The Problem With Pets

by Dusk Melody

Epilogue: Breakfast at Fluttershy's

“I have brought you through the forest safe and sound,” Zecora stated as she led Sparkler, Stonecutter and the six animals with them to the very edge of the Everfree Forest. The zebra lifted her hand and shielded her eyes against the light of the warm Sunday morning sun. “While it was nice I must turn around. Try to keep the pets from further harm, so their owners will not raise alarm.” With that, and without further ado, she waved her hand and turned back into the dark shadowy depths from whence they had come.

“Good bye ma'am!” Stonecutter waved to the departing zebra and she took Sparkler’s free hand in her own. In her other hand was Winona’s leash as well as the tether that prevented Tank from flying off and away from them. Angel was, once more, in her backpack. “You know what? I am so glad to be out of that forest!” she exclaimed, taking a moment to fill her lungs with fresh, bright, clean morning air.

“I'm just glad I'm not fearing for my life!” Sparkler smiled. Like her marefriend, she was revelling in the air outside of the forest. That, and the lack of a cloying, unbearable sense of dread that hung in there like the cloud of insects over their heads. She had Opalescence and Owlowiscious on leashes and Gummy in her bag. However, when the two young lovers began to walk up the rough dirt path back to Professor Fluttershy’s cottage, Stonecutter had not taken more than two steps before she started crying. She wasn’t just crying, tears were streaming down her chubby face like waterfalls, the stress of the recent situation getting to her at last. Unprepared for that, Sparkler stopped and stared at her before wrapping the larger mare in a tight hug with her face buried between her hefty breasts. “I’ve got you. You're safe now.”

Stonecutter didn't cry very often, hardly ever, even, but she was crying now. Her chest heaved, her shoulders shook and all her emotion came pouring out. “I'd…I’d,” she sniffed up her tears, but more came in their wake, “I’d have been wolf chow if it wasn't for you, Sparks…” she eventually managed to get her sentence out, though she was sobbing and hiccupping around every word.

Sparkler was quite happy with her face buried between her crush’s heaving chest, but, she supposed she should comfort her. It was easy for her though. She just compartmentalised everything that had happened in her logical, organised brain and dealt with it later. “If you weren't carrying me, I wouldn't have thought what to do. That let me tell CB what to do and how to save her from doing it.”

Stonecutter thought about it, and she didn’t have to try very hard, she could feel the timberwolf’s breath on the back of her legs, she could hear the snapping of the underbrush as it relentlessly pursued them. “I just dread to think how that could've ended without you there. I never would have thought of that.”

“That's why we are a team!” Sparkler said with a reassuring smile on her face. She was well aware, just like the other two were, that they had been seconds of time and a bad decision away from death. “We each do our part, and your part is to be extra snuggly.” The unicorn had her hands gently squeezing the earth pony’s pudgy belly, “Oh, and real strong and talented.”

Stonecutter blushed hard at that. “Ha, strength...” she smiled, though there was a hint of sadness to her voice that matched her tears, “I love how smart and in control you are. It’s very sexy.”

“Yes,” Sparkler laughed, “I’m very controlled when I'm not in a total panic, or when there aren’t icky bugs everywhere, or some other gross thing all over me,” she giggled in an attempt to lighten the situation.

“Then, I'm there to remove the bugs so you don't panic.” The large slate grey earth pony wiped her eyes and sniffled, feeling incredibly silly all of a sudden. “I'm sorry, Sparks, I don't cry very often.”

“When you were carrying me, that was really nice.” Sparkler lifted herself up onto the very tips of her hooves and she placed a tender loving kiss on her lips. “I felt safe and calm so I could think. When you were holding me in bed, I felt safe again.” Again, she kissed her marefriend, “If you need to cry, you can get my shoulder wet anytime, okay?”

“Th-Thank you…” Stonecutter smiled finally, wiping away the last of her tears, “I might have to take you up on that, Mistress.”

“I'm sure I'll take up being carried by you.” Sparkler did love being carried by her lover. There was just ‘something’ about being held in those amazingly strong yet gentle and loving arms that made her feel like nothing in the world could hurt her.

Wordlessly, Stonecutter bent down and, in just her free arm, scooped up Sparkler as effortlessly as if she was picking up a bag of feathers. After the unicorn had let out a squeak of surprise, Stonecutter adjusted the way she held her so that she was holding her like a bride. “Back to the cottage then, Mistress?”

“Tally Ho my faithful steed!”

