Chapter 1
“Took you losers long enough.”
Diamond Tiara waved at the ponies spilling out of the taxi wagons. Sunlight glinted off her oversized sunglasses, and snow crunched underhoof as she walked through the front yard towards the new arrivals. She pulled a stick of bubblegum from her pale pink, perfectly-tailored parka.
From on top of the back of one wagon, Spike waved back to her. The teenage dragon tossed a bundle of luggage to Chowder, and the heavily-built earth pony caught and handled it with ease. Rumble’s head poked out of a pile of luggage and he fluttered upwards, carrying several cases of sporting equipment. The others tumbled out of the wagon.
“Di, good to see you, have a present!” yelled Dinky Doo, throwing a plump baggie of clover to her host. “Try it, it’s this real mellow strain I’ve been--watch it!” She ran off to steady her boyfriend, Featherweight, as he struggled with a small tower of scientific and recording equipment.
Sweetie Belle popped up before Diamond even saw her and wrapped her in a tight hug, smooshing her in fluffy pink hair and soft, white, chub. “Diamond, you look amazing!” she gushed, kissing her on the cheek, “oh, thanks again for having us out here.”
“I’d never let you miss it,” she replied, carefully disentangling from the hug. “Besides, you--gyah!”
A well-placed flank bump nudged her sideways and nearly swept her off her hooves. She turned to see Apple Bloom grinning at her.
“Good to see ya, rich bitch,” said Apple Bloom, pulling her into another crushing hug. “I hope you’re sober enough for some biathlon training later.”
“Aw, don’t be a schmuck, Bloom,” slurred Ruby Pinch. The unicorn popped open a tallboy of hard cider and passed it to Diamond Tiara. “You look thirsty.”
“I’m thirsty, all right.” She sipped at the cider and ogled Lickety Split, as the svelte stallion pulled the rest of his bags from the carriage, his rump wiggling in the air.
She heard an odd laugh. “Don’t leer at Lickety, you know he’th taken.”
Diamond whipped her head round to see a creme mare exiting from the other side of the wagons. The mare pulled her hood of her jacket down, letting a mass of orange coils bounce free. “Twist?”
Twist flashed her an extra-shiny smile.
“Are you... wearing braces again?”
Twist nodded, but a guarded look came over her face as she remembered some less-friendly foalhood memories. “Yeth, I am.”
Diamond Tiara stepped toward her. “Cool. Can I taste them?” Twist just giggled, and shoved her playfully.
As the taxi drivers trotted away, Diamond Tiara whistled for the attention of the small crowd, and then beckoned them in towards her chalet. “Come on in, we’ve been waiting.”
She pushed the door open and lifted her shades. The floors and walls were all unadorned blond wood, the light fittings were plain and charmingly austere, and the inside smelled of coffee, spilled beer, and furniture wax. She walked up to the kitchen door and stopped, bringing the gaggle of ponies behind her to an awkward halt, and hammered on the door with her hoof.
“Scootaloo, quit breaking in all my furniture with Pipsqueak, you freaky degenerates,” she yelled, and then carried on briskly through the hall.
She entered the sitting room. It was open and airy, with softer lighting and large windows, and ceilings high enough for a pegasus to flutter around comfortably. Several beige imitation-cloud sofas were crowded around a coffee table. Silver Spoon was already inside, sat on a rug, doing her neck and back stretches. Everypony else filtered in behind Diamond Tiara, setting down their luggage and piling up on the seats. Pipsqueak and Scootaloo were the last to enter, their manes and coats messy, passing out chilled cans of cider to everyone present.
Diamond Tiara cleared her throat. “Hello, and welcome to my not-at-all-humble abode. You’ll be staying here for most of the Hearth Warming’s break.”
A small cheer went up around the room.
She continued, “Those of you who have been here before--you owe me, big time. I want you to go to sleep tonight and think about how lucky you are to have a friend as cool and generous as me. Everypony else, feel free to get settled in. My chalet has five bedrooms, three bathrooms, three sitting rooms, a billiards room, a sauna, and a small library in the attic if any of you dorks have coursework to do. Up the road are the slopes, down the road is the village shop and more importantly, the village bar. In my shed you’ll find plenty of skis, snowboarding gear, and yes, Scootaloo, paintball guns. For the next week you’ll have more booze than you can drink, more food than you can eat, and more partying than you can handle.”
She took an ice bucket from near the wall with an unopened bottle of champagne inside, and quickly removed the foil and cage. “Now, I’m giving you all an hour to explore, settle in, and stretch out after that long journey, and then we’re all going skiing!”
With that she shook the bottle, popped the cork and sent foam and champagne spraying over her friends, who laughed and yelped. Diamond Tiara took a long chug, and passed the bottle to Silver Spoon with a triumphant expression.
“Happy solstice, fuckers!”
* * *
“Who’s gonna win?” Dinky Doo passed the binoculars to Pipsqueak. He took them and peered upwards to the four figures at the top of the slope.
“Silvy,” said Diamond Tiara, dreamily.
Dinky snorted. “Nah, seriously.”
“Silvy.” She repeated her best friend’s name. “She’s going to leave the others in her dust. Or snow. Whichever.”
“I don’t buy it. Yeah, she might beat Chowder, but Rumble and Scootaloo? They’re crazy fast. Scootaloo is practically a professional athlete.”
“Diamond’s right,” said Pipsqueak, setting the binoculars down on the dugout ledge. “It’s not about going fast, it’s about not letting the snow slow you down. The air in these mountains has thin magic, so as breathtakingly gorgeous as Scootaloo’s wings--and Rumble’s, for that matter--are, they’re as much a liability as a bonus. And Silver Spoon is mad about skiing, she’s a proper fanatic.”
“He’s right,” said Diamond.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, “if they were on wheels or on hoof, Scoots would dunk them like biscuits. Skiing’s different. You’ve got to know the technique, and you’ve got to know the slope underneath you.”
“Still don’t buy it,” said Dinky. “‘Know the slope,’ what, like earth ponies have some crazy ground magic that tells them where to move?”
“Yes,” said Pipsqueak.
“Yeah,” said Diamond Tiara
“Yeth,” said Twist.
“Pretty much,” said Lickety Split.
“Yup,” said Apple Bloom.
Ruby Pinch burped, shifted in her seat on the dugout bench, and tossed a crumpled tallboy against the ledge. “Earthers are weird.”
Dinky Doo glanced sharply at the assembled ponies behind her. Before she could think of a retort, another pony joined them.
“Hey, I’ve been looking all over for you guys,” said Sweetie Belle, a bundle of thermos flasks floating by her side.. “What’s going on?”
“Ski race,” said Pipsqueak.
He beckoned her to the ledge, and she passed out flasks to everypony as she approached. Most of them were hot chocolate, though Diamond Tiara had black coffee and Pipsqueak had marmite. Pipsqueak swapped the binoculars for his flask, and so Sweetie Belle looked up the slope.
The four competitors were decked out in their gear, stood at the starting line. Rumble looked confident. Scootaloo looked cocky. Silver Spoon looked haughty. Chowder looked big.
“It’s a pretty short race, isn’t it?” remarked Sweetie Belle.
Diamond Tiara chuckled. “All part of Silver Spoon’s plan. Half of the race is flats, and the slope is nice and twisty. I think she’s got a mean streak...”
With a distant shout, the race began.
Scootaloo and Rumble surged ahead, heads down, weaving between left and right ski as if they were rollerblading. Chowder followed closely, his posture less sure, seemingly propelled by his own mass as much as anything else. Trailing behind them, Silver Spoon was almost lazy, leaning only slightly with her poles lifted and her stance relaxed.
