Chapter 41: The Incredibly Stubborn Helpful Streak of a Solar Powered Pony Princess
Once I started crying, I found it pretty hard to stop.
It wasn’t because of some weird physical ailment, or some kind of hormone thing. Sure, I was in a girl pony’s body that could pass inspection through an X-Ray machine, but it was a still a pretty crappy facsimile that couldn’t taste stuff, store food properly, or do a few other things that a normal pony with a horn and wings did, like molt.
No, what made it hard for me to stop were the floodgates. A pair of fucking emotional floodgates. Once I had accepted the extreme crappiness of my situation, everything I was keeping pent up just came pouring out and dumped itself into the forefront of my brain. Absolutely everything.
I mean hell, just look at where I was compared to where I had been.
Back on Earth I had an okay career that I enjoyed most of the time, good job security, a decent place to live, and more than enough in the way of pleasantries and distractions to say I had a pretty good life. It was a life that was at least in the better half of the human population when it came to where everyone stood on the happiness scale.
Then it all gets taken away, and I find myself living the life of a magical bug whose sole purpose is to steal life-force from other creatures. While I may have improved my lot in my new life with a pseudo-pony upgrade, everything had still been turned around and upside down as far as all the old rules I used to go by went.
I might have been living in Equestria, but the sparkling newness of the place had gone down a bit when I started noticing a few things in the way of differences. I was a quadruped instead of a biped, the laws of physics seemed to take a holiday every other day, and the very last bit of my personal identity that I had managed to sort of hold onto across the dimensions in the way of a penis was slowly slipping away.
Yes, I had managed to get together with Twilight, but…even that bit of sunshine was about to disappear over the horizon when we had our inevitable four-way breakup and she chased after Celestia along with Rainbow Dash; if the pegasus was even going to be in their relationship afterwards. As things were, I didn’t know if they would both leave me in the dust for something better, or if it would be just the purple one.
So, no more family, no more humanity, no more masculinity, and the one bit of true joy I had going for me had turned into a ticking time bomb thanks to some stupid offhand comments about polygamous relationships. Then, to top it all off, I was…getting used to looking like a girl. Which was the first step to being okay with being a girl, which would be followed by liking being a girl, and that would end with me pregnant and laying on my side as I had to nurse a pair of foals that had come out of me a few months prior.
Not to mention the whole egg-laying thing.
So…yeah. I cried.
I cried a lot.
I blubbered into Celestia’s coat as she gently held me against her big pony body and hung her head over my shoulder in a motherly hug. I wept when Sunset got out of the huddle hug to let the goddess carry me over to the couch and lay down with her mag before draping a wing across my back.
I sniffled when Tia kissed me on the head, and just gave me a light but warming smile when I finally looked up to her face. Plus Rainbow’s, who was floating over her shoulder and giving me a concerned expression. Twilight was left in the back, making my conscience knock me upside the head with a big stick because of the worried look in her eyes that I had put there by breaking down like a complete pansy.
Plus, there was the Smell. The delicious Smell of worry and misery hung in the air around me as it came from the ponies in the room.
“There we go,” Tia said softly, making me look back up to her. “Feeling a little better?”
The question made me do a bit of a self-diagnostic, and I sighed. Then I slumped my head back down onto the ornate couch she had set me down on. The damn thing wasn’t even that soft, made for looks instead of function.
“Why would I be? It’s not like anything’s changed,” I whispered in despair. Crying may have helped produce some happy chemical in the brain, but after I Smelled what I had just done to Twilight, I only felt worse.
“Why now?” Sunset’s words helped a bit, if only for the fact they made me confused enough to not be depressed for a few seconds as I worked out what the vague question meant in relation to my breakdown.
But it did nothing for some other emotions I was feeling at my situation. And with the depression out of the way, my anger might have shown through a bit stronger.
There were really two answers to Sunset’s question, but only one I thought any of the ponies would understand. The first was so painfully obvious I wanted to smack the red headed idiot upside her noggin. The other…
I was a changeling, which meant that I had about eight thousand voices whispering in my ear whenever I slept. They fed me information, but they also attempted a kind of weak mind control, or mental programming. It was something the Hive needed for new changelings to learn as fast as they did. While it didn’t work that well on me since I already had some prior knowledge about just who I was and the way the world worked, constantly having whispers in my ear telling me what to do and how everything was going to be just fine.
But all that changed when I became the new Queen. I didn’t need any more mental programing, no more reminders of how I was supposed to think. No more false assurances.
As sick and twisted as they were, they had done plenty to reassure me I could keep going, while not being strong enough to actually believe anything I didn’t really want to.
So, no. I didn’t tell the girls about my lack of...subliminal confidence boosters. I went with the other thing that was ruining my new life. Not to mention pissed me off to no end.
I grabbed my discarded dress and hoisted it up in my magic. “Oh I don’t know, maybe because of this!” I said before raising a hoof to my face and the runny mascara. “Or my bucking makeup! Or maybe-or maybe, because I’m going to have to go up there tomorrow in front of all of Equestria and have every pony look a the new pretty pony princess!”
My rant would have lasted longer, but Celestia crouched down to wrap me up in a hug again, this time complete with wings and forelegs, and pulled me down for a light kiss on the cheek that covered the left majority of my face. “Okay, that’s enough now,” she told me gently while her fetlock ran up and down my foreleg.
