> Princess Cadance's Lonely Hearts Club Land
>  by kudzuhaiku
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today, Appleloosa was gritty. Yesterday was a bit gritty as well, and tomorrow's outlook was also expected to be… gritty. Looking out over the vast expanse of desert, Furious Funnel saw the distant swirling storm of ash clouds over Mount Maud and knew that he needed a change. Something different. More than just a change of scenery. The days had been bleeding together here for quite some time and his job had lost its thrill. 

Working as a tornado wrangler for the city of Appleloosa was his life and Furious held some small worry over the fact that his job brought no satisfaction. The danger held no thrill and this was a hazard. As it was, he was the rootinest, tootinest, meanest tornado wrangler in these parts, and he had come to be this way by being cautious, a habit that he had been failing to keep in practice with for quite some time. 

Far in the distance, the hint of thunder—the soft-whispered suggestion of thunder—rumbled. Furious’ hackles knew it was from the heat, and they did nothing to rise. The heat-shimmers that rose from the sands were hypnotic and a hot, dry, gritty wind blew in from the west, the direction of Mount Maud. Furious’ sole surviving eye lost focus and he drifted off, lost to daydreams, which some said were the experimental efforts of Princess Celestia herself. 



 

The one room schoolhouse of Ponyville was a prison cell of boredom for young Furious Frown. Hot tempered, prone to fits of anger, little Furious had trouble sitting still and this got him in no end of trouble. Not one for smiling, the hot-tempered colt was the perfect example of why pegasus ponies were considered brutes. It wasn’t that he was mean to his classmates, no, he spared them his ire while he sat there and scowled in relative silence. He wasn’t too awful to his teacher, a young Miss Cherilee, but he wasn’t keen on answering her complicated questions. 

Furious’ problem was that he didn’t smile and due to this, he had no friends. Oh, there were ponies who sort of liked him—the little scrapper of a colt enjoyed beating up the pair of schoolhouse bullies as a pastime—but this got him detention after school and a stern lecture from Miss Cheerilee, which he was patient enough to endure without giving her no sass. 

Beside Furious, a colt named Big Mac sat running his mouth, talking to no end about how smart he was and how he was going to be a successful business tycoon. It was the same old talk every day and Furious had almost reached the point where he could recite it word for word. A filly named Pinny Lane was chewing gum again, he could smell it, but her face showed no visible signs of her illicit actions. She was big, that filly, all legs and neck, and most of the class teased her about being part giraffe. Big Mac wasn’t so big when he stood next to Pinny Lane. 

“I don’t wanna be here,” she whined, wafting a cloud of fruity, bubblegum scented air in Furious’ direction. “I’d rather be bowling. I don’t need to learn this stuff.” 

In response, the scowling little colt rolled his eyes. 

“I’m gonna be the Princess of Strikes,” Pinny Lane announced in a somewhat snotty, haughty voice. “I’m gonna be such a good bowler that Princess Celestia will give me a crown.” 

“Yeah, you already sit on the throne in the bowling alley, dropping bowling balls in the thundermug,” a filly named Fauna said while she turned around to face the filly behind him. 

“Oh, shut up!” Pinny snapped while she brushed her mane out of her face with her foreleg. “I do not!” 

“Class…” Cheerilee’s one word of warning was enough to make everypony go silent, even Big Mac. The patient mare stood smiling at the front of the class and she gestured at the chalkboard where a series of arithmetic equations awaited answers. She cleared her throat, nodded her head, and just as she was about to say something, a ringing bell could be heard outside. 

Ears sinking like over-saturated newspaper boats left in a pond, Cheerilee’s head swiveled around, looking out the windows. Outside, shouts of panic could be heard, and then there was a sound so faint that it almost couldn’t be heard, a distant rumble like a train coming into the station. Outside, a shrill, panicked voice cried, “TWISTER!” 

“Class!” Miss Cheerilee, young Miss Cheerilee who was almost the same age as some of her oldest students, was not quite an adult yet and had trouble in panic-inducing situations, she had trouble holding herself together. She pranced in place, her hooves clattering against the wooden floorboards. “Class, we must go to the storm cellar! Hurry! Stick together, just like we do in the drills, and gather up the littlest ones! Make sure they’re safe!” 

Furious did not listen. His eyes, both of them, were focused on the window. His barrel rose and fell while his nostrils flared in defiance. Angry little snorts began to escape from the pegasus foal, who had seen the ancient enemy of his kind. Already, the wind was making the schoolhouse shudder and every other foal had crowded around Miss Cheerilee, many of them bleating in terror. 

This would not stand. His stubby wings shooting out from his sides, little Furious snarled as he prepared to do battle with the most dangerous of beasts. The whole town was threatened: not just the ponies, but the buildings, the farms, everything the town required to thrive and survive. Furious had reached his breaking point, and he was sick to death of storms come to bully. 

“Furious, no!” Miss Cheerilee commanded when the foal bolted from his seat and went shooting off through the open window. “Furious! FURIOUS! Furious, that is a week, no a MONTH of detention!” Knowing that she had other lives to save, Miss Cheerilee could do nothing and she began to herd others out of the schoolhouse and into the storm cellar. 

Meanwhile, little Furious Frown followed the Ponyville Weather Team into battle… 



 

Blinking, Furious Funnel remembered that day all too well. He had lost an eye, but had gained a cutie mark, an angry looking dust devil with a fierce, furious frowning face. It was also the day that he had quit school, because there was no way that he was going to face all of that detention. Looking back on a life well lived, Furious had no regrets, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. 

No, he had one regret that he could think of. He had never asked Pinny Lane out on a date to go bowling. Not that he found her pretty or anything, but the idea of hitting something with something else that was hard was appealing to his nature. He hadn’t seen the old gang in years, not that he had ever really been a part of it. Reaching up with his foreleg, he stroked his mustache, his magnificent soup strainer, and he decided that he was done with this life of being alone. It was time to do something about it. 

Spreading his wings, the one-eyed pegasus took off to speak with his old pal Braeburn. 



 

“You sonuvabitch, what?” Braeburn pounded his hoof down on the wooden table with enough force to rattle the two mugs of foamy cherry-apple cider. “Of all the no good, low down, dirty pranks you’ve done, this is the worst! You had me going there for a moment.” 

“I ain’t kidding, Braeburn, I’m quitting.” Furious leaned back in his rickety wooden chair and there was something that was almost a smile on his somewhat scarred, weatherbeaten face. “I done saw me a thing in the paper about one of the blindfold weddings that Princess Cadance does. I ain’t no good at dating, in fact, to be honest, I ain’t no good at anything but having myself a tussle with a twister, and that ain’t good. I can’t even figure out how to talk to a mare—” 

“Talking to a mare is easy,” Braeburn said, cutting in and leaning forward. “Yer problem is, yer ugly and you scare them mares away when ya goes to say hello to ‘em.” 

Throwing back his head, Furious chuckled while he wiped his sweaty, greasy mane out of his eye. Braeburn lifted up his mug, took a swallow, and then held it close while his friend had a laugh. Already, Furious was recovering and the grizzled pegasus reached out for his own mug so he could wet his whistle. 

“The way I see it,” Furious began, “is that if I do this, I can skip past all of the trouble of finding a mare and getting her to settle down. Princess Cadance’s program will pair me up with a mare I’m fit to be with. My hoof’ll be in the door, so to speak. The hardest part’ll be done and then… and then… well…” 

“You don’t know what to do next?” Braeburn finished off his friend’s sentence in an effort to be helpful. 

“I’m in my thirties, Braeburn, and I ain’t got a damn thing to show for my life.” Furious cuddled up with his mug of cherry-apple cider and couldn’t look his friend in the eye. “I ain’t got no house. I don’t own land. I don’t own anything of meaning or value. All I’ve done with all of my years of living is whoopass up on twisters and wear a few barstools shiny with my backside.” 

“Living the dream, Furious, living the dream.” Braeburn’s words were filled with well meaning humour, but there was a noticeable, poignant sadness to them. “So, the Pinto Pummeller is gonna retire?” 

“I dunno.” Furious shrugged and shook his head. He took a long drink of his cider, swished it around inside of his dry mouth, and swallowed with a loud gulp. “It’s like rodeo, Braeburn, you can only do it for so long before something gives. My bones ache when I get out of bed now and there is a crick in my spine that won’t go away. I’ve had a good long run at this, Braeburn, I’ve done this far, far longer than any pony has a right to.” 

“Yer the undefeated champeen.” Braeburn’s smile faded into a sad, mournful expression. “Yer the prizefighter. Little whippersnappers come and ask you for your autograph. Reporters start their careers by coming out to interview ya. You’ve had a good run, I’ll give ya that.” 

The pegasus lifted up his mug and then did his best to drown his sorrows. He guzzled down the entirety of its contents, and when he pulled it away, his mustache was covered in foam. The mug was set down on the table with a sharp thump, and then Furious licked away the foam on his mustache, which like the rest of his pinto pelt, was a mix of ruddy brown and stark white. 

“When I was a colt, a storm took my eye,” Furious said as he strained to hold back what was sure to be a ferocious belch. “Storm ain’t taken nothing from me since.” Pounding on his barrel, the pegasus let go his fury, and the resulting burp was a resonating, epic ‘BRAP!’ Several of the other saloon patrons turned to have a look, but he ignored them and remained focused on his friend. “This is goodbye, Braeburn, I don’t reckon I’ll be back. Whatever mare I get saddled with, I figure I’ll settle down with her.” 

“Daggumit, Furious!” For just a moment, anger could be seen in Braeburn’s eyes, and then it faded away, leaving behind regret. “The least you could do is get hitched and bring that mare back with you. Why can’t you do that?” 

“‘Cause I ain’t one for that polyamory stuff. That… threesome massage a twat fantasy don’t appeal to me.” Furious began to tap against the side of his mug with the hard edge of his hoof. “I ain’t a smart pony and I ain’t got the attention span. I’m a pony that can only have one love, and if I stayed here, I’d end up cheatin’ on my new wife with whatever floozy Mount Maud sends my way.” 

“Consarnit, there ain’t nothing wrong with a little something on the side—” 

“I can’t do it, Braeburn.” Furious’ voice went hard and his one remaining amber eye focused on his friend. “If’n I go through the trouble of getting hitched, settling down, and maybe having a youngin, what happens if I go off a storm chasing and get myself killed? Or worse? What sort of husband would I be? What sort of father?” Furious bared his teeth, revealing a few gaps, a prizefighter’s smile. “That’d make me a sumbitch, Braeburn, and I won’t be a sumbitch.” 

“Shit.” Closing his eyes, Braeburn rested his forelegs against the table and his head drooped down close to his mug. “You leaving makes you a contemptible bastard—” 

“Sorry, Brae.” Furious’ cauliflowered ears attempted to droop, but the hardened, gristle-bound, many-times-broken cartilage was too stiff to relax. “It’s been great fun, Braeburn Apple. These years have been good ones. The storm fighting, the occasional bit of deputy work, keeping this here town safe from all threats, these have been good, meaningful years for me.” 

When Braeburn lifted his head and opened his eyes, they were misty. “Good luck going north, Furious. I hope you find whatever you are looking for. You deserve it, ol’ friend.” Struggling to smile, Braeburn extended his hoof to his friend. 

Returning the gesture, Furious also extended his hoof, and his right foreleg was crooked just past the elbow, bent at an odd, cringe-inducing angle. A single, simple hoof-bump held more meaning between the two long time friends than any words could say, and they looked one another in the eye. 

“Wherever it is you’ll go, I’ll come and visit, so you don’t have to come back here and be tempted, you cranky, crotchety sidewinder.” Somehow, Braeburn smiled through the pain of saying goodbye. 

“Keep these ponies honest, Braeburn.” Furious pulled his hoof away, and he too, somehow managed to smile, but his mustache quivered, betraying him. “I’ll keep an eye out for ya so I can introduce ya to the missus—” 

“That’s a terrible joke, you one-eyed bastard.” The earth pony began to chortle and his extended foreleg fell down to the table. “Goodbye, Furious Funnel. May the skies be ever in your favour.” 

“Goodbye, Braeburn Apple. May the road rise to meet your hooves.” 

With a slow turn of his head, Furious slipped out of his chair, landed on his hooves, shook himself a bit, and then with a few stiff steps, he left his friend behind as he began his journey. He did not look back, though his ears did prick when he heard Braeburn’s hitching, shuddering—gasps, they were gasps, not sobs. Braeburn was too tough to cry. Turning to look back now would be folly, and he knew that being stallions, they would only embarrass one another. 

Gritting his teeth, he strode in silence to the batwing doors of the saloon…
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was an advantage to having a whole lot of nothing: one didn’t need very long to pack and be on their way. Everything Furious owned fit into a rucksack that could be hung from his neck. A fancy medal from Princess Luna for bravery. Another medal from Princess Celestia for valour, because he had risked his life to save another. These were things he didn’t know what to do with—it felt wrong to just throw them away—so he was forever burdened with the task of their safekeeping. There was a small framed photo of his mother, Cloud Cusser, a pony he hadn’t seen in quite some time. He missed his mother, and of course he loved her, but she was away, so far away, doing convoy protection work in the E.U.P. Guard.  

Furious Funnel came from a long, long line of angry, ornery ponies that took no guff. 

The train was packed with ponies, perhaps too many ponies, most of whom were heading north for the very same reason he was. Some were flirting with one another—there were many friendly exchanges—while others huddled in their seats, terrified. Furious kept his oilskin bucket hat, an uncommon and strange choice of headwear for a pony from Appleloosa, pulled down low over his eye and did his best to pay the crowd no attention. Like him, his hat was battered and had seen better days. The sagging brim did a good job of shading his surviving eye and after many years of wear, it fit his head like nothing else. 

There were a surprising number of foals on the train and Furious reckoned that quite a few of them would be meeting a new mother or a new father soon. He made no judgments, as he too was desperate, and deep within his heart in a place where only alicorn princesses might see, he felt bad for them. His own father was an unknown pony, his mother had never told him who, only that he was a pegasus in the guard. Growing up without two parents was a troubling, lonesome affair, and Furious’ heart held faint hope that these foals would luck out. 

Everybody deserved a break at least once in their lives. 

“You’re the Pinto Pummeller,” a shrill, squeaky voice said off to his left. 

Turning his head towards the aisle, he reached up and pushed his hat up from his eye. Standing in the aisle was a little pegasus filly who appeared to be about the age of five. By the looks of it, her body hadn’t quite figured out what to grow first, and she was deep into that awkward stage that some ponies had the misfortune of having. In reference to her statement, Furious made no denial. 

“I watched a movie about you,” the filly said and it was clear that she was having trouble containing her excitement. 

“And how’d you know it was me?” Furious asked. 

The filly’s eyes bulged at the sound of his voice. “One brown wing, one white wing, and an almost heart-shaped brown spot on your neck. Also, your brown eyepatch, but I don’t wanna be rude. I’m sorry.” 

“Alright, ya got me.” Furious’ mustache bristled, evidence that he was smiling. 

“In the movie you fought two owlbears. It was amazing! Mama almost didn’t let me watch because she said it was too scary for foals.” 

At this, Furious chuckled and watched as the filly scooted out of the way so somepony else could continue down the aisle. “In real life, it was three, and I had my friend Braeburn there with me, along with Silverstar. It was a real slobberknocker of a fight.” 

“Can I get your autograph?” the filly asked, coming right out and saying what it was that she wanted. Her head vanished into her satchel, which hung from her neck, and when she came out again, there was a small journal held in her mouth. In the spine of the journal was a wooden handled ink pen. 

“Vireo, don’t be a pest,” a mare across the aisle said in an embarrassed voice. 

The filly spit out her journal onto the bench beside Furious and turned to face the mare that had spoken. “I’m being polite, Mama, now don’t ruin this for me and I won’t ruin what you have planned!” 

Looking mortified, the mare just sat there, stunned, and Furious began to chuckle while he picked up the filly’s journal. With his wings, he opened it up to the very back and saw a few other names back there, one of them being Rainbow Dash. Another was Princess Twilight Sparkle, written in big, scribbly letters. Plucking out the pen, he pulled off the cap, held the pen in his primaries, and scribbled his name, along with a note so the filly would remember him. 

When he was done, he it held up for her to inspect. 

“Furious Funnel,” she read, wide-eyed and astonished. “Don’t sass your ma.” Blinking, it took several seconds for the fact that she had another famous pony’s autograph to settle in. “Oh, thank you, I’ll be good, I promise! Mama says I’ll be getting a daddy soon.” 

When the filly’s eyes narrowed and a shrewd look appeared on her face, Furious already knew what she was after, and he cut her off. “Nope. Don’t even think about it, ya adorable little button. Now go and sit with yer ma and stay out of the way. The train is busy.” 

“Aw…” Sighing in defeat, the filly took back her journal, tucked it away in her satchel, and retreated, smiling and hopeful in a way that only the very young could somehow manage. “Thanks, Mister Funnel!” 

Watching the jubilant filly as she returned to her mother, Furious reflected on his problem. He could talk to fillies, well, foals really, but once they got to a certain age, the age where they became distracting to look at, he was all too often tongue tied and nothing worthwhile could be coaxed from his mouth. Like the nice mare that worked in the telegraph office as a clerk. He had gone in there many times on business and everything had been just fine, but the one time he went in there with something else on his mind, he had made a fool of himself. 

Now, he wrote his mother letters like a sensible pony, and there was no more of this newfangled telegraph stuff making his life complicated. 



 

Furious had waited for most of the car to clear out before he made his exit. Slipping out of the door, he avoided the over-crowded train station platform by flying away. With a few flaps, he was overhead, stretching his wings, and free of the crowd, at least for a while. Another train could be seen on the horizon, and it too, was loaded down with ponies, no doubt. There were so many bodies packed onto the platform that there was an updraft, and by angling his wings, Furious was able to take advantage of it, slight as it was. 

He circled overhead, watching as the sea of equinity below rippled and swelled like ocean waves. There were other pegasus ponies up here with him, though not many. For whatever reason, many were content to walk among the herd. Squinting with his one good eye, he began to look about, trying to figure out where to go next. 

A wide, white banner with bright red lettering read, “Registration.” 

That seemed like the place to go, but first, Furious hoped for a bite to eat and something cold to drink. Any cafes or shops around here were likely to be packed and his options for a quiet meal seemed non-existent. This was regrettable, but also unavoidable. Such was the nature of his situation. 

Off in the distance, away in a vast green field, several pavilions had been erected in preparation for the festivities to come. Scanning his surroundings, he saw a makeshift field kitchen being set up, along with a plentiful number of watering stations. Most curious of all was the sign he saw, which appeared to be magic; it had enormous glowing pink numbers that read, “762.” 

After a few moments, the sign changed and now read, “763.” 

No doubt that when he registered, that sign would be one number higher. 



 

Much to his surprise and good luck, Furious found a rooftop cafe accessible to pegasus ponies. There were quite a few crystal pegasus ponies wearing armor here, no doubt taking a much-needed break. They didn’t seem too bothered by his presence, but Furious remained, quiet, calm, and polite. One mare in armor was quite a looker and it was a struggle not to stare while thinking terrible, lurid thoughts. 

She appeared to be transparent, so would he see himself inside of her? 

“What’ll it be, dustpuncher?” the waiter asked in deadpan while he stood near the table, waiting. 

Without even looking at his menu, Furious responded, “A half a dozen grilled cheese sandwiches, a chopped salad with vinegar and sweet oil, and the soup of the day.” Furious blinked, squinted at his somewhat snooty waiter, and then smiled his terrific smile. “Also, I’ll take a half a dozen Luna~Colas, one for each sandwich.” 

“A light meal for the dustpuncher.” The waiter’s eyebrow arched and he bowed his head somewhat. “The soup du jour comes with roasted garlic breadsticks.” 

“I’ll take those too.” 

“Fantastic, sir. I’ll inform the kitchen at once. Thank you. So many ponies just don’t know what to order.” The corner of the waiter’s mouth curled into something that was almost, but not quite, a smile. “This has been a trying day, sir.” 

“I’d imagine.” Furious liked the waiter, who dared to show a little humour, and planned to make a nice tip. He leaned back in his chair a bit, rested one foreleg against the small bistro table, and took off his hat while the waiter darted away. 

Off in the distance, the second train was pulling into the station, and Furious expected that the numbers on the sign would grow by a good bit in the next few hours. He would need lodging of some sort, but if nothing worthwhile and reasonable could be found, he knew that he could sleep out under the stars. 

“This’ll be a big one,” one of the guards said to another, “but nothing like the spring.” 

“We don’t talk about the spring,” another guard replied. 

“What happened during the spring?” the distracting mare in armor asked. 

“Over twenty-five hundred ponies, that’s what happened.” One of the crystal pegasus ponies began to tap on his helmet with his iron-shod hoof. “The population is growing out of control, it’s crazy. There are so many ponies now… more than I would have ever imagined in existence. How’s a pony supposed to find a mate in all this noise?” 

“I’m not even going to bother,” the mare said. “I joined a breeding program. I got too many memories of what happened back when King Sombra was in charge. I like my freedom too much to give it up.” 

“Hey, you need a donor?” 

“Don’t make me punch you in the face, Boreal—” 

“Woah, woah, woah! I didn’t mean it like that, you know I respect you, Icy.” 

Furious found himself laughing and he covered his mouth with his hoof. The waiter was already returning, carrying a tray loaded with Luna~Colas, a glass filled with ice, and some breadsticks. Everything was transferred from the tray to the table, and then the waiter left in silence, doing his job with minimal fuss. 

“You’d actually do that for me, Boreal? As friends? No strings attached? No expectations?” 

“Icy Even, haven’t we been friends?” the pegasus asked while he leaned over to get a little bit closer. “We both suffered under that monster and I did my best to protect you—” 

“And if you think that gives you rights, I’ll punch you in the face.” 

“She’s skittish,” another guard said, “and eager to punch somepony in the face.” 

“You! Shut your face! She has a right to be skittish after what was done. You stay out of this, Private.” Turning his head, he bared his teeth at the other pegasus who had spoken. 

“Sorry, Captain.” 

Grabbing a bottle of Luna~Cola, Furious poured it into his glass and thought about the camaraderie of the guard even as he tuned out their conversation. He knew what had happened in this place, even if he only knew a little of the whole story, and he understood the evil that King Sombra had done. Getting worked up over it would do no good. Wrapping his lips around his straw, he took a long, refreshing drink of the dark purple liquid. 

A dreadful thought lurked in the back of his mind: what if he was paired with a mare who had been abused? Who had suffered? One who had been hurt or harmed in some way? Would such a mare even come looking for a husband in an event like this? She might, he determined, she might if she felt like damaged goods and was trying to move past that somehow. It was rare for Furious to suffer moments of complex introspection, when he had them… 

Hoo-doggy, sometimes his own thoughts could lay him low. 

He wasn’t the shiniest peanut to be found in the turd, nor was he the yellowest bit of corn, but his mother and his aunt had raised him with some awareness of others. Being a pegasus, it went along with his need to protect, to defend from all harm, including threats within the herd. Before he could suffer distressing thoughts about his mother, his father, and the nature of his conception, Furious forced himself to think about something else. 

Sometimes, it was just better not to think too much.
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The registration building had lines based on tribe. Furious didn’t know nor understand if this had some deeper meaning, some ulteriour motive, but the pegasus pony tribe had the shortest lines and the earth pony tribe had the longest. There were a lot of earth ponies present, but Furious wasn’t smart enough to know if earth ponies outnumbered the other tribes in society. The unicorns that had arrived seemed like the stereotypical sorts that would need help finding their true loves, as most of them seemed to be rather meek eggheads. 

Then again, he had trouble finding love, so what did that say about him? 

Some ponies talked in the line, or even flirted, but not Furious. He stood still, quiet, and when the line moved, he moseyed forwards like a model citizen. Never let it be said that he held up a line. The unicorn line moved lightning quick, but he had no idea why, while the earth pony line moved with the hurried, breakneck speed of near-frozen molasses. The pegasus pony line existed somewhere in between. 

Only a few more ponies and then Furious would be in the door. 



 

Stepping inside the door, Furious almost bolted right back out. Inside was a room full of tables with ponies hunched over them, and they appeared to be filling out paperwork. The sound of hundreds of pencils filled his ears, a sound that made his mouth go as dry as the southern deserts. Almost right away, he was assaulted by a young, perky filly, no doubt some kind of student, and she talked just about as fast as he could fly. 

Furious was no Rainbow Dash, but he was no slouch either. 

“Hi! How are ya? Welcome to the Crystal Empire! You need to fill out this form and be as honest as possible! Please read the instructions and they will help you understand what is going on! Remember, be as honest as possible otherwise, you might end up with a mate you don’t like and hearts could be broken. Got it? Good! You can read and write, correct?” The filly was a frightening shade of pink and there was a manic gleam in her pale blue eyes. 

“Yeah—” 

“Excellent! Please, take a clipboard with a survey and go sit down! There are a lot more ponies to process! If you need any help at all, just sit back and raise a hoof! Now have fun, and be honest, or else you won’t have a good time!” 

Furious nodded. “Okay—” 

“You’ll do fine! Now get a move on, there are a few seats right over there!” 

Taking a clipboard with his wing, Furious got out of the way so other ponies behind him could be processed. He hurried to where there were a few seats available, sweating, nervous, and positive that he had made a dreadful mistake. There was no way he would be able to concentrate in here, and he thought about fleeing before his life was ruined.

“Hi! How are ya? Welcome to the Crystal Empire! You need to fill out this form and be as honest as possible! Please read the instructions and they will help you understand what is going on! Remember, be as honest as possible otherwise, you might end up with a mate you don’t like and hearts could be broken. Got it? Good! You can read and write, correct?”