Everything changed at the first set of slaloms. Scootaloo and Rumble both pushed, but now they found themselves fighting the wind and the snow, over-turning and over-correcting, flapping their wings so hard to make their turns that they robbed their own momentum. Silver Spoon had no such problems, gliding from turn to turn without effort, catching up with and then outpacing both of the pegasi by the end of the slaloms, and then doing a further two unnecessary turns afterwards simply to prove that she could. Chowder, however, tumbled on the third turn, and bounced out of sight with a pained cry of frustration.
Sweetie Belle lowered her binoculars. “Is he okay?”
“He’ll be fine.” Ruby Pinch belched. “He’s springy.”
Halfway down the sloped portion, Silver Spoon was well ahead. She slowed her own movements, her skis playing grace notes and trills across the snow, just to taunt her competitors. Both Rumble and Scootaloo scrambled to ski over and slip around bumps and hillocks. Silver Spoon passed over them as if they weren’t there.
Diamond Tiara cackled. “She’s been toying with them, and she’s about to stop.” The racers, sans Chowder, were now close enough to the dugout that binoculars were unnecessary.
The last three-hundred yards of the slope went from steep to gentle to entirely flat. Silver Spoon barely noticed, neatly slipping from ski to ski, pushing only slightly on each step. Rumble and Scootaloo soon lost all momentum and struggled to hold themselves upright, let alone maintain speed. They tramped over the snow, desperately flapping their wings for balance, no faster than walking pace. By the time they had crossed fifty yards, Silver Spoon had crossed the finish line, to a chorus of whooping from Diamond Tiara.
Silver Spoon had skiid across to the dugout before the other two racers were even within a hundred yards of the finish. As she removed her skis, her best friend taunted the others.
“Hurry up, dorks!” called Diamond Tiara. “If it takes you more than a minute to finish, we’re locking you out of the bar!”
The pegasi made several obscene gestures in response. They continued to trudge along until a strange sight came from the slopes: a giant, screaming snowball, full of bushes and slalom flags, with Chowder in the middle. They tried to dodge, but with their hooves weighed down and their wings exhausted it was no use. The equine snowball slammed into them, picked them up, and bounced them across the finish line.
“Well, that counts I guess,” said Diamond Tiara, turning her back to the slope. “Come on, losers, let’s get lunch!”
* * *
“Thank Celestia you’re here, Rumble,” said Lickety Split, breathlessly. “I need you to take my pants off.”
Lickety barrelled into the chalet, an icy draft whipping through the door behind him until Rumble closed it. The blond pony cantered towards their bedroom, his boyfriend in hot pursuit. By the time Rumble reached the bedroom, his boyfriend had already shed his parka, and was only clad in a tight pair of pants.
“Skiing was good, huh?” A wry smile crossed Rumble’s face.
Lickety grinned sheepishly. “It was awesome. But we’re all meeting at the lodge bar in an hour for lunch, and I’m a sweaty mess, and I can’t get these stupid ski pants off!” He turned around and wiggled his rump.
Rumble saw the problem. Through a baker’s diet and a strict regimen of yoga, his boyfriend had an extraordinarily plush ass. Wrapped around his delectable rump were a pair of cherry-red ski pants at least two sizes too small. They pinched the top of his hips, and tightly restrained everything below. Rumble gave his boyfriend’s rump a light slap. His hoof bounced straight off.
“Wow. Not even a jiggle,” he said.
“I know, right? Usually I’ve got a butt like a Newton’s cradle, but these dumb pants are strangling it!”
Rumble circled around him, his hooves pacing over the plush rug beneath as he tried to figure out how to approach the problem. “Why are you wearing tiny little foal pants anyway?”
Lickety Split huffed. “I left my own pair at the lodge yesterday, and the only spares that Diamond Tiara had were these.”
“How did you even get into them?”
“It was easier when I wasn’t sweaty from skiing for two hours. Help me out, okay!”
“Gotcha.” He stepped in close to his boyfriend’s rump. Lickety’s blond tail swished against his face as he approached. It smelled of baked goods, and the diesel fuel of the ski lifts.
“Sorry,” said Lickety, shifting on his hooves, “I’m antsy.”
“It’s cool.” He gripped the strap above Lickety’s tail in his lips and unbuttoned it. Taking the waistline between his teeth, he yanked downwards. His boyfriend’s butt barely budged.
“Ah! Slower, please...”
Rumble mumbled an apology, and began to slowly work the waistline downwards. The top of Lickety’s rump began to slip from its cloth prison, bulging out slightly, his chocolate coat soft and smooth and sweaty.
“It wrkin!” muttered Rumble, his mouth full of waistband. Each wiggle downwards revealed more buttock, and the tightness of the pants meant that he couldn’t keep his grip without smooshing his nose into plush, sweaty rump. The smell of diesel was weaker now, and the smells of sweat, musk, and vanilla sponge were far stronger.
Halfway down, they hit a snag. The waistband was now exactly halfway down the curve of Lickety’s rump, and it had sunk so far in the plush, plump flesh that Rumble could no longer grip it without biting his boyfriend. After several awkward nips, and Rumble pushing his face so far into Lickety’s rump that they both toppled over, they decided to try a different approach. Lickety lay on his back and hugged his hind hooves to his chest, his tail swishing against the floor.
Rumble still couldn’t grip the waistband, but between his nose pressing against it and Lickety’s wiggling it started to move, half-inch by half-inch. Soon, Rumble was able to press his face into Lickety’s dock, and use the movement of his nose and lips to push it upwards. He caught the waistband on his tongue, tasting the salt of Lickety’s sweat as the pants slowly peeled away. Lickety’s smooth, soft balls pressed against his face, and with a final tug the pants pulled up to his knees, freeing the earth pony’s stiff cock. It sprung against Lickety’s belly with a soft ‘thwap.’ With a few final kicks, the too-tight ski pants fell onto the rug.
Neither pony moved. Lickety stayed on his back, a soft blush on his cheeks, legs spread wide, his ass, cock and balls all on display. Rumble stood above him, drinking in the sight.
“You, uh, look great,” murmured Rumble. “I mean, your pants are off. And that’s, that’s good.”
Lickety Split smiled. “Thanks! I still need your help though, sweetie,” he said, shifting his hips just enough that his cock swung from one side of his stomach to the other.
“Yeah?”
Lickety looked down at his pink-and-grey cock. “I can’t go to the bar with this thing hanging out, Rumble. You’ve gotta help me.”
His eyes were unfocused. “Oh, I can help with that,” said Rumble, his voice husky, as he dipped his head between his lover’s legs. He gave each of his balls a slow, wet lick, nuzzling them and inhaling the musk and sweat. He took each ball into his mouth, not sucking on them, just opening wide and letting them fall inside, playing his tongue over them gently as if making out with them. Lickety Split bit his lip, muffling a groan into a slow sigh as he reached his hooves down to stroke Rumble’s mane.
The balls were warm in his mouth, and Rumble knew to be gentle with them, the slightest touch the difference between pain and pure pleasure. He lapped and licked at them, giving both enough attention that his saliva never had a chance to cool. His lips pressed into the join between balls and shaft as if he was about to suck Lickety’s cock, and then his head moved downwards.
“Ohhh, don’t!” moaned Lickety as he felt his boyfriend’s tongue on his asshole.
Rumble’s head shot straight up. “No?”
“What? Oh, no, no, keep doing it.” Lickety giggled. “It’s good.”
“You sure?”
Lickety nodded emphatically, and spread his legs wider. “Y-yeah. Please?”
Rumble paused. “...You’re clean down there, right?”
“I showered before I went out. I got very clean...”
Rumble dived back in, pushing his face between his lover’s flanks, licking the bare skin from the base of the tail up to the balls. Lickety sighed in pleasure at the sensation, and squealed as Rumble focused on his ass, slipping his wet, hot tongue over his hole. The pegasus was nothing if not enthusiastic, pushing his tongue inside, stretching his lover out as much as licking him.
