That Special Relationship

By Magic Man

Edited and pre-read by Chaodiurn, Seether00, Scarheart, Nioniosbbbb, Mistermech and Anonymoose

Chapter One

It was a humid night in Bugarest, and the big clock in Revolution Square was thirty minutes from striking twelve. The capital of the changeling homeland, an ancient city known for its uniquely biomorphic architecture, cheap booze and the best damn brothels changelingkind had to offer, was tonight lit up as bright and colourful as the Las Pegasus Strip.

A lively celebration was in full swing, something to which only the richest changelings here were normally accustomed; tonight the whole city was wide awake and partying on caffeine pills. The winding cobblestone streets were thronged with the intoxicated groups of the hole-ridden, shapeshifting bug pony inhabitants, many of them clutching steins of Ada love-laced booze in one hoof and waving tricolour flags in the other. Banners, posters and flags decorated the buildings, virtually blotting out every last brick cemented with green goo, and wherever you went, you couldn’t escape the relentless Equestriabeat being spewed into the air from towering stereos.

Thousands of changelings were now converging in Revolution Square before an enormous and well-lit stage where the nation’s new flag, the banner of the revolution—a horizontal tricolour of lime, white-edged dark grey, and cyan—hung behind an empty podium. Something important was going to happen soon and the famous Equestrian PNN news reporter and camera crew were on it like a vulture on rotting flesh in the Appleloosan desert.

Against the perfect backdrop of the chittering and buzzing crowd, the clock tower and the stage, Starry Smiles furiously straightened out the shoulder pads of her plum jacket while her assistants fussed over her, touching up her mascara and blush and tidying up her permed midnight blue mane.

She swapped a gnat flying near face that just finished its business and growled. It had only been two days, and the unicorn mare couldn’t stand being in this filthy dung hole a second longer. It was crawling with bugs, and the whole place managed to reek even worse than her old high school colt’s changing room! The worst part definitely had to be the humidity; her suit dress was clinging to her plush cream coat like a damp rag.

“Okay, back off! Off!” Starry snapped, flicking the gnats they plucked from Luna knows what crummy community colleges and she finished the final touches herself. She magically held her microphone up to her mouth and looked directly into the camera with impatience. “We ready?”

A member of her crew wearing a headset told her, “We’re live in ten, Starry.”

“Good, let’s just get this over with. I’m sweating like damn hog out here—”

In a split second, her perpetual scowl vanished, replaced by that perky, bleached toothy smile that all of Equestria knew her for as she began her report.

“We’re live in Revolution Square, Bugarest where Election Night is reaching its climax. We’ve recently received word from electoral officials that the first round of results are to be released within the next half-hour. Depending on the outcome, we may soon know if the changelings have indeed chosen their President.”

Starry gracefully turned and gestured to the growing crowd of excited changelings and the podium where the first results would soon be declared. Inwardly, she was fuming at one of her false eyelashes becoming loose, though her flawless ear-to-ear smile didn’t falter.

“Throughout the course of this historic day, millions of changelings across the land have come out to vote for the first ever democratically chosen leader of their new fledgling republic. The election comes near the anniversary of the crucial protests here which led to the downfall of Queen Chrysalis’ reig—Oh!”

Her report was interrupted by a bunch of changeling colts and fillies who were encircling her like a piranha school. They all gawped up at the reporter and her camera crew in typical childish wonder. Inwardly, Starry cursed her luck. If there was one thing she detested more than this stinking backwater, it was dealing with snot-nosed kids.

A filly in the group looked incapable of containing her excitement and squealed to a colt presumably her brother, “Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh! Buzz, that pony’s from one of those ‘T-V’ things!” She stared fascinatedly into the camera. “Oooh, what’s that big box for? Does it take our picture?”

“What’s the metal stick for?!” A nasal-voiced colt shouted, pointing up at her microphone.

It took all of Starry’s willpower to suppress to kick these horrid urchins away from her. Obviously, in their third-world upbringing, few of them had probably even heard of a television or camera crew before. She instead fake laughed it off and tried in vain to lead the camera away from them, ruining their perfect shot.