Stonecutter rather enjoyed that. The image of her wearing a saddle for her lover to sit on and ride her like the steed she was flashed through her mind and made her flush. “Yes Mistress!” she then marched back towards the cottage in the distance, carrying Sparkler with one arm like she was no weight at all.

“So,” Sparkler started, her yellow face very much bright red because her cheek was pressed right into her marefriend’s breast, each hoof step bouncing it just slightly, “do you think CB got the place cleaned up, or do you think she just made a bigger mess last night?”

“If Seafoam is there, I know he got it cleaned up all good and proper.” Stonecutter spoke with surety as she opened the little white gate and walked up the garden path to the cottage. She didn’t know Seafoam all that well, but she knew enough that when asked, he would drop whatever he was doing to help out. She liked that about him.

“Are you going to carry me across the threshold?”

“Yes Mistress, I do believe I'd like that a lot…” then, it was Stonecutter’s turn to blush when she realised what she had just alluded to.

Sparkler giggled, because they were both blushing like love sick foals. “This might become a habit…”

When she reached the repaired wooden door, Stonecutter appreciated the work done before she knocked on. The door looked good as new, literally there was no sign that it had ever been damaged in the pet frenzy the day before. “Well, I’ll say this much, they fixed up the door real good.”

“Just open it,” Sparkler giggled at her own naughty suggestion, “You never know, we may catch them doing something!” Liking the way her marefriend thought, Stonecutter giggled and, not waiting for an answer, pushed the door open and carried Sparkler inside. Unfortunately, the only thing they caught Cloudburst and Seafoam doing was sharing a coffee in the kitchen. There were a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table in the living room, evidence of the night before. Upon closer inspection, the living room looked immaculate, like nothing untoward had ever happened. To their delight, the kitchen was in just good a shape. “Any coffee left for us?” she asked hopefully, then she whispered to her marefriend, “Put me down please.”

When Stonecutter set Sparkler down on the floor, the bright yellow unicorn immediately got busy helping to get the six pets unpacked or unleashed as necessary, leaving the earth pony to look around and get a good sense of the repairs that had been done. “You even mended the window! Wow Foam, you did good!”

“He did very well, Stone,” Cloudburst gave her friend a very salacious wink that was full of meaning that nopony in the room missed for a micro second. “I'll get coffee, Sparks!”

“During the clean-up, did you find the food that the pets really like?” Sparkler asked the hippogriff and pegasus after she was sure the six animals were safe and secure in the living room. Plus, she was sure they weren’t going to do another runner after being threatened so effectively by Zecora.

“Oh, yes, we did!” Cloudburst exclaimed when Seafoam quietly tapped the back of her hand, giving her permission to speak. “Master noted all the best stuff is marked with the different Professor's cutie marks. How about that?”

Sparkler facepalmed as she walked into the kitchen. She had noticed the tap to Cloudburst’s hand though, how easily he dominated her without saying a word, how she submitted so willingly. The way Stonecutter did to her. “Huh…about how we didn't do that to start with…” in her defence, she had been otherwise distracted the day before.

“Well, we weren't really paying attention...” Stonecutter put in, in an attempt to explain away the rather obvious glaring error that they had all made. Like Sparkler, the earth pony had noticed the intimate gesture between the dominant hippogriff and the submissive pegasus, but she had seen it that many times before that it didn’t phase her.

“You were too busy looking at Sparks's ass you mean,” as she had spoken out of turn, Seafoam gave her a lift reprimanding tap to her behind. As Stonecutter mumbled something indistinct, the pegasus helped her with the coffee.

“Some asses are harder to find,” Sparkler commented as she walked into the kitchen proper and she sat at a vacant chair opposite Seafoam at the breakfast table. She stared openly at Stonecutter’s fat rear that was barely contained in her cargo shorts and licked her lips. “I like them easy to find so I can spank it. Right Foam?”

Poor Stonecutter was bright red in the face as she and Cloudburst both set down four freshly made coffees down on the breakfast table. The pegasus though had a spring in her step that made them think she was using her wings when she wasn’t. “He knows where mine is at all times,” Cloudburst grinned, before sitting down beside her lover.

“Yes,” the turquoise hippogriff rolled his eyes at his pet and held her hand firmly, “It’s always behind that mouth of hers.”

Cloudburst affected a most affronted expression on her face and she fanned herself with her free hand. “I’ll have you know I've been a good girl, well, since I woke up…” With her face still beet red, Stonecutter elected to just sit and take a sip of her coffee. Giddy as a foal on Hearths Warming morning, Cloudburst kissed her Master’s beak and whispered, “give them the thing!”

