The stunning (for some values of 'stunning') conclusion (for some values of 'conclusion') to the epic tale of the Wizard and KitKat and their adventures in Equestria in search of the fabled McGuffin.
The stunning (for some values of 'stunning') conclusion (for some values of 'conclusion') to the epic tale of the Wizard and KitKat and their adventures in Equestria in search of the fabled McGuffin. He casts spells, she signed a NDA, and neither of them is happy with their arrangement but <editor note: insert appropriate proverb here>
Yet another installment in ‘why is this a thing?’ and fair warning I already had an idea for next year and it’s worse than this one but not that much worse, only a little bit. Somebody might get slit from guggle to zatch, but that’s future Wizard’s problem. For now, the mods require that the long description describes the story, so without any further ado, I present a disaster in progress.
Content warning:If this is the first one of these you’ve found, bail and don’t regret it. If you’re coming back for πs, you know what you’re getting into.
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods IV Transmogrification Admiral Biscuit
KitKat was a pony who valued her beauty sleep, and as such, loud screams in the middle of the night were a thing that KitKat generally did not enjoy.
This time, those screams—really, shrieks—didn’t bother her so much. She set the mirror back down and admired her hoofiwork—well, technically the Wizard’s, since he’d been the one to cast the spell which was currently affecting him.
No longer was he a gangly shambling human with bad breath and a robe that didn’t cover nearly enough; instead he’d accidentally turned himself into a unicorn.
“Well, this is awkward for you,” KitKat said. “Thinking about your unicorn conquest, were you?”
“Huh?” The wizard blinked, then looked at himself. “Oh my God!” He blinked again, then immediately went into a blind panic and attempted to gallop off, while still shouting “Oh my God!”
She was kind of sympathetic to his poor leg control; she knew full well that changing from quadrupedal to bipedal took a bit of adjustment and the reverse would obviously be true. Balance, leg motions, tail—it was complicated, not the thing anypony would want to work out half-asleep in the middle of the night.
With, as she’d noticed before his transformation, a raging erection and all the thoughts she imagined went with one. There were myriad reasons why an innie was better than an outie, and the Wizard had done nothing thus far to change her opinion on the matter.
He tripped over his own hooves, crashed into the nightstand, and knocked himself out.
Nearly simultaneously, a loud hoof-rap rattled the shared wall. “Oi! Keep it down in there, some ponies are trying to sleep!”
“Sorry,” KitKat shouted back, then went to make sure the Wizard was still breathing.
He was, so she tossed a blanket over him and went back to her own bed to get at least some sleep.
•••
Morning came, as it usually did. In the sun’s new light, KitKat was still a pony, was still in her bed at the hotel, and once she risked poking her head over the edge of her mattress discovered that the Wizard was still laid out on the floor, breathing normally if the gentle rise and fall of the blanket she’d tossed over him was any indication.
She hadn’t paid that much attention to his antics last night: it had been dark and things had happened very quickly, but now she was curious.
She hopped out of bed and nosed the blanket back, checking out the Wizard’s backside. It turned out transforming had granted him a cutie mark; unfortunately, it was of his wrinkly dick. It had also turned him into a mare, which to her mind was also an improvement. Mares smelled better, that was a fact. Also they didn’t have dicks.
“Could have been worse,” she opined. His disco stick looked better as an image on fur, anyway. Plus, if he ever needed bits, with a cutie mark like that stallions would assume and those with the taste for the exotic might pay generously.
She used the toilet and brushed her teeth, and was in the process of combing her tail when he finally awakened. She watched him struggle to get up, attempting various combinations of leg positions until he found one that worked for him.
“Go slow,” she advised. “It takes some getting used to.”
“Shut up.” He stumbled across the hotel room and caromed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
A moment later, an anguished scream. “Where’s my dick?”
KitKat got up and moved to the bathroom door. There was no sense in being too loud this early in the morning; other ponies were trying to sleep in. “It’s on your flanks.”
