caramel paid for the trip and everything. The two tickets had been his gift on Hearts and Hooves Day. He sighed as she burst from the shop, trotting onto the sidewalk and saying, “Nothing much in there at all. I can’t believe our train was the one train that would fall over. Unbelievable. I hope that doesn’t say what the rest of this trip is going to be like.”
Caramel rubbed the back of his head. “Hehe, yeah, let’s hope not.”
He followed her down Whinnywood’s main road while Wind continued complaining: “I mean, I don’t blame you Caramel dear, how could you have known the tickets you bought were bad tickets? But we had so many plans and to have them dashed like this.”
“It’s not too bad, Windy.”
“Tsk,” she stuck her nose in the air. “This is why I stayed in Cloudsdale long as I did.”
Caramel frowned. Wind Whistler moved to Ponyville for job related reasons: weather patrol. She first approached Caramel about a date two months before Hearts and Hooves Day. He couldn’t tell her no. Not when he remembered how much her mane glowed that day, or the smile oozing warmth from her. He learned she treated every pony like that smile when she first met them.
With the sun setting the whole town carried a grey cast now, a chill breeze rolled over the street and Wind Whistler huffed. “I’d never let something like that go down through the middle of town unannounced.”
They already ate. When no one but Caramel would take notice she complained about the food, the service, and the denizens in the diner they dined at.
“They’re probably busy with other things. This is a bit bigger than Ponyville, you know?”
“Bigger or not, it’s still small. Nothing compared to Cloudsdale.”
Caramel pursed his lips and made sure he stayed a stride behind her so she couldn’t see his expression. He wondered if the idea of vacationing in Cloudsdale thrilled her more. It might mean less whining… even if he couldn’t be there to enjoy the peace.
The two reached the hotel, one of the more upstate looking buildings, white with inlaid wooden columns. The glass on the windows dyed green like old fired panes. A few lanterns burned outside a revolving door. They stepped inside to a reception room furnished classically, the colors of the furniture cream with various aqua accents. The pony behind the counter told them, “Good evening.”
Caramel smiled and returned the gesture. Wind Whistler hurried right along to the opposite end of the room, down a hallway to their room. When they reached it Wind Whistler sighed. She fished the key from between her wings and unlocked the door, they both stepped inside and the pegasus announced, “I am ready to lie down and fall asleep. Let’s hope these beds aren’t made for just earth ponies, I’ll be tossing and turning all night if they are.”
Caramel stood in the doorway. “Isn’t it a little early for sleeping?”
Wind Whistler went to one of the beds and tested it with her hoof. She blanched. “Ugh, I suppose it will do.” She faced her coltfriend and said, “I’d rather get the night out of the way, so the morning will come sooner and we can get on with this wretched trip.”
Caramel sighed and glanced away. He said, “I’m not really… ready to lie down yet.”
“Alright, if you’d like you can wait in the lobby. I’ll leave the door unlocked, just make sure to come in quietly, you know how I am when you wake me up.”
The stallion nodded and closed the door behind him; he knew exactly how she acted. She once got so angry with him she hurled a flower pot at his head. She apologized later and helped him clean it up, but he had a knot underneath his mane for two weeks after that.
He returned to the lobby, realizing he didn’t have any bits with him. Still, he’d go mad if he stayed there. He thought he saw a local library before, he wondered if they would still be open…

Dapples sat at the bar, scoping the crowd of ponies in The Canopy. Not any new faces tonight. He waved to a pair of fillies he recognized, the unicorn from the pair approached him and said, “Evening Dapples. Didn’t think I’d see you here by yourself.” Dapples met Dawn Fire on his first visit to The Canopy, the orange coat and blond maned unicorn had a thing for trying to make colts that cuddled her friends.
Dapples shrugged and leaned back in his barstool until his back rested along the bar. “Prose left two days ago to do some vacationing along the coast.”
“And you didn’t go with him?”