 

The survey had a focus on honesty, with the assurance that the only wrong answer was a dishonest one. Nopony would judge these answers, or be critical, and the data gathered was used solely for the purposes of matchmaking. The clearer and more concise the answers, the better chances one had for compatibility. The process was long, involved, complicated, and the results were puzzled over by Princess Cadance and an army of students learning the matchmaker trade. 

He read through the five pages of introduction and instructions a few times, and then with sweaty frogs, he had himself a look at the actual survey, wondering what he might find. He folded back a few pages, got himself into a concentrating mood, and had himself a gander at the very first question on the survey. 

Would you marry outside of your tribe? it asked. Are you a tribalist? 

“Aw, buffalo dung,” he murmured to himself. In response, he wrote, I ain’t no tribalist. A pony is a pony is a pony, except when they is a buffalo, but those are fine too. I’d like a wife with wings so we can fly together, but this ain’t no deal breaker. Flying is nice, but I ain’t picky. 

Squinting, he read the next question: Coffee or tea? 

Frowning, Furious pondered the doozy of a question. He was a coffee drinking, biscuit eating, pancake gobbling sort of pony. Sweating, he knew this was the sort of question that could make or break a marriage. How did he answer? If he said both, he could increase his chances of finding a mare, but then he thought about honesty. Could he love a tea drinker? 

With his pencil, he scratched out, Coffee. No sissy weed water for me, thanks. There, that was honest and true, and the ponies sorting this survey would know how he felt about the subject. Glancing at his answer once more, he felt good about it, confident, and knew that he had done right. 

Are you gay? 

Grinning, Furious had a chance to be clever, and he replied, I’m happy, thanks, and I like mares. 

What is your prefered body type? Can you describe it? What would your ideal mate look like? His sole surviving eye darting back and forth, he re-read this question multiple times and began to have himself a good think. It all went back to honesty and he had to be clear about what it was he wanted in a mare, which was a question whose complexity seemed to grow each time he read what was written on the paper. 

After some considerable (for him) thought, he felt confident enough to write down his response: I needs me a good, stocky mare, solid of build. I’m a go getter, and I’d imagine there’ll be some real hard humping later. I don’t do nothing half way. I need a mare that I can lay into without worry or fear of breaking her. I don’t need no mare with her ribs showing, ‘cause I don’t want to feel like I’m humping a washboard, or getting romantic with a sack of jackalope skulls. I’d prefer a mare with some ‘cushion for the pushin’, as the old saying goes. 

Well, that was easy enough, and he read the next line of text. Are you a virgin? 

Well shucks, y’all don’t pull no punches, do you? Yes I am. I have me some troubles, which is why I am here. 

The next words were as follows: Would you like a virgin to marry? 

This made Furious pause and he suspected this inquiry had some hidden depth that he was no doubt unaware of. He didn’t know how to answer, and that was the truth. For whatever reason, this felt judgmental, Several times, he started to answer, then pulled away, unsure. Hesitant, dithering, he tried to think about it from the perspective of a mare, and if she would value virgin status with a stallion. Agonising over his choice, he committed himself to paper. 

It ain’t no deal breaker one way or the other, a mare ain’t no less a mare if she’s had dealings with a stallion, but I’d prefer somebody like myself to share that special moment with. There, that felt honest and true, and after reading over it a few times, Furious was satisfied with his answer. 

Do you have disabilities? the survey asked. 

The pegasus answered right away: I is missing an eye, I has me a gimpy leg, my dock is crooked, and I is as ugly as second-hoof sin. Sighing, he had a little regret for what he had written. It was harsh—but honest. 

Would you marry a pony with disabilities? 

This made Furious pause and he began tapping the tip of his pencil against the table. Almost right away, he realised that if he said no, he would a hypocrite. Having some disfigurement and some deformities, he had to depend upon the grace of another to accept him. How could he not do the same in return? At the same time, he didn’t want to end up with a pony that was almost bedridden, but how could he answer this in a nice, honest way that he wouldn’t feel ashamed about? 

So long as she can fly with me I ain’t gonna be too bothered by no disability. 

There, that seemed to leave the window open to a few minor flaws, like his own, without the risk of ending up with a pony too crippled to leave the house, and he didn’t feel too ashamed by what he wrote. He drew in a deep breath, ignored the humming pony across the table, and kept going. 

How do you feel about gender roles? 

Sighing, Furious settled in for the long haul… 



 

Hundreds of questions, all done. His age, his own gender, his marital status, the painful questions about marrying somepony with foals from another marriage, it was all done. It was over. He had signed his name on the survey, given over a sample of his mane, and then was shoved out of the back door into the cool, dark evening. 

Had it been that long? 

It had. 

Overhead, there were stars, too many to count, and the Crystal Empire was  a glittering jewel projecting a million rays of light. Spreading his wings, Furious took to the skies and he didn’t need a running start. He flew with ease, gaining altitude, and he began to wonder what he would do with himself for the night. Getting a hotel room seemed unlikely, and he didn’t like the headache or the hassle that securing some lodging presented. 

The survey left him feeling introspective, so much so that this night might turn into one of navel gazing. What sort of pony was he? What did he value? Was he really a monarchist and did he believe in the rule of the Crown? Was he a conservative monarchist, a leftist monarchist, and how did he really feel about democracy? Would he really be that unhappy with a tea drinker? 

He didn’t have a favourite princess, he had never sworn fealty to any one princess, and by the looks of things on the survey, he had missed out a lot on life. The questions of travelling mystified him and left him feeling out of sorts when he realised how little of the world he had seen. So much he hadn’t done. 

“Hi!” 

The unexpected voice startled him and when he turned to look, he almost dropped out of the sky. A creature made from the shroud of night itself flew beside him, and she was big, real big. Her wingspan had to be more than six times his own and her long, slinky body cut through the air with no effort. Terrifying claws glistened in the night, fangs glittered in the moonlight, and wrapped around her neck was a shawl that had a curious amount of movement from within.

“What are you?” Furious asked. He couldn’t help but notice that her talons could wrap around his neck, and this worried him a great deal. 

“I’m not a what, I’m a who,” the unknown creature replied in a teasing voice. “You only get one chance to make a first impression. You might want to keep that in mind when you get married. Well, I’m assuming you’re here for the mass wedding. Anyhow, what I am is unimportant, and who I am is a mother whose foal just won’t sleep. She’s being a real pain in my neck and the only way to keep her quiet is to go for a fly. So here I am.” 

“Are you a… a… sphinx?” Furious asked. 

“Okay, fine, we’ll play twenty questions, but only because I am bored. I am not a sphinx, but I can see why you might think I am. For clarification, sphinxes have lion paws in the front.” Bright green slitted eyes flashed in the silver moonlight, and the unknown creature was grinning from tufted ear to tufted ear. 

“I meant no offense, Miss, and I’m powerful sorry.” Reaching up with his foreleg, Furious doffed his bucket hat for a moment and then plopped it back down upon his head. 

“Do you need a place to sleep?” the unknown stranger asked. 

“I do.” 

“Well, you are in luck. A lot of nice ponies leave hammocks up top on their towers, just for pegasus ponies that come to visit during times like these. Fly around, you’ll find one, and you can get you some shuteye. Just be polite, don’t leave a mess, and don’t go crowing come morning, that’s just rude.” 

“I really am sorry, Ma’am, but you startled me and that musta spooked the manners right outa me. I didn’t mean to offend ya if I did.” Furious watched the majestic creature beside him, observing how she flew with terrifying efficiency. At the moment, she was gliding and her black feathers were so shiny that the starlight reflected upon them. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied. “Good luck finding a spot to sleep. Just keep looking and don’t give up. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to do a couple of high speed power dives to wear out this little snotball daughter of mine.” 

With a woosh, the strange creature departed, flying away with such speed that Furious could only stare with wide-eyed wonder. She was a creature made of fuzz, feathers, claws, fangs, and nightmares. Already, Furious knew that there would be no way to convince Braeburn that what he had just seen was real. 

Above him, death flew on black wings, one of the many fabled denizens of the Crystal Empire.
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The past two days had been long ones, made longer by ever-increasing anticipation. Today, however, was the day. There was still time to flee and Furious considered doing so, but his own natural curiousity was overwhelming. Nine hundred and seventeen ponies had come with sincere hopes that, even if they did not find the love of their lives, they would at least find a compatible partner that would be their best friend.

The youngest to marry was fourteen, a member of the First Tribes, and the oldest was seventy one. Over a dozen had walked away so far, causing the sign with the big glowing numbers to change, the total decreasing. Even with the panic and anxiety, there was a festive, almost carnival-like atmosphere. A good time was being had by many and the Crystal Empire was well suited for large scale celebrations.

A great many tables for two had been set up in preparation for the first meal together, along with somewhat larger tables for groups. Not a cloud was in the sky and the weather team kept a lookout for feral storms come to ruin the fun for everypony. Princess Cadance’s students had gone all out, preparing a lavish feast and quite a number of wedding cakes.

It wouldn’t be long now until the bell rang and he would go to processing, where he would be tagged, blindfolded, and taken to the marker where he would stand until Princess Cadance performed the ceremony. Afterwards, when the Princess of Love was finished, he would remove his blindfold and meet his bride for the very first time. Then, they would go and eat together.

The real question on Furious’ mind was, would there be a happily ever after? It was a constant thought, a nagging worry, a heavy load on his withers. During his short stay, he had learned quite a bit about Princess Cadance’s success rate: sometimes there were some troubles after the ceremony and couples counselling was required. If one followed the program though, if one remained committed and followed the instructions step by step, things had a tendency to work out.

But the process itself wasn’t quite as simple as the papers had made it out to be. Success meant hard work and effort for some. For whatever reason, this was reassuring for Furious that things weren’t quite as perfect as they had first appeared. Nothing should ever be too easy and striving for a goal was meaningful.

The biggest assurance was that there were no love spells to make this happen, no forced love, no clouded emotions—but magic did have a part to play. His hair sample had spells cast upon it—mysterious matchmaking spells perhaps—and some of this was used to help determine potential matches.

When the bell rang with explosive suddenness, Furious decided that he would see this through.





Ponies were getting cold hooves in the processing line, but there were crisis counsellors with strategic placements to help those with last minute jitters. Furious was still having some second thoughts, they couldn’t be stopped, but some stranger was depending on him to remain resolute, and he hoped that his bride, whomever she was, would return the favour.

“You’ll feel a lot calmer with the blindfold,” a counsellor said in an uplifting, reassuring voice. “The best part is, in just a little while, you’ll meet the most wonderful, most special pony, and you’ll be able to talk to one another about your fears. Remain steady.”

An army of students, some young, some a little older, all worked to lead blindfolded ponies out to their allotted marker, which was a wooden stake in the ground with a number on it. Furious was almost at the chute, the place where he would be blindfolded and tagged. He tried not to think about his knees knocking, or how his bad leg pained him a bit, or the fact that he was getting hitched to a total stranger.

The worst was, he couldn’t even hope for a pretty stranger, because that felt wrong. Right now, some mare was hoping for a handsome stallion, and she would no doubt be a little disappointed. For Furious, it just wasn’t right to expect somepony pretty, and he resolved to look past the outside. The survey had reminded him that he had a lot to offer on the inside, and those things were important. In fact, during the past few days, he had done quite a bit of equinal assessment, and was feeling pretty good about himself.

On reflection, the survey had reminded him that he was a good, decent pony, worthy of love, attention, and affection. So were lots of other ponies, no doubt, if one could only get past the hangups that kept ponies apart. There were many good, decent ponies, all milling about Equestria, going on with their lives, and many of them lonely, just like he was.

“Step ahead, please.”

Doing as he was told, he stepped into the chute. A bright blue strip of cloth was placed over his eye and secured to his head. A tag was looped over his ear, a little loose band of elastic that tugged the tender short hairs just a tiny bit. Well, it was over. He was done being single. Life as he knew it was about to change, no doubt for the better. Beside him, he heard panicked breathing and a swishing tail being whipped about.

“Follow me,” a chirpy voice instructed, and Furious was too nervous to determine if it was male or female. Whatever it was, it sounded little and squeaky. They also sounded as though they were having the time of their life. No doubt, this was meaningful for them: they were students but were already making the world a better place in a measurable way.

Blinded, following a foal that lead him along, Furious went willingly to the place where his old life would end and his new life would begin. All around him, he could hear the sounds of others doing the same. Worried wickers, frightened nickers, and hesitant whinnies. They were all sharing the same experience, all were afraid, they were all feeling the same emotions now.

Something about this realisation made him a larger pony on the inside. His horizons broadened and he became more self-aware. He was, right now, an integral part of something larger, something bigger, something greater than the sum of its parts. Many lives were about to change, no doubt for the better, and from this act of greatness, many foals would be born. This would shape the future of Equestria.

Mind reeling, Furious prepared himself for greatness.





Hearing a rustle, Furious’ ears strained to listen. There was somepony beside him now, close, real close. She was breathing a bit hard and sounded every bit as spooked as he was. The alluring scent of something feminine teased his nose, something like fruit, but tangy smelling. Now he wondered how he smelled, and began to worry a bit. He had taken a shower and had even rolled around in a cloud to put in a little extra effort, but he had been sweating… did he have dreaded stinky wingpits, the bane of the pegasus pony tribe?

When the Royal Family of Canterlot worried about their stinky wingpits, they used Stink Sentry™ brand underwing spray, or at least that is what he had read in the papers. Nothing else lasted longer under pressure, Stink Sentry™ was guaranteed to ferociously fight a fierce funk, and was safe enough to spray your junk.

It was tempting to break the rule of no talking, but Furious stuck with being a good pony. Still, it might be better to say a little something now, before he got all tongue-tied and stupid. He agonised over the decision because the rules were important and if everypony went off and did whatever they wanted, all of civilisation would fall apart.

“Mister, I’m real scared.”

Furious couldn’t tell anything by how her voice sounded. It was a bit husky, but that could be from fear. Was she young or old? He had no idea. She had just broken the rules! What did this say about her? Should he say something back? Did two wrongs make a right? There was a bit of a whine from the sound system and he knew his chance to say something was now, before Princess Cadance started.

“Ma’am, I’m scared myself.”

From off to his left, there was giggling, a sweet, melodious sound. “I’ve never been called Ma’am before,” he heard her say. This made his ears burn and he wondered if he had offended her. Talking was a mistake. Yep. There were rules for a reason and this was why. Now, he was so scared that he was tempted to fly away.

“Well hello, all of you,” Princess Cadance said, her voice booming over the public announcement system. “I know a lot of you are scared right now. Did you know that I am scared too? I want this to be a perfect day for you, and I’ve put in so much hard work to make all of this possible. My students are exhausted from all of the demands that I have made for them. No matter how much effort is required, it has been worth it. In the next few minutes, your lives will change, all of you.”

Furious gulped and could not help but notice that under his wings, he was damp with perspiration. All around him he could hear the sounds of panicked ponies. There was a faint squeal when he heard Princess Cadance continue: “All of you know why you are here. Those of you who remain are about to commit yourselves to something beautiful, something meaningful, something amazing.”

Breathing was now like sucking in a sandstorm.

“Okay now, everypony, deep breaths, and I’m about to change your lives forever!” Princess Cadance’s excitement was palpable in her voice, which boomed out of the public announcement system. “As Empress of the Crystal Empire, I now pronounce you husband and wife! Wife and Wife! Husband and Husband! Husband and Harem! Whatever it is that applies to you, I pronounce it!”

A gasp moved through the collective herd of equinity.

“Now wait a moment… wait! I have your first task as partners, so please, listen up!” Princess Cadance’s voice was as commanding as it was gentle. “You are going to help your partner remove their blindfold! No magic! No wings! This is a trust exercise and as you’re about to find out, it’s kinda fun! Now go at it!”

Well, this was awkward. Furious took a cautious step towards his left, then another, and then when he did it again he brushed up against his bride. She was giggling, darn near fit to split, and the happy sound was music to his ears. Music was playing but he paid no attention to it. When he moved again, something brushed up against his neck.

“Now, go easy! No biting! No nipping! Be gentle! Be very gentle in everything you do! Set a good first impression!” Now, Princess Cadance was laughing, and her words sent a ripple of laughter through the enormous crowd. “We don’t need any lost ears!”

At this, Furious let out a nervous chuckle and he felt a muzzle moving up his neck, then along his jawline. This caused pleasurable tingles all over and his crooked dock waggled with a happiness that he had never known. A second later, and he felt a tug on his blindfold. This about caused him to panic—she would be seeing him soon and that was a frightening prospect.

Something about this was… sensual? Doing it with a stranger… doubly so.

His ears perked at the sound of his bride’s feminine grunts and he didn’t even know her name. He was married to a mare and he didn’t even know her name. Why hadn’t Princess Cadance’s first instruction been an exchange of names? Why? Warm, sweet breath blew against his face and he could feel soft lips brush up against the ridge of his cheek, which sent shivers down his spine.

With a few more tugs, the knot slipped apart and the blindfold was pulled from his face. The very first thing he saw was luscious green, the colour of a honeydew melon. Curls, tight ringlet curls bounced and bobbed just inches from his eye, and they stuck out in every conceivable direction. Lost in these curls were sunny yellow highlights. Then, he noticed a vibrant olive coloured ear, and a bright orange blindfold.

Furious forgot to breathe.

Before he was too overwhelmed, he had the presence of mind to snatch the bright orange blindfold in his teeth and give it a yank. She was a stunner, she was. Heavyset to the point of being delightfully curvy, she was padded in all of the right places, the best places, the places where padding offered meaningful protection. She possessed immaculate feathers, and her eyes, a distinctive shade of violet, stared at him unblinking. Something about her suggested youth and he doubted that she had been a mare long, maybe a few summers.

“Why, hello, new husband, my name is Crop Duster!” When she laughed, she jiggled in all of the right places and too late, Furious’ wings flew wide with a near-supersonic crack. Glancing left, glancing right, it was obvious that she was checking out his wingspan, as any pegasus mare would do. Nodding, she appeared to like what she saw.

“Name is Furious,” he managed to say in a dry voice. “Furious Funnel. Pleased to meetcha.” The young mare was perfect, too perfect, and the tendons in his wings were stretched to the point of pain. The thirsty dustpuncher stood for a moment, drinking her in, unable to believe his luck, and there was no mistaking it, he had lucked out.

“Well, I'm glad to meet you, Furious. You’re about what I expected.”

“You expected?” Furious asked, unable to form a proper question.

“Stallions my age are too squirrelly, too immature, and ain’t ready to settle down,” she replied. “I asked for somepony a little older, a little wiser, a little more mature.” For a moment, it seemed as though she was about to say something else, but she didn’t. A coy smile spread over her muzzle and she stared up at Furious with a heavy-lidded stare. “I like that mustache!”

“I think I done like everything there is about you,” Furious admitted. “I hope I ain’t a sight to make eyes sore.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Crop Duster batted her long, curly eyelashes and gave Furious a warm, inviting smile. “As you’ll soon discover, I’m not perfect… and to be honest, I’m not bothered by how you look. I’m not going to let it be an issue for me. We ponies with disabilities have to stick together.” She gave her new husband a teasing wink and the tip of her orange tongue stuck out from between her full, almost pouty lips.

“Well, that’s a relief.” The pegasus stallion let out a huff of relief, but then he thought about her words and he had to know what she meant. “Whaddya mean, ya ain’t perfect?”

This caused a coquettish giggle in reply. “Oh, you’ll find out soon enough!”
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The table was short, small, and covered in food. Two slices of cake sat in the middle—two less than perfect slices of cake that had no doubt been made by a student—but they were ideal for the moment. In Furious’ eye, the only thing perfect was Crop Duster, and he struggled against the knot that his tongue kept trying to form. The pair of them were seated at one of the many tables that stretched out in all directions, covering the lush, green field.

Furious was about to say something, but was interrupted by a ferocious growl coming from Crop Duster’s stomach. In response, he sat there for a time, doing the whole ‘wise dustpuncher’ thing while squinting his remaining eye. His bride looked nervous—as any bride would be at the this moment—but there was also a glimmer of fear that tried to hide in her eyes. The knot in his tongue failed to kink and he had an idea of what to say.

“You sound like you're starving…” He was about to say more, but he wasn’t sure what. Maybe she had one of those eating disorders that he had heard about in the paper. If so, he was confident that he could set her straight with a few kind words and maybe a little encouragement.

“I haven’t eaten in a few days,” she replied, and her eyes darted downwards to look at her food. There was something hesitant in how she stared, something fretful and full of worry. She was still smiling, that never faltered, but that smile was now only skin deep.

“Now, why would that be?” Furious leaned over the table a bit and he looked her in the eye, a gesture she did not return. His cauliflowered ears somehow managed to stand up straight and his head turned slightly to the right so he could focus his remaining left eye upon her. “Are you worried about being all thin and pretty?”

“No… yes… well, every mare has moments where she wishes that she was a little sleeker in spots, but that’s not my problem.” She was almost stammering now and the corners of her mouth twitched up and down, not knowing which direction to go. “Actually, that is a problem for me sometimes when my problem manifests and I… oh dear, I’ve almost said too much.”

“You might as well say it now,” he suggested.

“Oh, you’ll find out soon enough if I eat,” she replied.

“Or I could find out now if’n you’d just talk to me.” When he said these words, he saw her biting on her lip, but not in a cute way. It was more of a distressed, almost panicked way, and his heart reached out to her. Something in the way she moved, something about her distress, it made him want to sweep her up in a protective embrace and fly away with her.

“Telling you is the worst part, I suppose,” she began. “When I tell ponies, some find it funny, some find it disgusting, but hardly anypony takes it seriously or thinks about my feelings.” A nervous chuckle escaped her while her sides heaved just a little, and her wings made half-flaps against her sides. “I specifically asked for a disabled pony on my survey so that we could be on even hoofing. The survey counselor suggested it when I almost gave up and quit.”

Again her stomach growled and she gave the food on the table a longing, lingering look.

“Well, come on girly, don’t make me drag it out of you.”

“You know, that’s the best part about you,” she replied and a warm, sincere smile returned to her face. “I could sit and listen to you talk all day. You talk like those crusty old dustpunchers in the movies.”

“Well, I am a crusty old dustpuncher—” He never got a chance to finish because his new bride exploded with laughter and banged her hooves against the edge of the table. The fact that she liked his voice, how he talked, and that she found him funny put him at ease. He found himself focused upon the sound of her laughter, the exuberance of it, the ebullience of it, the ease with which she did it… he found it endearing.

Reaching up, she wiped the corner of her eye and her ears bounced with each peal of laughter that ricocheted out of her. The glasses on the table clinked, the plates clattered, and the pastel orange tablecloth fluttered in the light breeze. Her remarkable chest scruffle was no longer smoothed out now, but instead it stood out as an invitation to come and groom it. Furious was tempted to do so too. It wouldn’t be difficult at all for him to sweep the table aside, step over the remains of lunch, and then spend the rest of the day trying to get that chest scruffle sorted out so it would behave.

“Furious,” she said, and her alluring voice was as sweet as it was fetching. “I haven’t eaten in awhile because that is the only way to make the symptoms ease off for a time. It isn’t a practical solution, but there are times when it is the only solution I have.” She wiped her eye again and when she pulled her foreleg away, there was a muted dark stain in the corner of her eye, the remains of tears of laughter. “That mustache of yours is distracting, it’s half and half.”

“Ayup, it is.”

Sighing, Crop Duster looked her new husband right in the eye. “I have overly excited hindgut fermentation. It causes me some irregularities, a little bloating, some discomfort and I—”

“Ya fart a lot?” Furious asked, heading for the heart of the issue in the same way he went flying for the heart of tornados. “Shucks, girly, there are times when I’m camped out on the open range and eat beans and biscuits for weeks.” His words set off a fresh new attack of the giggles from his bride, and even though she was bubbling over with mirth, there was still fear in her eyes. She was giggle-snorting now, making little snorty oinks.

“It’s a little worse than that.” She covered her mouth with her hoof while she tried to get herself back under control. “You talk funny and I can’t keep a straight face while I’m doing this… I’m trying to be serious because this is a serious issue—”

“‘Cause yer a mare and yer afraid you’ll blow my hat off or something?” he asked while keeping a stern, straight face, the sort of face that only a one-eyed pony with an eyepatch could make. “That ain’t nothing to be ashamed of, daggum, I’d brag about you doing that to my friend, Braeburn, if’n I thought I could get away with it and not have to spend a week sleeping on some cloud somewhere.”

Crop Duster let out a whoop and now her laughter was joined by coughing.

“I ain’t afeared of no farting mare,” Furious said and his mustache bristled.

“No, you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand, girly. I don’t run from wind. I don’t care if it is angry or stinky. I’ve made a name for myself because I don’t run.”

“But I…”

“Dusty, can I call you Dusty?” Furious leaned over the table and focused his eye on his bride. “If a little creeping death is what I have to put up with to have such a fine little looker like yourself, I’ll manage. I’ve flown into brimstone burning dust devils from Mount Maud.”

Crop Duster’s laughter was gone now, her mouth hung open, and the hoof that she had covered her mouth with now rested against her chest scruffle. “It’s always been a deal breaker.” Her voice was strained, deep, and husky. “Normal farts are funny, at least to some ponies, but these aren’t normal farts. I had to do my schoolwork at home or outside because I wasn’t allowed in the school. I grew up as an outsider because of this… I learned to laugh at it, because what else could I do, but it has controlled my entire life… dominated even. I’ve tried drugs, pills of all kinds, alchemical potions, I mean, I’ve tried everything and at some point, I realised that I just had to make peace with it.”

“I can’t pretend to understand that, so I won’t,” he replied.

“If you want to annul this, I’ll understand.” Her voice was low, her words slow and hitching.

“Consarnit, I don’t run!”