“Oh.” A pause, long enough for him to look and see, then: “How am I supposed to piss?”
“Lift your tail out of the way, it’s really not difficult to figure out.”
“Like, with my hooves? I can’t—” she heard a thud as he fell down. “Ouch.”
“With your tail muscles.”
“My what now? Oh shit, that wasn’t, I didn’t . . . uh, how do I make it stop?”
KitKat rolled her eyes and got out her foal’s first lockpick kit and set work on the bathroom door.
•••
By the time she got into the bathroom, the Wizard was in the shower, attempting to turn the knobs on with his forehooves. “You know,” she muttered, “it comes out in one direction. Were you trying to do a cartwheel or what?”
“Just shut up and help me with these shower knobs, I don’t have my jimmy any more and can’t cast spells.”
“You could try and cast them with your clit,” she suggested, leaning into the tub to turn the water on. “Although most stallions don’t know how to find it. Once you get yourself washed off, go experiment. Believe me, it’s edifying.”
•••
Some time later, with the Wizard freshly washed and the bathroom clean, with the entire supply of towels befouled, the Wizard shifted around on his bed trying to find a position which was both comfortable and which also let him cross his currently nonexistent arms or otherwise show his displeasure.
He almost managed, but the soft mattress betrayed him and he tumbled over on his back, forelegs waving comically as he tried and failed to stop his fall.
Next, he got his hooves tangled in the comforter, speared one of his pillows on his horn, and finally managed to right himself amidst a gentle goose down snowfall.
“You still look worked up,” KitKat said. “Guessing in your alone time in the bathroom you didn’t find your magic jellybean.”
The wizard glowered at her. “You didn’t tell me I was a unicorn.”
“Oh, yeah, you’re a unicorn.”
“Figured it out when I was trying to perch my ass up on the vanity to see.”
“How did you not notice when you looked up?”
“I don’t know, I was stressed out okay? This is all very confusing. I hurt my ear when I slapped it because it moved and I thought it was a mosquito or something, I can’t get my tail to work, and it’s almost impossible to walk.”
“It’s way easier to walk,” KitKat told him. “You just suck at it. Now come on, if we want to get a chance at the good food at the continental breakfast, we need to get down to the lobby. Sometimes they’ve got muffins that don’t come in a plastic wrapper.”
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π “I can get a dildo in with just hooves.” Admiral Biscuit
While the hotel’s continental breakfast room didn’t have a dress code—like most things pony—the Wizard’s cutie mark was a bit much, and the pair of them got booted until they could find a way to cover his membrum virile.
The robe was tried, and it did an excellent job at covering his rude cutie mark; however, the Wizard was bad enough at walking without stepping on the hem of his robe and faceplanting into the plush carpet.
As luck would have it, nearly forgotten in the depths of KitKat’s emergency supplies kit were a few Vermin Supreme 2016 bumper stickers she’d picked up when he’d visited Equestria, understanding as few humans would that the quality of a man can be measured by how many ties he wears simultaneously. The boot on his head was the cherry on top . . . truly a man of fashion.
Vermin knew where ponies would stick bumper stickers and his were coated with fur-friendly adhesive, one that both stuck and could be removed without causing unsightly bald patches. Just the thing to cover a roughly rectangular cutie mark.
For a moment, as the duo returned to the dining room, the Wizard considered the strange prudity that took offense to an image on his flank while paying no mind to the numerous actual genitals on full or partial display. There was even a well-muscled stallion so enraptured with his morning coffee that he’d dropped halfway and none of the ponies pointed an accusing hoof at him.
The wizard stared for a good long while until he felt a rumble of hunger in his belly and a rumble of something else further back which he tried not to think about as he selected a plate of food. Vegetarian, because of course it was, but he knew a spell to turn silage into sausage and this time he wouldn’t get kicked out of the restaurant for indecent exposure.
