Chapter 56
Snowflakes clung to Gosling’s long eyelashes like desperate, jilted lovers and intermingled with the speckle-freckles on his back like uninvited—but not unwanted—party guests. He had been given but one instruction and he rose to the challenge like some punch-drunk prizefighter: be charming. Celestia had given this command so he would let the charisma flow like wine from an unstoppered bottle. Calling what he had charisma was an understatement of the worst kind; for what he had was pure, raw animal magnetism.
And for now, he would lay it on as thick as he dared.
“Ladies… gentleponies… but especially you fine looking ladies that give life to a party… welcome to Canterlot Castle. It is my exquisite pleasure to have you here today as my guests. Thank you for joining me, because I intend to make this a big deal. We’re making history tonight, all of us, and for all of you that came, for all of you that braved the storm, you have my most sincere and heartfelt thanks. Especially you ladies.” Because pretty words were never enough, he flirted with the crowd, all of them, and gave them the sauciest wink he could muster.
In doing so, he almost pulled a muscle.
A mare fainted, and as a guard rushed to assist her, ponies of both sexes swooned. Gosling took this as a good sign, he was doing something right, so he mustered up a little more to give a good show. He would not disappoint. This was his job now—charm the public. He fell back on every theatrical trick he could think of so that he would be the very best at what he did, and what he did was pretty.
“For all you fellas… do me a solid and see that your special somepony has a magical night to remember. Let’s make this the most magical night of the year. Can you help me?” Wearing a flirty, almost pouty smirk, he clucked his tongue while feathergunning the crowd in the cheesiest display of pegasus machismo in perhaps all of history.
When another mare fainted dead away, he heard a resigned sigh from Celestia, who then said, “Gosling, put those away before the hospital becomes overcrowded.” The big mare stepped forwards, unleashed her own charisma, and she smiled at the crowd, beaming like a ray of sunshine. “This is, indeed, a most important night, a celebration long overdue. Thank you, all of you, for coming to celebrate my sister’s sacred night. It means a great deal to me, and you have my gratitude.”
“The importance of the night was never forgotten, even if Princess Luna was.” A mare who did not look the least bit swoony stood in defiance of the rampant, devastating charisma on display. She sniffled, her nose a bit snotty, and her mane was whipped by the strong winds. “Why, as far back as I can remember as a filly, this was our night as earth ponies and it was more important to us than Hearth’s Warming.”
As for Luna, who had been mentioned, she had gone still as a statue.
Gosling could feel it; a silence was coming, something most dreaded and most feared by any public speaker. He thought of ways to combat it, to make noise, but not just any words would do. To banish silence effectively, one had to say something meaningful, or at least something relevant. Before he could say anything, Celestia rose to the challenge.
“Come inside, all of you, so that you can get warmed up. Have some hot cocoa. Please, sample our hospitality. You are our guests and we are so pleased to have you join with us on this most special of nights.”
Electric tension was heavy in the air and there was a sort of frantic energy that flowed through everything as all of the last-minute stuff was sorted out. Extradimensional closets were being stretched and expanded so additional guards could be positioned at key locations without being seen. Should trouble happen, the door would open and an impossible number of guards would come spilling out.
There was a sorcerer here in Canterlot and a massive public spectacle. Canterlot had a bad history with public spectacles, as evidenced by Prince Shining Armor and Princess Cadance’s wedding. Gosling’s own nuptials had gone off without a hitch, but this made everything worse because the expected attack never came as anticipated. All of the various martial guilds would be in attendance tonight, though not as guests, everything from the Guardian’s Guild to the Rat Catcher’s Guild, many of whom would be working under the guise of attendants and servants.
The Rat Catcher’s Guild ponies were just a bit off-putting. Something about them was a bit creepy, but then again, these were ponies that enjoyed long walks through the sewer and killed all manner of unspeakable horrors that festered down in the muck. Gosling wasn’t sure how to feel about them, but Luna spoke highly of them; heroes that did a great public service but that never had society’s appreciation for the vital work they did. Of course, he was no dummy—his mother hadn’t raised a featherbrain—and Gosling knew why Luna held them in such high esteem.