Lickety closed his eyes and sighed into his hoof as his boyfriend ate him out, the pegasus’s hooves roaming over his body, spreading his thighs and running up his stomach. There were no words for the sensation that Lickety felt at times like these, his lover opening him up and groping him, laying claim to his body as much as servicing him. Each touch set every hair of his coat tingling, making him writhe and giggle, sighing to suppress a slew of obscenities.
Setting into a rhythmic pattern of gentle licking, Rumble reached a forehoof up and hooked it with his lover’s. Lickety felt a warmth spread all through his body as he held hooves with his boyfriend, and when Rumble slipped his tongue inside again, Lickety couldn’t hold back from arching his back and crying out his name.
Lickety sat up and pulled Rumble into a deep kiss. When it broke, an awkward string of saliva bridged their two mouths, before breaking onto Lickety’s chin. Rumble reached out with a feather and wiped it away.
“Rumble,” said Lickety, breathless. “Inside me, please.”
Rumble kissed his lover on the nose and gently pushed him onto his back. “Yes, Princess.” He took a step forward, and then paused. Lickety lay back with a bemused expression as Rumble flapped over to his bunk, rooting through a pile of rumpled clothes and personal effects.
“Watcha looking for?”
“Huh?” This time Rumble wore a sheepish smile. “Oh. Uh, lube.”
Lickety gestured to the discarded coat on the bedroom floor. “Look in my parka, in the inside pocket.”
“You took a bottle of lube to go skiing?” Rumble grinned as he retrieved the bottle from the coat.
Lickety giggled. “I had a feeling I might run into you like this. I wanted to be prepared...”
Rumble laughed, popping the cap of the bottle and squeezing a substantial amount on his achingly-hard cock, spreading and coating it until it looked like a rod of oiled obsidian. He reached down with a hoof-full of lube and spread it between his boyfriend’s buttocks, causing Lickety to gasp from the cool sensation.
The pair looked into each other’s eyes, Rumble’s hooves caressing his boyfriend’s hips, Lickety’s thighs wrapped tight around Rumble’s waist. Lickety bit his lip, his eyes drifting closed as he felt the warm, thick tip of his lover’s cock pressing against his ass.
“You ready?” Rumble placed a hoof on Lickety’s cheek.
“Y-yeah,” whispered Lickety, “you can go—oh.”
Only the tip slid inside, and both ponies inhaled sharply, the pegasus as he got used to the intense warmth and tightness, the confectioner as he adjusted to his partner’s not-inconsiderable size.
“Every time,” breathed Lickety, “every single time I forget how freaking big you are...”
Rumble mumbled an apology as he leaned down, and began to kiss his way up Lickety’s chest and up to his collarbone. Lickety made soft, pleased noises at the attentions, the tension leaving his thighs and hips, and he pulled Rumble down onto him. He nuzzled his lover’s grey ear, and whispered a single word.
“More.”
They were both silent as the next few inches slid inside, though Rumble’s ears were pricked, listening closely for the slightest hint of discomfort or distress. When his medial ring pressed against his boyfriend’s hole, he felt a tap on his flank, a signal to slow down. They paused to kiss—Rumble never knew how any colt could have lips as soft as Lickety’s—revelling in the intimacy of the moment, Lickety’s cock twitching between their bellies.
Rumble pulled out a few inches, and pushed back in a few more. This time, Lickety made no effort to restrain himself, moaning loudly into the soft coat on Rumble’s neck, interspersed with soft kisses and pecks. They repeated the same pattern several times, Lickety’s cries louder each time, until he realized through a strange fog of mild discomfort and obscene pleasure that Rumble’s entire length was inside him.
Rumble sat up, trailing a hoof down Lickety’s chest all the way to his belly. Every time either of the pair moved, even the slightest shift, sent shivers down Lickety’s spine as the cock inside him moved. The earth pony’s cock twitched near-constantly, a thin string of precum drooling down from the tip to his stomach.
They did not break eye contact for a moment as Rumble withdrew, backing out in the slowest way as if trying to make his lover feel every bump and vein on his shaft as it pulled out, lifting his wings to tease Lickety’s body with feather-light touches. As soon as he reached the medial ring, he pushed back in. Lickety could not even muster a coherent moan, simply squeaking as his hooves pawed at the rug in pleasure.
Rumble always took pleasure in these moments, between the first careful thrusts and the vigorous pace of true fucking, the moments after Lickety had grown used to the pain but before he’d grown used to the pleasure, when every single movement Rumble made simply dominated Lickety’s mind with pure, unfocused ecstasy. Every touch made him shiver, every nip made him moan, every thrust made him squeal.
“You’re cute when you’re all love-drunk like this, Princess,” whispered Rumble, his lips an inch from Lickety’s ear, “you know, I think—gyahh!”
The two lovers turned into a rolling, giggling bundle of pony, only to right themselves a half-second later, with Rumble on his back and Lickety sat on his hips. Lickety grinned down at Rumble, only the tip of the cock inside him.
“What do you think, darling?” Lickety Split’s voice was pure, vanilla innocence.
“Oh, I just Celestia!” Rumble gasped as Lickety dropped his hips in a single fluid movement, sinking the entirety of his cock inside him. Lickety gasped from the slight pain, but his cock bobbed in front of his hips, now dripping a substantial amount of precum onto his boyfriend’s navel.
Lickety moved up into a comfortable squat, bracing himself with his front hooves placed just above Rumble’s pelvis, and began to work. His toned, soft buttocks worked up and down as he rode his boyfriend, the thick black shaft slipping between the caramel-colored rump, blond tail swishing to-and-fro in contentment.
“Wow, you’re good at this.” Rumble was gazing up at him adoringly, hooves on Lickety’s hips, wings splayed out across the rug.
“Thank you.” Lickety giggled, and gave an extra twist of his hips as he bottomed out.
“You’ve been practicing with Diamond Tiara and her sorority sisters, huh?”
Lickety punched his boyfriend playfully in the chest. “Ass!”
“Hey, they’re experts! Or so I’ve heard...”
Lickety blew a raspberry. “The only practice I’ve had,” he said, “is from magazines, marital aids...”
He sunk to the base and began to lift upwards, only this time the tightness had increased twofold, massaging every inch of Rumble’s shaft with perfect force.
“...and pelvic floor exercises.”
In a very small voice, Rumble said, “Oh, holy cow.”
Lickety laughed and began bouncing in earnest, his buttocks slapping down onto Rumble’s hips and his cock slapping down onto Rumble’s belly. The bottom of each drop was joined by a small thrust from Rumble, and the pace soon increased from sensuous to frenetic. Lickety could no longer maintain his upright posture, collapsing onto Rumble’s chest as they fucked, lost in a blur of nips and nuzzles and kisses. He squeaked as Rumble slipped a hoof between them, pinning his cock between the pegasus’s hoof and belly, stroking him off with each thrust.
“Rumble, I—”
Rumble nipped Lickety’s ear. Lickety froze, as if he had been seized up in a whole-body blink, and came. Warm, sticky cum spurted from his cock, almost in a constant stream, spreading between their two chests in a white, gooey mess. Each thrust of Rumble pressed into his prostate and seemed to milk him further, until he had nothing left to give, and simply twitched in pleasure.
The pegasus slowed, and then stopped, his thrusts, kissing Lickety’s neck and giving him time to recover.
“Keep going,” murmured Lickety, a spacey grin on his face. “I want to feel you cum inside me.”
Rumble obliged, rolling Lickety onto his back, squirting a considerable portion of extra lube onto his own cock, and pushing back inside. This time, Lickety accepted his entire length with only a slight gasp. It didn’t take long until they were screwing at full pace, Lickety’s head lolling back, panting like a dog.
