> Impressed
>  by dermuffinmeister
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Her elbows finally gave out. Slavik knew she was strong, but no one could hold that position for long, especially when he was slamming into her from behind. Octavia’s face hit his sheets, the rest of her body bouncing. He didn’t even slow down.

“Fuck yeah, Slavik,” she moaned back over her shoulder, her perfectly gorgeous hair strewn all over the grey cotton. “I love it when you fuck me from behind!”

“I know,” he replied, grinning just as wide. He put his hand on her back and pushed as he found another angle of leverage. It was a little awkward, the way he had to stoop on one knee, but something about the position made his cock slide in at just an angle. Octavia was tight, tighter than he remembered from a year ago. He sucked more air and felt his crotch clench up. He was nearing the point of no return.

“F-fuck! Slavik, I’m close,” she said, her voice jumping up and down as her cunt was filled repeatedly. “Celestia I’m so close! Fuck! This is your ringtone, motherfucker!”

“Yeah, I’m, what?” Slavik panted and went as hard as he could, not holding back.

“I said, this is your ringtone, mother fucker!”

“I don’t-”

“THIS IS YOUR RINGTONE, MOTHERFUCKER! THIS IS YOUR RINGTONE, MOTHERFUCKER!”

“Slavik, if you don’t shut that shit off I’ll shove your phone up your ass, Lunadammit!”

The sailor rolled over in his bunk, but didn’t say anything. After he remembered who he was, where he was at, whom was (likely) around, and what he was wearing, Slavik moved his barking phone out from it’s place under his pillow. Sure, it was deafening, but if it pissed off Horizon, it was worth it.

Slavik grumbled and pretended to be more asleep than he was, his grip strong on his phone. Horizon’s bunk was across the passageway and on the bottom, his opposite on the top, so there was no way he could see unless he stood out of his bunk.

“I’m not kidding, douchebag! Fuck!” Slavik risked peeking one eye out. Horizon’s blue curtains were still shut, so he had a second. Meanwhile, the cell still screamed the alarm, exactly one hour and twenty minutes before Slavik’s next watch.

Finally, Horizon’s curtains flew apart clumsily. A groggy pair of hands reached out, then an awkward pair of feet. Slavik clicked his phone off and swung his feet out of his top rack, jumping down swiftly. He landed in Horizon’s face, last sleep’s crust still fogging his eyes. Regardless, he could see the taller man’s face, his chest puffed out and his face furious.

“Good morning,” Slavik croaked, his morning breath putrid. He opened his rack and retrieved a blue t-shirt, boxers and long black sock roll, his toothbrush, toothpaste, body wash, loofa, and the last drops of shampoo. Honestly, he really didn’t need any. Since he had been drafted, Slavik kept his hair very short.

“Did you, did you fucking hear me, asshole?” Horizon sputtered, raging, lacking articulation and convection as usual. “I yelled at you literally like, fuckin ten times! Next time I fuckin, hear that shit, I’m gonna-”

“Do what, bitch and moan?” Slavik asked nonchalantly. He locked his rack back up and began walking towards the showers at the end of the barracks, hiding his grin at pissing off the divisional asshole. A total of two people talked to Horizon, and every man in the entire mechanical division made it no secret, except to the ostracized member, that he was disliked. Slavik himself wasn’t the high-school quarterback, but his accent, intelligence, military mindset and off-brand humor made him more interesting, or so he liked to think. Everyday was a bit of a contest to see who could get everyone else to laugh the most, it seemed, and had been that way since basic training. The Equestrian Navy was like that, it seemed.

“Fuckin, like, no! I told you, I’ll fucking shove that up your ass next time, and-”

“You’re still talking.” Against his instinct, Slavik’s more childish desire to see Horizon pissed off forced him to see how his comment landed.

It had. Horizon was red in the face, partially due to a dozen or more of his “shipmates”, or shoremates, rather, peeking their heads out of their own racks, a few people stopped in the passage way just to watch. Slavik saw a fist raised against him, but it didn’t hang in the air long. Horizon pump-faked, puffed, then backed down. He speed walked away towards the ass-end of the compartment where the only way out was the fire exit. There was no alarm, sailors were always the alarm for a fire, yet it was taboo to use that door. It was convenient, however, for Horizon to slip away, so he did. Using that door was just icing on the cake to raising a fist against, Slavik liked to think, a somewhat popular member of the division. If he wasn’t hated by all yet, that would ensure his reputation thoroughly tarnished.

Slavik felt a rush of adrenaline flow through his body, flushing all the sleep out of him. His fist unclenched, yet his pits still shed a little sweat. He smiled uneasily in the dead silence, then scoffed.

“Ooooooooo…” someone added in with all the maturity of a fifth-grader. A wave of laughter overtook the compartment, followed by oblivious inquiries and other trash talk. Slavik was nearly to the first door to the passage-way outside berthing when he remembered he had forgot his razor. He turned back to his rack, unlocked it, retrieved his cheap razor and some shaving cream. He locked everything yet again, and of course was stopped before he could even turn around for the door.

“Dude,” his best friend and pseudo-rival in the division, Magic Machinist Third Class Trident asked with a hearty clap on his shoulder. “What the fuck did you say to Horizon? What a bitch!”

“Not a damn thing!” Slavik replied. “My alarm was going off, because I have watch in an hour, and Horizon starts yelling at me. I get up and turn it off and he won’t shut up. So I was acting nice because he is a child and hates that, he gets mad like he does, so instead of listening to him force in his last word-”

“Which is always a fucktarded rant,” Bedrock, another relatively senior third-class added in.

“And I said ‘you’re still talking’. That’s all. Then he got red, lifted his fist at me, and stormed out through the fucking fire door.”

Everyone within ear-shot, at least a dozen sailors, all made comments and laughed. Slavik himself had a laugh when Golden Oak said “Boom, fire-roasted.” Inside jokes were always the funniest, and six months into a deployment, there were an innumerable amount among the guys.

“Anyway,” Slavik began, the tornado of heckles and fist-bumps and good-games finally dying down, “anyway I have to go. Sorry for waking you guys up,” he said a little louder. Luckily, only a few people were asleep during the incident, and it wasn’t like shenanigans like this didn’t happen in the middle of the day.

Finally, Slavik slipped away with Trident outside to the P-way, Slavik in just a shirt and some sweats that could use washing.

“By the way, man,” Trident said, his own shower-bag over his shoulder. “I saw you jump out of bed and talk to him. You were pitching a major tent-” he couldn’t finish his thought and ended up laughing, Slavik almost as hard.

“Shit,” he said, adjusting his package unashamed. There were no reasons to censor that kind of thing, not this late in the deployment. Everyone knew everyone in this part of the castle by now. “My bad, jeez.”

“Whatever, broham,” Trident said, wiping a tear from his eye. “That was way funny. I know we say ‘fuck Horizon’ all the time, but I never expected you of all people to actually do it.”

They both laughed again, finally reaching the showers. there was a short line, but nothing too bad. It was mostly people his rank or lower, none of them Magic Machinists, or MG’s for short, so Slavik recognized few. His division’s watch schedule was unique, which was just the nature of his work. This meant finding time for things like showering, eating, qualifying and becoming more useful were particularly difficult. Time management was a must. Fortunately, the crown sought fit to train in this field during Slavik’s schooling.

In service for nearly a year and a half, Slavik unwillingly halted his music career and became a sailor in the Equestrian Royal Navy in a mere eight weeks. After that, an entire year, give or take a few weeks, was dedicated to learning everything about magical power. For months and months, Slavik studied fifty, sixty, sometimes seventy hours a week about how Equestrian naval power plants worked. 

Every ship in Their Majesties’ fleet was magically powered. Multi-million gallon steam generators fed multi-million bit turbines and reduction gears to power and propel multi-billion bit aircraft carriers. Smaller plants drove every other ship, from silent submarines to fierce destroyers and battleships. Why Equestria needed such a fighting force, Slavik never thought he would know. 

As it would turn out, he was sent to one of three Canterlot power plants. His division was responsible for the safe and reliable production of thousands of megawatts of power daily. From Celestia’s hairdryer to the most powerful magical defense systems in the world, the turbines he maintained powered them all. Why Slavik was doing this instead of marching with a rifle, or working on magical weapon systems, was all because of a two-page test he took on the first night of basic training.

