Stella finds a new world full of wonders, what starts as pure research becomes something life changing for her. There are stories with characters dance around each other and finding each other just at the end of the story... this is not one of them.
Stella finds a new world full of wonders, what starts as pure research becomes something life changing for her. There are stories with characters dance around each other and finding each other just at the end of the story... this is not one of them. The focus is on their relationship.
"sex" tag because of all the sexual innuendo, without writing explicitly what they are doing. There is now a mature version if you want explicit sex scenes. For science (mature version)
Picture made by the very talented PriDark (commission)
I'm working with the most impressive machine in the world, but my job is as boring as it can be.
Let me explain...
Three years ago scientists created what seemed impossible, a portal to another point in space. It used lasers and a magnetic field to turn a ring made of graphene and a lot of rare elements into a portal that was five feet in diameter. It's equally astonishing that it only uses as much energy as 1000 houses to bend the laws of space and time. People cheered when they heard this news. The whole universe seemed to be in reach, but it had one critical flaw…
We can't aim it.
When we activate it, the target destination is dependent on wavelength, the direction of the laser and the magnetic field we use. When we change one of these variables, the portal will be at another location in space... anywhere... without any pattern we could use for aiming it. Even when we tried to copy this portal-ring, we found we can’t do that because of the tiniest differences in the composition of the portals-rings. So we are dependent on chance alone, we open it, record what is visible and change the parameters just a little for the next portal. Everything is automated to open a new portal every 5 minutes. Since only 0.000000000000000001% of the universe are planets we calculated a 4% chance to open a portal on the surface of a planet within the next 100 years... and most planets are just an extremely toxic wasteland.
If I worked here for the next 25 years, I had a 99% chance I produced nothing but stacks of boring data. My chances of winning the lottery until then were much better than finding something of interest.
To make matters worse, our government had completed the built of two much larger portals within the last year, 25 feet in diameter, large enough to send heavy machinery through. With these it would be easy to quickly build mining stations and other critical infrastructure. Lots of personal and machines were assigned to these facilities… and they both had their own nuclear reactors since the energy needed to open a portal increased exponentially with a larger diameter. Meanwhile, the government quickly lost interest in our little prototype portal.
My job is to look through all the data the portal generates. The program I wrote tries to calculate positions of the portals by measuring the stars we can see through it. Half of the positions can't be calculated since none of the star formations are known to us, and there are two reasons for that.
One: These positions are so far away from us we could not make out any of them from earth.
Two: They are located in another dimension.
It's sooo boring, nothing other than black space and different arrangements of stars, of course they assigned this task to the youngest female scientist. I had tried to get a transfer to one of the bigger Portal projects but my request had been denied. I had even thought about quitting this job, but my grades hadn't been the best and sitting around wasn't work experience I could put on my resume. On the plus side, I had a LOT of time to read books while waiting and the payment was pretty nice.
In short, I was sitting around in a job that no one expected to bring any results.
I arrived at work shortly after sunrise, I preferred to be early and have a lot of free time in the evening to shop or watch some of my favorite movies and series. I nodded towards the heavily armed guards at the front door, as always they just stood there motionless. The security background check before I was able to start working in this lab had taken more than a month. I walked through the corridors until I reached my lab, I used my key card and the eye-scanner to unlock the door.
I started to look into the data of night 1109. I was greeted with the usual black pictures with stars on it, sometimes at least with a sun in range so there was a bit of color in it, then I opened picture 319.392…
…
I stared at it for a good minute, it could not be, it must be a joke by another scientist... but no one else ever showed interest for what I did.
The picture was dark but showed a forest by night with a moon and stars above it. Could it be that by chance the portal had opened somewhere on earth? It would be great news too, instant transport to this one place on earth from wherever you open the portal? It would make our plans to colonize Mars so much easier.
I ran the star recognition software, but it showed no match. I stood up from my desk and walked around the room. It couldn't be possible, it shouldn't be. I looked through the window into the next room where the portal was located. At this moment it showed some random dark place of the universe. But what if this was true? I sat back on my desk and submitted the parameters for picture 319.392 to the portal. Now I just had to wait for five minutes to change its characteristics. It felt like an eternity while I watched the portal through the window.
Finally, it changed and showed a beautiful day in a forest. I watched in awe while the trees moved in a gentle breeze. I activated the sensors, and they moved through the portal. Normal temperature and air nearly identical to earth, nothing toxic to humans. It took the bacteria and virus checker a few more minutes to show me there wasn't anything dangerous to humans... at least in the air I had analyzed. I checked the data twice and recalibrated every sensor, but the results had been the same. My thoughts ran wild. 'This is a perfect world, it's the discovery of the century. I have to report it immediately so... so what? To give one of my bosses the fame and glory for this finding? They don't care what I do here, they expect me to fail.'
I stood up again and started to pace around the room. 'If I put a bit more research into this, I can publish a paper and will be treated like a real scientist for once. All I would need are some samples and pictures.' I looked through the window at the portal again.
"Screw my bosses, this will be my ticket out of this hole.”, I said in a grim tone. I put the portal on automatic again and waited until it changed, then I left the building to go shopping and order some special things online.
I drove to a nearby store for hiking equipment to get more appropriate clothing for what I was about to do. I spend about 200 dollars for a huge backpack, hiking shoes, and a warm parka.
As soon as I was in my apartment again, I went online to search for a tranquilizer gun like a zookeeper would use, I had to look on some very shady websites and had to pay 500 dollars, but it would be money well spent.
It took two days for the tranquilizer gun to arrive. I was so excited to research a whole new world that it was difficult for me to act like nothing happened. Finally, everything was ready to make the plan happen that I had gone through in my mind so many times.
I packed my backpack with an additional set of clothes, some sandwiches and apples, the tranquilizer gun, my digital camera, some rope, a knife, a flashlight and two dozen of little sample containers. Also, I packed a journal and a few pens to make notes in the easy to reach side pocket of the backpack. My plan was to make my research trip at night when no one was in the building anymore. I had to be sure nobody would touch the machines while I was on the other side or else I would be trapped forever.
I arrived at work while most people had been on lunch break, it minimized the risk of people asking me about my huge backpack. I stored it under my desk and started to work 'as usual' while I was so excited... and a little bit scared. Once the sun set and most of the scientists had been gone already, I locked my lab door and turned off the lights. I waited in the darkness for two more hours while I used my smartphone to make a few more notes of ideas what to search for after I went through the portal.
I looked at my watch; I was sure everyone had left the building, there wasn't a human sound to be heard, only the humming of my computer. I sat on my desk and transferred the required data to the portal. I grabbed my backpack and my coffee mug and entered the next room. I waited for the portal to change, the room was only illuminated by the blue energy that surrounded the portal. Finally, the picture changed and showed the same forest again. I was happy to see it appeared to be day there. No one had ever walked through one of these portals, sure we put machines through it before, to analyze the space behind it. One time we used some mice in tiny capsules to see if it was safe for creatures, none of them seemed to develop any sickness or cancer, but still...
I carefully tossed my coffee mug through it. It flew in a perfect arc and tumbled over the forest floor. Not the most scientific method but it boosted my confidence a bit. I extended my arm towards the portal and put a finger inside; it tickled a bit. I retracted the finger and looked at it... everything seemed to be fine.
Okay, there was no sense in waiting any longer. "It's time to do something stupid.", I said to myself. I closed my eyes and took a huge step forward. This tingling sensation rushed through my body, and I felt the warmth of a sun on my skin. I opened my eyes and looked around. Green lush trees surrounded me from all sides, and the portal floated in the air behind me giving me a look back into the lab.
"So far, so good.", I mumbled to myself. All I needed were a few samples, I could do it all in about an hour and then I would be back to the safety of my lab. I knelt on the ground to get my first sample of this unknown planet. I used my knife to get a little bit of soil with something that looked like grass on it. I stood up again and took some pictures with my digital camera. The sun was half to its highest point. I had decided the best way not to get lost would be to walk straight toward the sun, very carefully I did just that.
While I moved silently through the forest, I took a lot of samples, different plants and leaves. After about fifteen minutes I heard something walking not far away. I dropped myself to the ground and tried to get a tree between me and the source of the sound while I grabbed my tranquilizer gun. As I peeked around the tree, I saw the oddest creature I had ever seen in my life. A four legged creature with yellow fur, and its mane and tail had a pink color. I looked like a small horse... a little kids drawing of a horse.
'An actual animal, this is great. There will be a lot of scientific data I can get from it. Let's hope it responds to the darts the same way creatures on earth do.'
I carefully aimed at its backside and pulled the trigger, since it was pneumatic it nearly wasn't audible. I heard a little shriek.
"Ouch did something just bit me?", said a very tiny voice.
'These things are sentient and talk in my language?!', I thought in absolute shock.
"Ohhh, I feel so sleepy...", it whispered just loud enough for me to hear and laid on the ground.
'Oh no. I have attacked a sentient talking creature on this planet, BIG mistake! What should I do now?' Careful I moved closer to the creature lying on the ground, it was breathing slowly and seemed to be asleep. 'Wings? It's got wings! What are these creatures from Greek mythology called? Pegasus?' I studied its body, it clearly was female. I was surprised how similar it's reproduction parts were to us... or horses on earth, I supposed, I wasn't very familiar with horses.
'If I could reason with the creature I could get a lot of valuable information about this planet. But it could be more dangerous than it looks.' I decided not to take any risks and bound together her set of front and hind legs separately using my rope and tied her wings to her body. After reasoning with myself, I took a tiny sample of her tail. I paced back and forth and thought of things to say once she would wake up.
After a few minutes, as my back was turned towards her, I heard her tiny voice again. "Please don't eat me Mr. Monster."
I turned around and looked at her. She watched me with big pleading eyes. "I won't eat you, and I'm Miss Monster... I mean I'm female... a female human named Stella."
She looked very relieved. "So you're a mare then?", she asked timidly.
"I guess you could say it that way. Do you have a name?" There was a short silent between us.
"My name is Fluttershy... Could you be so kind to please untie me?", she finally asked.
I hesitated. "You don't look dangerous, but this could be misleading, I can't be sure you wouldn't attack and eat me."
"Eat another being? I could never do something like this." Her face was full of horror and very pale.
"Well... but how could I be sure?" I looked to the ground very uncomfortable with this situation.
She showed a little smile. "I never thought somepony could be afraid of me. I know a lot about the creatures living in this woods and other parts of Equestria and I know the features you have to look for to determine if a creature is dangerous. A predator would have some claws to hunt, not these soft hooves I have, and if they don't, they would have sharp teeth to eat flesh. Look at mine and you will see that I am a herbivore, unlike you who...", she trailed off.
I bent down and untied her legs and wings. "I'm sorry... you're right I am an omnivore, but I eat only fish for protein, I would never eat you or another intelligent being." I looked to the ground. "This is all just very new and confusing for me."
She softly stroked my leg. "It's ok. I'm sure you didn't mean any harm."
"How can you be so nice to me after what I did?", I asked her.
She just smiled at me. "Everypony deserves a little kindness. How about we go to my house and talk about what you want here."
"You live in a house?"
She just nodded in reply. I hadn't expected this creature to live in a house... but I hadn't expected it to talk either. I looked up to the sun. It was still much time until noon. "I think that could be nice, thank you, but what will the other horses think when they see me?"
"We are ponies.", she replied. "And don't worry, I live alone, quite a bit away from the village, just me and my animals. Is your foal nearby or do we have to get it first?"
"My foal?", I asked confused. "Why do you think I have a baby?"
"I... I...", her face color started to look like her mane, and she hid her face behind it. Out of this hairy hideout, she quietly said: "Because your udders are so big."
"My udders? You mean...", now my face gained some color. "This size is average for humans, it is B-cup, it is... let us walk to your house and change the subject." She quickly started to walk to the direction she came from when I first saw her.
'I am on a different planet and discussing my breast size with a pony... this part will not be in my journal.' "So... you can fly?", I ask, happy to have enough other topics.
"Yes, but I prefer to walk... I feel safer this way."
I was surprised to hear she could create enough lift with these wings to get her pony body in the sky. "Can you tell me how this area is called?", I ask her.
"You're near Ponyville at the beginning of the Everfree Forest. Please never go into this forest by night... even at day it can be dangerous, but most of the daylight creatures wouldn't attack me."
"Why?", I asked and promised myself to be back long before nightfall.
"I heal them when they are hurt. They know I only want to help them."
"Do you have drawings of these creatures? It would help me a lot."
"Sure.", she answered. "I have a lot of books about animals, they have many drawings inside."
'Wow, they even have writing and books, excellent. There will be a Nobel Prize with my name on it.'
While we walked to her home, I often stopped to take samples of plants. She could always tell me the name of these plants and how they could be used to heal different ailments. She stopped me when I was about to take samples of a blue flower. She told me it had 'magic', so it seems they have some superstitions here. It still was very uncanny for me to see how similar this whole world was to ours, I even saw some squirrels on our way.
Finally, we arrived at her house. I stood before it in awe. It was a real house, next to a small river with lots of birdhouses in front of it. The roof seemed to be overgrown with grass and bushes. Somehow the whole thing managed to look like a part of nature itself. I took out my digital camera and took a picture of it.
"What is this?", Fluttershy ask me.
"Oh, it is a camera, it takes pictures, these are like little drawings.", I turned it around to show her the picture on the display.
"We have cameras too, but they are bigger, and it takes some time to get the picture.", she explained to me.
"Would it be okay if I took a picture and maybe a little movie of you?", I asked her.
She blushed again. "If you really want to that would be okay for me."
I took a few pictures of her while she tried hard not to hide behind her mane.
"Great, now I start recording the movie, just introduce yourself."
"Mhhhh... I am Fluttershy... I tend to the woodland creatures.", she said clearly uncomfortable.
I felt bad for pushing her into this like that, but it would make my evidence of this planet so much better. I walked over to her and showed her the pictures and the movie.
"Oh wow, this is an amazing little box, it looks so real.", she whispered. "But let's go inside." She pushed the door open and I followed her inside. I saw several animals as I entered, a white rabbit, some squirrels, and a couple birds, they all looked very frightened.
"You don't have to be afraid my friends.", Fluttershy calmed them down. "This is a new friend I found in the forest. She won't hurt you."
I was surprised how quick the animals relaxed and calmed down. Somehow I had the feeling I wasn't the only odd creature Fluttershy had brought home before.
"Would you like some tea?", she asked me.
I had planned not to drink or eat anything here since I wasn't sure if it could be harmful to me... but boiling water should kill any bacteria that could be a problem.
"That would be very kind of you, thanks."
I looked around the cottage and found it to be pretty much like a human home, couch, chair, table, cupboards... I had expected their different anatomy would bring different kinds of furniture. I sat down on the couch and tried to relax as much as it was possible in this new environment. While the other animals quickly lost interest in me, the white bunny never stopped watching me.
Fluttershy had put the kettle on the stove and came back to me. "Angel, don't look so mean at her, she is our guest." The bunny looked at Fluttershy for a moment and hopped away. "You have to excuse him.", she continued. "He just wants to look out for me... Maybe you could tell me where you're from and what you want... if that is fine for you."
'Okay, I need her help, if she trusts me things will be easier. I'm an awful liar, so I just tell her the truth, but not all of it.'
"I'm a human female... mare.", I started. "I'm from another planet and opened a 'door' to this world to research it."
"Why do you want to do that?", she asked.
"Just for gaining knowledge.", I answered with my best 'honest' face.
"Aha...", she stood up and poured the boiling water into two cups, I was surprised how she could handle all this with just her hooves.
She brought one of the cups to me, holding onto it with one hoof at its handle... this should not be possible, maybe Van der Waals forces from tiny hairs on her hooves, like a gecko? Her walking with just three legs had a similar confusing effect on me. I took the cup she presented me. "Thank you.", I said and tried not to stare at her while she got her own and sat on the couch next to me. I brought the cup up and blew it to get it to drinking temperature. It smelled quite good, but I couldn't place it anywhere within my known experiences.
"It's my favorite.", she broke me out of my thoughts. "It's a mixture of local herbs and some fruits. I added two sugarcubes, it brings out the taste even more."
'Sugarcubes for a pony.' I smiled thinking about that.
"Do you plan going back to your world soon?", she asked.
I took a sip of tea. It was indeed quite tasty. "I will go back before the night breaks and hope to come back next day again."
"Well, in that case, I could lend you the books, and you could bring them back next time you visit.", she said smiling.
"That would be extremely valuable for my research, thank you."
"This door to your world you mentioned in the Everfree Forest, is it open or closed?", she asked much more serious than she was before.
"It is open, why."
"Because there are creatures in this forest who could do a lot of harm to your world, I would suggest closing it as soon as you can."
Suddenly I began to sweat. I haven't thought about it this way before. I quickly drank my tea. "You're right I will go back to my world immediately and close it. I will use another approach next time to make sure it doesn't stay open."
She pointed to a bookshelf. "You can take them all with you.", she said. "Except the red one, that's my photo album. Would it be okay if I tell my friends about you?"
I quickly packed the books in my backpack. "Maybe we could keep it a secret until next time?", I asked her. I felt okay talking to her but I had no idea if others of her kind would be as understanding and friendly towards me."
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.", I heard her say behind me.
"Wait what?", I was confused.
She giggled in an adorable way. "It is a special promise I do with my friends. I won't tell anyone."
"Thanks again. Maybe next time you could show me your photo album, it would be fascinating for me to know more about your life.", I said while getting ready to leave.
"It would be a pleasure.", she answered while opening the door for me.
I quickly started to jog towards the Everfree Forest while waving goodbye.
...
The sun had just crossed its zenith, quicker than I had expected. As I reached the entrance of the forest where I met Fluttershy, I was able to follow the sun towards the portal. I looked around but didn't see any creatures near me. I quickly stepped through the portal.
Back in my world I only found a few leaves had been blown to this side. I quickly picked them up to leave no evidence. I left the portal room and changed the program back to automatic. As Equestria disappeared I could relax a bit. Strange, according to my watch I had been away for four hours while my clock in the lab showed three hours, it seemed time moved a little faster in Equestria. I quickly left the building and drove home. I had a lot of books to scan and a journal to write.
I woke up from a restless sleep. I had scanned these books for more than three hours but managed to scan every single page. After that, I fell asleep on my desk while writing the journal.
I slowly straightened my body, and tried to ignore the pain from this terrible sleep position. I opened one of Fluttershy's books again, while the drawings had been an incredible source of knowledge, I wasn't able to read the text of them. The letters seemed just strange, like if someone took our alphabet and randomly exchanged the letters for new ones... it felt familiar but unreadable until someone could teach me about it.
I had chosen the best picture I had taken of Fluttershy and printed it out on my photo printer. It would be a nice 'Thank you' gift for Fluttershy's help.
'Nice move. You're giving her glass pearls for her gold.', my conscience was nagging me. I let my head fall back to the desk. It was all for the greater good, things aren't black and white.
'For YOUR greater good.'
I decided this would be a good time for breakfast and chased those thoughts away from me the best I could.
...
When I arrived at work Wednesday morning, I went straight to my boss. I told him I would need the rest of the week off because of a family emergency. Since he did not care for my work at all it wasn't a problem. Then I went to my lab, locked the door and turned off the lights. This one time I was happy for my lab not having any windows. I had thought a lot about a new approach to keep the portal safer from the Equestria side and had a pretty good plan. I sat at my desk and started modifying the automatic program since I had written it myself this was easy.
...
After half an hour I had finished all modifications. Now the program would use the Equestria parameter first and then go back to random. But every 6 hours (which meant 8 hours in Equestria) it would open a portal to Fluttershy's world for just one minute before it would go back to random. I checked the program several times using time skips. I had to be sure it was perfect.
When I finally was satisfied, I started the program and waited in front of the portal to open. As I saw Equestria before me, I stepped through it and once again felt this tingling sensation rush through my body. I looked around, it was near sunset, I had to hurry to get out of these woods. I held my tranquilizer gun just in case and watched the portal close. It was a strange feeling not being able to go back anytime I wanted, it made me feel a bit lost. I began to jog out of the forest as quickly as I was able to while wearing my backpack.
I was relieved when I left the Everfree Forest, and only minutes later Fluttershy's cottage came in sight.
*Knock Knock*
"Fluttershy. It's me, Stella."
She opened the door. "Oh, that's a surprise, I haven't expected you before tomorrow."
"I found a way to make it work sooner and so I can stay without the pressure of going back right away. May I stay the night in your house, I brought my sleeping bag."
She moved aside to let me in. "Any creature is welcome in my house. Come in, and I'll make us some tea again."
I set down my backpack and sorted the books back on their shelf. "Thanks again for letting me borrow these, I brought you a gift in return." I presented her the wrapped picture frame.
She showed the slightest blush on her cheeks. "You don't have to do this. I am always happy to help."
"It's nothing, open it up."
'It really is nothing.'
She opened it ever so delicate, it took about a minute. Her face showed so much joy and gratitude. I will never forget how happy this simple present made her. She drew me in a surprisingly firm hug.
"Oh thank you, thank you, thank you."
"Hey, I told you it's nothing special.", I answered astonished by her sudden outburst of emotion. I patted her back and felt pony fur for the first time. It was incredibly soft.
She suddenly seemed to notice what she was doing and moved back to bring some distance between us. "Sorry for breaking in your personal space."
"Hey, I am happy to see you like it, and the hug felt very nice... how about you showing me your photo album now while we have some tea?"
She nodded happily and prepared the tea for us.
...
"This is my brother, he can be... difficult sometimes but has a good heart.", she explained.
"Wow, he looks so different to you."
"And here is a picture with my new friends.", she pointed at a group picture.
"They do look nice, I'm sure... wait... A UNICORN?!"
Fluttershy shrieked and hid behind her wings.
"Oh I'm so sorry, excuse me for being this loud, it's just... she is a fu... she is a unicorn, I thought you ponies are all pegasi."
She folded her wings back again. "Oh no, we are Earth Ponies, Pegasi and Unicorns. Earth Ponies are strong and have a special connection to the land; they are great farmers. Pegasi can influence the weather and Unicorns can use magic."
I was dumbfounded.
"They can use magic? You're not messing with me, are you?", I asked as I finally was able to talk again.
"My friend Twilight for example..."
A voice from outside interrupted her. "Fluttershy are you home? I have great news!"
I jumped over the couch and laid on the ground behind it, just in time before the door flew open, and I heard someone coming in.
"Oh, Hi Dashie.", I heard Fluttershy say.
"I got Tickets for the Wonderbolts show next week in... why are there tea cups already, how did you know I was coming?", I heard a raspy voice.
"I... I had tea with Henry the bear before. Go on with your story.", she responded.
"Yeah, anyway. I got these tickets for the show next week and thought you could join me for this event and then... what do you want Angel, why are you tugging my leg? What are you pointing to?"
"Rainbow Dash, you shouldn't..."
A light blue pony head with rainbow colored mane peeked over the couch right at me.
"What kind of creature have you found this time?", she asked Fluttershy. She came over to the other side and checked me top to bottom. Her wings extracted. "It has huge udders..."
"Why is everyone saying that? They're quite normal.", I responded.
"And it talks!", she said jumping back a bit in surprise.
"Dashie, meet Stella.", Fluttershy said. "She is a human mare and very friendly."
"Oh, hi.", she said to me, then her focus shifted back to some of my features.
"Why are you all not more surprised about seeing a whole new species you never saw before?", I asked them. "And my eyes are up here."
Rainbow Dash shook her head. "What was the question again?"
"It is not that uncommon here to find a new species. We are used to be surprised by something new.", Fluttershy answered. "Could you come over here for a second Stella?"
I walked over to her, and she leaned close to me. "Dashie has... a thing for... udders.", she whispered to me. "Once I visited her home I found a magazine with lots of... well...", she pointed at my breasts.
"Oh... ", was all I could answer.
I turned around to Rainbow Dash again. Her wings were fully extended and... it seemed like they were throbbing.
"Nice to meet you Rainbow Dash, I'm Stella, sorry for the hiding.", I extended my hand towards her.
"Hi, nice to meet you.", she responded and tried to look at my face while shaking my hand but her gaze always wandered down my body again.
"Rainbow Dash!", Fluttershy shouted, but not very loud. "What kind of behavior is this?"
Her blue face turned red. "Well why does she have to cover them, it's not my fault... in a way."
"What does this suppose to mean? ", I asked and put my hands over my breasts.
"Well since we usually don't wear clothes...", Fluttershy started, her face gaining some color as well. "... to cover private parts can be considered quite ..." she fell silent.
"Sexy, erotic, hot...", Rainbow Dash helped out.
"Thank you Dashie, I think she understood."
I pinched my nose. "You mean she would be less 'influenced' if I were naked?"
"We totally should try this out, and I tell you how it changed.", Dashie said with a lewd smile.
'Is this pony hitting on me?'
"That's enough!", Fluttershy shouted quite loud this time. She took Rainbow Dash's hoof and dragged her out of the room. "You will take a cold shower now!"
I heard her protest, first because of the dragging then after a minute about ice-cold water.
I was alone in the room with a smugly grinning bunny.
As they came back, water was still dripping from Rainbow's wing tips. "I'm sorry, for how I behaved.", she said head hanging down. "I will respect you and won't reduce you to parts of your body."
"And...?", Fluttershy pushed her to go on.
"I will not try to touch your udders... unless you want me to... Ouch!" Fluttershy had kicked her.
I was surprised how much control Fluttershy had on her, I hadn't expected that.
"Thanks a lot for this nice apology, it wasn't a big deal.", I said. "There had been worse situations back in my world... Let's start again. Hi, I'm Stella, a human wo... mare from another world.", I held my hand in front of Rainbow Dash.
She smiled at me. "Hi, I'm Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in Equestria." She took my hand and shook it. I still didn't know how they were able to grab anything.
"Oh, so maybe you can show me some flying then, Fluttershy told me she preferred the ground."
She immediately started to hover just under the ceiling. "Well, that's nothing. It's too bad it is already dark outside, or I would have shown you some cool flying maneuvers. Maybe tomorrow morning?", she asked.
I still was in awe how she was able to keep her body in the air, with very slow wing movements. "I would love to see that.", I finally answered.
She landed on the smaller armchair to my right. "So tell us something about your world."
I took my cup again and sipped on my tea while I thought about what to say. Meanwhile, Fluttershy brought another one for her friend.
"Well, there are billions of us on our planet. We... ", I started.
"What is this number?", Rainbow interrupted me.
"What is the biggest number you use here?"
"Thousand.", she answered.
"Okay, we can work with that. Imagine a place where 1000 ponies live. Do you have one?"
They looked at each other. "Canterlot, I guess.", Dash suggested, and Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
I continued: "So imagine we put Canterlot and all its ponies one thousand times on a huge piece of land."
Their eyes widened in surprise. Rainbow was about to say something, but I cut her off. "And now we take this piece of land with all its ponies and put it one thousand times on the world. And there you have one billion ponies, but we have 7.5 times even that."
They both sat before me, their mouths wide open. To my surprise, Fluttershy was the first able to speak again. "But... but this can't be true, how are you able to feed them all?"
This question killed my mood. "Well... we take everything from our world we can and still there is a huge part of us living in hunger."
"Well, I think we should talk about something less depressing.", Rainbow tried to quickly change the topic as she saw Fluttershy was on the brink of crying.
So for the next half hour, I talked about the inventions we had made, phones, television, the internet, planes... I even showed them my smartphone, although without the internet it was very limited in its use. We laughed when Rainbow tried to use it with her hoof and wasn't able to make it do anything.
This brought the focus to my fingers. "They are so thin. They must break all the time...", a comment from Dash of course, which made me poke her ribs with my finger. It turned out she was quite ticklish, and I got her into a fit of laughter in no time. But I stopped very quickly since one of her flailing hooves nearly hit my jaw. We had a lot of fun, and I almost forgot I was talking to ponies on another planet.
Then it was their turn to tell me about Equestria. Rainbow told me about her controlling the weather, while Fluttershy gave me more information about their other friends. I found it to be a bit frustrating that many questions had one answer: "Magic" "How can you walk on clouds? How do you lift heavy objects? The sun does not move on its own?"
"If you have questions about magic you should talk to Twilight.", Rainbow told me while she yawned. "It's getting pretty late. I think I fly home now. See you in the morning to show you my amazing moves.", she winked at me and flew out of the door.
I looked after her. "She is quite nice when she is 'normal'."
"She looked out for me ever since flight school and had always been there when I needed her.", Fluttershy answered with a warm smile. She nearly seemed to glow from the inside when she talked about her that way.
"Well then, I'll eat one of my sandwiches and after that make myself ready for the night.", I announced while I yawned.
"The bathroom is upstairs, first door on the right. Make yourself at home."
...
When I entered her bathroom, I once again was surprised how similar everything looked and worked. You really would expect a toilet for ponies to be fundamentally different, not that I wasn't grateful for it to be the same.
The kind soul she is, Fluttershy offered me her bed, but I declined that of course... and I guess it would have been to small anyway.
I snuggled into my sleeping bag after I looked around one last time. This world was so similar but so different at the same time.
I woke up to the sound of birds singing a happy tune. I looked around and saw Fluttershy feeding them some seeds and chatting with them. The strange thing about it was how she spoke to them. It seemed like they had an actual conversation but I only understood one side of it. "Good morning Fluttershy.", I whispered since I was afraid to frighten the birds away from her.
She looked back at me. "Oh, I hope my little friends haven't woke you from your slumber."
"I can't think of a more lovely way to wake up then to their sweet little song.", I truthfully replied. "Excuse me if this question sounds odd... but can you understand them?"
"Oh yes.", she answered smiling. "It's part of my special talent to understand the animals. That is what my cutie mark stands for.", she pointed to her rear.
"You mean these butterflies on your...", I searched for the right word.
"Flank.", she helped me out. "Yes, when a pony discovers it's special talent that makes it different from other ponies, a cutie mark appears on their flank."
"It just appears? There is no painting involved?", I asked.
"It just appears, but it is a pretty magical moment."
"Of course it is." I rubbed my temples. "All things seem to be connected to magic here, I really should talk to... Twilight?"
"Yes, Twilight Sparkle. Her special talent is magic. I doubt there are many other ponies in Equestria who know as much about magic."
"Do you think she would meet me here?", I asked. "I don't believe it would be a good idea for me just to walk into Ponyville."
"I'm sure she will be more than happy to, she never lets a possibility to learn something pass. When Dashie is here, she can fly to her and ask."
"Hey slowpokes! Come outside!", we heard a familiar raspy voice.
Fluttershy giggled adorably. "Of course she would be right on cue."
We went outside into the warm morning light. I saw Rainbow circle the sky impatiently.
"There you are!", she shouted and zipped down to my eye level. "Are you ready to be blown away by the most awesome tricks you have ever seen?"
"Sure, I am curious to see what you can do.", I replied to her and really meant it.
She showed the biggest smirk I had ever seen and took off in the sky again.
"Come down and lie in the grass with me.", Fluttershy said from below, laying on her back watching the sky. "This is the best way to watch it."
I did like she said and laid next to her, while Rainbow gained more height. When she was sure we focused on her, she started her program. She went straight into a fast dive towards us and pulled up incredibly sharp only 10 feet above us, a gust of wind pressed us down in the grass. Next, she did loops and screws in quick sequences. She did flight maneuvers the craziest airshow pilot would get sick from. She had incredible stamina, the whole thing went on for ten minutes.
"She loves this so much.", I heard Fluttershy say. "To see her happy like this means so much to me."
I looked at her, she had happy tears in her eyes.
She pointed upwards. "Watch out, now comes the grand finale. It's a move she only perfected weeks ago."
I focused on the sky again and searched for Rainbow, she had reached incredible heights and was only a moving dot in the sky. But she seemed to loose height incredibly fast. "Is she in trouble?", I asked worried.
"Everything is fine, keep on looking."
Faster and faster she fell, so much I started to worry again. Suddenly there was a loud noise and rainbow colored rings began to expand from the position she was just before. I watched in awe as they got bigger and bigger. I heard Dash land right next to me, breathing heavy. I could not avert my eyes from the beauty above me.
"So... what do you... say?", she asked out of breath.
I looked at her. "Incredible and beautiful. I can't believe what you did up there."
She laid down next to us. Her sweat smelled somewhat spicy but not unpleasant.
"Told you I would blow you away.", she grinned.
"If I hadn't seen you do it, I would have expected your wings to break from at least half the maneuvers. What was this thing at the end?"
"It's the 'sonic rainboom', my signature move, I'm the only one fast enough to do it."
We just laid in the grass for a while. We watched the sky and Rainbow Dash explained to me several of her maneuvers and what she had to be aware of while doing them.
"Rainbow, would you ask Twilight Sparkle if she would meet me here?", I asked her after a while.
She spread her wings. "Sure, I'll tell her and do my weather duties afterwards, so bye for now." She took off and was gone in no time.
"I'm leaving as well. I have to feed some animals.", Fluttershy announced quietly.
"Do you need help doing it?"
"No, I'm fine.", she said. "Just wait here for Twilight."
So I laid back in the grass and closed my eyes. I enjoyed the warm sun on my body and the singing of the birds while I waited.