“I’m just trying to be nice about this and give you the option to back out—”

“Damnit, girly”—Furious shook his hoof at her—“hows about you eat this meal, all of it, and you don’t worry about the consequences. And then later, after the storm has been brewing for a while, you give me the worst ya gots to offer, and then we’ll talk about this, a’ight?”

“That is the most straightforward and honest response I’ve ever had about this issue.” Shaking her head from side to side, she averted her eyes and stared down at the table while her barrel hitched. “Nopony has ever said anything like that to me… ever.”

“And you ain’t in no position to lie about it with a liar fart—”

“A what?” she asked, and her eyes darted upwards for a moment to glance at her new husband.

“A liar fart… you know, a cute little poot that makes you relax yer guard, and then later, the war party comes creeping along, jumps up out of yonder stinky gully, and gets ya with a whoop and a holler.” Furious’ eye narrowed. “Right now, your only option is to eat everything and give me the worst ya have to offer. If’n you don’t, and we stay together, and the war party comes creeping along later to have at me, I’ll know that you wasn’t honest in your dealings with me.”

“I… I… I don’t even know how to respond to that.” Her barrel still hitching, she began to laugh again, nervous laughter mixed with relief. “I want to believe that I’ve lucked out and have somehow ended up with a sagebrush philosopher that’ll somehow be alright with this. Alright with me, as a pony, with all of my problems.” Crop Duster began eating and she went right for the square of cake with a bright pink frosting rose.

Furious too, began eating and he also went for his cake. His eye darted back and forth, going from his food to his bride, and then he noticed a tiny paper note on the table whose corner was tucked beneath a plate. Chewing the strange, unidentifiable cake, his eye glanced over the words written in fine, legible print.

Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t rush. You have plenty of time to get to know one another and kisses can come later. Face it on a full stomach!

Blinking, he hadn’t even thought about sealing their union with a kiss. His bride was more concerned with her conjurations of demon wind, and while he didn’t understand what the big deal was, he did understand that she was terrified of what might happen. Licking his lips, he cleared away smears of frosting from his magnificent mustache, and then he decided that a change of subject was in order.

“So, what do you do for a living?” he asked in between bites.

“Oh!” Crop Duster raised her head and there was a dollop of frosting stuck to her snoot. She chewed for a moment, swallowed, and replied, “I am a fertilisation and pest removal specialist. I work out of doors because the Safety Council passed a regulation that prohibits me from taking work indoors.”

“Fertilisation?” Furious’ eyebrow lifted and he gave his mare a meaningful stare that made her blush.

“Just south of Tall Tale, nestled in the sheltered valleys of the Smokey Mountains, there is a farming community. Everything that Vanhoover needs for its beer and grain liquor industry is grown there. These are some of the most valuable farms in all of Equestria because of the unique soil composition and growing conditions. I help keep the ground fertilised and we fight a constant battle against pests.” The entire time she spoke, there was a twinkle in her eye and her rose blush remained upon her cheeks. “I have a nice little aerie that has been carved into the side of the mountain. It’s quiet, remote, and secluded. Nopony wants to live too close.”

“I don’t even own a house,” Furious said around a mouthful of some kind of fruit salad made with whipped cream. “I’ve been living in the same rented room in a boarding house for… I don’t even know. Never been motivated to find anything better.” So distracted by his bride and the fine meal, Furious failed to notice how relaxed he was, or how easy it was to have this conversation. He took another bite and had himself a good, thoughtful chew while he watched his new wife eat.

She was a hearty, boisterous eater, and he liked that.

Pausing between bites, Crop Duster’s lips pressed together and formed a tight, thin line while her ears angled out over her face. After a moment, her ears pivoted, pinned back while pushing against an overabundant mass of curls, and her violet eyes burned with a strange intensity. “My parents held tight to their high hopes that I’d find somepony. My dad helped me buy my aerie and he kept telling me that one day, I’d have a family there. I didn’t believe him, but I wanted to. I’ve worked hard to make an inviting nest, but only because my dad wouldn’t leave me alone about it.” Lowering her head, she took a few shy nibbles of her own fruit salad, and then she tore into it when it became obvious that she liked it.

“What do yer parents do?” Furious asked, because it seemed like the sort of question he should be asking. When the pretty she pegasus across the table from him raised her head, her muzzle was covered in whipped cream and a bright red cherry peeked out, half buried in froth.

“My father, he’s an inventory specialist. He flies over the farmland and gets a rough idea of how much will be there early in the season. As the season progresses, he develops a more and more accurate count, and keeps various concerned parties in Vanhoover informed of projected yields. My mother is a pricing specialist, and somehow, she keeps track of what everything should cost. We’re agricultural pegasus ponies and we’re much beloved by the earth ponies of our community. We have a harmonious balance that we take a lot of pride in.”

There was a brief moment of panic when Furious realised that he would have to meet her parents. He took his worry out on his food and tried something new, some kind of savoury pastry filled with potatoes, peas, corn, and carrots. It was still warm, a little gooey, and left his muzzle a mess. Every part of the meal was messy and had Furious been paying attention to this fact, he might have wondered if there was a reason.

There were a number of things that Furious failed to notice, one of the most important being the fact that he was stricken with his new bride. His brain failed to register just how much he was already infatuated with her, how perfect she was, how smart, funny, and pretty she was. Oh, in his opinion, she wasn’t big city beautiful, but she was the kind of beautiful that one looked for in the prairies and deserts around Appleloosa. Stocky, strong, well muscled, Crop Duster looked like the sort of mare that could wrestle a varmint, pump her own water from the well, pull a plow, haul a wagon, have a hoedown, and at the end of the day when the night had come, offer up a comfortable place for a stallion to rest his head.

City beautiful didn’t last long in Appleloosa.

“Mister Mustache,” Crop Duster said, and then she licked her muzzle clean before she tried again. “Mister Mustache, I’m glad to have met you. This has been nice. You’re not what I expected, but then again, I don’t know what I expected. Falling in love with a dustpuncher was not a dream I had growing up, but now that this is happening, now that we’re together…” her words trailed off into a breathy squeak as a furious hot blush conquered most of her face.

Furious’ cauliflowered ears now felt too hot and his scarred cheek just below his missing eye felt tight, too tight for comfort. His stomach felt like it was full of parasprites and his wings twitched just a little against his sides. “Any mama with a lick of sense don’t let their sons grow up to be dustpunchers. And smart mamas keep us away from their daughters. We tend to grow ugly and mean and most of us don’t live to see old age or respectability. We get sandblasted and smashed in the face. Our teeth get knocked out and we get maimed. But there is a romantic tradition that we keep alive, and that is the fight against the old, ancient enemy of the pegasus pony tribe.”

“I really could listen to you talk all day,” Crop Duster said in satisfied tones.

“My mother, Cloud Cusser, she’s in the guard. She’s a lifer, ‘cause she’s not the bright type that knows how to do much else.” Furious’ surviving eye grew unfocused and distant while he considered his coming words. “When I told her that I was leaving home to go and fight the wind, she paddled my ass pink with a hairbrush… she tore me up and she let me have it and the cussing that come out of her mouth could be heard all over Ponyville. I couldn’t sit down for a month and I looked like one of those baboon critters that I done saw in a book. She was angry with me, said joining the guard was safer and I’d live longer.”

“That’s awful!” Crop Duster cried.

“I done deserved it.” Furious hung his head and shook it from side to side. “I done broke that mare’s heart and scared that goodly soul almost to death. No mother ever wants to hear those words come out of her son’s mouth, and I had it coming. She was pissed. I coulda told her I was into colts, and she’d’ve been fine with that, she’s tolerant. I could’ve told her I was joining the Fancy Foreign Legion, and everything would’ve been okay… but I told my mama I wanted to be a dustpuncher, and she popped me a smart one in the kisser before she laid into me.” He sighed and shrugged a bit. “I bet she’ll be relieved to know I retired. I done did this job longer than any pony has a right to. Pure luck, that’s all. It’s time to do something else.”

“Yes… I’m going to take you home with me and you’ll be doing something else. I bet my dad could find you work… one of those liquor companies would probably love to have a dustpuncher, a real one and not just some actor as a spokespony for their whiskey or their bourbon.”

“Ya really think so?” Furious asked, intrigued by the very idea.

“Look at you!” Crop Duster became quite animated and she bounced around on her hindquarters. “Listen to how you talk! You… all of you… every inch of you… you are the wild prairie… everything you just said to me… the whole, ‘mamas don’t let their foals grow up to be dustpunchers’ story. That would make ponies rush out and buy liquor so they can be like you.”

“Really?” Blinking, Furious was baffled by everything that his still-blushing bride had just said. This was, perhaps, one of the most confusing realisations of his life. He had always been rather disconnected about his own celebrity, content as he was to live on the fringes of civilisation. There had been books, but he had never read them. The movie had been a smashing success, a blockbuster, but he never much cared about it. There were trading cards that foals collected, little bits of glossy, cheap cardboard that had pictures of famous tornado wranglers, salty old buckaroos, both the lucky ones that lived and the many who had died.

He never understood any of it and he had let what might have been a great fortune slip away because at the time, he was terrified that such a thing would complicate his life. Working as a wrangler, he was just doing his job, and the world’s seeming interest in everything he did just seemed silly.

“Dusty… when we get done eating, would you like to dance with me?” he asked, somehow managing to ask a mare to dance with him for the first time in his life without spitting and sputtering over the words. He gestured over to where a large group of ponies were already dancing.

“Oh!” Surprised, the mare sucked in a deep breath, her barrel expanded, and her chest scruffle burst out with renewed vigour, demanding some kind of attention.

Furious gulped and felt a fire ignite in his guts. She was a looker…

A coy smile spread over Crop Duster’s face and using her hoof, she pointed at the spot where Furious kept staring. “Your eye keeps ending up down here… and my eyes are up here.” She pointed at her face for a moment and then laughter bubbled out. She grinned, she grinned so hard that it made her eyes scrunch up. “I like the way you look at me, it makes me feel special.”

It occurred to Furious that he had the rest of his life to look at her and make her feel special.
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I ain’t never danced with no mare before.” The grass tickled his sweaty frogs and Furious stood looking at his bride, feeling a curious mix of attraction and confoundment. “I mean, I done danced beside a mare a few times, but that was line dancing and I wasn’t exactly with her and I really don’t dance ‘cause I’ve never learned and what am I doing here?” Reaching up, he began to rub his neck, rubbing the hard edge of his hoof against a rippled sandblast scar.

“I’ve only ever danced with Daddy, and he was trying to make me feel better because nopony asked me to the dance. I wasn’t even allowed to go.” Blinking a few times, her long, black curly eyelashes caught upon one another and tugged against each other when she would open her eyes. “Furious, I don’t know how to dance.”

“Well, this ain’t no time to be timid, this is our chance to learn by giving it a good do.” Reaching out with a wing, he nudged Crop Duster along by her neck until they stood along the outer edges of the dancing herd. When she resisted a little, he was patient, but persistent, determined to somehow see this through.

“I feel guilty, Furious, I do… it’s bothering me.”

“Why is that?” he asked while he came around to look her in the eye. His hooves pawed the ground, which was alive with vibration. Music, dancing ponies, the thrum of the Crystal Empire itself, he felt it all in his achy joints, but it was somehow more invigourating than painful. She was pretty, a fetching creature that bewitched his eye.

“I feel like you got tricked into taking me—”

“Oh, shush.” Reaching out with his wing, he placed it over her mouth, and then felt spine-shivery tingles from the sensation of her breathing. She was trembling, scared, right at the verge of spooking, and a spooked pony was prone to bolt. Ponies spooked for all kinds of reasons, some as simple as a clap of thunder, others for far more complex reasons. Still other ponies went shy, which was almost a spook but not quite.

Having battled demon wind for so long, Furious wasn’t sure if he had a spook left in him.

“I feel bad about what I’ve done. I came here to exploit the system.” When her neck sagged and her head drooped forward, a massive flood of tight, springy curls came spilling down over her eyes, obscuring her face. “It feels wrong, like I did a bad thing through false pretenses. I try to be a good pony because there is just no excuse to be a bad pony.”

“If’n you want to feel bad, I suppose I can’t stop you,” Furious said as he positioned himself a little closer. “Myself on the other hoof, I’m gonna dance with my bride, ‘cause that’s what I set out to do.” Using his wing, he lifted Crop Duster’s head, took another step, and pressed in until he was neck to neck with her. “Yer as soft as a cactus blossom.”

“Cactus blossoms are soft?” Crop Duster asked, sniffling and looking a bit confused.

“They is, but you gotta be real careful of the spines.” As an afterthought he added, “And some cactuses, they’s mean and they’ll shoot at ya if ya get too close. They have big pretty blossoms to lure in the foolish and the unwary.” Feeling emboldened, he slipped a wing around her neck and pressed up against her a little tighter, then shifted his body to take the weight off of his bad leg.

“I feel so bad”—her words were a soft whisper now and her jaw moved against Furious’ neck—“but also so relieved. I feel like I came here to exploit the system and get what I wanted. I feel a little selfish, actually, and I’m having these doubts, I’m wondering if this is the best way to start off a marriage. But it feels so nice to just have… this. But I can’t help but feel that this is wrong somehow.”

“And do you think that yer the only one who exploited this here system?” Furious asked while he began to sway a little from side to side. “I think that most of us who came here prolly figured that there was no way that we’d ever get hitched under normal circumstances. Princess Cadance, she’s no fool, I reckon. She created this system to be exploited, to be used, and I done reckon that with each passing year, it gets a little better, a little easier, and the matches get better.”

Now, Crop Duster too, swayed from side to side with Furious. “But it feels wrong on the inside… even if I can’t say why it is wrong.”

“Good, honest, respectable ponies don’t wanna saddle others with their problems. Our parents raise us right, or try to, and pride takes up the reins when our parents let go. At some point, some of us become ornery cusses that don’t wanna take no help. We don’t bend our proud necks, because fronk that. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a prideful creature and I’m a hardheaded cuss.”

“My parents raised me to work… I grew up around earth ponies, many of them, and sometimes, it almost feels like we’re more like earth ponies than pegasus ponies. I know all about the tribal stereotypes for pegasus ponies and I’m embarrassed about them. I don’t want to be seen as lazy.” Closing her eyes, Crop Duster allowed herself to relax a little, and she kept her head pressed against the hard, corded muscles of Furious’ neck.

“I done reckon that we have a job to do.”

One of Crop Duster’s eyes opened. “We do?”

“We do. Princess Cadance is trusting us to make this work out between ourselves so her success rate continues to look good. The way I see things, the job is just starting. We’ve been paired up because we’re compatible for the task at hoof.”

“Really, that is quite wise and a wonderful way to look at it. I might have to keep that as a quote.”

The commanding voice almost made Furious jump right out of his skin. He pulled away from his bride, who started from the voice as well, and then whirled to face Princess Cadance, who had spoken to him. Somehow, he had failed to notice her approach. She was tall—taller than him though not by much—far more willowy of body than he expected, and flanked by a small cadre of protectors. There were two crystal pegasus ponies in fine, articulated armor and somepony wearing the traditional garb of a wizard.

Something about the wizard shivered Furious’ skin and he looked away, half-spooked.

“Princess, should I bow? I dunno what to do…” Furious swallowed, almost licked his lips, and then caught himself, because that might be bad manners. He didn’t know and it was better to err on the side of caution. “I met Twilight and I got an earful when I bowed. Royalty got right confusing about the same time that she got crowned.”

Much to his surprise, Princess Cadance threw back her head and laughed. It was a riot of mirth and her whole body shook while her wings bounced from her sides. She laughed with her eyes closed, a big booming laugh, and one of her pegasus guards also chuckled while the other kept an eye on the crowd.

The wizard, wearing goggles that had smoked black lenses, appeared to be peering up at Cadance from beneath the broad brim of his hat. “The disgusting primitives know nothing of protocol anymore, yet we continue to protect them. Ugh! They do nothing to appease their betters.”

After a bit of time spent guffawing, Princess Cadance somehow managed to regain control of herself. Her sides still heaving, her feathers somewhat ruffled, and with a broad grin on her face, she had this to say: “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I was moving through the crowd, saying hello, trying to meet with so many new faces, and I overheard you two talking. I stood there for a time, listening and celebrating what looks to be a promising union. You two were so focused on each other… so infatuated already. Not to brag or boast, but this looks to be a remarkable match.”

“Do I call you Empress or Princess?” Crop Duster asked while she pressed up against Furious for reassurance.

“I am Empress to the crystal ponies of the Crystal Empire and I am a Princess to the ponies of Equestria. I am also a friend to many, the wife of one, and a mother to two. I have many titles, such as Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, but I prefer to be called Cadance. So please, call me Cadance.”

“You forget to mention that you are the sworn enemy of one,” the wizard grumbled.

“Ah yes, the rogue, Prince Gosling.” Fresh peals of laughter made all of Princess Cadance shake and her eyes were merry. Holding her head at a regal angle, she reached out with her wings, touched both Furious and Crop Duster, and took a step closer to the pair of them. “If only we could all be afflicted with such fine enemies,” she said, sighing out the words with a mighty heave. “When I look at you two, I see a such a wonderful, promising future. I see a love based on a deep and abiding friendship. This pleases me.”

“What about romance?” Crop Duster lifted her head and looked hopeful.

“Oh, make no mistake, there will be romance, but I do believe that friendship will be your primary focus. This is the perfect sort of love to grow old together with. Both of you will be blessed with a long and prosperous union, I do believe.” Princess Cadance, with her wings still lingering on the two little ponies that she studied, clucked her tongue while looking into their eyes, the windows of their souls.

“I… I think I understand.” Crop Duster stretched out her neck, lifted her head, and looked Cadance in the eye. “A relationship based only on lust and attraction, the physical parts of a relationship, that can last for a time, but uh… um… at some point the fires go out and then what are you left with? That’s why ponies sometimes drift apart, right?”

“Yes.” All traces of mirth were gone from Cadance now, and she sounded both solemn and sad. “I see it all the time in my couples counselling. I try to give them something to reconnect with, but all too often, there is very little past shared physical interest and I am left with nothing to work with. Celebrate what you have and be at ease, my little pony. You haven’t exploited my system and you’ve done no wrong. Continue to get to know one another, be kind and respectful of one another, do not rush into anything, and know that I love both of you a great deal. It is my heart’s most fondest desire that the two of you have a long and fruitful union.”

“That’s what the survey did, right?” Furious’ one eye blinked as his slow, thoughtful mind made a few connection. “It sorts out all of the little details that we can be friends over.”

“To some extent, yes,” Princess Cadance replied while nodding her head up and down. “It does all of that and so much more. The refinement process is getting better. I need for this program to work. I need for little ponies to be confident in my abilities to fix their problems. I want to fix their problems… loneliness is a disease and I am desperately searching for a cure. It is a fatal disease and each year I lose many to the debilitating symptoms. It is my most sincere hope that ponies will chose to come to me to help them cure their loneliness, rather than give up hope and succumb to the disease.”

“Loneliness is yer demon wind, ain’t it? Yer twister? If’n I recall right, you was once a pegasus, like me.” Furious’ voice was deep, husky, and full of emotion. His remaining eye held a shimmer of excess moisture, perhaps because of dust. “I done spent most of my life fighting the demon wind, and this is just about all I understand.”

“Loneliness is a cold wind that chills many, leaving many hearts frozen.” Now Princess Cadance’s words were hard spoken and there was a fierce gleam in her eye. “If Princess Celestia is the sun, then I am the spring that ends winter and thaws the land. Yes, I have found my demon wind, and it shall be battled.”

Furious nodded. “Grass grows, pegasus ponies fly, Princess Celestia’s sun shines, and Princess, I break the wind. It must be battled.”

“I have so many that I must reassure and bring comfort to,” Princess Cadance said as she began to pull away. The corners of her mouth were twitching hard and her sides were heaving, as if she was having some great difficulty breathing. “Good luck and take comfort in one another. Be good to one another. Help me in my work.”

“We will!” Crop Duster promised and she extended one wing to wave. “Thank you, for everything!” After a moment, she turned to look at her new husband and then snorted. Then, she began giggling like a schoolfilly and had to turn away from the stallion beside her. She tried to hold it back, but it escaped as snorty little oinks while her sides hitched.

“What’s so funny?” Furious asked, failing to grasp what was going on.

“I must be going.” Princess Cadance’s face conveyed that a mighty struggle was taking place and a soft snicker escaped. “I really must be going. So many others to look after… good luck, both of you!”

Scowling the wizard shook his head. “If the wind is such a threat, it shouldn’t just be broken, but also set ablaze and an example made of it.”

Losing her composure completely, Princess Cadance bolted away, shrieking with laughter.
> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Emboldened by successful first contact, Furious committed himself to further exploration of his new bride. There was a fine, fine line, he knew that, between curious exploration and unwanted groping. The line’s location was unknown so he was forced to fall back on everything his mother and his aunt had told him about respecting mares. It seemed to be working and so far, Crop Duster didn’t seem to be offended or repulsed by him.

So far, her most notable trait seemed to be that she was given to fits of laughter, and this suited him fine. He didn’t know what she saw in him, but it was obvious that she saw something, something worthwhile, something meaningful. She seemed to like how he talked, and that was a relief because Furious knew that his manner of speech was considered a bit funny.

“So, you wanted an older stallion,” he said while he walked beside her and together they headed towards a pavilion where a small army of student photographers were taking pictures. “Mind you, I ain’t complaining about my luck, but it just seems strange to me, that’s all.”

“I think I did the right thing,” she replied as she gave her mate a sidelong glance out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve had a remarkable maturity about… well, everything and that’s just what I was hoping for. I get the feeling that for most stallions my age, the wild ones just want a pretty mare to have a fling with, and the ones that do want to settle down are full of all of the folly of youth, as my mother calls it. They only want to settle down with the most perfect, most pretty mares… she calls them trophies.”

“Yer ma is wise.”

“She’ll be overjoyed to hear you say that, because she and I butted heads for years before I settled down and actually listened to what my mother had to say. I hate to admit it, but my mother was right.”

“How so?” Furious was curious, he was a curious—if sometimes furious—pony.

“Well… by the looks of it, about everything.” Crop Duster sighed and her smile became a bittersweet one. “I wanted good looks and perfection too,” she confessed. “I suppose I was a confused filly, because I wanted other ponies to overlook my imperfections… my little… problem… but I also had some impossibly high standards for a time. I was foolish, and stupid, and had my head in the clouds, or maybe even up my own backside. I wanted that handsome, perfect prince to come and sweep me off of my hooves. When I realised I wasn’t ever going to get that, it crushed me…”

“I’d imagine that it did,” Furious interjected, feeling that this was the right time to say something.

“Like any foal that can’t get their way, I might have decided that if I couldn’t get what I wanted, then I didn’t want it at all. I had to grow up and mature real quick. It hurt a lot, and it was painful, and I didn’t like it, and my mother, she didn’t give up on me and she was real hard on me sometimes… but I suppose I needed it. Once I sorted myself out and got my priorities straight, things still felt impossible, but at least they didn’t feel so bad.”

With a sweep of his eye, Furious looked down and watched her hooves. They walked well together, she had shorter legs, but had a light, quick step. He had longer legs, but limped on one and that slowed him down. It was hard to put into words, or to even organise his thoughts, but they each had a good pace for one another. Even though he was a pegasus, he liked walking and did it often. How else was he supposed to get into trouble with Braeburn or spend time with the earth ponies of Appleloosa?

Of course, Furious didn’t walk or trot so much as he did mosey.

“It was a long journey for me, getting to where I am now.” Crop Duster’s voice was soft, subdued, almost sad, but her eyes were filled with joy. “I really am very happy to have met you, Mister Mustache. I’ve only known you a short time, but I have already grown quite fond of you. Every second, every moment of this day just feels right, and I didn’t think this would be possible. Thank you for being patient with me and hearing me out.”

Now it was Furious’ turn. “Oh, I done reckon I could listen to you talk all day.” These words got his bride to giggle and he cherished the sound of her happiness, which seemed to be so much more important than his own. He found himself tongue tied just thinking about it and realised that he was falling for her… hard. No doubt, he was about to have himself a tumble, and he was okay with that.





With a watchful eye, Furious watched with great interest as his new wife filled out her address on the form for the photos. Her address? Their address? Yes, he had a home now. An aerie. Her aerie. For whatever reason, all of his thoughts on this matter were awkward. While she scribbled away, he took off his hat, slicked back his mane with his foreleg, and took a moment to adjust his eyepatch.

His mustache was already perfect.

A flashbulb popped and some mare whickered in surprise. Furious’ eye wandered and he had himself a look around. The photographers were students, foals of all ages and sizes. Most had cutie marks with some of kind camera, but there was a surprising variety of marks that all related to the same subject. Something about the atmosphere here was magical and Furious, though not a smart one, figured that the foals might have something to do with it. Photographers could be fussy, annoying types, always trying to get that ‘perfect’ shot. He’d dealt with quite a few when they came out trying to get a picture of him. But the foals seemed far more laid back than their grownup counterparts. Everypony seemed far more at ease because of this.

“Right this way,” an older mare said when Crop Duster was finished.





A painted blue background of sky was behind them and a long legged filly was in front of them, fussing with the camera that was mounted on a tripod. She had thick glasses with tortoiseshell frames, braces, and wore a clamp to straighten out a crooked, misshapen ear. This filly was confident, bubbly, and friendly. Her happiness seemed infectious and Furious found himself smiling, even though it was impossible to see because of his heavy handlebar mustache.

“Furious…”

“Yeah, darlin’?” This response caused the mare beside him to giggle like a sugar-addled squirrel and he made the bold move of sliding his wing over her back.

She shook with the giggles and moved a little closer so she could lean up against her husband’s side. “I’ve never been happier than this in my whole life. Meeting you was the greatest thing to have ever happened to me. I mean that, I really do, and I am so glad that I did this.”