In his homeless childhood, Slavik defended himself and his friends with only the most basic spells like telekinesis, fire, light, and rudimentary teleportation. When he was taken in, or abducted, by his foster father at ten, he was taught much more, usually by the quick end of a cane. By the time he fled the harsh and unloving fist of that brute, Slavik had a much more thorough grasp on other academic fields. His fists were hard and his wit sharp, Slavik learned the practicalities of fighting and survival until he was as comfortable in the frozen Unicornian north as he was in front of a roaring fire. His days and nights were filled with constant learning. Collegiate mathematics, poetry, writing, and by far his favorite, music theory, were all under his belt. Once he had escaped to Equestria, it wasn’t long before his more dormant mechanical capabilities became useful.

Before he was twenty years of age, Slavik had landed what he considered the second best job in the world. Maintaining and operating a hydroelectric plant in the heart of warm, happy, sunny Equestria was heaven compared to every square inch of Unicornia. He earned his meals and his bed in a comfortable apartment in the wooden suburban expanses. He earned his luxuries like his electronics, his weapons, and the second-finest beauty in the world, his music room. An entire room, entirely dedicated to the universe’s soul-healing, thought-fueling, completely and utterly expressive art of noise. It was a heaven inside heaven. When he wasn’t working, Slavik secluded to his room, teaching himself instruments he had never seen before. Guitars, trumpets, violins, and anything affordable on a working salary at the pawn shop soon became Slavik’s obsession. On his twenty-first birthday, Slavik spluged on a medium-low quality set of drums. The steel plywood beast composed of one bass drum with a double petal, two toms of varying pitch, one snare that could be switched to another tom, one hi-hat, one crash cymbal, and his favorite, the china. Slavik slaved away at his favorite songs, eventually mastering enough to keep up respectably. Alone, working a full time job that paid well and introvert by nature, Slavik was still missing something.

Slavik sighed as he turned off the shower tap, which took one of his precious four minutes just to get warm. Instead of dwelling in anguish, Slavik shook his head free of those dark thoughts and focussed on the present. What needs doing today? he asked himself. Inside his head, Slavik dove into today’s schedule. No time for breakfast, which was really lunch or dinner by now, but that was alright. He carefully shaved and dressed, then returned alone to his rack, thinking about what he could get done.

The commotion earlier was dying down, the childish obsession with the whole childish ordeal somewhat disgusted him. Slavik put his shaving and shower gear back into his open bunk, retrieved a fresh set of coveralls and his boots, then closed it, leaving his dirty laundry on top of the foot of the bed. Slavik was so wrapped up in his thoughts, he almost forgot to lock his rack.
“Well I’ll be,” MG2 Prism said as he walked by, comically contorting his neck independent from his body, which stopped just after his head did. “Slavik, petty officer, I’ll be a monkey’s cousin, if those boots,” he emphasised his point with pointing and looking up at the only slightly junior sailor. “I’ll be, those boots! Those are, I’ll be, quite shiny. Bravo zulu, good job,” MG2 said, opened his mouth to continue, but instead smiled a funny, toothy smile, and held out his hand like a mugger would hold a handgun at the hip.

Tears in his eyes from the off-brand, insider humor, Slavik shook Prism’s hand accepted the compliment. “I’ll be,” he tried his best to reciprocate. “Thank you, petty officer.”

“No, thank YOU! Petty offser, myes.” With that, Prism turned and resumed his patrol of the berthing, tearing up others for imagined discrepancies in the most hilarious of ways. MG’s were heralded as odd among odd in the Equestrian military, and Slavik wouldn’t have it any other way. How else was he to stay sane?

His sleeves rolled extra high and his pits and scrotum proverbially caked in deodorant, from different sticks, Slavik plucked up his water bottle and marched on the Magic Generator compartment.

Along the way, steel corridors gave way to stone, and he was reminded yet again that Canterlot Castle relied on men and women like him for power, whether they knew it or not. The painted floor led his sure steps all the way to the power plant, a full five minutes away by foot, without dodging through thick rolling crowds.

At the end of a small finger from the main corridor, Slavik signed into a log, marking his entry into a secure area. Slavik clutched the handwheel on the heavy steel door and turned. He was greeted by a heavy wave of heat, at least twenty degrees hotter than the outside. He stepped in and closed the door behind him, then opened another door just like the first. Again, another blast of more humid heat. This was the way the primary engineering corridor was maintained at the castle’s constant 70 degrees; two two-inch thick steel doors, and heavy duty insulation. The old alcohol thermometer inside the airlock-like space read 90, but the reliable electronic resistance thermal detector read 109.9 degrees. Here, Slavik would spend six hours, non-stop, as there was a toilet adjacent to the engineering space. He would need it: the instruction required him to drink six bottles of water during his watch. Slavik always drank more than the minimum.

“Celestia-damn,” he muttered as he trodded over the steel floor grates. His throat was already dry.

Slavik turned the corner and descended past a number of workstations, all manned by hopeful-eyed sailors, most junior to him. They were watching boring yet vital systems related to what was soon to be his power plant. Everything from lube oil for important bearings, high pressure drains and electric plant operators. Thankfully, he never had to deal with switchboards and busses and disconnects and fuses and other things that involved that magic. He would, however, if he hoped to become any sort of supervisory role. Perhaps when he made a little more rank, Slavik thought, his tongue becoming heavy already.

His home away from his rack, the Steam Generator Station Watch was currently manned by a particularly unhappy petty officer.

“Afternoon, Slavik,” MG3 Orvar croaked. He cleared his throat, but his piercing, yet daft blue eyes refused to leave Slavik’s. He was a special breed; Orvar was determined and intelligent, yet unwise and unwieldy as a person. He and Slavik had a bit of a rough past, but spending six months in rubbing with a thorn either wore it down and toughened the hide, or cut deeper. Thankfully, the animosity born of differing personalities had been ground away, mostly.

“Morning,” Slavik replied, knowing full well it was an hour after midday. “How’s the plant? Anything interesting happen?” Orvar finally dropped his fucking eyes to his watch, and Slavik followed suit. 1332, his watch began officially at 1400. He was on time. If he liked Orvar, Slavik would have been here ten minutes ago.

The young shaved man laughed a politician’s laugh and brought his near-autistic look back to meet Slavik. “Nah. Nothing, really. OOD hasn’t come by yet, so you’ll probably have to deal with him. Oh, good afternoon, chief!”

Slavik could almost see Orvar’s nose turn brown over his stupid shit-eating grin. “Afternoon,” a familiar and welcome voice said. “How’s it goin, guys?”

“Great,” Orvar replied instantly, like there was anything to be gained at this point by wagging his tail. “Just gettin relieved.”

“I heard that, Orvar. I bet you’re stoked, huh, Slavik?”

“You know it, chief.” Slavik was grateful someone he could admire came by. “What time do you have, chief?”

Chief petty officer Gasket Punch held his thick wrist up to check the time on a cheap sport wristwatch, but held eye contact. “Two months, seventeen days, and fourteen hours, Slavik.”

The two junior sailors both burst out in genuine laughter and turned to start the watch turnover. “Got any plans, Chief?” Orvar asked in his puppy tone. Thankfully, he was making the entry in the log to turn over the plant to Slavik so they did not have to spend too much time together.

“Oh nothing special, you know,” he began, visibly annoyed. If Slavik did not know Orvar, he would not believe that his “shipmate” did not pick up the diverting tone in Chief Punch’s words. Orvar was immensely oblivious, however. “Gonna have a few brews with some of my friends at my place up the mountain, maybe shoot some guns. I don’t wanna get in too much trouble.”

Slavik took a drink of water as Orvar fired off a short rapid-fire burst of dumb laughter. The sooner his recruit handwriting freed him, the better. “Cool, very cool.”

“It will be,” Chief Punch sighed, snapping his fingers and slapping the meat of his fist into his palm, swinging his arms as he did so. When he wasn’t doing that to cool down his arms just a little from the breeze, Slavik often had caught Gasket Punch handling pens like cigarettes in his first two fingers. He suspected Chief was trying to quit smoking, and fidgeted with stress sometimes.

“Righteous,” Slavik said with a sigh. “I cannot wait for this damn deployment to be over with,” he idly griped. “I could use some time away from the castle.”

“So could I,” Orvar said. “And I think I’ll take some liberty to do just that. Have a good one, chief, see ya Slavik.”

