It was nine o’clock—not quite the end of day on the Ohio State campus. A young man and a mare walked together through the tungsten dusk The mare was a golden-yellow pegasus with the thick feathery coat of the northern tribes and an amber mane tucked into two loose ponytails. The man was short, with angelic features and hairy arms. Though just short of handsome by most human standards, the way he walked, especially by her side, suggested that he had a certain sway with other females. His surname was anyone’s guess, for he wasn’t fond of giving it out, but many ponies knew him by the name Valen. A few knew him as Best Background Human.
To Marigold Meadows, at least in that moment, his name was OhCelestiaOhCelestiaOhCelestia-I’m-actually-doing-this. She was young, and she was buzzed, but neither was the cause of her shivering.
They entered the saccharine glow of an old dormitory together. Valen showed her how to work an elevator, but she was distracted with attempting to convert Valen’s age to human years in her head. She was trying to figure out if, had Valen been a stallion, she would have thought he was too old for her. The difference in years between them had only just now assumed any importance.
The elevator opened up at the juncture between the men and women’s wings. Valen knelt and extended his hand for Marigold, encouraging her to take tentative steps into the rank-smelling side of this foreign land. They both smelled strong, but the women’s side sent out traces of fake cinnamon and cloves. The men’s side was a maze of body odor, body spray and stale food, as well as some other things Marigold wasn’t quite sure she wanted to name. Passing each set of doors was an olfactory adventure.
She’d still rather be here than at some hotel. Marigold felt dirty enough right now without being one of those mares who hooked up with their trysts in hotel rooms. She’d insisted against that.
Valen guided her down the turns. As they strolled the hall, she could feel his hand lightly combing through the strands of her mane. A novel sensation, but it felt wonderful. He kept his steps in pace with hers, and gently sang, but not so loud as to be heard inside any of the bedrooms.
“There’s a lady that thinks
all that glitters is gold,
and she’s buying a stairway to hea-ea-ven...”
They passed a common room full of board games. The pieces were lying scattered because a projector screen ran a football game in the corner. Even so, several young men within happened to see the pair walking by. They made noises that startled her. Before long half the room had joined in with whistles and catcalls, and they sounded like surprised dolphins.
“Oh!” One of them poked his head out of the common room to leer benignly at Valen. “T’s got a girl again!”
“Someone’s havin’ a good night,” another voice echoed over the TV.
Valen made a small show of blushing and trying to extricate himself by walking further down the hall. “Guys,” he said, “this is Marigold. She’s a friend…she’s coming to visit.”
“Uh-huh,” said a voice from the back. “You’re totally just gonna’ watch movies in there.”
He turned even redder. “Okay, you know what? I’m—we’re leaving now. Come on Marigold, let’s go.”
Marigold couldn’t help laughing in spite of her nerves. “Hi, guys.” She trotted up to the nearest person’s leg and patted it hello. “Guess Valen is a little shy.”
The room filled with ‘Aww’ sounds upon hearing her high, soft voice, and for a moment it was Marigold’s turn to blush.
“You really know how to pick ’em,” said the dry voice again.
Marigold turned playfully to look at her date. “Does Valen bring other mares home often?” she said with mock incredulity.
When absolute snickering answered the query, she let out a gasp and whipped Valen’s leg with her tail. “Bad Valen!”
They started back up with the dolphin noises.
Marigold played around a little longer, but soon she decided to let Valen escape. She joined him further down the hall. A few faces peeped out at them from behind painted doors, but Valen wasn’t blushing anymore, and neither was she.
“So you’ve known for a while that you were a background character?” she asked, feeling much refreshed.
Valen folded his hands behind his head. “Oh, yeah. Found out quick. The first time I ever saw a pony she ran up out of a crowd and started asking for my autograph. I had no idea what was going on.”
A giggle. “That must have been strange.”
“Oh, filly. You don’t even know. I hadn’t even heard we’d met aliens yet. But she was nice. Explained it to me. You know, it’s funny. Turns out on Earth we have a show about you, kind of like you have comic books about us. There’s a fandom for it, and ‘background ponies’ and everything. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony are like celebrities over here. And I’ve heard some poor pegasus called Ditzy Doo gets a mountain of fan-mail even bigger than mine.”
“Wow.” Marigold slowed to appreciate the strange, obscene doodles on posters and whiteboards that she passed. There was plenty to look at in the hall, including a stolen construction sign which she warily stepped around. “So you…know about the fandom, then.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he answered inscrutably.