I guess I had dozed off in the warm sun. As I opened my eyes again, a purple unicorn was studying my appearance.
"Wow, you have really... ", she began.
"Huge udders? Yes, I know.", I said a bit annoyed and got into a sitting position.
"... beautiful eyes, small but beauti... wait what?", she finished confused.
"Oh sorry, I didn't mean it like that.", I tried to justify myself very embarrassed. "It's just... a lot of times..."
"Rainbow Dash?", she asked.
I just nodded.
"Well I can see that they are quite big compared to us, but I have no frame of reference for your kind.", she said in a surprisingly analytical way.
Silence between us...
"Anyway... Hi, I'm Twilight Sparkle.", she offered me her hoof.
I shook it, happy to have a way out of that situation. "I heard you are an expert in magic."
"Well, I know a few spells and learned about it since I was little.", she seemed a bit flattered. "But there is still so much I don't know."
She sat down in the Grass before me. "You seem to be a fascinating and intelligent creature. Rainbow was gushing about you. I heard you want information about our world... I would give you all the information you want, in exchange you will tell me everything about you and your kind. Does that sound fair to you?", she looked at me, head crooked to the side and smiling.
This offer made my mission so much easier. "Yes, I gladly accept."
"Of course I have to inform Princess Celestia first to get her approval, but I am sure she will love the idea."
I was pretty sure I remembered that name... "The pony who controls the SUN?"
"You already heard of her, great. Don't worry, she is really nice, she wouldn't hurt anyone."
A pony who moved a f***ing celestial body, I wasn't ok with someone having this much power meeting me.
I guess my feelings had been very visible. Twilight laid a hoof on my hand. "I promise you, she won't hurt you. The worst outcome I could imagine is her ordering you to leave this world. But I think she will be curious about your kind too."
To my surprise, she was able to calm me down. I took a few breaths...
"I'm quite curious.", she said. "How did you manage to come to this world?"
"We were able to create a portal so we could connect with any point in the universe... or in any other dimension too, we are not sure about that yet."
"What kind of spell did you use to make that happen?", she asked, and somehow a notepad and quill appeared, levitating next to her.
"None, we don't have magic in our world."
Notepad and quill dropped to the ground. "How can it be possible to create a portal without any magic? That's impossible!" She looked at me as if I was insane.
"Magic is equally impossible in my world, so we had to be very creative with building machines instead. It's extremely complicated. I think we should talk about something else until you know the basics of it."
"Right, there is so much else we can learn from each other... Say goodbye to Fluttershy. I live inside a library, we can do so much more there. You can stay in the guest room."
Well, it made sense, but I didn't like how she just decided without asking me. Since she promised me huge amounts of knowledge, I decided to let it slide.
I searched for Fluttershy and found her on the other side of her house feeding squirrels. I decided just to wait until she finished, I didn't want to scare her or the squirrels.
When she finally turned around to walk back to her house, she spotted me and smiled. "How did your talk with Twilight go?", she asked while she came closer.
"Quite good, she invited me to the library to learn and said I could stay in her guest room."
"Oh... that's nice.", she said a bit gloomy.
"What is it?", I asked as I noticed her change in mood.
She looked to the ground. "It was quite nice to have somepony around the house to talk to, aside from my animals."
I went down on my knee to look directly in her face. "Well, I was going to visit you on my ways to the portal anyway, if this is okay for you."
"Of course, that would make me very happy.", she already started to smile again.
"But you should consider inviting Rainbow to a slumber party now and again. You could have just as much fun as we three had together.", I told her and brushed a strand of hair out of her face.
"It would be far too boring for Dashie to spend her time with me...", she whispered.
"That's not true, you are very interesting and funny, plus I'm sure Dashie isn't hyper all the time. Please invite her, okay."
She giggled. "You wouldn't call Dashie hyper if you had met Pinkie Pie yet."
I tried to remember the pictures she had shown me. "The pink one with the puffy hair? Into parties?"
She nodded. "Well, I will try to ask Dashie, maybe she is interested..."
"I'm sure she would love to spend some time with you... and you have at least one thing she is very interested in.", I said and grinned at her.
"What would that...", she started to blush furiously when she understood my innuendo and moved a bit so her udders weren't in plain view for me anymore. Only a few days later after I had met more ponies I realized she had a pretty big pair for a pony.
"Stop that.", she whispered and playfully hit me with her hoof.
I stood up again and waved goodbye to her. "I promise I will visit you soon."
"Bye.", she said smiling.
To my surprise, Twilight was standing next to the cottage looking at us.
"It's interesting you make friends so fast.", she told me when I got near her. "Friendship is an important and powerful thing in this world."
"Back in my world I never had many friends and hadn't been popular in school.", I pondered. "But the ponies I met here so far are so welcoming and lovable, of course I want to be friends with them. But including you, I only met three ponies, so there are clearly not enough data points to verify your theory."
Twilight's face showed pure glee. "You know statistics?!"
I was surprised from this sudden expression of happiness. "Sure, it's part of my training as a scientist."
She jumped around me. "Oh this will be so much fun, all the math we can do together."
She kept on jumping around me while I packed my things and we started to make our way to her library.
We moved towards Ponyville while a happy Twilight was telling me about recent experiments she had conducted.
At some point she suddenly stopped. "I think we are close enough now. I should be able to teleport us the rest of the way."
"You can teleport and even bring me with you?", it was hard for me to believe she could do such a thing.
"I practiced a lot in the last month. You are pretty big, but I think I can do it."
"Is size the limiting factor or mass?", I asked.
"Mass has only little influence. It's the size of the field I have to create around you.", she replied.
"Is this field like an additional skin to my body or is it a cuboid with my maximum height, depth, and width?", I wanted to know.
"It's a cuboid, why?"
I sat down on the ground and brought my limbs as close to my body as possible until I was in fetal position. "Then this should make it a lot easier for you.", I said to her while my head rested on my knees.
"It will make it a lot easier.", I heard the surprise in her voice. "It is so nice to have someone to talk to who understands such concepts and can even make suggestions... Since you haven't teleported before you will feel a little dizzy. I suggest you keep your eyes shut while we transport and a few more seconds afterwards."
I closed my eyes. "Okay, I'm ready."
I heard a slight humming sound, and in an instant everything felt different. Even with my eyes closed I noticed the change in brightness and how the surrounding sound changed. The air had a slight smell of metal like somebody was welding moments before, but soon the smell of old books overpowered it. I was happy for Twilight making me close my eyes, the complete change of everything visible could have been too much for me. I stayed in the fetal position with my eyes closed a bit longer.
"What is this?", I heard somebody say; the voice was hard to describe... it was like a female imitating a male voice.
"Spike, this is Stella, a human, we will learn from each other if Princess Celestia allows it.", Twilight answered.
As the dizziness faded, I slowly opened my eyes and saw another odd creature. "You are... a big lizard?"
"Lizard???", it snorted. "I'm a noble dragon!"
"Well... you are quite... compact in size.", I carefully remarked.
"Spike is still a baby dragon, but he is also my number one assistant.", Twilight explained while she hugged him from behind. "She is from another world Spike. She couldn't know you're a noble dragon."
"I'm sorry Spike.", I apologized. "There are no dragons in my world."
His mood seemed to lighten up again. "Well even in this world I'm not standard for a dragon."
I stood up and put my backpack next to one of the walls. I heard a surprised sound from Spike. I guess he hadn't expected me to be that big.
"Spike. ", Twilight addressed him. "Could you please take a letter for me?"
"Sure, Twilight.", somehow he got a scroll and quill from behind his back; maybe he's got some magic too.
"Dear Princess Celestia, Fluttershy found a...", Twilight suddenly stopped. "We should include Princess Luna too. New letter please." Spike crumpled up the letter and threw it into a wastebasket. Judging by his perfect hit, I guessed he was used to doing this. He produced another scroll from behind his back.
"Dear Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Fluttershy found a visitor from another world in the Everfree Forest. Her name is Stella. She came to us through a portal, so she could learn about our world. She is willing to give us knowledge about her species and world in return. I would like to have your permission for her to stay and to learn from each other. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle."
To my surprise Spike burned the letter using a green breath of fire, the smoke flying out the window. There was a slight smell of sulfur lingering in the air.
"Why would you burn that?", I asked.
"It's a magic flame; the letter will reappear next to Princess Celestia.", Spike explained to me.
"Pyro-teleportation?", I asked confused.
"That's an interesting description for it.", said Twilight. "It's a powerful spell Celestia used on him. You need a lot of magical power to make a spell permanent. Princess Celestia should answer pretty..."
Spike burped a green flame, and another scroll appeared in midair. Twilight instantly used her telekinesis to grab it and levitated it to her. So much magic is used like the most common thing.
"Dear Twilight, that's most interesting news.", Twilight read aloud. "I will wake up Luna, and we will meet you in the library within an hour."
I wasn't looking forward to this meeting, but I trusted in Twilight's judgment about this situation... and it was too late to run anyway.
"Well let me show you the guest room so you can put your stuff there.", Twilight said and led me up some stairs after I grabbed my backpack again. "It's right next to mine." She opened the door to a small but pretty room, the sun shining through a huge window gave it a nice warm tone. I put my stuff next to a small bed. I guessed if I laid in it diagonally it would be nearly big enough.
"Sorry, I never guessed I could have such a big house guest.", she apologized.
"It's fine.", I told her. "You saw before I can make myself pretty small. If it doesn't work for me, I still have my sleeping bag."
There were some rows of books next to one of the walls. Twilight followed my gaze. "We use it as a little storage room when no one is here... so nearly all the time."
I took one of them and opened it, the same strange characters as in Fluttershy's books. "Could you teach me to read these? For some reason we speak alike, but I can't read this."
"Sure, we can start tomorrow... do you think you could bring me some books from your world?", she asked in a hopeful tone.
I took out my journal and opened it. I had made a page containing the times the portal opened, two columns, Equestria and Earth. Twilight peeked inside it. "I can't read your writing either, seems like we have to teach each other."
I looked for a good time to go to my world. Nighttime in the Everfree Forest was out of the question. "I think I could go to my world tomorrow morning and get some books for you, the library in the research center is quite big. I could come back eight hours later, six hours in my world."
"That would be so great.", she let out a squeal of joy. She put a hoof to her mouth. "Sorry.", she said smiling.
"Don't be. It was awfully cute.", I told her while unpacking a few things.
"As if anypony would call me cu... wait, did you just say time moves differently in our worlds?", she asked surprised.
"Eight hours here are six hours in my world."
"That is so fascinating, maybe...", a knock on her front door interrupted her. "I guess the princesses have arrived. We should go downstairs and talk to them."
I followed her downstairs while I was hoping for the best.
I stood in the middle of the room while Twilight walked to the door. I did not expect what happened as she used her magic and opened it.
A pink pony stormed inside with a huge grin on its face. Immediately it started to babble without pause. "Twilight, Twilight, my Pinkie Sense is telling me somepony new and special arrived in Ponyville, this means I will have to do a party and have to be friends and..." She noticed me and hopped over next to me. "Oohhhh, you're big." She jumped up and hugged me firmly, her feet dangling in the air. "You will be my biggest friend ever.", she announced.
Her mane was right in my face. She smelled like a bag of sweets with some cinnamon in it.
"I guess you must be Pinkie Pie.", I said through her pink hair.
"Ahhh, not fair, you already know me, tell me your name, tell me, tell me.", she had turned her head, so instead of her mane now her face was right in front of mine.
I had to remove 'hyper' from the list of adjectives to describe Rainbow, this pony in front of me was hyper. "Hi, 'Miss Candy Breath', my name is Stella. Happy to meet you."
"Oohhhh, we are doing nicknames already? Okay, how about 'Big Cuddle Pillow' or 'Miss Coconut Mane' what do you use to make it smell like this, or maybe..."
"Pinkie, please come down and give her some space.", Twilight interrupted her stream of words.
"But she is so cuddly, have you tried it? She has built in pillows.", she laid her head on my right breast.
Twilight's face color changed pretty sudden. "It's her udders Pinkie. This is the same as if I would lay on your udders."
"I wouldn't mind if you think it's comfortable.", the pink hugger replied.
Twilight covered her face with her hoof. "Of course.", she mumbled.
"I don't mind you liking this position.", I told the pink ball of energy. "You are pretty cuddly too. But the princesses will arrive any moment, and we could look a bit more formal for them if you would let me go."
"Okaaaay.", she said, let go and stood on her hooves again.
"Oh, I think it was an adorable sight.", a new very calm and smooth voice announced. "There is no need to be so formal for our visit."
Through the still open door entered two incredible noble looking ponies. They were much bigger than all ponies I saw so far, the white one was about my size, while the blue was a bit smaller.
Their mane and tail seemed to move in a magical breeze, and both had wings and a large horn as well. I don't think I had seen any living being in my life that matched the word 'royal' as much as they did. I bowed before them and kept this pose, my eyes to the ground. "My greetings dear princesses.", I choose my words carefully. "My name is Stella Mulier. I am a human from earth. I am very pleased to meet you."
"It's a pleasure meeting you too.", I heard her answer to me. "But please rise, as I said there is no need to be this formal, you aren't even one of our subjects... and we don't enjoy it when they do this either."
I straightened again while they both came closer to me.
The white one addressed me again: "My name is Celestia, and this is my sister Luna."
Luna did a short bow of her head. "Pleased to meet you.", she said. I was fascinated by her mane which looked like a galaxy was trapped inside.
"Hi princesses.", I heard Pinkie Pie next to me.
"Hello to you too, Pinkie Pie.", Celestia answered smiling.
"I'm so happy to meet you again Princess Celestia.", Twilight said and received a... well... Wing-hug from Celestia.
"I'm happy to see you too, my dear student.", Celestia said in her soothing voice.
Celestia focused her attention back to me. "It has been quite a while since I could speak to somepony the same size as me.", she said smiling. "Tell me about the portal that brought you here, who else knows about it?"
"No one in my world knows about the portal to Equestria, here I only told Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Twilight. I adjusted it in a way to open every eight hours for just a minute."
They seemed to be pleased with my answer, nodding and whispering for a few seconds.
"Why are you here?", Luna asked me.
"It's the first time I have found a portal to another world. I want to learn about it as much as I can."
"What will you do with this knowledge if you have gathered all you wanted to know?", she continued asking.
I couldn't tell them the truth; it would lead to questions I wasn't prepared to face.
"I go back to earth and search for the next world I can learn about." ... hold eye contact, don't tense up... I hope they are buying it...
They whispered to each other again. "I think we can allow it.", Celestia finally announced. "Has she been introduced to Ponyville yet?"
"No.", Twilight answered. "I teleported her here. I wanted to wait for your decision first before I would introduce her."
"Oh, oh, I have a suggestion for that.", Pinkie told us while she was jumping around next to me.
"Yes Pinkie, a party is a great idea for introducing her.", Twilight said smiling.
Pinkie Pie's smile got so big, I expected it to exceed her face any second. "Igotsomuchtoprepairbye!", shouting this, she disappeared as a pink blur.
"Stella wants to go back to her world tomorrow morning to bring me some books.", Twilight addressed the princesses. "May I come with her?"
"I'm not sure... ", Celestia began.
"No!", I shouted to loud and quick without thinking about it. They all turned towards me.
"I... my world is not as welcoming as yours is. There are heavy armed guards in the research complex I will go to, and they could harm or capture you... it isn't save, and I don't want you to get hurt.", I looked to the ground.
"It's okay.", Twilight said silently. "I was just curious, if you think it is dangerous, I won't do it. But I can come with you to see the portal and get a short glimpse through it?"
I exhaled quite audible. "Of course, I am more than happy to show it to you, but we have to visit Fluttershy before. I promised her to visit when I go to the portal again."
"Gladly."
Celestia cleared her throat. "Well, we are very interested in anything you learn from each other, we are looking forward to your reports Twilight."
Celestia turned to leave the library while Luna's gaze lingered on me for a few more seconds. "We are looking forward seeing you again interesting human.", she turned and left as well.
"This went much better than expected.", I mumbled.
...
Me and Twilight used the rest of the day to talk about everything that came to our minds, our childhood, school, friends, algebra...
As we went to our rooms, we wished each other good night. The full moon made the room easy enough to navigate. I put my sweater and jeans on a chair next to the window and tried to get comfortable in the small bed. I found it was best to have my feet just stick out over the end of the bed. I replayed the events of today in my head. I wasn't happy about the lie I had told, but I was sure they would never had agreed if they knew the truth... and rightfully so. I slowly drifted into troubled dreams.
"You mean this thing, I doubt it can even understand pain like humans do.", he used his knife again.
"AAARGH!!... please help me..."
"Twilight!"
----------------------
"Twilight!", I screamed, fell out of my bed and hit the floor. I was disoriented and still trapped in the shadows of my dream as Twilight stormed into my room. "Stella, what happened.", she asked.
I grabbed her and searched her body for injuries. As I found none, I slowly came back to reality. "You're okay. Thank goodness." I pulled her into a hug. As I started to feel her body heat through my lingerie, I noticed what I was doing. Softly I pushed her a bit away and looked down on my hands. "Sorry..."
"What happened?", she asked. "You screamed my name."
"What is happening here?", I heard Spikes voice from the corridor.
"Everything is fine, go somewhere else Spike.", Twilight shouted through the door.
His steps moved away from us while he angrily said something I could not understand.
"What happened?", she asked me again in a very calm tone and searched my eyes.
"It was just a stupid nightmare...", I tried to explain. "Everything is fine now.", I declared not very convincing.
"You screamed my name. What was it?"
"I can't remember.", I lied.
"Really?"
I looked to her, into her purple eyes. "You didn't listen and came to earth... and horrible things happened to you."
"It was just a dream. I'm fine.", she said.
"Right, I'm sorry.", I took a few deep breaths and looked through the window. "I'm fine now. Maybe we should have breakfast and get ready for our journey to Fluttershy and the portal." I wiped my eyes.
She looked at me for a moment. "Sure, let's do that.", she finally agreed.
I took a new sweater and jeans from my backpack, while Twilight watched very interested. "What?", I asked her.
She winced a bit as she was pulled from her thoughts. "I just thought about how much my friend Rarity will love to learn everything about your style of clothing and how it is fabricated."
"So, I should bring a fashion magazine back with me as well?", I asked.
"Oh, she would be forever grateful if you did something like this. I'm sure she could design you everything that's inside this magazine, she is a very talented designer."
We went downstairs where Spike had prepared oatmeal with fruits for all of us. I had brought a sandwich with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and onions from my backpack. I looked at the oatmeal. "Twilight do you think any of your food could be poisonous to me?"
"I'm not sure, everything you told me about your world was surprisingly similar to Equestria. But there is no way to say for sure. If you want to try it, you could eat your sandwich and at the end try the tiniest amount of the oatmeal. There is a way I could use my magic to... well... make you lose the things you have eaten if we notice negative effects."
"You know a vomit spell?", I asked surprised.
"That's not the official name for it... but yeah."
I decided to try it, if humans were able to eat the food of this world, it would be incredible valuable information as well. I ate my sandwich first and then tried the tiniest bit of oatmeal with fruits. It tasted pretty much as I expected nothing surprising about it. While we chatted the next fifteen minutes I carefully monitored myself, Twilight was tense too.
"Well at least oatmeal with fruits seems to be fine.", I finally declared. "We should make our way to Fluttershy now before we run out of time."
She agreed, so I quickly got my backpack from the guest room and drank a bit from my water bottles on my way back down. Twilight had some saddlebags attached to her. I guessed for her journal to make notes or drawings about the portal.
She teleported us out of Ponyville and from there we walked to Fluttershy's cottage.
"I'm looking forward to being able to read some of the books in your library, in particular the ones about magic.", I told her as we walked next to each other in the morning sun.
"Well, it's the same for me. The thought of being able to read books from another world is like a dream coming true.", she said smiling.
"Maybe I will be able to bring you more than just books.", I tempted her.
She got very excited. "What is it? Please tell me."
"It's a surprise.", I teased. "And it will only work well if I find something in my apartment and I'm not sure it still works. So don't get your hopes up to much."
A few minutes later we arrived at Fluttershy's cottage. I knocked and waited for a response. "Who's there?", I heard Fluttershy's voice from the other side.
"It me, Stella. I'm on my way to the portal and brought Twilight with me."
She opened the door. "It's so good to see you. Please come in.", she stepped aside to let us come in.
"Hi Angel.", I greeted the white bunny who sat on the couch. He just turned his head away and hopped into the next room. "He still isn't much of a fan of me.", I mumbled.
"Angel isn't a fan of anypony except for Fluttershy.", Twilight told me. "This is just typical behavior for him."
"Well he can be a bit jealous...", Fluttershy muttered. "But please take a seat."
While we had her lovely tea, I told her about what I learned so far, and she told us about a sick raccoon she had treated this morning.
"I even tried some oatmeal with fruit this morning, and I didn't explode.", I said.
"Oh no, this could happen?", she said, her face was full of concern for me.
"Sorry, it was just a lame joke. I was afraid the food could be toxic to me, that's all.", I calmed her. "I will be very careful when I try things, and only if Twilight is nearby, because she could probably help when I get in trouble this way."
I looked at my watch. "Oh look at the time, we have to go now to reach the portal in time, thanks for your hospitality Fluttershy." I stood up and gave her a soft hug before we left her home.
...
We reach the spot where the portal would open a few minutes early. Twilight used her magic to levitate something out of her saddle bag, a button and what looked like a little lamp. "You worry that I could get hurt, but so do I.", she said. "The Everfree Forest isn't a safe place, even at day, so I want you to have this." The button floated next to me, and I grabbed it. "It's a simple one-way signal device. For example, parents give these to their foals, so they can push the button when they want to be picked up from their friend's house."
I pushed the button and the part Twilight held in her hoof emitted a flash of light and a *Ding* sound.
"Like this.",Twilight told me. "I want you to push it when you arrive through the portal and want me to pick you up. Then I can teleport here, and after a little walk we can teleport to the library."
"You can teleport all the way to here?", I asked.
"Since I saw this place now and I would teleport alone, yes I could."
"That is a very nice offer from you, but I don't want to interrupt you in whatever you do just to pick me up here.", I held the button in front of her.
"Please be reasonable.", she pushed the button back to me. "I would do this for all of my friends, whatever I would be doing, it can't be more important then to make sure a friend will not be hurt."
"Okay, thanks for your concern.", I put the button into my pocket and looked at my watch. "The portal should open any moment now."
Twilight's quill and journal floated out of her saddlebag. We watched the spot where I remembered the portal to open.
Then suddenly without a sound or anything it just was there like it always had been.
"I didn't expect it to appear like that.", Twilight said. She started to draw the portal itself and what she could see through it.
"See you later.", I said and jumped through the portal. I waved at her from the other side; sound did not pass through the portal.
She was still sketching as the portal switched to the next random location, the standard black space with a lot of stars visible.
I went to the next room and checked the clock on my lab wall, it was noon, just as expected. This came with the additional bonus of the guards changing at noon, so I would wait some more minutes until it was done for sure. This way the new guards wouldn't be curious why I left the building without entering it first.
...
Twenty minutes later, I left my lab and made my way to the entrance when I heard a familiar voice behind me, my boss.
"Miss Mulier, what are you doing here? You have the week off because of a family emergency."
I turned towards him. "Hi Dr. Caput, I am, but I have forgotten some of my keys... so I came back to get them. See you on Monday."
"Okay... Until Monday..."
I quickly turned around again and moved towards the exit.
When I finally sat in my car, I was very relieved. 'That was much to close, I hope he doesn't suspect anything.'
I started the engine and was happy to bring some distance between Dr. Caput and me.
...
I opened the door to my apartment. It looked different... no, it felt different. Everything was at the same place... but somehow it felt cold and lonely. I wasn't joking when I told Twilight I didn't make friends that easy in my world. The few friends I had in school, we didn't stay in touch for long. I had nearly every electronic gimmick you could buy, all the games, drones, and stuff kept me occupied, there was no need for finding friends. How could it be, after a few days in another world I had more friends there than here.
I chased those feelings away. I had a lot to do. I put my backpack down and opened my closet. I pulled out a large box labeled "Electronic Junk". I searched through its content; it should be somewhere inside this box. After a few moments I found what I was looking for, a solar charger I had bought for this one time I had gone camping a few months ago. I put it on my window sill to test if it was still working, it was. Next, I had to download a lot of stuff from YouTube.
After all the downloads had been completed, I went on a shopping spree in a nearby shopping center. I wanted to get my hosts something for their troubles. I still felt warm inside when I remembered how happy Fluttershy had been for my little present.
When I was satisfied with the presents I had found, I went back to my car. I even had brought a little plastic frame trolley to have enough space for many books from the research center's library.
I parked my car two blocks away from the research center and walked to a little coffee shop in sight of the parking lot. While I sat down with coffee and lemon cake, I kept my eyes on my bosses car. I had to be sure he wasn't around this time.
...
I hid behind the menu as Dr. Caput drove by. Finally, I could enter the building. I moved towards the building, carrying my backpack and the trolley. I was relieved to see one of the guards was Steven, it would make things a bit easier, I hoped.
"Hi Miss Mulier, what's with all this stuff today?", he asked me.
"I want to go camping with one of my coworkers this weekend. Maybe I packed a bit much, but better safe than sorry, right.", I used my best smile.
"Well you are in luck, I heard the weather will be beautiful. Put the trolley and the backpack in the metal detector." I had expected that, so I laid them on the conveyor belt to have them scanned. There was no alarm, so I took my stuff, gave Steven a smile and moved towards the library of the center.
...
I found a good mix of basic information books and stuffed them all into my trolley. I was happy for its big wheels because I had packed quite some weight. I made the way to my lab without drawing any attention to me and was very relieved when the door closed behind me. I thought about changing the program, so I wouldn't have to wait, but it was only a 30-minute wait anyway.
...
I stepped out of the portal into the early afternoon sun of Equestria. For a moment I thought about using the button Twilight had given me, but I decided against it. I wanted to visit Fluttershy first, so it wouldn't make much sense to disturb Twilight. As I turned around to pick up my trolley, the portal was already gone. I walked towards Fluttershy's cottage, because of my load it took a bit longer than usual.
...
"Fluttershy, it's Stella again.", I shouted while I knocked on her door.
She opened the door. "Hello again, nice to see you so soon. Come in."
"You have to tell me if I come by to often, I don't want to bother you."
"Oh no. I always have time for my friends.", she told me smiling. "And it makes me happy to see you. You are always welcome here."
The way she told me this in her soft, quiet voice warmed my heart. When she said I was her friend, it wasn't just a word, it came deep down from her heart. This feeling was overwhelming. I was nearly crying, and I didn't know why. 'What is this, why is it so strong?'
"Are you okay?", she asked worried.
'How could she be so nice and giving to anyone? '
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I finally nodded as the feeling faded.
"What has happened to you?", she looked at me concerned.
"I was so very very happy...", I answered.
"But that is a good thing right?"
"It was to much at once... I don't know... I don't know..."
I decided to concentrate on the reason why I came here in the first place.
"Fluttershy, I brought you something from my world.", I said while I got a box from my backpack.
"But you shouldn't do that. I don't need presents."
"It is just a thing I found in a store... the way you reacted after we first met, so kind and forgiving, you changed my stay here in the best possible way. This is nothing compared to what you gave me."
I carefully took out a teapot made of china, it had beautiful flowers along its sides and butterflies next to them.
"This is beautiful.", she said with tears in her eyes. "I love it so much."
"I'm glad to hear that. When I saw it, I knew it was made to be in your home."
Of course Fluttershy wouldn't let me leave her cottage without drinking tea from her new teapot together, I was more than happy to obey her wish.
...
"Fluttershy, I have a favor to ask. Could you accompany me on my way to Ponyville?", I asked her. "Since I haven't been introduced to the ponies yet, I don't want to cause some panic."
"Sure, I wanted to buy some veggies anyway, so I might as well do it today."
So I took all my stuff and we headed towards Ponyville.
...
On our way Fluttershy explained me more about the herbs we saw along our way, I took some samples and made notes in my journal. As Ponyville came in sight I tensed up, but she noticed my discomfort. "It will be all right.", she said. "I am known to be a bit... timid sometimes, so they will know you can't be dangerous if I walk next to you."
"Thanks again for coming with me, it really calms me down."
We finally got close enough for some ponies to notice me, they looked mildly worried, but no running or screaming occurred. I was surprised, even with Fluttershy at my side I had expected some panic.
One of the ponies came close to us, she had a very light yellow coat, her mane was cobalt blue with light fuchsia stripes. I noticed her cutie mark was three candies. "Hi, you must be Stella.", she said, her voice a bit shaky. "I'm Bon Bon. Welcome to Ponyville."
"How do you know who I am?", I asked her surprised.
"Pinkie told us all so no one would be scared at the party. She said: Stella is quite big but very cuddly and nice, she even has two nice..."
"I think I can imagine the rest.", I interrupted her embarrassed. "She told this to everyone in Ponyville?"
"Of course she did.", she said grinning.
"Of course she did...", I moaned. "Anyway... thanks for the friendly welcome and for having the courage to approach me."
She nodded and smiled. "See you at the party tomorrow night.", she said and walked away.
"These ponies surprise me all the time.", I mumbled.
Fluttershy lead me to the library, and after we had said our goodbye, she went on to the market to get her groceries. I entered the library, but no one seemed to be on the ground floor, I guessed Twilight was in her room upstairs. I put down all my stuff and got a little box from my backpack. As I went up the stairs, I could hear the sound of a quill writing on parchment, and I saw her door was open. I put the box in my hand behind my back. As I reached the door to her room, I saw something incredible adorable. She sat in front of her desk writing something, but she was wearing my orange sweater I had laid on the guestrooms chair this morning.
"Hi Twilight, what an interesting fashion choice.",I said smiling.
She was startled and turned to me quickly. "I... I was cold, and it looked very warm... you can have it back right away.", her horn lid up.
"No please, keep it on. You look adorable in it.", I told her, and it was so true.
"You... you think I look adorable?" The magic of her horn faded while her cheeks turned crimson red.
"Of course, you are a magical unicorn wearing my sweater."
She seemed not as pleased with my statement as I had expected.
"Since you haven't used the button, I thought you would be away for another 8 hours.", she told me.
"I visited Fluttershy on my way back to give her another gift I brought from my world.", I explained... for some reason this seemed to darken her mood a bit. "And I brought you a lot of stuff too."
She was instantly excited again. "The BOOKS!", she shouted and started to jump up and down in my orange sweater.
"Yes, and videos... movies... do you have something like this here?", she just nodded in reply. "Okay, videos about the 'history of the automobile', 'famous scientists' and much more."
"What are we waiting for? Show me all this new stuff.", she said and was full of energy.
I held up my hand. "Wait, this was all part of our deal, but I brought you something personal too, for hosting me and being such a great friend."
She fell silent and stood absolutely still as I showed her the little box. "I don't know very much about you yet.", I started. "So I'm not sure if I choose right... I had only your cutie mark and your telescope to base it on..." Why was I so nervous about this simple present?
I opened the little box and revealed a silver necklace; it featured a silver shooting star with a golden tail.
"I love it.", she whispered, and tears filled her eyes. "I love it so much. Could you please put it on me?"
I knelt down and put it around her neck, shifting my head to the side to close the lock. "Got it.", I said as I had closed it and moved my head back again. "It looks beauti... ful...", I looked straight in Twilight's incredible purple eyes. She was so close, I felt her breath on my face, on my lips...
Somehow the distance between us seemed to shrink by itself.
All my senses were concentrated on her alone.
Something was wrong...
"Twilight.", I whispered.
"Yes?", she whispered back.
"Your horn has turned blue."
"Oh please no, not now, that's why I felt cold...", she moaned. Then she started to cough very hard.
My mind cleared up immediately as I worried about her. "What is wrong, is it the necklace?", I tried to take it off, but she shoved my hands aside with her hoofs.
"No, it's not *cough* the necklace. It's magical flu. Something unicorns can get if they *cough* overstrain their magical ability to much. I have trained to much this week. *achoo!*" she had sneezed right at me. "Sorry.", she said with tears in her eyes.
"Is it contagious?", I asked wiping my face.
"No, it only affects the *cough* one who overstrained. I can't use any magic for at least *achoo!* a day.", she laid on the ground.
"What can I do to help?", I asked, worried about her.
"It is pretty *cough* much like the normal flu..."
"So tea, warmth, and soup?", I asked, she just nodded.
I picked her up and held her in my arms.
"Hey...", she weakly protested.
I carried Twilight to her bed. "Good thing you already have my sweater.", I said smiling as I wrapped her blanket around her.
"It's still *cough* cold.", she whispered. "Could you... hold me for a while?", she asked with puppy dog eyes.
I smiled and removed the blanket again. "Lay on your side.", I told her and she instantly did as I said. I laid in her bed next to her, snuggled up from behind and pulled the blanket over us. "Better?", I asked.
"Mmmmhhh... much better.", she whispered.
"Try to sleep a bit.", I told her while I used my hand to brush along her neck.