As much as I wanted to tell her it would never be enough, my guilt quickly appeared to remind me that yelling at Sunset Shimmer was on the top of my forbidden things to do. What made it even worse was that as I looked at her, I could see the pity in her eyes. Sunset fucking Shimmer, the crippled pony that was considered a pet at best and some kind of monstrous freak of nature at worst by Equestria at large was pitying me.
It made me realize just how bad things had gotten for me.
Not to mention made me feel like a complete piece of shit. I had so much more than her, and here she was, pretty much forced to feel sorry for me.
“Sorry Sunset,” I told her before hanging my head.
And then, I did something that would have normally left my stomach turning. I started making excuses. “I just…this whole princess thing…I do my best to ignore it, or look past it, or…get by, but…it’s just throwing everything that’s wrong with me in my face and…and it’s just promising things are going to get worse!”
Ponies would start calling me Princess again, and I’d have to wear a bunch of stupid fancy dresses to a bunch of snooty parties like Rarity went to in Canterlot; not to mention all the ones I’d be taking her to thanks to some offhand promises. I’d be complimented on my looks, and every fucking guy in the city would be imagining me bent over a table with their cocks shoved so deep in my pussy they were guaranteed a baby, while about one in four would openly solicit me for the chance in real life.
Hell, considering that herding was now a thing, that number would probably increase to more than half. And I’d have to be nice to them.
Not nice like I was to the stallions in Ponyville, even during my first week as a mare. I mean, I actually liked the guys in Ponyville, looking at my pussy or not. They were a lovable bunch of ponies, even counting the disappointments, like how Time Turner wasn’t really a Doctor.
“Uh…yah know, you could just not wear that stuff,” Rainbow pointed out. Of course, it was the idiot jock to not to grasp the major complexities of court.
So I looked over at her with a glare. “I can’t do that!”
But Rainbow just rolled her eyes and floated over in front of me to throw a hoof towards Celestia. “Yeah well, Princess Celestia barely wears anything at all, and Twilight goes around naked for most of the time too! So what’s the big deal about you being naked too?”
“Except for the big important stuff like Twilight’s coronation!” I shot back at Rainbow. “Even Celestia had a dress on for that Rainbow! Ponies expected her to dress all fancy, so she did. And I’m a brand new princess of a whole different species! So I’ll have to dress up all the time when I go to junk for the nobility, which will be about every other night! Which I’ll have to! I’m the thing that came out of nowhere that every pony is going to want to meet, and judge, and probably see if they can buck! Which, oh hey now that Tia’s come up with this whole more than two to a tango, THEY CAN!”
I panted for breath after shouting in Rainbow’s face, and then blinked when I saw her ears lower and her body cringe from my verbal assault. By the time a golden glow wrapped the pegasus up to take her away, I was back to kicking myself for yelling at Dash.
Before I could do more than lower my head and sigh, Celestia spoke up. “Alright, that’s enough,” she said before letting out a long breath. “I can see this is a much deeper problem than I first believed it to be.” She looked over to the human and other two ponies. “Would you leave us alone for a moment? I would like to speak with Omnifarious in private.”
“What?” Twilight asked, a little panicky. “No, Princess, we can-”
Celestia cut her off. “Twilight, I told you I would be handling this from the start. And Cadence does still want to meet the two of you for lunch,” she reminded the alicorn before I saw the usually incharge goddess lower her head a little. “Please?”
Of course the girls agreed, although Sunset got a little hesitant about it before Celestia made her go with a little visual prodding. And then I was alone with the sun goddess.
As soon as the door shut, she looked back with a concerned look that made me just feel worse about letting this whole thing out in the first place. “Why didn’t just you say something about not wanting to be a princess when we were deciding to raise you to royalty?”
“Like what I want matters,” I mumbled before crossing my front legs and looking away from her. Hell, Twilight didn’t get much of a choice for her alicornination, why should I be any different?
A second later, Celestia was in my personal space and blocking the light of the crystals that shined down from above. “What are you talking about? Of course what you want matters.”
I shook my head and turned my attention to Celestia’s hooves. “The simple fact is, I need to do this. While changelings will never really be a part of pony society, ponies need something to assure them that they’ll never be a danger to it either,” I told her before looking into the alicorn’s eyes with my own. I wish I could say that I looked all determined and junk, but the truth was my face probably looked even sadder than Tia’s. “So no, what matters is what…ponies need.”
That caused me to let out a snort of a laugh. “I guess I really do have a problem with the whole helping ponies thing,” I admitted before doing my best to get serious again. “But you can’t say we can just forget about this whole thing, or that I’m wrong. It’s…the responsibility of the people in power to use what they have to make the lives of others better.” Not exactly a Spiderman quote, but it was close.
The goddess sighed and shook her head. “How is it that you can say something so endearing and yet so infuriating at the same time?” she asked before her face became hard again. “And while I do agree that everypony should do their best to make the world a better place, if you take on too much a burden while resenting your tasks, it will only end in tragedy.”
The line about how dirty jobs that somebody had to do came to mind, but with Tia up in my face as she was, I got a little defensive.
Aggressively defensive.
“Well I’d be fine with it if not for you!” I yelled at her. After all, if not for Tia shoving her big butt into what was already a delicate relationship, I would have been fine!
Sure, having to do all that girly stuff got to me a bit, but with Twilight waiting for me at the end of the day, I could get through anything. And…okay, maybe the thing with Rainbow had me a little panicky that we were going to end up hurting her, but…that was a danger in every relationship, and I would do everything I could to avoid it!
But Celestia…the giant pony actually had the gall to look a little surprised and hurt at my accusation!