The grey unicorn said, “It’s not like we’re together or anything, just roommates—”
“Ah-hah…”
“Hey I mean it! There isn’t any funny business between us, we’re pretty chill. And I figured the guy could use a vacation from this place and me, so I kicked his flank out of town,” Dapples said.
“Okay, you want to sit with me and Mono for a bit and catch up? I don’t think we’ve talked in ages.”
“We’ll see how the night goes. I’m scoping the crowd right now, if I don’t find anything that catches my eye I might drop by,” he told them. He reached for his coco loco and sipped it.
Dawn smiled. “Alright, talk to you later, then.”
Dapples raised a brow. “Don’t think I’ll catch anything?”
“Well, I didn’t say that…” she winked and moseyed back to the table she and Monochrome usually sat at.
“Bah!” Dapples dismissed her with a wave of his hoof. He went back to scoping the crowd and felt a few butterflies rise in his gut. He’d show her…

Just Caramel’s luck, the one time he needed to be distracted with the help of a free resource he caught it when it closed early. He wandered up the town, bouncing from place to place until when he reached the edge of town he came across a bar with neon green lettering and palm leaves overhead. The Canopy.
Caramel watched a pair of unicorns trot inside, laughing with glow rings bouncing around their necks. He shrugged and decided the night could not get any more disappointing and followed them in.
He almost regretted it. Inside the lights dimmed from floating alchemical lanterns, the green light from them made hazy by ponies smoking. All of the tables were taken, an errant buzz of chatter consumed the place. To his left along the wall a unicorn fiddled with the DJ stand, readying his equipment, a dance-floor spilling before the stand and a few ponies standing in it, waiting for the music to light up.
Caramel tried to duck back out, but smacked into the face of a large green earth pony. The stallion chuckled and said, “Save the lip locking for some other pony.”
Caramel blushed. “Sorry, I was just leaving…”
“Nonsense,” the stallion turned him around and said, “Newcomers and The Canopy go together like sunshine and sunflowers. Bars over there, take a seat, order a drink. Tell ole’ Smoke Glass to put it on Leaf Spitter’s tab.”
“Ah… thanks,” Caramel said.
Leaf grinned, his autumn yellow mane falling over and obscuring his eyes. He pushed the forelocks away and winked. “Just have a good time, or me and some friends will find you and make you. Whinnywood’s anything but boring if you know how to have a good time.”
The tan earth pony nodded and headed over to the bar. He sat at a stool two stools away from any pony else. The barcolt approached him and said, “Evening.” He was a grey mustachioed earth pony, his mane a shade of darker grey.
“Uh… good evening. I was told by Leaf… Spitter? To come over here and you’d put a drink on his tab for me.”
Smoke nodded. “I saw him jabbing his fat hoof over here. What’ll it be?”
“Um…”
The unicorn to his left leaned over and said, “Take my advice, they make a mean Coco Loco.”
Caramel glanced at the smiling stallion, he was facing the crowd. His mane was almost silver, his coat a lighter grey than the barkeep’s with spots dappled on it. The chocolate maned pony told the bartender, “What he said.”
Without invitation the stallion hopped off his seat and took the one next to Caramel. He asked, “So what brings you in?”
“Huh? Oh… nothing much, have I seen you before?”
The unicorn shrugged. “I think I recognize you too. Name’s Dapples, lived in Ponyville until about a month ago when I moved here.”
Caramel nodded and said, “I think I may have seen you,” as the bartender returned with his drink. He took a sip. It was sweet, the syrup in it rather thick with a refreshing coconut flavor washing the back of his palette, the alcohol didn’t hit until it reached the back of his throat. He took another longer swig.
Dapples grinned. “It’s a drink I swear by.”
Caramel set the glass down and chuckled a little. “I can see why. So what brought you here?”
“Needed a place to move, had a friend willing to let me shack up at his library.”
“You mean the library that closed early tonight?”
“How did you know that?”
Caramel shrugged. “I tried visiting it.”
Dapples laughed. “Woops! Well, the official librarian is on vacation, and I figured I’d take the night off from baby-sitting books. Sorry about that.”