“Yes, even the little ones...” she giggled through her teeth, trying hard to maintain her professional front, while also levitating the microphone away from one colt’s extending hoof, “are excited in the face of this historic event.”

“Of the seven registered candidates, recent polls place independent candidate Lord Hopper firmly in the lead—”

At the mere mentioning of that name, Starry felt her ears ring with pain as the crowds spontaneously broke out into a round of cheering, making their allegiance known and the chanting of ‘HOP-PER! HOP-PER!’ quickly drowned out the ear-bleeding Equestriabeat. In the distance behind her, one stallion hovered, holding up a poster bearing the lord’s name in bold green for all to see.

Their offspring were still refusing to leave her alone and had, in fact, doubled in number since she’d resumed talking.

In the face of it all, the experienced reporter somehow managed to keep the whistling boiler that was her rage in check, a twitch of her eye the only crack in her pretty mask.

“Okay, things are getting a little—!” She furiously pulled her skirt away when one curious colt tried taking a peek inside. “—excited around here, so we’re gonna cut back to the studio for a moment. But stay tuned, because we’ll be keeping you updated as events develop. I’m Starry Smiles for PNN.”

Starry’s mask crumbled. Her pent up frustration boiled at the surface in the form of a shrill growl as she now jostled her way through the crowd of rambunctious children to return to her crew, “Alright, ya little brats! SHOW’S. OVER. Out of my way, ya bucking little…” The rest she didn’t speak out loud in fear one of them, or worse, their parents, heard, jumped her and laid their eggs in her brain like she’d heard all about.

So she just went back to taking it out on her worthless crew. “I want a new outfit before we go back on the air, pronto!” she screeched as they ran around after her. “Oh, and I wanna know who’s the moron who “fixed” my lashes so I can rip her a new—”

While the team was going through the routine prima donna meltdown, for the Bugarest changelings the celebrations were just getting started. A fresh round of drinks, cigars and roast kebabs made of rodents, lizards and juicy insects were being hoofed out, and you can bet nochangeling was going to pick up that tab. Even fillies and colts were dunking their heads into open barrels to find out what getting juiced felt like (and they’d wake up tomorrow finding out what a hangover felt like as well).

Until a year ago, before the provisional government took charge, these changelings were ruled by the Diamond Dog Queen’s greatest competitor for the title 'World’s Biggest Bitch', but those crummier times were quickly fading from public memory. Queen Chrysalis was gone and the traditional system folded faster than, as some crass ponies put it, “a lawn chair under Princess Twilight’s rump.”

With a brighter future to look forward to, a new name was now on everychangeling’s lips: Hopper.

The grinning muzzle of Bucharest’s favourite son was plastered on almost every building. That debonair face full of charm and charisma was burnt into a million changelings’ retinas by this point in the election, with those sunken, electrified grey eyes seemingly following their every movement.

And by night’s end, the whole world might very well be calling him ‘Mister President’.

The Golden Scarab Hotel, where changeling haut monde and all the other bigwigs, stuffed shirts and caviar munchers came to crash when they grew bored of bumming around their estates taking milk baths and having their plots wiped by servants. Floral gold patterns ornamented its floors and walls, a miniature aquarium was installed in the restaurant and the suites cost more a night than some changelings earned their entire life, complete with minibar. It was a once-proud elysium for those thinking themselves better.

Nowadays though, a lot of the old elite were falling out of love with the place. It wasn’t just because of that revolution some time ago that saw their beloved Sugar Momma Queen overthrown and their cozy position tossed in the air, but the much bewailed infestation of nouveau riche in the most expensive suites.

A changeling mare entered the archaic lobby, the revolving doors quickly shutting out the obnoxious noise outside. She was a tall and plain-looking mare, dressed formally in a drab grey suitdress and her mane done up in a neat bun; she had the appearance of the secretary for a chain smoking newspaper editor with anger problems and an obsession with masked vigilantes. A brown envelope levitated close to her side.