I must have dozed off. I felt soft fur under my fingertips and smelled Twilight's lovely scent. I couldn't describe her scent with anything I knew; it was one of a kind and I loved it. After lingering in the moment a little longer, I slowly opened my eyes. She was still asleep next to me breathing slowly. She looked so peaceful. I remembered what almost happened before, we almost had kissed. What had I been thinking, we were different species, this should not happen. If this was the case, why did I feel so complete holding her? I knew that feeling because I had felt it before... four years ago when I held Viola. Our souls had been connected... until that day she was taken from me, the day that made it impossible to let anyone ever get close to me again. I felt tears run down my face. Twilight quivered and moaned in her sleep, I knew why... she felt my pain, just like I felt Viola's pain as she died in that car accident. Twilight moved even more uneasy. I had to get away from these thoughts. I drew her even closer to me and whispered in her ear: "Don't worry, I've got you nothing will ever harm you. I'm close by, I'll stay here, through all things I will be near."
She calmed down again. I had not expected to say my wedding vow ever again and really mean it. What would happen to Twilight when I made the existence of Equestria known, and humanity would try to extract everything we could use from this world? How would she react to this betrayal... No way I would do this now. I didn't know if she shared my feelings, but I would do everything for her anyway. I softly kissed her cheek. "I promise to do everything to protect you, whatever it takes...", I whispered and gave in to the warm feeling of unity, I slowly fell into a peaceful slumber holding her tight.
...
I opened my eyes again and saw my reflection in Twilight's eyes. "Hey...", I whispered. "Hey...", she whispered, she was a little hoarse.
"How do you feel? Should I get you something?"
"The coughing and sneezing are gone, but it seems I got a bit hoarse from it. I feel very weak and every single bone hurts. This isn't the first time magical flu happened to me. I tend to overdo my studies. In the drawer of my bedside table is a scented oil, it has a numbing effect on my pains, please get it." I opened the drawer and tried my best just to get the oil out without looking at other stuff inside...
"Now what?", I asked.
"Well if it is okay for you, you could apply it to my body, without my magic I can't reach most spots."
"Sure.", I answered. It felt a little warm in here; I started to sweat a little. She laid on her belly while I opened the bottle. Slowly I massaged the oil into the fur on her neck, front hooves and her back. I was surprised how many firm muscles were hidden underneath her fur.
"Mmmhhh... that feels so nice.", she groaned. "Your fingers are so much better for this than hooves, I wouldn't mind if you could do this forever."
I hesitated after I finished her upper body.
"Please go on, just don't get oil on my tail, it's hard to get out."
Carefully I worked my way down her flanks. The sight and feel of massaging them, had much more effect on me than I had expected, her occasional groaning did the rest. 'Wow, aside from being connected to her, I think she has a hot body.' The way her oiled butt glistened in the light was truly a sight to behold. It was hard for me to avert my eyes, I had to talk to her to distract myself. "I think we should talk about something.", I started.
"About what?", she asked very relaxed.
"You know, when I visited Fluttershy before, she told me that I am a friend of her and a huge warm happiness washed over my mind. The feeling of her friendship towards me was nearly to much for me."
"I told you before that friendship is very powerful here. Maybe you aren't used to it being this strong, and you have to get accustomed to it. I defeated a villain who wanted to bring eternal night to Equestria using friendship as a weapon against her."
"Now you're just playing with me..."
She sat in front of me. "No, it's true, I promise. It was Luna who was jealous of her sister."
"The Princess Luna I had met? An evil villain? Wow..."
She told me the whole story of the two sisters and Luna's slow decent until she became Nightmare Moon and how they defeated her as she came back after a thousand years.
"Wow, you and your friends are heroes." I was quite surprised and impressed by what they had done.
"Yeah, I am a hero who can't lift her hoof at the moment.", she said and chuckled.
"No, I mean it, it's incredible what you have done."
She blushed and looked very embarrassed. "Okay, enough already..."
I searched for another topic. "Fluttershy also accompanied me on my way to Ponyville, to prevent a panic when I just show up here. It turns out Pinkie already told everyone... or everypony about me. She told them I'm big, but very cuddly and nice, and of course that I got two soft and big udders."
"Well she isn't wrong.", I think I heard her whisper.
"Sorry, come again."
She blushed. "I said: Of course she did."
"I get down and make some tea for us, okay?", she just nodded. "Is Spike down there to show me where things are?"
"I believe he is helping Rarity to find jewels.", she said.
"Sounds like another thing you have to explain to me later. If I can't find anything I just come back to you and ask.", I turned to leave the room.
"Stella...", I heard Twilight say.
I looked at her. "Yeah?"
"Thanks for caring for me.", she said, and I felt some love inside her.
We spent the rest of the day in bed next to each other, watching documentaries on my phone. Nearly every information in these got Twilight to ask at least one question, and I did my best to answer them. She was sad she couldn't use her magic to take down notes, but I promised her we could watch all of these as much and often as she wanted. When the battery on my smartphone finally died, we taught each other how to read our different languages. It was quite remarkable since we spoke alike, it was just different characters. For example, their 'A' looked like a 'G' turned on it's back. For this reason we made significant progress and were able to read simple sentences within hours.
I looked out of the window and saw it was already dark outside. Twilight promised me to explain the night sky, but my growling stomach reminded us to eat something before. I got myself some apples from my backpack and made her a fruit salad from what I found in her kitchen.
"You have to meet Applejack and Rarity once I feel better.", she said mouth half full. I looked at her with a huge smile. I was amazed what amounts of food she was able to shovel into her mouth using her hoof and a large spoon. "What? I'm always hungry when I'm sick, all this knowledge and learning made me ignore my hunger, but I need energy to get well again."
'How is she able to look cute while eating like a pig?', I thought to myself. "I can't wait to meet them. All ponies have been fascinating characters so far.", I said after I had finished the last of my apples.
After she finally finished her eating frenzy, she pointed me to some additional blankets and pillows, which I used to make a comfortable makeshift bed on the balcony.
"Could you carry me?", she asked and used her puppy eyes again.
"You know it's not fair to use that look.", I said.
"That's what my dad always said too.", she giggled.
"You're lucky I wanted to carry you anyway.", I told her smiling while I picked her up. I still was amazed how light she was. Maybe it was the reason to the pegasi ability to fly, and all ponies only weight a fraction of what they should. I carefully put her down on the blankets and laid next to her, watching the night sky. She lectured me about the different kinds of stars, the ones that were real stars fixed in position and the ones Princess Luna just put up for decoration.
"I think I brought a book about our night sky.", I said. "We can look into it later."
"That's an excellent idea.", she answered. "I love stars and their constellations so much." she played with the shooting star necklace using her hoof. "You know... I have to write friendship lessons to Princess Celestia, about the things I learned about friendship..."
"That does sound interesting.", I answered while still looking at the sky.
"Yeah... you know, one of it was how important it is to tell your friends the truth, even when you think it could be bad, a friend will understand."
'She knows I lied about my reasons to come to this world.', I thought and looked to the ground. 'I should tell her the truth.'
I heard Twilight breathing hard. 'I should really...'
"I fancy you."
'...go ahead and just...'
"Wait, what?", I asked surprised.
She rambled on: "I know it is stupid and we are so different, but we feel similar in other ways. Of course you said I'm cute, but by pony standards I not cute or pretty, and I must be so alien to you there is no way you could ever... mmmhhhh."
I had blocked her stream of words by softly kissing her lips. They still tasted like the fruit salad she had. I felt like flying and at the same time an incredible warmth flowed through my body. She had closed her eyes, and her cheeks looked red like they were burning. Once we broke the kiss her eyes opened again, and her eyelids fluttered for a moment.
"That was unexpected... ", she finally said. "I never imagined a kiss to feel this good."
"Well... we cheated a bit by using a positive feedback loop.", I said smiling. "But most importantly, you are cute, pretty, sexy, smart and I love you too." I kissed her muzzle.
She blushed again, and I felt an enormous wave of happiness emitting from her. "Positive feedback loop? What is it?"
"I want you to know the truth of all. I don't want any secrets between us.", I started. "I lied to you and the princesses when I said I just wanted to learn. I had a boring job in my world, as I found this world I was hoping to get famous for finding it and to be treated like a real scientist. I knew very well humanity would take all resources from this world, we would be able to and there would be nothing you ponies could do about it... my kind has terrible weapons and we don't hesitate to use them." I saw Twilight tried to get more distance between us. "But when I got to know you and your friends, I couldn't stand the thought of someone hurting them, someone hurting you."
"The nightmare...", she whispered.
"Yes, my guilt tortured me, showed me what could happen to you. I would never let anything harm you. I will go back to the portal and seal it in a way it will never open in this world again."
"So you could never come back to me?", she asked tears forming in her eyes. "We just have met, and I don't want you to go!"
"No please don't cry Twilight. You have misunderstood what I was saying.", I used my fingers to wipe away her tears. "I will seal it in a way that allows me to use it one last time to come here to you."
"But you will be trapped here. You will never see your world again."
"I will be with you. That is all I want right now." I pulled her into a hug.
"But what if you miss your world in the future, I would be the reason you can't ever see it again... what if you hate me for it?"
I pushed her back just enough so she could look me straight in my eyes. "I could never hate you Twilight. Your whole world is at stake here. I could not live knowing I ruined an entire world full of sentient creatures. Even if you did not exist, I still would seal the portal."
"Don't you think our species could be friends and learn from each other, like we two do?", she asked me.
"It's not like all humans are monsters.", I replied. "There are a lot of nice people in our world... but the onces who are in control of the portal, the military... We had some meetings with them at the beginning of the project. Someone asked about what would happen if we found a planet to mine and it had intelligent life on it."
I paused and didn't know how to tell it.
"What was their answer?", she asked after a while.
I sighed and told her straight away. "If they are more advanced than us, we must behave friendly and learn from them... if they aren't... We can't have such things come in our way, we're talking about mining a whole planet, it will be an enormous advantage for our country. No one except us will go over at the beginning, so no one will ever know if they have vanished."
Twilight looked at me in horror.
"How... could they...", she stuttered.
I just held her tight for a few minutes, neither of us said a thing.
...
After about fifteen minutes she had calmed down again.
"That is a lot to take in...", she said. "What about the positive feedback loop?"
"Okay, I know our souls are connected and me telling you about it will not only bring positive emotions to you. But don't be scared, I will be right by your side."
She looked at me confused. "I don't understand what you are trying to say? Connected souls?"
"Year's back I was together with someone, Viola.", I started and looked to the ground. "I could sometimes feel what she felt, no matter where she was, at least very strong feelings. We had this connection, we were made for each other, I felt whole when she was near. When I am close to you, I feel the same... Then one day, she died in an accident, I felt her pain and started crying and screaming while I was at work. People thought I had gone insane." I cried while all this pain and grief washed over me again. I looked to Twilight. Her face was contorted with pain. "I'm so sorry.", I apologized and chased away these grim thoughts.
Twilight relaxed again. "So much sorrow...", she said. "I felt it."
She hugged me and I stroked her mane. "I'm so sorry for this.", I repeated. "The connection seems to be much stronger in this world. Because this connection shares all kinds of feelings, not only negative ones we experienced a positive feedback loop as we kissed. You feel my love and happiness which makes you happier. I feel you getting happier which makes me even happier... and so on, of course only up to a certain level."
"So our positive emotions are amplified while we are sharing them?"
"That is correct."
"Well it is a theory.", she stated. "We would need much more data to verify it.", she had the biggest grin on her face.
"Ohhhh, so you would like to gather some data?", I asked as serious as I could while looking at her.
"Well, one data point can't be enough, we have to produce more.", she said and shortened the distance between us.
"Let's go for one hundred as a start.", I whispered to her.
We started to kiss again while our hearts melted and became one.
I felt lips on mine. "Gathering data again?", I asked in between the kisses while I inhaled Twilight's scent. I was in my lingerie and felt her fur tickling my belly.
"We can never have enough data for this.", she said with a sexy growl.
I noticed the sun was already up. This had been my best night of sleep ever. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled around to have her pinned beneath me. "Looks like someone's horn got it's original color back.", I said and started to kiss her neck, while I used my fingers to play with her ear. I knew this combination would drive her crazy, one of the things I had found out in the hour of 'research' we had last night.
"Mmmmhhhh, you know I could use my magic anytime to get you under control.", she said already breathing heavy.
"As if you would want me to stop...", I laughed in between kisses. Her feelings of lust and love washing over me got me pretty much in the same state she was. It was crazy what we were able to do just by kissing each other, the connection was much stronger here than in my world, it should get insane once we would go beyond just kisses. "That has been a very fast recovery, from what you told me I would have expected it to take much longer."
"I'm sure I have to thank my beautiful nurse for this recovery.", she said and kissed my forehead.
"So does that mean we get out of our nice makeshift bed?", I asked her.
"Well, we should eat something, I used a lot of energy 'experimenting'."
"What about the others? Do you want everyone to know we're together?"
"Of course, I can't wait for them to know I have this sexy marefriend.", she slapped my butt.
"Wow, rough Twilight is new to me.", I said smiling.
"Rough Twilight wants you naked next time.", she said in the deepest voice she could produce.
We laughed at this.
"I can show you everything right now if you are curious... ", I offered her and brought my hands up to my bra.
She stopped me using her magic. "No, not just like this. I want to explore these hidden treasures on my own next time."
"You're welcome to do this.", I kissed her. "But I will conquer every part of your body in return. You will be amazed what my fingers can do." I showed a lewd grin that made her body shiver.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes to get her concentration back. "Let's get something to eat while I still have the willpower to get out of bed. I want to introduce you to Applejack and Rarity."
I dressed again... I really needed additional clothing. I should ask Rarity about doing some basic skirts and shirts for me, from what Twilight told me it should be easy for her to do.
Twilight pulled me out of my thoughts. "Maybe we will be careful around Spike... he is still pretty young, I would like to slowly introduce him to the idea of us being together."
"As you wish."
We went down the stairs and found Spike had already prepared breakfast, a pile of pancakes stood in the middle of the table and a mug of syrup was right next to them. He was standing near the stove still making more. I knew all that was left in my backpack was one apple, not nearly enough after that night. "Wow Spike, that does look delicious. Okay Twilight, keep the spell ready, I can't pass on these pancakes."
"You can dig in.", said Spike. "I will be ready in a minute.".
We sat next to each other, both of us putting three large pancakes on our plate and added syrup.
We both started eating. Once I finished my first one, Spike came over with some more and started his breakfast too.
"Spike these are delicious.", I praised him. "You are a great cook."
"Thanks, practice makes perfect, it is one of Twilight's favorite meals."
...
I had just finished my third pancake as Spike asked: "Are you going to be like this every night now?"
Twilight wasn't so lucky. She had her mouth full of pancake, she choked on it and had to run to spat it into the sink.
"What do you mean?", I asked him with my best poker face... which still wasn't good.
"Come on. I like it cool at night, so I always sleep with the window open. You had been on the balcony, and I would not be surprised if half of Ponyville heard Twilight."
"Spike!", Twilight called from the sink, where she tried to clean herself.
"Well, he has a point. You can get pretty loud sometimes.", I admitted.
"Stella!"
"There is no point in denying it anymore.", I replied. "Sorry for interrupting your sleep Spike... this scenario is new to us, and we will look into ways to deal with it."
Spike just nodded while Twilight came back to the table, her face crimson red.
"You know...", Spike started. "I am happy for you Twilight, I really am. With all your studying I thought you would never find your special somepony... even if it isn't a pony. At least she has good taste since she loves my pancakes and you."
Twilight had tears in her eyes as she hugged him. "Thank you so much, Spike. It makes me so happy to hear this. Sometimes I tend to forget how much you have matured since you hatched from that egg."
"What about that magical bubble of silence?", Spike asked. "The one you used before to avoid being distracted while studying, it worked both ways."
"That's a great idea.", Twilight admitted. "And it is static until I cancel it, so I don't have to keep my concentration when I... get distracted." She quickly changed the subject: "We want to visit Rarity later to introduce Stella, do you want to come?"
"What kind of question is this? Of course, I come with you. I take every chance to see Rarity. Can you cast the mustache spell on me again?"
"I don't think this is a good idea. She should like you for who you are.", Twilight reminded him.
"A mustache spell, seriously? Try me! I want to know how I look.", I begged.
"Okay, but only here.", she said smiling and zapped some magic right in my face.
I ran for the mirror on the back wall. I looked hilarious with that handlebar mustache, like a very girly cowboy. I turned around and did my best cowboy impression, strutting with my legs far apart. "Well hello pretty lady... mare, how about a big smooch on your lips.", I wiggled my mustache.
"I don't think my marefriend would like me doing that.", she answered smiling.
"Good answer.", I replied smiling as well, with an another shot of magic the hairy thing was gone again.
Laughing we went back to the table and finished our breakfast.
After breakfast, I connected my smartphone to the solar charger, took the fashion magazine with me, and we were off to Rarity's boutique. I was still surprised how calm all ponies were upon seeing me. It seemed they all had a lot of trust in Pinkie Pie. We walked past a little restaurant, a furniture store and what looked like some bakery, apart from the ponies, this all was pretty much like earth. The smells from the bakery made me very eager to visit it later. Maybe I could talk Twilight into stopping there on our way back from our visits. We had crossed the whole town until we finally arrived in front of Rarity's Shop. It was a rather... unique building. It looked like the child of a circus tent, and a carousel got into a paint explosion. Twilight knocked on the door. "Rarity, it's Twilight. I want to introduce somepony to you."
"Come in the door is open.", I heard a very melodic voice from inside.
We entered her shop and saw her working on her sewing machine. "I will be with you in a minute. I just have to finish this part.", she told us while she was concentrated on the task before her.
Spike sat on a chair and just looked at Rarity, he was really admiring her.
I looked around and saw a huge variety of dresses on display dummies all around me, they all look gorgeous and well made.
Rarity finally finished her task and turned towards us. "Hello, nice to meet yoooooo..." Her eyes opened wide in surprise as she looked up to me and she just sat down on her rump. "What... what is this?"
"I thought Pinkie had told everypony.", said Twilight.
Rarity perked up as she heard Pinkie Pie's name.
"She was knocking at my door yesterday talking about important news.", she told us without taking her eyes off me. "But 'important news' for Pinkie Pie could mean anything from a garage sale to Armageddon. I was in the middle of making an important dress for a Canterlot customer, so I told her I had no time for trifle and she should come another time. It seems it was important after all."
Finally, she stopped focusing on me as a creature, and instead she noticed the clothing I was wearing. "That's very interesting.", she said and came closer to look at them; all her fear seemed to be forgotten.
When she came a little to close I decided it would be best to introduce myself to her. "Hello Miss Rarity, it is so nice to meet you, I heard a lot about your amazing skills as a designer."
"Oh, how well mannered.", she replied and showed the slightest blush. "It is a pleasure meeting you too, Miss..."
"Oh, I'm sorry Miss Rarity, my name is Stella."
Her pupils shrank to the size of a marble, and she began to sweat. "Your name is Stella?", she asked, her voice a bit shaky.
I was confused about this reaction. "Yes, like I just said. What's the matter? You look as if you have seen a ghost."
"Nothing.", she said much to fast and high pitched to be believable, not to mention her facial expression.
"Is everything okay?", Twilight ask a bit worried.
"But of course darling, let's change the subject."
I was less than convinced about that, so I decided to use my secret weapon. "How about a trade, you tell us what caused this reaction, and in return I give you a 200 pages special edition fashion magazine from another universe." I showed her the magazine and dangled it in front of her.
Twilight looked not that happy. "I do not agree with the way you're handling this situation. She should only tell..."
"It's a deal!", she got interrupted by a greedy looking Rarity grabbing the magazine with her magic.
"So what's your problem with my name?", I asked her in a soft voice.
"I'm sorry Twilight.", she started and received a questioning look from her in response. "Yesterday I decided to have dinner in 'the Dancing Butterfly' the little restaurant only a few houses away from your library. While I had my dessert, I heard Twilight scream your name multiple times."
Twilight tried to hide behind her hooves. "Our kissing may have driven me a bit crazy yesterday.", she mumbled towards Rarity.
"Kissing?", Rarity asked in disbelief. "THAT WAS JUST FROM KISSING? IT SURELY SOUNDED LIKE YOU F... found true love.", she ended and cleared her throat. I was impressed by this incredible safe.
"Well, we are exceptionally good at kissing each other.", I explained. "And we will take actions in silencing Twilight next time."
As we saw Rarity's look and heavy blush after this sentence of mine, Twilight was quick to add: "It's just a magical bubble of silence."
"Of course it is darling... I'm very sorry. I am just surprised by all this. Not only have you finally found someone... who touches your heart, but additionally she is from another world. I may need a day to fully process all of this, but I am so happy for you."
"Sorry for all this chaos.", I told her.
"Oh pish posh, you have brought me a marvelous gift, I can not thank you enough for this. Maybe a new wardrobe once I read this magazine, I need someone to test these designs before I may convert some them for ponies."
"I would be so grateful for that. I can't be in the same two outfits all the time... especially if my marefriend decides to wear some parts of them.", I kissed Twilight's cheek who turned her head and turned it into a real kiss instead.
"Awww... you are so cute together.", Rarity stated. "Now, I don't want to be rude, but I really would like to read this magazine now." She smiled apologetically.
"Sure Rarity, we wanted to visit Applejack anyway.", my marefriend told her. "See you soon."
"I would like to stay, so I can help you Rarity.", Spike said with dreamy eyes.
After thinking about it for a moment, she agreed: "Sure, why not. But you need to be silent while I'm reading."
We left her Boutique, and Twilight showed me the right way to the farm of the Apple Family.
...
"I'm thinking about closing the portal later today.", I told Twilight while we walked on a dusty path towards the farm.
She looked at me worried. "Are you still sure about this? You can't undo it."
"It is necessary to keep you and all of this world safe. I want to do it as soon as possible."
"You know Pinkie has planned your welcome party for tonight.", she reminded me. "You don't want to miss that, it is pretty incredible."
"I don't have to wait six hours on the other side, once all data is erased, and I changed the program, I can open the portal one last time. It shouldn't take longer than one hour to do it all."
"It would have been fun to visit your world and explore a bit, to bad this will never happen."
"Mostly it would have been dangerous, and I would have gone crazy worrying about you getting caught. Believe me, it is better this way."
"I guess you're right... Just be careful and be sure to be back in time for the party, or Pinkie will be real sad."
I was pretty amazed by the size of the orchards surrounding us on our way to the apple farm, but I had lived all of my life in a city, I never saw one before. I had questioned Twilight about the different kinds of fruits growing in Equestria, and she was now lecturing me about those. I heard a noise from behind quickly getting closer. Since I already knew Twilight didn't care about her surroundings once she reached 'Lecture-Mode', I was able to pull her towards me as a scooter with attached wagon passed us much to close. It came to a hold while the whole thing made an 180-degree turn, putting a lot of dust in the air while doing it. Three fillies looked at me very curious, their personalities and color schemes seem quite diverse.
"Wow, that's the giant Pinkie told us about.", the one with purple mane said to the others.
"Her name is Star isn't it?", the white one asked her companions.
"How about just introducing yourself to me and you will learn about me as well.", I suggested to them.
"That sounds like a good idea.", the yellow one said with a bit of a southern accent. "Hi, I'm Apple Bloom."
"I'm Sweetie Belle."
"Scootaloo. And together we are..."
'Why is Twilight covering her ears?'
"THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!!!", they screamed in unison.
I was stunned by the sheer loudness of that scream.
"We are on a crusade of finding our special talents to get our cutie marks.", Scootaloo said energetic.
"Yeah, just a few days ago we asked ponies about their cutie mark stories, so we could learn from them how to get one.", Apple Bloom told me.
"Oh, what is your cutie mark story?", Sweetie Bell asked me.
They all had spoken is such rapid succession, it took me a few seconds to process it. "Well, nice to meet you all. My name is Stella, I am a human from another world far away from this and I don't have a cutie mark."
"You don't have your cutie mark yet?", they asked unison again.
"That's great. You can join us.", Apple Bloom told me.
"Her size can get handy in some things we try.", Sweetie Bell chimed in.
"I got it.", Scootaloo announced. "Cutie Mark Crusadarrrrs pirates. She can be the mast and hold the sail."
"Ahoy!"
"You arrrrrre right."
All three had fun talking like a pirate while I looked in search for help to Twilight, but she was just chuckling at the whole situation, so I decided to intervene myself. "Hey little ones, sorry for interrupting you in your ideas, but humans don't get cutie marks, sorry. But of course we can play pirates someday, and look for booty." I came close to them and whispered loud enough for Twilight to hear: "I'm pretty sure Twilight has some nice booty."
"Stella!", she shouted.
"Right, maybe there is a treasure map in the library.", Sweetie Bell said.
"I'm sure Twilight has a huge booty.", Scootaloo added.
"To bad you can't get a cutie mark.", Apple Boom told me. "But maybe you can visit us in our clubhouse some day anyway. You seem to have good ideas that could help us. Onwards to the library." They climbed back onto their vehicle.
"Sure, can do.", I answered.
They took off again, while Scootaloo had still more thoughts about Twilight's booty. "Imagine we are finding it, get it to open and stick our hoofs inside to get..."
Twilight gave me her best 'I am mad at you' look, but I felt no anger towards me. I kissed her. "You know I love your booty.", I said smiling. "And I will give it an apology kiss tonight."
"You're nuts... but I love you for it.", she said in between kisses.
...
Finally we reached the farm, I saw a nice red building decorated with apples of all kind, it looked surprisingly clean. I saw a few pigs as well, this confused me a bit since I was told all ponies would be herbivores.
"Hey there.", I heard and saw an orange pony approach us. "You must be the new gal."
"Hi, my name is Stella, nice to meet you." I extended my hand, and she shook it hard, I felt a lot of strength in her. I remembered Fluttershy telling me how strong earthponies are.
"I'm Applejack, but I guess she already told you. Pinkie said..."
"She is also my marefriend.", Twilight added with a huge grin, her hoof around me.
Applejack’s face went blank. She looked at me and then at Twilight again. "That's a lot of hooey."
"What?", my marefriend asked.
"That's hooey. She is from another world and you know each other for what? Two days? It doesn't make a lick of sense! She must have you under some spell!!"
"I... I can't even use magic.", I tried to defend myself.
"Says who? How could we be sure about that?", she took a defensive stance.
"AJ, we already met the princesses. They allowed her to be here.", Twilight explained.
"You say that, but maybe..."
An old mares voice cut her off: "What kind of hospitality is this Applejack? Is this how we meet new friends?"
"But Granny, she could..."
"Hush now. I heard everything. Me and your grandpa knew after a day we were in love, whats wrong about that?"
"Nothin' Granny... but maybe she plans..."
"And what evil plans should they doing here on the farm?", Granny asked. "Let's all go inside. I made some apple pie."
"I don't want to be any trouble.", I explained.
"Guests are never trouble on this farm, come all in.", the old mare invited us.
"I'm going to buck some apples on the south field.", Applejack trotted out of sight.
"What is wrong with her?", Twilight asked.
"Let's talk while we eat together.", Granny said and led us into the farmhouse.
I looked around, it was absurd how many apple themed decorations were all over the house, the motive appeared everywhere. We sat down at the kitchen table and got a huge slice of apple pie. The pie smelled delicious, and I was happy to try it, for the worst case scenario I trusted Twilight's spells.
"You know Twilight...", the wrinkled mare began. "Applejack has a lot of work on this farm and not much time to meet other ponies. When I talked to her about it, she said she was fine with it and it wouldn't bother her. She said 'Twilight is also fully occupied with her studies. It's just what we do, we put our duties first and don't have time for finding... somepony.' "
"But it does bother her.", Twilight concluded.
"Yeah. So you finding a marefriend just like this... scared her.", said Granny.
"Is there anything we could do?", I asked.
She shook her head. "I know her since she was born, she just needs some time alone. She will get to the same conclusions, but we can't force it on her now."
"I feel sorry for Applejack.", Twilight told me as we walked towards the portal.
"Me too, once she has cooled down we should try to talk to her. If Granny is right, she is angry at herself, not at me." I stopped walking and groaned.
"What is it?", she asked.
"I have forgotten to bring my backpack along, and we don't have time to go back to get it."
"I think you forgot how awesome your marefriend is."
There was a flash of light and my backpack laid on the ground before me.
"Wow, you can do that this easy?", I asked.
"Well, it's not easy... but uses less energy then to teleport my whole body twice to get it. Also, it works only on things I know where they are. Do you need your smartphone too?"
"No, it has to charge anyway, the solar charger takes a lot of time to fill it up." I picked up my backpack and looked at my watch, twenty minutes until the portal would open, more than enough time to get there.
...
We got to the little clearing where the portal would open soon.
"Be careful my love, I will visit Fluttershy while you are away.", she kissed me goodbye. "Just press the button once you are back."
"Of course, I will...", I noticed the portal had silently opened a few meters away at an angle to us. "I think I have to go, honey." I waved her goodbye while I walked over to the portal. I took a big step and my feet touched the white lab floor again. I watched the portal until it closed and another random point in space took its place. I turned toward the window to look inside my lab and stared right into the eyes of Dr. Caput. He looked at me surprised, but very quickly his expression changed into rage.
He stormed into the portal room. "Miss Mulier, what have you done?! After you had behaved so strange on Friday, I decided to look into the data log for the portals today and found these strange one-minute openings in constant intervals. I came here to watch the next opening and see you come out of it! From something that looks like a forest!! You found another world and decided not to report this?!?!" His head looked like it could explode any minute.
'I'm in deep trouble here.'
"I'm just wanted to gather additional data before I report it.", I answered, and it wasn't even a lie... in a way.
"You are absolutely crazy then!!", he screamed at me. "It's not our purpose! You will give me all the data you have gathered, and then you go home until we have decided what to do about you. Is that clear?!"
******** "aaargh!"
"She is harmless, let her go!" ********
Parts of my nightmare flashed before my eyes, I could not let this happen, I had to find a way out of this situation.
"Did you understand me?!", he screamed again.
******** I always have time for my friends.", Fluttershy said. "And it makes me happy to see you. You are always welcome here." ********
"I... I'm sorry I overstepped my boundaries, I will give you all information right away.", I told him. "Please follow me to the lab, I stored it all in one of the binders."
I led him inside the lab and took the heaviest binder I got, the one with the safety regulations inside.
'You have to do this.'
"Come close, and you will see..."
As he leaned forward, I surprised him by hitting him with the binder as hard as I could, right in his face. He stumbled back with a flabbergasted look and fell to the ground, still staring surprised at me. I didn't waste any time, I followed his fall and hit him two more times in the face. He fell unconscious, and his nose seemed to be broken. "You are an asshole, but I'm still sorry for this.", I whispered.
I took off my backpack and used my rope to bind him. I used my second pair of socks to gag him after I was sure he could breathe through his broken nose.
I had to work fast to erase all traces that could lead to Equestria. I rewrote the portal program with completely different values for the change between portals, so no one could just rerun it to get there again. Since there was no pattern to the locations the portal opened, old data would not be a problem.
I copied the Equestria data into a single use program for a last three minute portal to my new home. It would erase itself after use and overwrite it's hard disk position several times with junk data. I used the same method to erase all data from last week for good. All this took me about an hour since much of it was rather complicated.
I put on my backpack again and stood in front of my computer screen. 'Run onewayequestria.exe', I typed on the keyboard. I took a deep breath and pressed the enter key. After a few moments the portal opened, and a three-minute timer appeared on the screen.
"Well, time to go home n..."
Strong arms grabbed me from behind, and I got thrown into the next wall. The room started to spin around me.
"You are crazy!", Dr. Caput screamed at me. "This is the most important discovery for humanity, all the resources we can use from this planet!"
He slapped me. "I will not allow you to ruin this chance.", she said and slapped me again.
I had a hard time staying conscious.
******** ... he used his knife again. "AAARGH!!... please help me..." "Twilight!" ********
I kicked his knee as hard as I could which brought him to the ground. I tried to orientate and stumbled towards the portal room. "Twilight...", I whispered. "I'm coming Twilight..."
I made it close to the portal as he grabbed my hand.
"Oh no, you're not going anywhere bitch!"
He punched me in the face, but somehow I was able to stay conscious. "Twilight... Twilight... my love..."
I had no idea how much time there was left until the portal would close forever, it could be any moment now.
I punched him back with my free left arm and could pull him towards the portal since he didn't let go of my hand.
I used all of my energy left to jump through the portal.
I laid on Equestria ground while he still held on to my hand and tried to pull me back, since I had no energy left, he was slowly able to do just that.
Then the portal closed.
A A A R R R G H H ! !
A A A A R R G G H H H ! ! ! A A A A A R R R G G H H H ! ! ! ! !
A A A A R R G G H H H ! ! !
A A A R R R G H H ! !
I felt incredible pain. I looked down my right arm, between my elbow and my wrist... it just ended... there was nothing but a stream of blood dripping to the ground.
I felt how my conscious slowly started to fade, I tried to reach for the button Twilight gave me, but it was in my right pocket and hard to reach now while I slowly sank to the ground.