He smiled for the other stallion. “No problem, I wound up here didn’t I?”
The unicorn nodded. “The Canopy can have its nights. But why are you here by yourself? Last I saw you were with some pegasus.”
“Still am,” the stallion said, “we’re supposed to be on our way to Manehatten but—”
“Train derailed?” When Caramel nodded Dapples said, “I heard about that one.”
Caramel sighed. “I surprised her with the trip during Hearts and Hooves Day. I’d hoped it’d be a pleasant little outing for once…”
The unicorn tilted his head. “Let me guess, neither of you could’ve seen a train derailing on you?”
Caramel took another drink, he felt the warmth spreading through his belly. He almost finished off the shot. “It’s not even that, she just won’t stop complaining. I mean, I spent a chunk of my saving for her, and she doesn’t even appreciate it. Then again… that’s sort of how everything is with her.”
The unicorn rubbed his back with a hoof and said, “Hey I feel for you, I used to know a jerk like that.”
“Who?”
Dapples chuckled and glanced away a moment. “Sadly enough, he was me… But I’m not like that anymore, I swear! I’ve been through the gamut, took my lumps and learned my lesson the hard way.”
“Yeah well I’ve taken my lumps myself. She once threw a pot at my head, and not like a small empty one, we’re talking like a flower pot full of dirt and everything.”
“Yikes,” Dapples cringed. “Okay I was never that bad and my partner wised up and still left me.”
“Well, sometimes Wind Whistler is just like that…”
“From one stallion to another? She sounds like a total mule all the time.”
“Heh, I guess you’re right there.”
The unicorn winked. “I’ve been one before, so I know the type.”
Caramel nodded and polished off his drink. The barkeep came over and asked, “Want another?”
He shook his head. “I’ve got no bits. So a glass of water—”
Dapples rested a hoof on his shoulder. “His next drink’s on me.”
Caramel asked, “You sure?”
The unicorn grinned. “I figure I’m doing you a favor by keeping you away from that mare a little longer.”
The two talked about Ponyville while Caramel burned through his next drink. He relaxed more and more into the atmosphere, while the unicorn let him blabber on endlessly about the happenings there when he left. The town always seemed to have something crazy happening to it every week, after all. Occasionally he threw in his input to show he still actively listened. Eventually Caramel turned to talking about Hearts and Hooves.
“—I mean, the day was great for sure, one of the best days we ever had together, but when night came around… ho-ho boy she was furious.”
The unicorn raised a brow. Caramel laughed. “You got it! Hearts and Hooves Day seemed to have come early this year so I had to wake up at the crack of dawn, run around getting everything set up and stuff so she could have herself pampered all day. And you know how mares are supposed to repay you after a day of pampering—well that night I just asked for a rain-check and you know what she said? ‘Rain-check? I want you now, not tomorrow. Now are we going to do something or not?’” Caramel chuckled. “I guess if most stallions saw Windy they’d probably tar and feather me for what I did next. I just sorta half-heartedly did the… well, business for her, didn’t really finish myself, and once she was satisfied we both went to sleep.”
Dapples leaned in and said softly, “That’d be funny if you weren’t frowning right now.”
Caramel twisted his empty glass between his hooves and stared at the half-melted ice cubes inside. He muttered, “It’s not the first time it’s happened, either.”
The unicorn nodded. “That settles it.”
Caramel looked at him. “Huh?”
The other stallion nipped his ear and whispered into it, “How’d you like to cash in that rain-check?”
Even with a pleasant buzz unwinding behind his eyes, Caramel wasn’t senseless enough to not realize the proposition this stallion made and what consequences it would have. He didn’t have a problem with the fact it was a stallion, in fact before Wind Whistler he and Big Macintosh sort of had a thing. But Caramel wasn’t about to just cheat on his mare.
He lurched back and toppled out of his stool. The unicorn spluttered, “C-Caramel?” He rushed beside him and helped him up. “That looked like it hurt.”