Which, again, was unfair because ponies were allowed to show off their junk in public.
•••
Their second attempt at breakfast was nearly a disaster; the Wizard insisted on trying to use cutlery and nearly put his eye out with a fork. Still, it did improve his fine magic skills at least slightly; by the time he finished he was able to stuff a whole magical sausage into his mouth with only minimal dribbles on his chin.
“You’re used to using a wand for magic, this shouldn’t be so hard for you,” KitKat observed.
“I’m not used to using this head,” the Wizard muttered, tapping his forehead. “It’s giving me a headache.”
“You can use your hooves for simple stuff,” she reminded him. “And you can stick your face down on the plate and eat like a normal pony, not try and flail around a fork and knife. Ponies were built for grazing, not . . . whatever it is you’re doing. Before you were a pony you weren’t so concerned with silverware, you ate plenty with your hands.”
“My hands haven’t been walking around on the ground.”
“No, just holding your wand and stroking your wand and fondling your wand and picking your nose and aiming your wand and scratching your balls. I’d rather have some proper dirt in my food, thank you very much.”
•••
It was agreed that he would not attempt to turn himself back, that at least for now their time was better spent searching for the McGuffin lest it take them even longer to find it.
As KitKat packed up her saddlebags, the Wizard eyed his bare barrel and frowned. “Where am I supposed to put my things?”
“Well, you were going on about a vag of holding,” KitKat suggested. “You could try that.”
The Wizard looked over to his travelling kit. “What, like, put that on the floor and sit on it?”
“I’d personally magic it in, safer that way. You can go slow and make sure it all fits.”
For better or worse, the Wizard actually did levitate his travelling kit and move it around to his rump before KitKat took pity on him and packed it in her saddlebags.
“I’ve seen you looking at other mares.” KitKat leaned down and pulled the cinch on her saddlebag tight. “So I know you know what it looks like back there, I have no idea how you’re having so much trouble. I can get a dildo in with just hooves.”
“You’ve had more practice, I’m sure.”
“Fair point.” She made her way across the room and put a hoof on the handle, then paused. “You know, since the first time I saw your hairy canary, I’ve had no sexual urges at all. Huh.” She twisted the knob and pushed the door open. “Well, best be going. I wonder what adventures await us this time?”
•••
Being located on the edge of the haunted forest as it was, it took the intrepid duo little time to get back into the woods. While to an extent their earlier explorations had yielded them nothing, they had in fact learned lots of places to not go, creatures to avoid, etc. They knew about the damn dam and the beavers of the same, Kukka the skunk, the Chupacabra, the Dauw tribal village. They didn’t know about the succubus living in a small cottage on the northern fringes of the forest, and that was just as well; if they’d known about it the Wizard would have wanted to go and KitKat would have wanted to stay the fuck away, and that would have led to a big argument, and the magical McGuffin for which the wizard searched might never be found.
In some ways he adapted to his new form, rarely slapping at his ears when they turned to listen to a new sound.
In some ways, he’d always wanted to be a unicorn.
In other ways, he missed his dick. The horn just wasn’t the same.
Kat stopped and held up a hoof. The wizard moved up to her, instinctively stopping short of her shoulder.
She pointed to an unnatural path through the forest. It veered up to trees and bounced off rather than being an obvious creature-made path, but once he spotted it, it was easy enough to follow with his eye. There were no leaves or needles in that path, and in the places where it crossed rocks, all the little crumbs of dirt were gone.
“We need to cross that,” she whispered. “Without touching it. How far can you jump?”
“I don’t know. How far can a pony normally jump?”
“Normally? Far enough.” KitKat frowned. “You keep tripping over your own hooves.”
“There are four of them, and they’re always getting in each other’s way.”
“Uh huh.” KitKat glanced up at the webwork of branches overhead, gauging swing and strength and the tenacity of any leaves overhanging. “Theoretically, I could get a rope around that, you think you could hold on to a rope?”