"Twilight..."
I laid on the ground, I tried to keep my eyes open, tried not to slip into the darkness.
I heard a sound...
"Stella are you here? There was this terrible pain in my... STELLA! WHAT HAPPENED?! STELLA, STAY WITH ME, YOU HAVE..."
I felt strange, somehow lightheaded. When I tried to open my eyes, the light blinded me.
"Welcome back, my love."
Twilight's face slowly separated from the light. I was so happy to see her beautiful face again. I was in a hospital room. Slowly my memory came back to me. I carefully lifted my right arm to see it. I was hoping to see something else than what came in view now... it ended in a stump covered in bandages.
'It's gone... God dammit, it's gone.'
"I'm so sorry... ", Twilight cried. "I wish there was anything I could do to help you."
I tried to be as calm as possible, for my dear Twilight. "You're here for me. That is all I ever wanted."
Inside I was screaming and wanted to destroy this room. 'My fucking hand is gone.'
Twilight kissed my cheek, and I felt her tears against my skin. "You know I can feel how you really feel inside.", she whispered to me. "And it's okay to be angry at the situation. I promise to help you in every way possible."
"I guess there is no magic that could...", I started.
"No, I'm sorry. Magic was able to bring you here and to heal you, but it can not bring back what is gone."
I groaned. "I wasn't expecting it could. I have to concentrate on the positive things; Equestria is safe." I softly kissed her. "And you are."
"Seems like you're the hero this time.", she said and forced a little smile on her face.
"I don't feel like it...", I mumbled and looked at my stump.
There was a knock on the door and Applejack hesitantly entered. "Hey Stella, how are you doing... well that's a stupid question, sorry." She seemed very mixed up. "I just came by to apologize for what I said. I wasn't myself back then."
I was a bit surprised to see her like this, she seemed so vulnerable. "It's okay.", I answered. "It was a very unusual situation. Maybe I would have acted the same in reversed roles. We can try again once I'm out of this. But at the moment I would like to have some time with Twilight." I had a hard time keeping my anger about my new situation out of my voice.
"Sure, sorry. Bye.", she almost tripped over her hooves as she exited the room backwards.
I was breathing hard, and tears made my vision blurry. The pity I felt from Twilight didn't help either, I don't want to be pitied by everyone, especially not by Twilight. She climbed onto the bed and pulled me into a hug. I was surprised by what she whispered into my ear.
"Don't worry, I've got you nothing will ever harm you. I'm close by, I'll stay here, through all things I will be near."
All my anger melted away. "You heard me back then?", I asked surprised.
"I may have been awake back then...", she admitted. "The way you held me felt so good, I was afraid you would have stopped when I woke up. I didn't exactly knew what it meant, but when I felt your sadness back then, this rhyme calmed me down instantly."
"It... it was my wedding vow for Viola.", I whispered.
"Oh... you know I will never leave you. You are the love of my life."
I had a hard time keeping my composure since she used the same words as Viola had used back then... and she couldn't keep that promise.
But Twilight was close to me now, and her love acted as a lightning rod to all my negative emotions. I calmed down and slowly fell back asleep. My body still needed more rest.
...
The next day more of my friends came by to see how I was doing, while Twilight stayed with me the whole time, poor Fluttershy was on the brink of tears her entire visit.
Pinkie Pie's visit wasn't what I had expected...
There was a knock at the door, and a pink pony slowly entered the room, it held the string of a single red heart balloon. Her hair was totally straight and covered part of her face.
'Who is this... wait...'
"Pinkie?", I asked.
"Hi Stella, sorry for the interruption...", she said. Her voice was monotone, nothing in her appearance had that cheerful quirkiness I had witnessed before.
"Are you sick Pinkie?", I asked, unsure what had happened to her.
Her eyes filled with tears. "No, but you are hurt.", she said sobbing. "I'm sorry for making you hurry." she buried her face in her hooves and was crying a stream of tears.
I was confused about this outbreak of emotions and didn't know how to react.
"She blames herself for your accident.", Twilight whispered in my ear sitting next to me in bed.
Finally I was able to find some sense in Pinkie's words. "No Pinkie, I wasn't hurrying because of your party, nothing of what has happened was because of you. Believe me, you had nothing to do with this, I promise."
She looked up to me. "Pinkie promise?"
"What?", I asked.
"It's a special promise me and my friends..."
"Yeah, I remember now. Fluttershy did it once.", I cut her off.
'Why do I have to console her? I'm the one who has lost her hand!' I felt anger rise inside of me.
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a ..." I wasn't sure how it ended.
"Cupcake in my eye.", Pinkie helped out.
"Yes, I know! You could have given me a little more time to remember!", I shouted louder than intended. "... stick a cupcake in my eye. Are you better now?!"
Twilight drew me closer and did her best to fight my rising anger with her love while she softly kissed my cheek.
Pinkie looked at me and seemed to be unsure how to react to that. Her hair got a little of her puffiness back.
I took a deep breath. "Sorry Pinkie, this is all very hard for me. I assure you nothing about this accident was your fault. There is no reason for you to feel guilty."
Once again she surprised me with her reaction. Her eyes filled with tears again, and she backed up towards the door. "I'm sorry for coming here. That was so selfish of me. I'm sorry!" She ran out of the room.
"Pinkie wait!", I shouted after her but she was already gone.
"I... I try to catch her, calm her down and explain the situation.", Twilight said and went after Pinkie.
"I believe she understands much better than you think.", I mumbled after she was gone.
The doctors had decided I was in a condition to leave the hospital and I was eager to get out.
So I opened my eyes after a good night of sleep in Twilight's bedroom. She was cuddled close to me, and I felt her warmth against my body, her fur felt like an additional blanket. Her beautiful mane was right before me and it smelled so nice. I lifted my hand to run my fingers through her mane... but there weren't any fingers... there wasn't a hand... instead I looked at this ugly bandaged stump. I felt anger rise inside of me, like so many times within the last day... but I noticed Twilight moving uneasy in her sleep, so I did my best to suppress it... again.
I slowly withdrew my good arm from underneath her and got dressed. I went to the kitchen to make myself something for breakfast, Spike was already there. "Morning.", he greeted me. "Care for some oatmeal with fruits?"
I evaluated my options. "Sure, thanks." I was going to get me some of it when Spike stopped me.
"Just sit down, I bring it to you."
'Great, now even the baby dragon thinks I can't do anything on my own.' I clenched my fist. 'Relax, he just wants to be nice.' I took a deep breath and sat at the table. "Thank you, Spike."
We sat in an awkward silence and ate our breakfast until Twilight came down a few minutes later.
"Good morning, my love.", she greeted me.
"Good morning, honey."
We shared a kiss that lightened my mood a bit. I noticed Spike wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't care less, her love was the only thing keeping me sane.
"Later we could go to the market together.", Twilight suggested. "We can look for things you would like to eat, Apples and oatmeal will get boring pretty quick."
"You forgot the pancakes, but you're right, maybe I even find enough ingredients so I can cook something for you."
"Yeah... maybe..."
After we finished our breakfast, me and Twilight spend our time reading different books. I read "The principles of magic" while she read "Great inventions of the 20th century". We had some excellent discussions from the things we learned.
...
"Time for a break, let's go to the market.", she said and closed her book after putting a bookmark inside. I did the same, and together we left the library on our way to the market.
Ponies kept staring at me. I was used to them staring because I was so alien to them, but this was different... they looked at me with sad eyes, their looks glued to my missing hand. When someone realized I had noticed their stares, they were embarrassed and quickly looked away. I hated all these pitiful looks.
In spite of all this, I was able to find a good selection of ingredients for a nice vegetable curry. Twilight used her magic to carry the groceries.
As we arrived back in the library, there was more than enough time for me to prepare our lunch. Twilight wanted to help me, but I chased her out of the kitchen. "Go read something. I got this."
She got herself a book and sat at the table, in a way she could watch me.
'Nobody believes I can do anything on my own.'
I pushed these thoughts away and started to prepare the curry. It was cumbersome to cut the ingredients with my nondominant hand and took me much longer than I wanted. I noticed Twilight checking on me several times a minute, I was pretty sure she didn't read at all.
As I moved a bit careless, I pushed one of the cups I used for measuring ingredients off the table. I brought up my other hand to catch it... the one that wasn't there anymore... the cup shattered on the ground.
I stared at the pieces while I felt so much pity from Twilight.
I felt anger rise and this time I didn't fight it back.
"Stop pitying me!", I screamed. I picked up another cup and threw it against the wall. "I can't feel your love through all this pity anymore! I'm not useless!!"
Crying I stormed out of the library while Twilight shouted something after me, but I didn't listen. As I kicked open the library door on my way out, it nearly hit Rainbow in the face.
"Hey, what's wrong?", she asked me surprised.
"Just leave me alone!", I screamed at her and ran towards the little forest behind the library.
She pursued me. "No way I leave you alone like this."
"Get away from me!", I screamed at her again without any effect. It didn't matter. There was so much anger and hate within me. Anger at Twilight's for pitying me. I hated myself for feeling this way towards her. I hated this world for making things so hard for me. And more than anything else, I hated this ugly stump I had.
I smashed this stump against a tree as hard as I could. Incredible pain went through my body. I knew Twilight felt a part of this as well and I hated myself even more for doing it... worthless... I'm worthless. Again I smashed it against the tree.
"Stop that!", Rainbow screamed at me.
And again...
And again...
"STOP THAT!!", she screamed.
And again...
And again...
I started to see the world through a red haze, and my bandages began to color red.
And again...
She tackled me to the ground. I tried to get her off me, but she slapped me and shouted something I couldn't understand, the pain from my arm was to strong to concentrate on anything else... but there was something pleading in her eyes that slowly brought me back from my rage.
"... something like that. Don't force me to knock you out."
"I'm sorry...", I whispered.
She relaxed a little upon hearing that. "You owe me a talk about this."
I just nodded.
She looked to the side. "Twilight is on her way here, and she looks pissed as hell. Why is she limping?"
"Keep her away from me, the closer she gets to me the more she will feel my pain.", I plead her.
"I don't know what you are talking about, but I won't stand in her way.", she said, stood up and stepped aside.
Twilight entered my field of view... Rainbow was right, she looked incredibly angry, and her face also showed a lot of pain. Her horn lid up and magical energy shot in my arm, the pain slowly faded.
"I...", I started.
She slapped me hard and I felt it, she flinched from the pain as well. "How can you be this stupid!", she screamed. "Why do you bury all these feelings inside of you, instead of talking to me?!"
She slapped me again. "You know I love you and I will understand. I FEEL PITY BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!" She laid on top of me and started to cry.
I wrapped my good arm around her. "I'm sorry.", I whispered.
"You better be...", she said sobbing. "If you ever shut me out like this again, I can't be with you anymore."
"I promise...", I answered and cried with her.
"Well...", Rainbow started. "I'm off then, but remember you owe me a talk about all this."
I nodded and she flew away.
...
After some time we both had calmed down a bit.
"I have only numbed your arm, it is still bleeding.", Twilight told me. "Let's get you to the hospital to get it treated."
"So how exactly did this happen?", the doctor asked while he inspected the damage to my arm.
"I hit a tree.", I answered.
"But the damage that is done here is..."
"Multiple times.", I added.
He looked at me for several seconds, then he picked up his clipboard. "Reason for injury...", he read out loud. "Stupidity", he said while he wrote it down.
He wrapped my stump in new bandages. "Well Miss Mulier, we stopped the bleeding, and we will cast another healing accelerator. Your condition is much better than last time... so if you promise not to punch any trees again, you could leave the hospital in about an hour."
"I will make sure she won't.", said Twilight who sat right next to me.
...
"Hey, Twilight. I'm pretty hungry.", I said as we entered the library again.
"Well, you were in the middle of making curry when... you decided to punch trees instead. Since you have to take it slow for a while, I could finish it. I always wanted to learn a bit more about cooking."
"Sounds like a good plan.", I replied while my stomach answered with a growl.
Twilight laughed at this as we entered the kitchen, her stomach growled just seconds later. "Okay, maybe my suggestion wasn't completely selfless.", she said, and we both laughed.
I stopped laughing when I saw the shattered cup on the kitchen floor. "Remember your promise to talk to me about your feelings.", Twilight reminded me.
"I feel ashamed for what I did.", I told her.
"And why do you feel this way?", she continued asking.
"Because I hurt you.", I said with tears in my eyes. "I always wanted to protect you from any harm, but instead I hurt you myself."
"Yes, you did hurt me. More than any pain from our connection, it hurt me to see what you did to yourself, but it was... a very unique situation and I can understand how you ended up in it. I forgive you and what we are doing right now will prevent it ever happens again.", she said and kissed me softly. "You have to remember, no matter what, I will be with you, and we're always stronger together."
"I love you so much right now.", I told her and kissed her more eagerly.
"I can feel it, and I feel the same... but we should stop...", she said but had a hard time doing it herself. "You know we have to be careful with your arm... and things would get crazy if we gave in right now. Plus we should eat something."
"I know you're right, but...", I sighed. "Okay, one last kiss, before we focus on the curry again."
As our lips touched again, I made sure she felt all my desire for her as my tongue searched for an opening. She was more than happy to give me access and her tongue felt even more eager than mine.
After a minute we separated, even though we both knew we wanted more.
"Okay, cut the remaining vegetables for the curry.", I told her.
"What?", she mumbled with dreamy eyes. She shook her head. "Oh right, the curry."
I smiled, Twilight looked so cute when she was confused. I watched as she used her magic on a large chef knife to cut the ingredients. Coconut milk was the only thing missing, Twilight had told me we could get it in high-class stores of Canterlot, but today normal milk had to do.
Well... since she had told me cows were intelligent too and some of them lived in Ponyville... there was nothing "normal" about milk anymore, but I had decided not to think about it to much.
Under my guidance, she prepared everything and pretty soon it was cooking on the stove. Half an hour later both of us sat at the table with Spike, each of us had a steaming bowl of curry and a pile of bread.
"Mmmmhhh... this is good.", Spike said after trying it. "And not having to cook for once makes it even better."
I dipped my bread in the curry and tried it myself. It tasted real nice but there was a lot of room for improvement.
"It was fun to make this together.", Twilight admitted. "I would like to repeat that."
"I tried to convince her for years to learn some cooking.", the little dragon complaint. "You come here and *bamm* she tries it."
"Well maybe I have other methods of convincing her.", I replied and kissed her. He blew a raspberry in response.
After finishing our meal, me and Twilight rested on her bed upstairs. We had decided Spike could wash the dishes in return.
"Do you think we could get a bigger bed?", I asked her while we snuggled.
"Yeah, we definitely should, there is a carpenter in town who can build us a custom bed. And you should have a closet for your clothing."
"Isn't this all pretty expensive?", I asked.
"Every month I get some money from the princess... since I usually don't use it for much, a have a huge pile of it in a chest, so money shouldn't be a problem."
"There's another thing I should think about, finding a new job or something else to keep me occupied."
"I can think of ways to keep you occupied...", she whispered and kissed me. "You don't have to hurry to do something else."
"Kissing the cutest, most beautiful thing in the world is a pretty nice job description, but I still will think about things I could do in addition to this job.", I told her smiling and kissed her again. "By the way, what's my payment for this?"
"Sometimes work is its own reward."
I decided to 'work' for a few more minutes.
...
I woke up from a nice afternoon nap next to my lovely marefriend. I managed to sneak out of the room without waking her. As I went down the stairs, I smelled curry again and pretty soon I found the source for that. Rainbow Dash sat on the table and ate the remains of our curry. It looked like Spike had reheated it for her. She was dipping bread in her bowl and had the happiest smile on her face.
"This is sooo good.", she announced grinning when she noticed me. "You have to invite me the next time you're making this stuff."
I sat opposite of her and watched her eating at record speed while the curry was dripping of her chin. 'She is fun to be around', I thought. 'She is in high spirits all the time.'
While I waited for her to finish her meal, I thought about these pegasi and their incredible ability to fly. The flight maneuvers Rainbow had shown me laughed in the face of physics as I knew it. "Would it be okay for me to touch your wings?", I asked her.
Surprised she stopped eating and looked at me. "Sure, but just touching, no rubbing or other stuff."
"Why is that?", I asked curiously.
There was a little blush on her face. "Just don't, okay."
I nodded and walked over to her while she continued to shove food in her mouth, she was on her third bowl. I carefully touched one of her wings, it felt very soft and dry. I had expected some oils to protect them from water.
"Do you have problems flying when your wings get wet?", I asked her.
"Nope, I can fly in the rain just fine."
'Well, she can also walk on clouds, so maybe I shouldn't expect to much logic.'
I carefully expanded her wing and admired the beauty of all these feathers working together so perfectly.
"They are beautiful.", I told her and let go of her wing which went back to its folded state.
"Thanks.", she replied. "It takes a lot of work to keep them in perfect condition." She burped and leaned back in her chair. "Ohhhh, I'm full."
"Well about that talk I owe you...", I started.
"Give me five minutes. We can take a walk together then.", she told me and burped again.
I just nodded and decided to brush my teeth in the meantime. It was kind of a hassle, like so many things I was used doing with such ease before. I looked at myself in the mirror, I still wasn't used to this sight, I moved my right arm to see the bandaged stump from different angles. It looked gross in any way. There was no nice thing about it.
As I left the bathroom, Rainbow Dash was full of energy again. "Come on slowpoke, let's move.", she said while she stretched her wings.
We left the library and had a nice slow walk until we reached a small lake.
"I hadn't expected you could do anything in a slow way.", I told her, while we sat down next to each other. "Or to be that quiet for such a long time."
She was surprisingly quiet.
"You scared me.", she finally said. "Yesterday… I had not expected you could be this cruel against your body."
"I'm sorry, my missing hand is…"
"Yes you lost your hand, I know that. I understand how you fell in this rage mode, but you're looking at the situation the wrong way."
"What do you mean by that?", I asked her.
"You can’t let this be a handicap, you have to see it as a challenge. Your arm is not coming back, instead of grieving you should look for new ways what you can do. If something is holding you back, find a way to bypass it, or change your goals."
"That is a lot easier said than done!", I said a bit more harsh than intended.
She looked at me. "Have you met the Cutie Mark Crusaders yet?"
This brought a smile to my face. "Yeah, three fillies bursting with energy. They are fun to be around, a bit like you. But what does that have to do with my situation?"
"Did you notice anything about Scootaloo?", she asked.
"Not really, these three had been the first fillies I saw up close, why?"
"You know... her wings are really small for a pegasus, she may never be able to fly. Instead, she uses them to give her crazy speed on her scooter, and she can do a whole range of cool moves this way. Of course, she still would love to fly, but she found something else she can be awesome in instead."
I locked to the ground while I thought about her words.
She wrapped her wing around me. "Instead of grief for the thing you lost, focus on what you can do."
"Wow, I like this serious Rainbow Dash.", I told her and wrapped my arm around her. "Thank you for that talk, you gave me a lot to think about."
"You know, you can call me Dashie if you want.", she said smiling. "Your one of my cool friends now, so no more moping."
"Thank you Dashie. For everything."
"Saaay... are you thankful enough to give me a little peek at your udders?"
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, what the heck, I can see your udders from here. But you have to help me putting on my bra afterwards. It's difficult with just one hand."
She was more than happy to help, her wings were already extended and throbbing.
Twilight was reading in the library as I returned. "Hey my love.", she said. "Spike told me you were out for your talk with Dashie."
I sat down in a chair opposite of her and decided to leave certain parts out of my story. "She gave me a lot of stuff to think about. I hadn't expected she could be this serious and to give that good advice."
"What did she tell you?", she asked.
"Well, in short... to concentrate on what I can do, instead of thinking about the things I have lost. She has motivated me to think about my situation in a more positive way."
She laid her book on the table next to her. "I'm impressed what a good influence she can be... when she wants to."
"I think I know what I want to do with my time here.", I told her. "But I need a bit more information first."
She leaned forward. "Okay, ask away."
I looked into all the kinds of books here in the library. There are a lot about 'regular' stuff, quite a lot about magic and a few about physics, but I haven't found a single one about chemistry. Don't you have chemistry here?"
"I'm not sure what you mean by this.", she answered confused.
"Well chemistry tells us what things are made of.", I tried to explain.
"Oh, you mean like an apple containing about 80% water?"
"No, I mean what is the water made of?"
She looked at me like I had gone mad. "It water... It is 100% water."
"I guess with all the things magic can do, you never needed chemistry. What if I told you water is made of two things... two elements, one is very flammable, and the other is necessary for anything to burn."
"Water... can burn? I don't think that makes much sense.", she told me.
I thought a moment about what to say next. "You told me you have electricity, right?"
She nodded. "We use it in the big cities mostly for lighting, in other places like here in Ponyville we still use oil lamps for this."
"If I'm could get some device here that produces electricity, I can prove it to you because there is a way to separate these elements. Of course, things could work different here in Equestria."
She stood up and came close to me, her face only inches away from mine. "You... are saying my... my beautiful marefriend could bring us a whole new kind of science?!"
"You could say it that way.", I confirmed. "...Twilight?" She seemed to be totally spaced out.
*Drip*
*Drip*
"Twilight? Twilight, I think something is leaking."
*Drip*
*Drip*
Her eyes focus on me again. "I need you... in bed right now.", she said with a growl. "I promise, I try to be careful about your arm, I put a forcefield around it, or something..." *Drip* "BUT I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW!"
I was surprised by this announcement. I just nodded, and moments later she dragged me up the stairs into her bedroom.
She put up that soundproof bubble we talked about, then she pushed me onto the bed and started to undress me in record time by using her magic. As she had problems with my bra, I wanted to explain it to her, but she just ripped it apart. She was very happy with the new things she found and had a lot of fun exploring them with all her body had to offer. Meanwhile, I found out you could plug a leak just by pushing your tongue inside of it...
...
We laid next to each other, breathing heavy, our faces sticky and our bodies sweating. She used her magic to let the magic bubble disappear, without it, I guessed even Canterlot would have heard her screams.
"I love every single spot of your body.", I told her smiling. "And you taste delicious." I licked my fingers.
"The same is true for you.", she said and sighed pleased.
I pulled her close to me, and we shared a long kiss. "How about sharing a hot bath?", I asked her. "I would like to clean you... everywhere."
"I think this is a great idea. I would like to give your udders a bit more attention as well."
"You know, we call them breasts in my world."
"Breasts or udders, I can understand why Dashie is so into them.", she told me and caressed then softly. I was lucky she was concentrated on my breasts and didn't saw my face while she said that, or else she could have noticed... "Mmmhhhh... but we should be careful going to the bathroom, I don't think Spike should see us like this.", I said smiling.
"I got this." She used her magic to open the door a bit. "Spike, please go and tell Rarity we will visit her tomorrow, Stella needs new clothing. You can take some bits and get yourself ice cream afterwards!"
We heard happy sounds from the ground floor and the front door after some seconds.
She grinned. "This will keep him occupied for quite some time."
We went down to the bathroom and started to fill the bathtub.
...
After some more exploration of each other, I laid in the bathtub very relaxed. Twilight's back was against my belly, her head between my breasts and I had put my arm around her.
"I don't think I ever felt so relaxed as in this moment.", she said with a happy sigh.
"I think I would like to build a little lab behind the library, to see if chemistry works the same way in Equestria.", I told her. "Do you think this would be okay?"
"You could use my lab in the cellar, I tried to analyze Pinkie Pies 'Pinkie Sense' down there maybe a month ago. There is even a little electric generator I used to power the analyzer."
"You tried to make sense of Pinkie's behavior?", I asked smiling.
"In particular her Pinkie Sense, it gives her accurate visions of the near future. But I found that 'Pinkius Pieicus' doesn't make sense."
I laughed at that. "I rather have my own lab since I don't know if things react the way the would on earth, I don't want to burn down the library."
"Well, that makes sense. You should ask Applejack to help you build it. She is great at building stuff."
"I will ask her later." I traced my hand down her body. "But let's enjoy the bath a little longer."
She turned her head to kiss me and muffled moans echoed from the bathroom walls.
After that incredible bath experience, we went back to her... to our room so I could get dressed again. I held up the remains of my bra. "I think you have destroyed the only bra in this galaxy." She opened her mouth to reply to this. "But it was totally worth it.", I added.
She smiled and kissed me. "We can bring the remains to Rarity. I'm sure she can fix it and even make more of them. I want my love pillows to be well protected." She caressed my breasts through my top.
My hard nipples immediately were visible poking against the fabric. "That's the reason why I need a bra again. Now stop, or I return the favor, and we will not be able to leave the room for quite some time. Can we visit Rarity today?"
With a sigh she removed her hooves from my 'love pillows'... well at least it was nicer then udders. "I'm sure she won't mind, I guess she is still very into the magazine you have brought her."
Just as we opened the front door to leave, Spike came back. His belly looked nearly twice as big than before, and he had a huge grin on his face.
"Spike! How much ice cream did you eat?", Twilight asked.
"... some.", his smile disappeared.
"Spike, it looks like you have eaten everything there was, you really should know better than..."
"Come on honey.", I ruffled her mane. "A bit ice cream won't hurt him, and if it does, he maybe learns a lesson from it."
Spike's face lightened up. "I totally think your marefriend has a point there."
Twilight looked not happy about my interference.
I got close to her and whispered in her ear: "Sorry for this, I give you ten special kisses tonight on any spot you want if you let it go and relax." I made sure my lips touched her ear multiple times doing it.
She didn't calm down, instead she dragged me outside. "Spike, we will be away for a while, please prepare dinner."
Twilight led me behind the library and made sure no one else was there. "You're from another world and I don't know how things worked there, so I will not be angry about this.", she started. "But we will NOT use our sexuality to influence each other's decisions or to change each other's behavior. We can do all kinds of interesting limitations or fun stuff when we... are doing it. But never with the purpose to change each other, is this absolutely crystal clear?"
I was deeply ashamed of myself, sat down and looked to the ground. "I'm sorry Twilight, you are right about this."
She lifted my head and looked into my eyes. "Hey, we talked about it, everything is fine. If we have different opinions about something, we will always discuss it. We could feel each other's anger anyway." She kissed the tip of my nose. "Now let's visit Rarity."
...
*Knock* *Knock* "Rarity, are you home?", Twilight shouted.
"Yes dear, come in."
We pushed the door open to enter her shop. "Hey Rarity, we need...", Twilight started until she saw the inside of the shop. "Wow..."
The shop was in huge disarray, fabric and dresses all over the floor, in the center of the chaos was Rarity working on her sewing machine.
She faced us as we entered and only now seemed to notice the condition of her shop. "I... there are so many interesting and foreign designs in this...", she held the magazine with her magic. "I had to try as much as I could, to get a feel for that style, but since I had no display dummies for these dresses... I just laid them on the floor." She blushed. "Oh my, seems I have overdone things a bit."
"Can I help you tidy up the room?", Twilight asked eagerly.
"Oh please, I would be very grateful for that."
With their combined magic they got the room organized in no time. I was still amazed how easy they use their magic, hardly with any effort.
"I'm so happy you are here Stella.", Rarity addressed me as soon as she had put the last piece away. "You have to try on a lot of them. There had been only two patterns in this magazine, so I had to do a lot by visual judgment."
Immediately two dresses came flying towards me, one in crimson red and very revealing, the other in various shades of blue and artsier.
Then she suddenly came close to me and held my hand. "Sorry, where are my manners? I want to say how sorry I am for what happened to you. But I know you two will be a great couple anyway. You look adorable together."
I must say, this whole quick interaction would have been something I had expected by Pinkie. I tried to get everything lined up in my mind. "Oh... thank you, that's so sweet of you to say. I gladly will try some of them, but I have actually brought one of my pieces that needs repair."
I held the remains of my bra in front of her, and she took them with her magic. "What is it?", she asked after a moment of inspecting.
"It was my 'bra', it is used to keep the breasts... udders in shape and from moving to much."
"Interesting concept...", she mused. "But how got it ripped apart like this?"
I cleared my throat. "Well, somepony was a little eager to see what's underneath." Twilight blushed furiously as Rarity looked at her.
"My my, first the screaming and now this, I'm starting to see you in a different light.", Rarity said and smiled towards my marefriend, which darkened the shade of red. "Well I only saw little hints of this in the magazine, I had thought it was part of the dresses, I'm not sure how it looked and functioned as it had been intact. I'm afraid I have to use my magic to press the pieces against your... breasts to see how it fits and works. Would that be okay for both of you?"
I looked at Twilight, she nodded. "Of course, do what is necessary.", I replied.
I removed my top and gave it to Twilight.
"Oh my...", Rarity mumbled.
She cleared her throat. "Well... first I will take some measurements to make sure future bras will fit as well."
A measuring tape floated towards me. She started by taking my size above and below my breasts and did her best not to stare at them while doing it. She wrote it down and then measured my actual breast size.
"Are... are they always like this?", she asked.
"No, it's just a bit cold in here... normally they're not that... pointy."
"Oh good, then a soft fabric will be enough to compensate.", she wrote down the size.
Now the pieces of my bra floated before me, and she used it as a puzzle on my body to put it together. She had to press against my breasts to make it all fit... which didn't help with my... pointy problem.
"I guess it's complete.", Rarity finally announced. "May I suggest a front clasp with a loop on both sides to put your..."
"Fingers?", I asked and wiggled them.
"...a loop on both sides to put your fingers through, this way you should be able to close it on your own... and it's also easier for your lover to open."
Twilight just mumbled something to quiet to understand.
"That's a genius idea," I told her. "I hadn't thought about best ways to use it in my current state."
She seemed to enjoy this compliment and answered: "This bra is beyond hope, but I will make it my top priority to make a few new for you. Any preferences in color, material or ornaments?"
I mused about it. "I guess a white one and a light blue one in a soft fabric..."
"Maybe a black one with lace...", we heard quietly from my marefriend.
I smiled at her suggestion. "Yeah, I guess that would be nice. Say, could you do an additional bra of this black one that would fit Twilight to cover and hold her utters? To see her like that and undress her would be an exciting thing."
Rarity's cheeks flushed, and she coughed. "Now that's an excellent idea for a new line, I will take her measurements as well... if this is okay for you Twilight... Twilight?"
Rarity was a good friend and a lady, so she just ignored Twilight's... incident. When Twilight watched me trying different dresses, and I got topless every time in the process, she very discreetly used a towel to wipe away every bit of evidence of what had happened.
I was surprised how well most of the dresses fit me. "I must say Rarity, these are all fabulous.", I addressed her. "I never met such a talented seamstress and designer."
"Oh darling, your flattering me. Please pick the ones you like the most. I will unstitch the rest to use the fabric in future projects."
I had a hard time picking, since there was so much to choose from.
"You can take as many as you want, don't be shy.", she encouraged me.
I settled for four regular and casual dresses and one black with dark purple, fit for a special occasion. I carefully set them aside on a chair. "Can we get these later?", I asked. "We are on our way to Applejack."
"But of course, my dear. I will put them in a bag, and you can get them anytime. I will write your name on it, in case I'm not in here you are allowed to just get it."
We both thanked her and left the shop. It wasn't far to Applejack’s farm from here and soon we were on the path through the orchards.
...
"I can't wait for Rarity to finish our lingerie.", I said. "It looked like you got excited by the idea of lace fabric softly caressing your udders and me slowly undressing you." I gave her a naughty smile.
Her cheeks gained color, and I felt her arousal through our connection. "Stop putting such pictures in my mind while we are not private.", she scolded me. "You get me in embarrassing situations."
"But you look soooo cute when your bashful.", I told her and kissed her cheek.
She just mumbled something, but I felt no anger from her. "I guess we should avoid being to lovey-dovey while we are near Applejack.", I mused. "Considering what Granny has told us."
"Yes, that would be wise. We don't want a reaction like last time."
...
When we arrived at their farm, we met a huge red stallion... well huge for pony standards.
"Stella, this is Big Mac.", she introduced us.
"Hi, it's so nice to meet you.", I told him and shook his hoof.
"Eeyup.", was his only reply.
"So, you are Applejack’s brother, right?"
"Eeyup."
"Do you know where we can find her, I got something to talk about."
He pointed to the other side of the farm, where I saw her as a tiny orange dot pretty far away.
"... thanks."
We walked towards Applejack. I looked back at him.
"Does he have a problem with me?", I asked Twilight once we were far enough.
She laughed. "No, he is always like that. I found he is pretty smart, but just decided not to talk that much."
"Strange...", I mumbled.
...
Applejack was working in a potato field and turned around as she heard us approach her.
"Hi Applejack.", my marefriend greeted her.
"Hi.", I added myself.
"Nice to see you two again. It's good to see you in a better condition.", she said and wiped some sweat from her forehead.
"Seems like hard work.", I said to get a conversation going.
"Everything here on the farm is hard work.", she replied.
"Well, we came here because Twilight told me you're great at building structures, I have a project I could use help with."
"Sure, if I got some free time, I would be happy to help. What is it?", she asked.
"I want to build a little lab, just two small wooden rooms, something where I can experiment without getting others in danger.", I explained. "I will talk to Princess Celestia about a little budget, to pay for all the stuff and the construction."