Chief gave an aloof thumbs up, and Slavik just gave him a small peace sign. At least Orvar acted friendly enough when people who could give his peers grief were present. When Slavik thought this, he had to fight down a small, yet dense fist of anger in his throat. Above many things, Slavik hated brown nosers. One’s talent and work ethic should assure his rise to power, not slipping tongues into the right holes.

Slavik clenched the small table holding the green hardback log, thinking back to the last and best hole he had ever slipped his tongue into. He shook his head, his short hair already heavy with sweat, and sighed deep. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. He couldn’t just think about Octavia all the time, he would have gone insane by now if he had.

That secret, the secret of the woman he was stolen from, would never, could never, leave his lips. Yet it devoured him. Octavia was beyond his eyelids every sleep, in his thoughts every day, and it had been, what, a year? No, at least four months more. He could almost feel her long black hair in his fingers, her warm cheek against his shoulder, her arms clutching his body as he held her close and-

“Hey, Slavik,” chief interjected, surprisingly gently. “What’s up, man? You alright?”

Slavik carefully inhaled through his nose as not to sniffle, and coughed. “Yeah. Yes chief, I mean. Orvar just pisses me off sometimes.” He kept his face away from Punch and focussed on the logs. Even though he had written it a thousand times, Slavik still referred to the sample and copied it down word for word. “RELIEVED THE WATCH. I HAVE REVIEWED FIGURE 9-9 AND I UNDERSTAND THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE STEAM GENERATOR STATION WATCH. CONDITIONS AS BEFORE.”

Gasket punch dug in his pocket aimlessly and looked over all the different pipes and valves running everywhere. “Yeah, I hear ya man. I heard about what he and Trident got into a couple days back. Man,” Chief pursed his lips, conveying just how amusing the debacle of junior enlisted was. “That guy, let me tell ya. Back when I was a little MG3, guys like Orvar would ‘fall down a ladderwell’ a lot.”

Slavik plucked up the clipboard and clicked his lucky pen. Nine months and it never failed, Slavik clicked it twice, then recorded all the required plant parameters. “I think I would not mind someone’s fist ‘falling’ into his face.”

Gasket Punch scoffed and shook his head. “You need to stop mumbling, man, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Did I stutter?” Slavik asked lightly. When the words left his mouth, however, he both understood what his superior meant, and how he must have come across. “I, um… Maybe I did stutter,” Slavik said, his face growing hotter than the room.

“Yeah, yeah you must have,” Gasket Punch said. When he smiled laughed an airless laugh, Slavik was grateful his Duty Chief was Gasket Punch and not Delta Wing. Delta would have probably understood, or at least given Slavik the benefit of the doubt. Surely, though, Slavik would feel much less at ease.

“Anyway, chief,” Slavik said, continuing from the simple entries like steam pressure and temperature to EQtherm temperatures, crystal temperatures, power range magical instrument readings, and many others. “What did you hear about Trident and Orvar?”

“I heard Orvar was being a total doucher. Trident said something about his… mom, or something, and the next thing I fuckin’ know, I’ve got the command butthurt police in my office asking for interviews with my mechanics.”

“Pretty much,” Slavik confirmed, now manually checking certain valves open and shut. This was not his first SGSW. “Trident and some guys were bullshitting in berthing and Orvar, the div buttmad petty officer, decides he’s cool now that we have all basically shared an armpit for six months. Some guys were talking about vaginas,” Slavik looked up and made eye contact with Punch. They both shrugged. “And there’s a bit of an ongoing joke that Trident’s mom has a cave big enough to house all of Canterlot Castle staff comfortably, right?” Chief laughed out loud this time. Slavik continued. “So that’s when Orvar shows up. I hear, I was eating at the time. He tries to shoot the shit too, but Trident asks him if his mom is hot or not.”

“Oh Celestia-”

“Orvar’s mom has been dead for two years. He told Trident, which, I mean, come on. Everyone is making fun of your mom, and you laugh, so why not try it on someone else? Whatever. Orvar tells him, and like a decent human, Trident apologizes, says he doesn’t know, the whole five elements, you know. Orvar does not care for it anyway, and storms off.”

“What the fuck, man?” Chief said. “He could have just accepted the apology and went on with whatever. Or, at least tell his direct superior. Who writes your watchbill?”

“MG2,” Slavik said, cracking his back as he got up from a low crouch.

“Who?”

“Prism.”

“Oh, okay. You in with him?”

“Yeah,” Slavik replied, turning his log sheet over for the second half of his recordings. 

Chief took a step into the box nearest the steam generator, which was housed behind thick steel and several inches of insulation and more lagging on top. He took a quick look around before talking closely with Slavik. “Now, I’ve heard some things, okay?”

Slavik nodded, paying attention to a very, very interesting valve he had seen millions of times. “I’ve heard that I’m in charge of signing your division’s next watchbill, okay?” Slavik nodded again, the shaved hair on his neck standing up. Even childish revenge like extra watches seemed like top-level espionage coming from Chief Punch. His normal, laid back attitude and unsavory pre-navy history made talking to him easy enough. But when someone messed with the status quo… Slavik did not like thinking crossing Chief about that.

“Tell MG2 that I want Orvar on at least half of the shittiest watches, whichever one he thinks is worst, this is his division. 20 to 02, 02 to 08, hell, even 14 to 20, i don’t know, I don’t care. We’re gonna make that bill look real pretty, too, so when anyone questions it, at least it looks like a square watchbill, okay?”

“Aye aye, chief,” Slavik said with a nod. “You know, this is not the first time he has blown the whistle on us for horse apples.”

Chief’s devil smile broke up into a fart-joke grin, then he regained his normal aloofness. He never really lost it, Slavik reasoned. There was just a gravity to his words and his actions, so that even subtleties seemed like great changes. “No shit. What for?”

“Well… Orvar’s real devout, ya know?” Slavik began, finished with his preliminary checks, moving on to double check them. “Someone said ‘Celestia-dammit’, and you know that might as well be a conjunction for some guys, and all of a sudden Orvar’s titties are twisted over it. Myself and, um…” Slavik trailed off, noting the number seven crystal temperature gauge read one degree hotter than he had recorded, so he corrected his entry. “I forget who. Anyway, we try to play it off as a non-issue, which I thought it was. It was not the first time he had heard that, it will not be the last-”

“I remember,” Punch interrupted. “You two had restricted liberty for that.”

“And Orvar never understood why no one made eye contact with him for a while after that.” Slavik finished his checks, so he set his clipboard down. The time was 1347. The sweaty sailor shook his head. “I just do not understand, chief.”

“Yeah, me neither, man.”

The men, less than ten years difference in age between them, stood and listened to the whirring power plant around them. Slavik had become well tuned to the different pitches and hums at different power levels and places in the plant. Currently, the midday power of the demands were pretty high. Slavik considered dinner was being prepared and lunch cleaned up for the castle staff, so hot water for the dishes and electricity for the equipment must be hauling, as Liam had put it during Slavik’s hydroelectric days. It was a warm April, as well, surely the air conditioning was running full blast. Why they were at ninety percent steam demand, Slavik didn’t know. Normally, they were near sixty, maybe seventy on a very busy day. What was going on? Why did Orvar not tell him about the high level?

Finally, after a lengthy yet comfortable silence, he asked Chief.

Unknown to MG3, MGC Gasket Punch was thinking the same thing, and decided to tell his junior guy. Their words collided midair, and neither could understand what the other had said.

“Chief, why is the castle demanding so much-”

“Hey, you know why we’re at ninety-two, righ-”

“Say again?”

“What did you-”

“I said-”

“I was askin’ you-”

“Wait-”

“Shut up.”

Slavik did.

“What the hell were you trying to say, man?!”

Slavik held back a bout of laughter and crossed his arms. “I, why is the castle drawing so much juice?”

Chief held up his hands as if to say “come on, you don’t know? Everyone and their mom knows”. “Cuz the wedding, man! Celestia’s buggin’ about some random threat or something. Trains are running all over the castle, there are tons of security lights and metal detectors and magic disseminators and crap.”

“Oh,” Slavik replied. “Oh, I see-wait, what? I don’t understand.”

“I just told you what I know, Slavik. Celestia is anticipating something, and the captain of the guard is marrying another princess. So not only is there going to be a ton of tourists and visitors, a load from other kingdoms and countries and stuff, there’s some sort of threat, too.”

“Like, a bomb threat, an assassination threat, someone is going to crash the party?” Slavik glanced at the gage for crystal seven, it was two degrees hotter.