“With hooves?”
“Alright, climb on my back and hold on.”
“Climb on?”
“You know how to ride a unicorn, don’t you? This is pretty much the same idea, except you’re going to be all the way on my back and you’re going to hold on tight and not let go until I stop, okay?” She glanced up and down the meandering trail. “Doesn’t look like there are any side-branches nearby, so we should be good.”
“This is so undignified,” the Wizard muttered as he tried to mount her from behind.
“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one on the bottom.” KitKat bumped her rump to help the Wizard slide forward along her back. “Forelegs around my neck, not too tight, ‘cause I’ve got to breathe. You ready?”
“Not reeeeeealy!”
KitKat didn’t give him time to finish, she dug her hooves in and got up speed along the perimeter of the clearing, straightening out to gallop up a convenient rock that would serve as an eristaz launch ramp.
Sometimes when she jumped, she wondered for that brief moment of flight, that brief moment of defying gravity, if this was what a pegasus felt when she took flight. What if she were to just keep climbing?
One of her uncles by marriage was a pegasus, and when she was but a wee little lass, he’d taken her on pegasus rides, never too high, but enough to get the feeling of soaring.
And then she was falling, off the peak of her jump, and the landing was hard with the extra weight of the Wizard on her back. Her hooves scrambled for purchase, and he started sliding off her.
A close pass to a tree straightened him out again, and then she jumped over a cluster of ferns and then landed back back on a clearer spot of the forest floor, where she could see roots and rocks and avoid both.
She galloped for nearly a mile before finally slowing her pace and stopping. The wizard slid off her back and collapsed on the ground, while she leaned down and unstrapped her saddlebags, then rolled on her back in the cool, soft dirt.
“I think we’re good, but we should stay here for a few minutes while I cool down and to listen and see if they’re tracking us. I don’t think they will, there won’t be any scent on the immediate sides of the path and they might think it was a bird or a pegasus that passed overhead.”
The Wizard turned and looked through the forest. “What are they?”
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π Notch Apple Admiral Biscuit
A few miles further along, the pair sloshed over the shallow stream that fed the damn dam. The water was fresh, cold, and minerally, and KitKat immediately stuck her muzzle in and started drinking.
The Wizard, meanwhile, reached into her saddlebags for his canteen, tried to get the top off with both horn and mouth, then finally gave up and also started drinking the stream water.
“I bet that grass over there is going to be tasty, too,” KitKat remarked. “It smells delicious.”
It was just as delicious as it smelled, and even the Wizard had some, despite his general disdain for greenery.
After their field meal, the pair of ponies gathered up firewood in preparation for camping.
While the Wizard could have lit the fire with his horn, he also could have exploded it—he was still working on tip control—so KitKat dragged her hoof across a flinty rock to make sparks.
Once it was going, and once they’d gotten their tent up, the foodbag was hoisted up into a nearby tree to prevent bears, the Wizard warded the campsite to keep out nasty beasties and KitKat did the same for any plants that wished them ill.
And, since they’d both learned their lesson from last time, they did post a sentry.
KitKat got the first watch, and she did her duty, keeping herself awake by mentally working Arrow’s impossibility theorem.
By the end of her turn on watch, she’d determined that in the independence of irrelevant alternatives, alternatives a and b have the same order in F(R1, …, RN) as in F(S1, …, SN).
She’d also mentally assigned the grass around her (and the bushes and trees and any other plant in her view) various different roles in her theoretical model, testing if it held true for any given scenario, all the while looking and listening and smelling for any potential trouble.
When the moon was halfway across the sky, she shook the Wizard awake and he grumpily took her place. He did not do his duty, instead focusing on his new form and what treasures he might find under his tail.
To his good fortune, the wards held.
•••
Morning came, as mornings do. KitKat yawned and stretched out, then promptly spotted the Wizard, sound asleep, just up against the edge of the protective circles.