Rumble swore under his breath as he came, holding one of Lickety’s hind legs close to his chest. He felt his lover filling up, thick cum squeezing past his cock and dripping out as he continued to thrust. He remained inside for another minute, taking in the warmth and intimacy, only pulling out to find a better position for snuggling. The two lovers clung to each other in a sweaty, sticky afterglow.
After some time, Rumble whispered, “Lickety?”
“Darling?”
“...Did you just hear that?”
Both ponies looked to the left. The sheets on the bottom bunk twitched. The pair stood up.
“I’ve got a funny sense of deja vu...” said Lickety Split.
Rumble grabbed a skiing pole leant against a wall, and held it like a club. “Like a deja vu from the other side...”
Lickety ripped away the sheets, and prepared for the worst.
“Um. Hello.”
The two boyfriends glared down at Pipsqueak, who had just detached his face from Scootaloo’s nether regions.
“So, ah, we were looking for Scootaloo’s board wax,” said the pinto colt, “and then you came in, and, so...”
Rumble and Lickety Split stared at them. “So?”
Scootaloo grinned. “So why’d you stop?”
* * *
The spotlight shone on the bottle, and the bottle shone back. Crystal facets twinkled like diamonds in the light, and the deep-caramel liquid sloshed around inside with an almost syrupy consistency. Pipsqueak gestured to the bottle grandly, his hoof hidden in a sparkly blue pom-pom.
“This,” he exclaimed, “is a bottle of Caballos Real Andalusian brandy.” He reared up on two hooves, pom-poms flaring out up and to the side in a dazzling pattern, a frilly blue miniskirt clinging to his hips and a matching halter top around his barrel.
“This alcoholic elixir is brewed by fanatics, blessed by virgins--thank you, Featherweight--and aged older than even Granny Smith herself. Rumored to be the preferred tipple of Princess Luna herself; in the few bars in Canterlot that serve this stuff, it costs twenty bits to sniff it.
He picked up the bottle, gazing at it adoringly. “Me and my partner in crime, Scootaloo, acquired this bottle entirely by chance. Therefore, it does not seem right to hoard it to ourselves when a bloody good opportunity for mayhem and entertainment presents itself, such as this drinking contest. However, you brave competitors will not be drinking this..”
Pipsqueak turned, the rapt eyes of the audience at his back, and stashed the bottle out of sight. He picked up a small wooden crate, placed it in the spotlight, and opened the lid. Five brown glass bottles laid within, along with a single clear bottle. “Our competitors will be drinking the cheapest, roughest, nastiest rotgut known to equinity--Barnyard Bargains Basement Bin Bourbon. Ninety proof, allegedly made from corn, not served in any civilized drinking establishment. For sadism’s sake, we also have--” he lifted up the clear bottle, unlabelled and full of clear liquid “--cheap mezcal, for every tenth shot. Just in case anypony’s gag reflex needs the help.”
He stood up again, shaking his pom-poms. “In the mint-green pillowy corner, weighing in at sixty kilograms, with a record of two wins, one loss, and one no-contest against the Ponyville Royal Guard Auxiliary, it’s the chalet’s most eminently handsome pegasus, ‘Rock-Livered’ Rumble!”
The spotlight fell on the grey pegasus, and the crowded ponies crammed on the settee all whooped and cheered. A pair of white cotton panties, embroidered ‘LS,’ landed on his shoulder. He grinned and displayed his wings.
Pipsqueak cleared his throat, and the cheering quietened down. “And in the pink knitted comforter corner, weighing in at sixty-two-and-a-half kilograms, with a record of three wins and two losses, a farm-raised mare whose fighting spirit is almost as fierce as the bathtub booze her family brews and a fighting style that can only be described as ‘baffling,’ it’s our most intimidatingly attractive earth pony, Apple ‘Moonshine’ Bloom!”
The crowd went wild as Apple Bloom kissed her biceps. She cracked her neck and shoulders before fixing a cocky gaze on Rumble.
“The rules are as follows,” said Pipsqueak. “Each contestant drinks simultaneously, and returns the glass to the table. Failure to bring the drink to your mouth or return it to the table is a strike--two strikes and you’re out. Contestants may not leave the table without forfeiting the game. Throwing up, passing out, or going limp all mean instant defeat.
“The winner will earn the respect and adoration of everypony present, and the bottle of Caballos Real should they ever wish to drink again. The loser will earn a wooden spoon, and a bezoar for good measure. As is customary, the competitors will now exchange taunts.”
Rumble blew on his hooves. “I’ve flown drunker than you’ve ever gotten, Apple Bloom. You’ll spew all over the table before I’m even tipsy.”
The crowd gasped, and every eye turned quickly to the other contestant.
Apple Bloom scoffed. “You get drunk on fumes, lightweight. I’d outlast you even if you poured every other shot down your chin.”
The gasps were twice as loud, and hooves pounded together in shock. Rumble made an obscene gesture with his wing, but his smile never left his face. There were several flashes as Featherweight flittered about, taking pictures of the staredown.
“What are the odds looking like, Dinky Doo?”
Dinky Doo popped out from the middle of the crowded sofa, a green visor over her brow, dozens of tickets spilling from between her hooves, lightly kept in check by telekinesis. “We’ve got nearly five-hundred bits equivalent on the line here in forms of credit, collateral, assorted sexual favors--most of those from Twist, though some from Spike--and actual cash money. As it stands, odds are eleven to nine, slightly favoring Apple Bloom. This could be one tense game, Pip!”
Pipsqueak did another complicated pom-pom display, this time with a cartwheel and far more hip-thrusting than was necessary or proper. “Wonderful! When the contestants are ready, we can begin.”
“STOP!”
The spotlight, somehow, swung to Diamond Tiara. She had a bottle of beer in her hoof, and a cruel smirk on her lips.
“As the owner of this chalet, I declare that this contest is both boring and passe. There is only one way to redeem it.”
Apple Bloom glanced her way, briefly. “And what exactly would that be, Di?”
Diamond Tiara grinned evilly. “Make this thing a three-way”
The crowd went silent.
“Objection!” shouted Pipsqueak, crossing his pom-poms. “You can’t just barge into the contest!”
“And what if I bought myself into the wager, Pip?” she said, her voice silky. “In fact, I have just the thing...”
A key dangled from a chain on her fetlock. The key glimmered in a way that normal metal doesn’t. “This is the Scholar’s Key,” said Diamond Tiara. “It opens up any door, in any building, in any university, in all of Equestria...”
Rumble, Apple Bloom and Pipsqueak all looked between her, between the key, and between each other as they considered the ramifications of this new prize.
“Interesting,” said Pipsqueak, his pom-poms vibrating. “This is valid collateral--as long as the other participants agree.”
“Sure, why not,” said Rumble.
Apple Bloom looked Diamond Tiara over from hoof to head, her face impassive. “I’m game. Take a seat, Di.”
The rich hostess smugly sat between the two of them. All three contestants exchanged sharp glares.
Pipsqueak laid a cloth over the bare table between them, and then whipped it upwards. Fifteen glasses had appeared in a line on the surface. He took a bottle of bad bourbon, twirled it in his hoof, bit the lid off, and poured a row of fifteen shots. In a practiced maneuver, he slid the filled glasses around so that each contestant was presented with a five-glass triangle of lousy liquor. Chaos erupted in the background as the ponies on the couch squawked and tussled to change their bets around to account for the extra player. Bags of clover, spare bits, and other assorted collateral flew around as Dinky struggled to hold onto all of her betting tickets.
Pipsqueak did the splits, on pom-pom held high. “Contestants! Are you ready?”
“Yeah!” came three cries.
“Cameras! Are you ready?”
“I’m set, Pip!”
“Audience!” He winked salaciously at the assembled ponies on the sofa, “are you ready?”