Chief pulled up his sleeves, the cuffs tight halfway up his thick forearms. Since he had stopped drumming and started eating three soft meals a day, Slavik unfortunately saw some of his body mass shift around in unfavorable ways. He looked down at his arms and felt them while chief Punch answered. “I hope it’s just a streaker or something, and not cos that’d be, you know, hilarious. It’s, I mean, well- that’d be not so dangerous and stuff.”

Obligatory professionalism was the worst kind. “I see where you’re coming from. Besides, that could break any tension.” Even though he and Punch were workplace pals, the rank-gap, especially such a senior position to a relatively junior one, required a constant censorship. Slavik detested it, most times, but that was the nature of the beast. In five years, he could say fuck and penis as much as his civilian heart desired.

Punch checked his watch and sighed a hefty sigh. “Well, I better make another rove. I’ll be round when I’m around, man. Got anything else? Any navy questions, fleet questions?”

Slavik had heard the Equestrian navy had floating things called “warships”, and people like him, “sailors”, went on these things, and they made up a larger force of war called “the fleet”. Assigned to the castle right after completing training, Slavik had never seen a “ship”, but he thought they existed, maybe. “Um,” he began, contemplating the importance of gem seven. Slavik squinted, sure steam-generating gem seven was several degrees hotter than earlier. “Yeah. Number seven gem is warming up, four degrees hotter than the average of the rest of the gems. Should I secure the heat spell to it?”

“What?” Punch walked over and looked at the gauge, the needle steady, but moving to the right just fast enough to be noticeable. “Every other gem is how hot?”

“Nine seven zero, chief.”

“Nine seven… Beep me if seven gets ten high in band.”

“Aye aye, chief,” and with that, Gasket Punch disappeared around the corner, leaving a twenty-something in charge of a multi-million bit power plant, which supplied the most sophisticated, complicated, and important defense systems in all of Equestria. Princess Celestia, of course, did not give a second to think about where the juice came from to power her defense grid.

The first hour passed like curdled milk through a curly straw. The hot gem’s temperature crept higher and higher, nearing the high-temperature markPunch verbally set, which was five degrees below the warning light. It leveled out, eventually, and Slavik was thankful for the anomaly. It kept the darker thoughts that needed absolute silence to grow at bay.

As time crept forward in the hot guts of the world-famous Canterlot Castle, however, and the magic gem remained steady, cooled by the pressurized Equitherm, which was in turn cooled by pressurized steam, Slavik’s innards churned with a blackness. He normally hid it well, utilizing humor and taking the advantage his foreign accent allotted him. Underneath the strong, easy-going face he put on, Slavik had been fighting a constant war inside himself. Some days, it was not that hard. He could laugh, he could work, he could even find motivation to rub one out. But others, it was a chore to get on his feet and in his boots.

“Octavia,” he groaned through his teeth. Slavik sucked in a deep breath and cupped his scalp in his rough palms. “How did this happen? Where are you?” The walls around him, covered with handwheels to vital valves and essential dials, left no real place to rest against but the stout little clipboard table on top of a small cabinet. Slavik laid his elbows on it and held back tears, ones he had not shed since the first week of basic training over a year ago. Why was this happening now, he asked himself.

He stopped, stood up straight and filled his lungs. Not here, not now. Slavik wiped his wet eyes and nose on his sleeve. He frowned at the snot he left there, then laughed silently. He slapped it off as best he could, wiped his palms, and checked his watch. Two hours down, four to go. This was going to be a long watch.

Slavik checked and double checked every gauge and meter again, listening to the near-capacity power plant around him. The gems finally began cooling down, except seven, which stayed high in the band. Slavik logged that he charged the gems as neatly as he could, then faced the steam generator. This is where the magic literally happened. Slavik played the ritual in his head for the millionth time. Adopt a solid stance, feet shoulder width apart. Facing the gems, the outlines of which were painted on the lagging, bring both hands, wrists together and palms out, to the first gem. Charge the heat spell, and release. Lather, rinse, repeat ten times, skipping the warm gem. Children in Canterlot were learning more sophisticated spells in diapers, but Equestria didn’t run on the gifted. Slavik felt instantly bored, his sole purpose in life now fulfilled.

It was simple, but the domino effect of energy transfer it started was anything but, taking a technical degree in thermodynamics to thoroughly understand, and that, he had. What if the gems got too hot? What if the pumps failed, and couldn’t send water to cool the gems? What if a leprechaun skipped down into the plant and took a shit in the turbine generator? Slavik liked that “what if” from school the best. He and his fellow junior enlisted had to know what to do in any event, which could mean protecting multi-billion bit carriers, which meant protecting Equestria. Goddess forbid dust built up on an instrument panel.

Slavik checked and triple checked his entry, the temperatures, the pressures, the speeds, the frequencies, the positions, and unsurprisingly, everything was fine. Absolutely fine, which meant something was probably not going to be fine any minute. He crossed his arms and sighed, still deathly bored.

Just when the most beautiful face graced the inside of his eyelids, a soft thud, then another, brought Slavik back from a daydream. He leaned out of his box into the passageway. No one was coming from the aft path, which led to the electrician’s station. He turned his head towards the steep staircase leading up and out of the plant.

“... -dly believe that, chief,” a woman’s voice replied. Great, Slavik thought as he retreated to his area, quadruple-checking everything again to look busy. Everything was spotless, his watch log was error-free all the way back three days ago, when he last had watch. Luckily, he caught at least four spelling errors and a complete mess-up in the format, thanks to Horizon of all people. He sipped some water and prepared to be professional.

“I’m serious, ma’am,” a familiar man replied, his voice growing louder as he heavily walked down the steps, deliberately making noise to announce his arrival, a wordless “wake up and look good, fucker, someone who cares is coming”. “If Slavik isn’t a second class after this deployment, I’ll re-enlist.”

Slavik nearly spat his water everywhere. The ma’am laughed a pretty laugh, a precious thing in his line of work. Slavik mentally saved the sound byte away and glanced at his boots. My, were they still shiny. He grinned and looked up. Chief Gasket Punch came around the corner and tilted his head back, polishing off his mug of coffee. The OOD rounded him, her khaki uniform surprisingly sharp, her two ribbons nice and even on her full breasts. Slavik saw her collar device, an ensign, no surprise. Junior officers often pulled shitty supervisory duties.

“Don’t get crazy,” she said with a little laugh, and continued walking. “Where’s the steam generator watch, now? Down here?”

“Where are you going, ma’am?” Chief Punch asked with indignance. Slavik was ready for him to say something they both would regret, but no such words came.

“Huh?” She turned again, keeping her pretty face away from Slavik, but letting him scope her nice butt. His heart beat a little faster than usual from nervousness, but there was hardly any need. He was as square as a rectangle, and even though his chief had put him on one hell of a pedestal, Slavik was sure he would impress.

“Turn around,” chief said like a father to a two-year old. She did. Her long black hair in a tight bun disappeared behind her beautifully tanned olive skin. Her complexion was perfect. Time stopped. Slavik and this officer, a woman he knew better than everyone in existence, even Vinyl Scratch, were face to face, eye to eye, at last. What were the odds, that was the first question to pop up in Slavik’s stuttering, sputtering mind. What were the odds that they were in the same branch? In the military together at all? Inside of three feet of each other, in this sweaty, oily, loud engine room? Together, right now?

Her mauve eyes went from annoyed half-moons to full oceans in the pause. Slavik’s sweltering skin turned cold under a river of sweat. His throat was too dry to speak, if he could even find words. His eyes finally fell to her chest, her two ribbons centered and square on her breast, in line with her simple name tag. “Octavia,” his lips read. Her khakis fit very well, despite the navy’s best effort. Her full breasts made the blouse taught and her waist look slim, and when she inhaled sharply, it lifted her shoulders so that her belt could be seen, with its shiny, scratch-free gold buckle.

Octavia’s thick lips broke into an energetic smile, brightening the darkened machine space as bright as the hateful line of summer sun that always hit his eyes in the morning back in Ponyville. “Slavik,” she said, bringing the rest of the universe back up to speed. “Chief… Chief Punch said you were pretty, um… Sharp.”

“Yeah,” Slavik croaked, then remembered himself. For instinctive reasons, he collected himself and put on his professional hat again. “I mean, yes ma’am. Everything is normal, log is square, gems were just recharged and temperatures are right in the middle of band. Um, as you’ll see, gem seven was warm, so I didn’t charge it. It’s only two degrees high above every other one, and well within band, and I logged it right when I noticed it, even told my DCPO.”