Right on the other side, a cluster of speedvines were trying their best to get over KitKat’s magical barrier. Every time they’d hit it, they’d yank back, creep along the ground a few more feet, and try again.
Warning the Wizard might make him jerk forward, into speedvine grabbing range, so she did the next best thing, grabbed his tail in her mouth and pulled him back, ignoring his howls of protest at his undignified awakening.
By the time she’d stoked the fire back up, the speedvines got the message, there was going to be no tasty pony meal for them today. They shrunk back into the ground, prodded along in a couple cases with a burning brand.
Breakfast was grass, dry oats, and coffee. Consultation with the map, compass readings, a short argument over which route was the best, and then they were off.
•••
For once, things were going nicely. The two mares—one real, one faux—barely argued. The Wizard cast a few spells with his literal horn instead of his pizzle. And, although she hadn’t noticed it before, ponified Wizard smelled a lot nicer than human wizard.
Furthermore, denizens of the forest weren’t immediately hostile to the pair of ponies, unlike when the Wizard had been his normal self.
It was something she could get used to.
⬆That wasn’t foreshadowing⬆
Some of the wizard’s movements were instinctual . . . she could have told him that would be the case, but he never listened to her even when he should have Especially when he should have.
When he wasn’t trying to keep his ears still, they’d move to focus on distant noises, and she could track their motion with her own, on the rare chance that the Wizard heard something before she did.
Thus they were able to avoid a kelpie taking a bath in a pond.
It probably wouldn’t have mattered if they did; as everyone knows kelpies prey specifically on humans, luring them to their watery deaths and then casting their entrails onto the shore. In fact, ponies hadn’t recognized kelpies as monsters before humans showed up, and only ponies who liked humans currently thought of them as monsters. The rest of them just figured that they were soggy water ponies, not quite merponies.
Rumor was that a hybrid kelpie/pony foal was undrownable, and in fact some seamares who had survived a shipwreck claimed that their sire or dam had been a kelpie. In some cases, that could have been true. Recordkeeping was barely a thing in Equestria.
So the pair of them skirted around the pond with the kelpie who was totally not imagining drowning and gutting a human and unlike Kukka the skunk, Koko the Kelpie swam around her pond, braided cat-tails, and lived her best life, never again appearing in this story.
One day in the future, she would meet a handsome stallion and an honorable amount of time after that there was a filly who never really took to sailing but did win several gold medals in swimming competitions.
•••
“Did you fart?”
The Wizard also now had an improved sense of smell—he not only smelled better, but he also smelled better.
“No. I thought that was you, but I wasn’t going to mention it.”
“It wasn’t me.” The wizard considered. “How does farting feel as a pony anyway?”
“Trust me, you’ll know, the glitter always gives it away.” KitKat wrinkled her nose and held in the scent. “You’re sure it wasn’t you? It smells like something died.”
“I can cast a smell that numbs scent, I think.” The Wizard used his magic to open KitKat’s saddlebags and draw forth a spellbookPlayboy.
“Your horn won’t get harder,” KitKat reminded him..
The Wizard shrugged. “I need inspiration. I was always a visual learner.”
“Visualize this,” KitKat raised a hoof and an imaginary middle finger, the single thing she actually missed from her brief stint as a human.
Well, seeing in trichromatic colors had been kind of cool, too, but overwhelming for an adventure. That was way better for an acid trip or some good old-fashioned Mongolian horse friction.
“Yeah, yeah.” The Wizard folded out the centerfold and studied it. KitKat, unfortunately, had an unexpectedly good view of his backside; on the plus side, she could report that everything was where it should be and everything looked like it was working. “Do unicorns or, uh, are hornjobs a thing?” He lifted a hoof to his horn.
KitKat rolled her eyes heavenward. “Strike me down now, Celestia.”
•••
She should have been looking groundward.
They both should have.
Bufogrens of various varieties are indigenous to forested and swampy areas of Equestria and can be summoned for one green mana and one black mana. 1/1, tap to produce mucus, target creature gets one poison counter.