Marigold bit her lip, working up the courage for her next question.
He chuckled. “And yeah, I’ve seen some of the porn.”
“Oh.” She hung her head, deflating, especially since his answer triggered a few memories of her own. “I’m—sorry you had to see that.”
“Naw.” He shrugged. “I mean…it was pretty weird, but…flattering, in a way. You know?”
“That’s about the best reaction anyone could have to that.”
“I try.”
He went back to stroking the edge of her mane. They neared the far end of the wing, leaving behind rowdy noise for the quiet door to Valen’s room.
And if this were one of the million average trysts that happened every night, there wouldn’t be more worth noting. But then tonight wouldn’t have become a story that Marigold repeated to her diary and her closest friends. Telling a story about a normal night would be boring.
She swallowed a lump in her throat while Valen fiddled with the keys. Finally she was here, actually here, after this whole tumultuous day. It had been a long one. With the time-zone switch, that was true even literally.
She’d begun the day in Canterlot.
Even at a prestigious school like Canterlot University, the fillies kept good track of which colts were ‘easy’. Marigold had never paid any attention to that, preferring to think of herself as absorbed in more ‘important’ concerns like studies and comic books. She was an intellectual, above all that.
But when she’d woken up this morning with the thought that she had two tickets to Earth she wouldn’t use…or, more importantly, after waking up in the same empty bed…she just couldn’t take it. With a bit of a guilty slink, she’d sought out a particular friend of hers who kept track of such things as easy colts. And when the name of her favorite husbando from ‘Only Human’ came up—it hit her for the first time that he was real, out there, somewhere, and she could go talk to him. Her heart had fluttered like a little filly’s heart in the thrall of its first stupid crush. Not knowing what else to do at the time, she’d answered it.
So she’d gone on that trip through the Gate after all, albeit by herself. Stamping double tickets for one pony had made her feel pretty pathetic, but she’d gotten through—to Earth, the mystical land of humans. Really being there was enough to make her cry, especially given the state she was been in. Everything was huge. And it was largely the way she’d imagined it, if not quite. The clouds were so high up that she felt constantly uncomfortable even without knowing she wasn’t allowed to fly. She’d spent far too much of her life daydreaming about coming here, but when she saw that sky, out of reach, she’d almost hated it.
Everything was also slightly bigger than she’d imagined, so it was a good thing she didn’t give herself time to get lost. Valen was surprisingly easy to find. Her friend knew exactly what grapevine to trace, and before long Marigold even knew what library he was in.
Then there had been an awkward moment. She’d hidden behind a bookshelf, watching him sit on a plush red chair reading a book. It was astounding to see him in the flesh.
But—how did one approach an easy boy?
Was she supposed to be like one of those mares who wore makeup every day and practiced their sashay? Was she supposed to run her tail along his nose? How would that even work on a human? Besides, she couldn’t pull off a runway stunt like that. She’d probably just make him sneeze or knock him over.
Maybe she was supposed to use the oldest of pegasus pickup lines—fly nonchalantly overhead and hope he glanced up so she could smirk and say, “Liking the view?” But even if he’d been outside where she could do that, Marigold was sure she’d find some way to screw it up.
Was she supposed to just walk up and say, “Can we bang?” She didn’t think she could work up the gumption to do that.
Eventually, she’d been saved by the fact that she couldn’t come so close to Valen himself and not even talk to him. Somehow she worked her way over. He greeted her with a warm smile as he looked up from his reading.
“Hello there,” he’d said in crumbly but beautiful Equus. Oh, he even had an accent! This was better than the comic! “What can I do for a beautiful mare today?”
Marigold had stood there with her mouth hanging open. By Luna, she’d probably looked like such a doofus. It was embarrassing to realize the question on her tongue—without even thinking about it, she’d been about to ask him if he’d ever been in a relationship with a certain other background human just like all the ship-fiction said. But it felt like an idiotic question when he was there in front of her.
Instead, she’d tried to swish her tail a bit and murmured, “I heard you can—uh—make a mare feel better when she’s down?”
“Ah.” He’d snapped the book closed, both sets of fingers pushing at the covers to make it snap with a dusty thump. “Are you free the rest of the day?”
Marigold blinked. “Huh?”
“Do you have anything else you have to do?”
“You mean—you want to go right now?” She’d looked out the windows at the high, blazing sun. “I guess not.”