Octavia bit her lip, another precious sight, and turned to the logbook. She looked a foot taller with the gold bar on her collar and her hair up. She scanned and scanned, and the petty officer was unsure if she knew what she was looking at. It hardly mattered, he did his job already. If Octavia felt anything like he did, Slavik was sure she was having trouble just standing, too.

“Yes,” she said, closing the book with a satisfying thump. “Looks perfect, petty officer. Want to take a look, chief?” she asked without looking.

“Sure, ma’am.” Suddenly existent again, Slavik brushed some lint off his elbow to avoid his eyes. When Chief looked down, Slavik looked up to his (ex?) girlfriend again, hope, love, maybe lust in her eyes.

“I’ll find you later,” she mouthed.

“Okay,” he lipped back, returning her small smile in a grand way. Slavik’s heart was a sack of slapped gelatin, his knees shaking imperceptibly under his dark blue coveralls.

“Dear Princess Celestia,” Chief Punch said in a little falsetto. “Slavik is the most badass, squared away sailor in the whole navy, and when I grow up, I’m going to marry him and have seven-two teen babies with him, and we’re gonna live in the crystal castle forever and ever.”

Octavia scoffed and moved her non-clipboard hand to her hip, her sexy hip. “Don’t get crazy!” the way she shook her head drove Slavik wild, but he still laughed with everyone. “Alright, petty officer, thank you for being the only non-jacked up person on watch this afternoon.”

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” he replied, sneaking in a wink. He hoped his message of “I miss doing you” got across. Octavia’s pretty cheeks turned a nice rosy cinnamon , so he assumed that it wasn’t entirely lost in translation. As stealthily as possible, Slavik stole a glance at his chief. He seemed completely unaware, luckily enough.

He, too, flipped the book closed with a nice dry thump. “Alright, are you ready to move on to the Electric Plant station, or do you wanna kill a few more minutes, ma’am? My tour is moving a little ahead of schedule, I don’t know about you.”

She checked an expensive looking gold watch. The core in him that hated authority resented an officer, a junior officer especially, having such a nice bit of luxury. “Nope, I’m not due back at the quarterdeck for a half hour, and that’s my last stop, chief. Besides, it’s freezing up there, AC is cranking full blast. The heat down here is sort of nice, once you get used to it.” When he saw the little treble clef etched into the side, however, Slavik’s petty disgust flushed away. Vinyl gave her that years ago, he remembered. On the opposite was a pair of beamed eighth notes, the same symbol DJ-P0N3 put on her biggest record. Slavik didn’t care for electronica, but that album was respectable, downright inspired, certainly played. He remembered it well.

“Try six hours of it and tell me how you feel,” Punch said right off, sparking laughter in everyone.

“So I have a question for you, petty officer,” Octavia began, her voice surprisingly smooth. Slavik was doubting himself on responding so surely. “I’m sure chief could answer it, probably better, but I want to know more about how the plant works. I’m a musician, I got a commission to play in the orchestra, I don’t know anything about what keeps the stage lights lit here in the castle.”

A musician? Why would she join the military to play in an orchestra, Slavik wondered. Why not keep going with their band? What happened to the band? They were doing so well…

“Slavik?” Punch asked suddenly.

“Sh-my bad, I was trying to think of where to start.” A little “unprofessional”, but those two were practically playing grabass. “Ships and the castle are powered by what is known as a heat engine. My spell charges ten gems in this plant, carriers have less and destroyers and submarines even fewer. These gems heat up to nearly a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and heat up a pressurized oil called Equitherm to nearly eight-hundred degrees in a huge tank. There, it’s filtered and circulated constantly to maintain purity and chemistry in a pretty complex system. Water is pumped inside of tubes through the bottom of the tank, where it flashes to steam and exits the top of the tank. The steam drives turbines for power, here, but on ships would also produce rotational mechanical energy for the screw to propel the ship. The steam is condensed by cold gems below in the condensers, and the condensed water is pumped up to the steam generator to start the cycle again. The turbines spin six-thousand times a minute to produce one-hundred Hertz power in the generators, which feed-”

“I have a minor’s in electrical engineering, Slavik, I get generators enough,” Octavia interrupted, her cheeks still pink. Slavik grinned, feeling stupid. “But what I didn’t know was… all that! Wow, and to think that’s happening, all day, everyday, right under our feet. Well, most people’s feet. I have to admire you MG’s, keeping us surface dwellers powered. Just think, Luna could be stepping out of a nice hot shower and using a hair dryer powered by you!”

Slavik imagined the shower part just fine. “All in a day’s work,” Chief said dismissively, obviously annoyed to Slavik. He hoped Octavia didn’t notice. Anything that upset her must not go unpunished.

“Still,” Slavik said. “I’m sure you’re a genius on the cell-o, or violin?” Slavik began sweating again. Above everything else, he had to play it cool. “Or whatever instrument you play, ma’am. Orchestra, right? With strings?”

“Mm-hmm,” Octavia, holding in a bout of laughter. “Cello. I’m the principal cellist in the orchestra, and unfortunately, Celestia chose to go with someone from Ponyville to do the wedding reception tomorrow night. We still have the ceremony, of course.”

“Very cool,” Slavik replied, keeping his rising heart down. Talking with his long-lost lover,  seeing in her eyes that she was overjoyed to see him as well and hearing the relief well out of her velvet voice was indescribable. He imagined people who came back from deployments felt similar.

“Now wait a sec,” Chief Punch interrupted. Slavik’s adrenaline glands pumped another surge up and down his spine, his skin crawled with coldness. Did he know something? “I thought the wedding was tonight.”

“The captain of the guard needed to push things back a day. There’s some sort of threat, I hear. I hope it isn’t serious.”

“Me neither,” Slavik said, feeling relieved.

“I hope it isn’t cold feet,” Chief slipped in.

“It would be terrible if anyone interrupted such a happy day,” Slavik went on with the small talk. “Who’s getting married, again?”

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, and her fiance Shining Armor, the captain of the guard.”

“Important s.o.b.’s,” Chief said with a laugh. “No wonder someone wants to crash the party, ya know?”

“I assume your jobs will hardly be affected,” Octavia said. “But perhaps you will miss out on the ceremonies. I bet they’re boring, anyway.”

Chief Punch and Slavik exchanged looks. “Orvar,” he said to his superior without words, getting a big grin and a nod back.

“Yeah, I’m sure they will be,” Chief grunted, pulling his coverall sleeves up higher. “Holy cow it’s hot in here. It’s ‘bout that time, eh princess? I mean ma’am?”

“Don’t get crazy,” she said right back, and Slavik hoped officer school didn’t dull her any. She kept using that one line, but he hoped that she was screaming with discomfort on the inside. She probably hated her lame duties, the heat, dealing with jaded people who just didn’t care anymore like Punch. Slavik wondered about the next time she would see her.

Those two ascended the steep stairs and Slavik nearly exploded. Octavia was here! Octavia was right fucking here! That means that she could look him up in the system and maybe get his number, or something. He could try to track her down and arrange for a date. He had so many questions, mostly about why the fuck is she in the fucking navy? Was it fashionable all of a sudden? He wanted to tell her everything that had happened, about the guys in suits and shades, the drafting, everything. 

His mind buzzed like a kicked hornet's nest for the next two hours, his shiny boots wearing a trough in the steel under his feet. The magic crystals stayed nice and hot, the power plant humming hard near capacity. He thought about what would happen if the castle drew more than one-hundred percent power. Of course, a breaker would trip, the magical condenser vacuum would be broken by drawing in atmospheric pressure, and that would stop the turbines, eventually. But what about the castle?

The massive magical batteries would have to do until the engine room could start-up, he knew that. But what would happen during the twenty or so minutes that took? He would just have to do his job and trust that everyone else would sort things out upstairs.

Slavik was bored again. He checked his watch, hoping that the way he aligned his manhood, no one would notice the stiffness he was sporting. It was 1945, his relief was late. “Come on, asshole,” Slavik grunted, squatting and standing up to circulate some blood. At 2000, he called out to the electrician down the passageway. “Hey! Hey you!” Slavik yelled out, not wanting to leave his spot.

“What?” a voice he surprisingly didn’t recognize replied.

“Have you been relieved yet?”