”This smells like shit”—Jaya Ballard, task mage
Heroically galloping away from danger was old hat for KitKat, and the Wizard was quickly getting the hang of it as well.
Presently they found themselves at a small, kelpie-free pond. Spring fed, so it was colder than balls, but neither of them had those—ever, or just for now—and it was pleasanter than a bathtub filled with V7 juice.
Unlike the skunk skank, the smelly mucus was water-soluble, and eventually rinsed out.
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π Centicores Guard the McGuffin Admiral Biscuit
While the Wizard attempted and failed to dry himself off with his robe (which KitKat had in her saddlebags), Kitkat dried herself off the pony way.
After watching her, the Wizard tried . . . and failed. He made himself dizzy, fell over, and got his horn stuck in a tree stump.
As KitKat was tying the rope around him for the extraction attempt, she glared down at him. “You can’t even fall down right.”
“This is all your fault, I don’t know what I’m smelling. You could have said it was a slimy toad.”
“A bufogren,” she informed him. “They smell like shit. Not the good kind of shit, but the bad kind.”
“Are you some sort of shit-smell connoisseur?”
“Hang around dairy farms and pig farms, there’s a difference. And don’t ask me about a griffon aviary, the only thing worse is harpies which we didn’t have until you humans started showing up. What is it with all of you poking your phalluses anyplace pink with no thought to the consequences?”
“I’ve never stuck it in you.
The sky went dark and thunder rumbled overhead. Leaves rustled in anticipation as KitKat pressed her muzzle right up against the Wizard’s, her eyes burrowing into his very soul. For what felt like an eternity, her hot breath washed up against him before she finally spoke, her voice low and almost casual.
“If you ever put your wrinkled Wizard’s widgie in me, what will happen to you will be so unspeakable your great-grandparents will rue the day they met.”
•••
No McGuffin worth its salt was anywhere easy to access. They both knew that, and both of them were lured in by the easy sight of it there on a plinth, not unlike that jade figurine or whatever it was that Indiana Jones stole in the Wizard’s memory, or the similar but legally distinct figurine that Daring Do also stole.
KitKat was at least smart enough to recognize that there might be a weight trigger and very carefully, as the Wizard lifted with his actual (if temporary) unicorn magic, she slid an equally-weighted wedge of cheese from the emergency supply on the plinth.
And it worked.
They were not to know this, but perilously balanced above their heads was a gigantic wooden log, dimensionally similar to what the Ewoks might have used to crush an AT-ST walker, or what the Mythbusters used to crush an armored truck. In short, there would have been nothing of either of them left but a grease stain.
Well, and a fair number of grumpy trap-maintenance workers putting the log back in place.
The McGuffin would have been fine; it was magical.
They expected the balance trap and neutralized it; they failed to consider the humble periscope concealed in a knothole in a fake tree, and the attentiveness of the creature watching it.
He didn’t have a remote trigger for the log trap—an oversight which would go into his eventual after-action report—but he did have a big button and he pushed that big button and mere seconds later wave after wave of proverbial red-shirted ensigns were rushing to their action stations.
Said footsolders weren’t wearing red, of course; like most Equestrians, they weren’t wearing anything. And the wizard could have been forgiven for not knowing what they were, at a passing glance they looked much like goats.
Unlike goats, they had tusks, and their goat-like horns could swivel in any direction.
Much like the Wizard’s ears. And KitKat’s.
Although as offensive weapons, positionable horns were far superior to ears.
•••
They boiled up out of the hidden tunnels in a tide, coming from all directions. If they’d practiced their surprise attack timing, it would have been more effective and more overwhelming, but they hadn’t been running invader drills lately—upper management had been convinced of the efficacy of the log trap, and had cut back on training and personnel to cut down on monthly expenses. So as it was, KitKat and the Wizard had a ghost of a chance of an escape.