And then my psychic senses might have Smelled she wasn’t faking so… Oh God damn it all to hell, I told myself before sighing. “Sorry, that was uncalled for.”
“You’re still worried about how the four of us will mesh?” the goddess asked as her expression took on that damn compassionate look again. “Omnifarious, do you honestly think that I would be doing this if I wasn’t certain of the outcome? I have watched Twilight for nearly all her life, and know she is a wonderful mare. And although my time with Rainbow Dash has not been nearly as long, I still know her to be an amazing mare that I respect. While the reveal of my intentions might have come earlier than I had wanted, I am more than willing to wait until the three of you are ready to give me a chance.”
Even with Celestia being all understanding, I groaned and rolled onto my back. “But that’s the problem!” I exclaimed with throwing my hooves up. “I…the one good, or really good thing I have going for me, it…I just…Twilight’s crazy about you! She’s going to be all into you, and Rainbow…well…you’re you! And they’re them! And I’m just…if they have you, then…what’ll they need me for?”
I mean, despite her protests, Celestia was pretty much the personification of the perfect pony princess. She was kind, gentle, sexy, loving, and smart. Not to mention Twilight went gaga over her pretty much on sight.
“You think I’m going to soak up all their attention?” she asked in a confused surprise.
After rolling back over, I let out another dejected moan. “That and about a million other things.” Although I wasn’t about to go into the whole problem about how there was no way I deserved Celestia, or how she would see past my pony exterior and to the jerky human that existed underneath, or even if everything did work out long enough for us to get to the sexual part of the relationship, the size difference would be a pretty big hurdle to get over.
“And yeah, I know it sounds selfish,” I went on as I looked away from the goddess while feeling like a complete douche. “But...Twilight, she kind of depends on me, you know? And so does Rainbow, and if you’re there...what will they need me for?”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew they had been a mistake. Not because of the self-centeredness of them. I already knew that horribleness about them before I voiced the thought. After all, if Celestia, Twilight and Rainbow wanted to get together, if they’d be happier, was is really right of me to stand in the way? Or stay in the relationship when I knew it would cause conflict within the group?
No, what got me really worried was how much terror I Smelled coming off of Celestia as soon as I finished speaking. For some reason, whatever I had said scared the shit out of her.
“No!” she told me quickly. “I would never try to supplant you, I would never do that to anypony. Not after… I wouldn’t let it happen, not ever again!”
That was as far as she got before a tingling encompassed my body and I was floating face to face with Celestia as she looked at me with yet another pained expression. Although I could tell this one was more empathetic. “Omnifarious, do you truly have such little faith in the feelings your special someponies hold for you? Or that I would even try to take those feelings away?”
The question got a frown from me. “Hey I’ve done more than my share of pony watching, and I know how you all are about something that’s shiny and new!” After all, it accounted for Celestia’s interest in me, plus the whole reverse-Sombra ex-boyfriend thing with her being on the rebound.
And then…Celestia laughed.
She actually laughed.
She laughed her usual melodious laugh that could make birds sing in the background and made her seem just a little bit more sparkly before smiling at me and speaking. “Then it is a good thing that I am the oldest thing on four legs.”
I didn’t see what was so fucking humorous about the whole thing though. But my eyes did make out a nice red tint that seemed to encompass my entire vision in the metaphorical sense. “You think this is funny?” I shouted at her.
And she did, I could actually Smell it on her. That, and relief. A good chunk of the worry that had been permeating Celestia’s Scent had disappeared when I told her about how if Celestia tried to shove her fat ass into our little love triangle, then it would all come crashing down.
So yeah, I was seeing red when she just went and laughed everything off.
Although, my yelling managed to shut her up. “You just coming around and shoving your fat plot in my business, my relationship, my-my EVERYTHING!”
Except for a little word she muttered at the end that is. “W-What?”
“You’re ruining the one, ONE, good thing I have left in this bucking backwards life that I actually like!” I yelled at her in a rush. “I can’t get out of this stupid princess thing, I know that, okay. I’m going to go to a bunch of bucking parties in a stupid gown while a bunch of guys eye by backside and think ‘gee with this new herding thing, I can have fantasies about how I’d like to stick my penis in that mare and go at it like a complete animal even with my wife standing right next to me’! And then there’s going to be the ones that actually come up and ask me if we want to go bang! And I’m just going to have to grin and bear it because-because I’m a pretty pony princess and-and I have to be nice to every pony and-”
“ENOUGH!”
Although she might have said a few words while I had been going on about how much my life was crumbling down around me despite the fact that I still had it pretty good, it wasn’t until Celestia let loose with her Royal Canterlot Voice that I actually managed to stop. Which was mostly because the force of her speech knocked me back into the couch, and then sent me tumbling along the floor until I hit the wall.
As I regained my sense of up and down, not to mention my hearing, I found the pony goddess towering over me and looking about twice as big as she usually did, which was pretty fucking huge considering the giant alicorn was naturally twice my height. “Why do you persist on holding onto these foolish notions?” Celestia demanded. “Twilight and Rainbow, do you think that is the level of their devotion and commitment? That they would simply throw you to the side if the four of us were to be together? Do you think that I would let them? That I would even want them if such a thing were to occur? That they would even be the mares you are so enamored with if they did?”
She took in a breath. “I am sorry for letting my relief wrap me up in joy like that,” she added sternly. “But when your fears are shown to be empty worries so easily removed, I cannot help but laugh at them!”