The audience roared with approval as Dinky mouthed ‘more time, more time,’ desperately sorting through her mess of betting materials. Pipsqueak ignored her.
“Contestants! Take your first shot in three, two, one, drink!”
The crowd sat frozen in a fighty tableaux as each of the three ponies picked up their shots. All three downed them without fuss, and set them rim-down on the table. Apple Bloom licked her lips. Diamond Tiara smirked and twirled a hoof through her mane. Rumble simply sat there. Spectators exchanged whispers and betting slips.
“Well, I guess this is the part where I congratulate you for doing a shot,” said Pipsqueak, executing a fancy pirouette. The contestants grinned at him.
“Or not!” he yelled. “This isn’t a whiskey tasting, you three are here to get utterly wankered! New rule! The next round is four shots, one after the other. Ready, set, drink!”
Three glasses went up. Three glasses came down.
“Drink!”
Three up. Three down.
“Drink!”
Three up. Three down.
“Drink!”
Three up. Three down. One burp.
The lights shut off, leaving Pipsqueak as a darkened silhouette. When they came back on, a slight difference could be seen in the contestants. Just the barest hint of blush in their cheeks, some stiffness where there was laxity, some laxity where there was stiffness. Featherweight’s camera strobed the room with flashes.
Pipsqueak thrust a pom-pom in Dinky’s direction. “Analysis!”
“Too close to call at this stage,” said Dinky, wiping sweat from her brow as she slid her betting tickets around a clipboard, “but anyone hoping for the long odds on an early loss is out of luck.”
Behind her, Ruby Pinch muttered “Aw, nuts,” under her breath, and threw a crumpled tallboy at the wall.
“Why you gotta do this, Di?” There wasn’t a hint of slur in Apple Bloom’s voice, only her usual country twang. . “I know you gotta be the center of attention all the darn time, but is blowing chunks in your sitting room really the way to do it?”
The crowd ooh’ed and whistled, Ruby Pinch set off magical firecrackers, and Scootaloo murmured “Who the hay is Chunks?”
Diamond Tiara laughed contemptuously. “You honestly think this is my first rodeo, bumpkin? I do this with the sorority all the time, and we don’t call it a drinking contest,” she said, brushing her mane from her eyes. “We call it a hangover cure.”
Pipsqueak clicked his hooves. “Get your last bets in, it’s time to go! Three, two, one, drink!”
The contestants began to knock whiskey back seriously, backlit by a cheering crowd and flashing cameras. A flurry of betting and speculation followed each drink, as well as increasingly lewd dancing from Pipsqueak.
Shots six, seven, eight, and nine all went down without a hitch. Even the tenth shot, a cheap mezcal that smelled of artificial smoke and fermented rubber, poured with an evil laugh by Pipsqueak, was drank with only a set of grimaces.
The first wobble came on the eleventh shot. Rumble’s empty glass clattered out of his hooves, landing side-down on the table.
“Rumble made a fumble!” cried Pipsqueak as he performed frantic aerobics. “He might not be in this competition much longer!” The crowd behind him surged to change their bets and collect on side bets. Camera flashes almost became a solid light.
“Stop.” The crowd went silent as Rumble flared his wings, his face calm.
“Lickety, please,” said the pegasus. His coltfriend wriggled out of his place in the sofa-slash-dogpile, and pulled a single green gumball out of a pocket.
Rumble caught the gumball on the tip of his wing. It rolled down his left until it hit his shoulder, which bumped it over his head to land on his right shoulder. The gumball rolled down his right wing, was lifted into the air as it reached the edge of his highest primary feather, then fell down from first feather to second to third, bounced off onto his hoof, down to his hind-hoofs where he played keepy-ups for a dozen bounces, and then all the way up to land on the tip of his nose. With a final flick, the gumball fell into his mouth.
“Sometimes a fumble is just a fumble,” he said, smirking as he chewed. Once more, Dinky found herself near-buried under a pack of frenzied bettors.
Apple Bloom grunted. “We here to do Flim and Flam’s rootin’-tootin’ tricks for balls and barn hops, or are we here to drink?”
The game continued. All three ponies drank down whiskey as if it was water. None of them started flagging until the seventeenth shot. Under the spotlights, they looked... woozy. Their eyelids drooped and their ears flickered. Diamond Tiara in particular looked a little green around the gills. Rumble sat perfectly upright with a smile fixed on his face, but his wings twitched and fussed behind him as if out of his control. Apple Bloom was simply surly. Her brow furrowed, as if she was struggling to remember the difference between a drinking contest and a bar brawl.
Pipsqueak slinked up to the farmer. “Apple Bloom, odds are currently on you to win by a slim margin. Do you have any words for your fans and competitors?”
She considered the question, looking drunkenly thoughtful--that is to say, drunk--and then carefully enunciated her answer. “February is--” she paused, and blinked, “February is a horseshit month. It’s got the wrong days in it, and some years it doesn’t even have that. We should have another March and get rid of February. ‘Cause it’s horseshit.”
“Interesting, very insightful,” said Pipsqueak, turning away. “Diamond Tiara, do you have a response?”
She wasn’t paying attention. Instead, she was giggling, and staring at the third competitor. “Hey Rumble, come--” she restrained herself from bursting out laughing, “--come over here...” She beckoned him closer.
As soon as he approached close enough to whisper, Diamond Tiara stuck her tongue out and licked inside his ear. Rumble drew back slowly, unfazed and unimpressed. The crowd cheered. When he sat up straight to bask in their attention, he nearly fell off his chair.
“Okay, it’s clear that our contestants are somewhere between bladdered and annihilated,” said Pipsqueak, “Dinky Doo, any advanced analysis?”
Dinky Doo cleared her throat. “Well, Apple Bloom is still favorite to win by a narrow margin, but the mind game isn’t her strong suit and Diamond Tiara is a dirty, dirty trickster. Our esteemed hostess is still on to be first out, but she might take Apple Bloom out with her since Rumble seems immune to her wiles.”
“Rumble is a real dark horse here,” added Pipsqueak.
“I agree, phenomenal stamina for a pegasus, they tend to absorb alcohol faster and turn into real flyweights, but we’re seeing none of that tonight!”
Pipsqueak backflipped into the splits. “Let’s continue now, before they metabolize everything. Drink!”
The eighteenth shot was slow and shaky. Diamond Tiara nearly spilled her nineteenth drink entirely. As they raised the mezcal for the twentieth shot, Apple Bloom went in for the kill.
“You feelin’ a lil’ ill there, Di?” she crooned. “Would you like a... bucket?”
“What?” She turned her head to look at her. “Oh, that,” she said, shrugging. She looked more tired than sick. “You know, Apple--Appleseed? That stuff didn’t taste half as bad as this.”
Ponies cheered as all three measures of malignant mezcal disappeared down the gullets of the competitors.
The twenty-first shot was tense. All three ponies struggled to raise it, and barely downed it. The shots clattered down onto the table, nopony caring how they fell. A drumroll of hooves came from the sofa as the effects of the alcohol sank in.
Diamond Tiara looked as if she’d remembered several terrible things, and started to gag. The crowd went wild with anticipation as she braced herself on the table, Apple Bloom and Rumble looking rather pleased at the sight. The pink pony’s expression turned to misery and panic as she steeled herself to heave, and then--
--the daintiest little burpette left her lips.
She cracked up laughing. Rumble laughed with her. Apple Bloom sat in her chair, a lazy grin plastered across her face. The crowd laughed along with them.
Diamond Tiara and Rumble threw up.
Her vomit spewed out over the table like a grim whiskey firehose, knocking glasses astray. His spilled from his lips, a magma flow of chunder down his own chest and belly. They both fell to the floor, groaning miserably and vomiting. Silver Spoon and Lickety Split rushed over to help them.