All her pondering the nuances of game theory paid off; their motive was deduced and patterns in the landscape recognized as tunnel outlets. Simple statistical models informed how many were likely to arrive, although in the grand scheme of things when it came to good old-fashioned brawling, KitKat knew that she was unlikely to be able to take more than ten of them. She didn’t know the Wizard’s limits, but did know that while he was sometimes surprisingly effective, usually he underperformed and left her disappointed. Not to mention that his skills mostly lay in offensive magic, and in their current situation a good defense and a tidy retreat to a more protected position was in order.
“What are those?”
“Yales,” KitKat said. “Follow me.”
She dug her hooves into the soil and took off at a gallop towards a tunnel that hadn’t yet disgorged any opponents; milliseconds later, the Wizard followed.
“Be ready to blast a path if we have to,” she told him, then leaned back and got her tabarzin out of its sheath. Not the easiest weapon to use on the run, but it had good reach and could be swung both ways.
As they closed the distance to the tunnel, yales began boiling forth. No more subtlety, as if they’d had any to begin with. “Heb je een tafeltje voor twee?” KitKat yelled as she charged them swinging her saddle axe.
The first two out the entrance didn’t even have time to get their horns pointed the right way before KitKat cut them down, and then she and the Wizard were beyond the immediate threat, although a great number of them were now in hot pursuit.
On one hoof, the forest provided plenty of cover, but slowed them as they dodged trees. The Wizard, especially, hadn’t quite figured out turning, and if he got his horn stuck again there was little chance of freeing him before the mob overwhelmed them.
I should have packed a ranged weapon, KitKat thought, but that was what the Wizard was supposed to be for.
And indeed, for once he was pulling his weight, acting on pure terror. He’d look back, spot one of them, and blast it with magic.
Not always the closest one, which would have been her choice, but then seeing their companions suddenly vaporized at least gave the pursuers some attempt at caution and cover, which slowed them down.
Until the fire mage showed up. Perhaps not the wisest choice in a forested area; KitKat buttonhooked around a tree just as a fireball exploded it behind her, peppering her with smouldering splinters.
This is not good.
She risked a glance over her shoulder, he was surrounded by yales, and smart enough to keep to open ground. The Wizard hadn’t spotted him yet.
I need something to take him out. His horns were alight, and she ducked down as he shot another fireball, this one singing the fur on her back. Cover, and I can get in with my axe. It didn’t have to be much, just a few seconds—
•••
As life choices went, Kukka made ones befitting of a skunk. Muddle into situations, spray stink everywhere, and waddle out of the cloud of miasma.
She had the misfortune to muddle into KitKat’s path at exactly the right moment, and for once the pony reacted first, entirely unaware that this was the same skunk which had previously gassed her.
Which was a shame, because she would have taken some satisfaction in knowing.
In her so-far uninteresting life, Kukka had never been yeeted into a cluster of yales and a fire mage, nor had she ever considered what she might do were that to happen.
Why would she? Kukka had exactly one response to everything, and she was still tumbling through the air as she raised her tail and went off.
•••
Even KitKat hadn’t known skunk stink was flammable, but it was, and the resultant explosion was more than she could have wished for. She’d intended to bean the fire mage with a rock while he was distracted by the ass-cloud, but this was good, too.
As for Kukka, physics dictated that she would fly like a rocket at least briefly, then tumble and crash back through the treetops and onto the mulchy forest floor, as luck would have it right into a scorpion’s nest.
While most creatures prefer to avoid scorpion nests, it turns out that skunks like eating them, and after her traumatic experience, Kukka was hungry.
As she chomped down on an unexpected meal of scorpions who were as surprised to see her as she was to see them, she reflected on how the day had actually gone pretty well so far, and her default plan of spraying everything worked in more situations than she’d ever envisioned.
•••
The Wizard had gotten ahead of her, but that wasn’t really an issue; KitKat was plenty fast when she wanted to be.