"You don't have to pay me for helping you. I'm more than happy to do it."
"No, if you use your little free time to help me, I insist on paying you for it.", I told her.
She stared at me for a moment. "Okay, I accept it.", she finally said.
"That’s great.", I cheered. "We want to visit the Carpenter later anyway, so I will ask him for wood planks and so on."
"Ask him about sturdy thick posts too.", Applejack added. "We will need some of them to build it."
And just like that, we were out of conversation topics.
"… well, I better get back to work.", she said.
"Thanks in advance for your help.", I said while she went back to work. We walked on, headed back to Ponyville.
…
"I don't knew what to talk about with Applejack.", I told Twilight after a while. "I don't think we have much in common. "
"You hardly know her right now. It will get better when you have spent so time together.", she told me. "You said you want to talk to Celestia about getting some budget, I think that is a very good idea… and it would solve another problem for me."
"What problem?", I asked.
"Well, I normally write reports to Celestia about everything interesting happening to me, but I didn't found the right words to tell her we are a couple now."
"What’s the problem, just tell her as it is."
"Well, she is kind of a motherly figure to me.", she told me. "This is a huge change in my life, and I think I would prefer to tell her in person, to see her reaction to it."
'Is she afraid she would disapprove?'
"Well, nothing is stopping you from telling her in person.", I said. "Just make an appointment."
"My idea was to invite her and Princess Luna for dinner and tell them about your science project and our relationship as well. It would be nice if you could make your curry again."
"Do they even have time for something like this? They are princesses after all."
She laughed. "They usually have about one to two hours of free time per day. Even princesses go crazy without time for their own. They can schedule if we tell them ahead."
"Well, I have to get some coconut milk from Canterlot then and make some more adjustments, I must give them the best I can… I want them to be in a good mood before asking them for money", I said smiling.
"I may have already sent Spike to Canterlot to get coconut milk…", she admitted.
"Wow, you're excellent in planing ahead. I bet you have lists for everything." I saw a lot of lists in her library so far.
"Actually… I have a list of ponies to tell about our relationship. After we told the princesses we should visit my family soon."
"I love too. I can't wait to see photos of you as a baby. You must have been so adorable."
Her face lost some of its color." Oh no… that totally a thing my mom will do."
On our way back to the library we picked up the dresses from Rarity and ordered the new bed and wardrobe from the carpenter. He also assured me he could provide us with enough wood to build my lab.
As we entered the library again, I brought my new dresses up in our room. I decided to leave them in this huge bag Rarity had carefully placed them in. I stepped out on the balcony into the warm sunlight and looked over the houses of Ponyville. It all seemed so peaceful. I didn't want to imagine what would have happened to this place if humanity had gained access to this world. I saw a small trail of black smoke coming from one of the windows beneath me.
'I guess this must be the invitation for the princesses.', I thought to myself.
I kept looking around and saw happy ponies wandering the streets, greeting each other and laughing together.
"What are you looking at?", Twilight asked. I was a bit surprised since I hadn't heard her come out to me, but I wasn't startled.
"It's all so peaceful here. I had lived all my life within a loud, dirty and ugly city... at least if I compare it to this place. It's so relaxing here."
She smiled and also watched at the beautiful panorama before us, putting her hoof around me. "You know our big cities are also a lot more crowded. Ponyville is a very peaceful place."
I heard a loud burp and Spike's little feet running up the stairs. "Twilight, she already responded.", he shouted. Seconds later he appeared with a scroll next to us.
Twilight used her magic to unroll the scroll and read through it, her eyes went wide. "They will be here this evening after Luna raises the moon! I have so much to prepare, organize and clean!"
"Calm down, honey. You have us to help you. We'll do this step by step, and everything will be fine.", I said and kissed her cheek. "Yes, the rulers of Equestria will be for dinner, but we will get a lot more done if we avoid panicking."
She took a few deep breaths. "Your right, we can do this. Spike and I will clean the library and set up the table, can you go to the market and buy everything you need for your curry? In this chest is all my money, take what you need.", she pointed at a chest in her room. "Will you manage on your own?"
I just stared at her.
"Sorry.", she apologized. "Good all the tasks are assigned, let start."
While they stormed downstairs, I walked towards the chest and opened it. I was flabbergasted from all these gold coins before me, only in this peaceful world could be a chest full of gold without any locks or protection at all. I stuffed some of them inside my pants and made my way towards the marketplace.
...
I was a lot more daring this time at the spices stand. I wanted to make the curry something special. I had to remember to save a part of it for Dashie, she will be quite happy for the opportunity to eat... wait, something was wrong here. Someone was following me. I walked towards the vegetable stand and turned around as I reached it. I saw a pony who quickly tried to hide in the crowd, but all these colorful coats made it easy for me to follow it and I quickly closed the distance.
"Why are you following me?", I asked the aquamarine colored pony with the light cyan and white mane.
"I mean no harm, I'm just curious. I waited for years to see a real human and I can't believe there is one right in front of me." She had the biggest grin on her face.
"...for years? What are you talking about? As far as I know, I'm the only human who ever came to Equestria. Who are you anyway?"
"Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings. I read about humans years ago and had been fascinated ever since, your cities, your clothing and how fragile your bodies look while they can be pretty strong and..."
I held up my hand. "Wait, wait. How can you know any of these things?", I asked her.
"I can show you the books in my home, it's not far from here."
I thought about it, it was still pretty early, we had a lot of time until the princesses would arrive and this was just to interesting to let it pass.
"Okay, I have still a few things to buy. If you're helping me carrying the stuff, I will come with you to see these books.", I told her.
"Yippee!", she jumped up and down and reminded me pretty much of Pinkie right now, so playful and childish.
Once she had calmed down, she used her magic to carry my groceries. She followed me giggling to the other stands until I finished my shopping.
...
"A real human, I found a real human...", she kept singing while she led the way to her home. I had to admit it was a bit unsettling and I thought about going away, but I was to curious to do it.
When we arrived, and she opened the door I saw a familiar earthpony sitting on a couch inside, it calmed me a bit to see her. "Hi, Bon Bon.", I greeted her.
"Hi, Stella.", she replied and smiled.
Lyra stared at her mouth wide open. It took her a few seconds to recover. "You know her and haven't told me about her!?", she screamed.
"Don't shout.", Bon Bon exhorted her. "You had been in Canterlot, and we haven't met since you came back. How should I have told you?" I was impressed by her ability to remain that calm. "Why is this so important anyway?"
"Why? WHY?!" She received a stern look from Bon Bon and decided to lower the volume. "Because she is a human, that's why."
Bon Bon groaned. "I thought we got over this years ago, humans don't exist, yes she is bipedal but..."
"Oh, she is right I'm a human.", I interrupted.
Now it was Bon Bon turn to stare with her mouth wide open.
"Told you they exist, who is crazy now?", Lyra said and did some very strange victory dance. "Aha aha, I was right, aha aha..."
"Well, you still act crazy.", her friend replied. "And you're scaring her. Come Stella, sit with me while she gets her 'vault of insanity'."
I sat next to her while I heard Lyra shout from the next room: "Vault of truth!"
A few moments later she levitated a medium sized chest in front of us. It opened and revealed one of the biggest messes I saw in all my life. It was filled with hundreds of papers and strange objects. Lyra stood in front of the chest and dug through all that stuff until she had discovered two books.
She laid them out in front of me. "My father studied the history of Equestria.", Lyra began. "So he always had hundreds of old books in our house. When I was old enough to read I looked through them, since they were filled with strange stories of adventures. Then I found this among them.", she lifted one of the books close to me.
"'A study of humans' by Indigo Nightshade.", I read.
"Father told me it was just some made up stuff, but I was fascinated by it. It was full of details and drawings of these elegant creatures in their strange clothing." She used her magic to browse through the pages. I saw very detailed drawings of humans, the way they were dressed looked like from the Renaissance period. There were notes about behavior and scribbles of houses.
"I always said this was much to detailed to be pure fiction, but nopony shared my beliefs.", she continued. "So I searched for as much evidence as I could, and it is all in here."
I grabbed the book out of her magic aura and looked through it myself. There was no doubt. Someone had seen humans before. "How is this possible? Do you know how he found them?", I asked her.
She held up a smaller book. "This is his diary, I found it years later. In it he writes about magic experiments he did, one went wrong in a catastrophic way and formed a 'fissure in the fabric of the world'. Through it, he saw another world and decided to study it. He used invisibility to walk among them without being noticed. After a month he closed the fissure because 'there was to much violence in this world'."
I laid the book next to me and looked up to the ceiling, that was a lot to take in. I felt a hoof against my hand and looked down again. Lyra examined my hand with much fascination and tugged my fingers.
"You should have asked for her permission first.", Bon Bon scolded her.
"What?", she answered absently. Then she looked up to me and realized what she was doing. "I'm so sorry.", she said and blushed. "It's just... I always have been fascinated by human hands. They are fragile but also so precise and versatile. What happened to the other?"
My mood dropped quite a bit. "I have lost it.", I just answered.
"Will it grow back?", she asked hopeful.
I covered my face with my remaining hand. "That's not how humans work.", I said gloomily. "It is gone, and it will stay that way."
"Oh... sorry."
I stood up. "This is all fascinating for me, and I want to look more inside your books, and I'm sure Twilight would love to, but I have to go now. We will have some very important ponies for dinner, and I must help my marefriend to prepare for it. Maybe we could meet sometime within the next days?"
Both stared at me. "You and Twilight are a couple?", Bon Bon was finally able to say.
"Wow, imagining what this hand could do to my body..."
"LYRA!", Bon Bon shouted and blushed. "You have to excuse her. Sometimes her mouth is to fast for her brain."
"Oh, Sorry.", Lyra excused herself. "I will think about it later."
Bon Bon and I facepalmed or... hooved at the same time.
'To much information.', I thought. "I hope there is a part of my body no pony has a fetish for."
Lyra helped me carrying the groceries back to the library. On our way she told me she had been friends with Twilight, back when she lived in Canterlot. She had moved here only a few days before Twilight arrived, because of her relationship with Bon Bon.
"... I hadn't talked to Twilight yet since we both live here.", she concluded.
"I'm sure she will be happy to see you, but I don't know how much of the preparations for our dinner she has completed, so she may not have much time to chat."
"That's okay.", Lyra replied. "She has always put her studies and responsibilities first. Pretty much the opposite of me." She laughed.
...
I opened the door to the library and was instantly impressed by how clean everything was. 'In this condition, we could eat right of the floor.', I thought.
"Hey Twilight, look who I have brought with me.", I shouted and looked around.
She came from another room and looked surprised at Lyra. "Wow, we haven't seen each other for some months now.", my marefriend said. "How are you doing."
"Great, thank you.", Lyra answered. "I'm living with Bon Bon here in Ponyville now. I don't think you remember her. I heard you got your own 'special somehuman' now." She flashed a huge smile.
Twilight showed a slight blush. "Yes, I have.", she said and kissed my cheek.
Lyra giggled. "I heard you have things to prepare today, so I will be out of your way. Just one last question. What's my name?"
Twilight looked like a deer in headlights. "I..."
I was quite surprised she didn't know, with all these facts she knew, I had expected names wouldn't be a problem.
After a few seconds, Lyra laughed again. "That so typical Twily. She remembers every book she read, but the names of her friends..." She turned sideways and wiggled her flanks to highlight her cutie mark.
"Sorry Lyra.", Twilight replied, her head lowered and still having a huge blush.
"It's okay.", Lyra said smiling. "I know how you are. I will try to visit more often, so you can remember it." With these words, she waved goodbye and left the library.
"I visit you soon to have a closer look at these books.", I shouted after her.
"Books?!", Twilight asked.
'Of course this triggers her.', I thought.
"It's a bit of a long story that I wanted to bring up with the princesses as well. I would like to start the curry first since it's getting better the longer it cooks."
"Okay, you can tell it at dinner, no problem. We have almost everything cleaned, and the table is set."
"Say, how could you forget her name?", I asked her.
See looked very embarrassed. "I never was good with names and to be honest, friendship wasn't important for me back then. It's nothing I'm proud of but books and learning had been pretty much my only priority."
"Well, seems like you changed quite a lot since then, Twily.", I said smiling.
"You noticed the nickname.", she replied and seemed in a happier mood again. "My brother Shining Armor had started it, and my friends picked it up."
"Is it okay for me to use it?", I asked her.
"Sure, I like it, but I like all the things you call me.", she said with her sexy voice.
I smiled at her while I remembered our happiest times together. "I guess I should start the curry now."
"Right, I should get back to cleaning too, don't want Spike to do everything alone.", she said and left while I entered the kitchen.
...
I had to cook for more ponies this time and I wanted to keep some for Dashie. I searched for the biggest pot she had in the kitchen, it was just large enough. We should buy some bigger ones soon.
I was frying the sliced vegetables and added my new blend of spices, I was very satisfied with the smell of it. I always cooked by smell for dishes I made before and only tasted them at the end. There was this wonderful sizzling sound when I added the coconut milk, and everything blended. After five minutes I had a first taste test.
'Wow, the princesses are in for a real treat here.', I thought to myself. I added just a little more pepper.
"Hi there."
I nearly dropped the pepper mill in the pot.
I looked outside the window where Rainbow Dash was hovering. "Dashie, you shouldn't startle me like that.", I scolded her.
"Sorry. I was just flying above when I smelled something nice and familiar, so I decided to say hello.", she said with the most innocent face.
I smiled at her obvious try to invite herself. "I haven't forgotten about you Dashie. We have invited the princesses tonight, to talk about some things. I'm making a lot more curry than we would need for tonight and had planned to invite you to lunch tomorrow if that is okay for you."
"That's cool. I can wait another day. I will just grab some hayburgers instead. What are you talking about with the princesses?"
"About possible research on a new field of science that could..."
"Egghead stuff.", she interrupted me.
I sighed. "Yes, egghead stuff and also we want to inform them about our relationship."
"That's at least more interesting, tomorrow you have to tell me how they reacted. Really looking forward to that lunch." She kept staring at the curry. "Maybe I..."
"See you tomorrow Rainbow.", I said.
"Okay, okay 'til tomorrow.", she said and flew away.
...
We sat together on the couch and waited for the princesses to arrive. Spike had decided to go out to have ice cream instead since we 'only would talk about boring stuff anyway'. I felt how nervous Twilight was and put my hand on her hoof in an attempt to calm her down. It didn't help much, but she gave me a thankful smile anyway.
When there finally was a knock on the door, we both got startled by it. I stood up and opened the door. Both princesses stood before me, two royal guards behind them. I had expected more guards, but since Celestia and Luna had the most powerful magic in Equestria, the guards were decoration anyway. While the sisters tried to be as casual as possible, they still were an impressive sight.
"May we come in?", Celestia asked.
I realized how long I had just stared at them. "Sorry, of course." I stepped to the side to make some room.
"We both had been very sorry to hear of your loss.", Luna told me as they entered, while the guards stayed outside.
"It's... it's okay. I gained more than I lost.", I answered. That got me puzzled looks from the sisters, but none of them pushed the subject.
"I must say, it smells delicious in here.", Celestia stated.
"Thanks a lot, I'm thankful the plants in our world are mostly the same, I'm quite happy with the result of my experiments."
Twilight led them to the table, every item was in perfect angles to each other and with shining silverware. I'm not sure how she did it, but even the sliced bread looked high class.
We all took our seats while my marefriend used her magic to fill our plates. I saw Luna's eyes widen after her first spoon of curry. "What a great blend of spices and heat, it reminds me of a dish we were presented when we visited Saddle Arabia. Very delicious, my compliments to the cook.", she addressed me.
"Thank you, princess.", I replied.
"While we are very honored by your courtesy, please just Celestia and Luna.", Celestia said.
"I'm happy to obey that wish, Celestia.", I answered with a smile.
There were some minutes of silence while we all enjoyed our meals, in special Luna seemed very happy with this meal and the dipping of the bread. She was almost as eager as Dashie was the day before.
"So what is it you wanted to discuss with us?", Celestia finally asked, while Luna still kept going on the curry.
We had decided to start with chemistry first. "It seems a form of science from my world isn't present here.", I told them. "It is called chemistry, and it's about what things are made of."
I explained it to them the same way I did with Twilight before.
After Celestia had taken some time to think about all this, she asked: "What would be the benefit of this chemistry, if it works like in your world?"
"There are many different things I could do, like batteries which are a way to store electrical energy. There is also a way to produce pills that are very effective in eliminating pain and a lot of other possibilities. I would just need a little money to build a lab, so I can test if things work these same in this world."
They looked at each other and nodded. "I think we would be happy to provide that money plus a monthly stipend.", Luna told me.
"Oh thank you so much.", I replied.
I was quite relieved to hear that and decided to insert another topic before we told them about our relationship. "I got a question before we speak about our other topic... do you know Indigo Nightshade?"
All three looked at me surprised.
"Yes, of course. He was a famous wizard living about 400 years ago.", Celestia explained with a puzzled look.
"Today I was shown a book that makes it very clear he visited the human world for an extended period."
It was the kind of announcement that got everyone speechless. Celestia recovered first. "He was always very secretive about his experiments... I'm sure Twilight will be happy to help you find out more about this, I am quite curious myself."
Twilight nodded so fast I was afraid she could hurt her neck.
"Okay, I think that may be the best way to do this. I leave the start of the last topic to Twilight.", I said.
The princesses shifted their attention to her, and I felt how nervous she was. She took a few deep breaths before she finally was able to speak. "Me and Stella... Stella is... she is my marefriend."
To say the princesses had been surprised would be the understatement of the century. Celestia opened her mouth several times to say something but didn't seem to find the right words, while Luna just stared. Just when I started to get nervous about it, Celestia managed to speak up again. "Well... that wonderful news, I'm so happy for both of you."
"Thanks.", we answered in unison and I held her hoof smiling.
"Is mare with mare normal now?", Luna asked. "1000 years ago it still was something happening in secret, also talking about sexuality was taboo as well, so I haven't asked since I was back."
"It is absolutely normal now.", Celestia explained. "The same goes for talking about sexuality. Things have quite changed since then."
Luna leaned back in her chair. "That's a relief.", she said. "We have always been very open to all kinds of experiments. I remember one time I surprised Tia while Sunflower's horn was nearly all the way inside..."
"That doesn't mean you have to talk about my sexuality.", Tia interrupted.
"Oh sorry. It seems I have misunderstood.", Luna apologized. "Okay, about me instead. When I was still pretty young, I abused the amount of control I had on the guards. Many times I called a night guard inside my room and ordered him not to move at all, then I..."
Celestia had her head buried in her hooves, while me and Twilight stared at Luna, mouth open wide. My impression of Princess Luna changed quite a lot that evening.
We cleaned the table together after the princesses had left. I put aside the extra invitation Celestia had given me for the Grand Galloping Gala, which would happen in a few days.
"That was... strange.", Twilight said. "I don't think I can ever look at Luna again without seeing what she told us about."
"Well, she was very graphic in her stories. Someone of us should have stopped her, but it was fascinating in a very strange way, and she seemed so happy finally to be able to talk about such things. But this all is more than 1000 years in the past and was during her puberty, I did a lot of strange stuff during mine as well, haven't you?"
Her cheeks got a beautiful crimson color.
"I guess you're right, but could you just hold me for a moment?", she asked, and I wrapped my arms around her.
I looked at the bandages. "Do you think I can take off the bandages soon? It draws the attention towards that thing."
"Well, the healing accelerator should have done enough to seal the cut. We could carefully try to take them off."
She got out of my embrace and inspected the bandages in detail. "I will try to take them off, but you have to tell me immediately when you feel pain." I nodded, and she carefully used her magic to remove them.
Everything went well and pretty soon I could see the stump with some bloody medical tissue stuck to its end. "The only way to remove this is to soak it in warm water until it comes off by itself.", she told me. "Let's hope it hasn't connected to your skin."
She brought a clean bucket with warm water, and I carefully submerged my arm into it. She continued to clean the table while I waited and the water turned red. After a few minutes, I moved my arm back and forth to loosen the fabric. There was no noticeable pain. Twilight had finished cleaning and sat next to me when the fabric suddenly appeared on the surface of the water. I stared into the red liquid, but I couldn't see anything.
"It's time to see it for real.", I said and slowly lifted my arm. I was surprised when I finally was able to look at it. It had a smooth skin and was just a tiny bit curved. It looked pretty much like one of Twilight's legs but without the fur. "I never would have expected such a clean heal after the damage I had done to it.", I mumbled.
"Without the healing accelerator, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't look like this.", Twilight added. "How do you feel about it?"
"It looks better than I had expected.", I carefully admitted. "But of course I would prefer to have my hand back."
Twilight used her hoof to stroke softly over its surface. "How does it feel?", she asked.
"There is no pain, it just tickles a bit."
"That's a good sign. Your nerves seem to work fine. But you have to be careful about it for a few more days, so no tree punching."
"I promise.", I said smiling. "How about cuddling in bed instead?"
"I like this idea."
We went upstairs and had a nice quiet evening only kissing and cuddling before we drifted into sleep together.
...
I started the next day with a nice stack of Spike's pancakes with syrup.
"Today I will visit Applejack. I tell her we can start with the construction of the lab whenever she has some free time.", I addressed Twilight who sat next to me and was enjoying pancakes as well. "I guess I visit Fluttershy too, she was so worried about my health. I should show her how much better I feel."
"Sounds like a good plan.", she said. "But remember you want to explain some of the stuff in the 'Basics of chemistry' book to me."
"I will be back for lunch with Dashie anyway. I can explain it to you afterwards. Wow, I never had such a full schedule back on earth."
"This happens when you have friends, I have to schedule a lot too. But the time you spent with them is always worth it."
"Have you written something like this to the princess yet, if not..."
"... it would be a good friendship lesson.", she completed my sentence. "Spike, take a letter."
I left the library while Twilight started to dictate her letter.
It was a beautiful day, like always. Rainbow had told me the next rain was scheduled tomorrow morning for two hours. I was looking forward to that rain because it still was a strange concept to me that the pegasi were making the weather and I wanted to see how they did it.
I noticed fewer ponies kept staring at me. They seemed to get used to my sight. I walked by Sugarcube Corner.
'There is another pony I should talk with.'
I wasn't sure if I was ready for Pinkie Pie today, her total randomness made her the hardest to be around of my group of friends.
'Maybe I should leave her be for another day... but she had been miserable about the whole situation, I should apologize.' I sighed and entered the shop.
Pinkie was behind the counter, jumping in place and serving customers. The shop was well visited. Several tables were taken by ponies eating their sweets. As Pinkie saw me entering the shop she lost her bounce and just stood there. It was kind of painful to see some of her happiness leaving her. "Hey, Pinkie Pie.", I started.
"Hello, Stella. What can I do for you?" Some customers already noticed her strange behavior and looked over to us.
"Would it be possible to talk to you for a moment? ", I asked her. She looked over to a slim yellow/orange pony who I believed was the shop owner, he nodded and took her place. She led me to one of the open tables, and we both sat down.
"Pinkie, I'm so sorry about how things went between us, it was awful timing and not your fault. I want to become friends again, and I don't want you to be miserable around me. Can we do this?"
She showed a small but growing smile. "I want to be friends too. We could be cuddle buddies again."
I opened my arms. "Okay, come here." I said smiling, she jumped at me and nearly pushed me out of my seat. She wrapped herself around me and I had trouble breathing, but it felt surprisingly good to hold this pink ball of energy and smiles.
"But there is one thing you shouldn't do anymore.", I told her once she released me and I could breathe again. "Don't go around telling everypony about my udders."
"I just wanted everypony to know how great they are." I noticed she had no idea what she had done wrong.
"It's very flattering, but that's not something we do in my world, and I believe in your world too."
"Is it another personal space thingy?", she asked.
"You could say that.", I replied.
She took a moment to think about it. "I'm sorry if that was wrong, but I know how we can fix that."
I was curious and a bit scared. From what I had heard, it was a feeling a lot of ponies shared when Pinkie had an idea.
"You will touch my udders and tell anypony how they feel too.", she continued. "Then we will be even." She lifted one of her hind legs to give me better access.
Of course, we were the center of attention now, and all eyes were glued on us.
"That's really not necessary, Pinkie, I consider us even.", I told her and was pretty sure my head looked like a tomato right now.
"Are you sure?", she asked, her leg still raised. "I don't mind you touching them."
"Please lower your leg and sit with me again.", I urged her.
She did as I asked and I heard a bit of disappointed mumbling around me.
I leaned over to her and whispered: "Pinkie, how can you not know that touching someone's udders is something you only do as a couple."
"Oh... you mean like you and Twily? Are you touching each other's udders?", she asked in normal volume.
"Yes.", I whispered as silent as possible.
"Okay... I think I finally understand why Mooriella got mad when I tried to drink the milk directly from her udder."
I hurt my forehead as it hit the table harder than I had intended.
I left Sugarcube Corner and was glad I had spoken to Pinkie to fix our friendship, but at the same time, I was happy to put as much distance between us as possible. I had enough Pinkie Pie for today.
I knew Fluttershy had a lot of work with her animals in the morning, so I decided to visit Applejack first.
...
While I walked towards the farm through the orchards, I heard a voice from somewhere. I wasn't sure who it belonged, it was to far away. I guessed it would be someone of the Apple family, so I followed it, surely they could point me towards Applejack.
After I had walked for a while, I noticed it was Applejack herself.
"Hi, nice to meet ya... no, you have to be more fancy... Hello, how nice to meet ya here... you here."
'What is she practicing? Is it because of the gala?'
Whatever it was, I was pretty sure she doesn't want to be seen doing it, or else she wouldn't do it that far away from anyone.
I moved away from her position. When I was far enough not to hear her, I shouted: "Applejack are you here?!"
There was silence for a moment.
"I'm over here!", I heard her.
I walked towards her voice until I reached her in the middle of a little clearance.
"Hi, Applejack.", I greeted her. "So happy to find you here, the princesses have approved my idea to build a lab. We can start whenever you have spare time."
"Well, that's great news. Since you insisted on paying me, I can give some of the chores to the rest of my family for two days, and I will postpone the rest. We sure can use some extra money for buying a new plow and other stuff. I thought about selling apple products at the gala, but this way I can focus on other things instead."
"Sounds great to me. When should we start?", I asked her.
"Tomorrow after the rain will be perfect. It will make digging holes for the wood poles much easier. If this is okay for you."
"Of course, that's a great idea. Is there anything else for me to prepare?"
"No, tomorrow I will use one of our carts to get as much wood as possible from the carpenter to the construction site. You can wait in front of the library."
"Okay, looking forward working with you.", I said and turned to leave. "See you tomorrow."
"See ya."
...
I found Fluttershy outside of her cottage, sitting on the ground and enjoying the sun.
"Hey, Stella. So nice to have you here again."
"Hi, Fluttershy. So good to see you. Look, no more bandages." I brought up my stump to show her.
"Still I feel so sorry for you. I don't know what I would do if I lost a part of my body.", she said gloomy after looking at it.
"I try to stick to what Dashie told me. 'Don't grief about what you lost, concentrate on the things you can do.' She can be pretty wise sometimes."
"Yes, she is pretty.", she said with dreamy eyes.
I raised an eyebrow.
She shook her head. "It is funny you bring her up... I wanted to talk to you about Dashie."
I sat next to her.
"It's difficult...", she started. "I know her for such a long time, but only lately... I..."
"You have a thing for her.", I helped out.
She blushed. "You did know?"
"I knew since the day she showed us her aerial maneuvers. The way you looked at Dashie and how you talked about her was pretty obvious."
"I... I want to ask her to go to the Grand Galloping Gala together, as a couple... on a date, but I don't have the courage to do it. What if she doesn't want to go with somepony as boring as me. I could ruin our friendship. What..."
I laid my hand on her shoulder. "Hush now, relax. You are a beautiful mare, one of the prettiest I seem in this world, and I think you would be a lovely couple since you both have abilities the other could learn from. I will meet her later at lunch. What do you want me to do?"
"Could you tell her I invite her to dinner, this would be a good opportunity for me. Dashie never misses out on free food.", she said smiling.
"No kidding.", I replied smiling as well. "Anything else?"
"Can you hide close-by?", she asked.
"Pardon?" I was confused.
"I'm pretty sure I won't have the courage on my own. But if you would hide in the next room, and I could ask you if I'm stuck in a situation..."
"I'm not sure this is a good idea."
"Please.", she begged me. "I just need a little support."
These huge pony eyes, it's like a dozen puppies at once.
"Fine.", I finally said. I couldn't stand seeing her like this. "I want a lot of tea times in return."
She just hugged me with a huge smile. "Thanks, thanks a lot.", she said after a few seconds. "Let's go inside and I start with your payment."
"Wait, can I tell Twilight about all this? "
She thought about it for a moment. "Yes, you can."
"Good, that will make things easier."
I followed her inside, and we had a lovely tea time together.
...
About one hour later I was standing in front of the stove of the library, reheating the curry for Rainbow Dash. I had told Twilight about the whole situation. She told me she had expected this to happen someday since she had noticed Fluttershy's crush on Dashie before. She thought they would be a good fit for each other.
I wasn't sure if I should question Rainbow a bit to get a feel for how she may react tonight. Twilight was setting up the table while Spike was arranging books. I heard someone entering through the front door.
"I smell something gooood."
'Definitely Dashie.', I thought smiling.
She came straight into the kitchen and looked inside the pot.
"Yes, there is more than enough.", I told her. "Even with Twilight and Spike joining us, you can eat until I can roll you out of here."
"Seems like you know me well.", she said grinning.
"Before I forget, Fluttershy invites you to dinner at her cottage."
"Two free meals on one day? I think this is the best day ever."
"I sure hope so...", I mumbled.
"Did you say something?"
"Go ahead and sit down, it will be ready any minute."
...
We all had finished our meal while Rainbow was on her third portion.
"Say, have you been in any relationship before, Dashie?", I asked her.
She stopped eating and looked at me suspiciously. "Why are you asking this?"
"In contrast to what you said before, I don't know much about you yet. I have no idea how your life has been to this point, apart from a few things Twily told me. So it's just a question to get to know you a bit better.", I defended myself and patted myself mentally on the back.
Dashie relaxed again. "No, not really. I tried a few dates so far, but nothing worked out. I think I was to loud and stubborn for them."
"Mares or stallions?", I asked as innocent as possible.
"I'm open to both options, but you know my weakness of certain body parts, so I'm leaning towards mares."
"What body parts?", Spike asked.
"Maybe you could start to clean the table, Spike.", Twilight interrupted.
"Oh, it is one of these questions.", he mumbled and started to gather the plates.
"This reminds me, how had the princesses reacted to your relationship?", she asked.
"They were speechless for some time, but then they seemed to be quite happy for us."
"So how exactly do you think this should work?", I asked Fluttershy as I entered her cottage in the evening. I was wearing on of Rarity's new dresses, a very loose and casual one.
"Well, you hide in my bedroom, and every time I'm scared or don't know what to do, I will come in to ask you for advice. To be honest, just to know you're there already boosts my confidence."
I looked her in the eyes. "Just remember, she is your friend and won't get angry at you, whatever her answer will be. And she will be your friend even if she decides not to be more than that, she is the element of loyalty after all, so you have a lot more to gain than to lose."
To my big surprise, even Angel rooted for her using big, happy gestures.
"You're right, I will fight for a chance to be more than friends, I can do it."
'She is in the right mindset, let's hope she doesn't crack under pressure.'
I entered her bedroom and let the door open just a tiny gap, just enough to see what was going on. I looked around in her room. It was decorated in a way you would expect from a character like her, pictures of her family, little animal statues and a teddy bear on her bed. I carefully sat on her bed and waited.
...
I smelled roasted vegetables when I heard a knock on her front door.
"You can come in!", I heard Fluttershy from the kitchen.
I saw Dashie enter, her mane tousled from the flight. I was surprised she was able to fly anyway with the amount of food she had stuffed inside her at lunch. Of course, she was headed straight to the kitchen and out of my line of sight.
"Hi, Flutters.", I heard her. "Oooh, that one of my favorite meals."
"Hi, Dashie. I know, that's why I'm making it."
"Have I missed my birthday or what? Why are you doing this for me?"
"You know I like doing things for you from time to time, we are best friends for so long.", I heard Fluttershy say.
"Thanks, you're the best. I can't wait to taste it."
...
It had been several minutes of trivial conversation and the sound of Rainbow eating much to loud. I was bored and regretted not to have brought my smartphone with me. There were still a bunch of games on it that didn't rely on an online connection.
Finally her hunger seemed satisfied, and they came over to the living room again to relax, back into my line of sight. They sat next to each other on the couch, and I could see how nervous Fluttershy was.
'Come on girl, you can do this.', I cheered for her in my mind.
"You know...", she started, and a content Dashie turned towards her. "... I'll be right back."
She stormed towards this room, and I had just enough time to move to the side not to get hit by the door. She shut it right behind her.
"I can't do it. I'm afraid of being rejected.", she whispered to me.
"Listen to me. You can do it. If she is the love of your life you have to fight for her.", I encouraged her. "So do it now, or you will regret it every day of your life."