Without warning, Gosling found himself seized by magic and disoriented, he went from one place to another, dragged through the aether.
As he materialised into solid existence once more, he heard the frantic, muttered words, “I can’t do this. I can’t face them. I cannot bear their worshipful expressions and their submissive posturing. I cannot go through with tonight’s plans.”
Gosling could only describe Luna as naked, because she wore no illusion. He was in some dusty, cobwebby wine cellar that he had never seen before, someplace utterly unknown to him. The scent of old wood, mustiness, and Luna’s sweaty anxiousness tickled his nose. It was also dark, with the only light coming from Luna’s horn, which left her face pallid, wreathed in shadows. Outside of the narrow sphere of light, primordial darkness lurked, held at bay, waiting to devour.
“I can’t stop thinking about how I hurt you,” Luna continued, shaking her head from side to side while also stepping from one hind hoof to another. “Even worse, I still can’t fully understand why you were hurt… why you were so angry. Your perspective is so different from mine own. I keep thinking, and asking of myself, if I can’t understand you, if I cannot fathom your depths, then what business do I have with ruling? How do I serve my subjects if I do not understand them? I’m not like how I was… I am not the pony I used to be. The only thing I can think of is that the Elements of Harmony did something to me. Well, I know that they did something, but I am so different now from the pony that I once was that now I wonder if I’m a new pony altogether.”
Luna was sweating with anxious terror; rivulets ran down her ribs from beneath her wings and left wet streaks of darker, more saturated blue along her legs. She trembled and the soft rustle of feathers rubbing against damp hair could be heard. Even the light of her horn began to flicker, which cast ghostly shadows that haunted her reflective eyes.
“I feel awful about everything that’s happened between you and I.” The light from Luna’s horn grew a little dimmer. “Keeping secrets is what I do, for such is the nature of dreams. Dreams are such secretive things that do not wish to be revealed. I’ve become like that which I traffic with and more and more, I find it harder and harder to separate myself from my work. Gosling, there is so much doing and so much that needs to be done and I give myself over to it. So much so that I forget about the lives of others around me. I’ve dabbled in illusions and dreams for so long that I’ve slipped into comfortable complacency and half the time I treat the waking word like the dreaming world, with those in the waking world little more than passing fancy.”
So, what Luna was saying, in her own roundabout way, was that she needed friends to remind her of the real world. At least, this was how Gosling took it, and he thought of his conversation with Celestia earlier about how Luna was a physical creature. Was she slipping away from her physicality? It sounded that way, but he was hesitant to make assumptions. Slipping in and out and dreams sounded troubling and he could understand how reality might feel a little less copacetic when one dealt with the antithesis of what was real.
Their shared therapist had even mentioned that Luna needed a reminder of the living, though Gosling hadn’t understood what was meant at the time. Living an illusory life, a quixotic chimerical existence had utterly wrecked Luna’s perceptions of reality. Suffering a brilliant flash of insight, Gosling suspected that he knew the reason why Luna had fallen prey to the darkness elemental; she probably didn’t give it the proper, deserved credence as a threat. To battle such things, one first had to acknowledge them as being real and then steel one’s resolve.
At last, Gosling said something: “You know, you don’t make it easy to be your friend.”
This clearly wasn’t what Luna wanted to hear and when she began to fume, the sphere of light holding back the darkness shrank a little bit more. The despair and anxiety in her eyes was replaced by anger while her cheeks drew as tight as drum skins. Her ears pivoted forward, facing Gosling, and the sound of sweat dripping onto the dusty stone floor could hardly be heard over the deafening roar of silence.
Luna’s rebuke held the suggestion of acid: “You don’t make it easy to be lovers.”