I could Smell that Celestia was a lot less angry with me than she sounded, but my ears had seniority when it came to my senses, and so I looked away from her and sighed. “You don’t understand,” I whined as I forced myself to drag out one of my darker post-Equestria secrets. “There’s things about me they don’t know. Not just the human stuff, some of the things I’ve done since coming to Equestria, even after Twilight found out I’m a changeling. Like…hay, just the last time we were here…” I suddenly realized just what I was about to do, and stopped.
Feeling a little guilty over the whole thing or not, having no ammunition to win an argument with Celestia or not, there was no way in hell I was going to admit that I talked Twilight into kicking Spike out of the house.
Celestia rolled her eyes. “If you’re speaking of what happened last time we were in the Crystal Empire, I can assure you Twilight thoughts towards you because of your anti-dragon bias aren’t half as bad as you seem to think they are,” she told me with a somewhat annoyed tone.
The statement…threw me off. So much so I just actually focused on the horse goddess and didn’t give a good rebuttal to her crazy pony logic. “Um, say what?”
“When you counseled her to get rid of Spike,” Celestia clarified as the last of the anger left her voice and she shook her head. “We know you’re biased against dragons Omnifarious. Not that I can blame you considering how all of the encounters between their kind and the girls have gone. Although, why you think we’re so stupid as not to notice your odd dislike of the entire species, I’ll never know.”
I stared at Celestia for a few seconds, and I’m pretty sure my jaw just hung down too. Because when I started talking again, there was an upward movement, but no going down for the first syllable. “But…I…you…if you knew what I was saying was…um…just trying to get him out of the way…”
And I actually felt a little stab of guilt after hearing those words come out of my mouth. Spike was...well...I can’t really say he didn’t deserve something bad happening to him thank to his anti-Sunset actions. But every time I thought about it, I just kept seeing the little boy crying his eyes out on his bed.
“Oh please,” Celestia grumbled. “It didn’t make what you said any less true. That little boy really does depend on Twilight too much for his sense of self-worth. And considering Sunset was hurt as a direct result of his actions…what happened in the Crystal Catacombs may have been an accident, but a confrontation between him and you or Spike and Sunset was bound to occur. I am simply thankful it was an overzealous pegasus that knocked her around and cracked a few ribs, rather than a dragon that burned her alive in a fit of desperate panic to save Twilight from the evil human.” As Celestia’s tone took on a bit of a darker twinge towards the end there, I found myself not having the desire to know what would have happened if that had been the case.
And then she was smiling at me again. Her usual warm smile. “But you overcame that dislike and saw him for the frightened child that he is,” she went on. “And that is just one of the reasons that I love you.”
I curled up in on myself a bit to keep from getting snatched up in Celestia’s big…whatever the hell it was she was doing to sound so uplifting. “Yeah, well I’m still going to have to be a princess,” I groaned. It was not a fate to look forward to.
She sighed, and nodded. “If you had simply told us of your feelings involving your gender at the time-”
Okay, that managed to get some fire in me again. Not just the fact that Celestia of all ponies was blaming me for the princess situation I was in, but how someone who was supposed to be so fucking perceptive didn’t see the obvious. “Oh yeah, that would have gone over great with every pony involved,” I shot back before giving her my best Tara Strong impression in real Equestrian. “You mean you hate being a girl? Oh, let me just drop any real hope Sunset has of turning back into a unicorn and get to work on this stupid gender changing junk again. Nevermind the fact that it’s probably impossible!”
When it came to changelings at least. Considering how Twilight had already tested it out on a few of the Hive, I was pretty sure she had made a workable version of her gender-bender spell when it came to normal ponies. But all that did was provide me with some pretty disturbing mental images in the way of rule 63.
I knew enough about magic to know the more layers of spells you added on top of a pony, the more complex things became. I was already wearing a jury-rigged spell that Celestia had rearranged to work on changelings to make me look like a me version of a pony instead of someone else; one even she hadn‘t been able to get right as I still lacked taste buds and couldn‘t eat food. Adding another spell on top of that to change my gender, especially since the spell by itself didn’t work on normal changelings, it just seemed impossible.
Celestia dropped her head a shook it. “Where you get these ideas of… Yes, while it is too late to back out of getting your title without major complications, where the hay are you getting this idea you’ll be dragged to balls and have to subject yourself to such foolishness?”
The question brought to mind my best friend, or at least my current best friend since I was in a sort-of relationship with Dash now and Celestia was…something in-between at the moment. “Well Rarity-”
Before I could get another word out about how I had promised to let Rarity live her dream of being invited to the tippity top of the A-list in Canterlot, Celestia let out an equine snort. “Ah yes, the socialite who thinks everypony is as giving as she is. Twilight doesn’t do those things you know.”
I groaned at the question. “Just because Twilight ducks from the social scene and the responsibilities tied to it doesn’t mean I’m going to,” I replied with a frown. Considering her status as a princess, I was kind of wondering how she had gotten away with not rubbing elbows with the social elite. At the very least, I could bring Rarity along and let her have some fun with my misery.
“Despite the fact that you want nothing to do with it?” Celestia asked as she raised an eyebrow.
The absurdity of Celestia’s words made me roll my eyes. “I’m supposed to be a princess, right?” I grumbled. “What the hay else am I supposed to do? If I’m going to be royalty, I’ve got to get to know the nobility, not to mention all the military, and important foreign diplomats I’ve probably got to deal with. Blueblood wanting to get…under my tail was probably just the first of them.” Just the thought of that possibility made me cringe. Mostly because of the pony porn mental image that accompanied it.