“After.” Seafoam tapped the back of Cloudburst’s hand. “Did you two get breakfast at Zecora's?”

Shaking her head ‘no’, Sparkler shuddered involuntarily at the memory of the failed breakfast attempt earlier that morning. “I looked in her zebra cooking bin. I decided I wasn’t eating there in that hut.”

“That would be a no,” Stonecutter giggled, recalling how green her marefriend turned back in Zecora’s hut.

Cloudburst couldn’t resist a tease, whether it earned her a spanking or not. Definitely worth it. “Did you nearly have a boat incident again, Sparks?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

To that, Sparkler just gave Cloudburst an unamused deadpan look that could’ve felled a charging manticore. “Right,” Seafoam announced in an attempt to break the silence, though that was ruined slightly by the hungry rumble that came from the unicorn’s empty belly. “One breakfast, coming right up!”

Stonecutter was eminently grateful that he hadn’t ordered Cloudburst to make the breakfast. As much as she loved her best friend, and she did, a lot, the pegasus could not cook to save her life. “Thank you, Foam,” she said after sipping her coffee in time with a loud rumble from her own belly.

“Did you two have a good night?” asked Cloudburst, trying to talk her way out of the faux pas she had made just a few moments ago.

“Zecora's place is nice and cosy.” Sparkler squeezed Stonecutter’s hand and the two mares shared a lingering half lidded look between them. Both recalled waking up on the floor of the zebra’s hut having laid on the two sleeping pads pushed together to make a double ‘bed’ of sorts, with the unicorn drooling on Stonecutter’s chest.

“Certainly was cosy under that blanket, wasn’t it?” the earth pony fluttered her eyes at Sparkler. She hadn’t minded in the slightest where her marefriend and Mistress’s head had ended up.

Sparkler blushed hard and shifted just slightly on the stool. “I did stay warm all night.”

“I'm sure you did,” Seafoam grinned as he looked through Fluttershy’s kitchen cupboards for inspiration. Not seeing anything immediately leap out at him, he decided to fall back on an old favourite. “Pancakes good for you all?” he asked hopefully, seeing that his teacher did have blueberries, chocolate chips and syrup.

“Yes please,” Sparkler would have quite happily eaten the pancakes from the hippogriff’s bare hands she was so hungry.

“Oh Celestia yes!” Stonecutter would have eaten from a dog bowl if she was made to wait any longer. “Yes please!”

“Did you sleep well, CB?” asked Sparkler as she took a long sip of her coffee. She was pretty much sure that with just them two in the cottage, there may not have been much sleeping going on.

“Eventually, yes, thanks Sparks.” Cloudburst just left it at that. As she rested her hand on her belly, she knew, as did Seafoam, that something else had happened last night, but she didn’t want to talk about that just yet. She wasn’t ready, and she was very glad that her partner had respected her decision to remain quiet for now. ‘Until we’re certain,’ she had said.

‘Until we’re certain…’ Cloudburst held her hand where it was while her lover cooked away at the stove. She ignored the delicious scents coming from the pan. She didn’t really need to wait. She had been in heat. She knew. She was just too nervous to tell her friends. And Seafoam knew that too.

“You didn't...”

Cloudburst was shaken from her reverie and she glanced up at Stonecutter, a flash of a grin playing across her muzzle. “We did, three times!”

“You must have been a good filly, if you're sitting okay…” Sparkler said, making Seafoam laugh out loud as he added the blueberries and the chocolate chips to the two frying pans he had on the go.

“Well,” almost on cue, Cloudburst shuffled on the stool she was sat on. “I did receive a little spanking last night…”

“My pet has some coming, but I've reduced the total.” Said Seafoam from the stove. The pancakes were coming on nicely, but that wasn’t the entire reason that he had reduced his mare’s spanks. There was no way he was going to risk hurting her or…anypony else, for that matter. They meant more to him than that. “She is a comfortable ride, Sparkler.”

“Ride?” Stonecutter asked, spurting her coffee everywhere as her mind went in all manner of dirty directions at once.

“Ah!” Sparkler exclaimed as drops of snorted coffee splashed over her tee shirt, “Get your feather brain out of the gutter!” At that, Cloudburst finally lost it in fits of giggles and, laughing so hard she fell off the stool she was sat on and she had to use her wings to hover in the kitchen. Likewise, Stonecutter laughed, snorting her coffee all over the table this time. In contrast, Sparkler quietly rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should do stand up?”