"Okay, okay, you're right. I have to do this tonight. I will do it!", she took a few deep breaths and walked in the living room. I felt like a boxing coach after this motivational speech.
'Get back in the ring and knock her out.'
I watched through the gap how she sat much closer to Rainbow this time. She took a deep breath. "Dashie, I love you, and I want the Grand Galloping Gala to be a date for us!"
'Well that went better than I had...'
She pulled Dashie into an eager kiss.
'Wait, what? That wasn't the plan. You have to give her a chance to react to it first.'
But that was the part she was afraid of, so maybe it made sense in her mind... or she had just acted by instinct.
I watched both their wings extend and Dashie slowly bringing up her front hooves to embrace her.
'Well, I be damned, it seems to work.'
After another minute they slowly separated, both of them smiling.
Rainbow spoke up: "Well, in case you haven't noticed, I was very surprised but adapted very fast to the situation. I had never thought you could be into a fool like me. I would love to go to the Gala with you as my beautiful marefriend."
"You're no fool, but my love with a heart of gold, I'm so happy you accepted my offer.", Fluttershy said and hovered a bit above her, the first time I saw her fly. Her voice sounded drunk from love and lust.
Dashie caught Fluttershy with her front hooves as she slowly came down again and used her wings to balance on her hind legs. "How about continuing what we started, but somewhere more cozy?"
Fluttershy just voiced an approving hum.
In panic I noticed Dashie carrying her straight to this room. Had Fluttershy forgotten about me? I guessed her brain wasn't in charge of decisions right now. With only seconds before they would enter I quickly scanned the room for options. The bed was pretty high. I could easily fit under it... so I rolled under the bed just as Rainbow pushed the door open. She flew up a bit and dropped both of them onto the bed. I heard a lot of giggling and smooching sounds.
Pretty soon the air was filled with their odors of arousal. This smell in combination with the sounds above me started to have an impact on myself as well, only by using all of my willpower I was able to keep my hand away from my growing arousal. I had to get away from here. They should be distracted enough to make an exit from the room without noticing.
"Dash...", I heard Fluttershy's surprised voice.
"Sorry, I'm moving to fast, I shouldn't..."
"... please don't stop what you're doing.", she continued with a needy voice.
"With pleasure.", I heard Rainbows happy answer.
I decided to stick my head from under the bed to check the situation... and what I saw hanging over the side of the bed made me horny as hell.
'Oh, wow! I have to get out of her before I completely lose control.'
I quickly rolled towards the door. Luckily they both were occupied with other things, so I was able to slip out unnoticed. I quickly left the cottage and jogged towards Ponyville, which wasn't that easy in this dress, so I ripped the lower part a bit.
...
Twilight was just talking to Rarity as I stormed inside the library.
"Hello my love.", she started. "How have things... mmmmhhhh."
I had picked her up and pushed into a kiss at the same time. I carried her up the stairs so rapidly I almost fell one time. I only took my lips from hers to shout a quick "Sorry." towards Rarity.
"It's okay. I help myself... as always." I heard her answer shortly before I closed our bedroom door.
I laid her on the bed and quickly removed all of my clothes. She had trouble casting the bubble of silence, it took her several tries since I always interfered somehow.
"Why so eager?", she asked moaning.
"I was trapped under the bed while Rainbow had fun with Fluttershy.", I groaned and started to cover her body with kisses and nibbled on her sensitive ear. I made sure I got her quickly in the right condition to quench my thirst.
I laid next to Twilight. We were both breathing heavy.
"That was... different than usual.", Twilight said. "You never had been so focused on my juices before. It almost felt like you wanted to milk me for every drop... not that I'm complaining, it felt incredible."
"Well, I came from a strange situation when I entered the library, I promise to give attention to your whole body next time. I hope Rarity isn't angry I snatched you away from her."
Twilight blushed a bit. "Oh no, that's the second time she heard me moan and scream because of you. It was hard to concentrate on the bubble because of your 'distractions' ."
"I'm sure she has heard others doing this before and will manage.", I said and kissed her. "We should go to sleep now. I think we had enough action for a day."
"Okay... can you pet me to sleep again?"
"Sure, honey."
I used my fingers to brush through her mane and slowly stroked down her neck. She reacted with content humming and leaned into it. I continued petting her neck and back until her breathing slowed down and I knew she was asleep. I gave her neck a final kiss and allowed myself to drift into dreamland too.
...
I was up bright and early next day. I had a quick breakfast and then sat on the balcony and watched the sky. I saw many pegasi arranging the clouds above us until the was no opening left. Rainbow was easy enough to spot amongst them. Her colors made her almost shine in front of this gray sky. Her speed and agility allowed her to move about twice as many clouds than most of the others.
'Okay, they have covered the sky, but how are they going to make them rain?'
My question got answered after a few seconds. They started to kick some clouds, those started to rain down immediately and all the connected clouds followed in a chain reaction within seconds. I moved back a little bit to be safe from the rain. I was quite impressed that the whole maneuver of setting up the clouds had taken less than an hour.
I thought about getting Dashie's attention, but I was horrible at keeping secrets, so I better would...
"Hey, did you enjoy the show?", Rainbow hovered before me.
"What? What do you mean by that?", I asked worriedly.
She was confused by my reaction. "I made it rain!"
'... big drops of spicy...'
"Why are you having this dreamy look on your face? Hello?!" she shook me by my shoulders.
I came back to reality. "Sorry Dashie, I guess I hadn't enough sleep last night.", I defended myself. "We are young lovers..."
"Yeah, I can imagine.", she replied with a lewd grin.
"I think it is amazing how you prepared this rain, the speed and agility you had up there, just marvelous."
That's what she wanted to hear. She struck a cool pose. "Well that the reason why I'm the captain of the weather team."
"You sure have earned it."
Her whole body seemed to grow a bit. She was awful proud of herself. Her expression only changed as she remembered something. "Hey, before I forget, the whole gang is invited to Fluttershy's cottage at sunset, very important news. Are you seeing any of them today?"
"I will start building my lab with Applejack after the rain is over and Twilight of course. "
"Great, that's two less I have to inform, could you please tell them?", she asked.
"Sure."
She was about to fly away but stopped again. "You know I include you when I talk about the gang, right? I mean my closest friends. Even if you weren't together with Twilight, I would consider you one of them."
"Thanks, that's awfully sweet of you." I playfully nudged her shoulder. "Okay, who are you and where is the real Rainbow Dash?"
"Har har, I can be sappy too sometimes.", she said smiling and looked around. "But don't tell anyone, I have an image to obtain."
"My lips are sealed."
"See you later!", she shouted while she flew away.
...
While the rain lasted, I read side by side with Twilight in the library. I loved feeling her body heat in such relaxed situations. Half an hour after it had stopped I used my bookmark and positioned myself in front of the library, waiting for Applejack’s arrival.
When Applejack approached a few minutes later, I was once again impressed by her strength. There was a huge amount of wood on the cart she pulled towards me.
"Hey, partner. Ready for a good day of work?", she asked.
"Sure, I can't wait to start."
"I hope you know exactly how you want to have it done.", she said while she pulled the cart behind the library.
"I made some drawings with the exact measurements we shouldn't have any problems. It's just two big wooden boxes next to each other. The only thing unusual is the blast wall."
"The what? One has to be reinforced?", she asked.
"Quite the opposite actually, one lab wall will be built without being connected to the others, and there will be only a single nail holding it from falling."
She looked at me as if I had gone mad.
"Look, I will do some potentially dangerous stuff in this lab.", I explained to her. "If an explosion occurs, this wall will give immediately and fall. Most of the destruction and injuries from an explosion happens because the energy has nowhere to go and is trapped. It's a building technique we use in most chemical labs on earth."
"If you say so. You want a rickety wall, I build it for yer."
...
After we had marked down the measurements on the ground, we started to dig the holes for the big poles. Applejack did three in the time I had 'almost' finished one.
"How can you be so strong and efficient?", I asked.
"Years of working on the farm. It makes you strong, and you learn not to waste any time."
I just nodded in reply, then I remembered something. "We are all invited to Fluttershy's cottage at sunset. Dashie asked me to tell you that."
She stopped working and looked at me. "That's odd? Do you know what it's about?"
I felt conflicted, Fluttershy and Rainbow should tell her about their relationship... but maybe it wasn't a bad idea to give her a heads-up so she would not react the way she did to my relationship. "Maybe."
She raised an eyebrow. "So?"
Considering how Fluttershy could react on negative feedback from her friends, I decided to tell her. "I believe Fluttershy and Dashie will announce their relationship."
"I think you're nutty as a fruitcake. First you and Twilight and now Flutters and Dashie? Why do you think that?", she asked clearly enraged.
I took a step back. "Let's say I saw evidence. Please try to stay calm. "
"Try to stay calm?!", she screamed. "Soon everypony will have someone to share their life with. EVERYPONY BUT ME!"
I saw fear and anger in her expression... the fear increased as she realized what she just had said out loud. I came close to her and tried to put my arm around her to calm her down. "Hey, I don't..."
"Back off!" She pushed me away, and her strength send me tumbling over the grass. "You started all of this!"
Behind her I saw Twilight storming out of the library, I signed her that I was fine and to slow down a bit.
"Applejack, we are your friends, we don't do this to hurt you.", I told her as calm as possible and slowly got closer again.
"I know.", she said, and all tension left her body as she slumped down on the ground. "I know...", she repeated, and I heard her sniffle.
I laid my arm around her, and this time she leaned her body against mine. Her head was low, and her eyes were hidden behind her tousled mane. Her Stetson laid in the dirt.
I decided just to pick up the crying pony and bring her inside. As Twilight before Applejack weight only a fraction of what I had expected. After I had put her down on the couch, I carefully brushed aside her mane to see her face again. She had stopped crying, but there were still some tears on her face.
"Hey AJ, we are here for you.", Twilight told her. "You will never be alone. Your friends are always there for you."
"You are still young. There will be plenty of opportunities for you to find someone.", I said. "We are going to the Grand Galloping Gala together. Surely you can find some time in the future to go to places, where you can meet other ponies. We will help you in every way we can. There is no reason to despair."
She wiped the tears from her face. "Sorry you had to see me like this.", she said, her voice still shaky.
"It's okay, everyone's feelings can get overwhelming if we don't share them with the ones we trust. Only days ago Rainbow had to tackle me because I smashed my bloody stump against a tree, again and again."
Applejack looked at me in shock. "I had no idea you had taken it so hard."
"Don't worry, I feel much better now. But the important thing was that Twilight made me promise never to hide my feelings from her again. We all need someone to talk about our fears and darkest feelings. We would like to be that for you."
Twilight nodded in agreement. "We can do this for you. Even when you found your special somepony, we will be still there for you to talk about everything you need to."
Applejack took a few more deep breaths before she started. "It's just... I want somepony in my life too, but since I'm working on the farm all the time, I don't have the time nor the opportunity to meet somepony special. Seeing all these relationships forming right now... I'm jealous. How nice would it be to have stallion or mare helping me on the farm, to take a hot bath together after work and to..." Her face flushed. "Do other stuff."
"There is no reason this couldn't happen.", I answered. "You just need a few opportunities and show you are interested in such things. Many ponies might not be aware you are looking for romance. Is there a way to suggest that to others?"
"A yellow flower in your mane or tail.", Twilight told me.
"Well that's great.", I said. "You are at the market sometimes, if you go there with the yellow flower, the message should spread out quite fast."
AJ's face was bright red again. "That would seem very... needy to others."
"Come on. You might feel embarrassed, but it's just that one time. There might be a lot of ponies interested in you who just don't know there is a chance for them. You are a really strong and independent mare. Some might be scared to ask if they expect a 'No' anyway."
"You could buy your flower from the drama sisters Daisy, Lily, and Rose. If you put it in your mane right there, the whole town will know within minutes.", said Twilight. "These three are the biggest gossip queens ever."
"I thank you for being there for me.", said Applejack. "I will think about what you said and consider trying the flower thing. But let's do why I came here in the first place, let's build this lab." She put her Stetson back on and seemed in a much better mood.
I felt she had to get rid of some of that energy, so I agreed and we left the library to build my lab.
...
Just when we decided to have a break for lunch, Rarity came over levitating a box in front of her.
"Hi, Rarity. What are you having there?", Applejack asked her.
"It's a very special order from Stella and Twilight.", she replied.
"A new dress? For the Gala?"
"Well... I will wear it under my dress, but if Twily and I would wear nothing else than what's inside that box, I think we could cause a riot.", I said laughing.
Rarity blushed, I guess she had imagined it as I said it.
Applejack was clearly confused.
"It's a bit personal, but I can show you if you want to understand.", I suggested to her.
"Nah, it's okay. I don't need to know it."
I took the box from Rarity. "I will pay for it tomorrow, I should have the bits from Celestia by then."
"It's free for you Darling, you gave me the opportunity to make a new kind of clothing that could sell well in the future."
"That's so kind of you Rarity, thank you. Okay, I have an idea for a last minute present, I would love it if you could do that before our meeting tonight. Do you have Fluttershy's measurements?"
I explained to her what I had in mind, and she agreed smiling to make it happen.
"Okay, I'm curious now.", Applejack admitted. "Could I come back on your offer?"
I laughed. "Okay, no problem. Let's eat lunch, and I give you a personal little fashion show of Rarity's new line afterward."
As Rarity turned to leave, Applejack spoke up: "Rarity... Could you... Nah, nothing."
"What is it? You know I'm your friend, I will do anything for you."
AJ looked to the ground. "Could you... help me to pretty myself up for the Gala?"
Rarity's eyes got big and shiny. "Are you asking me for a makeover?" Her smile could rival one of Pinkie's.
"Yeah."
"With pleasure! You will look so pretty and we will have fun doing it." Rarity was so excited while Applejack thanked her silently.
We went inside the library while Rarity left us with a spring in her step to make my present happen.
"Hey Twilight, look what Rarity brought us." I showed her the box.
Twilight showed a little blush. "Good, we can... test it tonight, if you like."
I kissed her. "Of course I want to see you in it. Is it okay if I show AJ after dinner how mine looks and functions? She was curious about the content of the box."
I saw her gulping. "She is one of my best friends, and it's nothing bad about it, of course you can."
"Oh, and we are invited to Fluttershy's cottage at sunset..."
...
Once we had finished lunch, I disappeared upstairs in our bedroom to put on the bra. It was beautiful, and its black color was a nice contrast to the blue trousers I was wearing. To my surprise the fabric was far more revealing than I had expected, it was nearly transparent, and the lace didn't hide very much. I opened the door a little bit. "Could you come up here Applejack? I think Twilight would get mad at me if I let Spike see this.", I shouted down.
"Don't you come with me?", I heard Applejack ask.
"I could have problems to control myself... I see it tonight anyway.", Twilight answered.
I turned my back to the door and tried to breathe slowly to calm myself down. But my nipples refused to soften.
I heard Applejack enter the room.
'There is nothing to it.', I tried to calm myself again. I slowly turned around.
"Sweet Applesauce!"
"Well, it's called a bra, and I use it to keep the breasts... udders in shape and from moving to much.", I explained. "Applejack? Applejack?"
"Well, it's called a bra, and I use it to keep my breasts... udders in shape and from moving to much.", I explained. "Applejack? Applejack?"
*Drip*
*Drip*
She kept staring at them. Her breathing was heavy.
*Drip*
I put my arm over my breasts.
She slowly snapped out of it and shook her head. "Sorry. They are just so beautiful, shining through that fabric."
*Drip*
She pressed her tail between her hind legs and her face turned dark red. It seemed she finally had noticed the sound she did produce on Twilight's bedroom floor. She turned around and looked in horror at the little puddle on the ground.
"Is everything okay up there?", we heard Twilight's voice from the basement.
"Sure, Honey. Everything is fine.", I shouted back. I grabbed a towel, left from my last shower, and started to rub away her arousal that had dripped to the floor. "It smells like apples, how is this possible?", I whispered to her.
When I looked up at her, I saw her eyes were glued on my breasts again as they swung back and forth while I rubbed the floor.
"AJ.", I hissed. "Get a hold of yourself and stop leaking or I stuff something inside to block it." In hindsight, it wasn't the best choice of words.
Her eyes went wide. "Throw me that towel, quick."
I threw it over to her, and she instantly pushed it between her hind legs.
I heard steps on the staircase.
"Oh no, oh no... Twilight comes.", I whispered to her and scrambled to put on my top again.
As I was dressed again I sat on the bed and looked over to Applejack, she had still the towel pressed onto her marehood. Just as we heard Twilight getting close to this room, she threw the towel out of the window. We heard a protesting "Hey!" from outside.
"So how long do you think we need until we finished the walls?", I asked Applejack.
Twilight entered the room. "Hi girls, how did... it go?"
"Hmmm? Oh, I showed her and she thinks it's an interesting design.", I replied. "Rarity really outdid herself. You will love it, and I can't wait to see you in yours." I stood up and kissed her flushing cheeks. "I guess we should continue to work on the lab, right AJ?"
"Right, we shouldn't waste any more time?"
We moved to the door. Twilight sniffed. "Does it smell like apples in here?"
"Well, you know Applejack.", I answered without turning around. "She always smells like apples."
We went outside without stopping. I noticed the towel was nowhere to be seen, that fact worried me a bit. We hurried to continue our work.
"That was way too close.", I muttered.
"I'm so sorry about all this. I shouldn't have been so affected.", Applejack apologized quietly. "It was... just a reaction, I don't want to interfere with your relationship in any way. I..."
"Hush. It was nothing. Everything is fine, okay."
She nodded.
...
Once again Applejack surprise me, we made huge progress in such a short time. As it was time to visit Fluttershy the main room was nearly complete. Tomorrow, we would have to build the much smaller control room from where I could safely start some of the more dangerous experiments without getting in any danger. After that, Twilight would help me to put some of the machines from her cellar into it, and I would be nearly ready to go.
"I'm so happy I choose you to help me with this. You are a natural in building stuff. Maybe you should have a hammer as a cutie mark instead."
She smiled at me. "Thanks. It's always fun to do something else than my regular farm routine."
"Well, I will take a quick shower and dress in one of Rarity's new dresses. We don't want to be late."
"I'm very sticky too.", AJ said. "From sweat.", she clarified and made it worse that way. "Do you think I could use your shower once you're done? It would be much faster than going home before the visit."
"I'm sure Twilight won't mind.", I replied, and we went into the library to get ready for our visit.
...
I was happy to get out of my dirty clothing. It had been hard work, and I had been sweating a lot. I threw everything on a pile in the corner of the bathroom, including my sweat soaked panties. Since I only had two panties, I had worn these for two days now. I put it on the first position of my mental priority list to ask Rarity for a couple of new ones. She still had to finish my blue and my white bra anyway.
...
I felt much better as I walked to our bedroom to get dressed, wrapped in a big towel. "You can shower now, I'm done.", I shouted downstairs where I heard Twilight and Applejack chatting.
I slowly dressed, things weren't so easy with just one hand. I had decided to wear a pearl colored dress with light gray ornaments. I looked into the mirror and was quite pleased with the sight; Rarity had been able to really highlight my body. I was sure Twilight would be delighted by this sight too. This would be a nice extra layer before she would see the new bra tonight.
I decided to brush my teeth before we left for Fluttershy's cottage and walked over to the bathroom. I forgot about Applejack possibly being there, and the shower wasn't running, so I just entered.
Applejack stared at me like a deer in the headlights, absolutely horrified.
She must had been pretty fresh out of the shower, some water drops still on her coat.
I didn't know what to think. 'I don't even have the time to deal with this right now. We supposed to be at Fluttershy's cottage soon.'
I just closed the door again. I decided my breath was good enough without brushing my teeth and went downstairs to meet with Twilight.
"You look amazing!" Twilight's voice startled me a bit since my mind was still occupied with what I just saw.
"Thank you, my love.", I answered and kissed her.
"Is everything okay? You look like something is bothering you. Remember you promised me to share your feelings."
"No, everything is fine.", I lied. "I'm just thinking about details for the lab."
I saw Applejack slowly walking down the stairs, her face frightened as hell.
I steered Twilight towards the door before she could look at her. "Let's go to Fluttershy.", I said, while behind her back I vigorously shook my head at Applejack and gestured her to shut up. I saw her relaxing a little bit.
"So AJ, the plan is still to build the rest of the lab tomorrow right?", I asked her.
"Yes, it is."
"Twilight was right...", I said and kissed Twily's cheek. "This really gives me the opportunity to get to know you better. I can't wait to see what I will learn about you tomorrow."
She gulped.
...
We arrived at Fluttershy's cottage right at sunset. Her little house looked even cozier in the warm orange of the last light of the day. Rarity waited before it, a small box wrapped as a present right next to her. "Good evening to all of you.", she greeted us. "Here is the gift you asked me for."
"Oh thank you Rarity.", I replied while I took it. "And you even wrapped it. Thanks so much."
"Pinkie is already inside and tries to guess the occasion.", she rolled her eyes. "She is very silly today."
Smiling we entered the cottage.
Pinkie was in full swing. "You two are secret agents, and you will ask us for help to save Equestria from evil chipmunks?"
"No Pinkie.", Dashie answered.
"You discovered that you are twins who have been separated after birth?"
"What? How could that even... Pinkie just wait a few more moments and we will tell you."
"Ooohhh, but guessing is so much more fun."
"But it starts to get annoying.", Rainbow replied. "Look, everyone is here now, take a seat and we will start any minute."
We all took a seat while Fluttershy nervously fidgeted with her hooves. After a moment Rainbow spoke up: "Fluttershy? You wanted to announce it." She laid her hoof on hers.
"Ah, yes.", Fluttershy said and looked at Dashie. She took several deep breaths. "My dear friends, I so happy to tell you that... Dashie and I will go to the Gala as marefriends. We are a couple." They shared a soft kiss.
A mix of positive comments came from all of us. "Great!" "That's most wonderful news" "I'm so happy for both of you."
"That's great, but I hoped it would be something less obvious.", Pinkie said.
"What do you mean Pinkie?", Rainbow asked.
"Well, she was yearning for you for months now, it had to happen eventually."
Dashie looked surprised at Fluttershy who showed the cutest shade of pink on her face, it matched her mane so well.
"We could have had this for months if I had been more observant?", Rainbow asked.
"You have it now.", I said. "And that is all that counts. I even have a little present for you two for the occasion."
I showed them the little box.
"But I would open it in private.", I added.
"What is it?", Dashie asked curiously.
I got close to her and whispered in her ear: "It's a pink version of the nearly transparent bra I'm wearing right now, custom made to fit for Fluttershy, to hold her beautiful udders against her slender body."
Her iris shrank to the size of a marble while her eyes went wide. Her wings extended so fast and forceful she knocked Applejack’s hat off, who sat next to her. She looked from the box to Fluttershy and back in rapid repetition. Her wings were throbbing hard.
"I thought you might like it.", I said smiling so everyone could hear and sat on my chair again.
"I owe you big time.", she finally was able to say while Applejack picked up her Stetson.
"What is it Dashie?", Fluttershy asked confused.
"I... I show you later.", Dashie stuttered. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her breathing down, I guessed to bring down her wings again, it looked painful how stiff they were right now. We all gave her a moment to relax.
Just as they seemed to soften again, Pinkie had an idea: "Oh right, now that you two are marefriends you can touch each other's udders, that must be so much fun."
Applejack had to stand up again to get her hat as Rainbow got back into a very aroused state.
...
"Never before had I seen Dashie so excited as tonight.", Twilight told me on our way home. "What is in that box?"
"A pink version of what you will wear in a couple of minutes, made to fit Fluttershy."
She stopped walking. "You have... wow. You're such a bad influence on my friends." She gave me a naughty smile. "I like it."
I gave her an eager kiss, and we started to make out right there. While I grabbed her butt cheek with my hand, she used her front hooves to massage my 'Love Pillows' through the fabric of the dress.
"I thought we wanted to use Rarity's present at home.", she reminded me between her moaning.
"Right... let's hurry home, I can't keep my hand of you much longer."
"I can teleport us right in our bedroom from here."
"Then what are we waiting for, do it."
After a flash of light we fell right into our bed. Twilight quickly got up and out of my reach. "I will be back soooon", she teased me while she left the room.
"Be quick or I might bite more then you like tonight."
I was so aroused. I rubbed my body against the bed. "I need to feel you right now.", I groaned.
After what felt like forever to me, the door opened again and my sexy mare entered. Twilight used the door frame to stand on her hind legs and gave me a full view on her sexy new lingerie. It was very exciting for me to see how her hard nipples poked against the elegant fabric. She quickly put up the bubble of silence.
"I want you so bad right now.", I told her and bit my lip. "Come here and get me out of this dress."
She was more than happy to do just that. I stood on the bed while she slowly walked towards me and used her magic to open the back zipper of my dress. Once opened her magic slowly pulled it down, revealing my sexy new bra to her. "Sweet Celestia, what a sight.", she hummed. She used a quick tug to get the dress of me completely.
She climbed up on the bed with me and made sure to brush her body against mine in the process. Standing on her hind legs she reached just to my breasts, and that was just the place she wanted to be.
The next few minutes were a lustful and horny blur.
...
She used her magic to pull the blanket over our bodies. "I want to sleep like this.", she whispered. "I want to be sticky from our juices and spit, I want my fur to stick to your smooth skin."
"You're my dirty little pony.", I told her and pressed her against me. "I love you forever."
I opened my eyes. It had been a wonderful night. Twilight's body was pressed against mine and someone else then us would probably have said we stank pretty bad. I loved this smell because of the activities it represented. Carefully I tried to stand up. To my surprise, I found Twilight's wish had been granted, her fur was glued to my skin, thanks to our dried body fluids. My tugging had woke her up. "Hey, my love.", she said yawning.
"Hey, Honey. Our honey really glued us together.", I told her and carefully pulled a bit to show her.
"Ouch, be careful or I lose some fur or you some skin."
"We should soak this in the bathtub with lots of soap if we want to get out of this pain-free.", I suggested.
"You could carry me, and I use my magic to cover us up with the blanket?", she asked.
"It also needs a wash anyway."
I carefully pressed her against me so her position would not change and slowly got up. She wrapped us in the blanket, and I left the room with her.
The moment we were out, we heard Spike shout from below: "Hey, Lyra is here and has a question for you Stella... what has happened to you?"
To bad the bathroom was down there too. I slowly moved down the stairs and tried to be as casual as possible about the situation. "We just felt a little cold this morning, so we go for a warm bath together.", I tried to explain.
Lyra stood up from the table and got closer. "I saw what you built out there and got curious, so I came in and Spike explained to me it's...", she covered her nostrils. "Wow... someone had a lot of fun. Now I understand. Me and Bon Bon had the same problem after an especially exciting night. It takes about fifteen minutes before you can carefully try to separate, maybe a bit quicker since Stella has no fur."
I felt the heat of Twilight's blush against my body and carefully tried to move to the bathroom. "What is your question?", I asked to get her towards some other topic.
"Oh yeah, I wanted to ask if I could work as your lab assistant. I always loved to research when I searched material about humans."
"Sure, why not. But I don't know how much I can pay. I don't know how much Celestia gives me each month." I nearly had reached the bathroom and just wanted this conversation to end.
"That's not a problem.", Lyra replied. "I don't..."
"Can we talk about it next time?", I cut her off. "We need to get in the tub now."
"Sorry, sure.", she said with a smirk.
I closed the bathroom door behind us.
"How did that happen?", we heard Spike asking Lyra.
"You know, they must have..."
"DON'T YOU DARE TRY EXPLAINING THIS TO HIM!", Twilight shouted.
"I think I should go.", we heard Lyra say.
Twily used her magic to open the faucet of the tub and dumped a lot of soap in it. The blanket floated on the pile of dirty clothing. I laughed a bit as I saw us in the mirror, it was a hilarious situation.
Carefully we laid inside the tub and waited for the water to fill up.
"The Gala is in two days now.", Twilight said while we waited to get soaked. "I would like to go a day earlier to Canterlot and visit my family."
"That's an excellent idea. I can't wait to meet your parents, all these embarrassing stories they can tell me about you.", I replied smiling.
"Har har, please don't encourage them to do that."
"There is nothing anyone could tell me that would lower my opinion of you in any way, honey." I kissed her and brushed through her mane. "Wow, we should brush our teeth for quite a while afterward. I guess Lyra must have smelled my 'Twilight's special place' breath."
"Well, she wasn't supposed to be here this early in the morning."
"I'm just surprised she wants to help me in the lab.", I said. "Isn't her talent music, judging by her cutie mark."
"She is a great musician, but that doesn't mean she can't have other interests. You have more than one interest too, don't you?"
"Right, I think I took this 'special talent' thing to literal." I wiggled around a bit, it seemed our 'glue' softened up.
We were in the bathroom for another half hour. To groom the remains out of Twilight's fur took most of the time.
Once we were finished, I only ate an apple and went outside to wait for Applejack.
...
When she finally showed up, I noticed the yellow flower in her mane. She moved quite slow. Clearly, she wasn't eager to talk to me.
"Morning."
"Hi, Applejack. Could I speak to the Element of Honesty about what happened yesterday?"
She flinched when I mentioned it.
"Okay, you deserve the truth. Let me start by saying how sorry I am about what had happened."
"I know you are. I am not really angry at you. I just would like to understand."
She sighed. "You know your... breasts left quite an impression on me. When I was in the shower I did... you know... to get rid of some of this steam. When I got out of the shower, I found your panties lying there. I haven't had a partner so far and thought 'I wonder what her privates smell like'. It was super stupid, and I'm sorry. That's why I decided to wear the yellow flower today, I want someone for me, I'm tired of putting inanimate objects..." She blushed.
"It's okay. I shouldn't have shown you the bra after I saw how revealing it was. I'm sure you find someone soon."
"It doesn't have to be my partner for life, but I would like to gain at least some experience."
We stood around for a few moments, unsure what to say next.
"Let's finish the lab.", she finally said, and that is what we did.
"That is so cool AJ, thanks a lot. With a few tables and some cabinets, I'll be ready to go."
Applejack looked tired but also very proud. "Yeah, we did pretty good. I will visit you once everything is finished and you're working here."
"Come with me to the library. I'm sure Celestia's money is here."
"It's not that urgent.", she replied.
"I know, but I like to pay my debts as fast as possible."
Together we walked inside the library to meet my smiling marefriend.
"Our new bed and closet has arrived.", she said. "I already brought them to our room and sorted your dresses into the closet."
"That's great news.", I answered. "This will be the first night I can sleep fully stretched out. You will look a bit lost in this giant bed, have the bits from Celestia arrived?"
Twilight pointed towards a huge bag in the corner of the room. Curious I walked to it and opened it to look inside. "Wow... that's so much money. What are these coins, they are twice as big as the others?"
"That's a twenty-bit coin. Without these it would be impossible to buy expensive goods, can you imagine carrying hundreds of coins?", Twily told me.
I lifted the heavy bag on the table. "So Applejack, how much for two days of work from the best builder in town?", I asked her.
She got very bashful all the sudden. "I don't know, whatever you think..."
"No Applejack, we both don't know about such services, so we decided to let you decide.", I replied. "So please, how much?"
She sighed. "50 bits."
"Okay." I counted five of the big coins and gave them to her.
"No, that's 100. That's way to much.", she pushed them back in panic.
"I know it's 100. I talked to Twilight before and knowing how humble you are, we decided that double the amount you would ask for would be a fair price."
I put the coins into her hooves again. "Do you think the carpenter would have asked for less than this if he had built my lab, honest Applejack?"
"No.", she mumbled.
"Well, then thank you once again for your great help with my lab. I'm really thankful for it." I drew her into a hug. She was fairly surprised by it but hugged me back.
"I have to thank you two for being there for me. It helped to talk about all this.", she replied.
"That's what friends are for Applejack.", Twilight told her as she ruffled her mane. "Could you tell the others we will meet you all in Canterlot for the Gala? We go there tomorrow morning so I can introduce Stella to my family."
"Will do.", she said and waved goodbye as she left.
"The lab is completed?", Twilight asked me.
"At least the rooms. I will have to get a few tables and..."
The front door opened again.
"Twilight, Twilight!", Spike shouted while he ran inside holding a scroll. "A letter from the princess."
"That's uncommon. I hope nothing bad has happened.", said Twilight while she levitated the scroll towards her.
"My dearest student.", she started to read. "I have a favor to ask from both of you. I start to worry for Luna. She isn't making any progress in finding new friends and instead is isolating herself more and more. Today she told me she would not attend the Gala because she is to uncomfortable among my subjects.
I don't want to see her sad and depressed again, this time I will not ignore the warning signs. She was so much happier when we had visited you for dinner. She seemed to get along with Stella in particular, maybe because she never experienced Nightmare Moon. I ask you to spend some time with her and bring her in a better mood if possible.
You wrote to me you will come to Canterlot tomorrow, could you please come tonight? I will tell Luna I wanted to accompany you to dinner this evening, but an important meeting with an ambassador came up. I'm sure she will agree to keep you company instead. I'm awaiting your response.
Princess Celestia"
"Poor Luna, of course we will help, right?", I asked my marefriend.