“What? I just got on watch man. You?”

“No!” What the fuck was going on? “Mind watching my shit just for a sec while I find the watch sup?”

“Uh, sure.”

Slavik leaned out and nodded to the electrician coming from his post. They were allowed to leave for a few minutes at a time. The steam generator watch had very few changing parameters to oversee like phase and frequency and voltages. Slavik, however, had more real and tangible things to watch, like temperatures, pressures, flows and chemistry.

His bladder full and his bottle empty, Slavik gave a thumbs up to his temporary relief and flew up the steep stairs three at a time. The upper level, where the watch supervisor, the condenser watch, and in a typical plant, the engines’ watch, was vacant, save for one sleeping MG2.

“Hey Dawn!” Slavik shouted suddenly. “Whatcha dreaming about, man?!” Normally, Slavik would have just stepped heavily, and if that didn’t work, a tap on the shoulder. But MG2 Grey Dawn was a habitual bag of shit, and Slavik was slightly unhappy.

“Gfuck, shit, god… What the fuck, man?” Dawn got to his feet and wiped his nose.

“It’s eight, that’s the fuck, let me see the watchbill for the steam generator station.” Slavik plucked up the clipboard and noticed quite a few discrepancies right away. “What- Come on, what the fuck, it isn’t hard to do this right.” He scanned down and found his relief: Horizon. Slavik cursed under his breath. Things were not going to be smooth for at least the next hour. “I’m going to call him, alright?”

He was stating more than asking, but only supervisors were authorized to give permission to use the duty phone. Dawn, however, was more than okay with standing by and collecting sweat.

Horizon’s phone rang only twice before Slavik heard his cookie-cutter voicemail. “Fucker,” he mumbled. “He hung up on me.” Slavik tried four more times, not getting an answer. The time was 2005.

The next half hour was a mixture of juggling his watch responsibilities and checking official instructions against what Dawn had put in his logs. Very little was right. Slavik stood tall, his voice deep and smooth, yet his temper short. He knew he could do the supervisory watch, it was just a matter of learning the one electrical watch station. Now was not the time.

At just after 2040, MG2 Red Dawn’s logs were lined out and made right, his ass sore from being corrected, and Horizon was finally on his way down, taking the stairs one at a time.

“Oh good morning, moonshine,” Slavik said, holding back the urge to roar. When he saw Horizon’s face, he was seeing red despite the best news in the world.“Did you shave, Horizon?”

“Man, what? Fuck you,” the prickly-chinned petty officer replied with the grace of a grumpy fifth-grader.

“You fucking didn’t. You couldn’t do what little pubescent boys know how to do. And you’re an hour late, and I have to race like a piss horse. I swear to Celestia, Horizon, you’re the-”

“No! Shut up, asshole-”

“No you shut up, asshole! You’re always late, you’re always a bitch to deal with, you never follow up on your shitty threats, and you fucking smell. The berthing wouldn’t smell like continuous armpit if you fucking showered. And you- Dawn, please send this guy back and send in… anyone, god damn.”

“You can’t do that!” Horizon barked. “You can’t do that, you don’t, like, ya know?!”

“No.” Slavik reached back and held up a gargantuan binder. “I had plenty of fucking time to read.” Slavik opened up a dog-eared page in “Canterlot Castle Primary Generator Room Watch Standing Procedure: Version 47 tac 114, Rev. 2 (Mar. 27)”.

“Rev. 2, March twenty-seventh, so this is up to date as of almost a month ago. It says ‘Only OOD, CDO, Watch Supervisor or Assistant Watch Supervisor or senior officer of Canterlot Castle may relieve operators of their watch duties if they fail to maintain military standards (e.g. uniform standards, professionalism, or conduct unbecoming a member of the Equestrian Armed Forces).’ Late, uniform is more wrinkled than my grandpa’s ball sack, face looks like a porcupine, poor hygiene, and creating a hostile envrionment. Take your pick, fuckface.”

Slavik dropped the binder behind himself onto the tabletop next to Dawn. “Sorry man,” the senior shitbag said, siding with Slavik with little convincing. “Go up and get Prism, you can tell the CDO when he comes by your berthing on his tour.” Slavik knew who was going to be on watch tomorrow during the wedding.

“Bullshit!” Horizon shouted, his young voice cracking. “I’m fine, I just woke up late, jeez! Goddessdamn, you guys are faggots.”

Slavik stood still, his arms crossed, showing his thicker forearms. “Right, now I can go file sexual harassment. Just shut up, idiot. Go away.”

He did, water in his eyes. This was going in an incident report and everyone involved knew it. Slavik let out a heavy sigh and descended the stairs again to take his hourly logs, one more than he usually did. Everything was the same, what a surprise. Before he could go back to his normal station, Slavik asked the electrician if any other MG had qualified his watch station. Dawn, Prism, another two MG2’s he wasn’t so familiar with, any chief, of course, and MG3 Trident, that was it. Of his division of at least 40, Slavik was genuinely surprised that no other MG’s had bothered to qualify. Tomorrow, he decided, he would finally start. Staying late like he was, Slavik was earning enough brownie points to have at least one watch off, so he could afford to lose a few hours. Or could he attend the wedding and see Octavia? Slavik thought he would be bored, but he got to see Octavia perform. Celestia was going to be there, and like half the men in Equestria he had a pretty big crush on her.

The next pair of shiny boots to descend into his belonged to a smiling, clean shaven petty officer. “Good morning,” Prism said, beaming.

“Morning, petty officer,” Slavik replied, shaking Prism’s hand strongly, knowing perfectly well it was past eight in the evening. “Did you hear the news?”

“Royal wedding tomorrow?” Prism asked.

“No, well yeah, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

“Horizon’s shaving right meow,” Prism said flatly before sucking in a deep breath through his nose. “You can smell his butthurt even down here! I hear you laid the books into him.”

“What?”

Prism laughed at the language barrier that infuriated others. “You tore Horizon up, man! Quoting instructions and not giving a fuck!”

Slavik laughed at the smiling ways MG2 moved, suddenly feeling bad for what he had done. This couldn’t be good for the group unity and everything. “Yeah. He pissed me off this morning, and he was really late. Like, over an hour. And beyond that-”

“He looked like a bag of dirty asses!”

“Exactly, I wouldn’t want to relieve someone like that. Well, I’m sorry for making you come down here.”

Prism waved him off. “Pffwhatever, man, it’s nothing. Hey, are you gonna qualify Electric System Control Panel watch tomorrow?”

“I was thinking about it,” Slavik answered. “How did you know?”

“Because you’re the most qualified MG3, and I know you haven’t gotten a signature on that.”

“Right,” Slavik said, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “You got this?”

Prism nodded, making the turnover entry. “Hey, I’m gonna put Orvar on watch tomorrow for being a dick, cool?”

“Cool.” Slavik took a deep breath and thought about nothing in particular. “Gem seven was running a little hot so I didn’t-”

“Charge it, I see. Dude, Slavik, thank you. Horizon should be down within half an hour to take over the watch.” Prism stood up and faced him. “Seriously. Thank you for doing such a kick ass job. You stayed late, made perfect logs, kept the plant running perfectly, this place looks clean enough to do surgery in, you’re just lovely. I think you’re lovely.”

“Thanks darling,” Slavik laughed. “If you’re done praising me, I’m gonna go take a quick shower and knock out.”

Prism waved him goodbye with both hands, an odd little signature of his. Slavik smiled on his way to the shower, Octavia taking off her well-fitted khakis in his mind. He thought about her for hours and hours, her shaved pussy in his mind’s eye as he lay in his rack, his curtain closed, his legs wobbling as he rested. What in Equestria was she doing here?

Slavik laid on his side, facing away from the smelly berthing, wishing he could live away from the castle like the senior people. Octavia probably lived out in Canterlot someplace. What was her relationship with her ex-girlfriend? How was Vinyl Scratch doing? He didn’t like techno stuff so much, but people in his division did, and he knew she released a new album fairly recently. She must be doing well, and that was good.

Slavik groaned, suddenly missing his own band. He hit his fluffy pillow and pulled the pink fluffy blanket over his head. He hated thinking those thoughts, but he hated how he shouldn’t more, which was harder to do. Hating an idea was tough. Suppressing them was much harder.

He was tired, but Slavik knew he wouldn’t sleep for quite some time. He would be too distracted by his thoughts to read, so he hopped out of his rack. With a sigh, he put on a shirt and some shorts, grabbed up his coffee mug, and went for a walk.