Still giggling, Stonecutter wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, much to her marefriend’s distaste, “But I am comfortable, at least when I woke up on top of you,” she then kissed Sparkler’s lips, which the unicorn didn’t find distasteful in the slightest.

“I like his mind just where it is, thank you!” Cloudburst snickered, eventually she stopped laughing enough to land on her hooves.

“No comment,” Sparkler’s tone was snippy, but there was a smile on her face when Seafoam delivered two plates piled high with pancakes which he set on the breakfast table along with knives, forks and the maple syrup. “Food!” the unicorn let out such a squee that she clapped her hands excitedly. “Pony food! Actual pony food!”

Stonecutter very nearly dived in headfirst into the plate of pancakes that had been placed before her like a gift from Celestia herself, but at the last minute she stopped herself and showed restraint, she picked up the knife and fork. Cloudburst found that highly amusing. “You got her trained already, Sparks!”

Sparkler did not look up from her plate. “Eating.” Her arm was like a mechanical excavator, each time it was thrust into the food she shovelled so much pancake into her mouth that her cheeks bulged. Since Stonecutter was also busy eating her share of the pancakes, Cloudburst just sat and hugged her Master’s arm. “Well,” the unicorn said thickly when she had finally finished, “I do hope that the Professors are back soon. Thanks for helping us out, Foam.”

“I hope so too,” Cloudburst spoke up, her head resting on the hippogriff’s shoulder, “The taxi driver last night on the way to Cloudsdale said a couple of his fares had turned into statuettes while they were in his cab.”

Sparkler shuddered, “If I turn to stone please keep the birds off me.”

Unusually, Stonecutter finished last. She hadn’t been beaten in an eating ‘race’, not that it was much of a race, because Sparkler had utterly demolished her. She was really that hungry. “You have my word, my love.”

“Good thing you didn't turn into a statuette when that timberwolf was chasing us,” Cloudburst opined, still nestling into Seafoam’s arm.

“I heard all about that.” Seafoam smiled, lovingly he caressed his marefriend’s mane. He genuinely couldn’t imagine his life without her by his side. The thought of losing her made him feel sick to his stomach. “If you turned to stone, they wouldn't eat you.” He managed to smirk, masking his feelings, “Might use you as a piss post though.”

Cloudburst caught the look that Seafoam shot her and, looking down at her hooves, she just blushed. The beet red blush did not go unnoticed though and Stonecutter giggled. “You did that last night too, huh?”

“Ewwwww!”

“Each to their own, my love,” Stonecutter frowned ever so gently at her marefriend though, when she stood up, she kissed the back of the unicorn’s hand. “I got the dishes!”

“Can we show them yet?” Cloudburst asked Seafoam excitedly the very second the dishes landed in the sink.

The hippogriff shook his head slowly. He did so enjoy making her wait. “Yes, only when the dishes are done.”

Sparkler, who thought that was an inside joke, waited patiently. Cloudburst though bounced happily like a filly on Hearths Warming morning and rushed to help Stonecutter with the dishes. “Heh, you're keen, CB, something up?”

“You'll see! Plus I was kinda happy to stand up.” The pegasus washed while her friend dried. “My tush is a teeny bit sore.” She was so excited to show off what they had bought, now that the problem with the pets had been put to bed at last.

Comments

[Flora Blossom]

My gosh, I finally get to sit down and read and finish this story. Time to review... This is pretty good.

[Dusk Melody]

9484626
What did you like about it?

[Flora Blossom]

9484678
Chapter Three the jealousy!!!!! I laugh so hard on that part XD.....

[Nira Lightshine]

9845362
Angel.

[Dusk Melody]

9846440
Yeah, he's a prick

[Mystic Sunrise]

Uneeded anthro aside, I do recognize this as taken almost word for word from the My Little Pony RPG.

[Dusk Melody]

9868174

Uneeded anthro aside

I confess myself confused by your comment. The anthro tag is there because the characters are anthro. You are correct that some passages are taken from the Tails of Equestria storytelling game sourcebook. As I explained in the description, that forms the basis for the story, and it was used with the express permission of the book's author, Mr. Alessio Cavatore, and Riverhorse Games.

[Mystic Sunrise]

9868193
I knew the tag was there. I just don't understand why they need to be anthro at all.

[Dusk Melody]

9868287
Because that's the way my friend and I played the adventure, so that's how I wrote it up. And, I hadn't written an anthro story before this one - Wildfire: Lighting the Flame and its sequels are MLP pony, To Be Everfree is EQG - so I wanted these stories to be anthro. Simple as that, really.

[Nira Lightshine]

10286337
Angel Bunny is the anti christ.