"Of course. Spike take a letter."
Like always Spike produced a scroll and quill from behind his back... I really needed to ask him how he did that.
"Dear Princess Celestia, we are more than happy to help Princess Luna, and we are looking forward to keeping her company. We will leave for Canterlot right away.
Your faithful student Twilight Sparkle
Spike immediately did send the letter.
"Seems like we have to pack right now.", Twilight said.
So we hurried upstairs to pack a suitcase, mostly with some of my dresses and both of our dresses for the Gala.
...
We sat on the train to Canterlot.
"Are there any fun activities we could do with Luna?", I asked.
"The Canterlot library is HUGE. We could spend so much time in there."
I looked at her, unsure if she was joking.
"What? I had so much fun reading in there."
"Well, reading is fun. But I had other activities in mind, you know... nightlife in Canterlot."
"Sorry, I concentrated on my studies, nightlife wasn't my thing."
"Canterlot is quite big, right? Isn't there some tourist information center?", I asked her.
"There is an information center. I remember going there when I was a little filly. 'Since mom won't tell me where babies come from, what better place than an information center?' I had thought back then. It turned out they didn't want to give me that information either.", she said smiling. "The library was the far better place to get information about that. Although, I have to admit these diagrams had been quite confusing back then."
"Good thing we explored so much of our bodies lately, if you have any more questions we can experiment as much as you want.", I told her with a grin.
"Stella, don't say such things in public." She flushed and looked around to see if anyone noticed.
"You're so cute when you're bashful.", I replied and kissed her softly but persistent, she resisted only for a moment before she gave into it.
Once we separated she had that dreamy look in her eyes that I loved so much. "We will visit the information center and ask about fun activities.", I told her.
"I think what we did just now was very fun.", she answered smiling.
"So we will kiss Luna all night?", I asked with a smirk.
Her face went crimson instantly. "Oh right, I forgot we were talking about Luna before."
I was surprised how elegant Canterlot appeared, the white marble and the curved forms. Some buildings looked like an ancient Greek style but managed to fit perfectly with other quiet different houses. The beautiful castle towered above all and was visible from every place we went.
The information center was just a few minutes away from the train station, when we entered I saw my first griffon. All parts were familiar, but this strange mix of them looked just odd to me. The griffon seemed to be in a bad mood and growled as he passed us. His claws were just terrifying.
"Now that's a creature you don't want a fight with.", I told Twilight once the griffon was out of sight.
"Yeah, Griffons are known to be a little grumpy. I only had contact with one so far, and it wasn't a pleasant experience."
Ten minutes later we walked out holding a list of possible activities. I gave it a quick read through on our way to the castle to pick up Luna.
Ponies stared at me all the way, but there was no panic, I guess news of me had already spread here. We entered the palace, and Twilight led me through a labyrinth of corridors until we arrived in an impressive throne room. Luna stood there awaiting us.
"I'm sorry to inform you my sister isn't available to keep you company. Instead, I will come with you for dinner in one of the finest restaurants."
"Ohhh, that's to bad.", said Twilight in a very dramatic way, she was an even worse liar than I was. "But we are happy you keep us company instead."
Luna hesitated. "Is this all just a plan by my sister?", she asked.
"Whaaaat? Of course not.", Twilight answered with an obviously fake smile.
"Twily, please...", I said. "Let's not lie to Luna." I stepped a bit closer to the princess. "Yes, your sister worries about you. She wants you to be happy and to find more friends. But I was really looking forward to our dinner tonight because you seemed like a very likable character last time we met. So could you please accompany us? We have some more things planned for you after dinner."
"I'm not sure I want to.", she replied and seemed a bit angry for being tricked.
"I promise I will tell you the truth tonight whatever you'll ask me. And if you come with us, you won't be the one ponies staring at.", I said smiling.
"Whatever I ask you?", she asked with a grin that made me a bit uncomfortable.
"Sure.", I replied. I wanted to earn her trust.
"Well, we had a very nice dinner when we visited you, so I should return the favor. Let's go. We have a table reservation in 'the silver horn', my favorite restaurant."
We followed her as she left the throne room the way we had entered, I was relieved she was coming with us.
...
We sat down at our table. The restaurant was high class, and every seat was taken.
"You were right. Nobody seems to take much notice of me, all eyes are glued to you.", Luna said and looked quite happy about it.
"Told you. Some of them might even fear I could try to eat them."
"Well talking about eating meat...", she started. "Would you like some? This restaurant also serves meals with meat or fish for griffons."
I reminded myself about being honest with her tonight. "I would like to eat some fish again if this isn't a problem for both of you."
"Not at all.", Luna replied.
"You can eat what you want.", said Twilight. "I will not think of you any different because of it, but I will stop kissing you until you have brushed your teeth again, I don't want to know how fish tastes."
"Fair enough.", I answered and started to look through the 'meat and fish' section of the menu.
A few minutes later the waiter came to get our orders. Luna ordered a mushroom cheese risotto; Twilight went for spinach tortellini, and I chose a grilled fish with rice and veggies. We all had water with our meals.
Once the waiter disappeared, Luna leaned close to us and said: "Well, I told you about my sexual adventures last time, I guess it's your turn now."
"In here? Really?", I asked.
"Well, you don't have to shout them out. I could cast a bubble of silence if that makes it easier your you."
"Wouldn't that be rude to the other guests?", I asked. "I will just whisper."
I learned close to them. "There isn't that much to tell. The wildest thing I had was a one night stand when I was young. His roommate came in while we did it and he just watched us to the end. Apart of that, I only had three relationships before Twilight, only one of them long-term ."
"Why did you break up in the long-term one?", the princess asked.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You said you would tell me the truth all night.", she reminded me.
"And the truth is, I don't want to talk about it, okay? Don't push it."
"I just don't think that's fair after all the things I told you.", she pouted a bit.
"She died! Happy now?" I covered my eyes and tried to slow down my breathing.
"I... I'm sorry. I didn't know.", she stuttered. "I thought it was just something embarrassing, not... this." she laid her hoof on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry about this. Please forgive me." I heard the fear in her voice and looked up to see her face. Her eyes were filled with tears, and they were begging for forgiveness.
'She is afraid to lose a friend.', I thought.
I calmed down and laid my hand on her hoof. "It's okay. You couldn't know, and you didn't want to hurt me. Let's just forget it happened." I was able to give her a little smile.
I held on to her hoof while she relaxed again and Twilight silently started to talk. "Stella is the first one I had been intimate with. Before, I just used different... things inside of me. One day Spike came in without knocking, and I had to come up with some stupid excuse about taking my temperature while I chased him out." She blushed while Luna and I both snickered for a moment. I remembered a pink phallic shaped object I had seen in Twilight's drawer when I got that numbing oil out of it, maybe a thing we could use in the future.
We talked about much tamer topics for a while. Luna was curious about earth. I told her about my childhood and inventions that had been made. She was fascinated by my stories about the space race to the moon and how the whole world was watching as we finally landed on it. "I always loved to look up to the night sky and dreamed about different worlds we would discover." I ended my monolog as our food arrived.
My grilled fish came in one piece. I noticed Twilight was glancing at it but she didn't say a word.
It was nice to have some fish again. It was delicious, and I savored my meal so much.
...
"That was an incredible meal.", I said and rubbed my belly.
"It is my favorite restaurant for a reason.", Luna told us, followed by a little burp. "Pardon."
I smiled and let out a little louder burp. "Pardon."
"Is this a challenge?", Luna asked grinning.
I shrugged, still smiling.
She let out a thunderous burp, every pony in the restaurant stared at us. Twilight hid behind her hooves while we both laughed.
"Very princess-like.", I was able to say after I got my laughter under control.
"I say a princess should be able to do whatever she wants, so by definition everything I do is princess-like.", she said with a big grin.
"Well if that is the case, we have a lot of princess-like things for you to do tonight. Have you ever been roller skating?"
"Can't say I have, must have been one of the things they invented within the last 1000 years. What is it?", she asked.
"We going to put little wheels under your hooves, you know what a wheel is right?", I mocked her.
"Har har, here come the age jokes, you would be surprised about the stuff I can do but you can't... or wouldn't dare to do."
"Okay, let's pay the bill and find out."
"I just have to sign it, and it will be paid from the treasury. Bill please!", she shouted.
"Maybe this all was a mistake.", I heard Twilight mumble.
"Everything is fine, honey.", I told her and pulled her into a loving hug. "We are just gonna have some fun."
"These wheels provide not enough friction to stand on them without falling.", Twilight complained as I once again picked her up.
"Twilight, there is no scientific excuse. I'm heavier than you, I have a much higher center of gravity, and you can distribute your weight on four legs instead of two. So the fact that I'm standing and have to pick you up every few seconds only shows us you haven't the best sense of balance, but that is something we can work on."
I was happy we found a pair of skates that strapped well enough to my shoes. I held on to Twilight to prevent her from falling again right away.
"Look how well Luna is doing, despite being much bigger and heavier.", I told my marefriend.
"Hey!", Luna shouted while she rolled past us.
"... but she has still that slender, beautiful body.", I added.
"Much better.", Luna replied.
"Well, she is cheating.", Twily huffed. "If I had wings to provide me some lift every time I struggle, it would be much easier for me too."
I looked over to Luna, despite using her wings now and then to stabilize herself, she looked very elegant in her movements. I was smart enough not to tell Twilight that she probably was just a little clumsy.
"Luna is having fun, and that's what counts.", I whispered in her ear. "I haven't fell in love with you because of your sense of balance." I kissed her cheek.
"Can you just hold on to me for the rest of the time we're doing this? I don't like to fall all the time."
"Sure, honey." I held on to her while we slowly skated along the track. I began to hum and bent down towards her. "Don't worry, I've got you nothing will ever harm you. I'm close by, I'll stay here, through all things I will be near.", I whispered in her ear. She looked up to me with a warm, loving smile.
"This is really fun once you got the hang of it.", Luna shouted as she drove by us again. "Ohhh, you two look so cute together, you are such a pretty..."
Distracted by us, she tripped and fell to the ground right in front of us. We fell too as we hit her and we ended up in a big ball of interlinked arms, feet and hooves.
It took us a few moments to untangle ourselves. "Well, I stand by my statement.", Luna told us. "This is fun and I'm thankful you introduced me to it. I'm sure I will come here again in the future." Her horn emitted a faint blue glow. "Oh, it's almost time to raise the moon."
We hurried to get the skates off and to leave the building. Once outside the glow of her horn increased in intensity until it was almost to bright to look at. I followed Luna's gaze and saw the moon rise quite fast until it was completely visible. It came to a halt in a beautiful night sky. Then about hundred new bright stars lid up above us. It was a breathtaking experience.
"That was so incredible to watch.", I told Luna. "And it is connected to our next activity."
Twilight led us through the streets of Canterlot until we reached a big round building with a dome on top.
"What is this?", Luna asked.
"It's an observatory. Ponies come here to watch and study the night sky.", Twilight explained. "I have been here quite often before."
"Ponies come here to do this?", she asked skeptically.
"Yeah, it is very popular. You will see why once we are inside.", Twily said and led the way.
After we had entered, I saw the night sky projected onto the inside of the dome.
It was pretty obvious how much my marefriend loved to explain everything. "This projection is possible thanks to some small telescopes connected by magic. Instead, the projection can be switched to a larger telescope to look at parts of the night sky in detail."
I saw a large number of bed-like objects in various sizes, ponies laid upon them.
"Here, protected from wind and temperature, ponies can lie as long as they want to watch the stars and the moon.", she ended her monolog. We followed Twilight to one of the larger 'beds' in the middle of the room, we passed families, kissing lovers and single ponies on our way.
"Would you be so kind and explain us some of your beautiful night sky?", I asked Luna and pointed towards the bed before us.
"With pleasure.", she replied and laid down right in the middle of it.
We laid to both of her sides and watched the sky above.
"I create several constellations every night.", she started to explain. "But there are a lot of single and paired stars too, like these two stars, slowly encircling each other, they represent my parents..."
She explained the sky for about an hour. It was fascinating, and there was so much stuff even Twilight doesn't seem to know before.
"I have a question.", I carefully told Luna. "But you don't have to answer it."
"What is it?", she asked a bit confused.
"How... how did it feel it to be trapped in the moon?"
She went silent.
After a few seconds, I spoke up again. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."
"No, it is okay.", she interrupted me. "I want you to know, I just thought about how to explain it."
She used her wings to draw us close to her.
"Luckily I wasn't conscious most of the time, a thousand years of that would have destroyed my mind for sure. I was a part of Nightmare Moon, who was a part of the moon. So I was just a tiny piece of the moon. I can't describe to you how lonely it felt, the times I was self-aware I just wanted one thing more than anything else.", she paused and drew us even closer to her. "I just wanted to die. I wanted to vanish from existence. The feeling of complete loneliness was to much for me to endure."
I felt her body shaking and saw tears run down her cheeks.
I brought up my hand and wiped away a tear. "You don't have to be alone ever again, you have friends now, you have us now."
She hugged us so hard, it was starting to feel painful, but we both just let it happen.
"Maybe we should move on the the music bar we picked as our final destination.", I suggested. "I think we all could use a drink right now."
"I think that's an excellent idea.", said Luna and wiped her eyes. We all stood up again and I straightened my dress.
"Mommy, mommy, look it's the moon princess. Can we talk to her?", a little light blue filly with a white mane shouted very excited.
"I don't think we should disturb them, Electra. She is probably busy.", her mother answered.
Luna had heard them talking and addressed the filly: "Have no fear, come to me and tell me what you want."
Happily the filly approached her, her mother followed her a bit embarrassed. "Hello Princess Luna, I'm Electra. I just wanted to tell you how much I love love love your moon and the stars, they are so pretty. I try to come here every night to watch them."
"That's right.", her mother added. "She refuses to go to sleep before we watched your night sky."
Luna leaned down to her. "I'm very happy you like my night so much, Electra.", she said and smiled. "What is your favorite color?"
The filly thought about it for a second. "Orange."
"Look up to the sky.", Luna told her. We all looked up and saw a new shining orange star appearing. "This is your star, and it will appear in the night sky for the next week. When it fades, I will visit you to talk about stars for a while."
Little Electra threw her front hooves around Luna's neck and hugged her crying. "Thank you, thank you, Princess."
Luna wrapped her wings around the little filly. "You're very welcome, Electra.", she said in a warm motherly voice I hadn't expected from her. "Every friend of the night is a friend of mine."
Her mother had tears in her eyes, and I had to wipe away some myself.
"We will have to go now, but we will meet again soon. Bye." We left while Luna waved goodbye to them.
"Thank you so much princess!", the mother shouted after us.
Luna's face was full of joy and she had a warm, happy smile on her face. "It is so rare to meet somepony who loves the night as much as little Electra does."
"That was one of the sweetest things I ever saw.", I told her. "But I'm pretty sure if you go out more often, you will find there are a lot of ponies loving the night, and you."
"That may be true.", the princess answered. "Maybe I have to rethink some of my beliefs."
I decided to make use of her euphoric mood by asking her: "Would you accompany us to the Gala tomorrow? We always will be close by; we can have fun there together as well."
"Okay, being there with you should make the Gala bearable. I will rescue both of you from total boredom tomorrow by coming with you.", she said laughing.
"It's a deal.", I answered.
...
A few minutes later we entered the music bar, our last station for tonight. We had decided for it because Twilight had recognized the name of the performer playing tonight. She had heard her playing in Ponyville before at a little open air festival. We searched for a free table and ignored the stares our unusual group received from everyone in the room. Once sitting we ordered some drinks, wine for Luna and sweet cocktails for us. We arrived at the perfect time. Octavia was had just finished setting up her cello and started her show with a love song. Our order arrived just moments later, and we were sipping our drinks while enjoying the music.
After six songs she did a little pause, giving us the opportunity to speak again.
"I never had imagined you could use a cello to do such modern songs.", I told them. "In my world, it is used for old classical music."
"Itsch wunderfulll isn't it?", Twilight said grinning.
I looked at the three glasses before her. "Twilight, slow down. These drinks taste sweet, but I believe they have a pretty high alcohol content. I haven't even finished my first one."
"There is nothing wrong with getting a little bit tipsy.", Luna said and had rosy cheeks as well.
"Seeee, I agree with the pretty plincesss.", Twily showed a big grin towards Luna. "How isss the wine, Lulu?"
Luna blushed at the nickname Twilight gave her. She had two empty glasses before her. "It is delicious. I would give you some to try, but my glasses are empty.", she replied to Twilight's question.
"I schink I will taste schome anyway.", Twilight said licking her lips and she drew Luna into a deep kiss. I saw Luna's wings unfold a bit as she reacted to the surprising kiss.
"You're right. It tastes delischious.", Twilight said with a huge smile after breaking the kiss.
"I think we should leave now.", I said. I wasn't a jealous girl, but this was a bit to much for me.
"Maybe your right.", Luna agreed her wings still raised half way.
...
We left the bar just as Octavia started to play her next set of songs. I held on to Twilight since her walking got a little clumsy.
"Could you do me a last favor?", Luna asked timidly while we walked towards the castle. "Could you sleep in my bed tonight?"
I looked at her questioning, still a little mad.
"Just lying in it together, after the things we talked about I don't want to feel alone tonight.", Luna told us. I remembered her comments about being trapped inside the moon. "You can lay in the middle.", she continued. "Nothing will happen, I promise. I just... don't want to be alone."
I saw fear in her pleading eyes. "Sure.", I answered with a warm smile. "Who knows if I could lead Twilight alone to a hotel anyway."
"I'm totallllly onehundredperschent able to walky alone.", Twilight protested and stumbled a bit, but I could keep her from falling.
...
It was quite a big bed we were laying in. Twilight already snored softly next to me, while me and Luna looked at each others face, still awake.
"I have to thank you two so much for what you did today.", Luna whispered. "I was trapped so much within my old bad memories that I was afraid of letting others getting close to me."
"I know how this feels.", I replied. "Maybe that's the reason why I like you so much. Somehow I feel we are alike." I giggled softly. "Of course we look as different as it is possible."
"I know what you mean.", she said and used her hoof to brush through my hair. "I feel it too." She sighed.
"I think we should get some sleep as well. We will attend the Gala tomorrow.", I said yawning.
"You're right. Let's sleep now. It is okay that I hold on to you?"
"Yeah, it's fine."
She used her hooves to draw me close to her and kissed me on the cheek. "Good night and thank you for all you did. Sleep well."
We both closed our eyes and enjoyed the warm feeling of each other while we drifted to sleep.
"Please.", she whispered, her voice filled with panic.
I opened my eyes and looked into the peaceful face of Luna still sleeping; her hooves held me in a gentle embrace. "What is it?", I whispered back.
"Why are we in Luna's bed?"
"How much do you remember after we entered the music bar?", I asked her.
"I'm not sure, I drank these tasty cocktails, then I... oh no... did I kiss the princess??"
"You seemed pretty eager to stick your tongue inside her mouth.", I said and looked at Luna's lips.
"Oh no, I so sorry Stella, I never should have done such a thing. Please, don't be mad at me."
"You would feel it if I were mad at you. It's okay, you lost control for a bit, but I won't get angry about a kiss."
"But how have we ended up in Luna's bed and what did we do in here?", she asked still very worried.
For a moment I had the idea to frighten her a bit because of the kiss, to tell her about some crazy things she did with Luna. But that wouldn't be fair considering what happened when I was trapped under Fluttershy's bed.
"Luna was just afraid to be alone after I had brought back those memories about her imprisonment. She asked if we could stay with her. So nothing happened, we just slept in the same bed, that's all."
I could hear Twilight exhale.
Luna began to move and slowly opened her eyes.
"Good morning, Luna.", I said.
She looked at me. "Morning.", she replied smiling. "That was my best night of sleep since I'm back. Thank you so much for staying with me."
"Sorry for kissing you, Princess.", Twilight apologized from behind my back.
Luna lifted her head a bit to look at her. "No need to be sorry, that was another best thing since I am back. I hope there isn't discord because of that kiss."
"No, everything is fine.", I replied. "I'm not mad at her."
Luna laid her head on the pillow again and looked at me. "I could kiss Stella to even it out.", she suggested with a grin.
"I don't think that is how it works.", I calmly replied. "This is 'Pinkie Pie logic', and we should never use her way of thinking." I grinned. "I'm sure there are a lot of kissable lips at the Gala."
Luna pouted, she must have imagined another answer. "I don't think so, half of them will be annoying snobs, the other half will be to afraid to come close to me."
"But since we are together we will have fun anyway, okay?", I asked her.
"Of course, after all the things you two did for me yesterday, the least I can do is trying to have a bit fun at the Gala."
"Can we have breakfast?", Twily asked. "We soon will have to leave to visit my family."
"Is it so late already?", I asked.
"Sisters sun is pretty high already, half past nine I suppose. Tia tends to wait for me so that we can have breakfast together. She will be quite hungry by now."
Reluctantly Luna released me from her hug and got up from the bed. We did the same, but Twilight had to hold on to the bed again. "Why is this room spinning?", she asked.
"You should be careful. You're not used to alcohol and its consequences.", I told Twilight. "Let me help you." I picked her up and carried her in front of me.
"Stella, it will be embarrassing for me if you carry me through the castle like a pet.", she protested. "Especially if we meet Princess Celestia."
"Well, we should go to the bathroom first, it's right in the next room, no one will see you.", Luna explained to us.
"Yeah, your mane looks like you have been through a hurricane.", I told Twilight. "We really need to brush it."
I followed Luna into the next room, a mumbling Twilight in my arms. The bathroom was huge and looked like a high-class turkish bath with moon ornaments all over it. I walked through it in awe, looking at everything.
"You even have a small pool in here!", I shouted.
"Yeah, but I hardly use it. I'm more of a shower pony.", she replied.
"I think I can stand now.", Twilight said.
I carefully put her down but held on to her shoulder. "Okay, but be careful my love."
She used her magic to bring a brush to her mane and started brushing it. When I was sure she wouldn't tip, I grabbed one of the guest toothbrushes and brushed my teeth. The toothbrush was made out of wood, like so many other things here. I wasn't sure if I should introduce them to plastic if my chemistry experiments went well, there were some downsides to it regarding waste.
...
After a few minutes, we all were in a much prettier state and ready for breakfast.
When we left Luna's room, one of the guards immediately started running towards another corridor.
"He informs Tia that I'm on my way to breakfast so she can join me.", Luna explained his behavior.
After a few more moments we arrived in a fancy dining room filled with beautiful statues and flowers.
'Wow, this looks like something straight out of a Disney movie.', I thought.
The table was filled with all kinds of breakfast related items and all of them looked delicious. "With a spread like this I would be ten pounds heavier within a week, how do you and your sister keep this slight build?"
"Alicorns have a great metabolism.", Luna told us. "And I'm very happy about it." she sat down on one of the chairs and we joined her.
"Good morning to all of you.", Celestia greeted us as she entered the room and sat down with us. "I'm surprised to see Stella and Twilight here too, have you been up all night?"
"Well...", I started but was interrupted by Luna.
"I know you tricked me about dinner with them. I would be quite mad at you if this hadn't been one of the best nights of my life.", she said with a big grin.
"Really?", Celestia asked while she grabbed a cup and poured herself a coffee. "Tell me what you did then."
"After dinner, we went roller skating.", Luna started. "It was surprisingly fun, have you tried it yet?"
"It has been some years since I did, but yes."
"I'm planning on doing it again in the future. Maybe we could go together. After that we went to a nearby observatory were ponies can watch my night sky, I was surprised how many were there, and I met the cutest filly..."
Celestia showed a warm smile as she listened to her sister talking about fun activities and things she experienced.
"... we got a little drunk there, well Twilight more than a little. She kissed me and then the three of us spent the rest of the night in bed together."
Celestia lost her magical grip on the coffee mug, it fell to the floor and shattered in pieces. Twilight's face beamed red, and I felt the heat radiating from her despite sitting a bit away from her.
"You told that last part ambiguously on purpose.", I whispered to Luna and smiled.
"Of course.", she whispered back. "I wanted to see my sisters reaction as a little payback for tricking me. Twilight is quite cute when she is bashful."
"Yes, she is."
The others slowly recovered from this shocking announcement.
"I'm surprised.", Celestia said, her face pink. "I told you to cheer Luna up, but I haven't imagined you would go that far for it."
"No... we just slept together... we slept in the same bed... but nothing happened... I think.", Twilight stuttered.
"Sorry, maybe I was misleading. We just shared the bed while we slept next to each other.", Luna said with a perfectly innocent look.
I made a mental note never to play poker with the Princess of the night.
"Wow, I'm so stuffed.", I told Twilight as we slowly walked through Canterlot.
"Me too. It was all so tasty."
We walked on while I received the typical stares from passing ponies.
"Are you nervous about meeting my family?", Twilight asked suddenly.
"Not at all. I'm sure they will be really nice, just like all the ponies I met so far."
"Okay, then it looks like I'm far more nervous than you. I'm bringing a whole new species as my marefriend. I want them to approve.", she answered nervously.
"You are a great mare that I love so much, so your parents must love you and have raised you right. So I'm sure they are great ponies who just want to see you happy. You are happy because we love each other. 'Quod erat demonstrandum' - thus it has been demonstrated, they will love me as well.", I grinned at her.
"When you talk like that I want to drag you into a small alley and rip off your clothes.", she said with fire in her eyes.
"Rarity would get angry with you for destroying my dresses faster than she can make new ones.", I said laughing and kissed her. We heard some shocked gasps from the crowd around us.
It turned to the crowd. "Thank you very much for your attention! We will be at the Gala as well if you want to take pictures!"
Twilight laid her hoof on my hand. "Just let them be."
"I'm just tired of all the staring and shocked expressions. Everypony is thinking 'How can she be with such a thing' .", I told her.
"Because they don't know you're the best thing that happened to me. I don't care about them. They will get used to seeing you like Ponyville did as well." She drew me into a loving hug.
"Sorry... I guess I started to feel accepted in Ponyville. Now coming here and being the 'odd thing' again..."
"Well ponies in Canterlot are especially snooty at everything that's not like them.", she said. "Let's ignore them and focus on visiting my family, just two more streets and we're there."
"Your right, my love. Let's get going."
...
The house looked nice and cozy, a lovely garden full of flowers surrounding it. The sweet smell of a nearby bakery lingered in the air.
"How much did you tell them about me?", I asked before we entered.
"Only that I bring a friend with me.", she answered and smiled sheepishly.
"Wow, they're in for quite a surprise."
She knocked on the door. "Mom, dad, I'm home!" She opened the door. Inside sitting on a couch, I saw her parents. Her mother, a gray unicorn with a purple and white striped mane and tail. Her father sat next to her. He had a blue coat and a dark blue mane. Their happy expression towards her daughter changed quickly to surprise when they saw me entering the house.
They recovered quite fast, and her mother addressed me directly: "Oh hello, so you are the mysterious friends my daughter announced, we read an article about you in the paper a few days ago. I should have guessed it. Twilight always loves to learn and study about new and exciting things. I'm Twilight Velvet. You can call me Velvet to avoid confusion."
"My name is Night Light.", her father introduced himself. "Please take a seat."
"My name is Stella. I'm so happy to meet the ponies who raised this beautiful and smart mare, I guess it runs in the family.", I said while I sat in an armchair and Twilight in the one next to mine.
Velvet laughed. "Oh my, that's to kind of you. I baked fresh chocolate cookies. They are Twilight's favorite, can you eat those?"
"I would love to try them.", I replied.
A huge plate of cookies levitated to the table in front of us.
"Mom, Dad, I have an announcement to make.", Twily said, and her parent's attention shifted to her, while I tried one of the cookies. "You two always tell me I shouldn't forget to look for my special somepony, I'm happy to tell you, I found it."
Especially her mother got very excited. "That's fantastic news. I'm so happy for you. When will we get to know him or her?"
"She is right here, Stella is my marefriend."
The next few seconds had been absolutely silent, apart from the sound of me eating cookies.
After some moments they had processed this surprising news, and they both smiled again.
Her mother addressed me: "Sorry dear, that was pretty surprising. I can clearly see that my daughter is so happy right now, so we are glad to welcome you as a part of our family. Do you have plans for a wedding yet?"
I choked on the remains of a cookie.
"Mom!", Twilight shouted.
"What? Is it forbidden to ask?", she replied.
As I was able to speak again, I responded to her question: "I love your daughter more than anything, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her." I laid my hand on her hoof and kissed her cheek. "But we should probably wait a bit longer since we only know each other for a few days now."
Her parents held each other's hooves and gave us a warm smile.
"Your brother will be here in about an hour.", Night Light told us. "He has a surprise for you as well... Although I think you have outdone him."
"Shining comes as well, that's great news.", Twilight said and was beaming.
"We could take this time to learn a bit more about you.", said Velvet. "And I could show you some family pictures while we're talking."
"I would love to see those. Twilight is so cute already, I can't wait to see what she looked like as filly or baby."
"Oh no...", Twilight mumbled.
...
"...and this picture was when she finally succeeded her potty training.", Velvet told me while Twilight tried to hide in her armchair.
I felt her embarrassment through our connection, but I had so much fun with Velvet. "Oh honey, you look so proud next to... it."
Twilight just mumbled something I couldn't understand.
The door flew open, and a white unicorn stallion entered the room, his mane and tail had a mix of two different shades of blue in it.
"Hello family! Hi Twily, nice to..." He stopped and looked at me. "Oh, it's the thing from the newspaper.", he continued in a not so happy tone.
"She is not a thing, her name is Stella and I have brought her with me.", Twilight clarified.
"Whatever. I have a surprise for you.", he continued excitedly. "I have a marefriend. You will meet her when you and me join her for lunch today. I bet you will be even more surprised then." He had a huge smile on his face.
Twily drew him into a hug. "That's fantastic news Shiny. I'm so happy for you."
After a moment they separated again, and Twilight continued: "But I also have a marefriend now."
He looked absolutely flabbergasted. "You... you left your books long enough to meet somepony? Who is it?"
She came back to me, and we kissed. "It's Stella, we're a couple and she is the love of my life."
His face went blank. It took a few seconds before he spoke again. "Could you come over to me Twily?"
Confused my marefriend walked next to him. He leaned close to her and whispered in her ear.
I felt so much anger and sadness through our connection, so I guess I was the one least surprised by what happened next.
She slapped him so hard you could see a red spot where she hit him. "HOW DARE YOU!"
Twilight ran to me and hugged me while she was crying. I softly stroked her back and glared towards her brother.
Her parents were shocked, but Velvet recovered first. "What has Shining told you?"
"He said he knew a stallion who would fit much better to me than 'this thing'.", Twilight told us crying.
I was about to raise my voice when...
"SHINING ARMOR!", Night Light screamed loud enough for the whole street to hear. "YOUR SISTER BROUGHT US THE ONE SHE LOVES, AND YOU DARE TO SAY SUCH A THING?!"
I never saw a pony this angry before. Shining Armor's ears laid to the side of his head, and he ducked deep, he looked like a kicked dog.
Night Light lowered his voice a little bit as he continued. "Stella is a part of our family now, and you shouldn't dare to treat her in a different way than you would treat me! And what would your marefriend say if she heard you're questioning your sister's love, considering who your marefriend is?"
Shining's face changed into an expression of pure panic. "No, no. I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Twilight. Excuse me, Stella. But please don't tell her."
'Now that's an interesting reaction.', I thought.
I still stroked Twilight's mane. "What do you say, honey? I say we forgive him for what he did. Your brother did something stupid because he doesn't know me yet."
Twilight turned around and looked at Shining kneeling before us. "He is still my brother, and I will forgive him this one incredibly cruel thing he did."
I kissed Twilight to further calm her down... and to irritate him. "I'm really looking forward meeting your marefriend for lunch now.", I said. "Can we go now?"
Shining Armor face changed back to the 'kicked-dog' expression.
We arrived at the restaurant accompanied by a very nervous Shining Armor. Many tables stood outside in the sun, plenty of ponies sitting around eating lunch or ice cream.
"Hello, I presume you have a reservation?", the waiter asked us.
"Yes, I have made a reservation.", Shining responded. "But we will be four instead of three now."
"This isn't a problem. Please follow me."
He led us to a table only a few steps away. "Please signal me when you are ready to order." He left us while we took our seats.
"It's nice eating outside in the sun.", I said and took the menu. "I hope they have some good stuff without hay."
"They have great pasta here.", Shining responded surprisingly helpful.
I saw a pink unicorn with multicolored mane sneak up at Twilight from behind. 'Wait, is it an alicorn?', I thought surprised. For some reason, I had expected Luna and Celestia to be the only ones.
She put her hooves over Twilight's eyes. "Hello Twilight, who am I?"
Twily face lid up like a Christmas tree. "CADENCE!" She jumped from her seat to face her.
"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake.", Twilight began some strange dance.
"Clap your hooves and do a little shake.", both of them finished together, wiggling their butts and started laughing. It was an adorable sight.
"Stella, Stella, this is Cadence. She was my foalsitter when I was a filly.", Twilight introduced us excitedly.