A cup of black steaming grool in hand, Slavik climbed three flights of stairs to ground level and left the pretty, busy night-time castle. He took a cab to downtown Canterlot three or so miles away. The nightlife was usually pretty loud, but tonight it was chaos. The lots and streets were packed with luxury cars, cafes and bars and restaurants overflowing with expensively dressed beautiful people. Woman after woman passed him on the street, few paying attention to him, fewer were without a man in a suit to cling to. Slavik knew with the wedding tomorrow that the city was going to be cluttered, but this was ridiculous.

Slavik had no idea why he was out tonight. He got in line at a relatively cheap cafe he and his friends knew and sipped the last of his cooled coffee. He scanned the crowd inside and wasn’t surprised to see all the tables and couches taken up by laptops and college-looking kids, most his age or older. A well dressed couple covertly groped in line next to him, the gorgeous woman in the well-dressed guy’s lap. He turned his head and groaned, glad he was too pissed to be horny.

“And what can I get for you, sir?” The exasperated girl behind the register in a coffee-stained apron startled Slavik out of his thoughts. She huffed as he recouped, wiping the last of his bad coffee off his old shirt.

“Dammit,” he grunted. “Can I have an equestriacano in this, no milk, no nothing?”

“Um, sir, we don’t do refills here.” Slavik knew that was untrue, but he didn’t recognize the girl, so he assumed her to be new and decided to humor her.

“That’s fine, then. Twelve ounce triple, no milk no nothing in a paper cup, then I’ll pour that into this, then throw the cup away. Or,” he continued, “we could save the planet a paper cup and just fill this up.”

The girl, Amber, her tag said, scrunched her face and held out her hand. She was homely, but extraordinarily cute. Slavik grinned and gave her the custom mug. “Four fifty,” she asked, and she got five, the change was tip, as always. It took the overstaffed crew over ten minutes to fill his cup, but Slavik was already caffeinated so he didn’t mind. Once he got his good hot coffee, Slavik escaped the crowded shop to the crowded street and picked a direction.

He knew the town’s crazy streets fairly well by now, and he was confident he could just walk back to the castle no problem. A force drove him to the southeast, not towards the castle to the due east but south, of course.

He went along “Arlong” street and thought his thoughts, about ploughing Amber, about eating Octavia again, about letting Vinyl scratch his back, about punching Horizon in his family jewels, about how the electrical system worked. But everytime he stopped at a street corner to decide his path, Octavia’s face appeared behind his blinking eyelids. He hummed a classic Unicornian anthem and kept walking along, changing streets often, following a near-straight path. His adrenaline was beginning to surge and he felt anxious, but he just figured that he had had a lot of sudden caffeine, so Slavik wasn’t too worried. 

Once away from the downtown bramble and into the lamp-lit ritzy residential apartment district, Slavik felt calmer without the commotion, yet more on edge. It was a strange sensation as he sipped and walked. The coffee was delicious, that place’s always was top notch. Not surprisingly, the expensive cars were bumper to bumper on both sides of the narrow street still. Now Octavia occupied his mind wholly, there was nothing else. A little voice said to go southeast, and he knew exactly where that was.

Slavik walked for half an hour, his watch told him, and he finished the coffee long before then. Finally, Octavia’s face behind his eyelids was smiling, a precious sight meaning that he was at his destination. Just a few miles from downtown, he realized, these apartments looked a little less that ritzy. Canterlot was an expensive town to live in, and even these smaller abodes showed it. The college was on the western part of the town, so there was cheaper places and fraternities on that side of town, as well as the most successful bars. He didn’t like that side of town.

The sleepy sailor stood near midnight outside a large apartment building with no idea of what he was doing, or supposed to be doing. So, Slavik slunk down on a bench and looked up and down the tree and car lined street. “Star” street, it was called, and it was nothing special, just one of the thousands of twisting little streets in the mountain city. He took a deep breath of the spring air, smelling the fragrant blossoms and the rancidness on his breath. Slavik didn’t care, he wasn’t dressed to impress. What was he doing?

Slavik decided not to dwell on that and instead enjoy his freedom from the castle. It was a clear, gorgeous night, and despite the watery, nervous vibrations in his gut, he knew he was going to accomplish something out here. And Octavia had shown up, right at his watch station! Slavik kicked the cement with frustrated joy. What was she doing here? Or, at the castle? He knew she was in the orchestra, but why? Why hadn’t she done… anything else? Why submit to the awful existence that was military service? Perhaps it was better for officers.

Slavik laid back on the bench and pondered the possibilities for nearly ten minutes. It was five minutes into the new day when he finally sat up the sound of approaching sneakers.

He must have been wearing dark clothes, or sat up too fast, because he seriously startled the impending pedestrian.

“Ah!” she screamed, shaking and fumbling with something metal Slavik instantly recognized as a keyring. “Dammit! Leave me alo-”

Her shaking voice familiar halted in the middle of her sentence, her black hair messy about her face. Slavik set his mug down between his legs on the wooden bench, keeping still. His heart was either beating too fast to feel or dead stopped, he couldn’t tell. The stars kept moving as he and she stared at each other in disbelief, it felt like a second, but must have been dozens, Slavik reasoned, because his open mouth was bone dry when he finally searched for words.

“Oc-...” He couldn’t go on, but stood instead. He looked down at his black and purple “Fallen is Babylawn” shirt and bright blue surfboarding shorts, then back up at Octavia in her soft grey sweatpants, dark mauve hooded sweatshirt, hood up, and plain, familiar black recruit-backpack. Midshipmen must get those, too.

“Slavik?” she whispered, an invaluable little smile on her soft lips he liked so much.

He just nodded, licking his teeth and the roof of his closed mouth, desperately dry.

“What…” she tried. “What are you doing here?”

Slavik could only smile wide and look her over. She seemed just as sleek as she was a year ago, and since she had joined as an officer, she was likely in the best shape of her life. He wanted to take her up to her bedroom and find out right away, but that just wasn’t how things worked. He swooped forward and took Octavia up in a big hug, receiving a wonderful embrace. He inhaled her hair and squeezed her body tight; a well inside him threatening to spring forth from his eyes. “I don’t know,” he whispered in her ear, words coming from someplace other than his own mind. “I just went for a walk… I just followed… internal compass, I don’t know, Octavia, but I found you, I found you finally.”

He felt Octavia cry before he heard her. She kissed his neck with tear-wetted lips, and snuggled her face into the warm crook of his shoulders. Octavia whimpered, leaning hard into her “ex” boyfriend. “My girlfriend is home,” she breathed, shaking now with tears.

Slavik held her tighter and tighter, until he was sure something would snap. He pushed her away and looked into her teary eyes. He held her solid shoulders in his strong hands, feeling the warm, soft cotton, looking right into her eyes. “You have a girlfriend?” someone inside him asked.

Octavia nodded and looked him up and down, but not really averting her gaze. She reached out and touched his chest, his abs, his waist, the bow tie knot holding his shorts up, then the thick hair under his shirt. “It’s… sort of complicated. I got your letter.”

Had he sent letters? He had, every week, he remembered, back in basic, then sporadically during school. None of them were stamped returned-to-sender and sent back, so he assumed either they were sent to a dead address, were lost, or the most flattering, censored and removed. “You did? So you know…”

She nodded and sniffed. “Yeah. I’m… sorry.”

“For what?” he asked, laughing. Slavik pulled Octavia to the bench and sat next to her, holding her sweaty hand. Or was his sweating? He couldn’t care if he tried. “You didn’t do anything, it was the government.”

Octavia leaned her head on his shoulder, something he really missed. She timidly looked left, then right, and snuck her free hand to his leg where a visible bulge resided. Slavik sighed deeply and tapped his foot on hers. “But… When you left, I was devastated. I couldn’t hold the band together.”

Slavik kissed her head, getting some of her luscious hair in his lips. “It was fun,” was all he said. The most fulfilling, profitable thing they had ever done was pretty fun. It was, that’s all it was.

Octavia gently rubbed her face against his shoulder, gripping his throbbing member gently. “I was out of options, Slavik. Mom and dad won’t help me. I ate up my savings on the rent and food and our bills for two months, then I had to do something. I was… No one could help me, and I had no way to care for myself. So I went to Vinyl, and… we’re back together. She’s… she’s doing well.” Octavia sniffed again, her hand idly stroking Slavik’s waning erection. “We live here, now. I finished off my bachelor’s in music here in Canterlot. Navy gave me a five year contract, Slavik. I’ll be-”

“Lieutenant?”