She was flanked by a pair of even taller, hulking mares decked in black shades and suits only an idiot couldn’t peg as bodyguards and who could only be pumped up on something.

None of the hotel staff were in sight, not even that bellhop everychangeling loved to spit on. They all were probably out partying.

‘This place really is going downhill,’ The smallest of the trio adjusted her rectangle glasses and wordlessly ordered her associates to stay behind as she headed to the gilded elevator, carrying herself as if she were literally born with a stick up her plot.

The elevator took her all the way up to the penthouse suite, the crown jewel of the Scarab. After a few painful minutes of incessant muzak and a low hanging chandelier constantly threatening to poke her eye out, she stepped out into the tiny hallway where a set of double mahogany doors greeted her.

She entered the luxurious, two-story suite using her own copy of keys, and her muzzle wrinkled at being assaulted with an overwhelming stench of sweat, musk and leftover pizza.

The place was a dump! Only students left their dorms in such a mess. There were stacks upon stacks of greasy takeaway dinner boxes and more empty bottles and cans than the eye could see. She even counted more than one broken piece of incredibly expensive furniture.

Over the sound of the television stuck on PNN, she could hear the loud groans of pleasure and giggling coming from the door to the master bedroom.

Heaving a sigh and brushing some imaginary dust off her suit, she approached the door to give it a knock. Nothing. Of course. She knocked again but a little harder.

The mare, Honeypot, grudgingly turned the knob and walked inside, bracing herself for the sight she was bound to be met with.

What she found instead, aside from an Ursa Major skin rug decorating the marble floor and a raided minibar, was a king sized bed cut off by blue silk curtains and littered with even more beer bottles and pizza boxes.

Magically swishing the curtains open, Honeypot looked down unimpressed, her brow cocked at the exposed pair of changelings splayed across the gelatinous watermattress, their curious and naughty legs snaked around each other. Their sheets slid off as they shifted about, damp with the gods knew what and carrying a bunch of clinking bottles with them.

Of the pair, the stallion was instantly recognizable as the same stud whose face embellished the city’s walls, his long, lime green mane reeking of gel and self-satisfied smirk being a dead giveaway. The shapely mare he was spooning and whose neck he playfully nipped with his fangs was a different, drop-dead gorgeous beast all together. She had more gaping holes in those sexy slender legs of hers than a fine slab of cheese, and sported an arctic blue mane which gave off an enticing blueberry aroma.

Their carapaces were slick with each other’s sweat; the raw smell of it, alcohol and the fragrance of a sweating manticore hung over them like a bad case of halitosis. In the better light, the stallion’s body was peppered from maw to chest in his marefriend’s bright blue lipstick.

“Do you mind!?” The mare snapped, voice cracking, crossing her legs to cover her shame.

“Taking it easy tonight, your lordship?” Honeypot guessed. “Or are there a couple more waiting in the jacuzzi?” She jabbed her hoof at the steam billowing out an ajar door to her left.

Lord Hopper grumbled something impertinently and tried to haul himself up onto his haunches, getting a little help from Honeypot, who magically yanked him upright by the horn.

It was no shocker that he was drunk again, judging from his swivelling eyes and extremely unpleasant breath. His tipsy lover even had a bottle of his liquor in hoof, ready to tip it down her snuggle bug’s open hatch on his command.

“H-Honey, thish better b’good…” Hopper slurred, lurching over and feeling his bloated, solid keg of a belly with his forehoof while he tried focusing his thoughts. “Missh Flitter and I were—hic!—were in the middle of something.”

The mare crawled over and wrapped her forelegs around Hopper’s shoulders, smirking and crooning, “Hoppy-poo was giving me an interview.” Letting her skilled tongue explore his neck, she secretly shot a haughty look at her proper counterpart and asked her lover, “How’d I do, baby?”

Hopper returned her feisty grin, nickering in her ear and squeezing her side. “I can find something for you—hic!—I think.”

They began a fresh tongue wrestling match, which a seriously annoyed Honeypot simply wasn’t having and gave the floor a loud stomp to break them up.