“Hey!” the filly said in a chirpy, syrupy voice. “The two of you make a really cute couple. Now move a little closer together, and you, don’t look at me, look up at him, but keep your nose pointed at the camera. That’s right, it’s all in the eyes. I want those eyes looking up! Now look sweet.” The filly cleared her throat and then continued, “Pull her a little closer. That’s right, give her a squeeze. Keep your head high at a proud angle, chin up, muzzle level. I want that mustache to be visible. Equestria was built on mighty mustaches!”

Reaching out her foreleg, Crop Duster wrapped it around her husbands, then pulled herself as close as possible. Doing as she was told, she focused her nose towards the camera, but looked up with her eyes, never once realising how cute she was in this position. Furious too, adjusted his pose and turned the good side of his face towards the camera.

“Now, everypony say, ‘marital mustache rodeo!’” the filly shouted.

Crop Duster exploded with laughter when the flashbulb exploded and the picture was… perfect.





Like so many others, Furious Funnel and Crop Duster walked the streets of the Crystal Empire, taking in the many sights, sounds, and smells that the city had to offer. All around them, ponies were falling in love and the evidence of heavy infatuation was everywhere to be seen. Long drawn out gazes with eyes locked on one another, searing blushes, and euphoric laughter was everywhere.

“I have a confession, Furious.”

“Ya do?”

“I’ve fallen in love with your mustache. Later, I am going to talk to him and see if I can get him to tell me his secrets.” While she walked beside her husband, she leaned her head over against his neck, and to any onlooker that observed her, it was obvious that she was happy to be with her new husband, just like so many other mares at this moment.

“Now, if’n you could grow a mustache, mine would have someone to settle down with—”

“Furious! Oh my gosh!” Crop Duster whooped with laughter and she had to cover her mouth with one wing to try and remain polite. “A mare shouldn’t have a mustache, that’s terrible!”

“I think you’d be right pretty with a mustache—”

“Furious, stop! You’re going to kill me!” Now, Crop Duster was laughing so hard that she had some trouble walking. She stopped mid-step, squeezed her eyes shut, threw her head back, and let everything come out, holding nothing back. With both wings extended, she wrapped them around Furious’ neck and held on for dear life while she whooped and hooted.

“My mustache could get with your cute little mustache, and they could settle down, and maybe raise themselves a whole passel of little eyebrows or something.” Grinning, Furious stood still while Crop Duster stomped her hooves against the road and hollered with laughter.

“Oh my gosh, I’m dying!” she wheezed, and then she sucked in more wind to sustain her heaving guffaws. Her wings drew tight around her husband’s neck and her hind legs squeezed together while her tail tucked down tight. “I need to pee! Quick! Potty emergency! Furious, stop making me laugh!”

“So now would be a bad time to find out if yer ticklish?” Furious asked with mischief in his eye.

“Yes!” was Crop Duster’s breathy reply as she struggled to swallow the wild, reckless peals of laughter that threatened her very dignity. “Help me, Mister Mustache!”

“There’s an ice cream parlour,” he said as he began to pull her along and she walked with her hind legs held tight against one another. “I hope it ain’t too crowded. Come on, girly, and let’s get you sorted out.”





“Feel better?” Furious asked while the pegasus mare that he had married approached him. “I took the liberty of ordering you some ice cream. They’ve only got one flavour but ice cream is ice cream, as far as I’m concerned.” He gestured at the empty chair across from him and his ears perked from the noise all around him. A hot red blush appeared on Crop Duster’s face.

She moved with an almost shy slowness now, biting her lip, and her sides were still heaving with the laughter that she kept corralled up inside her. At this moment, she was perfect, too perfect, and Furious found himself smitten. Mindful of her wild curly tail, she sat down and rested her elbows against the flat edge of the table.

“I shouldn’t eat ice cream,” she murmured.

“‘Cause it’ll make your backside big?” he asked.

Tittering, Crop Duster gazed at her husband with half-closed eyes and one raised eyebrow. “I like listening to you talk,” she said in a coy whisper.

“To hear Silverstar tell it, a mare should be big enough and stout enough to keep her husband warm in the winter, and her foals well shaded in the summer.” Beneath his mustache, Furious grinned, revealing his broken down picket fence smile. “Of course, every mare that has half a brain in her head runs away from Silverstar, not just ‘cause of what he says, but because that feller lives on nothing but baked beans and black coffee.”

“Just what is it that you ponies do out on the prairie?” Crop Duster asked, and then she bit her lower lip again while her eyes looked down at her ice cream.

“Oh, we make sport on who can blow a tumbleweed the farthest. That’d be Braeburn of course, after too much apple pie and cider. Why, one day, after a pie eating contest, Brae, he done blew off the back wall of the shit shack. He kept trying to say it was shoddy work that caused it, but we all knew the truth and we done razzed him good for a month at least.”

Try as she might, Crop Duster could not contain her giggles and her wings slapped against her sides. “If I eat any kind of dairy, it does bad things to me. It reacts badly to my hindgut fermentation problem. I love ice cream and I love sweet creamy butter, but it doesn’t like me very much. It leaves me cramped, bloated, and…” Her unfinished sentence hung in the air in much the same way that anvils did, and once more, she nibbled on her bottom lip, looking shy and insecure.

“Tell me something about you that don’t have nothing to do with the wind you blow out yer backside,” Furious said while his ice cream began to soften in his little waxed cardboard bowl. “How’d you get your name?”

Crop Duster’s lip stretched taut while she pulled it free from her tight teeth and then she replied, “I started out as Dizzy Duster when I was little. I was a little neat freak, and I still am. I like for things to be clean. I’d go buzzing around the aerie keeping everything clean and doing battle with the cobwebs in the corners.”

“That sounds cute.”

“When I got my spray tank cutie mark, it was a proud moment for my parents. It meant that I’d continue their legacy, working in the sky while the earth ponies tilled the ground. I might not look it, but I’m strong… a spray tank is heavy and I was just a little filly the first I time I flew with one. It was summer, school was out, and I was determined to help somehow. It was a proud moment for everypony, now that I think about it, and I had a lot of ponies congratulate me.”

“So it’s hard work?” Furious asked, his brows furrowing in concentration as his attention became focused.

“It’s hard, smart work,” she replied and she began to tap her hoof against the tabletop. “You also have to be an expert flier. While you’re out working the field, you have to keep track of everything around you. Wind, humidity, temperature, everything. All of this affects how much you spray. If you spray too little, you don’t maximise your yields. Spray too much and the plants will burn and wither. The soil will go sour for a time. Do that and a farm might go under. So the farmers have to trust that you’re good at what you do, and I am good at what I do. There’s a small flock of us that work the skies, and we’re all well respected. In fact, that is just about the only respect I get.”

Furious nodded to show that he was listening, and then he ducked his head down into his ice cream bowl. She did the same and he watched as her orange tongue lapped against the melting chocolate ice cream. A few licks later, and she lifted her head to keep speaking.

“I like my job and I like what I do. I’m proud of my work. But it is awful, stinky work. Depending on what I am working with that day, I end up smelling pretty bad. Stink is something that defines my life, now that I think about it. Some days, I stink like liquified fish, which is used as a fertiliser. Other days I spray with highly refined growth formula made from earth pony dung. And some of the pesticides are just awful.”

“It’s a thankless, dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.” Furious licked the chocolate ice cream from his mustache and then leaned over the table. “Earth pony dung is how we get things to grow out of the desert and it is the most valuable resource in all of Appleloosa.” He gave his mustache another lick and was rewarded with the rich taste of chocolate. She was lapping up more ice cream now and something about the way she did it left him feeling squirmy and excited. “See, I understand thankless, dirty jobs, ‘cause I’ve done them just about all my life. When twisters aren’t threatening the town and things are boring, I did all sorts of work doing all sorts of things. I’ve made fences, built outhouses, laid out irrigation, herded cattle, watched over sheep, and more than a few times I’ve worked as a deputy. Almost all of these jobs are awful, awful work, but somepony has gots to do them.”

Raising her head, Crop Duster smacked her chocolate coated lips together and looked Furious in the eye. “You know, we could use a new sheriff. Ours is getting on in her years with no replacement in sight. She can’t see so good anymore but nopony wants to complain because she’s been so good at her job for so long.”

“I dunno if I’m cut out for something like that,” Furious drawled. “I only got deputised to whoopass up on something. I ain’t so good at the negotiating and peacekeeping part. When conflict happens, I tend to be as friendly as a constipated razorback with whatchamacallit... a burning hemorrhoidal itch is how Silverstar described it, I think.”

“Mister Mustache, you are a funny pony.” Crop Duster smiled, her lips still coated in chocolate ice cream, and then she pushed her muzzle back into her cold, creamy treat.

Almost shivering, Furious watched with great fascination while she lapped her ice cream, and each flick of her orange tongue was almost hypnotic. She was a perfect, beautiful creature, and with each passing second, his feeling for her grew stronger and stronger. The thought crossed his mind of kissing her, and the urge to do so was almost overpowering. But that would have to come later, perhaps, when the time was right.

For now, Furious finished his ice cream.
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first sign of impending doom was a squirgle sound that came from deep within Crop Duster’s innards. That is to say, a squishy-gurgle sound of terrifying, epic proportions could be heard, like the territorial utterances of a frustrated cave troll. This made her come to a sudden, abrupt stop, and panic could be seen upon her face. Not only did she stop, but so did most of the crowd around her. Many eyes blinked with terror.

“What are y’all looking at?” Furious asked. “Ain’t a one of y’all done been learnt that it’s rude to stare? What’d yer mothers say? Go on, get, afore all of y’all have to learn how to eat corn on the cob with no fronkin’ teeth!”

This got the crowd moving again, and Furious too, kept going, pulling his bride along with him by wrapping his wing around her neck. She stumbled a bit, still startled by the crowd’s reaction to Furious’ scolding, and it took her a moment to recover enough to follow her husband. But follow she did and she pulled in close to his side, slipping her back beneath his protective wing.

His sudden movements caused his satchel to slap against the base of his neck and he hurried his mare alongside him to get through the worst of the crowd. His goal was the telegraph office, because both he and Crop Duster had some good news to relate. Not much scowled like an irritated dustpuncher; coyotes ran, vampiric jackalopes considered their next act carefully knowing that weaker prey could be found elsewhere, and most of the prairie apex predators suddenly remembered that they had pressing business to attend to in distant regions, or perhaps a family reunion that they had forgot to mark on their calendar.

Keeping pace beside him, Crop Duster said, “I don’t know if I should say something about you being mean or if I should kiss you for what you’ve done… you’ll probably never understand what that just did for my confidence. Thank you, Furious, I mean that.”

“Don’t mention it,” Furious replied as the crowd cleared before him like magic and ponies scattered like chastised chickens.

“After we get done at the telegraph office, I’d like to go back to my hotel room for a bit, if you don’t mind. I’m starting to cramp up pretty bad and I’m going to need a little downtime so I can rest. I hope you can be patient with me.”

“It’ll be fine.” Furious grunted response was somehow reassuring and relief could be seen on the face of the mare sheltered beneath his wing. “Are you gonna make it to the telegraph office? We can skip that if’n we need to.”

“I should be fine, but if the lines are super long, we might want to skip it.”

“Sounds like a plan, Dusty.”





The telegraph office wasn’t anywhere near as busy as Furious expected it to be and he reasoned that most of the newlyweds were still celebrating. He was a bit worried because Crop Duster had a distressed look about her, a mix of panic, fear, and doubt. She lived in fear of the dragon, and it’s dreadful shadow could be seen in the expression on her face.

When she got busy writing, so did he, and he scratched out a message to Braeburn first.

Braeburn, I done got myself hitched to a looker. She likes my mustache. I done lucked out.

With that one done, he started another.

Cloud Cusser, Ma, I done quit dustpunching and got married. She’s a looker and quite a bit smarter than I am. Don’t get killed.

And then, the last.

Tempest Tirade, Auntie, I done quit dustpunching and got married. She’s a looker and quite a bit smarter than I am. Send help, in over my head, need that talk about mares you kept threatening me with that I kept running away from. Don’t laugh. I’m right confused and I need help.

Straightforward and to the point. Furious nodded, approving of his own actions, and then watched as Crop Duster scrawled out many tiny letters on her message slip. From the looks of it, she was writing out her whole life story so it could be sent by wire. She still smelled good, but Furious wanted a better sniff. Hesitating, he wasn’t quite sure what to do, but then realised that she was his to sniff. Leaning over, he pressed his snoot into the wild, riotous curls that graced her neck, and drew in a long inhale, filling his nose with the scent of something flowery and feminine.

Like almost everything else, this made her giggle and she turned to scold him with a wide smile. “Stop that! I’m trying to write and what you’re doing is distracting! That mustache tickles!”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I sniff other places,” Furious remarked.

Crop Duster’s eyes went wide, her mouth dropped open, and she stood in shock for a short time, that was until she began to chortle. Her mouth closed, her lips pressed tight, and she sniggered while a powerful blush turned the olive pelt of her face and neck a ruddy brown. For a moment her lips puckered in a most flirtatious way, her cheeks drew tight in an inviting suggestion of suction, and then she said, “Behave yourself, Mister Mustache.”

“Only if it suits me,” he replied and he leaned in again for another sniff.

Stomping her hooves, Crop Duster was forced to write out her message while enduring dreadful distraction.





The hotel room was a modest, respectable room and Furious stood just inside the door to have a look around. It was a single occupancy room by the looks of it, with a bed that would be a tight squeeze for two. Beside him, Crop Duster groaned and then pushed past him. Unable to help himself, he watched the gentle sway of her hips as they rocked from side to side.

“You okay, dear?” he asked and his words held a sincere warmth that surprised him.

“Having a rough go at it,” she replied. “Sometimes this happens when I eat something after not eating for a day or two. The cramping is getting pretty bad, but I have a lot of practice with hiding it.” She made a slow turn and faced Furious, who still stood by the door. “Well, I suppose I should say make yourself at home. I’m really nervous right now, and scared, and I keep thinking about what my mother said about never going to a room alone with a stallion that’s a stranger, and I’ll be honest, the entire walk through the lobby and up the stairs and down the hall, I was terrified about being in a room with you, but I feel really bad about being so scared because so far, you’ve been a perfect gentlepony, except for when you distracted me while I was trying to write that telegram.”

“You think I’d do something bad?” Furious blinked and then his head cocked off to one side. “You know what, don’t answer that. I’d rather that you be cautious. You were right to be concerned.” While he spoke, his mustache quivered and his surviving amber eye held a focused intensity.

“I don’t really know what happens next,” she admitted, and then for a moment, she chewed on her lip once more out of nervousness. Ears perking, she shook her head a bit, looked Furious up and down, and then her eyes settled on the floor. “I’ve only ever read about, uh, marital relations and what not in bad bridle ripper books. Did a lot of reading about ravishing and all of the standard fare of what happens in those books… about how it hurt and how awful it was at first but then the mare was made to like it even though she didn’t want it to happen at first and… and… and the point is my head is probably all filled with nonsense and to be truthful I really don’t know what to expect from a stallion.”

“Uh-huh.” Furious heaved a sigh and stared at his bride with a slack-jawed expression.

“Not all that long ago, when I was feeling desperate and unwanted, I’d have fantasies about being ravished without really even understanding what it was. Furious, I was lonely. I spent my teenage years practicing making nests that I knew would stay empty. I read trashy, awful romance novels by the score and I kept them all hidden away so my mother and father wouldn’t find them.” Lifting her head, Crop Duster built up her courage until she could look Furious in the eye.

“Ayup.” Also nervous, Furious popped his lips once, then twice, and then he began to nod. “I understand a powerful loneliness, I really do, and I ain’t saying that to be all patronising. I’d watch the mares get together to bathe in the river and I’d be up in my clouds just jerking off till I almost didn’t have skin no more.”

Hearing this, Crop Duster’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide with shock. After a moment of stupefied silence, she managed to say, “Wow, this is awkward.”

“What, you think you’re the only one who’s lonesome and desperate? Ain’t that the point of these here blindfold marriages?” Furious took a few steps forwards towards Crop Duster and she took a few steps backwards. “Once, Braeburn and I took off to Las Pegasus. We watched one of them dirty movies in one of those disreputable theatres on a lark. Half the damn audience had to be jerkin’ their gherkin. I took off and left, but Braeburn decided to stay and watch, ‘A Day in Brownie’s Bakery.’ I know what my best friend did in there once I was gone.” He took another step forwards and she took another step back.

“What made you leave?” Crop Duster asked in a voice that made her sound like a schoolfilly once more.

“Well, for one thing, it stunk like mushroom soup in there.” Furious’ lip curled back in disgust and he took another bold step forwards, which was matched by the mare in front of him taking another step backwards. This time, her backside bumped up against the bed and she let out a startled squeak. “You keep backing up—”

“I keep thinking about ravishing.” For a brief second, all of Crop Duster’s maturity left her and she looked like a filly lost in the throes of adolescence once more. Her tail quivered and shook against her legs, her wings jerked against her sides, and her tongue made a few quick circuits while she licked her lips. “I thought to myself how my hymen is in grave danger right now and how I won’t have it much longer, if you really want to know. At some point very soon, in the very near future, I am about to grow up and be a mare and I’ll have to put all the foalish stuff I still do behind me. My life is about to change in scary ways. I won’t be able to rub my nub in the shower and scream out all of the names of the colts that I had wished would’ve fronked me. If I read trashy romance novels, you’ll probably catch me. I didn’t think this would happen. I didn’t think I’d go through with this. I was pretty certain that I would back out, but I didn’t. I was convinced to stick it out and now, there’s you…”

Furious waited, silent.

“I didn’t expect you to happen. You’re nothing like what I thought I wanted or expected. You… you’re everything I didn’t know I wanted… everything I didn’t know I was missing out on. I didn’t think this would work out and so I am really not prepared to give up how my life was… but…”

“But?” One word repeated became a heartfelt question.

“But I want to go through the trouble anyway. I want my life to change… and then… and then… and then… I’m going to do something crazy! Yeah, that’s it, I’m going to do something crazy!”

“And what will you do?” Furious asked, intrigued, and maybe even a little aroused by the sounds of her heavy breathing.

“I’m going to… I’m going to write my own romance novel, only it won’t be trashy! It’ll be about real ponies falling in love and there won’t be any of that ravishing nonsense in it! It’ll have feelings, and romance, and the characters will be more than the torrid, lusty representations of themselves on the cover. The mare will express how scared she is, she’ll think about how vulnerable she feels, and she’ll be a character I can be proud of creating because she won’t contribute to sexual anxiety and unnecessary fears of stallions.”

“Well, yer a little firecracker, ain’t ya?” Furious took another step forwards, but there was nowhere left for Crop Duster to retreat to.

“It’s silly, all of the stuff going through my mind, especially the parts about my hymen being in danger… you see, that’s all the protagonist in the romance novel keeps thinking about… she worries and she frets about it and she sweats and agonises and shivers and there is so much buildup and anticipation leading up to that moment and I’ve read so many of those filthy, smutty books that now I’m starting to think like a mare trapped in a romance novel.”

“Yer silly.”

“I am silly!” Nervous, barking laughter came forth like a flood along with a terrible case of the crazy eyes. “When I write my book, it’ll be about a sheltered filly from a farming community falling in love with a grizzled dustpuncher and I’ll write about all of the positive feel-good stuff and she’ll think about how safe she feels because he’s shown himself to be a stallion of good character. She won’t worry about her hymen being in danger, no, she’ll think about her hymen bursting with anticipation… wait, that… that doesn’t sound quite right.” Now blinking, Crop Duster stood there with unfocused eyes, trying to recollect and reestablish her thoughts.

“While you sort yourself out, I am going to take a shower.” Chuckling to himself, Furious trotted away with a broad grin.
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Furious came out of the rather cramped bathroom, he found his bride splooted out on the bed. This position—with her legs kicked out behind her—caused her voluptuous thighs to be quite noticeable. She looked up from her book and he felt that old familiar sensation of being tongue tied. The graceful swell of her rump, the way her dock waggled when she saw him, and how her wings were spread out from her sides in a relaxed position. It was all too much to bear.

The body drier in the bathroom wasn’t very strong and Furious didn’t much care for those thrice-cursed contraptions anyhow. He was still damp and his mane clung to his neck in tendrils. His white spots were white and his ruddy brown spots were gleaming. Crop Duster’s eyes lingered on him in the exact same way his eye remained focused on her. After a whole lot of staring, it occurred to Furious that the mare on the bed had turned the blankets into a makeshift nest. If this wasn’t a clear message of acceptance, he wasn’t sure what was.

Was it wrong to stare the way he was?

His eyes never leaving Crop Duster, he made his way over to a small, compact loveseat placed beneath a narrow arched window. Her eyes followed him and he had a moment were he wondered what she saw when she looked at him. With the way he was, he couldn’t imagine that he was handsome, but the way she was looking at him suggested attraction. She wasn’t repulsed, but she appeared… curious?

“You forgot your eyepatch,” she remarked in a soft voice.

It was difficult to find the words to respond and he held out his wing where his eyepatch dangled from his primaries. “I had to leave it off for a while so everything can dry all proper.”

“What happened?” Her voice was soft and filled with genuine concern.

“Bad luck, that’s what happened.” Now, at this moment, Furious felt self-conscious about his empty eye socket like never before. When he sat down, he squirmed a bit, and he felt like he had returned to being a colt in school again. “There was a storm… a twister… a big one… it came up out of nowhere and started wrecking Ponyville. I didn’t listen to my teacher and I flew out the schoolhouse window to go fight it. It was a bad, bad wind that came that day. Had some powerful magic of its own.”

“So you were a foal…”

“Ayup.” Furious gulped, nodded, and continued. “That storm left behind a quite a number of orphans and many parents knew the pain of outliving their foals that day. I zigged when I should have zagged… I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was determined to cut that storm up with my wings. I got peppered with hailstones, big’uns. One took my eye… split my whole face open and fractured my skull. The doctor only had a mess left to work with and she did the best she could.” Relaxing just a little, his body sank into the sagging couch cushions and he reached up to touch his face with his hoof. “I got my cutie mark that day. I also dropped out of school ‘cause I had a bunch of detention waiting for me for flying out the window.”

Crop Duster almost laughed, but held it in.

How had this exquisite creature come to be his companion? What extraordinary luck had he been graced with? She was his, he knew that, but he was in no big hurry or rush to take her.  He knew that if he waited until she came to him, the moment would be all the sweeter. At least, that is what his aunt had told him. There were so many things that she had said that he hadn’t listened to and now, he wished that he had.

“So how do you do it?” Crop Duster asked and her voice held an inviting warmth. “How do you fight a twister as just one pony? Entire weather teams fight these monsters and lose. Sometimes they die even… so how?”

Closing his eye, Furious settled into a ponyloaf position, but his bad leg remained stretched out. “You have to know the monster… you have to study it, what it breathes, what it eats, most of them are magical, ya see, and the one thing they all have in common is that they feed on fear… a weather team can actually be at a disadvantage… one spooks and the whole herd spooks… and then the twister gets stronger.”

“This is fascinating. Do keep going, I’d like to know more. This is a part of our heritage that I’ve never learned much about.” Crop Duster closed her book and her face now had a dreamy expression, but Furious did not see this since his eye was shut.

“So you can’t be afeared when you go to do battle with one. You gotta be able to feel… to sense the weak spots… and see ‘em too. But seeing ain’t all that and a cupcake. No, if the storm is real gritty and dusty, you gotta do it blind. You slip on yer goggles to protect your eyes and then you fly into the dust devil. But the dust is so thick that you can’t see the end of your own nose. So you have to rely on your other senses sometimes.” Furious’ eye opened and he blinked a few times while his ears perked, hearing a roaring wind that wasn’t there.

“The magic in our hooves allows us to form a kind of wedge, or a cone. I done heard it called a psychokinetic force, but I don’t reckon I know what that means exactly. The way I see it is, it is a form of mind over matter and for me, it all comes down to willpower. The wings and the hooves project force, and the magic that holds the dust devil together can be disrupted. It can be torn, like a piece of paper, and then it can’t go back together again. You tear it into small enough pieces, and the storm becomes nothing more than a bit of harmless wind.”

“So you make big rips in the magic?” Crop Duster asked and her forehead was furrowed from curiousity.

“Yeah, something like that. A weather team, they’s pegasus ponies, but not all pegasus ponies are the same. The common weather team, they kill a storm by making a thousand tiny cuts. We dustpunchers, we make big, bold tears and we rip that storm a new one. I done heard it said that we’re like the unicorn wizards of the pegasus tribes, and we keep the old ways alive. It’s magic, make no mistake, and it is our magic. I don’t understand it, well, not much anyway, I just do it. The difference between a unicorn and myself is that a unicorn can do his magic from far, far away and be safe, while I gotsta get up into the face of the dust devil and punch its lights out.”

On the bed, Crop Duster rolled over, wiggled, kicked, and then settled on her back. Her legs kicked out in random directions and fell, leaving her rounded stomach visible. Now, she looked at Furious with her face upside down and her eyes were half vanished behind a ridge of blanket. Reaching down with her front hooves, she began to rub her own tummy while making faces that showed obvious discomfort.

“Sometimes, when my stomach gets like this and everything starts to spasm, my teats get hard and they hurt. I mean, they really hurt. Like now, it hurts to lay on them. It’s like the muscles freaking out beneath them irritate them or something.” After heaving an uncomfortable sigh, she closed her eyes and then tried to lay still while still rubbing her stomach.