“Fantastic.”
And so when he went out the door, she had followed.
Her first car ride was kind of fun. She didn’t quite have the luxury of soaking it all in because her heart had been in her throat at the time. But he didn’t take her quite where she expected. She’d figured out as much when she saw the rollercoaster, like a whimsical skeleton hill on the horizon.
Marigold couldn’t guess how he’d known that a day at the amusement park was what she really needed. Maybe he hadn’t known. Maybe it was just a lucky guess. Either way she was just as grateful. They didn’t let her onto all the rides at King’s Island, but she could do the inner tubes. Valen spent a great deal of time laughing while she purposely shook herself dry on shrieking little kids, who bounced around her asking for ponyback rides. The two of them gorged themselves on cotton candy. And when the light died, a few drinks hadn’t hurt either. Valen had commented that the beer was pretty good, which didn’t say much for human standards.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” she’d murmured, stunned while they leapt across the cracks in a sunset parking lot. “Why did you go to all this trouble?”
He’d just made a funny face and opened the door to his car. “Are you kidding? I had a great day. There’s nothing better than love, ponies taught me that. All I want to do with my life anymore is give and receive it. But I’ve learned over the past year that sometimes it comes best with a few trappings.”
Then he drove to his place, and she’d remembered what she asked him for in the first place.
When the door of the bedroom clicked shut, they were alone. Just the two of them. Valen crossed the room shedding jackets and wallets and keys—so many things coming off of him! Marigold couldn’t breathe. When he was nearly half-undressed, he flopped onto the bed, sprawling, sitting half-upright against the wall. The little white socks on his feet were hanging off the edge.
Marigold stood in the center of the room, exactly where she’d started.
“I’ve never done this with a human before,” she admitted in a breathy squeeze. “I’m—not sure what to do.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it.”
She nodded. Swallowed again. Started to turn around so that she could put her forelegs up on the bed. “So, am I supposed to…”
Valen laughed and held out a hand to forestall her. “Hey, no rush!”
“Oh! Sorry!” She jumped down as quickly as she could. “I told you I didn’t know what I was doing!”
He covered half his chuckling face. “It’s okay! Here, why don’t you come up with me? You’re really cute and I want to cuddle.”
Marigold hopped into bed and nuzzled his arm. “That I can do.”
“Here. You might like sitting across my lap. Just put your back hooves on this side and…forelegs on the other side, just like that…and I can do this.”
He bent his knees, lifting his thighs so that Marigold could slip her hind pasterns underneath his legs. Now she could sit naturally on her haunches while her body crossed his lap. Valen wrapped one arm loosely about her barrel, pulling her a little closer, and she consented to lean against his chest. His cologne swirled around her, shielding her from the smells of the building. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Then, relaxing bit by bit, she nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder.
This was actually pretty nice. Valen’s room was so fresh and clean, and his own scent wasn’t too strong. Clearly he understood how sensitive a pony’s nose was and knew how to please.
He began deftly tracing his fingernails along her head and withers. He wasn’t singing now, moreso humming, very quietly into her ears so that they twitched a little.
==SONG: Fields of Gold by Sting==
She kept thinking that she was supposed to do something. Surely this wasn’t how a mare acted in bed. But then again, as all mares barrel-deep in the fandom knew, humans played the same game by different rules. It was an unbelievably tempting proposition he made her with the tips of his delicate, smoldering fingers. To just stop worrying. To let him take over.
He was taking care of her, after all, and if she let him, he could keep on doing it. He was moving them along, just—slowly. Gradually his hands worked from her withers to her upper barrel, and from there, still running his nails through her coat, he explored the space just her forelegs. She tightened her grip on him as he moved further down, running along her back towards her intermittently-twitching tail.
“Hey. Marigold?”
Marigold’s eyes shot open. He had stopped singing now, and both of his hands were still. He sounded concerned. But what had caused her to fling up her lids was the way he said her name. He’d used it like a glass instrument, feeling the click of each consonant.
“Are you alright?” he whispered. “You feel a little—trembly.”
Marigold swallowed and forced herself still. She took her head out of his neck so she could hit him with a forced smile. “I’m fine!” For good measure she threw in a giggle.
He sunk his fingers back into the depths of her mane. But there was a thoughtful frown on him now. “Okay. Just so you know, it’s uh—normal at this point to talk for a while. Do you want to talk?”
