> The Bread and the T's
>  by Strawberry Sunrise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> T Stands for "Toaster"
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What? Could you say that again, darling?” Rarity asked.
“Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense,” Rainbow Dash said.
Their tour guide, an orange earth pony stallion with a purple mane and a cutie mark that looked like a piece of bread, sighed and paused before the next door. “We get that a lot. But it’s true.”
“It’s true...that bread is alive...and reproduces by being toasted. Really,” Rarity said, her last word not a question but a statement heavy with skepticism.
“Ha, ha, you got us, Pinkie. Good job!” Rainbow Dash said, looking around for their friend. Surely this was just some sort of strange prank.
“Who?” the guide said, turning to face them again.
Frowning, Rainbow Dash paused her search. They were in a narrow hallway, and unless Pinkie was about to pop out of one of the doors lining it, she didn’t seem to be around. “A friend,” Rainbow said. “Never mind.”
The guide sighed again. “Look, it’ll be easiest if I just show you,” he said. Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked at each other and shrugged. The guide turned back to the door, took out a key, and opened it just enough to prevent it from locking again. Turning back to the ponies accompanying him, he added, “Please don’t interfere with the process. But take a look if you’d like.”
From the moment the door was opened, they could hear moans coming from within. But these weren’t moans of pain; they seemed to be of a rather more...inappropriate nature. Rarity blushed and shifted on her feet. Rainbow Dash walked forward and the guide stepped away to allow her to peek inside.
“Whaaat?” she said as she looked. A few moments later, she withdrew her head, her face now looking the most confused Rarity had ever seen. “It’s...true?”
Still blushing, Rarity raised one eyebrow and walked forward to take a peek herself.
The guide raised a hoof for her to stop and tilted his head, apparently concentrating on what someone was telling him through the headset he was wearing. After a moment, he straightened again. “We can go inside if you want,” he said. “Just don’t touch anything.” Before anypony could say anything in response, he swung the door wide open, exposing the full goings-on of the room. All three walked in.
It was more spacious than either Rarity or Rainbow Dash had expected before seeing it, and was filled with bed after bed lined up on every side. On each bed was two ponies, one holding a toaster and the other holding something within the toaster - presumably a piece of bread. They were all moaning in apparent pleasure, occasionally twitching, tensing their legs, or rolling into more comfortable positions, but never taking their hooves off the objects they were holding. None of them reacted to the fact that they had visitors. In the center of the room were three tables, one featuring a pile of toast, one featuring a pile of untoasted bread, and one featuring several toasters.
At first, Rarity was too bewildered for words, her blush replaced with the same look of extreme confusion she’d seen on Rainbow Dash. Then, with a few deep breaths, she composed herself and went back to blushing, a bead of sweat on her forehead. “Oh, my,” she said quietly, fanning herself with her hoof. Looking over at Rainbow, she saw just a slight smile on her face.
“Can you...um...explain this in more detail, please?” Rarity said, biting her lip.
“This isn’t like, some kind of cult, is it?” Rainbow Dash said.
The guide walked over to the nearest bed.and pointed at the ponies reclining there. “This is how we make bread,” he said, projecting his voice a bit more than before to ensure he was heard over all the moaning. “You are here for the tour, are you not?”
“Yes,” Rainbow Dash said. Twilight had convinced them to go, telling them she thought it would be an eye-opening experience. They had taken her up on it after deciding there was nothing better to do, but they certainly hadn’t expected this.
“Well, you see, what many ponies don’t know is that bread is actually a living organism, the male variant of its kind. Toasters are the female variant,” the guide said, then paused to let the idea sink in.
“Go on…” Rainbow Dash said.
“When a female toaster is in heat, she is receptive to the advances of a male,” the guide said. “But bread and toasters have evolved to be unmoving. They can’t reproduce on their own. That’s where we come in.” He gestured to the couple on the bed. “We insert a piece of bread into one slot of the toaster, and then we hold it there until it becomes perfectly toasted. During the toasting process, a second piece of bread forms in the other slot of the toaster - also toasted - and when the process is complete, we remove both, thus doubling our supply. The toasted bread is placed on the table and allowed a refractory period to recover. If undisturbed, it will slowly become untoasted again and ready for reuse.”
A couple across the room got up from their bed and walked to the center of the room, placing their toast on the table. They waved to the guide, took a piece of untoasted bread, and went back to their bed.
“Do you understand now?” the guide asked. “Any questions?”
Rarity was barely holding herself together. “Yes...um...but...I...I’ve made bread at home before, and I...I didn’t do...this,” she forced out, then emitted an involuntary squeak.
“Well, yes, you can do it that way,” the guide said. “But then you need ingredients. Bread made with that method is still alive, but you can only make so much before you run out of materials. Our method gives us an unlimited supply.”
“I have a toaster,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling but holding herself together much better than Rarity. “And it never duplicated bread for me before. Why not?”
“Oh, home toasters are dead,” the guide said. “They can’t reproduce, and they need a power cord to heat up. These ones generate their own internal heat. And dead toasters also lack the ability to toast bread in a temporary way, instead leaving it permanently toasted.”
“Where do the toasters come from?” Rainbow Dash asked. “You explained how they make more bread, but not more toasters.”
Another couple exchanged their bread at the tables.
“That we still aren’t sure about,” the guide said. “We’re working on figuring it out, but for now we just collect whatever toasters we can find in the wild. We believe the female form may reproduce itself asexually somehow.”
“Why...um...this?” Rarity said. “The beds and...this?”
“Like I said, we have to hold the bread in the toaster to ensure that it gets perfectly toasted. As it turns out, bread and toasters share a psychic connection with any other organism that they are in contact with during the act of intercourse,” the guide said. “I’ve never tried it, but as I understand it, it feels rather like one is having intercourse themselves. We have one pony hold the toaster and one the bread, because holding both at once can be overwhelming. It can take several minutes or more for the process to complete, and our workers do it all day, so we provide the beds for comfort. Please don’t touch anything.”
As the guide had been talking, Rarity had been inching toward the tables and was now right next to the toasters. The guide frowned.
“I’ll just...um...try it...for a...a second,” Rarity said, her body twitching.
“Please don’t,” the guide repeated, but Rarity had already picked up a toaster and a piece of bread. She lowered the bread slowly into the toaster and instantly began to clench her back legs.
“Please stop,” the guide said again, to no avail. He sighed and pressed a button on his headset. Another couple exchanged their bread at the tables, but rather than heading immediately back to their bed, they went and stood by Rainbow Dash to get a better view of Rarity.
"How long do you think this one will last?" one said to the other.
"At this rate? Not long at all," the other replied.
By this time, Rarity's knees had given out and she had rolled onto her back, her hips thrusting at the air. She continued to insert the bread, her eyes rolling up as she moaned, her tongue hanging slightly out. Her body shook, but she didn't waver, and within moments, the bread was fully engulfed by the toaster slot. “OH, FUCK ME HARD!” she screamed, and she immediately fell unconscious. Rainbow Dash burst into laughter, though it quickly changed to concern as she went to see if her friend was alright. The couple chuckled together and went back to their bed.
Several hours later, after medical staff had cleared Rarity to go home, she and Rainbow Dash visited Twilight to tell her about the trip.
“Did you have fun?” Twilight asked.
“Rarity had something, alright,” Rainbow Dash said with a laugh. Rarity blushed.
Twilight looked at Rarity and winked. “You’re welcome.”

The End