“I’m sorry, darling.” Furious was sorry, and he felt even worse because he didn’t know what to do. After racking his brain for a while, he had an idea that might help and his head began to nod up and down with his growing enthusiasm. “Sweetie pie, I’m gonna go and get you some medicine. Dustpuncher medicine, if’n I can find it. I know what makes me feel better and sets me as right as rain when I’m all busted up and sore.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you!” One eye opened but the other remained closed. “So incredibly sweet of you… you’ve been so nice to me. This is going into my romance novel.”

“I’ll be back as quick as I can. They’re bound to have it in one of these stores around here somewhere.” With surprising speed and ease, Furious launched himself from the love seat and bounded across the room to where his hat and satchel was. “I’ll be back before you know it, Dusty, and then we’ll get you sorted out.”

First he hung his satchel from his neck and then he stuffed his bucket hat over head. In his hurry, he forgot his eyepatch, and he trotted for the door, eager to help his ailing bride in whatever way he could. Mustache quivering, he slipped out the door, off in search of medicine.





When Furious returned, he found his bride right where he had left her, on her back and looking silly. If she wasn’t in so much discomfort, her current position might appear inviting, sexy, even enticing, but all he could think about was making her feel better. Shutting the door behind him, he strode over to the bed, pulled the strap of his satchel over his head, accidentally knocked off his hat, and set his old, beaten up oilskin satchel down on the bed with his wings.

Opening the flap, two strips of cloth could be seen, one blue, the other orange. The blindfolds, strips of cloth, were now irreplaceable treasures. The flap flopped and the magnetic clasp clicked closed. Scowling, Furious opened the bag once more and Crop Duster let out a soft giggle that didn’t disturb her body too much.

“Here we go.” Reaching into his bag, he pulled out a long glass bottle and held it out to his new wife. “Dustpuncher medicine.”

“Furious, that’s hard liquor.” The mare laying on her back snorted and she waved her hoof at her husband. “That’s a bottle of liquid sin.”

“It’s medicinal,” he said in a defensive tone. “I promise it’ll make ya feel better. Mockingbird Tequila is a cure for darn near anything.” He held up the bottle with one wing and eyeballed the golden liquid in the light shining in from the window. “Wait, don’t your parents work for the liquor industry?”

Squirming, Crop Duster squeezed her hind legs shut and looked up at the bottle of tequila. “I’m not supposed to drink that stuff. It’s against the rules—”

“Sugar Bubble, you’re a grown, married mare, and now it is your turn to make the rules.” Furious gave the bottle an inviting shake. “You don’t need to drink much, just a few little sips will take the edge off, and then everything will be okay.”

Looking up at her husband, the supine mare gave him a sour look. “This is how I get pregnant, isn’t it? I don’t listen to my mother, I get soused on my wedding night, and eleven months from now I’m going to be trying to squeeze a head the size of a bowling ball from out betwixt my nethers.”

“I can tell that you’ve finished school,” Furious remarked and this gave Crop Duster a bad case of the giggles. “Look, I didn’t jump your bones the moment we walked in the door and I didn’t ravish you like a romance novel ravisher feller. Out on the prairie, this is medicine. It gets used on achy arthritic joints, bad backs, coughs, fevers, it cleans out infected wounds like magic, and mothers slip a little drip into a foal when it’s colicky to help it calm down and feel better.”

“What have I got to lose?” Crop Duster writhed on the bed a little more while keeping her hind legs squeezed shut. “This is what I wanted, after all. To be married and to occupy these nests I keep making. Look, if this is going to happen, I might as well try to enjoy it. I’ve already thrown caution into the wind, so why not live a little more dangerously? All I ask is that you try not to hurt me, and please, don’t leave me feeling degraded. Try to make me feel special, okay?”

“Wait.. I… no… you… that’s not… wait…” Furious stammered and he was unable to form a coherent sentence. He stared at the bottle with his one eye for a time and then looked down at Crop Duster, who had her thighs clamped together, obscuring her entire crotch from view. “Look, maybe this is a bad idea after all—”

“My mother says that hard liquor is promiscuity in a bottle and it gives mares a whore’s itch that they can’t resist scratching,” Crop Duster said while she looked up at her husband with wide, shy, curious eyes, and her thighs rubbed together while she rubbed her croup against the bed.

Unable to help himself, Furious responded in a way that perhaps he shouldn’t’ve: “Yer ma lied to you, Dusty. That is a boldface lie. She told you that to protect you and keep you sheltered from the wicked ways of the world, but what she had to say just ain’t true. I’ve seen a fair number of whores that don’t drink anything stronger than sarsaparilla so they’s can keep a level head while doing business.”

Flinching from her husband’s candid words, Crop Duster’s mouth contorted into a moue and she glared up at her husband while stormclouds gathered in her eyes. For a moment, it appeared as though the gathering storm would turn loose its fury, but then the pegasus mare’s face softened a bit and her lips puckered. Now, she looked nothing like a mare at all, but more like a confused, hurt filly, and instead of anger, there was hurt in her eyes, perhaps the pain of realisation.

“I’ve lived quite a sheltered life,” she whispered and she reached out to touch Furious. “I lived under the wings of my parents and I did everything they asked of me. I was a good filly, or tried to be, I listened and I obeyed and I did right because they told me to do so. Then, one day, I got thrown out of the nest and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. It’s part of what brought me here, to this place, and how I ended up with you.”

“Have a little drink with me, Dusty, and give me a chance to be good to you.”

“I’d like that, Furious, I would.”

“Perhaps we can head back out on the town afterwards,” he suggested.

“That’d be great, if these cramps will go away.”

“Well,” he began, “let’s see what we can do about those…”
> Chapter 10
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Life is really weird sometimes, you know?” Crop Duster leaned forwards with her hind legs tucked together, and shifted her weight to her front hooves, which rested against the floor. “I mean, I come to the Crystal Empire, I get married to a stranger while I am stone cold sober, and now, I am about to drink hard liquor with my dustpuncher husband. That’s a book of some kind, I’m sure of it. Would this be a comedy?” Behind her, her tail had spilled out in a beautiful, messy, curly mass. “There is something wrong with me, Mister Mustache… I am actually more scared of what I’m about to do right now than jumping into bed with you.”

With his good front leg, Furious poured a generous portion into the two waxed paper drinking cups that sat between him and his wife on the floor. “Now, the ‘Bird, the Mockingbird, it ain’t no sippin’ tequila. You gotta drink all of it all at once, or else the ‘Bird’ll get ya. It’s mean and that’s how we like it on the prairie.”

“I love listening to you talk,” Crop Duster said in a voice filled with hesitation, fear, and doubt. She looked down at the paper cup that was filled almost halfway with the glistening golden liquid and her eyes lingered for a time before making the journey back up to look at her husband. Reaching out with her wing, she touched the withered side of his face and her primaries came to rest on the scar that protruded out from beneath the the eyepatch. “You walked out the door without it…”

“And scared a few decent sorts afore I remembered to slip it back on,” he added.

Her soft touch lingered and she leaned forwards a bit, still fearful, still worried. In a rare moment of softness, Furious leaned into her touch and her soft feathers slid over the withered, pinched half of his face. They were close now, real close, deep within each other’s personal space, the great undiscovered territory.

“It’s funny how feelings can change.” Crop Duster’s words were almost, but not quite, a whisper and her primaries slid over Furious’ scarred, taut cheek. “I know in the back of my mind that I should be repulsed by this, and I probably would be, but I’m kind of getting to know you and I might be starting to have some feelings for you, and now, when I look at this and even when I am touching this, my nethers don’t clench up and hurt in that weird way. I just feel bad for you, that it happened to you. It’s funny what empathy can do. Your poor face…”

Looking into her eyes, Furious saw twin violet pools of sympathy. His one eye darted left, then darted right, trying to take in both, and he felt a stirring within his barrel. The sound of her breathing was now important, it was of immeasurable value to him and his ears strained to listen. Her soft touch inflamed him and left him with a burning desire to pull her close. His slow, shuddering breath was the only hint of his struggle to be a good pony, and he was determined to let her come to him.

Moving with the special brashness that was unique to pegasus ponies, Crop Duster lifted up her paper cup with her other wing and held it up in front of Furious. He did the same and something of a makeshift toast took place and they continued to stare into each other's eyes, which were now watering from the tequila that was strong enough to almost singe their noses. She giggled now, a nervous but happy giggle that caused the tequila in her paper cup to slosh.

“Wait, we have to say something witty!”

Furious paused. “What?”

“We should say something witty so we’ll remember this.” Crop Duster let out a giggle that dared to transcend the boundaries of lewdness and with her eyes bright and merry she said, “Here’s to the hole that never heals, the more I rub it the better it feels!”

“Honey darlin’, that’s lewd.” Furious’ eye narrowed and his cauliflowered ears almost drooped. “Those books yer reading, they’s worrying me a bit.” He chuckled, because what else could he do, and then he raised his own paper cup in salute. “The dustpuncher’s code… here’s to lying, cheating, stealing, and drinking… if you’re going to lie, lie for a friend. If you’re going to cheat, cheat Death and dry gulch that bastard. If you’re going to steal, steal a heart. If you’re going to drink, drink with me.”

“Okay!” Crop Duster lifted her cup to her lips and never looked away from Furious…

Tilting her head back just a bit, she poured the cup of tequila down her throat just as Furious did the same. Grimacing a bit, Furious endured the burn, but Crop Duster didn’t. She exploded in a flurry of movement and began bucking around the room while snorting and whinnying. She did a few straight leg leaps, pronked, bounced over the bed, bounced on the bed, flapped her wings, and then let out wheezing pants while her tongue dangled from the side of her mouth.

All of this movement, all of this sudden activity meant that she could no longer squeeze her hind legs together, and in mid-pronk began a trumpeting, brassy blast, which showed no signs of stopping any time soon. She fell to the floor, landing with a clattering of hooves, and then stood there with her fanny flugelhorn squealing out a wavering, tail-fluffing note. At the ten second mark or so, Furious dropped his paper cup and Crop Duster’s eyes went wide with alarm.

After another fifteen seconds or so, the impromptu concert ended on a high note.

After a nervous licking of her lips, Crop Duster only had one thing to say: “Tada.”

Furious fell over as if he’d been poleaxed, clutched his sides, squeezed his eye shut, and then began to laugh. Confused, Crop Duster watched him with wide, fearful eyes, which were now tearing over from the powerful sulphurous stench, a miasma that was redolent with the nasal-wrecking, nostril-clenching reek of rotten eggs.

“Sakes alive!” he whooped as he rolled over and his laughter was now peppered with fits of coughing. Reaching out with his bent foreleg, he grabbed the bottle of Mockingbird Tequila, placed it to his lips, and took a long pull to help himself recover. After swallowing, he panted and fanned his face with his wing.

“That’s it?” Crop Duster asked and she appeared to be baffled. She flapped her own wings, trying to fan the stink away, and she shook her head while tears rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, that was a bad one… a real eye burner… ugh!” She sucked in a deep breath and then in an almost angry voice she made her feelings known: “I almost feel offended! I’ve been holding that in for who knows how long and I endured all of that pain and suffering and cramping and I was trying to do what you said about being honest and so I was letting that build up and you don’t even seem phased by it!”

“Oh, you’ll have to do better than that,” Furious replied while he set the bottle down on the floor. “I done flew down the throats of brimstone burning twisters from Mount Maud. Yer a bad one, I’ll give ya that, but you ain’t no witch of the wind that burns my hide and leaves me covered in blisters.”

“Ugh! Why am I so angry?” Crop Duster stomped her hoof and then, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Blisters?”

“Some kind of rotten egg acid in the twister,” Furious drawled and he looked up at his flustered bride with a grin. “Ya gots a powerful stink, girly, I’ll admit it, but you’ll have to try harder if’n ya want to chase me away.” His words made her stomp both of her front hooves against the floor and her tail swished from side to side in a most fetching manner. “It was a good effort, but next time, put some feelin’ into it—”

“Oh, shut up!” She bit her lip for a moment and kept making little stomps of annoyance. “I feel insulted and I don’t know why! It’s driving me crazy!” Deep furrows appeared across her forehead and she stomped over to where the bottle of Mockingbird stood on the floor. She stared down at it, her face contorting with frustration, anger, and hurt. “This is a condition that defines my life and it affects everypony that shares my life with me. And you… you… you don’t even seem phased by it! I spent all of this time worrying and fretting and fearful and crying and there was so much buildup and I sweated and I… I suffered! My suffering has defined my life up to this point and you… and you… you…” Her words failed to come but her mouth kept moving for a time until at last the energy of anger failed her. Now, her lips puckered into a pout that left her lower lip protruding.

“I’m sorry, honey bunches, but if’n you want to stink me out, you’ll have to try harder.”

“Oh, I will!” she snapped. “If it is the last thing I ever do, I’m going to run you out of a room!”

“Good luck with that, darling.” He waved at the bottle with his crooked leg. “Have a drink, you’ll feel better.”

Reaching out her foreleg, she snatched up the bottle in her fetlock and lifted it. Trembling with anger or maybe rage, she stared at her husband while he lay on the floor and her violet eyes glittered with both tears and emotion. The stench still lingered like an unwelcomed guest determined to stay.

Raising the bottle, she had this to say: “Here’s to nipples, without them, teats wouldn’t have a point.” Stomping, she took a swallow, then another, and struggled to get down the third. When she pulled the bottle away, she coughed, hacked, and sputtered from the burn.

“That’s dirty—”

“Yeah it is!” Crop Duster bellowed while she did a full body shimmy from the burn. “The sailors always had dirty toasts they said when they drank wine with the maiden they were about to ravish… and I remember just about all of them!”

“Yer like a smut… whatchamacallit, a smut carne sewer… I think it’s some kind of burro word, I can’t remember.” Reaching up, he pulled the bottle away from his still sputtering bride, angled his head just right, and took a long, long drink. Then, when he was done, he made the ‘tequila is burning my innards’ face and almost swallowed his own mustache.

Squinting one eye, Crop Duster cocked one hind leg out at a rough forty-five degree angle and let rip. Her ears drooped, but relief could be seen on her face while a squeal—muffled by her tail—began to warm up for a crescendo. “Oh, that feels so much better when I don’t have to hold it in.” The entire time she spoke her crepitation continued to gain both volume and force, the pressure of that which was expelled caused her tail to ripple in an obscene wind.

“Nuts and gum,” Furious swore when his eye began to water.

The blast continued and Crop Duster began to kick her cocked-out leg, trying to release as much of the built up pressure as possible. Whole seconds passed but the rancid wind remained strong, unyielding, having peaked in volume. With the tushy trumpet still blowing strong, Furious passed the bottle of Mockingbird to his bride.

“That’s gotta be about a good seven point something on that rectum-damn-near-killed-’em earthquake scale thingy that sometimes I hear talked about,” he said while she took the bottle. “How does it go for so long?”

With a howling shriek, the Tartarian torrent coming from the now promoted tushy tuba ended and Crop Duster began fluffing out her tail, trying to shake the stink out while still gripping the bottle her husband had given her in her fetlock. “I feel like I wasted my time being so scared of this moment,” she grumbled while the foul miasma assaulted the walls of the hotel room, finding the hidden places that would ensure that it would never leave long after Crop Duster had checked out.

Then, she took a long pull on the bottle, guzzled some down, and almost choked. Her wings began with some wild flapping and she would have dropped the bottle had Furious not caught it the moment that it tumbled from her grasp. She whooped and wheezed, her eyes wide and watery, a victim of the Mockingbird’s dreadful assault.

“Whew!” Crop Duster suffered a powerful shivery-shudder that caused a sharp, muffled hiss from her backside that ruffle-fluffled her tail. “Here’s to colon bowling! That’s a strike!”

Clutching the bottle, Furious crawled away on the floor, shaking his head, and dragging his hind legs behind him. “That ain’t no innocent little fluffy butt dumpling, that’s a turd honkin’ fer the rightaway, boy howdy!”

“Thanks, Mister Mustache… I feel better.” Swaying just a little, Crop Duster giggled. “Say, you want to head back out and have a little fun on the town? I feel so warm and happy now… like I want to sing and tell the whole world how happy I am.”

“Some time outdoors sounds fine—”

“Then let’s not waste another moment and let’s go! I feel great! Let’s have an epic adventure!”
> Chapter 11
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

They had killed the Mockingbird and Furious knew that there would be consequences, but he just couldn’t be bothered to care. Crop Duster was super bubbly now—from both ends no less—and was in a playful, flirty mood. Furious could handle his liquor quite well, having spent a lot of time wearing smooth the various barstools of Appleloosa, but Crop Duster was having her first real drunk, her first hootenanny, and it fell on him to be her foalsitter while she had a grand time out.

He had left his hat and his satchel back at the hotel room to keep them safe and because he didn’t know what might happen. He had a few coins tucked away—nifty little pegasus trick that he’d have to teach to Crop Duster because it was obvious that she didn’t know—and if more money was needed they could always return to the hotel room.

“Everything feels so bright and beautiful, Flurious.” Crop Duster’s words had something of a slur to them and she swayed from side to side as she stood still. “And you’re handsome. You’re really handsome. I don’t remember you being this handsome and right now, I kind of want to nibble on your ear because it looks like dehydrated fruit. Yesh!”

With a sweet, innocent smile, she hiked up her tail, let rip a short but ear piercing blast, and then dropped her tail once more. Most of the backlog of pressure seemed gone and what escaped now was the new pressure before it had a chance to build. Though shorter, these new blasts were no less eye watering and sounded like somepony shuffling about five decks of cards stacked together.

“I feel hot,” she announced, and then, without a word of warning, she spread her wings and flew away.

Furious, spreading his own wings, went after her.





Swooping down low and slow, Crop Duster skimmed the surface of the long rectangular reflecting pool that had a massive ornate fountain in the middle. The rather large body of water had no swimmers and was empty, but that didn’t stop her from having fun. Her hooves left behind rippling wakes as she skated over the surface, stomping and splashing with her hooves. All around the plaza where the reflection pool was located, ponies stopped to stare.

Furious had himself a good long look as well.

She seemed to dance over the surface of the water, moving with surprising grace even with her current level of inebriation, which seemed to be growing. When he flew in a little closer, he could hear her humming to herself and something about that caused a powerful feeling of attraction for him. Something about her happiness did it for him and he could feel the fires of arousal ignite within him.

When he flew too close, she splashed him, kicking water at him with her legs. Laughing, she changed directions and continued her dance across the surface of the water, which many ponies were watching at the moment. He gave chase and she wiggled her rump at him while flicking her tail. Too late, he flew into her slipstream and got a faceful of stink.

How she laughed and laughed, and then with a powerful flap of her wings, she zoomed off, racing towards the far end of the long reflecting pool. He followed, intoxicated more by her laughter, her beauty, and her infectious happiness than by the tequila he had imbibed. The laughter gave way to humming, a sweet, sincere sound of happiness, and Furious followed after, entranced.

Then, without warning, she dived.





The reflecting pool was far deeper than Furious expected and he followed after his bride submerged in the water. A long stream of bubbles shot out from behind her, in fact, the water seemed to boil around her hindquarters. Amidst the sound of swimming and bodies moving through the water, something else far more dreadful could be heard, something vulgar and crude that was almost, but not quite, whalesong.

The remains of the day came streaming down through the surface of the water, filling the space around him with beautiful crepuscular rays. Crop Duster’s curly tail trapped many bubbles and it flowed from out behind her, looking as though it was filled with beautiful round gemstones or maybe precious pearls. Her stout, stocky legs kicked and scissored, propelling her through the water, and a million brilliant bubbles were trapped in the feathers of her wings, looking like tiny diamonds as they reflected the sunlight from above.

She rolled over in the water and he almost got himself an eyeful of her goods, but the bubbles clinging to her desirable places obscured his view. He strained to look, to see, and even more bubbles squirted out of her backside, only to go roiling up to the surface. Kicking his legs, he swam closer, tempted by what she had to offer and hoping to see more of it. The need for air became too strong, and he surfaced.





Crop Duster’s head bobbed in the water and she had a crazy grin that spread from ear to ear. For a moment, her snoot dropped beneath the surface, and when it came back up again, her cheeks bulged. Before he could even protest, he was squirted in the face with a arcing stream of water. He slapped the water with his front hooves and retreated while sporting a reckless, roguish smirk beneath his mustache.

With a great splash, her body bobbed up to the surface and she floated there, flapping her wings and shedding excess water. Mid-flap, she let out a happy little quack, then another, and then there was a steady stream of happy quacking that poured from her mouth. Furious realised that this was her song, the voice of her inner pegasus and he listened while he allowed his own body to rise to the surface. Together, the two of them bobbed in the water like a fine pair of waterfowl, and Crop Duster continued her drunken quacking.

She was happy. Of course, she was also drunk, but she was happy enough to let free her inner song. Furious had never discovered his inner song, though he had spent some time trying to find it. He bobbed beside his bride with his legs folded up against his belly, watching as the water went rolling off of her back, her wings, and down her neck. Her frizzy curls were heavy with water now and clung to her curvy, graceful neck in ringlets.

“Hey there, Mister Mustache, do you want to know one of my secrets?”

“I want to know all of yer secrets.” This was true—he really did want to know all of her secrets, he wanted to know everything about her. With time and trust, he might.

“I pee in the tub,” she confessed in a low, playful whisper and she gave him a wink. “Even now that I’m all grown up, I still do it. It’s a guilty pleasure and I know how awful it is.” For a moment, her face scrunched up in intense concentration and then she shot a blast of bubbles out from behind her. “Oh that feels good to just let everything out.”

The sudden stink was like a slap in the face and Furious’ withered nostrils crinkled.

The reflecting pool was all theirs. No other pony joined them, nopony else dove in. They stood on the shore, watching, some were laughing, and a few snapped photos. Furious failed to notice them because he only had eyes for Crop Duster, and she let out a few more drunken quacks while she waved at the ponies standing at the edge of the water.

“Am I pretty?” she asked and she tilted her head off to one side while looking coy.

“Yes, yer pretty,” he replied as he drifted a little closer to her.

“Well, I think you’re handsome, in your own way. Right now, there is something I rather like about you.” She batted her eyelashes and then tilted her head in the other direction. A moment later, she let rip again, and the force of the blast was so powerful that she floated closer to Furious, almost coming nose to nose with him. Tittering, she had another confession to make and did so in a heaving whisper: “I’m peeing right now.”

This caused Furious to start chuckling.

“The strange quirky filly with the regrettable disability has found somepony who seems to like her just the way she is. She’s happy, but she is also a whole lot confused, because real life turned out to be quite different than books… and this in and of itself causes a great deal of confusion, because up to this point, all of her best friends had been books. So, now, this quirky filly, she is thinking to herself, maybe, just maybe, she brought this on herself. These friends of hers, these books, they were of the wrong crowd and perhaps mother and father’s warning about staying away from the wrong crowd should also apply to books.” The looseness of her words and the slur was growing stronger, but she didn’t seem to care and plowed onwards, oblivious.

“I feel suddenly sexy,” Crop Duster announced, and she swam away from Furious trailing a roiling stream of bubbles behind her. “Whew, that fanny frog that had a big ribbit!” Extending her wings, she began to wave them around and her attempt to wave away the outpouring of her o-ring oboe turned into an impromptu plumage display. When she realised what it was that she was doing, she went with it and kept going while throwing a coy look in Furious’ direction.

She clambered up onto the fountain in the middle, shedding rivulets of water down her sides. An entire ocean seemed to empty from her tail and she gave her sodden, waterlogged appendage a few mighty shakes to help sling some of the trapped water away. She didn’t know it, but she was beautiful in this moment with the late afternoon sun striking her from a low angle. Furious was transfixed and from where he bobbed in the water, he stared, stricken.

With a grunt, she tossed her head back, her back arched, and her tail flagged high when she braced her body for a powerful shake. The shake started in the front when she tossed her head around, going from side to side, and her sleek pelt rippled as it sent water droplets flying. The ripples traveled backwards, flowing along her ribs, down her sides, until it hit her well padded thighs and made them jiggle in the most enticing manner imaginable. Balanced on the edge of the fountain’s basin, she cut a remarkable figure, having a body that enjoyed all of the benefits and rewards of maturity, while still having something young and rather fillyish about her.

Then, armed only with the mystical powers that come from imbibing about a half a bottle of tequila, Crop Duster expressed her newfound sense of sexuality the only way she knew how: she spread her wings and struck a pose. With a curious drunken balance, she stood on the narrow edge of the fountain’s basin, and she waved her wings around in a suggestive display for all of the world to see.

Smitten, Furious had to join her, so he too made the labourious climb up out of the water like a life form deciding it was time to live on land. He struggled and his creaky knees wobbled a bit, but he managed. While Crop Duster was trying a variation on the old ‘wave & shake,’ Furious responded with a ‘twist & turn,’ rotating his wings in their sockets until their undersides were visible from his frontside and their topsides were visible from his backside.

This was met with a lot of hooting and hollering on shore as the gathered ponies continued to watch. Crop Duster made a clumsy fan display, bringing her wings straight up over her back, touching the edges together, and forming a ‘fan’ of perfect feathers all in a row. For a first attempt, it wasn’t bad, at least based on the amount of cheering coming from the crowd.

Puffing out his chest and his barrel, Furious filled himself with air, braced his front legs, held his head high, and then did a forward thrust with his wings, extending the points of his primaries out behind his face like spear tips. The sight of it made Crop Duster bite her lip and her olive pelt blushed brown while she quacked in approval of what her mate had to offer.

She too, sucked in wind and her plush chest scruffle sprang out in an eye-popping display. Water still glistened, clinging to the thicker, somewhat larger longer hairs like glittering diamonds. Her cheeks bulged with effort, leaving her eyes narrowed due to their massive, over-inflated size, and she tried to perform a ‘jab & stab’ with her wings. Angling them just so with the tips pointing at Furious, she jabbed them and stabbed them in his direction, shedding water in a magnificent spray.