“How good for you, Miss Flitter, but this is just a wee bit more important. Up!” She whisked her horn and Hopper was hoisted roughly onto his sailor legs.

The changeling noble stumbled about as he tried to find his hooves, his swollen paunch wobbling and sloshing with all that takeout and drink. He took the liquor bottle and nursed from the as if he were hungry hatchling, all while Flitter drunkenly clung onto his hide and showered him with her lipsticked smooches.

“While you’ve been laying around in bed with this little bimbo, Lord Hopper,” Honeypot began, stern in tone as if she were reprimanding a colt, “Revolution Square’s packed with changelings growing mad with anticipation.”

Lowering the bottle from his puckered lips, Hopper shot her an odd look, asking, “What? Old Conqueror’s some boozer renamed ‘cause the commoners took over? Can’t see what that’s got to do with me.”

As she silently questioned every decision she had made in her adult career, Honeypot brought the long ignored brown envelope to her boss’ attention.

“Look, we got these at HQ less than half an hour ago.” She tore the plastic seal and took out the white set of documents for him. “They’re the results of the election. Just read—”

“Ugggh!” Hopper’s face scrunched up in discomfort, any thought of what she was telling him miles away. A low, painful groan emanated from his churning guts. “I don’t feel so hot…”

She gagged,accidentally inhaling the toxic fumes. Flitter even stopped her fawning to cackle impishly at her.

“Ahhh, much better,” he sighed, his tense muscles laxing. “Now what were you saying, Honey?”

Honeypot gritted her teeth so hard she might have chipped a fang, and practically shoved the papers into his chest, hissing, “The results, you fool. Just read.”

“Ohhh… oh, buck!” A sudden twinge of sobriety took hold of Hopper; he now remembered completely who he was and what was going on. Ignoring the mess it made on the floor, he dropped the liquor bottle and snatched the papers. He tried to make out the squiggles and digits, unsurprisingly with little success.

Deciding to stop him before he hurt himself, Honeypot took them back, readjusted her glasses and broke it down for him, “The turnout was huge, about 74%, much higher than we predicted.” Her lips curled into a grin. “According to this, you’ve pulled in anywhere between, oooh, 50 to… 56% of the popular vote.”

An awkward silence blanketed the room; everychangeling could now hear the television blaring outside the door and the muffled Equestriabeat shaking the windows. Hopper blinked stupidly, still swaying on his spot, and Flutter was rendered stupefied with her lips puckered in mid-kiss.

“S-So…” he stammered, rediscovering his voice. “Wait, hold on…” He held his dizzy head to keep himself standing. “So that means… th-this means I-I win, right?”

“No run-off. We—you’ve won this thing outright, somehow.” She told him silkily and took him under his chin, squidging his cheeks. That devious grin now stretched from ear to ear, flashing her pearly white fangs. “Congratulations, Mr President.”

Hopper drew a blank, almost unreadable expression. The rusty, misshaped gears in that coconut of a head seemed to be actually grinding for once as he processed what he’d been told. After a pregnant pause, he slicked back his mane and gave an arrogant chuckle.

“Oh, Hoppy-poo!” Flitter shrieked so loud it put a school filly’s to shame as she hilariously tried but failed to scale her lover’s back. “I’m gonna be an Ambassador!”

This boast earned the newly christened president-elect an incredulous glare from Honeypot, to which the lecherous lout could only shrug.

“Welp, I think I’ve earned myself a celebratory drink,” he declared and gestured towards the stylish bar counter set up in the far end of the room, the kind brimming with a rainbow of beverages and a coffee machine. “Honeypot, be a doll and fetch me and Miss Flitter a couple of Woo Woos, would ya?”

Craning his neck back, Hopper exchanged some upside down hissy faces with the vivacious mare still warming his rump. Both would agree that some major victory nookie was also in order.

“Oh no, you’ll have your victory rally to attend soon,” Her tucked away pristine wings humming with life, she hovered over to the counter and poured a tall glass of icy mineral water instead. “This’ll help clear up your head.”