Only now the alicorn seemed to notice me; she had been exclusively focused on Twilight before. "Wow, you look super interesting. Do you have a tail under this dress?"
"Nice to meet you Cadence. No, I don't have any tail. I'm surprised you are an alicorn, I thought Luna and Celestia would be the only ones."
"They are in a way... I was a pegasus when I was little but became and alicorn because of something I did."
"Wow, you changed your race? This world always surprises me."
Twilight interrupted our talk. "The princess of love is your marefriend?", she asked her brother.
He nodded happily.
"The princess of love?", I asked confused.
"It isn't an official title.", she responded. "But some ponies call me that because of the love magic I can do."
"That... sounds dangerous.", I told her.
"Oh no, I don't force anypony together. I usually just use it to remind some bickering couples about their love to end their fighting. But I also sometimes see who is made to be together, and wow your connection is shining brightly as the sun, I never saw something like this before..."
"Yes, she is my marefriend.", Twilight stated and kissed me. "Isn't she great?"
"She certainly is something special, and you were made for each other.", Cadence replied.
They both sat on our table. "Maybe we should order first. We have enough time to chat while we are waiting.", Shining's marefriend suggested.
We all agreed and looked at the menu. Once we had found something we liked, we signaled the waiter and he took our orders. I had decided on stuffed pasta with a cheese sauce.
"It looks like you lost a part of your right hoof.", Cadence stated. I hadn't expected the 'Princess of Love' to be this direct, but I liked direct characters.
I started with a quick classification as I pointed with my stump on different parts of my arm. "Arm. Hand. Fingers." I wiggled my fingers at the end.
"I love her fingers...", I heard Twily mumble. Judging from the grin that appeared temporary on Cadence face, she had heard it too.
"It happened when I closed the portal to my world.", I started. "It had to be done to protect Equestria from our kind, some of us would have used violence and weapons to extract all resources from this world... and you wouldn't be able to stop them. I went back to my world a final time to close it. I used a time delay that would give me the opportunity to get back before it closed forever... to be with Twilight. But my boss noticed and beat me up real bad, only the thought of protecting Twilight and getting back to her kept me conscious. I used all the power I had left to jump through the portal, but he held on to my hand and tried to pull me back, then the portal closed and cut my hand off. Twilight found me and brought me to the hospital." I ran my fingers over my stump and looked to the ground.
"I had no idea.", Shining Armor mumbled. "I'm so sorry."
When I looked up, I saw tears in Cadence eyes.
"Well, that killed the mood.", I said. "Let's talk about something else. Cadence, is the 'princess of love' also an expert in making love?"
"Stella!", Twilight shouted.
"No, it's okay.", she said laughing. "I was quite direct in my questions. She can do the same. I say that I tried out a few things and read about much more. Is there a reason you ask?"
"I have a question about stallions. You know, we have horses and ponies on my planet too, but they are quite different. I saw pictures of them in their aroused state, and they never would fit with a mare here, but I only have one mare as a reference."
Twilight hit me with her hoof, her face crimson red.
"What?", I asked. "It is a strictly scientific question. You should understand this. There is no reason to be ashamed. How about you Shining Armor? Do you think I should change the topic to something else Cadence might find interesting?" I gave him a big smile, and he seemed to understand immediately.
"No... No, of course not. We are all adult ponies... beings." He tried to be as natural as possible and failed big time.
Cadence seemed to be a bit confused by him, but she leaned closer to me. "How big are we talking about?"
I used my hand and my stump to show about 18 inches. "And about as thick as my arm.", I added.
It was silent for the next few seconds; Cadence was drooling a bit. "Fuck.", she finally stated and wiped her mouth. "I don't think I could fit... I mean... I don't think any mare could fit such a thing inside her. Well, Celestia is a lot bigger than any other mare, but even her..."
Twilight looked like she was about to faint as Cadence talked about the sun princess having sex.
"Well, then how big is a stallion's penis here? For example Shining's penis?", I asked. He didn't look happy about that, but I couldn't care less.
"About this size, and this thick.", Cadence show me, I was surprised she would tell me just like that.
"Aaah, that's kind of cute.", I said grinning. "That is so much easier for you than such a giant thing."
Her eyes got a bit misty as she seemed to imagine something while Shining's eyes looked like they were made out of fire.
The waiter arrived with our food and drinks, all levitating next to him. While he put everything on the table, I leaned to Twilight's brother and whispered: "We're even."
Cadence was very interested in the world I came from, and I was happy to tell her about it. After another half hour, her focus shifted on me again.
"Can I touch your fingers?", she asked.
"Sure." I laid my hand palm down on the table.
Softly she brushed her hoof over it up to the fingertips. She grabbed one of the fingers, lifted it a bit and let it loose again. "So much softer than claws.", she stated. "Could you please show me how you pick up something tiny?"
She was a less nerdy but more open version of Twilight, no wonder they were such good friends.
I used my fingers to run through her fur, separated one of her hairs and plucked it out.
"Hey!", she protested but laughed while doing it.
I took the hair to my lips and blew it over to her.
"Very dexterous. Is it okay for me to ask in detail how your body differs to ours? I guess your udders are up there." She pointed to my breasts; their shape was clearly visible under my dress.
"Well, that's the biggest difference.", I replied. "If I would stand on my arms and legs the rest is pretty much at the same place as a pony."
"Sooo your..."
"Is nearly similar to Twilight's in size, shape and position.", I interrupted her grinning.
"Can you read my mind?", she asked and tried to sound shocked.
"No, but dirty minds think alike.", I replied with a lewd smile.
We both started to laugh pretty loud while Twilight and Shining stared at each other, unsure how they should react.
"Will you two attend the gala as well?", she asked us once we had calmed down.
"Yes.", Twilight replied. "Princess Celestia invited my friends and us to the gala. We are really looking forward to it."
"You know, we should have a mares night someday in the future, I'm sure we would have a lot of fun.", Cadence suggested.
"Sure, we had something similar just yesterday with Luna.", I replied. "We had dinner, went roller skating, stargazing, in a music bar and ended up in Luna's bed together."
Both looked at us in shock, but Cadence also started to grin a bit.
"Really?", Twilight asked. "You end this sentence like that?"
"Is any part of the sentence untrue?", I asked smiling.
Her horn began to glow, and she started to lift my dress.
I tried to push it down, but her magic was much to strong.
"What are you doing, honey?"
"You embarrass me, I do the same to you. Clarify what happened."
"We ended up in Luna's bed together because Luna felt lonely and Twilight was drunk."
My dress got lifted further, my panties were clearly visible now. Cadence leaned sideways to get a better view.
"Okay. Nothing happened, we only shared her bed to sleep in it.", I admitted.
Her magic disappeared, and I was able to pull down my dress again. Twilight leaned back with a huge grin.
"We should send letters to keep in touch and to find a date for our mares night.", the princess of love suggested, and we agreed. She wrote down her mail information, and I picked it up to read it. "Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Canterlot palace.", I read out loud. "No wonder you are the princess of love."
"What do you mean?", she asked.
"'Mi Amore' literally means 'My Love' in Italian."
"We don't have any language here in which my name has a meaning. That's strange."
"Well, have your parents never told you about the meaning of your name?", I asked.
Her mood darkened. "I was found in the snow when I was a baby, the documents nearby me were unreadable to ponies except for one part 'Mi Amore Cadenza', so that became my name. Celestia adopted me later, that's how I became 'Princess'."
"That's so strange. Maybe the documents are Italian and since our writing differs... do you still have these?"
"Yes, of course, but what is the meaning of all this?", she asked.
"Maybe our worlds have been connected more than we know. Perhaps the portal, that Indigo Nightshade had created to my world, reopened again after he closed it."
"Indigo Nightshade made a portal to your world?", Cadence asked in disbelief. "Does that mean... I'm not from this world?"
"You don't look like something from my world.", I replied. "But I don't think we should speculate without looking at these documents first."
Twilight nodded. "Seems like we have to look into Nightshade's books earlier than we thought.", she said.
Cadence was very confused, and a bit frightened from all this new information. She ordered some alcohol and gulped it down immediately as it arrived. Meanwhile, we did our best to calm her down.
After a few more minutes we hugged her for goodbye. We went to the castle since our Gala-dresses were still in the suitcase we had left there.
...
We walked through the corridors of the castle. There was a lot of hustle and bustle for the upcoming gala. One of the guards informed us our suitcase had been brought to Luna's room, on order of the princess.
We knocked on her door. "Luna, it's Stella and Twilight."
"Yes, come in.", we heard her strong but melodic voice.
As we entered, I stared at the moon princess. She was dressed in a dark blue dress that flowed like water from her body. It had silver moon ornaments and little crystals attached to the fabric that made them look like stars.
"Wow, you are quite a sight.", I told her while I still stared at her.
"Thanks a lot for this compliment.", she replied with the slightest blush on her cheeks. "I have ordered to bring your stuff here so we can go straight to the gala from here. How was your meeting with Twilight's family?"
We told her about everything that happened this afternoon.
...
"It is weird that Cadence could have some connection to your world.", Luna said once we had finished our story. "I wonder if my sister has more information about this, I had been 'away' when all of this happened."
"Well, let's concentrate on the gala now, we can ponder on this later.", I told them and opened the suitcase.
Twilight took her dress out; it was blue with white and light blue stars. She went to one of the mirrors and started dressing. I tugged the elegant dress Rarity had made me out of the suitcase, black with dark purple.
"I guess you could use some help dressing up. Should I help you?", Luna asked.
Normally I would have declined, but this elegant dress was skin-tight, it wouldn't be easy to get in. "I would be very thankful for that.", I answered smiling.
"Okay, arms up.", she told me and I did as she said. She pulled the dress I was wearing right over my head and levitated it on a nearby chair. "My goodness, what a lovely design.", she stated while her gaze lingered on my bra.
"It's Rarity's design, made after a model I had brought from my world.", I explained.
"I guess I should visit her soon. I love how playful it is without covering much. I will get myself one that covers my whole body except the head, skin-tight."
I made the mistake to imagine that and my nipples hardened immediately. Luna just grinned as she noticed it. "Arms up again.", she said in her melodic voice and levitated my elegant dress over to me. She pushed it over my body at an incredibly slow pace. Her magic made it feel like a dozen hands slowly brushed over every part of my skin at once. I had a hard time not to moan.
"What are you doing?", I asked through the fabric, trying to keep all excitement out of my voice.
"Just making sure I don't hurt you or stretch the fabric.", she answered in a clearly amused tone.
It took another minute before the dress was fitted to my body and I saw Luna's grinning face. I looked over to Twilight who seemed to have a hard time applying some eyeshadow in front of a mirror. I walked over to her and slapped Luna's butt hard as I passed. The sound was muffled by her dress, and I heard a pleased hum from Luna.
"Let me help you, Twily.", I said and grabbed the make-up brush out of her magical aura.
"Let me help you, Twily.", I said and grabbed the make-up brush out of her magical aura.
I sat before her and looked what she had done so far, it was smeared and all over the place.
"Have you ever done something like this before?", I asked her smiling while I wiped her face clean to start again.
"No...", she admitted. "But I want to look extra pretty for you today."
I started to apply dark purple eyeshadow to her eyelids. "You know you always will be the most beautiful mare for me, no matter who else is in the room or what you do to your face."
Eyes still closed, she pursed her lips. I was more than happy to give her a warm loving kiss.
After a few seconds Luna spoke up: "Ahhhh, you two are so cute together. I want some of this too."
I broke the kiss brushing my hand along Twilight's cheek. "I told you, there will be so many ponies at the Gala I'm sure you find someone kissable."
"I don't have high hopes for it...", she mumbled.
My hand was shakier than I wanted it to be. "This is hard.", I said. "I'm not used to do this with my non-dominant hand."
Twilight opened the eye I wasn't working on at the moment, and her horn started to glow. Her magical aura surrounded my hand and kept it steady. I could still move it at will, but she stabilized my movements.
"Thanks, honey.", I whispered to her.
"Anytime, my love.", she replied.
I kissed her warm lips again.
"Oh come on, now you are doing it on purpose...", Luna complained.
...
We waited at the gala entrance for our friends to arrive. Celestia had a growing line of ponies before her, all eager to greet her. Some ponies came up to Luna and wanted to greet her the same way, but she chased them away and told them "I'm not going to do THIS all night." Pretty soon nopony tried to bother her anymore.
After a while, their carriage arrived and one after another they stepped outside. They all looked so lovely in their gala dresses. I was very impressed with Rainbow's outfit, so colorful but elegant at the same time. Fluttershy's green dress was a nice contrast to her pink mane.
Applejack surprised me in multiple ways. Instead of wearing the green and red apple themed dress I had seen in Rarity's shop before, she was wearing something completely different. Her dress was in a very dark green color, almost black, striped with a slightly lighter green. Her front hooves were wrapped in a similar fabric and got highlighted by some golden buttons. Her mane and tail had been beautifully braided, and a black Stetson rested on her head.
The next surprise was the dark gray pegasus stallion by her side, his mane a light cyanish gray with lighter streaks. I was able to spot a storm cloud as his cutie mark.
They all approached us, Pinkie Pie bouncing. Fluttershy and Dashie were walking side by side, Rainbow had her wing wrapped around her marefriend's body.
"Hi, my name is Thunderlane.", the stallion introduced himself to us.
We went through our introductions, and I pulled Applejack to the side. "Look who brought a handsome stallion with her.", I whispered with a smile. "I told you there would be candidates if you show you're interested."
"He is a nice guy, and I'm happy not going single to the gala, but it doesn't look like we have anything in common."
"Maybe he surprises you throughout the night.", I told her with a smile. "And if not, we will help you finding somepony else."
"Thanks.", she replied and nuzzled me. I was surprised by this sign of affection, while I had witnessed it many times before, nopony except Twilight ever did it to me. Applejack showed a slight blush on her cheeks, and we joined the group again.
We bypassed the line to Celestia and went straight to the entrance. Just as we passed Celestia, she extended one of her wings and blocked Twilight from entering.
"Sorry Twilight, you can't enter the Gala.", she told my marefriend. Twilight was flabbergasted and just stared at her. "Not without giving me a hug.", the princess continued and drew her into one. "I wish you all a good time tonight.", she told us as she broke the embrace.
"Thanks a lot, princess.", we all said nearly unison, except Luna who just smiled.
We entered the Gala, and I saw some of my fears came true, it looked like some high-class Renaissance event. "Oh my...", I muttered.
"Told you.", Luna replied.
...
We had mingled in the crowd as much as possible.
Fluttershy and Rainbow stood next to the snack table and talked to each other.
Applejack and Thunderlane stood somewhere on the other side of the room.
Rarity went outside to the gardens in pursuit of some white coated prince with a blond mane.
Me, Twilight and Luna kept each other company and talked about our favorite foods and ice cream.
That's when Pinkie took the stage and got the orchestra to play some fun upbeat song, the 'Pony Pokey'.
I just smiled at these typical Pinkie antics because it was some nice change of mood.
Unfortunately, some of the snooty ponies were not that happy about it.
"This is high-class, not a filly's birthday. Please leave the stage.", one of the ponies addressed Pinkie.
She left the stage with a sad face and stood in a corner while the orchestra played classical music again. Only now I recognized Octavia was one of them, what a shame she couldn't play one of her modern songs.
I looked at Luna. "We want something more fun and not this, right?"
She nodded in full agreement.
"I have a plan to make this party actually fun. Do you support me on it?"
"Anything but this. What is your plan?"
"Follow me.", I led them to Pinkie Pie.
"Hi Pinkie.", I greeted her.
"Hi.", she answered sadly and moped.
"Pinkie, I have a huge favor to ask.", I began and waited until I got her full attention. "How long would it take you to get a DJ with all of his equipment in here?"
Her smile came back immediately. "Vinyl Scratch was playing in the 'thumping pony' this afternoon, it's not far from here, and I bet she is still there. Thirty minutes, maybe even quicker."
"I was hoping you would answer something like that.", I replied. "Luna to you agree to this plan?"
Luna had a huge grin on her face. "Absolutely. Go for it."
"Shouldn't we ask Celestia first?", Twilight chipped in.
"Am I less of a princess than her? Can't I make decisions myself?", Luna asked in a dangerous tone.
"No... No, of course not.", Twilight replied and took a step back.
"Well, then I will change the program." Luna's horn lid up for a brief moment and a small silver moon ornament floated in front of her. "Here Pinkie Pie, take this. Nopony will stand in your way if you show it, they will know you are acting on my behalf."
Pinkie disappeared in a pink blur.
...
Less than half an hour later, Pinkie showed up again, a white unicorn mare with spiky blue hair next to her. Three ponies were following them, carrying speakers and other stuff.
The orchestra stopped playing as they started to put the equipment on stage, everypony was confused.
I took the opportunity and went up on stage, which immediately got me all the attention in the room.
"On behalf of Princess Luna, our lovely co-host of this gala, we will have more modern music for the rest of the night.", I began. I saw a lot of angry snooty high-class ponies. "If you have complaints about this, please write them down neatly on a piece of paper... and throw it in one of the wastebaskets."
The crew had assembled everything in record time while I had talked to the crowd.
"The stage is yours.", I said to the DJ. "Maybe you start easy on them." She just nodded in reply.
While the music started with a nice beat, I went over to Octavia who was clearly angry as she packed her cello.
"Hi Octavia, big fan of your modern music. Would you be so kind and play some of your own songs later? Many of them are so romantic and would be perfect for some dancing with my marefriend. You will get triple payment."
She agreed with a smile. "I'm happy to bring my music to a larger audience."
I looked around. The high-class ponies had cleared the dance floor, while others came closer, curious about what happened. I spotted Lyra Heartstrings, she was one of the first ponies dancing to the music. More and more came to the dance floor and moved to the music.
I went back to Luna and Twily. "Now that is more like a party.", I told them and started dancing too. To my surprise, Twilight seemed to love the music as well, but her dancing style was... rather unique. I tried my best to stay close to her without getting kicked.
"Look, your sister is joining in too.", I told Luna. "That's some nice butt wiggle.", I added with a grin.
Luna turned around and saw her sister was in a great flow with the rhythm.
"Great idea sister!", Celestia shouted to us. "That's something I would never have risked on my own."
"Thank you.", Luna was beaming and looked so proud.
...
After some minutes the music was interrupted by loud screaming from Rarity: "... and you are the most impolite and arrogant pony I ever met!"
The music stopped and all eyes focused on Rarity and the prince next to her.
"And you are just another gold digger. You aren't worth my time at all. I can have three like you in bed within ten minutes."
While Rarity started to cry, Thunderlane got between them. "Hey! That's not how you speak to a lady! Back off or you will need a new set of teeth."
The prince took a few steps back, terrified and shouted: "Get away from me ruffian!" He looked like he would pee himself any second. Only a moment later he turned and ran through the crowd.
Thunderlane led the crying Rarity outside in the garden.
The music started again, and ponies kept dancing. I gazed over to Applejack and she just stood there, looking lost. After a moment she walked to one of the floral arrangements and put a yellow flower in her mane while she looked to the ground.
"Does a yellow flower still mean you're lonely and want to meet somepony?", Luna asked.
"Pretty much, why?", Twilight asked back. Since she was smaller than us, she hasn't seen Applejack.
Without a reply, Luna steered through the crowd towards Applejack. We went after her, but I made sure we kept some distance to Luna.
As Luna reached her, she talked to her: "Hello Applejack, you look breathtaking tonight, but I love your usual look as well." "Thank you princess.", AJ answered quite surprised. "You look lovely as well."
Luna used her magic to levitate the flower from Applejack’s mane into her own and whispered into her ear. I saw Applejack blush, and after some seconds she put her Stetson on Luna's head who had bowed down to make it possible. Together they went into the garden.
"I guess they want to become acquainted with each other.", I told Twilight smiling. "I hope this works out."
I kissed my marefriend. "Wait right here."
I went over to Vinyl and Octavia. A minute later Octavia sang 'forever love' while playing her cello.
"May I have this dance?", I asked Twilight and looked deep into her eyes.
"With pleasure.", she replied.
Slowly we moved over the dance floor, our bodies entwined and kissing while we danced. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Fluttershy and Dashie doing the same.
The sun was already up high when I woke up next to my marefriend. After the Gala was over, Celestia had led us to this simple bedroom.
Twily looked so innocent and cute when she was asleep. I snuggled closer to her and kissed her beautiful lips.
"Mmmhhhh. My favorite way of waking up.", she mumbled.
"I know.", I replied. "It's my favorite too."
We spend the next few minutes kissing.
"Last night was so much fun. I don't think I ever saw Celestia so joyful before.", Twilight told me while she stretched.
"Yeah, I know. She was incredibly happy after the Gala." I brushed my fingers through her mane. "I think Cadence's dance moves were a league of their own, I never saw such a talented dancer before."
"If was pretty impressive how she incorporated her wings.", Twilight agreed.
"Shining Armor's dancing was pretty similar to yours.", I said and smiled as I remembered it.
"He taught me how to dance when I was younger. We did our own little dance parties in his room."
"We should grab something to eat on our way to the train station.", I said as I got dressed.
"Already?", she asked and pouted.
"There is so much research to be done. Chemistry, about Indigo Nightshade, and Cadence's past. You love research."
"True, but cuddling and kissing with you is even more fun."
"We have an even bigger bed at home and there are a lot of experiments we can do there as well. I saw a shop on our tour with Luna that I want to visit before we go home. It was called 'Night Toys'."
She jumped from the bed. "Okay, let's go."
...
We had eaten some muffins in Twilight's favorite bakery and were on our way to 'Night Toys'. Twilight cleared her throat. "Would it be okay if I stay outside and enjoy the sun?"
"You are ashamed to go inside?", I asked.
"What if I come out of it and my mother saw me? Or Shining? Or one of..."
"But you have a clearly phallic shaped object in your night desk.", I interrupted her. "How did you buy this?"
Her cheeks flushed. "Pinkie bought it for me. I opened her 'special drawer' on accident on a day I visited her. She told me I could borrow some of her. I told her I would rather like a new one but didn't have the courage to go and buy one. The concept of shame seemed to be totally new to her and she gladly bought one for me."
I thought back to the 'touch-my-udders-in-the-middle-of-the-bakery' incident.
"It's okay. You can stay outside."
"Thanks."
"But you're not allowed to look what I have bought then. I reserve the right to use everything I buy on you, while you are blindfolded. That will be a fun night."
She gulped and pushed her tail between her legs.
After a few more minutes we arrived at the shop, it featured black and red bridle with reins in the display window. Twilight made sure to stand quite a distance away as I entered.
...
I came out holding a brown paper bag. The salespony had been quite helpful after she got over her initial shock of me being with a pony.
"I found plenty fun things.", I told Twilight with a grin. "We can go to the train station now."
Twilight looked around a final time before she walked next to me, she set quite a pace to get some distance to this shop.
...
We arrived at the train station fifteen minutes later while we chatted about the Gala. I noticed Twilight's gaze wandering to the brown bag again and again, while she used her magic to carry our suitcase.
"Look who's here as well.", I told my marefriend. I pointed my stump ahead of us where Applejack stood and waited for the train as well. "Hey, AJ!", I shouted.
She flinched a bit and turned toward us as we came closer. "Hey, gals.", she replied. "Great thing we take the same train home." She was in extremely high spirits and I had an idea why.
Something around her neck reflected the sunlight, I took a closer look. I was a silver necklace with an exquisite moon ornament attached to it.
"Pretty necklace. Is it a present from your marefriend?", I asked her although the answer was obvious.
"Yes.", she answered quite bashful, her cheeks rosy.
"Sooo... where did you sleep last night? Or maybe you didn't sleep at all?", I queried with a grin.
"It's not like that. Luna and I seem to get along very well... we kissed and shared her bed. But we decided to take it slow, I never had a relationship and she is out of practice too. We only kissed and cuddled in bed."
"But it felt great, right?", Twilight asked.
"You can bet it did.", AJ responded and beamed brighter than the sun. "Tomorrow she will visit me on the farm and helps me with my chores, Earthpony-Style, no magic. We will have a series of shared activities over the next few days to understand each other and our different lifestyles."
"That's a lot of hooey.", I said grinning, imitating Applejack. "You really know each other for what? One evening? It doesn't make a lick of sense! She must have you under some spell!"
"Okay, I deserve this.", Applejack replied with a crooked smile.
I drew her into a firm hug. "I'm really happy for you. You two will be a great couple." I let her go and nuzzled her, it really was a nice friendly feeling.
"Well, Luna said there is a little magic in the necklace.", AJ told us. "It would make it easier for her to teleport nearby me."
"Oh, it's a beacon spell." Twilight explained. "That's clever since she will be teleporting every time she visits you."
Our train entered the station and we got in one of the carts together.
Once we were seated again, Applejack noticed the brown paper bag.
"Did you buy something nice in Canterlot?", she asked.
"It's a surprise for Twilight, something she will like quite much."
"Cool, can I have a peek?"
"NO!", Twilight shouted so loud all other passengers looked at her. "Sorry..."
I leaned towards Applejack and whispered in her ear: "This is even more personal than the bra was. I don't want you to cause a flooding here."
Her flushed face emitted so much heat I was afraid I could get a sunburn.
We arrived at noon in Ponyville. Since we all were hungry, we decided to visit 'the Dancing Butterfly' together for lunch.
It felt good to walk the streets without everypony staring at me, I was surprised how much Ponyville already felt like home to me.
We sat down on a table at the restaurant, the library in view of us. We all ordered our lunch and enjoyed fruit juice in the sun.
"Do you know anything about Thunderlane?", I asked out of the blue. "I noticed he came back looking for you after you and Luna were gone."
"I'm sure he is a really nice guy.", Applejack started. "He probably just hadn't thought about how I would feel as he left with Rarity to comfort her. Now, I'm glad he did or else I wouldn't have this incredible marefriend now." She smiled.
"I noticed Rarity looked at him quite interested the rest of the evening.", Twilight told us. "But I think she held back because he was your date. You should tell her soon you haven't any interest in him."
"Will do."
Our orders arrived and we ate a while in silence.
"Will you tell your family right away about Luna?", I finally asked.
"Of course, I won't lie about yesterday. And in addition, I'm very proud to have such a beautiful marefriend. I think it could get quite interesting when she meets my family for the first time, I can't predict Granny's behavior about her."
"I'm sure it will be fine. Luna will be able to handle some weirdness.", I told her. "Don't forget, she is more than fifty times older than you."
"Wow, I never have thought about it in this way. I'm dating somepony who is way, way older than Granny... but is surprisingly hot."
"Well, since Luna and Celestia seem to have an enormous lifespan we can't really compare them to Granny.", I explained. "Maybe they are still in their early years."
"I wouldn't dare to ask them about their maximum lifespan.", Twilight admitted.
"Yeah, not really a happy conversation topic."
...
Twilight brought our suitcase inside while I went to my new lab behind the library. I was happy to see the carpenter had brought the furniture I had ordered. A bunch of shelves, chairs, and tables stood in the first room, ready to be distributed to the lab rooms. He had promised to get me some glass flasks and beakers as well but they were not present yet.
...
I had already moved the shelves to their new spots when Twilight entered. "Wow, it starts to look professional in here."
"Glad you're here, honey.", I greeted her. "I need your magic to move the large tables. Once we finished moving all the furniture, it would be great if you could bring the generator from your basement here."
"Sure, my love."
...
It took about two hours before everything was like I wanted it to be. Happy about how everything looked now, we left for the library.
Once I entered, I was greeted with a big unison "Surprise!". It made me jump and I looked around in panic. There were a huge number of ponies facing me with a nice warm smile, some of them I knew by name, most of them I saw before. Right in front of me stood Pinkie Pie, having the biggest smile of all of them.
"You didn't think I forgot about your party, cuddle buddy.", she said and drew me into a firm hug.
Once again there was this sent of sweets and cinnamon as she ignored all rules of personal space.
"Thanks so much Pinkie and everypony who came here.", I told the crowd while I tried to get Pinkie off me, but she held on tight. "I'm so happy that this whole town was so nice and welcoming towards me, thanks a lot."
The ponies cheered and music started to play from somewhere while all of them mingled.
"You should let go now Pinkie.", Twilight urged her.
"But we are cuddle buddies and it has been so long since I hugged her.", she complained.
"I told her we would be cuddle buddies when we made up after the hospital.", I explained. "She can have a few more minutes, it isn't unpleasant."
Pinkie hugged me even harder and purred like a kitten. Since these ponies weight so little I decided to ignore her for the moment and walked over to Lyra who was looking at me from across the room.
"Hi, Lyra. I saw you dance at the Gala, nice moves."
"Hey, Stella... and Pinkie. Thanks, but you are a pretty good dancer too. I still can't believe how much fun we had there, normally it is soooo boring there."
"I have furnished the laboratory this afternoon and most of the equipment is there too. If we are lucky we can start with our research in two or three days."
"I'm looking forward to it. I visit you the day after tomorrow so we can talk about specifics and you can show me the lab."
"That's a great idea, could you bring the two Indigo Nightshade books with you? We need to take a closer look at these."
"Sure thing."
I thanked her and walked to Rarity next since we had a few things to talk about.
"Pinkie what are you doing?", the white mare questioned.
"Cuddling. Do you want to join?"
"Pinkie, you shouldn't..."
"It's okay.", I interrupted. "I allowed it to her. Speaking of affection... I heard you took a liking in Thunderlane."
Her white cheeks showed some pink. "He is quite charming.", she admitted.
"Applejack already told you she isn't interested in him?"
"Yes, and that Princess Luna is her marefriend. At first, I thought she was joking. I have a date with Thunderlane tomorrow, I will know by then how well we complement each other."
"Already?", I asked surprised.
She moved uneasily before me. "After Applejack told me, I may have walked the street he is living in up and down until I meet him 'by chance' when he came back from weather duty.", she admitted with a shy smile.
"I like that you are taking charge and make things happen. I wish you all the best for your date tomorrow."
"Well, thank you.", she said smiling.
...
I had a really good time at the party and after Pinkie finally let go of me, she started a lot of fun games among the guests. But after a few hours, everypony was gone and the place was cleaned up.
"What do you think about going upstairs and trying out the things I bought?", I asked my marefriend and kissed her.
"With pleasure.", she answered grinning and I felt her growing arousal through our connection.
I picked her up and carried her upstairs kissing her multiple times on our way there.
We entered our room and I carefully laid her on her back in our bed. "You should cast the soundproof bubble now, Honey. I promise you, we will need it." I showed a lewd smile while I brought the brown paper bag to the lower end of the bed. She gulped and casted the spell while I stripped myself of all of my clothes.
I brought out the first item, a black silk blindfold. I came close to her and carefully put it on. I noticed her breathing speeding up and laid my ear on her body. Her heart was racing. I softly brushed along her cheek and kissed her. "Relax, Honey. I would never do anything you to hurt you and I will start nice and slow."
"Thank you, my Love."
I just held on to her until she had calmed down. I always loved the feeling of her fur against my naked body.
Once her breathing was nice and slow again, I reached inside the bag and brought out a flask filled with a golden massage oil.
"We will start with a nice massage to get you accustomed to the situation.", I told her. "I bought a high-class oil. The salespony told me it had a nice warming effect. Don't get startled, I'm pouring it now onto you."
I poured a reasonable amount onto the purple fur of her belly and used my hand and my stump to spread it all over her body and massage it into her skin. I got quite comfortable in using my stump for more and more things. Within seconds Twilight emitted happy humming sounds.
"This feels so nice.", she whispered. "My whole body feels warm."
I felt it on my hand as well, it felt like the sun on a warm summer day.
I poured some more on her belly and now used my own body against hers to spread it. I felt her warmth and the oil on my skin, it was an incredible feeling and soon we both started to moan.
"Love you..."
"Love you too, Twily."
We continued for many minutes to rub against each other and I kissed her while we moaned into each other's mouth.
With a final kiss, I separated from her. "Time to try the next thing.", I told her and searched through the bag. I found the brush I had searched for and got close to my lover's face again. "I made a false assumption about your body, the salespony explained it to me when she showed me the next item."
The brush had thick but soft hairs and a black smooth wood grip. I brushed it from her horn's base to the tip in a quick movement. Her whole body jerked upwards and she screamed out her lust. It hit me through our connection as well.
"She told me a unicorn's horn is quite sensitive to touch when the pony is in an aroused state. But I hadn't expected it to be this intense. Let's try a different approach."
I licked along the side of her horn, slowly towards its top.
"Sweet Celestia!", she shouted while her body shivered from waves of pleasure.
Her horn had a very smooth texture but I also felt the small grooves of her horn under my tongue. It tasted strange, like salt and mint, but it wasn't unpleasant. At the same time, my hand wandered down her body to caress her.
The next minutes were the most fulfilling experience we every had together.
...
I laid next to her and took of her blindfold.
"Well, what do you say? Did I buy something good?", I asked her.
"This night was so much more than I ever imagined. I have this wonderful marefriend who brought me pleasure beyond my wildest dreams. But next time I want to see you again, I love to see the joy on your face while we're doing it."
"Sure honey, anything you want." I kissed her and drew her into a loving hug.