Not that replacing Blueblood with any other guy in all of Equestria made the image any better. Just the thought having someone shove their dick into me got a shiver out of my whole body. Hell, even the thought of Twilight and Rainbow doing it ala gender swapping made me...well, that made me a bit more afraid than sick.
The real scary thing was I used to feel that way about any kind of sex as a girl, and alicorns were apparently built to enjoy sex. Really enjoy it. My rather clumsy nights banging Twilight had proven that. So if I ever gave it a try…
Thankfully, Celestia opened her mouth above me before I could finish the thought, and for a moment, surprise overwhelmed her Scent. “Excuse me?”
“Well the usual phrase is get into my pants, but since ponies barely ever wear clothing-”
“I know what the phrase means!” she snapped before calming down just a bit. A frown did stay on her face though. “What I’m asking is, where in the hay did you possibly-wait…Omnifarious, do you know what your duties will actually be as a princess of Equestria?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I just tell you?” I said with a bit of a moan. Going to parties, listening to everyone bitch, and having to smile at guys like Blueblood as they dreamed about rutting me. While I didn’t exactly bitch about having to listen to pony problems, that was by far the least of the three evils, and something that I at least found bearable.
Celestia rolled her eyes, and I could Smell a bit of relief in her Scent again. “No, you told me what you think you’re going to be doing. None of which you’re actually required to.”
That…surprised me. And, I could feel a rather odd sensation of hopefulness peeking out from deep within my body, even if the crushing despair of what my future would look like still surrounded me. “Say what?”
The goddess studied me for a moment, and then let out a long breath and…I could Smell she wanted to laugh again, even if it was in relief. Still, Celestia held it in and backed away before the couch I had been sitting on got picked up by her magic and placed back like it was before she pulled out her magical megaphone voice. “First let’s get a bit more comfortable, and then I’ll explain something to you.”
Unfortunately, I found out getting more comfortable didn’t involve having Celestia wrap herself around me like we then while we were asleep. It was just me getting out of the corner she had knocked me into and back on the couch while she took a sip of the tea in front of it.
Then I found myself feeling like some kind of cross between an idiot and a letch for even thinking Celestia would do something like that while we were awake and everything was real with Twilight and Rainbow off...wherever they had gone. Sure, she wanted to get in on the action between the three of us, but the goddess was very adamant that it would be the three of us that she got in bed with.
“Do you remember when I told you how Luna and I became princesses?” she asked.
As if I could forget an Equestrian history lesson. “Yeah, after the three tribes united, they sent Starswirl to find the two of you since alicorns wouldn’t have any bias and made you both princesses of all Equestria.”
It all sounded a little too fairy tale to me though, even for Equestria. Back then, Tia and Luna were barely out of their teens, and some old guy just shows up and hands over a crown?
“And do you know what we did?”
I…cocked my head in confusion. “Uh…you said yes?”
Celestia nodded a little bit. “Well that too, but do you know just what we actually ruled?”
“Um…Equestria?” I asked. I had skimmed over their journal after getting a few surprise reveals from the princesses, but…it wasn’t very detailed as to the day to day of their lives. They only really kept records of what they considered exciting, things like dragons and junk.
A laugh came from the princess. “We ruled absolutely nothing.”
Since I had no idea where Celestia was going with this, I nodded dumbly. “Okay, that’s…” If anything, it was a little reassuring as to the average intelligence of the pony royalty of ye olden times. “Confusing.”
“Luna and I were little more than figureheads as far as political power went,” she went on before I could think of anything to say. “Now, over the years we would come to mediate disputes between the tribal leaders. Then, as all the other royalty from that time started dying off from old age, everypony looked to us for guidance and eventually put the two of us in charge officially before Luna and I devised the system of regional rulers to better handle things. While everypony may have become a little too dependent on my presence over time, the official power of a princess is still somewhat limited. Outside of life threatening emergencies, you only have as much power over ponies as they choose to give you. Even Twilight’s authority in Ponyville, and thus yours, is there only at the behest of Mayor Mare, who doesn’t seem to be handling things very well if my last visit their was any indication.”
My mouth dropped for a few seconds at hearing that. From what Tia was saying… “Wait a second, you mean I don’t actually have to…” The list of things that involved fancy parties and public appearances in pretty pony dresses was too long to even start with.
“Twilight doesn’t go to major social events, she doesn’t attend high society balls, and the last time I saw her wear a dress was when the three of you came to see me,” Celestia reminded me gently. “And you already know how I feel about clothing. When the four of us do get together for a real date, the only thing I want to see on any of you are your natural coats.”
I actually felt that overwhelming despair begin to lift as I realized that my social life wouldn’t be dictated by the obligations that everything I knew about human history said it should.
And then the moment was gone when I remembered something else: I had already promised Rarity I would use my status as a princess to get her into the Canterlot social scene. So even if I didn’t have some royal obligation, which I didn’t give much of a crap about to begin with, the one I had to the marshmallow unicorn to be her social stepping stone kind of screwed me over anyway.
But there was no way in hell I was telling that to Princess Celestia. She would probably get all pissed off at Rarity, who would run behind Cadence for cover, and the next thing I knew there would be some kind of Equestrian civil war going on!
Or maybe just an overreacting alicorn mad at Rarity. But that was still pretty bad in my book.
Still, I couldn’t just bounce back and act all happy about everything with a ‘golly gee, you’re right Tia’ line. If Twilight of all ponies could more or less read my pony posture and get what I was feeling, then Celestia could probably read my thoughts.