Seeing the tasteless and impotent offering made Hopper want to gag. Water? If that was a joke, he wasn’t laughing. After all, this was a stallion who’d been raised to quaff vodka and wine like spring water since he was drinking from sippy cups. Regardless, he took the beverage and drank it with all the trepidation of a colt taking his yucky medicine.

“I expect the provisional government to get in contact soon to ‘congratulate’ you and all that jazz. Now, I expect you to have your rear in gear for when Canterlot calls again. You can get away with halfassing it with Earwig and Aphidov, but not with the Princesses.”

Hopper just chuckled and shrugged off her prattling. His mind was completely elsewhere; he honestly couldn’t care less about the provisional government or Canterlot. In fact, the whole election and everything it signified for him and his country hadn’t really been taxing his sleep as much as you’d expect.

Actually, over these last few weeks, something very different had him lying on his sloshing mattress with his eyes wide open.

“I told ol’ Sunnybuns you were ‘preoccupied’.” Honeypot nonchalantly fixed herself an espresso. It’d been a long night and it was gonna take more than popping her pills on the hour. “I gave her the number to your room, so you can expect a congratulatory call pretty soon.”

“Huh?” Hopper cocked his head, a look of hatchling-like disappointment crossed his face. “Sunny—nononono, I wasn’t talking about her, I meant my Big Z!” He whined, head hanging sulkily and ears pressed back. Even his alcohol-fueled buzz was unable to drown out his displeasure. “Baby promised she was gonna ring me up tonight. Hmph!”

“The results haven’t been made public yet, you idiot,” she replied with an irate roll of the eyes, clearly in no mood for his childish complaints. “Of course she hasn’t called yet. Besides, you’ve got bigger—”

The last time Hopper had seen his precious ‘Big Z’, his Number One, was three agonizingly long weeks ago. In the runup to the election, they agreed to put things on hold until after he won. Those dung beetles running the tabloids would’ve creamed themselves if their camera-wielding stormtroopers reported back with pictures exposing their dirty business for the public to gawk and drool over. And sure, Hopper would’ve wanted his own copies of those photos for himself, but his suits didn’t want to risk the scandal rattling his campaign.

Now it was almost over and he wanted to get back with her so bad, even if he could just fondle those magnificently sculpted, marshmallow flanks in his hooves. He wanted to dig his fangs into that firm, supple neck of hers, the taste of her juicy love and her natural scent both sending his blood rushing south. It sure beat transforming into her in front of his mirror two or three times a day with a bottle of lube in hoof.

The blue-maned bombshell, meanwhile, was growing increasingly jealous at being passed over for a mare not even present. Her itch still unscratched, she reached up and started toying with his mane.

“You don’t need her, Hoppy,” Flitter cooed in between nuzzling against his withers, hoof on her generous hip. “You’ve got all the tail you need right here.”

Hopper just shrugged in an ‘oh well’ fashion. He could make due with Flitter for the time being. To give the mare her dues, she’d definitely proven herself a real she-devil in bed.

Then a light came on in his head, a rare occurrence. “Hey, I know. Think you can change into her for me?”

The ivory white rotary telephone in the room’s corner went off, making the tar and cholesterol encrusted heart in the stallion’s chest skip a beat.

In his scramble to answer the call, Hopper’s hoof slipped on the liquor puddle, crashing pathetically on his beer belly. Flitter was less fortunate, having lost her support and falling face-first against the solid marble with a shocked “Wha—!?”

“About time,” Honeypot brushed her mane back as if she were about to meet whoever was on the other line in person, before fluttering across the room, over the embarrassing heap to pick up the still ringing phone. Magically holding the corded hoofset to her ear, she cleared her throat and answered slowly, professionally, “Hello? Ah yes, good evening, ma'am… Yes, he’s here… Of course, I’ll get him for you.”

Seeing the president-elect still floundering to pull himself to his hooves, Honeypot shook her head in shame at the humiliating display, setting the phone on the floor in front of him.

Hopper took the hoofset and grunted into it, straining with pain, “H-Hello?” No response.

He flipped the hoofset over, grumbling under his breath as he finally stood up straight; he was still getting the hang of these damn new contraptions.