Octavia nodded. “I’ll get a small pension for the rest of my life, Slavik. Not much, but it’ll supplement well. And… Vinyl’s getting big, Slavik.” Sat up and looked him in the eyes. “Big, big. Bigger than our band was ever gonna be.”

“I thought you meant fat,” Slavik said with a regrettable chuckle. “We were ahead of our time,” he said, knowing that she agreed. The sight of her smiling brought his shaft solid again. They kissed at last, and it was a long, meaningful kiss. There wasn’t much else to say, Slavik thought with disbelief. When their french kiss ended, he pecked her on the cheek and caught her perfectly gorgeous eyes. “I love you, and I missed you.”

“I love you, too, Slavik,” Octavia whimpered, falling into his embrace again.

He held her tight, feeling her sadness and letting his own out. Despite it all, he thought about how complicated this was. He didn’t hate Vinyl Scratch for being with Octavia, but he didn’t like how she loved her, too. It was complicated, and he didn’t like it.

They hugged tight for about twenty minutes, that was when Octavia’s rosy cheeks dried up. Slavik cleaned her with kisses, but her red eyes told all.

“Heh,” Slavik couldn’t hold back. “Your eyes are red.”

“So are yours,” Octavia said with a little grin, looking up at Slavik.

“Remember smoking with Pinkie?”

She nodded.

“That was fun.”

Octavia sat up and leaned on him again. “It’ll be a while until we can be crazy again.”

Slavik sighed deep and laid his head on her lap, feeling her feminine heat. “Why electrical engineering?” he asked at last.

“That’s what my recruiter LTJG Sequoia told me I needed,” she said. “College of Canterlot is expensive, but good.”

“You’re good!” he interjected, reaching up to cup her cheek. She was so pretty with a clear field of stars behind her. “Principal cellist? In the goddessdamn royal navy? Way to go girl, ever hear of best in the world?”

Her face was bright crimson. “Shut up, if I was that good, I’d have records out.”

“You do, but you’re playing in drop D, not E major.” Slavik laughed as Octavia cupped his chin and squeezed his cheeks playfully.

“Shut up, Slavik,” she said with a sigh. “I really, really want to bring you in. But I don’t know about Vinyl…”

Slavik sat up, but kept quiet. Fuck, this was complicated. Some more time passed, and Slavik couldn’t keep his tongue to himself. Octavia moaned into his mouth, giving his manhood new hardness. He stroked the inside of her hot thigh and imagined taking her clothes off and treating himself to a nice, wet meal.

Octavia kept moaning, her hood dropping sometime as she was cupping his stubbled cheek and squeezing his throbbing shaft, circling it with her fingers through his shorts. Before long, some precum was leaking through. Octavia felt it and stroked harder.

“Slavik,” she breathed into his face as he sucked on her bottom lip, palming one of her large breasts. “I need you.”

He pushed her back, fighting a powerful urge to pounce on her. They sat apart, hands on dangerous places, breathing heavily and staring hard. Slavik took his time, and finally words came. “It’s dark. We could sneak off someplace, or get a hotel. I’ll pay, so it won’t show on your finances.”

Octavia’s shoulders dipped with anguish. “No,” she moaned. “No that wouldn’t be okay, Slavik. I have to be at work tomorrow, and so do you. And Vinyl is waiting for me.”

“Then let’s not keep her waiting and just explain things to her.”

“It’s just not that easy.”

Slavik knew that, too.

Together they sat, hands and bodies on each other, wanting hard for some time. It was coming up on one in the morning, which meant Slavik had five hours to get back to the castle. He looked down at the stain in his shorts and sighed.

“Octavia,” he sighed again. “I missed you so much, baby.”

Octavia kissed his lips again and sat in his lap, boldy grinding herself on his leg. “I was thinking about proposing to Vinyl to get benefits.”

Slavik blinked. “M-marry? That’s serious, Octavia.”

She bit her lip and nodded, still dry humping his flexed thigh. “So is the housing allowance. But… you’re here, and… In a perfect world, Slavik, I could ride your big dick while eating and fingering Vinyl Scratch. But…”

Slavik sighed deeply and held her gyrating hips, wanting just to pull his shorts  and her pants down and fuck her in the street. “Why not?”

“Because!” Octavia quietly screamed in pain. “It’s just too complicated.”

 He forced her head down and whispered in her ear. “If I could, Octavia, I’d hold you in my arms and march up to that bedroom, throw you down right next to Vinyl, and make her sit on your face while I fuck you raw.”

That made Octavia go limp in his arms. She tensed up and held his face to her full chest, and Slavik found out that she wasn’t wearing a bra. He hugged her and rubbed his face into her chest, feeling her soft melons squish around, dipping his fingers down her sweatpants.

“Fuck,” she moaned. “Slavik, I’m so hot for you.” After a little bit, she sat up and arched her back hard, pushing her ass out to his knee and her chest still in his face, stretching out her back muscles in a fantastic way. “I’m- I almost just want to take you inside, Slavik, but…”

He knew that didn’t make a whole lot of sense as well, but that’s all he wanted to do. This was just complicated. Slavik slipped his hands down her sweats and felt the tightness of her ass. Maybe it was just all the time since he had seen her, but Octavia felt stronger and sexier. “Wanna cool down, go inside, make some coffee and talk with her?”

Octavia eased up on his lap, sitting sideways. She nodded, smiling, resting her forehead on his. “What should we say?”

“The truth.” Slavik sat up and shifted his manhood to a more inconspicuous orientation. Octavia placed her hand gently on the stain it had made, groaning.

“Morning, Vinyl. I’m sorry to wake you up, but my ex boyfriend randomly showed up a year after disappearing on me. It’s cool though because it’s not his fault.” Octavia gripped his thigh harder. “How the hell is that supposed to work, Slavik?”

“Maybe we should wait, then.”

He held her head to his and stroked her hair as she stroked his leg. A silence passed, but Slavik didn’t feel like talking. For a year, he had fantasized words he would say the minute he got Octavia alone. He could only remember three.

“I love you,” he whispered, and kissed her head again. Octavia leaned harder into him, her legs rubbing against his.

“I love you too, Slavik. I never stopped.”

Suddenly, the heavy weight in Slavik’s gut was lifted, and he felt much better. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear that.”

“I’m so glad,” Octavia whispered, sneaking a full kiss from his lips. She kissed him again, and he kissed back, taking Octavia in as much as he could. Her breath didn’t smell like fetid coffee, but like sweet, clean chocolate, of all things. He touched the soft skin of her face and melted when she softly moaned into his mouth. Slavik inhaled her fragrant scent and pushed her back, looking Octavia up and down.

“There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep tonight, Octavia.” The duo locked eyes on the bench for a long moment.

Octavia grinned and felt Slavik’s stubble over and over again. “Me neither. Slavik,” she started, keeping her purple eyes up. She let out her breath in a long sigh, not finding a word she wanted to say. Octavia kissed Slavik deeply, the familiar rush now less exhilarating, but no less meaningful. He held her by her tight, curvaceous features firmly, groaning like a falling skyscraper with a deep lust.

After a lengthy and gentle battle of tongues, Slavik leaned back, reaching further around Octavia’s sexy legs and down her tight ass, his fingertips exploring the fantastically soft fabric of her sweatpants for the warmer lands. “I just thought of a way we could fall asleep,” he whispered, getting a great grin from his special someone.

“Oh, god, Slavik,” Octavia whined, squirming on his lap, her hands slipping all over his face and shoulders. “You know I want to ride your big cock more than anything right now, but…” She sighed an exasperatedly. “You know. I’m,” she groaned and hugged Slavik tight, burying his face into her chest, squishing her loose breasts around his head. The petty officer inhaled his ensign’s clean scent, his hands instantly squeezing her butt hard, lifting her up, the falls of fraternization the furthest thing from his mind.

“You’re what?” Slavik shouted from Octavia’s chest.

Octavia finally pushed his head back, sighing again. Slavik wanted to stop her from doing that. Not only was he falling for her harder and harder, but she was going to hyperventilate or something. Octavia bit her lip, squeezed her junior’s shoulders and took in a deep breath. “I, well, Iwasgoingtopopthequestiontomorrowafterthewedding.”