Gosling’s head dropped, his neck forming a straight line with his spine and he studied Luna through narrowed eyes. This was… unexpected. Without realising it, his ears pinned back, giving him a submissive appearance, though he was feeling nothing of the sort. Trying to understand Luna was like trying to understand that book that Twilight had given him—impossible.
“My last husband, he gave me what I wanted. I went to him, he attended my needs, and then we parted and went our separate ways.” Luna’s words were a scratchy whisper, like stiff hairy spider legs scratching against the wooden wine casks stacked all around them. “But you… you and your contemptible virtue! This ironclad sense of duty that you have and all of your standards! Everything has to have meaning… everything must be poetic, perfect, and true. You hold yourself to these standards and expect everypony else to do the same. You and mine sister have that in common… and it makes both of you insufferable. There are times when I find the two of you loathsome.”
Rather than say anything, Gosling held his tongue and waited.
“There are times when I just need you but I don’t need your insufferable diatribes. With my last husband, he was at his best when he was huffing in mine ear and slobbering against mine neck. If for some reason he spoke too much I found other uses for his churlish tongue. He was rough-hewn, coarse, but he was tolerable because he was good at what he did. With you… I can’t even get near you without your constant need to converse. Even worse, you challenge me and I find that I cannot resist these provocations. Spending time with you is a dare and I detest how you get a rise out of me.”
“You don’t like being held accountable—”
“I hold others accountable!” Luna’s voice pealed through the confined space and caused Gosling’s ears to ring.
Unable to resist, Gosling pressed his advantage, but only after he pressed his nose against Luna’s. “You called me your lover. Well, sort of. Does this mean that you love me?” He thought of Cadance’s assignment and wondered if he stood a chance of completing it.
“No.” Luna’s blunt response was like a crack to the skull. “I am fond of you, no doubt. I am even infatuated with you, I’ll confess. And right now I am feeling guilty for bringing up the past and using it to hurt you. This is why I loathe you, Gosling, and my sister as well. Both of you are the most contemptible of ponies, with your standards and your virtues. Now I am going to be raking myself over the coals for hours because I tried to prey upon your insecurities and it was wrong of me to do so. How am I supposed to get my digs at you with this dreadful backlash?”
“Are Celestia and I really that much the same?” Gosling asked, his curiousity piqued.
“Annoyingly so, in some aspects.” Snorting, Luna pulled her nose away from Gosling’s and jerked her head back. “It is why the two of you get along so well.”
“Well then, Luna… what do you and I have in common? Perhaps we should spend some time trying to determine that.”
At this, Luna rolled her eyes and tossed her head about in a wild manner, disgusted.
“Just a little while ago, we were having fun playing in the storm—”
“It was an act, you nitwit!” For a second, the light from Luna’s horntip flared but then it flickered down to tolerable levels once more. “Putting on a good show for the public. It’s what I have to do. More illusion. I’m miserable, Gosling. Miserable. I’m so miserable and distressed about tonight that I keep having fantasies about running away to Maizteca and living with circus burros.”
“We could get tacos…”
For a moment, Luna’s stolid face was a stony mask, but it crumbled. The corners of her eyes crinkled, her nostrils flared wide, and the corners of her mouth kept getting pulled upwards while she struggled to scowl. Then, before Gosling could register what was going on, barking laughter came gushing out of Luna in a flood. It was the last thing he expected and he stood there, stunned, not knowing how to respond.
While he stood there, stunned by Luna’s laughter, he thought about the fun they had together. Movies. Games. Shenanigans. Larks. Chariot races. Thinking about those things, he realised that he and Luna got along best when there was action, and there was little being said. For him, it was a profound realisation, and he saw the stark truth in Celestia’s earlier words.
Emboldened, he made a move on Luna, swept her up in his wings, hauled her in, and before she could protest, he kissed her. There was resistance, lots of it, but when he trailed the tip of his tongue over her lips, said resistance turned into aggressive acceptance. She returned his embrace and her forehooves stomped against the dusty, cobwebby stones. When her lips parted, Gosling made his move, but she surprised him by chomping down on his lower lip.