The mare sat up suspiciously, pushing herself away with a hoof carefully applied to his shoulder. “We spent all day talking,” she said with narrowed eyes. “I mean, you’re basically a stallion, right? You don’t want to—”
Valen shrugged with adorable sheepishness. “Sure. But I want other things to. You said you wanted to feel better because you were down. I still don’t know what got you down in the first place.”
Marigold fixed her gaze on a lockbox in the corner of the room. Valen kept all his most important possessions there. Everyone who read the comics knew that. And it made for a good way to avoid meeting his eyes.
“Come on.” Still smiling, he hooked his hands under her front fetlocks and swung her legs around in the air like puppets. Marigold struggled to remain impassive when she wanted to laugh and cry now all at once.
“You shared all sorts of things about yourself with me before,” he said. “I was a good listener, wasn’t I? And you were ready to jump me anyway. What I want most of all, in this moment, is for you to share with me.”
She gave in with a sigh, gingerly unhooking her limbs. Still couldn’t bring herself to look directly at him when she spoke, so after a great deal of fidgeting around, she ended up cradled against him once more, with her head buried on his shoulder.
“But you’ll hate me when I tell you. I only asked you for this because I got turned down by a stallion. A stupid stallion at that…”
But he’d been perfect, somehow, all the way from his round-rim glasses to his unshod hooves. Marigold had entertained plenty of romantic crushes in her foalhood, but she thought she’d put those games behind her when she made it into a prestigious university. Ecology kept her busy. It hadn’t been until she met him that the thought of romance even crossed her mind again.
And this time, it was different. It was a slow, heavy feeling that overtook her through the course of months. Long into this slow burn, there came a day when she awoke and thought to herself—she was really in love. And she had to do something about it.
But somehow it was never quite the right time. He was always in the middle of a conversation, or studying, or eating. He was always in the middle of a life event, or doubtless too busy with final exams.
She had to find a clever way to force herself to say something. Two tickets to Earth would do the trick. Both her and her crush were unseemly fans of Only Human, and even back when they first met could spend all night talking about the most intricate idiosyncrasies of the imaginary world they shared. But even after buying the tickets, she hadn’t been able to work up the courage until a couple weeks before they expired. She’d meant to pretend that a friend had canceled their trip at the last moment, leaving her with an empty slot.
She would look back on that and tell herself over and over that she should have known he wouldn’t keep forever. She should have known that he wasn’t hers to save, as if nopony else would ever notice him the same way she did.
The day for her confession finally arrived. She knew something was wrong right away, when he was already beaming by the time she found him. She’d barely opened her mouth to comment upon his happy glow before he started begging to tell her about the mare he’d met.
“I asked her if I could take them both out,” Marigold sobbed into Valen’s arm. “I asked. I was really nice, too! But she didn’t even give me a chance. She didn’t like me. That bitch just wanted it to be the two of them!”
Though calling her that was unfair. Marigold would have done the same thing. Sharing him was a second-best fantasy.
After running out of words she came blearily back to the present, finding that she couldn’t quite remember all she’d said. She was crushing Valen in a hug, and Valen, without any complaints, was rubbing her back.
Finally he spoke. “You know, we don’t have to do this if we don’t want to.”
Marigold’s legs tensed. “N-no! Don’t be silly. You don’t…We’re totally going to do this.”
He lifted her by the belly so that he could look into her eyes. “I won’t enjoy it if you don’t.”
Marigold’s gaze slid away. “Maybe…no, no!” Shaking free, she dropped from his arms and buried her snout under her hooves. “That’s stupid. I’m—I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have to see this. You’ve been great. Just let me show you a good time. I can do that much.”
She tried to straddle his lap, but instead of letting her go for his clothes, Valen held her tight, kissing the underside of her muzzle. “It’s not stupid. You can tell me.”
Marigold shook her head, eyes closed.
“I’m begging you, Marigold.” He said her name in that way again. “I want to hear what’s on your tongue. Let the words be free.”
With a half-groan, she let go and rolled onto her back. “I’m…actually out of heat,” she said haltingly.
She winced when admitting it, but Valen only shrugged as if it somehow didn’t matter.
“I—er, that is, I’d like it if—” She nosed at his arm solicitously, breath warm in the dark. “Maybe you could—sing to me some more?”
Her let her snuggle up how she wanted. Valen leaned back against the wall. And playing with her mane, he slowly tilted his head back to sing.