So after a few seconds of thinking, I decided to get her focus away from the symptoms, and back to the root cause. I rolled on my side and pointed towards my unnatural anatomy with a frown. “Well it’s not like I still don’t have the source of all this junk you know!”
Even more disturbing, there was a part of me that wondered if I should just stop fighting it. Just roll over and let some guy junk in me, go full on girl and simply enjoy being somebody’s little bitch. So far, all the fighting I did just upset the girls I cared about.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry for my earlier comments,” the goddess said. “For the most part, I was happy when I heard you were worried about nothing. You must know that Twilight and Rainbow Dash would never simply shove you to the side, nor would I let them. The very idea is absurd.”
That put a bit of a snarl on my face. “Yeah well Twilight seemed ready to jump on the idea and drag me and Rainbow into the whole thing no matter what we thought.”
Celestia raised an eyebrow at me again. “Did not you and Twilight take Rainbow Dash on a date as soon as the proclamation of herding was announced?” she countered. “And it is quite obvious to me what your feelings towards Rainbow are.”
She kind of had me there, even if I wasn’t the one to suggest it. Although, with Twilight being able to read me like she could, my attraction when it came to Dash had to have been obvious. The purple alicorn had probably just been preempting what she thought was coming.
Not that I would have ever had the courage to actually do it of course. If Twilight hadn’t been up for the idea, then me asking if she wanted to try dating Rainbow would have crushed her. I had given up my pony virginity to that mare twice over, a second girlfriend wasn’t all that much in comparison.
“I’m just…I don’t want to lose them Tia,” I whined softly.
A hoof came up to lay across the back of my neck, and Celestia wrapped it around me at the fetlock. “Why do you continue to indulge this foolish fear? You will not lose them Omnifarious. If I thought that my presence would cause the three of you any sort of problems, I would never even dream of pursuing my feelings. The three of you number among the most precious ponies I have ever come across in my life. Bringing harm to any of you in any way is the last thing I would ever do.”
I…had to agree with that, if just on a logical level. Celestia wasn’t selfish, and just about empathetic to a fault. She hadn’t actually made a move on the three of us, it was Luna’s big mouth and Twilight’s…well…eagerness. And she kind of had calmed down a bit with the idea since then.
Not to mention the fact that we had only gone on one little date and she wasn’t being all insistent about going on another. But was that because her fangasm had run its course, or because Celestia had put everything into a timeframe?
I just didn’t know, and that was what was killing me.
While Celestia had some good points, I could still see Twilight walking off with her into the sunset while I was left behind. And I just wouldn’t know what was going to happen until she actually did start making our love triangle something along the lines of a square.
“And the whole girl thing?” I asked, actually hoping that Ms Make Everything Better really did have some last minute cure-all for at least one of my problems.
Celestia’s expression faded to one of sadness. “For that, you only have my apologies,” the goddess said as she shook her head. “I had no idea how much it disturbed you Omnifarious. And…I honestly don’t know what to do to make it better. But tell me this, considering everything else that has changed, why do you focus on your gender so much?”
If it wasn’t for the fact that I had been holding my breath in hope Tia would just Dues Ex Machina everything away, I probably would have yelled at her again. But, the release of air and the crushing of my hope sapped my strength. “It’s all I have left of what I was,” told her sadly. “And every day that I’m here like this, it’s like…like more and more of me is just slipping away.”
“And you think that a change of gender would alter that?” Celestia asked evenly. “Even when everything else is so different from what you used to know?”
A part of me wanted to agree with her, even just because she was Celestia, the princess that was supposed to have all the answers. She even had a bit of a point, and there was the chance that turning into a guy pony wouldn’t stop me from feeling like everything about me was wrong, but on the other hand…
“Yes! I saw myself wearing a dress today, Tia! And I…I didn’t feel comfortable, but…how long until I do? How long until I find out I like it?” I asked her. “I had sex with Twilight as a girl, and I liked it! Hay, I had sex as a pony, just a guy pony, but still a pony, and I liked it! A pony! Do you have any idea just how weird that’s supposed to be? And just thinking about Rainbow makes me want to reach down between my legs and clop now!”
The last I didn’t actually mind. If anything it made me being with Twilight and Dash that much easier. A part of me had always hated the fact that physical attraction hadn’t factored into my relationship with Twilight...although, I had to wonder if my looking at Dash’s fine form was what drove the little alicorn to be so agreeable to the herding idea in the first place.
Celestia Smelled a little amused, but there was more concern and relief in her Scent than the third emotion, and I was getting a little tired of being angry at her. Plus, she didn’t let any of it show on her face. All that came out of her big eyes was the concern. “Then perhaps it is Rainbow Dash that has the best advice out of all of us,” she told me with a little smile. “If you do not wish to wear dress and attend high society social gatherings, then...don’t. Stop bending over backwards trying to please everypony. Even if she appreciates your help, do you honestly think Rarity would feel that way if she was aware how you felt about wearing a dress?”
I looked away from the goddess. “Probably not,” I agreed hesitantly. But that wasn’t why I kept doing it. After all, considering how many dresses I had already worn for her, if she ever found out my real feelings on the subject...it would really hurt her.
Not in the way that I didn’t like wearing her dresses, but because of the fact she made me do something that made me so uncomfortable. I had barely avoided letting that information out after breakfast, but Rarity had managed to take it in a way that how the outside didn’t really affect what was underneath...when it really did.
The old saying of how clothes make the man was never more true than in my case. After all, I had gone through the ultimate change of attire, and it sure as hell was affecting me.