Caramel pulled away from his helping hoof and said. “This… this was a mistake. I’m sorry, maybe I gave you the impression I wanted something—” he shook his head, “I… I need to go.”
The bass blared into life, the dance floor had grown and Caramel had to desperately shoulder his way to the door. He broke through the crowd and into the crisp night air. He ran off the sidewalk, the drop of the curb onto the street made him stumble and he spilled over the road in a tangle of limbs. He rolled onto his hooves, wheezing, head pounding and Equestria spinning. He caught his breath and groaned. He shouldn’t have taken that second Coco Loco, the drink hit harder than it let on. He mustered the sensibility and tried his best to maintain a trot back to the hotel.
By the time he reached his room, he settled on telling Wind everything. He knew she would be mad at first, but she’d appreciate his honesty later. He settled a hoof on the door-handle to his room and pushed it down. From the other side he heard a pony squeak and Wind hissing, “Quiet!” The mare cleared her throat. “Is that you Caramel?”
Caramel pushed open the door, it was pitch black on the other side, the curtain to the windows were drawn. The only light spilled in from the hallway, he could see Wind’s silhouette on the bed, the sheets had been kicked to the foot of it. A smell lingered in the air, but he assumed it the alcohol on his breath mixing with the smell already within their room.
He swallowed the knot in his throat and said, “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Could you be a dear and ask the attendant at the counter to have room service bring us some ice-water from the cellar please?” Wind Whistler said.
The stallion shook his head. “It’ll have to wait, I need to tell you something.” He went to one of the lanterns nearby the wall and blew into it, the alchemical dust inside reacted to his breath and blazed into life. He faced her and said, “It has to be now.”
Wind Whistler had her lips pursed. She sat up with her wings stiff and in the air, her forelegs crossed over her chest. She said, “Well, you would have eventually found out I was doing this on the side.”
Caramel gaped. Sprawled on the floor with his orange cap still strapped to his chin was the bellcolt. The rest of his uniform was in the floor, and in between his legs was a softening…
“Uh… hey there, sir. Your filly just wanted to tip me for bringing your luggage in earlier, I guess.”
Caramel tried to work words out of his mouth. He looked from one to the other until Wind said, “You have two choices dear, you can join in, or you can close the door, take your time getting that ice-water, and come back in when we’re finished.”
She might as well hurled a dozen pots at his head, and a hundred more at his heart. But it broke his glamour over her, he finally saw her for what she was. A real mule. Caramel told the bellcolt, “She’s all yours.” He ran out of the hotel, sobering up with each stride.

Dapples sighed and glanced at his work. He thought about giving it another go, but right now he felt like a bucking idiot. He leaned over to blow out the candle on the table beside the guest bed in the library’s fiction room, ready to end this flopped night.
Before he could he heard hooves pounding on the front door. Dapples ears perked up, he trotted to the door and opened it with his magic. In from the night dashed a tan, chocolate maned earth pony. Before the unicorn could blink his muzzle pressed into Dapples’. He gasped, eyes popping while the stallion pushed him back. His hind-hoof kicked the door close behind him. Caramel pulled away and said, “I changed my mind.”
Dapples nodded emphatically. “I won’t ask any questions.”
Caramel kissed him again and Dapples pushed back, his tongue meeting his, the thick taste of their drinks still on both pony’s palette. Caramel hooked a hoof around Dapples head to pull him closer and the unicorn yielded to him. Their necks rubbed together, Caramel broke the kiss and began nipping down Dapples. The grey stallion groaned when his partner bit down a little hard at the base of his throat before his broad tongue licked over the spot on his coat. Dapples felt himself getting excited. They needed to get back to his bed before they made a mess in the middle of floor.
When he pulled away, Caramel nickered and followed him back into the fiction room. Dapples reached his bed and Caramel shoved him into it. The unicorn gasped as the stallion rolled him over and climbed on top of him. Kissing down his barrel farther and farther until…
Dapples moaned, craning his neck he blew the candle in his room out, swathing everything in darkness.
Some things were better left to the imagination.