“Hello?…” He perked up at recognizing the voice on the other end. “Good evening, ma’am. Great to hear from you again. How are you?... That’s great. Doing pretty good myself. What? No, no, it’s nothing, I just knocked into something, I’m fine.” He rubbed his slightly stinging belly, while his eyes absent-mindedly drifted towards Honeypot, who was now undoing the buttons on her primed suit jacket. “… Yeah, Honeypot showed me… Oh yeah, heh heh, very much.”

In the middle of his chatting on the phone, Honeypot carelessly tossed her jacket to the ground, revealing her sleek and lithe frame beneath. The pin holding her bun came undone with a twist of her horn, and she flipped her long, brushed mane over her shoulder.

Hopper’s dorsal fin—normally hidden within his mane—went rigid; his eyes liked what they saw, and his lower horn certainly didn’t disagree.

“So, uh, I’ll be heading down to HQ pretty soon,” he continued, obviously distracted. “You’ll be watching, right? I got my best mares to write my speech… Nah, I’m not that drunk.” Belching a second time afterwards didn’t do much to help his point. “Okay, I’ve had a few… Don’t worry, I’ve done this sort of thing a hundred times. It’ll be a breeze.”

Honeypot began to shake her hips left and right, rocking them in a slow hula fashion until her skirt slid off her rump and down her hind legs. Stepping out of it while pulling a graceful pose, she looked visibly relieved now that her body was free from those constricting garbs.

The pair of bedroom eyes and suggestive smirk she fixed Hopper with was enough to make his flabby legs quiver. He watched her saunter, her rump bouncing hypnotically all the way, into the soothing embrace of the still steaming jacuzzi room without giving him so much as a second glance.

He decided to wrap this up, “... Uh-huh. Yeah, so… you’re gonna call later, right? So we can work out the details?... Yeah, tomorrow morning’s a good time… Great, I’ll talk to you then… Thank you very much, Princess.”

Hanging up a bit more abruptly than he intended, Hopper hungrily licked his lips and creeped into the jacuzzi room with a wicked glint in his eyes, abandoning all thoughts on the important call and his dazed, likely injured bed friend groaning on the floor.

The pleasant heat inside the white tiled room welcomed the libidinous stallion like his morning ritual of hair of the dog. He saw through the thick steam curtain and immediately made out the shape of the roaring hot tub, surrounded with a collection of lit scented candles and bottles of champagne.

Lounging inside the tub like a crocodile in its river, her eyes shut in complete relaxation while her mane floated on the service, with a glass of sparkling champagne hovering next to her head was Honeypot herself. She spread her hind legs and hung them dripping just over the tub’s edges, as if inviting somechangeling to fill the space and soak with her.

Watching her in this position made Hopper’s pistons fire with fervor. He did a confident strut towards the tub, chest puffed out far as possible, shoulders pulled back and chin tilted regally up like he was cock of the walk.

“Heeey, whatcha doin’, Honeybuns?” He asked smoothly, his leering eyes rolling up and down that graceful figure half submerged in bubbling hot water.

“Taking a bath,” came her monotonous reply, eyes still shut and taking a sip of her drink. “Been a really stressful day.”

“Wanna make room for one more? This dirty colt needs a bath, too, heh heh...”

“Nah…” She sunk deeper beneath the surface up to her chin. “Not really in the mood, Hopper.”

Being the kind of stallion unable to take ‘no’ for an answer, Hopper leaned over the edge until their faces were inches apart. “Aww, c’mon, baby, it’s my big night!” A grubby hoof rubbed up along her thigh. “I deserve a little reward for being a good colt these last months, don’t I?”

Honeypot kept her eyes firmly shut, but she could hear him panting loudly as if her were in heat. So she effortlessly, angrily stuck her wet hind hoof right in his fat mouth and shoved him back, effectively shutting him up.