“Double elimination!” cried Pipsqueak. “Sudden! Shocking! Smells terrible!” He rushed over to raise Apple Bloom’s hoof. “Apple Bloom, you are the winner! Congratulations! Do you have--Apple Bloom?”
She hadn’t seemed to react to her opponents’ mutual disqualifications, still gazing ahead with her fixed smile. Her hoof was limp in Pipsqueak’s grip. He gave her a gentle prod.
Apple Bloom dropped like a felled oak. Sweetie Belle stumbled forward to tend to her.
“T-t-triple elimination?!” Pipsqueak stared in shock. “Passing out in your seat is a forfeit, but there’s no way of knowing when she did! THIS IS COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED! There’s no way to tell who lost first! It’s a three-way draw! Nopony could have predicted this!”
Twist bounced out of the roaring crowd. “I predicted it! Pay up, loothers!”
“This is mental,” cried Pipsqueak, cartwheeling around the scene. “Absolutely mental! Bezoars and prairie oysters for everyone!”
* * *
Nopony was safe. No cover was tall enough, no shot was quick enough. Paint was her business, and business was good.
“Maybe I’m not the fastest skier.” Scootaloo slipped a fresh clip of paint into her gun, and somehow flip-cocked it. “Or the best drinker,”
She nailed Silver Spoon, the grey mare taking a split-second too long to dive for cover. Spike’s attempt to hide failed miserably, the bright yellow paint contrasting with his purple scales. Rumble and Lickety Split both burst out of snow-covered bushes, spraying paint and dodging wildly. They tried to gang up and flank her. Both got one neat headshot,
“Maybe I’m a lousy cook and a lazy student.”
Fortifications crumbled under her barrage. Ponies popped out to snipe her, and she was already gone. They searched and searched, fear and adrenaline mixing in a dangerous cocktail, only for her to burst out of a snowpony like an angered revenant, splattering everything in sight.
“But there is one thing--just one thing--that I know.”
Dinky Doo leapt into the air, dual-wielding paintball pistols, sending a hail of fluorescent paint at the pegasus. Scootaloo dodged it all, and fired a single shot at her opponent’s ankle. Dinky tumbled over, only to be shot twice more as she fell.
“I know,” said Scootaloo, “that I absolutely incontestably indisputably fucking rule at paintball!”
“Too bloody right!”
She turned and shot Pipsqueak three times, twice in the chest and once in the goggles. Pipsqueak frowned.
“Scoots, love. I’m on your team.”
She didn’t look up, gazing lovingly at her wonderful paintball machine. “Sorry babe,” she said, “there’s just something about shooting messy, bad-tasting liquid all over your chest and face that’s so very... right.”
* * *
The Sterling family was best known for their investment and banking businesses, which they ran with a peculiar blend of caution and ruthlessness. Their motto, ‘Clades Fert Fortuna’, meant ‘failure brings fortune,’ and consequently their investments tended to be stable in calm seas, and lucrative in stormy ones. Banking is not a labor-intensive business, however, and only a small part of the family worked as bankers. The Sterling family actually had three chief occupations: silversmithing, banking, and cooking.
Silver Spoon, heir apparent of the Sterlings, had talent for all three.
The family cookbook only had a dozen recipes. Sterling cooks, and Sterling-trained cooks, were expected to cook these twelve dishes with absolute mastery, and expertly cook a hundred other dishes to boot. Famously, their recipe for scrambled eggs with fried tomatoes and portobello mushrooms has been the Sunday-morning breakfast of Princess Celestia for over a century.
Silver Spoon’s fourth-favorite recipe was tarka dal, a lentil curry. It seemed to her a wonderful reflection of the family philosophy: good ingredients, carefully treated, developed into something sublime; treated inexpertly, devolved into slop. Poorly-treated investments would fail, poorly-treated silver would tarnish, a poorly-treated dal would become a gritty, bland mess.
First, the ingredients. The yellow-split peas must be rinsed in a minimum of three changes of water, until the water runs clear, or the lentils will be starchy, clumpy, and stale-tasting. The ginger and garlic must both be fresh, the oil must be peanut or ghee, and the onions must be firm and white. Long green chili peppers are to be used, as they are not merely a flavor but part of the dish, and they should only be pricked, not sliced, to give the dal a very mild heat. Finally, the tomatoes should be salad tomatoes, not plum tomatoes, to give the dish bulk and texture without an overpowering flavor.
Second, the technique. The yellow-split peas are boiled before being added to the dish proper, and the water used to boil them must be salted, otherwise the dish will be irredeemably bland. Two pinches of salt at this stage will save a whole salt-shaker when it reaches the table. The peas must not be boiled al dente, but until they can easily be broken up with a whisk or fork to give the dal its proper creamy texture, instead of a gritty, unpleasant one. Mustard seeds and cumin seeds are fried first, briefly to avoid burning them, and then diced onions are added and fried until soft and translucent. Ginger, chopped as finely is possible, is added at the same time as the whole green chili peppers, and fried until the flavors spread throughout the pan. Several tomatoes and several cloves of garlic are blended and added to the dish, then the ground spices--two parts cilantro, one part turmeric, one part of the Sterling family’s garam masala--and the entire mixture is simmered until the oil rises to the surface. The whisked peas are then folded in, with a splash of good vegetable stock to loosen the mixture, and the entire dish is brought to a boil before being removed from the heat. Then, and only then, is it seasoned with a hoof-full of freshly-chopped cilantro, a little cracked black pepper, and perhaps another pinch of salt.
Silver Spoon was cooking that particular dish for dinner. Or at least, she was trying to. Diamond Tiara was being difficult.
“Stop cooking and sleep with me.”
“Diamond, you’re drunk. It’s not even lunchtime.”
“Well, of course I’m drunk!” Diamond Tiara sighed loudly, and rolled her eyes almost as loudly. “I’m like, on vacation, and Pi Lambda Zeta--” she always pronounced the name of her sorority in an almost-reverent voice “--is on academic double probation. Aaaand, since I’m smart, I’ve been having to work my flanks off to make sure my less pretty and less witty sisters don’t get us kicked off campus. You know what that means, Silvy? No drinking on weeknights! Like, not even Wicked Wednesdays at Plaza. I’ve gotta catch up, and besides, my liver needs the challenge.”
Silver Spoon shook her head and turned back to the pan on the stove. The lentils had come to a boil, so she busied herself skimming the grassy, unpleasant froth from the top of the mixture before reducing it to a simmer. When she turned away from the stove, Diamond Tiara draped herself across her. Silver Spoon smelled fancy perfume and cheap wine, hairspray, workout-sweat, and a hint of grease.
“Silvy, my wine is gone,” she said, shaking the empty bottle of rose, “make me a Sidecar.”
Silver Spoon shrugged off her friend, stirred the onions and spices in her cast-iron pan, and began to prepare the garlic and tomatoes. “I’m not your valet, Di--”
“--You’re not well-dressed enough to be my valet--”
“--and anyway, you need to sober up. We’re going to the slopes after lunch.”
Diamond Tiara giggled. “That’s fine, it’s like Pipsqueak says, I’ll just have to go skiing off piste!” She collapsed laughing. Silver Spoon groaned under her breath.
“D’ya get it?” asked the pink pony, laughing and poking the hind hooves of her friend, “off piste like pissed, like Trottingham for drunk?”
“Yes, Diamond, I get it,” said Silver Spoon. “It was funnier the first five times you stole it from Pipsqueak.” She ignored her friend and placed the chopped tomatoes and garlic in the blender. She almost painted the ceiling with it as a pain in her ankle startled her. She whipped round to glare at the pony on the floor. “You bit me!”
“You were ignoring me,” said Diamond, pouting. She gesticulated with her empty bottle, and pointed to a discolored patch of her coat below her chin. “I spilled wine, Silvy. Be a good friend and lick it off.”