On the edge of the water, an elderly crystal pony mare fainted from the shameless display and would have tumbled right into the reflection pool had somepony not grabbed her. The performing pegasus ponies were oblivious, only having eyes for each other, (not to mention only having three eyes between them) and they continued their shameless, pornographic display while standing on the rim of a very public fountain.

Water from the basin spilled over their hooves, moving in a continual flow. In the middle of the basin were large, decorative jets of water that shot skywards, coming out in brief, exciting bursts. It was into the basin that Furious tumbled when his bad leg gave out and he lost his balance. He went down laughing, plopping into the basin with a splash, then rolled and tumbled in the water while trying to get his hooves back beneath him.

With a quack of triumph, Crop Duster lept into the basin with a splash, wobbled for a moment while trying to figure out where her balance went, and advanced upon her struggling husband. Holding out her hoof, she made an attempt to boop him on the snoot, but missed. Biting her lip and concentrating, she tried again, and again, but kept missing each time.

Back on his hooves again, Furious reached up with his crooked leg, squinted, stuck out his tongue, and on his first try, he booped his bride on her snoot, causing her to puff and fluff in response. With her wing, she slapped his hoof away, laughing, then turned about and waggled her rump at him. Afterwards, she pooted with a firecracker bang and sprang away to go and play in the water jets in the center of the basin.

Furious followed, his mind ablaze from the somewhat revealing rump-waggle.

Crop Duster danced among the jets with little hops and skips, showing off her wings, and somehow revealing every salient feature of her pegasus sexuality. She placed her pert, rounded rump over a water jet and let it spray her underside, all while making wide eyes with a shocked expression done for drama rather than reaction. For Furious, all he could think about was where the water must be spraying, and his brain desperately made an effort to construct a mental image of what must be happening.

Quacking, she began to bob her head up and down, extending and shortening her neck, and she made crazy, wild waving gestures with her wings while she pronked among the water jets. Then, once more, she parked her hindquarters over a water jet and then made silly faces when the water squirted into her nooks and crannies. Furious, perhaps a bit more intoxicated than he realised, began to do what his mother and his aunt had warned him to never do in public: he began to preen himself.

Standing among the water jets, this seemed like an ideal place, and he started with his brown wing first. He went to work, making swift, practiced motions, and when he pulled his lips along one of his long, central primaries, Crop Duster froze in place with her wings fully extended and twitching. Her mouth hung open in a somewhat slack-jawed expression, and her orange tongue made reflexing lapping motions, moving with the slow motivation of muscle memory.

“Hubba hubba,” was Crop Dusters’ husky, lusty utterance and any knowledgeable observer could see that her wings were throbbing at the moment. She made a faint mewling sound, her dock flagged high while her back muscles quivered, and one hind hoof struck the massive bronze basin, making a mighty ringing sound that was like a bell tolling, announcing to all of the Crystal Empire that the time for nookie had come in place of teatime.

It was about this time that the first of the guards began to show up.
> Chapter 12
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Captain, what is the plan?”

Flash Sentry turned his helmeted head to glance over at the unicorn to his left, and then, after a moment of consideration, he returned his attention to the two pegasus ponies cavorting in the fountain. It only took him a few seconds to make a lifesaving judgment call and he nodded in preparation of his response.

“Private Low, we’re not going to do anything.”

“We’re not?”

“No, Private, we’re not.”

“Sir, why not?”

“Private Low, that right there is the Pinto Pummeller. That is a pony that picks fights with tornados for a living and right now, he is engaging in the ancient pegasus tradition of courtship. You need to trust me when I say that you don’t wish to disturb him. Right now, we have a little dancing and some plumage displays. But if we get too close, he might resort to the ancient pegasus display of, ‘Hey, look how much ass I can whup up on’ and we don’t want that.”

“No, Captain, I suppose we don’t. He don’t look like much though.”

“Private Low…”

“Yes, Captain?”

“You’re as dumb as dogshit, Private Low.”

The unicorn sighed, but did not respond.

“The only authority he’ll submit to is the biggest, baddest, strongest pegasus pony in the flock. So I’ll tell you what. We’re going to stand here, wait, and hope that they continue to roost in the fountain, Private Low.” After a moment, Flash Sentry eased his stance a little and his armor clanked as his rigid posture relaxed. There was no sense looking like a threat or posing as a challenger. “Private Low—”

“Yes, Captain?”

Annoyed that he had been interrupted, Flash had to make an effort to keep his voice down. “Whatever you do, don’t look directly at him, do not make eye contact, and if he comes over in this direction, you had best back away. We don’t want any incidents on a wedding day.”

“Right, Captain.”





Furious might’ve been a bit more wasted than he first thought, but he didn’t let it bother him none. He stood with a wide stance while preening his wings, and his tail was held high, giving the world around him a magnificent view of what he had to offer as both a prospective mate and a father. Crop Duster, who was prancing in wobbly circles around her husband, was giving what he had to offer a sidelong glance while her lips pressed tight around her glistening, slobbery tongue, which hung from the corner of her mouth. It bounced with each step and the young mare was experiencing the most turgid, rigid display of arousal that she had ever endured in her short life.

She was far too prim, sheltered, and polite to say such vulgar words like ‘wingboner.’

With his wet pelt gleaming in the late afternoon sun, Furious showed off a body that looked as though it had been chiseled from stone. He was sharp angles, hard edges, and dense, knotty muscles. His pelt had rippled places—scars from sandblast attacks—and a whole host of marred imperfections. His hide was a parchment, with each scar existing as a written word about the life he had lived, a testament to courage, bravery, and as some might say, brash, boneheaded stupidity.

Slurping up her tongue, Crop Duster made a bold move towards her husband. In a tequila-fueled moment of dangerous curiousity, she held out one rigid wing towards Furious, and then batted her eyelashes at him. This too, was an action older than recorded history, an unspoken part of pegasus history, something that had fallen prey to conservative, militaristic social mores, and the harsh, disciplined life that the majority of pegasus ponies lived. It was also a rejection of animalism, an action that had been shamed and chastened into being done behind closed doors in an effort to combat the stereotype that all pegasus ponies were brutes.

But Crop Duster made a move in the open, a public display, asking her mate a silent question of her acceptance. Nostrils wide, Furious sniffed as he pulled his lips from his own wing, and there was a dangerous, possessive gleam in his eye when he maneuvered his head closer to inspect the wing held out and offered to him. A bellowing wicker could be heard in the depths of his throat and his hooves splashed in the shallow water as he took a step closer to his trembling bride.

In this ritual, rejection meant a bite, a painful bite, or even torn out feathers, an action that might leave a pegasus grounded for a time, a dangerous condition for any pegasus. With all of the blood that flooded the spongy muscle tissues of their wings, a bite during this stage of arousal could also cause significant blood loss and potential weakness to both predators and rivals. This was an old ritual, not done with thought and reason, but with instincts and ancient ancestral memory. It spoke a great deal about their savage, hostile nature, as well as the violence that once ruled the way of their tribe.

The grizzled warrior’s legs went stiff as he sniffed the offered wing, and then he chuffed a few times, which caused Crop Duster to twitch and jerk, but she did not pull her wing away. She let out a shrill nicker when Furious took the offered wing into his mouth, and stood wide-eyed while he began to groom her. Her eyes darted off to one side when the strong sound of running water could be heard, and a powerful stream of musky, vivid yellow liquid could be seen streaming from between Furious’ hind legs. Nostrils flaring, she let out a submissive sounding whimper as Furious began to preen her offered primaries.

Most of the growing crowd could not turn away and watched with great interest, though not all interest was positive.

Crop Duster moved closer, until she was almost pressed up against Furious. His grooming was gentle, even pleasurable, and with each nibble of his teeth, her ears bobbed up and down like the excited, flapping wings of a tiny bird. Her jaw hung down and drew in each breath through her open mouth, forgetting that her nose even existed.

When he bellowed, she nickered. When he wickered, she whinnied. These wordless exchanges continued for a time as the preening ritual progressed. They only had eyes and ears for each other and did not notice the crowd, or how it stared. They did not hear the outraged utterances or angry words like, ‘feral,’ ‘disgusting,’ or ‘shameful.’ They were out of reach of the social conditioning and rituals that curbed this behaviour and kept it behind closed doors.

It was a perfect, beautiful moment fraught with the savage ferocity of the ancient warrior tribe. Even with its untamed beauty, there was also a fierce gentleness and an aggressive sense of possession, even though many might consider such possessive behaviour barbarous. Pegasus ponies were barbaric, but they hid it well beneath a thin veneer of civilisation.

The rituals of courtship were interrupted when a third pony landed...





With a savage, rumbling growl, Furious turned to face the newcomer and he pushed Crop Duster behind him with his wing. He made a pawing motion with his bad leg, and his hoof splashed in the shallow water of the basin. When he saw who was there, he was forced to look up to meet her gaze, and his terrifying growl died in his throat.

“Well, that’s rather rude, don’t you think?” Princess Cadance stared down at Furious with a stern look of disapproval. “Now, look, I understand you, I really do. Even though I was raised by a village of earth ponies, I know the lingua fracas, the ancient language of the pegasus pony tribe. So, I’ll ask you now to refrain speaking to me in such a manner.”

Furious remained stiff legged, defiant, and did not relax his position.

“This is a joyous day of celebration, and you should be expressing your newfound infatuation with one another…” A long pause marked Princess Cadance’s words and she focused her burning, soul piercing stare upon Furious’ single eye. “But you… your celebration, it is causing other ponies around you some distress, and it is ruining their good time. So, because of your unbridled revelry, I must ask you to come with me.”

“Am I under arrest?” Furious asked and he began to wonder if his mother would kill him for this. “Are you about to take me to jail?” He wondered how sturdy the jail was, and if it could keep his mother out. Maybe his aunt too. Being sisters, they tended to work together.

“Nopony is arrested on their wedding day,” Princess Cadance replied in the firm, calm voice of absolute authority. “Nopony goes to jail, either. No, you are being rewarded for your exuberant celebration and I am offering you a luxurious honeymoon suite for you to celebrate your nuptials in.”

“I don’t see that I’ve done anything wrong.” Furious felt Crop Duster pressing up against him, and she was shivering. Maybe with terror, he didn’t know. She was the good sort that had never done anything wrong in her life, so this might be rather scary for her.

“The fountain that you frolic in, this reflecting pool, it is a memorial for those who have died under the rule of Dread King Sombra—”

Furious cringed, and did so hard.

“ —and this is a sacred place where those who have suffered loss come to contemplate and remember those who did not survive his unspeakable tyranny. I am willing to let this infraction slide, but you must come with me.” Princess Cadance took a step forwards and drew herself up to her full, imposing height.

His tequila soaked brain thought about the situation for a moment while Crop Duster shivered against him, and he could hear her teeth chattering together. He had gone for a romp through what was a graveyard of sorts, which was bad, but wasn’t awful enough for confinement, at least in his opinion. No matter what she was calling this, this felt like an arrest. This was something that could be apologised for, maybe.

The last time he had been arrested had been with Braeburn in Las Pegasus, and his mother had been quite irate. Nothing scared Furious like his mother, nothing, not even the snapping beaks of owlbears. Perhaps there was a way to back out of this situation, some way that did not involve his mother’s merciless fury or her loving headbutts of correction.

“Okay, I’ll confess that I goofed,” Furious said in what he hoped was the most respectful tone he could muster, “but really, if it is all the same, I think I’d rather just go back to our—OW!”

His tender ear was seized by magic and his defiant posture melted away as he heard Princess Cadance say, “Oh no, I’m sorry, my little pony, but you will be staying in the luxurious and opulent honeymoon suite for the night.” She made a sweeping gesture to the crowd standing on the water’s edge, and then lowered her head down to be closer to Furious’ face. “You put me in a bad position, my little pony, I want to let you celebrate and have a good time… I want to see you happy… but at the same time, you have caused great offense, and I must do something to satisfy their needs as well. I can’t just let you go after what you’ve done, because they would be very, very upset with me. But I also can’t put you in jail, which is where you’d actually be going if this wasn’t your wedding night. So, consider this a compromise.”

“Mister Mustache!” Crop Duster’s shouted words were slurred and she swayed while she shivered against him. “I am whispering to you so she doesn’t hear me, but I think we’re busted! At least she doesn’t know that I peed in the pool!”

Looking up, Furious saw Princess Cadance glaring down at him, and she looked stern. He gulped a few times, hoping that Crop Duster would stay quiet, and then with a nod that made his ear tug against the princess’ powerful pinch, he said, “We’ll come along quietly with no fuss and no trouble.”

“Good, good, I am pleased to hear that. All the same, I’ll still be hauling you through town by your ears, both of you. I have to walk a fine, fine line that rests between authority and compassion, and I already have some of my subjects pleading that you be locked up.” There was a loud gasp when Crop Duster’s ear was seized, and she pooted from panic. Princess Cadance gave a gentle tug on the couple’s ears and her wings unfurled from her sides. “I detest that you’ve put me in this position and I dislike this situation. If the two of you behave through all the night, all will be forgiven come morning. Please, please allow me to continue walking my fine, fine line that rests between authority and compassion.”

“Princess, I am powerful sorry,” Furious said, apologising. “Come on, Dusty, we gotsta face the music.”

“Horn solo!” Crop Duster cried out, and she let rip once more while squinting with effort.

Shaking her head, Princess Cadance snorted in disgust and drew her head back. “Okay, both of you. We’re going. There will be a short little flight over the water and then we’ll be landing. I will expect your cooperation and your continued good behaviour. If the crowd becomes unruly and starts throwing things at you…”—her words trailed off for a moment and her eyes narrowed—“do not respond and allow me to shield you. I will deal with trouble if it happens.”

“Thank you, Princess—”

“You can thank me with cooperation and good behaviour,” was Princess Cadance’s curt reply. “Now get moving, both of you, or I’ll give you an ear tugging that you’ll never forget! Your grandfoals will tell stories to their grandfoals about why the whole family has one long ear! See if I don’t!”
> Chapter 13
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What is this place?” Furious asked while he was pulled along by his tender ear. It didn’t look like a hotel, at least not one he was familiar with. There was no lobby, but there was a hallway that had a parlour off to one side and a reading room off to the other. At the end of the long, wide hallway, there were stairs leading up and a door beside the stairs.

“This is a bed and breakfast that I paid to keep their rooms open just for occasions like this one,” Princess Cadance replied in a stern, maternal tone while she dragged two very naughty pegasus ponies down the hallway by their tender, delicate ears. “You will be very comfortable here. The rooms are large, spacious, and have their own bathrooms.”

“Ow, ow, ow!” Crop Duster almost stumbled and her ear got a good stretch. When she recovered, her folded wings flapped against her ribs and her eyes were misty. Her lower lip quivered from both pain and shame after having been dragged through town on a very, very long walk. “What do we do if we get bored?”

“Each other,” Princess Cadance deadpanned while her eyes narrowed.

“Oh… oh yeah… that makes sense.” Crop Duster was foolish enough to nod, and her ear got another stretch. “Ow, ow, ow, owie!”

The alicorn princess stopped at the stairs, but maintained a good, firm magical grip on the two ears she held. She glowered down at the two smaller pegasus ponies, and her pale violet eyes almost blazed within from emotion. “I am sorely disappointed with the two of you. Alcohol is no excuse for poor judgment and terrible behaviour. Now I am going to have to explain to angry petitioners why ponies should have the freedom to purchase alcohol even if it means that they sometimes make bad decisions. The two of you have added immeasurable complication to my life.”

Hanging her head, Crop Duster let rip and it sounded just like a sad trombone.

When Princess Cadance recoiled, Furious had this to say in his bride’s defense: “My sweetie can knock a vulture from off a three day old carcass and turn him from his meal. She’s gotta rank stank, ain’t she?”

“You almost sound... proud?” The princess’ voice sounded strained and a bit scratchy.

“Oh, I am.” Furious looked up, his mustache bristling. “She’s purty.”

“He thinks I’m pretty.” Crop Duster swayed from side to side and her eyes seemed to lose focus. “Thank you, Princess Closet, no… Princess Cupboard… Chifferobe? Um... Credenza? I’m terrible at remembering furniture names, I’m sorry. I’m really, really thankful for what you’ve done for me and I am really, really sorry that I upset you. I feel bad. So bad.”

“Come on, both of you, come upstairs with me.” Princess Cadance gestured at the stairs and then turned to go up them. “I’m going to let go of your ears now, do not tempt fate by trying to run away, or I shall be forced to grab other… things.”





The room was quite a good sized one and looked nothing at all like the rooms of the Crystal Empire. The walls were wood, not stone or crystal, and the floor was a mirror polished hardwood. In the corner of the room, the bed was an unusual eye focus, in that it was heart shaped, and Furious stared at it for a time, transfixed, wondering who could think up the need for such a bed and why. There was a bookshelf filled with books and on the bottom shelf there was a collection of boardgames.

Could there be a game of Twister among them?

“So, this is where my hymen dies,” Crop Duster, who sounded mournful said while two things happened: she farted while standing in the doorway as she had a good look around the room. The long, windy blast seemed to cause her to deflate and her smile began to sag as the pealing blast of flatulence tore free from its puckered prison portal. Just as the tail-fluffer reached its shrill, high-pitched finale, the mare’s emotions had done a full turnabout. “I’m not ready to do this yet and I’m scared but I really want my husband to like me and I’ve messed up and done something wrong on my wedding day and this room is really, really pretty and I don’t feel so good and I am so confused right now!” And with that, she burst into tears.

With a single eyeblink, Princess Cadance’s hard, flinty, authoritarian glare vanished and was replaced by something far more maternal. Wrapping a wing around Crop Duster’s neck, the pink alicorn pulled the smaller mare away from Furious and the door so they could stand beside the window together. Drawing her wing in tight, the princess gave the now blubbering bride a reassuring hug.

“Is this normal?” Furious asked, and he found himself swaying a bit. As nice as this place was, the floor wasn’t even and he had to make adjustments to keep his balance.

“For some mares, yes,” Princess Cadance replied, “especially when you fill them full of hard liquor. They tend to get emotional, go figure.” The big mare sighed while holding the smaller mare who blubbered against her. “This was her big first step out into the wide, scary world of being an adult and she made a difficult, adult decision. There is an emotional toll that comes with that and some ponies feel it far more keenly than others. Rather than be allowed to sort and shift through all of those emotions and make peace with them, she imbibed a substance that arguably made everything worse.” Eyebrow arching, she added, “But it was her right to do so and it was an adult decision that she was free to make.”

“She was having stomach cramps and I wanted her to feel better,” Furious said to Princess Cadance while he stared down at the floor. “I ain’t a smart pony… flying into twisters for a living is proof of that. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about stuff like how the mind works and all that. The only thing I wanted was for her to feel better and maybe relax a little. I did this, this is my judgment call, so that makes this my fault. This falls on my withers, so if anypony is gonna take the blame for this here fiasco, it’s me. I’ll not let my wife pay for my stupidity.”

Ears perking, Princess Cadance clucked her tongue while Crop Duster blubbered against her like a distressed foal. In a tender voice of reassurance, she said to the smaller mare, “He’s a good one and I am pretty sure that he’ll do right by you, so I am going to leave you in his care. This is a good time to establish boundaries and trust. This is a great time to lay in a foundation that the rest of your marriage can be built on. Do you think you are brave enough to face that?”

“I don’t know.” Crop Duster’s blubbering began to ease off a little, becoming sobs, and she sniffled. “I’m real scared.”

This time, when Princess Cadance spoke, her voice was husky, strained with an outpouring of emotion. “I was married under some very trying circumstances. I wanted to back out… I wanted to run away. I needed time to recover, to heal up from everything that had happened. A lot had happened. I was scared, traumatised, I was broken and so was Shining Armor. But so much depends on us… depended on us… the trust of a nation had been shattered and it fell upon us to pick up the pieces. Shining Armor and I had to put on our best brave faces, act like we weren’t hurt or scared, and then push forwards. It was a struggle.”

Crop Duster looked up and her ears were sagging, limp against her face.

“Shining and I, we had trouble being alone together in the same room. There were so many disturbing implications to be sorted out and we faced a lot of issues as a couple. Our very public marriage showed the nation… the entire world even, that everything was fine and we were happy… but behind closed doors, Shining Armor and I, we were really just scared foals. To say our marriage got off to a shaky start would be a critical understatement.” The princess paused, drew in a deep breath held it, made a gesture with her hoof, and then exhaled. She repeated this process again, then again, and then several more times.

When she spoke again, her voice had mostly recovered. “I have this advice to offer… take things slow. Don’t rush. Don’t be in a hurry. Sure, you were just married and there are all of these pressing physical and emotional needs to consummate this union, but don’t rush into it. Take time to reassure one another. Cuddle. Snuggle. Spend time talking. Share your fantasies with one another. Let the moment build. Look after one another’s emotional needs before you rush into the physical aspects of your relationship.”

“Is this what you and your husband did?” Crop Duster asked in a scratchy whisper.

In response, Princess Cadance nodded. “We sort of had to learn how to reconnect. But we did make new connections, strong ones, and now, make no mistake, Shining Armor and I are inseparable. Now, both of you, make the most of this time together. A dreadful mistake was made, but this situation can be salvaged. Now, my little ponies, I really must be going.”

With a few gentle shoves, the willowy princess pushed Crop Duster into Furious, and then disengaged, pulling away, leaving the inebriated couple to support one another. When she headed for the door, the couple watched her, all three eyes they possessed followed her every movement. Princess Cadance raised one wing and waved goodbye.

“If you need anything, just give a call out the door. Goodbye, good luck, and be good to one another.” Offering a reassuring smile, she opened the door behind her and then backed out. With a final wave, the door was shut, leaving the couple alone in the honeymoon suite.

Furious, filled with Mockingbird and curiousity, teetered towards the door, hit the latch, and pulled it open. Looking up, he saw a stern looking princess looking down at him. He gulped, a sound of tremendous volume, and then did his best to look as meek as possible. When the pink alicorn began to tap her hoof against the well polished hardwood floor, he started sweating.

“Yes?” she asked. “See, I knew that you would open the door. You don’t wish to go down into the public register as a known troublemaker, do you?”

“No,” Furious replied after spending a few seconds thinking about it. His mother was a busy pony and she didn’t have time to read.

“Good.” And with that, Cadance slammed the door shut, causing Furious’ cauliflower ears to jerk around from the sudden bang.

With Crop Duster now tittering and sniffling from crying behind him, Furious just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He waited, because of course he did, and he counted in silence like a foal playing hide and go seek until he reached the number thirty seven. It seemed like a good number, and his impatience left him with a pressing need to know.

With a look of worried caution, he pulled the door open again and found the cotton candy colossus glaring down at him with her lip curled back into an impressive snarl. She was about to say something, but he beat her to the punch. “My curiousity done gets the better of me sometimes, I reckon.”

“Oh, I am sure that it does,” Princess Cadance agreed, and her head bobbed with what had to be a sarcastic nod. “Princess Celestia was right… the best that Equestria has to offer are the worst when they get into trouble.”

“I’m sorry.” Furious hung his head and couldn’t met the eye of the princess. “I had to know.” Behind him, Crop Duster was chortling and crying at the same time. “I’ll be good now, I promise, you have my word as a dustpuncher. I’ll give ya my word that I’ll be good to the little wife, too, though I may take liberties with her wings again. I think I liked that.”

“Scandalous.” Princess Cadance breathed out the word and while her face remained stern, her eyes twinkled with lewd mischief. “Just scandalous.”

“Well, this is goodbye, I reckon.”

“Yes,” Princess Cadance responded with a nod, “goodbye.”

And with that, the door was slammed shut once more, leaving the newlywed couple all alone in a luxurious honeymoon suite. Furious, who knew better than to open the door once more, turned to face Crop Duster and then was plowed into by the drunken, emotional mare. She was laughing, crying, and shaking when she whispered a few panicked words into his ear.

“I feel kinda sick!”
> Chapter 14
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking down at the floor, Furious watched as his wife pressed the side of her face against the cool, pale green tiles of the bathroom floor and remembered those moments where he had been in a similar spot. Well, similar to some degree: Appleloosa was a hotter, drier, dustier place and you didn’t want to rub your face against the wooden planks of the outhouse floor. She was sweating, shivering, and whimpering on the floor while clutching at her head. With a groan, she rolled over onto her back and then kicked her hind legs wide open. With one half-extended wing, she began to fan her crotch while squirming.

“Everything is too hot down there,” she whined while making a halfhearted effort to wave the heat away. “It’s too hot everywhere. Why do ponies do this to themselves? Why? I’m never drinking again… my mother was right, I have an itch down there and it’s making me feel slimy.”

Furious allowed himself a good look down there, a long, lingering look full of longing. She had the goods, alright. Content with only a look, he blinked a few times and then sniffed before he had this to say in a low voice: “I done reckon that drinking must be a bit like making love. The first time, it can be pretty awful, it can hurt and be terrible and ponies might swear off of it forever… but two things are true.”

“And what are those?” she asked in a whine while squeezing her eyes shut.

“The liquor industry prospers and ponies keep making little ponies.” Furious gave his statement a moment to sink in and then added, “The Mockingbird is a mean one and sometimes don’t play nice. I have experience with that first hand. Now, I ain’t done been bred yet, but I’ve heard powerful embarrassing stories about how it can go wrong and how things can hurt.”

When Crop Duster’s parched tongue slid over her dried out lips, she let out a whimper and her eyelids fluttered open. “I’m so hot and I’m kinda thirsty. Help me, Mister Mustache.”

“What you need is rain… it’ll set any ailing pegasus straight. Hold on, I know just what to do.”