It hurt—no mistake—and though she applied steady pressure she made no attempt to bite through. When she let go, his lip was throbbing, fiery, achy, but there was also pleasure to be had when her lips caressed the tender bitten place. He had learned something—she had shown him something—and so he reciprocated. Though fearful, hesitant, he bit her in return, applied a steady, but not cruel pressure, and was rewarded with an excited whinny.
With Luna hot and breathless, he pulled away, but only a little. Gazing into her eyes, he knew that it was now or never if he was going to commit himself to her. “Luna… Luna, I have a proposition for you.”
“Yes?” Her ears angled into an attentive, listening position.
His lip was hot and burny, but the heat burned even hotter in his groin and the inside of his thighs, which spasmed with excitement. “You go through with tonight and you give those ponies what they need—”
The dark shadow that crossed over the moon gave Gosling pause, but he gathered his courage.
“Do the right thing and I will be your slave for one night.”
Luna’s body went stiff and was now as unyielding as stone, which hardened around Gosling. He had the dreadful feeling that she could crush him right now, break every bone in his body. She could ruin him in ways that Cadance could not mend back together. His back was slick with sweat and the sensation of Luna’s feathers against the back of his neck left him itchy.
“What foolishness is this?” Luna closed the distance until only a hairsbreadth existed between them.
“We don’t have to talk… unless of course you want to. I will do what you ask… anything that you ask—within reason, of course. No obligations, no strings. This is me giving myself up for you and your needs.”
“But this goes against all of your principles.” Pale light seemed to retreat from Luna’s charcoal-coloured lashes. “I have seen your dreams, Gosling. Intercourse devoid of meaning is a terror for you. It is a charming quirk to say the very least, because let’s face it, for most colts and stallions in general, meaningless coitus is prefered. The only depth they seek is the hole in which they plunge themselves into.”
“I like it when you talk therapy,” Gosling whispered to his wife. “It feels so much more intellectual than cheap dirty talk.”
Again, Luna broke, and though there was a mighty struggle, she fell prey to a bad case of the titters. Gosling kissed her again, a quick peck on the corner of her mouth, and when their eyes met as he pulled away, their gazes lingered upon one another. Something had changed, Gosling was sure of it, but he wasn’t sure what. Did he lack the maturity to understand? Probably.
“And all I have to do is put on a good show tonight?”
He nodded, his mouth too dry to make words at the moment.
“Afterwards, you are mine to do with as I might please?”
Again, he nodded, terrified.
Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Bargain accepted.”
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"
Dormammu,Luna, I've come to bargain!"One part of me resents the remark on males only being in it for the sex. The other part cringes, because it is true. feels bad man.
There will be boinking!
Imagine his surprise when he shows up and Luna has nothing but a checkbook.
8952828
It's a bit different for their world. It's just a pointless, insulting stereotype for humans supported by the rare idiot who can't think past his hormones that is hoisted up as a banner meant to prove the rest of us are that way.
But for them they are the severe minority in Equestria, and equines are by nature matriarchal. Stallions are uncommon, therefore they must biologically be wired to breed, plentifully and often with several mares, or equines would die out in a very real and very quick manner. In the Weedverse we get a lot of opinions from characters (mostly mares) who are upset about this, but it's still just the way things are and honestly shouldn't change.
separate
Hmm do you mean “in and out of”?
To be fair, they are already married; its not like he'll be taking off afterwards.
8953046
Hmm do we really have support here in the weedverse of the herd system? I mean all the stats mentioned and all the aim of Cadance are towards monogamous lifelong couples, if it was so fundamentally biological it should be part of the rules and relatively common...
8953075
I think you responded to the wrong comment
8953075
Keep in mind that Cadance is an alicorn, and alicorns focus less on what is and more on what (they have unilaterally decided) should be.
It’s relatively easier to pair up two ponies that will last for life than three or more, simply because you’ve eliminated that many variables, and pairing up ponies still gets more ponies and more importantly keeps ponies happy, which gives hope to others to try as well.