“I’m not licking wine off your neck! And you bit me!”
Diamond Tiara got to her hooves, huffing as she did. “Well, excuse me for being bored. But I’m lonely, and nobody loves me. Even my coltfriend cruelly abandoned me...”
“You dumped him.”
“I remember those nights in Ponyville,” she said, rubbing up against her friend once more, her voice husky. “Those nights with just the two of us, when we were both so very lonely, and in such very desperate need of affection. Do you remember those nights, Silvy?”
Silver Spoon poured the garlic and tomato puree into the pan, and tipped the ground spices in with them. “I am trying to cook,” she said flatly as she stirred the mixture.
Diamond Tiara scowled and she looked away with such speed that her messy, pale-purple mane whipped against her face. “I don’t see why you have to be like this.”
“Well, Di, you’re always trying to take control and not everypony appreciates that all of the time.”
“Why shouldn’t I take control?” she whined, “It’s my chalet. I invited you guys to stay for the winter break...”
“And when you stay at my summer house for summer vacation you act the exact same way.”
They bickered in this vein for some time, gradually folding in a number of increasingly sharp remarks about the habits, bodies, and sexual proclivities of each other and each other’s families, while Silver Spoon continued to cook and Diamond Tiara fixed herself another drink. By the time that the cooked split peas had been mixed into the rest of the stew, their talk had taken on something of a mean-spirited tone.
Diamond Tiara’s lips curled into the stiff little smirk that graced her face whenever she had tired of pretending to be civilized and wanted to lunge for the carotid. “Silvy, did you ever think that if you spent less time trying to jump into your family’s hoofsteps, you might be less of a disappointment to them?” she drawled, not noticing that her friend had taken all her pans off the heat.
“Sorry, Di, I missed that, could you say it again?”
“I said--YEOWCH!”
“Mmn?”
Diamond Tiara whirled, dizzy with anger, clutching the spot on her flank where Silver Spoon had smacked her with a dirty spatula. Before she could say a single word, Silver Spoon pressed a hard kiss to her lips. She reared back, sputtering.
“You--you hit me!” Her eyes shone with tears. “It hurt! And you got your dumb lentil stew on my flank!”
Silver Spoon nonchalantly examined her spatula, cradling it in a hoof, the cord slipped around her fetlock. “Yes, I suppose I did,” she said, each syllable slow and careful as it slipped from her lips. “More importantly, you forced me to get dal on my hoof. Lick it clean for me.”
Diamond’s ears were pinned back, her teeth bared. “What?! You think I’m going to--to just stand here and do that after you j-just--”
“Of course you’re not going to just stand there. You’re going to crawl on your belly to lick my hoof.”
“I’ll n--”
Silver Spoon raised the spatula and Diamond Tiara fell to her haunches, an undignified squeak leaving her mouth.
Diamond Tiara swallowed, her anger suddenly gone. “S-silvy, you can’t--”
“I’m not asking a second time.” Her eyes were cold and impassive. “On the floor, please.”
Slowly, Diamond Tiara sunk downwards, until her chest and belly rested on the wooden floor. Her teeth were gritted, and she couldn’t stop her bottom lip from quivering. A grey hoof extended towards her, a dab of yellow dal on the polished toe.
Diamond Tiara looked up at her friend with a mixture of humiliation and loathing as she stuck her tongue out and licked the hoof.
After a few cautious licks the food was gone and the hoof was shiny with spit, but she dared not move.
Silver Spoon looked down at her indifferently. “Hmn. Passable. Do the sole, now.”
Stifling a whine, Diamond Tiara went to work, licking the hard skin of the hoof frog. Her friend was meticulously clean, far cleaner than most--she felt a mixture of cold shudders and guilty heat at the thought of having to clean Apple Bloom’s hooves so--but it had still been more than an hour since her last shower, and her hoof tasted of dirt, sweat, and well, hooves. She licked more vigorously, hoping for some coo or sigh of pleasure from her friend, but Silver Spoon did nothing so undignified. The indignity was all hers, today.
“More. Slobber on it, mon petit porcelet nouveau-riche.”
Diamond Tiara didn’t hold back her whine as she licked with renewed energy, drooling and kissing and lapping at the rough skin. Silver Spoon moved her hoof constantly, forcing Diamond to crane her neck and crawl forward to continue servicing her. The grey mare also took vindictive pleasure in prodding her hoof forward, jabbing her friend’s lips, nose, and cheeks and smearing drool across her face. With a perverse sense of satisfaction, Diamond Tiara noticed that there was now a truly excited gleam in her friend’s eye.
“Stop.”
Before she even had time to withdraw her tongue, Diamond Tiara found herself pushed onto her back, looking up at the kitchen ceiling. Her view was obscured as Silver Spoon stepped over her, hind hooves either side of her head, haunches squarely above her face. The braided tail twitched, and Diamond caught a glimpse of pink.
Silver Spoon dropped her haunches, her slit now inches from her friend’s face. “Now, you can eat up like a good little filly, or you can go to your room without any dinner. The choice is yours, Diamond Tiara.”
Diamond Tiara lifted her head and licked. This time, she heard a coo of pleasure. Her friend shifted above her, and everything went dark. Silver Spoon was sitting on her face, thighs clenched hard around the sides of her head, tail swishing against her mane. All that Diamond Tiara could smell or taste was sweat and musk.
She poured herself into the task, lapping and sucking at her friend’s pussy, desperate to taste it. It was slick and honeyish, almost overpoweringly musky--no surprise with the amount of garlic that Silver Spoon ate--and every lick brought more wetness. Diamond tried to reach her hooves up to caress her friend’s teats, but they were slapped down.
“Tongue only, slut,” purred her friend.
Diamond increased her efforts, now purely focused on pleasing her Silvy. This felt like a rare treat. Even on the weekends that Diamond Tiara was able to visit, Silver Spoon loved to tease, and rarely let her indulge like this. Each moment she sat there, grinding her rump into Diamond’s face, felt like a strange mixture of validation and a coy promise of more to come.
She stopped for a moment to rest her tongue, planting soft kisses on her friend’s inner thighs while she did. A subtle scent hit her--perfume. The smell of perfume had been notably absent when she had been nudging, nuzzling, and practically draping herself over her friend earlier. There was only the scent of jasmine here. Silver Spoon must have spritzed her inner thighs, as if she’d planned this. All for her.
Diamond Tiara’s chest felt oddly fluttery.
After she resumed her oral attentions, Silver Spoon trailed a hoof down her neckline. “I think you’ve earned a small reward...”
The grey mare leaned to the side and opened a kitchen drawer, her friend’s tongue never leaving her pussy. She rooted around the drawer for a few moments, before pulling out a cylinder of acrylic plastic, rose-pink and slender. She took it in her hooves and rubbed the tip against Diamond Tiara’s crotch, eliciting a muffled whine. Making a noise between a giggle and a contemptuous snort, she played the length of plastic against her friend’s sex. She was sopping wet. The tool rolled a gentle circle over Diamond Tiara’s clit, and this time she thrust her hips upward, moaning.
“Do you know what this is, Di?”
Any response that Diamond Tiara cared to make was thoroughly muffled.
“It’s a rolling pin, Di,” said Silver Spoon, airily. “I touch you with a rolling pin, and you’re a bitch in heat.” She giggled, self-satisfied. “My, my, there’s something a touch rustic about this, isn’t there? I can almost see Apple Bloom doing this with one of her cousins...”
Diamond Tiara tried to concentrate on her task, her attention torn between the gentle toying at her pussy and the delicious muff in her face. Her breath hitched as the pressure on her pussy increased, and her friend’s weight shifted above her.
She wriggled her head to say something, though she wasn’t sure what. “Silvy, I--”
--two inches of rolling pin slipped inside her--
“--ohfuck!”