The water sprinkled down from the showerhead in a light, steady stream, and Crop Duster lapped at the cool water as it came down. She was sprawled out in the tub, right where Furious had plopped her, with her back resting against the sloped back end opposite of the faucet. The tub was certainly big enough for two, but Furious was perched atop the toilet seat at the moment, watching as his wife made funny faces while trying to get a drink.

“I don’t understand what happened,” she murmured, “I was feeling so good.”

“The ‘Bird took a turn on ya and flew south for the winter.”

“Well…” Crop Duster panted a few times and then a sharp report of flatulence echoed against the sides of the massive enameled cast iron tub, which provided impressive acoustics. “I was having a marvellous time with you… thank you. Even if we got in trouble. I’ll tell my mother it was all a big misunderstanding so she doesn’t try to kill you.”

“Shit,” Furious drawled, stretching out his uttered profanity like taffy and it came out sounding like ‘sheeeeeeeeeit,’ with two distinct syllables. Grimacing, he realised with some dismay that the number of dangerous, life-threatening mares in his life had been doubled.

There was a wet slurping sound as Crop Duster peeled her back away from the tub and shifted how her body lay. Spread-eagled, she slid down along the floor of the tub until her crotch was beneath the direct flow of water, and then just lay there, moaning and sighing while clutching her head. Once more, her orange tongue slipped out from between her lips, and she tried catching the falling drops from the shower.

It was at this moment that she was perfect, beautiful, and Furious stared from atop the toilet where he sat. The tequila was already wearing off for him and his wisdom made him realise that his bride was going to have a waking hangover, meaning that she would be exposed to the worst of it, rather than sleeping it off. He pitied her, but there wasn’t much he could do except remain by her side.

Perhaps that is what Princess Cadance needed to do to encourage newly-wedded couples to get along—have one nurse the other through a hangover. It seemed like a good idea to Furious, but something in the back of his mind—perhaps the crippled and busted up remains of his common sense—nagged at him and suggested otherwise.

“Pain scares me,” she whimpered, and the sudden blurting out of her words startled Furious, who was lost in his thoughts. Heaving with effort, she raised one hind leg and rested it against the edge of the tub, leaving herself spread and exposed. “I’ve always lived in fear of it even though I have quite a lot of it. I feel stomach cramps coming on and the anxiety of the pain to come is somehow worse than the cramps themselves. I’m really scared of what my first time with you might be like, because there is so much talk about how it can hurt.”

Closing her eyes, she added, “I’m terrified of the pain of foaling even though I would really like to have one. It seems like so many of the best parts of life have pain that comes with them, and I fret over it a lot. I even freak out when getting my hooves trimmed, because I got quicked once and oh goodness, did that hurt and I was lame for half a summer and tender for the rest of that year.”

Furious blinked, but didn’t know what to say.

“Every time I look at that leg of yours, I cringe. What happened, Furious?”

He sighed, then shuddered, not liking the memory. “This was just a few years afore Mount Maud happened… I done reckon that the magic from that area was getting worse, a sign of what was to come. A real big storm blew in from that direction, the kind of storm that can scrub a town off of the map. I was the only dustpuncher in town at that point… and I knew I couldn’t fight it alone, but I was gonna do it anyway. Braeburn and Silverstar was going to get everypony into the mines just outside of town, and I flew off into the storm to buy them the time they needed. To be honest, I didn’t expect to come back.”

Wide-eyed, Crop Duster lay in the tub and stared up at her husband while she trembled from pain and fear.

“They called that storm ‘Celestia’s Breath,’” he continued and he closed his surviving eye. “That’s how it went down in the history books. It was a witching wind, a perfect storm, a dragon of storms.” While he spoke, his bad leg twitched when the muscles started jerking. “It made it as far as the edge of town and that was where we did battle. It tore up trees, houses, shacks, and it carried a lot of sand… but I wouldn’t turn tail and run away. We fought, butting heads together, and it fought dirty… it picked up the train and started tossing it around.”

With a low moan, Crop Duster covered her mouth with both hooves.

“I got clipped by the coal car.” Reaching around with his wing, he began to rub his bent leg. “It was only a glancing blow, but it crippled me pretty good. The bones were busted and my leg flapped around like a windsock in the storm. I honestly don’t know what happened after that, my vision got real red-like and I had me a powerful case of the angries, the kind of angries that my dear ma warned me to not get… the kind of angries that my ma told me to never let get the best of me. Well, I done reckon they got the best of me. I dunno what happened, but I woke up in the Las Pegasus hospital. Braeburn said one of the townsfolk found me in the crotch of some tree. The storm was gone, busted up I done reckon, and most of the damage was kept to the edge of town. Nopony knows what happened.”

“Oh my gosh, Furious, that’s awful.” Crop Duster’s words were a pained gasp and she moved her front hooves from her mouth to the sides of the tub to grab it. She started to sit up—a titanic effort in her condition and position—and her efforts caused a ringing blast to go reverberating though the cast iron tub. Grunting, she managed to rise into a sitting position and both her eyes squinted from pain.

With a startled huff, Furious found himself marehandled by his mare: her hooves dug into his sides, grabbed him, pulled him in just a little closer as she slid him over the smooth surface of the toilet seat, and then she clamped her forelegs around him when he was within reach of doing so. With a flatulent tug, she hauled him from off of the toilet seat, banged him into the hard edge of the tub, and then he spilled over the top and into the tub with her, his joints banging into the enameled cast iron with the sounds of ringing bells.

When he tumbled on top of her, the sudden squish caused a thunderous peal of crepitation to go tearing out, and then both of them lay there, breathless, being sprinkled upon by the showerhead. She recovered first and gave him a hug hard enough to make him wheeze; after which, she let him go and helped him to sit up in the tub beside her. Overcome by her efforts, she fell back against the tub, went limp, and then went still.

There was a bit of squirming as she situated her legs, placing one on each side of Furious, and then in a moment of realisation, she looked towards the space between her legs. This lasted for but a moment until her eyes raised like two dusky, violet moons, rising slow until she was looking into her husband’s eye. She was vulnerable in this position, and she knew it.

Reaching out his hoof, Furious held it out, and it trembled as he positioned it over Crop Duster’s somewhat swollen stomach. As he drew closer, her flesh trembled in anticipation of his touch and she bit her lower lip in expectation of his intimate caress. When he stroked her, both of her hind legs jerked, trying to close together, but with him sitting between them, she was left vulnerable and exposed.

Furious too, looked a bit shaky when his hoof began to move in slow circles, kneading Crop Duster’s taut tummy, and he continued to look her in her eye, trying to gage her reaction to what it was that he was doing. His hoof made laps around the cleft of her navel and nowhere else, it did not stray, going lower, but remained where it was. He applied a gentle pressure and his mane began to spill down his face as it became saturated with water.

Heaving a huffy sigh, Crop Duster relaxed and went limp, her wings fluttering against her sides as she settled. In reaction to such intimate tummy rubs, her eyes crossed, then closed, and then she sighed once more while a high pitched squeal could be heard escaping from her nethers. Furious’ hoof never faltered and kept making its slow, continuous laps around her navel.

“I haven’t given much thought to settling down,” Furious said as he tried to make more conversation, and his words were like flint striking steel in hopes of making a fire. “But I think I’d like that. I’d like to come home to a warm, willing mare and a hot just-cooked supper.” His weatherbeaten eyebrows waggled for a moment, as if they were unable to decide if they wished to go up or down, and then he added, “Of course, I can cook just a little bit myself, and I don’t reckon I’d mind too much having a hot meal waiting for you when you came home after work.”

“What can you cook?” she asked and her head rested against the rounded edge of the tub.

“Oh, beans mostly,” he replied with a nod. “I can make cornbread and I’m told my apple cobbler is passing fair. I’m used to cooking around a campfire with a cast iron pot. That’s the thing, being a dustpuncher… there’s lots of time when there ain’t no storm. Nothing going on. Just waiting, and the waiting gets right boring. So you do other stuff, at least, us good dustpunchers with respectable reputations, we do other stuff. A bit of everything, really, but we’re always ready to fly off at a moment’s notice.”

“That’s so strange to me.” Crop Duster almost sounded sleepy because she was so relaxed and she folded her forelegs over her barrel. “Back in Sterling Gulch, everypony is encouraged to specialise as much as possible, so we spend more time at what we’re good at so we become better at it. Everything is all about maximising yields… everything… it is all about improvement and increased returns. Farmers farm. Carpenters work wood. A farmer is not to help the carpenter, but is to leave him to do his job, so he can become more skilled. If a farmer helps a carpenter, that is work taken away from the carpenter and skill return for labour is potentially lost.”

“And that sounds strange to me.” Furious applied a bit more gentle pressure to Crop Duster’s distended tummy, not caring about the consequences. “In Appleloosa, everypony does a little bit of everything.”

“Lord Sterling Standard is very strict.” Crop Duster opened one eye, but not the other, and Furious could see that she was trying to focus on him. “He’s been very good to us, but he is also very, very strict. When he came to the valley, it was broke, from what I understand. Bankrupted. This was before I was born. The previous lord had mismanaged the land to the point of criminal neglect. Lord Standard turned everything around and he has a plan. From what I understand, Princess Celestia is watching our community with a critical eye to see if Lord Standard’s ideas will work long-term.”

“Huh.” Furious made a half grunt and tilted his head to one side so the falling droplets would land on the sore side of his neck.

“It is part of the reason why I needed to find a husband.” Crop Duster’s other eye opened and now she focused on her husband, peering down the length of her muzzle. “It’s all about maximising returns and increasing yields. I have a job already, but now that I have a husband, I’ll start getting a share of the profit generated from the Sterling Gulch Collective Resource Allocation Management Bureau. It will help motivate me to give my all for the greater good of Sterling Gulch, and help me provide for my family, should I start one. I grew up in the system, with parents who benefited from it, so I think it’s pretty great.” Reaching up with one sodden foreleg, she began to rub her temple and her lips pursed from pain.

“I don’t understand a word of what you just said.” Furious muzzle contorted in confusion until deep wrinkles appeared above his nose and in the corner of his eye.

“The Lord makes a share of his profits available to every married couple. Everypony gets the same amount, no matter what they do, from the street cleaners to the bureau officials. Just about every year, this sum of money grows a little bit larger because of all of our hard work.” She winced and paused for a moment as she rubbed the side of her skull, and squeezed both eyes shut. “My mother and father say we’ve all come together as a community because everypony benefits from cooperation. Good ponies do good, but good ponies that get paid for doing good, do more good than those who don’t.”

“A’ight, that makes sense, I reckon. I guess I do better work when I know I’m gonna be paid fair for it.” Furious shifted his weight, but there was nowhere for his hind legs to go, nowhere to spread out. He was trapped doing belly rubs, with no means to get comfortable. Sighing, he settled in for the long haul, determined to do right for his mare.

“Oooh, my head's splitting,” Crop Duster whined through her nose. “I wish I had a nice, soothing cup of tea, maybe with a bit of honey and some lemon.”

At this, Furious squinted. Tea? Tea? His weatherbeaten lips pressed together into a crinkled line and he suspected that the worst had come to pass: his wife had had one glaring imperfection, it seemed, and he suspected that she was a drinker of tea. He prefered his boiled bean water and this came as quite a blow. Still, she was pretty, he liked her, she was perfect in every other way, and he supposed that he would be able to live with this dreadful drawback, as awful as it was.

Perhaps couples counseling was in order, so a tea drinker and a coffee drinker could learn to live under the same roof without squabbling over their choice of hot beverages. It wasn’t too late and no doubt, Princess Cadance would come back to check up on them come morning. For now, he would have to play it cool and hope for the best. Tea was all about drinking flowers and sweetness, while coffee, well, coffee made a body bitter, and Furious liked it that way.

“Hang on, Bubble Britches, I’m gonna go and stick my head out the door and ask if I can get you a cup of tea. Hopefully Princess Cadance ain’t there a waitin’ for me to open up the door again. On the odd chance that she is, it was nice knowing ya and I hope that I was a good husband for the short time that we had together.”

When he got up to leave, his bride began to giggle while she clutched her temple in pain.
> Chapter 15
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Laying on the floor, Crop Duster was as pretty as a picture. She lay on her stomach with her hind legs kicked out behind her and covered by her tail. Her front legs were in front of her with one crossed over the other, and beside them was a teacup. Eyes closed, she sat very still and seemed to not even be breathing. Her wings were half-unfurled and protruded from her sides so that a cooling bit of air could flow over her ribs.

Furious found himself smitten with her and he drank his black coffee in silence. Whatever qualms he had about gazing too long or to hard were gone and he looked over everything. At the moment, the way her eyelashes overlapped was fascinating to the point of distraction and his one eye stared almost unblinking. A few minutes before he had stared at the curve of her back, the little dip that dropped down between her withers and her croup. With her legs kicked out behind her, her round, generous plot caused a magnificent curve to manifest from her croup, and her dock was buried, impossible to see beneath the mass of curls that was her tail. At some point, he was going to stick his nose into there and find it, come Tartarus or high water.

Olive drab green was a good colour on a mare, Furious decided, and he had never given much thought to this before. There was a certain greyness to it, almost like sagebrush, and for Furious, the colours of both the desert as well as the prairie were attractive indeed. He took a sip of coffee, swished it around his mouth, and decided that whatever effects the tequila had were now gone. He wasn’t even hungover and seemed to be suffering no ill effects whatsoever, save perhaps the guilt and shame of what he had done in the reflecting pool.

The tea and the coffee had been brought in on a small rolling cart that was also loaded down with food; no doubt it was tonight’s dinner. A collection of little sandwiches cut into triangles, tiny cakes, some custard, and other delectable delights. There was even some leftover wedding cake and Furious kept thinking about getting some so that he could satisfy his sweet tooth.

Furious’ wandering eye now watched every minute twitch of Crop Duster’s ears, and he had fancy, hifalutin thoughts about her colour. She would be at home in the sand, or scrub grass of the prairie, or the in the lush green grass of more temperate climes. Or even sprawled on a hardwood floor, she looked amazing. Her ears were difficult to see, buried as they were beneath a mountain of springy curls as green as a honeydew melon. She moved, and it made his heart go pounding in a weird way, a nice way, a pleasant way.

She lowered her head and her eyes opened into paper thin slits so she could see. A flash of orange appeared from between her fuzzy, olive green lips, an orange made all the more vibrant by the drab contrast of green, and she began lapping up some tea. Something about the motion that her tongue made and the sound… the sound, it inflamed Furious’ senses and made parts of him ache with need. The build up was dreadful, but he didn’t want this feeling to end.

The scent of tea now had a curious sexual element to it, and would have forevermore.

Sitting on a cushion, Furious had himself a sip of coffee, thought about eating a piece of cake, and focused his grizzled stare on the place were Crop Duster’s wings connected to her body. She had thick muscles there and something in the back of Furious mind told him that some stallions would be repulsed by those muscles, they might even feel threatened by them, but he himself found them worthy of staring at. She was a creature of marvellous musculature and he reckoned that flying with those spray tanks kept her in peak physical condition. Already, she had marehandled him once and her strength—even in her current hungover condition—was a bit scary, but it suited him fine.

The lapping came to an end and Furious felt a pang of sadness, wishing that the sweet, sexual sound would return. The sun’s final rays streamed through the windows, diffused and scattered by pale, pastel pink lace curtains that he had pulled shut to protect his bride’s eyes. His ears strained, quivering, pivoting, longing to hear that sound, needing to hear that sound, and he was saddened when silence filled the room.

She lifted her head, yawned, stuck her tongue out, and Furious found himself peering into her mouth. Then, her maw closed, she licked her lips, and her tongue slipped back inside. Furious was sad to see it go and he had high hopes for its return. The teacup beside Crop Duster was now empty, or almost empty, he couldn’t tell and couldn’t see that far down inside.

Without a word, Crop Duster folded up one of her wings tight against her side, rolled over away from her teacup, and then flopped over onto her back, which caused her legs to splay out in all directions. With a rustle of feathers, she spread her wings, both of them, and Furious could hear tendons creaking as she stretched. Kicking out one hind leg, she farted, a whooshing, flapping sound, and then she let out a petite grunt while she wiggled her hindquarters to shake the last bit of the gas out.

Furious now had more to look at, a whole lot more, and so look he did.

“I can feel your eyes on me,” Crop Duster whispered.

“There’s a lot to look at.” This earned him a husky chuckle that made his ears prick.

“When I get to feeling better and my head isn’t splitting, I think I might try to kiss you.”

“Well then,” Furious replied in a low, soft-spoken voice, “here’s to yer swift and speedy recovery.”

“I feel too warm to lie in the bed.” Her words were little more than a murmur and they were difficult to hear. “Lying on the floor is kind of uncomfortable, but at least it is cool. I think the nausea has passed me by. The tea helped.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Furious finished off his cup of coffee, set down his mug on the wheeled cart with his wing, and then wiped his muzzle with his foreleg. He heard a faint squeal that rose to a high pitch, then fell to a deep, dangerous rumble, and then ended with a fizzling hiss. This one made his eye water and his vision blurred as he strained to see through tears.

“When you finally have your dirty way with me”—Crop Duster almost began to giggle and her barrel hitched a bit—“it is going to be like ravishing a whoopie cushion. I can just imagine it now… you’ll go to push in and that will cause something else to go squishing out. Think you can handle it?”

“You like that word ‘ravishing,’ don’t ya?” His eye still watering, Furious let out a scratchy chuckle.

“I do, Mister Mustache, I do.” Her body shifted on the floor and she kicked her hind legs wide open, no doubt casting all thoughts of modesty aside. “I think it came into my life during my most formative years, so it will probably stay with me and continue to be a part of my fantasies.” A cavernous sigh escaped from the pegasus mare on the floor and her forelegs flopped around a bit because she didn’t know what to do with them.

“I’ve read it written in so many ways… after pinning her to the bed, he usually laughs about her feeble efforts to resist him and he whispers reassuringly that he knows what is best for her, that he knows what she really wants, what she really needs.” For a moment, Crop Duster’s teeth clenched together and she let out a hiss. Her voice was almost raspy when she began to speak once more: “Then, sometimes, he bites her on the neck, or sometimes not, and she resists him, but he’s stronger. He’s got her pinned and his weight is crushing her… but then he sort of gets up off of her and for a moment, she has hope, but it is false hope. He’s not getting off of her, no… he rolls her over onto her belly…”

Furious blinked and realised his mouth was dry.

“And then he’s crushing her again, pressing her tear-stained face down into the pillow, and then with a savage bite to her neck, or an ear, he takes her from behind and then there is some kind of meaningful description about all of the pain and the pleasure that she’s feeling, and she doesn’t want it to keep happening but she also doesn’t want it to stop. At first, she’s crying, and whimpering, and begging with him to stop, but he doesn’t. No, just doesn’t. He just keeps going, plowing her backside, and there is all kinds of writing fluff that happens to describe his efforts. When he’s huffing and puffing like a locomotive, that usually gets me to where I want to go. I like the steam train analogies, the huffing, the puffing, the chugging, and the going into the dark tunnel at full steam.”

Squirming, Furious shifted in his seat and tried to think of pleasant, not-sexual thoughts.

“About halfway through, she starts moaning and groaning and begging him not to stop and she’s pushed past the pain and she’s being rewarded and it is the most greatest, most wonderfulest feeling ever…” There was something almost foalish about the way Crop Duster said this, but she never finished her sentence and she lay on the floor panting and heaving.

After a moment of heavy breathing, she made a gurgling, drawn out ‘urp’ sound, swallowed, groaned, and then mumbled out the words, “Arousal and sudden nausea are not a good mix, Mister Mustache.”

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Furious wiped his brow and felt sweaty all over. He had competition, and this filled him with a powerful sense of worry. Yes, he had fierce competition in the form of lovers that never existed, pretend paramours that were powerful puffing sexual locomotives that knew how to do all of the right things. Aggressive, assertive inserters that destroyed a mare’s willpower with a few well-practiced thrusts. Fear, real fear shook him and he began to worry that with Crop Duster’s powerful imagination, her memories of fictional happenings in books would be better than anything he could muster. The more he thought about it, the more insecure he began to feel, and alas… the poor stallion had no way of knowing if he could compete with the perfect, powerful imaginary inamoratos that existed only within the realms of make-believe.

While Furious suffered in silence, (something dustpunchers were prone to do) Crop Duster waggled her forelegs about, perhaps stretching them to restore feeling after having one crossed over the other for a time. Without realising it, she lay in a most inviting position, with her hind legs spread, her forelegs waving, and her chest scruffle was so floofed out that it almost begged for a head to come to rest upon it.

And so happened their first imperfect moment: Furious was lost in his own thoughts, blinded by his own insecurities, and because of this, he failed to notice his wife’s innocent display of sexuality, which some might call the most sexual form of sexuality, where the creature being sexual has no idea just how sexy they are. It was like a cake lavishly slathered with too much sinfully delicious frosting, the rich, heavy, sumptuous, scrumptious buttercream frosting, and the pleasure one had eating it before the knowledge of calories, fat, and sugar content.

It was in that moment, while stretching, that Crop Duster suffered something so terrible that it could only be described with science: it wasn’t an action so much as it was an event. Mid-stretch, a bilabial fricative exploded into existence. Which is to say that turbulent airflow forced its way through a narrow opening and produced a string of consonant sounds only understood by molluscoids, abominations spawned by eldritch beings, and the Great Old Ones themselves.

Furious shot up off of the couch, smashed his head into the ceiling, and then crashed down onto the wheeled cart. Crop Duster shouted in alarm but her bilabial fricative would not be interrupted and it continued its blasphemous communication with the unspeakable, unseeable, unknowable eldritch entities that hid within the shadows of stars. Where Furious had struck the ceiling, the wood was cracked and had a vivid crimson smear, the white ceiling looking very much like a newly wedded couple’s sheets would the following morning after. 

The cart, designed to hold food and beverages, was smashed beneath Furious’ impact. Things broke, shattered into sharp edges, and through it all, the eldritch droning of Crop Duster’s bilabial fricative continued to exist in spite of its unwelcomed, unwanted presence in this universe. Deep within its vibrating, reverberating bassline, something that was almost like a sentence could be heard, but not by mortal beings.

Koyaanisqatsi… Powaqqatsi...Naqoyqatsi…

Scrambling to her hooves, Crop Duster hurried to her husband’s side to see if he was okay.
> Chapter 16
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Furious, stop laughing… this isn’t funny, this is serious, real serious. Now stop laughing.”

There was no way he could stop laughing now, and maybe not ever. His bride—still hungover—stood beside the hospital bed, looking crestfallen and woebegone. Three shiny steel staples secured his ear back to his skull after getting a tear near the base when he had cracked his head into the ceiling. Landing on the cart had injured other places.

This day, from start to finish, was memorable. It was, perhaps, quite possibly, the most unforgettable day in his life, and he had seen some interesting days. He hoped that this was just the first of such special days, and looking into the dejected eyes of his wife, he hoped to make a lifetime out of days like this one. Something that sounded very much like a sad trombone made the moment downright surreal, although Furious had no idea what surrealism was.

It just wasn’t his foghorn full of frogs.

“Furious, stop laughing, I feel terrible… I almost killed you.”

“Naw, I wouldn’t go that far,” he drawled. Gazing into her eyes, he was overcome with emotion. This had been a special day and Crop Duster… she was a special mare. “I was distracted. You know, having myself a powerful think. For the life of me, I can’t seem to recall whatever it was I was having a think about, but I was real wrapped up in it and when you done did what you did, why, I reckon it just spooked me a little, that’s all.”

“I… I… Furious, I don’t know if I love you just yet, but I do have some strong feelings about you. You just came into my life today and I… I am not ready to lose you just yet. I’ve told you my fantasies. My secrets. I’ve told you about the embarrassing stuff that I could never say to anypony else. I’ve bared my heart and soul to you and I already have a powerful attachment to you… something I didn’t think would be possible. If somepony had told me this morning that I’d just about be in love before the end of the day, I would have called them a liar.”

“That’s a lot to think about.” Furious’ voice was a low, slow drawl. Lifting a foreleg, he patted the bed beside him. “Get up here, little wife.”

“Oh no, I don’t think I should. This is a hospital room and you’re injured.”

“Comfort me, little wife.” He kept patting the bed beside him and scooted himself over just a bit, as much as he dared. Any closer to the edge and he ran the risk of falling off. She was chewing on her lower lip yet again and her eyebrows were doing impressive gymnastic exercises. It was obvious that she was torn between doing what she felt was right and doing what she was told. He tried again. “Just lay beside me. It ain’t spooning.”

A coy giggle made her let go of her lip and the laughter from one end caused the other to react. She flicked her tail around while her eyes darted from side to side, and then made up her mind. With a bit of hesitant caution, she clambered up into the bed and then settled in, laying on her stomach beside Furious, who was supine.

“I’m in bed with a member of the opposite sex… this feels naughty,” she whispered as she made herself comfortable. Breathy giggles could be heard for a moment, and then they faded away when she focused on the staples in her husband’s ear. “Furious, I’m so sorry—”

“Stop that.” He squirmed a bit to get comfortable, and settled against her side, where it was warm and inviting. He reached up with his foreleg, placed it alongside her cheek, and then with a gentle nudge, he drew her head closer, almost within kissing range. The only reason he stopped was because he saw a spooked look in her eyes and he felt every muscle in her body go tense, which in turn caused a panicked poot.

“What are you going to do, Mister Mustache?” she asked with a faint squeak in her voice. Her breathing sounded strained and her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She pulled her forelegs in close and was almost laying on them. Feathers ruffled as she extended her wing and placed it over her husband’s stomach, covering him.

“I done reckon I’m gonna spend some time looking into yer eyes,” he replied.

There, witnessed by the pale green walls with pastel yellow accents, the first real tender blossom of love opened, revealing itself to the world like a rose blooming to welcome the sun. A reassuring touch was all that was needed to drive away fright, and where two lips had pressed tight a moment before, a smile appeared while a body relaxed.