“So you wanna make some soup, huh?” she asked after savouring the brief silence, tapping her bottom lip in mock thought. “Lick my hoof.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Hopper grinned, which was admittedly hard to do with somechangeling’s hoof literally in his mouth, and did so with gusto. A slimy, pale tongue wormed its way eagerly in and out through the sensitive holes in her moist hoof. It sent a tingling sensation shooting down Honeypot’s leg and up her spine.

She clutched the edges of the tub as she drew a shuddering moan of ecstasy, “Ooooh, yeah, that’s good. You must really want it…”

“Well, you’re not going to be needed at your victory rally for a while yet, so…” Her voice petered out into a giggle before she pulled him into the tub by his trapped tongue. The tremendous splash caused by his sheer bulk extinguished all the candles and utterly swamped the floor.

After she freed his sore little hisser from its bind, Hopper gazed yearningly up at the bodacious mare whose chest he now used as his own floatation device radiating with warmth. The bubbling water washed the sweat and filth from his recent exertions off his shining, wobbling chitin.

“I guess you have earned a small reward for all your effort,” Honeypot admitted in a tantalizingly husky voice, cupping his fat face in both soft hooves and their muzzles becoming progressively close. “But I’m on top.”

“Is there any other way?” he reached around her waist, eliciting a small ‘ooh!’ when she did the same but much tighter. And then they started making out. “Mmmm, my Honeybuns.”

Outside, Flitter’s pained groans mixed with her drunken stupor went unnoticed. Her attempts to get back on her jellified legs from her most embarrassing position on the stained marble were a futile effort. Half her face was drenched in the puddle of liquor, robbing her of whatever shred of dignity she had left.

Listening to their loud primal grunts and moans only reminded her of her desperately unslaked hunger.

“H-Hey… what about me? I’m into that sorta stuff, ugggh…” She gave up on it when she spotted a greasy pizza box nearby. There was one slice left cold, with dragon scale toppings. She honestly couldn’t care less and scoffed it anyway.

Hundreds of miles away, within the confines of the castle sticking out like a sore hoof over the domain of Ponyville, Princess Twilight Sparkle was following the events unfurling in Bugarest with the utmost indifference.

Tucked in her queen-size bed which threatened to swallow her up in its insanely soft mattress, the exhausted alicorn princess let out a most undignified yawn and massaged her stinging eyes. That flickering box positioned off the hoof of her bed proved a real killer on her sensitive violet orbs.

A day packed with royal duties had sucked all the energy out of her. All the alicorn strength in the world could only provide her so much endurance to the drudgery of paperwork and court protocols. Now well into the night, she found herself overtired and unable to catch a wink of sleep.

That was really the only reason Twilight bothered to watch the election report on television. She and the other Princesses each received one as a gift from the batpony inventor himself, all much higher quality than those currently available cheaply on the market. Though from the migraines she occasionally suffered, Twilight somewhat wished she’d turned it down.

Spike was fast asleep in his tiny crystal bed beside hers, snoring noisily into his drool stained pillow. She could hear the little dragon mumbling about asking a certain unicorn if he could “smell her mane”. Nothing new there.

Twilight sighed and slumped deeper into her flipped over pillow. Nights got pretty lonely in this bed designed for two. It hadn’t used to bother her, but since her ascension to alicornhood, she’d started to develop the notorious ‘alicorn appetite’, where her… needs were growing far beyond that of any ordinary mare. Her brother and sister-in-law could certainly testify to that.

She considered calling for Flash Sentry, now one of her personal guards, but she just didn’t possess the will or energy. The last thing she wanted was Spike waking up and catching them in the act.

‘Twas a shame. Flash didn’t have the biggest or sharpest spear in his battalion, but sweet Celestia, did he know how to use it.

The news report continued, flashing images of changelings partying in the city streets even more wildly than before. The Equestriabeat and the loop of chants of ‘HOP-PER’ had become mingled into one ugly melody. More celebratory kegs were being opened and brightly coloured streamers thrown through the flurry of confetti falling through the muggy air.

Underneath the bar reading ‘BREAKING NEWS’, Lord Hopper’s victory was being heralded for the whole world to see.