Her hind legs kicked and tensed up, twitching erratically even after they had settled. None of the muscles in her face seemed to work, and the only sound she was able to make was an embarrassingly shrill cry, which she promptly silenced by pushing her face up against her friend’s warm, wet sex.
The toy pushed in again, and now she could not help but throw her head back, babbling incoherently. As much as she hated looking like it, she was painfully needy. She couldn’t help the way her entire body turned into a quivering mess at the slightest touch, couldn’t help the way she bucked her hips and begged for more, and for that matter she couldn’t help the way that the tiniest hint of coy indifference from Silver Spoon turned her into a submissive little tail-raiser.
Nothing was possible but sensation. She would open her mouth to lick her friend and it would shift into a stupid moan, her hips rocked and twitched with no rhyme or reason, she couldn’t even stop her tail slashing side to slide, floofing across the floor.
“Poor Di, you just can’t keep up.” Silver Spoon could no longer feel her friend’s tongue on her slit, so she clenched her thighs and began to simply hump her friend’s face while she fucked her. The sensation wasn’t as pleasing as a skilled tongue, but the degrading nature of using her friend’s mouth, lips, and nose as a mere tool to masturbate with increased it’s appeal tenfold. She concentrated on the feeling, grinding harder as she fucked her friend, a full six inches of the rolling pin fucking in-and-out of Diamond Tiara’s cunt with a wet schlick-schlick-schlick soudn.
Silver had almost lost herself before she realized that Diamond Tiara had shifted her head, and was trying to speak.
“You holding up down there, slut?” she asked, trying to hide the concern in her voice.
“S--” Diamond Tiara coughed and cleared her throat, her eyes dazed and unfocused. “Silvy, I’m--I’m close, I’m so close, please go please keep going--”
With that, Silver Spoon dipped her head and nuzzled between her friend’s thighs. After a few gentle kisses, she found Diamond Tiara’s clit and sucked it.
“Fff--fuuuuck!” Diamond Tiara’s hind legs immediately swung up and clamped around Silver Spoon’s head. Even with her ears covered, the grey mare could still hear a torrent of utter obscenities pour from her friend’s lips. She didn’t relent, sucking gently on Diamond’s clit and pumping the rolling pin at a steady, constant pace. The pressure around her head was almost painful, until after a final few bucks, Diamond Tiara went very still.
Slowly, awkwardly, as if waking up from a deep sleep, Diamond Tiara moved. Her legs opened, allowing Silver Spoon to lift her head. The pink mare clumsily pushed her friend off of her.
Silver Spoon stood up, wiped her mouth with her forearm, and looked down at her friend. Diamond Tiara laid on her back, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her makeup smeared from sweat and mare-juices, a dazed, sweaty mess. The plastic rolling pin slid out of her and clacked against the floorboards. Her tail was still twitching.
“Here.” Silver Spoon passed her friend a glass of water, which she drank gratefully, before rising to her haunches. A strange look crossed Diamond Tiara’s face, tiredness, contentment, perhaps... adoration? but it quickly passed, returning to a somewhat dozier version of her usual smirk. She darted forward to kiss Silver Spoon.
“N-not terrible, I guess,” said Diamond, her voice still shaky. “A solid four stars.”
“Mmhm.”
She stood, wobbly, and grabbed her cocktail from the kitchen counter. “Out of ten, of course.” She looked furtively at Silver Spoon. “How was I?”
“Nine.”
Diamond Tiara pumped a hoof in the air. “Still got it!”
“Percent.”
“Bitch!”
Before either could say another word, Silver Spoon kissed Diamond Tiara, on the cheek. It lingered, soft and inviting. Silver Spoon smiled at her friend, not wan or sultry, but definitely knowingly. Diamond Tiara didn’t know what to do with her hooves all of a sudden.
Then, there was a bump.
“Was that you?” asked Diamond Tiara.
Silver Spoon blinked and thought for a moment. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Something must have fell inside the cupboard when I took the pans out to cook. Let me get that...”
She turned, opened the low cupboard, and found it entirely bereft of pans, pots, or other cutlery. Instead, they saw a familiar pair of ponies.
“...Sorry,” said Scootaloo, after removing Pipsqueak from her mouth. “We were, uh, looking for a rolling pin.”
* * *
The chalet’s billiards room was filled with smoke, and redolent of clover and fried mushrooms. A heavy bass from the next room over thrummed through the walls, everypony in there drinking and dancing. Diamond Tiara and Dinky Doo now partook in a far more tense activity.
Her cue resting on her shoulder, and her most charming smile resting on her face, Diamond Tiara spoke. “We can drop the pretenses now, can’t we?”
Dinky mirrored her mannerisms. “Why, Di, I simply have no earthly clue what you’re referring to.”
A soft chuckle. “You’ve been playing a dork who barely knows the rules of pool and doesn’t know the blue end of a cue from the blunt end. You used all the cute little tricks, pretending to fumble your shots, calling the cue a ‘stick,’ and sweating over simple angles like Chowder in a steam bath, but honey, we both know it’s an act. We’ve known it from the start. You’ve played this game for years, you can do the geometry in your sleep, and you’re a dirty, rotten pool shark.”
“You’ve got better at acting,” said Dinky, grinning. “You ain’t just going with whatever lie pops into your head like you used to. Now you’re picking a story and a character and you’re sticking to them. You’re playing a hot-headed, arrogant rich filly who plays like an amateur but thinks she’s a pro. You pretend you’re too drunk and rich to care about the bets you’re making, practically leaving money on the table. As a matter of fact, you act like just the kind of sucker who’d fall mane over tail for ‘gee whiz, what’s this game you call pool,’ con, and hey, it’s a nice act. I like it, I do.” She took a sip of cola, and then said, “But I ain’t gonna insult both of our intelligences and act like I bought it.”
“Ah, Dinky Doo. The mare who buys nothing and sells everything.”
Dinky sneered. “What the hay is that supposed to mean?”
“Absolutely nothing, but it sounded cutting, didn’t it? I’ll have to remember it,” said Diamond, giggling. “Now, as I was saying... why don’t we drop our little charade? Like, given that we’re wagering actual real estate as well as several thousand bits, why don’t we stop the mind games, finish these last five balls, and see who’s best with a nice clean finish?”
“Clean finish? Like how you just swapped that block of cue chalk for a fake?” Dinky picked up the questionable cube, and gave it a cautious lick. “Mmm, compacted blue confectioners sugar. Nice and sticky, right?”
Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes. “Well I’m hardly about to tie my hooves behind my back.”
Dinky took out her own pool chalk and laughed, dusting her cue tip. “Sure, Di, you’re on. Let’s have our fair game. Your turn, right?”
Straddling a corner of the table, Diamond lined up her cue with the white and sent the ball into a yellow at an oblique angle. The yellow careened neatly into a pocket. She stretched her neck and walked around the table, bumping Dinky with her flank as she lined up her next shot. She tapped the white with a fly’s breath less force than she needed, and it pushed the second and last yellow to the edge of the pocket, but didn’t tip it in.
Dinky Doo walked up to the table and potted her first red without a second thought. She looked at the next shot. The black was between the white and her final red, putting her penultimate shot at a perilous angle. If she made the shot, the black would go in easily. If she flubbed it, the game was Diamond’s to lose. She looked at her opponent and smirked.
“You know gambling losses aren’t tax deductible, right?”
“Shut up and play.”
A tremendous bump hit the table from below, sending the four remaining balls straight into the pockets.
“What--”
“--the shit?”
They both dropped down to peer under the table. Pipsqueak peered back, grinning sheepishly. Directly above him, Scootaloo did the same.
“Hehe, sorry,” said Scootaloo. “He’s a real banger with the cue...”