But...okay, I might have been able to avoid the whole Canterlot social scene with just a few appearances to get Rarity into the thing, but...well...the whole Tia-Twi-Dash thing still had me worried that things were just going to fall apart. Not just with Twilight and Rainbow, but...what me and Tia had was something I couldn’t get anywhere else in Equestria.
She was someone who I could lean on, and that…
A thought occurred to me, and I looked back up to her before concentrating on her Scent. Although I didn’t detect what I was expecting, I knew all my ranting about Twilight and Rainbow had to of left her a little hurt. “I’m such an idiot.”
“Oh?” she spoke up. “Finally starting to see some of these mountains you worry about are little more than hills?”
I shook my head at the question. Even if she was half-right with the whole upper crust party thing, I had just seen something that made me deserve to be stuck in a dress and fucked like a dog. “I’m sorry Tia, I didn’t...this must be hard for you.”
Celestia’s humor vanished. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been going on and on about how everything I have is going to fall apart when you step in, but...I never once thought about how Rainbow and Twilight...they’re something you really want too.”
A foreleg touched the back of my neck and stroked my hair. “It’s fine Omnifarious. You’re the one I’m concerned with right now,” she told me before more fear greeted my senses. “Although with the way you talk...do you not even want...me?” You keep talking about how Twilight dragged you into our poorly begun courtship and I have to wonder if you...don’t…”
What came next was the quickest headshake I had ever performed. “No that’s not it!” I assured her. If Celestia had been a normal pony, I would have gladly tried taking her in. “I love-” I barely stopped myself from speaking the irrevocable words, “um...you know...being with you.”
And I did, despite the lameness of my reply. It wasn’t what I had for the other girls because...well...they kind of needed someone to help look after them every now and then, but Celestia could take care of herself. If anything, she took care of me. So there wasn’t any need for me to dote on her, or stroke her ego, or step on eggshells around her.
“Thank you,” she replied with a genuine smile and some relief in her Scent, which meant she had probably been a little bit nervous about everything, even if I couldn’t pick it up at the time.
If anything, that just made me feel all the more pathetic. Celestia was more concerned for my happiness than her own, and I was bitching about how awful my perfect pony life was. And then that guilt over the pettiness returned. “No,” I replied with a shake of my head. “I’m the one that should be thanking you. I...thanks for listening to me being a selfish idiot.”
The warm feeling of Celestia’s head rubbed up against mine, and I found myself enjoying the nuzzle more than most I had received since coming to Equestria. I may not have been the huggy type, but Celestia was...well, it was Celestia.
“It’s not selfish to want to be loved, or to want happiness, or just to feel comfortable Omnifarious,” she told me. “And if you really do want most of your fears removed, talk to Twilight and Rainbow about your reservations on bringing me into your group.”
“What?” I yelled before using my wings to get some distance between the two of us. “That’s not, Tia I can’t just-they’d...you saw how Twilight was when she heard about everything!” And that was before everything got really serious.
Celestia frowned at me. “Then perhaps it is more than just their devotion that you need to have faith in,” she said. “From what I understood, Twilight was a pony you were forming a lifelong bond with. Well having such a bond means that two ponies walk down the road of life together, sharing eachothers burdens. The fact that you aren’t...you’re treating her like a foal! Do you really have such little faith in Twilight that you don’t think she can deal with your burdens?”
The thing was, I didn’t.
But…
“Aren’t you the one who sent her and Dash away?” I replied.
“Would you have even begun to talk to me like this if they had stayed?” Celestia countered.
I winced, and looked away from Celestia before I came back down to the ground. “It’s…” I let out a long sigh. “It’s...well...it’s not that I don’t have faith in Twilight to deal with things...eventually. It’s the pain of having to watch her suffer through dealing with something that makes me keep things from her. It kills me to see her upset Tia. And Rainbow. I hate it.”
“You need to have more faith in them,” Celesti told me, and I couldn’t find a way to argue the point.
After all, I had Smelled the way they felt before Tia kicked them out. Which was why she did it in the first place. Celestia was right in thinking I would have completely clamed up if things had gone on with the two of them in the room. So I nodded my head in agreement. “Okay. I’ll...I’ll tell them everything, tonight.”
Tia nodded, and approached me to lay a kiss on my forehead. “And, I know you want Sunset to be cured of her problem first but...how are things going on your end by the way?”
Being reminded of yet another one of my failings got me to hunch in on myself a bit. “Um...Tia,” I replied pretty hesitantly. “About that...I...I don’t think I’ll be able to help Sunset. I’m sorry.”
My magical studies in the art of shapeshifting magic had slowed considerably since getting into the area of enlargement. As it was, I could only get parts of a pony to change size, like giving Rainbow one or two oversized wings.
Disappointment and sadness poured from the princess. “What makes you say that?”
“Even with shapeshifting being my talent, I...it would take years for me to learn what I need to know in order to even have a hope of making a spell capable of helping her,” I told the goddess in a whisper. I didn’t really want to tell her, but if I was going to start letting ponies in on all my crappiness, then I needed to start with the one I knew could take it.
Celestia let out a long sigh. “So that’s why you want Twilight to continue working on the mirror. Is there no way around it, like how you used your changelings to go through all the information Twilight and Sunset were assigned?”
I shook my head again. “That’s just book knowledge,” I explained. “Not to mention it’s all unicorn magic. I could memorize all the spells, sure. But figuring out how to make them work with my magic, and practicing the application of the spells. That is what really takes time, and what I need Sunset’s help with.”