I feel pretty confident that Cadance’s next big move will be trying to convince ponies not to live in big cities (which will be impossible and also ill-advised).
8952774
Well played, lol. Made me choke on my
robot phallusvapesoda8953117
Yep... The mobile interface is annoying...
8953075
8953046
[Let see how the notification works...]
8953265
Well... that is the "problem" as if the "natural" state for the ponies is one of herds then herds is what SHOULD be. Especially if the ratio male/female is heavily skewed as in the general accepted consensus... I mean if we have one male every three or four females [estimation on the low end of the usual range] then it follows that there should be either a LOT of lone mares or more multiple marriage...
The relative ease is "strange" as the evolutive pressure would try and select for multiple partnership, and so the "ease" SHOULD be there for herd marriage structure...
And for the point on "happy" ponies it again goes for the issue of how much the gender ratio is skewed... [the usual guess for an upper ratio is something like six mares to one stallion... if you go STRICTLY for monogamous relation you will have a PLUMMETING population in a couple of decades...]
Reflecting on this it is possible that, if foalbirth is quite the high risk for mares that in the past the family group were in practice multi female marriage serially... as in a widower would marry again and again getting at the end something like four or five wives... but that also does not seem to appear in Cadance data...
As for Cadance plan... don't know... It may be, but it's quite apparent that it is doomed to fail if attempted naively, so I don't think she would just go for it willy nilly.
8953975
Uh, herds are common. So are couples. It's all preference, really.
I'm not sure why you think one is favoured over the other.
8953980
Hmm there have been not many herd shown.
IIRC We have seen Gosling, Celestia and Luna, Twilight Pinkie Pie and Seville, and Trixie, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts.
Of these we have one that is something of a mystical thing, another that is heavily agonized over and the last is simply strictly homosexual.
Additionally they are somewhat small. Again it depends on the gender ratio if that is significant or not but if we have anything above the one to two ratio it would lead to a MASSIVE quantity of single mares.
The focus from Cadance is quite heavily on couples, and just that.
So that's why i get perplexed.
8954037
You're forgetting Tarnish. It may not be a fully traditional herd, but it is definitely a herd. Flicker's crew has the potential, but that may not be in the cards and honestly they have a lot of other stuff to worry about.
8954046
8954037
Sumac, Pebble, and Silver Lining, as evidenced in House of the Rising Sunflower.
So herds are there, and yes, Cadance deals with those too. It's been mentioned a few times now. It's treated as being utterly commonplace, so it doesn't stand out when it is mentioned or brought up. So it is entirely forgettable.
8954046
Tarnish... well... that also seems quite sui generis... I mean it seems again something "strange" with fundamentally monoromantic couples that are housemates... and again is SEEN as quite unconventional...
8954069
Yes, there is also them.
But again there is a LOT of just couples.
As I said that may be a bit off or a LOT off depending on the gender ratio...
With the low estimates from the show it may maybe work... but it would probably still leave a lot of single mares [and that may be roughly what appears here] going with the high estimates would simply be something like three quarter of the population is single with fundamentally no hope of getting a partner... [making the population plummet...]
So what is roughly the gender ratio in the Weedverse?
8954143
About five to one, same as real life horse and pony gender ratios.
8954069
8954037
Yes, as Kudzu pointed out in the future the Tater Tots of Destiny also herd up.
Well he’s fucked...
8954037
Princess Cadance’s Lonely Hearts Club heavily implied herds were commonplace.
8956536
Really?
Hmm didn’t get that impression... need to recheck
8956633
8956536
It does. I included it.
8954312
Hmm so wouldn't that mean that the average household should be around four? Or at least that triads should be QUITE frequent...
8958843
Three is a rather small number.
Look, it isn't a big deal. Some do, some don't. It's commonplace and normal.
If you can't see it in the Weedverse it is because I've done such a good job of blending it in. It's not meant to stand out.
Honestly, I'm not sure what the big deal is.