It was also at this moment that Princess Cadance chose to throw open the door without knocking.





“You know, when I first received the report, I just knew it was going to be the two of you,” Princess Cadance said as she burst into the room, exhausted but ecstatic. She stood beside the bed where two much smaller ponies were now frozen in terror and gazed down at them with wide, adoring eyes. “Funny story… I was busy trying to nurture a newfound spark of love when a guard comes along with the news that somepony cracked his head open and concussed himself. Before she said anything else, I already knew it was you. I mean, who else could it be on this eventful day?”

“I also scalded my cutie mark on my left side when the teapot cracked open.”

“Oh, you poor dear, I’m sorry to hear that.” Warm concern filled the princess’ eyes and her lips pressed tight together for a moment while she lowered her head down to look at the shiny steel staples in Furious’ ear. “Under normal circumstances, I would be able to heal that in a jiffy, but I am dead on my hooves. It’s been a trying day to say the very least and I don’t have much left in me. My magic is nothing but dry-fires at this point.”

“That’s okay, you don’t need to do anything.” Furious felt Crop Duster press up beside him and she trembled with every breath. Out of the corner of his only eye, he saw her mouth open so she could speak.

“Princess Cadance, are we soul mates?”

“You and I?” the princess replied in a teasing tone. “Surely not. I mean, you’re cute and all, but you’re off the market and so am I.”

“Furious and I.” Almost laughing at Princess Cadance’s words, Crop Duster turned her head to get a sidelong look at the alicorn beside the bed. “Are we soul mates?”

“That is a dangerous question to ask—”

“But ask it I did and you deflected it twice, so I guess the answer is no.” Crop Duster’s ears drooped but her eyes were bright with emotion.

“You are a bold little mare.” Reaching out with one wing, Princess Cadance stroked the back of Crop Duster’s neck, which made the little mare start. “A real prize of a wife to be had by some lucky stallion.” Her gaze locked onto Furious and her fatigued regal expression overflowed with enervated majesty. “Not every great love story has soulmates. Those are rare, few and far between. No, the two of you are the best that I had to work with. Compatible destinies, compatible traits. With the sampling that I had to work with, the two of you were ideal for one another.”

“So it is just random chance based on whatever happens to be there at the time.” Crop Duster closed her eyes and her furrowed brows formed deep, fuzzy grooves of concentration.

“Is that so awful?” Princess Cadance asked and there was something almost fearful in her voice. “Is it so terrible that we settle for what makes us happy rather than hold out for perfect love, which may or may not happen? We could wait forever for just that one pony, but there is no guarantee of finding them. But why do that when you could be ridiculously happy now? Is it so horrible to be happy? To have your needs met?”

Opening her eyes, Crop Duster replied, “No. It’s pretty good, actually. I was lucky. I was lucky to find a best friend that I can also be in love with. And laugh with. I don’t feel like I am missing out.”

Standing beside the bed, Princess Cadance now had a distant look in her eye. “I must bid thee a fond adieu. There are many with wedding night jitters, fears, doubts, and worries. You two are going to be fine, just fine, and I have no real worries about either one of you. In about a year from now, I strongly suspect that the two of you will be parents, and you might need a little help then. I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Honestly, any help you might need can come from your parents, should you choose to ask them.”

She sighed, then added, “Spooning with your best friend at the end of the day is the most theraputic thing I can think of and is one of life’s great pleasures. Enjoy it. Make the most of it. Go to bed early every night and spoon.”

Furious watched her turn to go and he felt a certain fondness for her because she had given him so much. He wanted to say something, something special, something meaningful, but he had no idea how to express himself, so he kept it simple. If it was true that the princess could feel love, then she already knew how he felt about her. “Goodnight, Princess Cadance.”

‘Yes, goodnight, and thank you,” Crop Duster said in parting.

“Goodnight, and good luck. I shall seek you out on the morrow.”





Furious felt the light touch of a hoof being placed against the brown patch on his neck that was described as being ‘heart shaped.’ This was followed by a sleepy sounding giggle, which shook both him and the bed. He was still on his back, but Crop Duster had now snuggled belly-first against him, which left him with heated notions when he thought about the humid moistness that he felt permeating his thigh.

“I have your heart,” she murmured and her words tickled against his neck. Her hoof began to make tiny circles and gentle pressure was applied. “Today was the most wonderful day ever. Thank you for making it special, Furious.” With a full body wiggle, she pressed a little closer and then went still.

He started to say something but all that came out was a powerful yawn, the sort of yawn that made his stomach muscles go tight and his hind legs went stiff. Crop Duster was sort of smooshing his wing against his side, but he didn’t mind. It might be a little stiff come morning—a number of things might be stiff come morning—but he could work the kinks out.

The little mare sighed, an unsettled sound, and she began to wiggle in the bed again. “This doesn’t feel right, Furious, laying here like this with you, and I need to do something to fix it.”

“What’s wrong, my little—oh!” Furious felt her grab him by his cheeks, his head was turned, and then her snoot banged into his. The first attempt failed, but she persisted, and after a few more snoot bumps, he felt her fuzzy lips press up against his in a slobbery, enthusiastic kiss. It was a clumsy kiss, her lips smashing and smooshing up against his in an almost painful way, but it was a magical kiss nonetheless.

Electric tingles coursed through his body and static arced through his feathers. Blue sparks flashed with brilliant bursts of light as electricity crackled between the two pegasus ponies, and both were lucky that no volatile gases were ignited during this exchange of affection, because it would surely blow them to Tartarus.

Such was the love of two pegasus ponies, an experience in electric sexuality.

Furious could feel her sliding against him, creating delightful, soul-satisfying friction of a type that he had never known before. With a turn of his neck, he pressed his lips against hers for another kiss, and this one went a little better: less snoot smashing and more lip rubbing. For a moment, his lips parted, and then her lips parted, and her hot breath came flooding into his mouth, flowing around what remained of his teeth in a most satisfying way, a way that ignited a fire in his loins.

With a frightened ‘meep,’ she pulled away while teeny, tiny lightning bolts had a playful game of tag in her riotous mass of curls. After a few panicked pants, she lapsed into coquettish giggling while her hind legs made little squirmy kicks beneath the blankets. Crop Duster was almost panting now and Furious was so entranced by the kiss that he somehow failed to notice the blanket bunker-buster that his mare had dropped in the bed.

“What comes next?” Furious had to struggle to make the words happen because he was almost breathless. He had an inkling of what he wanted next, even though he was afraid to rush things, and his lightning rod was already stirring, ready to take a shock.

“Oh, I was thinking that we go home,” Crop Duster replied. “We’ll fly home, of course, and get to know each other during the journey, and we’ll sleep on clouds and do what pegasus ponies do. We’ll frolic under Princess Celestia’s sun and maybe we’ll have a little romance beneath Princess Luna’s moon. We can find watering holes to swim in and we can be happy.”

“That sounds perfect.” Even though Furious had something else in mind for what came next, everything she said did sound just about perfect. Relaxing, he sighed and thought about the fact that he had a whole lifetime ahead of… this.

“I am going to take you home and you’re going to meet my parents, and everything is going to be perfect, and we are going to make our own little flock of adorable, fuzzy, feathery little pegasus ponies.” Crop Duster snuck in another kiss and this one was much, much better, a quick peck on the lips that was made all the more interesting by her giggles. When she pulled away she whispered, “Goodnight, Mister Mustache.”

Grinning, Furious replied, “Goodnight, Missus Mustache, sleep well.”
> Chapter 17
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Crystal Empire looked like a war zone. Trash littered the streets; wrappers, bottles, confetti, streamers, and all manner of random debris. One of the bins of free condoms had been overturned and its colourful contents had spilled out onto the sidewalk. The locals, the crystal ponies, they seemed a little peeved or even downright grumpy, and had every right to be. Their home had been trashed by out-of-towners.

Flash Sentry stepped over the mess of condoms while Crop Duster, who was biting her lip, stared at them with a confused look of embarrassment. Furious ignored them and bringing up the rear, Private Low, a unicorn, took a moment to set the bin upright while cleaning up the condoms. A weak gust of wind blew and the swirling eddies whipped up a bit of confetti, as if the wind was throwing a party for itself.

“If I may speak out of armor for a moment,” Captain Sentry said to Furious.

“I dunno what that means, but go right ahead,” Furious replied with a nod.

“It is a pleasure to meet you. I have a little brother that idolises you more than he does me.” Flash Sentry began to chuckle and this made his wings bounce against his sides. “He has quite a collection of trading cards and posters. It’s funny how they can turn cheap paper into such a high profit.”

“Yeah, it is,” Furious drawled.

Flash’s laughter faded into nothingness and his expression became quite serious. “When the Palomino Wind died, my little brother took it hard. I didn’t know how to make him feel better.”

“We all took it hard.” Furious’ voice now sounded dusty, dry, and scratchy. “I knew him. We worked together for a time. Young little cuss… a hothead. Storm iced his wings over, slammed him into a river, and drowned him. He was twenty four. Poor bastard died ‘cause he didn’t know how to get ice from his wings. Mean as a snake with shingles, but a good pony.”

“That’s awful,” Crop Duster gasped and she took a sidestep to be closer to her husband.

Bowing his head, Furious came to a sudden and rather abrupt halt, causing the ponies around him to do the same. He stood there, unmoving, a sorrowful expression on his face, and his mustache quivered with emotion. “That’s the life we live. I done reckon I got lucky living as long as I did. Salty Swoop just didn’t have that kind of luck and he died young, like most of us tend to do. I suppose the only real consolation is that his little sheets of cardboard are now worth a whole lot more than they used to be.” Having spoken what was on his mind, he began to mosey along once more, and the group followed his lead. “I want my life to mean more than that… when I finally go I don’t want ponies celebrating the fact my cardboard is worth more. Just thinking about it makes me feel empty and achy inside.”

Captain Sentry hurried to catch up to Furious and his armor clanked while he power-trotted along. “But you… you’re the Pinto Pummeller. You’re a hero! You… you’ve impacted the lives of so many… millions of foals look up at you as a hero! The way you live, the way you are, your way of life, you inspire others to be brave, to be forthright, to be honest and true! The Dustpuncher Way, they call it.”

“Yer a damn fool!” Furious snapped and he turned away from the others.

“What?” Crestfallen, Flash Sentry’s step slowed.

“That’s just… marketing!” Furious voice was little more than a savage growl and his eye was narrowed in a terrible way while his mouth twisted into a terrific scowl beneath his mustache. “It’s an image that they sell with those damnable little sheets of cardboard. That’s all it is. Most of us is horrible. We sleep with whores, we cheat at cards, and most of us drink from sunup to sundown. We’ll mosey into a town or a settlement  and we’ll stay and we’ll fight the wind, but most of us also knock up every mare we can catch and sooner or later we wear out our welcome and we get run outta town. There’s no great code of conduct, there’s no Dustpuncher Way, there’s no standard that we hold ourselves to. We’re the last sorts of ponies you want your son’s growing up to be like, and only a fool would trust their daughters around us!”

“But… but… b-b-but…” Flash stammered while his head shook from side to side.

“My mother had good reason to beat my ass when I told her I was gonna go and be a dustpuncher.” The grizzled stallion ground his teeth together for a moment and then his anger faded away, much like a retreating storm. Furious drew a deep breath, then another, and then he blinked several times as if dust had gotten into his eye. “I have nothing to show for my life. Nothing at all. Nothing of meaning. I lived my life fighting storms and somepony else done profited on the image that my kind of life tends to create in the minds of other ponies. But that image is a steaming pile of ponyshit. When people bring up the Dustpuncher Way, I feel like a fraud.”

“I had no idea.” Moving closer to her husband, pain could be seen on Crop Duster’s face. She reached out a wing, placed it over Furious’ back, and then walked in pace with him, her violet eyes focused sidelong on his face. “Mister Mustache… Furious… please, listen to me for a moment.”

“What?” Furious’ lone eye was glassy when he turned to look at his wife.

“We have something in common, Furious…”

“And what’s that?”

“An image.” Crop Duster’s voice became almost a squeak. “An idea. Something that might seem real, but isn’t. I don’t know how to put it into words, it’s tricky, but I do so hope that you’ll understand, so I don’t have to reveal my little issue in front of these two kindly gentleponies. I want you to feel better… I can’t bear to see you like this.”

Furious appeared confused for a moment, then he blinked and his mustache was tugged downwards by his scowl. After a short time, his hard, flinty expression softened, and he nodded. “Actually, I do understand.” His head dropped low and he walked with his neck level in a straight line with his spine. “I don’t know if I feel better yet.”

“I’ll do what I can to make you feel better later,” Crop Duster offered, “we’ll talk about it.”

Holding his head high, Flash Sentry became a soldier again and all traces of emotion left his face. He walked with a proud gait, lifting his hooves high and having a regulation bounce in his step. He bounced along, his face hard and his armor jangling a jaunty jingle. His hooves trod over the debris in the streets and the locals waved at him while he passed.

“When we get back to your hotel room, please, don’t leave right away, because Princess Cadance wishes to speak to you once more before you go,” Flash said to Crop Duster and Furious. “She should be along shortly. Furious Funnel, I am glad that I have met you.” With that, Captain Sentry lapsed into silence and did his duty, escorting his charges back to their hotel room.





Their hotel room—the one that Crop Duster had paid for—was just as they had left it. Their bags, gear, and Furious’ hat were all untouched. Once inside, Crop Duster moved past her husband and gave him a playful tail slap to the face as she went by. This was just the distraction that Furious needed to take his mind from his troubles and with a snort, he followed after his wife, wickering to express his interest in her.

In response, she released what could only be described as a colon calamity: it was a mythical beast of sound and fury, a lurking destroyer that she had held for far too long. Furious took a step back and waited for the dreadful rump ripper to run its course. The look of relief on her face was unmistakable; but the way her eyes crossed and how her tongue hung out was irresistible.

“I am Crack the Ripper, the silent but deadly serial killer,” she said as she began to titter.

“Ain’t nothing silent ‘bout what you just did.” Furious fanned the air with his wing and just above his mustache, his nostrils flared. “Also, yer a silly pony.”

“Oh yeah?” She turned her head around and glanced at her husband from over her shoulder. “Check out my whoopie cushion walk… I’ve practiced this since fillyhood.” Grinning, she made a slow, deliberate step and when she put her foot down, there was a sulphurous squeak. But this was not enough, no, she took off on a little walk across the room, and with every step she took there was a fracturing of wind in time with each hooffall.

Unable to help himself, Furious laughed and forgot about his troubles from earlier.

“Come’re and lemme give you a squeeze to help you get some of that out—”

“Oh, that’s very thoughtful of you, but no!” Crop Duster brayed with coy laughter and turned to face Furious. “What are we going to do about breakfast? I’m starving. That hospital food was inedible.”

“It was.” Furious nodded, agreeing. “We’ll have to wait for Princess Cadance, and then I reckon we’ll go out for a bite to eat. After that… I guess we’re leaving?”

“It seems like a good idea.” Crop Duster refolded her wings against her sides and gave her tail a few shakes to flick the stink out. “After getting into trouble here, I feel it is time to go.”

Furious looked at his bride with mischief on the mind and he thought about maybe getting himself a little smooch. He wanted to be near her, to touch her, to share in her joy. He took a few steps towards her, watching as her tail swung from side to side, and thought about the sensation of her lips pressed against his.

“I aim to live dangerously and give you a squeeze!”

Just as Crop Duster was about to reply, there was a heavy, thudding knock upon the door. Startled, Crop Duster cracked off a panic-poot and then stood there, trying to fan it away with her tail, but there was nowhere for it to go in an enclosed room. While his wife just stood there swishing her tail around, Furious moseyed over to the door.





“Hello again,” Princess Cadance said as she pushed past Furious and barged into the room. About three steps in, she paused, sniffed, and made the sort of face that one made when one was struggling to not make a face. Behind her, her wizard followed her into the room and then shut the door behind them. “Pay no attention to my assistant. I am still dry firing and my magic is pretty much depleted. I’m vulnerable right now and in need of protection.”

Taking a few sidesteps, the cloaked wizard stood next to the door and scowled.

“Let me get right down to it,” Princess Cadance began. “Both of you are forgiven for your actions yesterday. It was not an act done with intentional malice.” Her lips pursed for a moment and her eyes had a look of exhausted half-awareness. “I am not done with you however… I would like to take a moment to speak to you about forgiveness.”

At this, the wizard groaned.

After shooting her wizard and guardian a look—The Look—she continued with what she had to say: “Almost anything can be forgiven, and just as I have forgiven you for your transgression against my empire, I want you to forgive each other. Make a point to forgive any slights and don’t let frustration or resentment build. The key to a good healthy relationship is forgiveness and letting go…” her words trailed off into a thoughtful pause and she stood there, tapping one hoof against the floor and thinking.

“Having angry ‘I forgive you sex’ is a good idea too,” she added, and Crop Duster blushed brown at these words. “Angry sex should be done belly to belly while looking into each other’s eyes so you will remember what you see in the other pony. With angry mounted sex it can be easy to forget how much you love your partner and you could treat them more as an object then the pony that you love. This kind of sex can be more punishing than rewarding.”

Looking down at the floor, Furious found it fascinating.

“It’s hard to imagine us fighting,” Crop Duster said in a husky, somewhat scratchy voice.

“But fight you will.” With a turn of her head, Princess Cadance focused her commanding stare upon Crop Duster. “The honeymoon will end and sooner or later, you will bicker. You will blow off a little steam after having a hard day. Perhaps you will lose your patience. Maybe your husband does something to annoy you. Any number of things can happen and there are too many possibilities to mention them all.”

The pink alicorn drew in a long inhale and then let it out in a hurried huff. “When I finally went home last night, something I wanted my husband to do wasn’t done. I had a very selfish, self-focused moment, and I failed to remember that he too, had a long day. I woke him up out of a sound sleep and gave him an earful. He gave me an earful right back. At some point, I realised that he too, had endured a long, awful day, and I was sorry.”

At this, Furious lifted his head so that he could look at Princess Cadance.

“Saying I was sorry just wasn’t enough at that point, after things had escalated. I had to ask for forgiveness, and he made me beg for it. He admitted that he too, had also been in the wrong. He was right to make me beg for it, because I had to break down the situation and examine all of the ways that I had messed up, and I gained a good understanding of my mistake. Afterwards, we spooned in bed and went to sleep.” The princess let out a weary sigh and swayed on her hooves, still somehow looking majestic while she did so.

“And what about the confrontational coitus?” the wizard asked, speaking the words that nopony else dared to say. When Crop Duster began to chortle, he gave her an aristocratic sneer in return.

“Oh, as soon as all of this commotion dies down, Shining Armor is getting what he so rightfully deserves.” Princess Cadance’s jaw muscles tightened for just a brief second, and then while her eyes twinkled with mischievousness, her face relaxed into a pleasant, dignified smile. “Just because you forgive doesn’t mean you have to forget.”

“That all sounds fine and good…” Crop Duster’s eyes darted from the princess to the wizard, back to the princess, then to the wizard once more, and then after averting her gaze she continued, “It strikes me as a little strange when one’s guardian wizard speaks so openly about such private issues. It could make tongues wag.”

“Oh that.” Princess Cadance’s lips made a popping sound, as if she was blowing an invisible spit bubble, and her ears began to pivot around as if they couldn’t decide what to do next. “There is a very powerful story of forgiveness here, but no time to tell it. Suffice to say, yon prince is a very close and dear friend of mine. I have an intimate familiarity with his headspace. He knows all about the power of forgiveness and how it can heal a pony—”

“I know nothing of the sort!” the wizard snapped and he glowered beneath the brim of his hat. It was a terrifying glower, and Furious suffered a visible shiver.

“Prince?” Crop Duster looked confused. “I know of Prince Gosling, Prince Blueblood, and Prince Shining Armor, but I am not aware that there is another prince.”

“It is a long story.” With an affectionate smile that radiated warmth, the pink pony princess peered at her wizard. “A prodigal son returned home and begged his mother’s forgiveness. Forgiveness was exchanged, given both ways, for this mother felt as though she had failed her distant son.”

In response, the wizard’s glower-power increased by a magnitude.

“I would like to think that forgiveness is always possible, but that is me being an idealist. So I will say that forgiveness is almost always possible. Take these words to heart, my little ponies.” Princess Cadance lifted her head high, but her ears drooped and there was something sad about her eyes. She stood there in silence, towering over every other pony in the room, and she looked at each of them in turn.

Furious felt a puzzling affection for the princess, and then he came to the conclusion that he loved her. It was perplexing to experience, to have such a sudden awareness of how he felt about her when he was still trying to sort out his own feelings for Crop Duster. It was a different sort of love, unfamiliar, something that could not be explained or described.

“That pony over there, I trust him. Wholly and completely.” Princess Cadance’s words were little more than an exhausted, hoarse whisper and she made a gesture with her wing at the wizard by the door. “I trust him with the lives of my daughters. I trust him with my subjects. I trust him with all of my holdings and everything that I rule. This is a profound trust… and you”—she turned her head upon her slender neck and she focused her intense, passionate gaze upon Crop Duster as if she was scrutinising her—“it is my most sincere hope that you discover this trust. It is such a rare and precious thing to have, but doubly so for a mare. It is my desire that you establish this trust with your husband. May he always be good to you so that he earns this trust.”

Then, much to his worry, Furious found the burning stare of the princess focused on him, and he felt unworthy of such profound love that he felt when her eyes were locked upon him. The dust in the room irritated his lone eye and the big pink princess became blurry, unclear, out of focus.

“And you!” The alicorn’s word was commanding and Furious found himself frozen with a strange, unexperienced fear that rippled through his flesh and right into his soul. Her eyes were terrifying, but also beautiful. He tried to look away, he tried to avert his eye and look down at the floor, but he was unable to move. “I want you to know the pleasure of having her trust. During my time as the Princess of Love, as I have laboured to heal Equestria’s many broken hearts and fractured relationships, I have discovered a great many things that trouble me.”

It felt as though his throat was closing and Furious was powerless to resist the terrific majesty of the alicorn princess.

“Many a mare fears and mistrusts her husband's appetites,” Princess Cadance said and her voice was strained. “So much so that they fear leaving their daughters alone with them. This fear is more common than I would have ever believed… or realised. Learning this has broken my heart. I hope that your passion for her is tempered with gentleness and patience… and irrefutable, incontrovertible, unequivocal goodness. It is my heart’s fondest wish that you inspire a rare and treasured trust in your mate. Never give her a reason to doubt. May you never give her reason to worry. Let her have peace of mind and a day to day existence that is free of worry. I hope that you take heed of my words and that they impact your every action, your every deed, and everything you do.”

At last, Furious was able to bow his head, and he did so. It was a struggle to breathe and this profound sense of love was stifling. Even though he stared down at the floor, he could feel the eyes of Princess Cadance boring a mine shaft into his soul. Her stare laid him bare and left him feeling vulnerable. Denying her was impossible, refusing her request was folly, not that he wanted to oppose her will. Every part of him wanted to submit, to be good, to be a better pony.

“I will do all I can to prove worthy of her love and trust,” he vowed, almost choking on the words. “I give ya my word.”

“Go and be with your bride,” the cotton candy colossus commanded and she made a grand, sweeping gesture with her left foreleg. “I must be going. My day is only beginning and it is going to be such a long day. I feel like I have done good work with the two of you. This has been a prudent investment of my time and effort. Go… go and discover your love for one another. Don’t be shy. Go on!”

With his head ducked low, Furious scooted over to his bride and stood beside her.

“Come, dear friend,” the princess said to her wizard. “I think we are done here. Let us be going so we can do the work that must be done this day.”

Furious watched as the wizard bowed his head, and then couldn’t bear to look any longer. Something about the unicorn was frightening and he radiated a strange, terrible power, his own dark majesty. There was something very Princess Luna about him that preyed upon one’s fears.

As Princess Cadance headed for the door, the wizard offered up his own advice: “Both of you… admit when you are wrong to one another and do not dilly-dally. Confess your faults. You can be prideful and revel in the fact that you were right and the other is wrong… or you have fantastic, mindblowing, ball-bursting boffing. But you cannot have both. Choose wisely.” Having said his piece, the wizard opened the door for the princess and then waited for her to exit.

When she strode out the room, he followed, his cloak fluttering from his movements.

As the door shut, Furious had the notion that he and Crop Duster had just experienced a private ceremony from the Princess of Love herself. She had given him a task, a new job in life, and he was eager to obey her orders. Reaching out with both wings, he grabbed Crop Duster by the neck and hauled her in for a kiss.

When their lips met, she did not resist him, but responded with eager affection and trust. An offer of curious exploration was made when her lips parted just a little, and he took the courageous next step, extending his tongue to touch her lips. Meeting in the middle, her tongue brushed up against his own and he savoured the lumpy-bumpy texture, the roughness of it. With his wings, he pulled her even closer, and was overcome with an urgent need to express his growing affection for her in some meaningful, romantic way.

The kiss broke, but only so he say a few heartfelt words: “Let me love you and be good to you.”

“Okay,” she breathed, and her sides were heaving. “You might want to step back, I’ve been holding it in for a little too long.”

“Sweet thing,” he murmured, and his lips brushed up against hers, “gimme a little romantic music to kiss you by… and then we’ll go out and get some breakfast.”

“After that…”—her sides were heaving even harder now and her violet eyes blazed with fierce affection— “we’ll go home together.”

“And start a nest.”

“Yes, and start a nest.”

“Perfect.”

“Yes.” She paused and her tail began to shake. “Now kiss me like you promised and I will play you a song.”

With nothing left to do, Furious kissed his bride as the brassy horn solo began to play.