Starry Smiles was also there on the scene, decked out in a brand new suit dress and an unnaturally large and phony grin stretched against her botoxed face. A pro-Hopper group of changelings went about their partying in the backdrop, waving their placards and near-religiously chanting his name.

“It’s official, everypony,” she spoke chipperly as she slowly approached the edge of the crowd. “The ballots have been counted and Lord Hopper is now the first elected President of the Federal Changeling Republic. I’m here to talk with the citizens of Bugarest themselves to get their reaction.”

Starry had the misfortune of coming face-to-face with some Hopper supporters tottering about in a daze. The four of them stunk of love-laced beer with glowing pink on their lips. Now with the camera rolling, she was gonna have to talk to them.

“Why, hello there,” she smiled fake sweetly, holding the microphone to a bespectacled stallion who appeared the least drunk and bore the vague resemblance of an intellectual. “Starry Smiles, PNN. What do you folks have to say about the results? I take it most of you are supporters of President Hopper?”

The stallion’s friends instantaneously burst into a fit of uproarious laughter, their normally dark grey faces flushed bright with green.

“I… love you, Starry Smiles!” A middle-aged stallion wearing the tricolour as a cape laughed and his tongue rolled out his mouth.

“Oh, heh heh, that’s so nice of you,” Starry tried to laugh along, eyes darting around awkwardly as she desperately searched for a way out of this personal nightmare.

“O-kaaay, let’s just go over here—HEY!” She was caught off guard when her microphone was suddenly yanked away from her by the now stern-faced stallion she spoken to first.

Acting like she didn’t exist, he turned to face the camera and addressed the Equestrian nation in the manner of a professional journalist himself, “I believe that with Lord Hopper’s election to office, our two nations’ relationship shall grow much tighter and intimate…” His stony expression dissolved, a suggestive smirk taking its place, “Maybe you and I can go back to my apartment and get to work on that, eh, Ms Smiles?”

Starry and her crew’s jaws collectively dropped. That shocking statement had just been heard by millions of ponies at home. Twilight herself bit down on her tongue to stop her laughter waking up Spike.

The malevolent desire bubbled within Starry Smiles to take that peasant’s glasses and shove them down his throat. “Heh heh heh, okay, that’s smart, now why don’t you just give me back my mic before somepony gets hurt, huh?” She reached to take it back, but the stallion tossed it to his friend, who spun his tales and flew off, laughing all the way.

In normal circumstances, Twilight was not the kind to find watching a professional news personality make a complete ass of herself on live television that funny. She must have been especially tired because now she desperately had both forehooves clasped over mouth to withstrain herself.

A first edition copy of Fifty Shades of Hay, a gift sent over by Cadence which sat lonely on top her drawer these last two month was looking more and more friendly. Now that she was in the proper mindset for such literary excrement, the Princess shrugged and the book eventually landed on her lap on page one.

Three chapters in and her mind was already winding down from sheer boredom. The fact that this thing was an Equestrian bestseller made her heart weep for the great masters. But when it looked like she just might get some sleep that night, a loud, all-too-familiar burp jolted her upright in her bed.

A rolled-up letter materialized from the whisk of flames rising from Spike’s bed and landed right on Twilight’s head. From Princess Celestia, no doubt. There was no putting this off until morning.

The baby dragon shifted in his adorable covers, yawning irritably as he pulled his head from his pillow, “H-Huh? Wha… What’s goin’ on? Is that you, Dracula?”

Twilight smiled, “Go back to sleep, Spikey.” She had unfurled the letter and was in the middle of reading it with a dim glow emanating from her horn.

“... ‘Kay.” And like that, he was face-down against his pillow, out like a candle.

‘Lucky lizard,’ she thought amusedly. After she was finished with the letter, Twilight carelessly dropped it on the bed with her open trashy tome and tried gathering her thoughts. ‘Well, I knew this was coming at some point. Guess I can get the train up to Canterlot tomorrow and—and—’

One last yawn took it out of her and she was met with the sweet, sweet embrace of sleep, nodding off with her mouth wide open and her snoring rattling the bedroom windows.

That Special Relationship

by Magic Man

Chapter One