“I see,” Tia told me as she nodded her head. “Thank you for telling me. But...could you keep trying, just in case? Sunset tells me she enjoys spending time with you in magical study. It’s one of the few ways she can still exercise her talent these days, and to take that away from a pony is a terrible fate.”
“Sure,” I agreed without much life behind the words. After all, reminding myself how I was letting that girl down, it was just...draining.
A second later, and I was in Celestia’s shadow again as she came up on me. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you with your...female problems. But, I am here for you, and so are all the other girls. Tell Rarity how you really feel Omnifarious, she will understand.”
With thoughts of Sunset bringing me down, I couldn’t put up much of a fight as Celestia renewed her assault to my resolve. So I nodded. “Okay,” I agreed, all the while hoping I could just put that on the back burner until judgement day. There would be no way I was getting out of talking to Twilight and Dash about things, but Rarity...I might have been able to avoid that little problem for awhile.
“And it is not as if this is the end of anything,” Celestia added with a tiny smile. “If you truly wish to be a stallion, and if Sunset’s problem is to be solved first, then I can find some time to assist Twilight in her research on the mirror. I was looking for a reason to spend some time with that little mare, and that seems like the perfect excuse if you can keep Sunset entertained.”
I gulped at the of Twilight and Celestia together. Mostly because the purple pony had given me plenty of ideas on just what she wanted to do to Celestia, and my own experiences with the princess had given me plenty of ideas of just what Tia would be up to. “That’s um...you are going to help them study the mirror though, right?”
Celestia smiled. “This is my daughter’s happiness we’re talking about Omnifarious, I’ll enjoy being with Twilight, but I will be keeping my mind on task,” she said before lowering her head down to eye level with mine. “But at the moment, I think we should be taking care of your needs my dear little changeling.”
As Celestia’s eyes became almost predatory, I backed away. Only to hit a wall when she herded me into one. “Um...why’re you looking at me like that?”
“I asked for Twilight and Rainbow’s permission to feed you come lunchtime, and they agreed,” Celestia told me. “Now, let me show you how a pony kisses the mare she loves.”
And just like that, she was on me. Celestia’s tongue nearly filled my mouth, and her lips completely engulfed my own. All of the emotions she had been feeling were soon replaced by an overwhelming aroma of love.
For a few seconds, I tried to fight i, or at least protest that Tia could have just transferred magic through our bond but...my hunger and need for an emotional pick me up won out before I grabbed onto what she was offering and drank from her mana as deeply as I dared while Celestia hoisted me up in her forelegs, and my body was pressed against the wall while the giant pony cleaned my tonsils.
Although not the pure ecstasy that I usually sucked from Rainbow and Twilight when they reached their limit, Celestia’s love was more delicious than I could remember any non-sexual emotion being, and there was so much of it. Even though I fed off Twilight...Celestia was in a class of her own as far as power went. I reached my limit of what I could draw in with a single gulp and still think coherently, and Tia broke the kiss.
The goddess panted, and I swore some of her face had gone flush as she licked her lips while continuing to hold me in her forelegs. “So that what a kiss with you is like when you’re putting yourself into it,” Celestia said as she panted. “Those two really aren't exaggerating. Oh my little changeling, if that what one of your kisses does, what you do in bed must be truly spectacular.
“Now, shall we go find Twilight and Rainbow?” the goddess asked.
Even with Celestia love inside me, hesitation creep its way back up my spine. I might have agreed to tell the two of them everything, but...I needed a few minutes, or maybe an hour, to prepare. “Actually, um...I need to go lay down and...digest.”
Tia studded me for a moment, and then nodded. “Very well,” she said before bending down to kiss me on the cheek. “I suppose I’ll go find the two of them, and check up on Sunset. Do you want to continue later tonight?”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean with the making out?” Tia wasn’t all that into human coupling from what I had gathered.
“No, I meant with the two of us, talking,” she told me. “About what really bothers you and...seeing what can be done about it.”
“Okay,” I agreed softly after a moment of thought.
After separating from Celestia, I made my way back to my room and settled in for what passed for a changeling nap, unsure about how everything felt. I was still pretty apprehensive about pulling Rainbow and Twilight into my problems, but...it wasn’t as if I could stop it from happening now.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, talking with Celestia had helped. Mostly because it hadn’t been one of those share your pain talks that so many people thought were beneficial thanks to their ability to spread misery around. Unlike those, Celestia had actually worked to help me figure a few things out and...gave me a bit of hope.
More than a little part of me wanted to believe her, to be able to think of a future that had Rainbow, and Twilight, and Celestia all together in it. Even if some of the physical stuff seemed a bit awkward, I did want her to be there with the rest of us. I wanted to be able to bury myself in her coat, to be wrapped up in her wings, to have her watching over me. I wanted a pony I could rely on to catch me when I fell.
I groaned at myself when I realized that was how I needed to think of Rainbow and Twilight too. Celestia was right, I really was babying them too much. They were grown women, not children, I needed to treat them as such and stop being such an idiot. I helped them with their emotional problems, so...I needed to be able to let them do the same to me in turn.
That was what real couples did.
A few minutes into my rest, the sound of a door opening made me look up. “Oh hey girls, I want to...oh, buck,” I mumbeled when I saw the person in the door was not Twilight and Rainbow. Or Twilight, or Rainbow by just themselves. As in a single pony.
In fact, it wasn’t a pony at all.
It was a teenage girl with fire-red hair, and a bit of hesitation on her face.
“Hey Omnifarious,” Sunset Shimmer said as she crouched down to make it in the doorway. “Can we talk?”