Some of the yales had also gotten ahead of her, focused on the Wizard instead. All of them were focused on their prey and none of them expected to be attacked from behind.
Hooves or axe, it made no difference, all fell before the mare.
As long as they could keep up this pace, and as long as they didn’t have any more mages—or fliers, or effective range weapons for that matter—she and the Wizard would win.
While she couldn’t predict the latter two circumstances, she could see by how lathered the Wizard was already that outrunning them wasn’t an option. Not for him, anyway.
“Over there.” She pointed a hoof, a patch of high ground and a clearing, a maze of rocks from some ancient geological upheaval. A cave was a possibility, a single entrance was defendable for a long time.
And there was a cave, with a proper small entrance, providing a view into the forest. The rocks would also provide cover for the yales, unfortunately, but beggars couldn’t be choosers; the Wizard was wavering on his hooves and this would give them a chance to at least take a breather.
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods Interlewd Admiral Biscuit
Once upon a time, in the magical world of Earth there was a canal that was long and tight, and a ship that was large and girthy and it went in anyway because all the ships were doing it.
While it was in there, it got hit by a gust of wind which blew it off course—the sail area of a loaded container ship is enormous, and they take forever to respond to helm and rudder commands. Before anybody on the ship could do anything about it, bank cushion almost certainly took over, causing the ship to veer across to the other side of the canal just as bank suction was getting hold of the stern of the ship, and that’s how #Evergivenchan got stuck in the Suez Canal.
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π Gancanagh Admiral Biscuit
One of the advantages of the small cave entrance was that the cave was unlikely to be occupied by anything much bigger than a pony. (Unless this was just a ventilation hole, in which case all bets were off.) There couldn’t be a dragon inside, for example, nor an Ursa, a Quarry Eel, an Unfathomable Casserole, an Ophiotaurus, or a Manticore.
Fruit bats would fit, and unfortunately so would yales, at least until the entryway got plugged up with their bodies, something KitKat considered an option. No more than two could charge at once, the Wizard could get one and she’d get the closest one and before too long, they’d have secured the entrance with yales.
“What the heck are those things?” The Wizard had been spending too much time with fuckbooks and not enough time studying the Equestrian Monster Grimoire, Volume VI: Quadrupeds, non-flying.
“Yales in common parlance, or centicores if you want to be fancy and use their technical name. They’re kind of sideways related to hippos and boars and there’s an elephant in the mix somewhere and looking at them I think more than a little goat, on account of the stature and the bifurcated hooves.” She frowned. “I’d be playing down the goat part if I had goats in my family tree.”
“Does this cave have another outlet?”
KitKat shrugged. “How would I know? I hope not, or else we’re gonna get flanked and that will be that.”
“So what, we just wait for the end in here?”
“Is my contract over when you die?”
The Wizard narrowed his eyes; he was at least smart enough to see a potential escape clause for her by the way she briefly glanced at her axe. “Uh, no, not until the McGuffin and I return to town, and if you try any funny business, I’ll curse you, that’s what happens when you sign a human contract.”
“Believe me, I know.” KitKat sighed. “Every time I close my eyes I have a flashback to your shriveled shmekl, maybe that’ll fade in time.”
“And every moment it’s gone, I miss it,” the Wizard lamented. “I suppose I might as well peel these stickers off.”
“I’ve got more in my saddlebags. Vermin handed out a bunch of them, and I thought maybe they’d be collectable in the future. If we survive, I’ll stick new ones on.”
The Wizard started peeling the stickers off his rump, then paused, half a campaign sticker in his mouth. “You’re not giving up, are you?” Any dramatic turn to his words was lost, since the sticker was now stuck to his tongue.
It was very good adhesive.
KitKat shook her head and squared her shoulders and hips, then hefted her saddle axe. “If nothing else, I plan to remain standing longer than you.”
•••
Their lack of a proper assault plan served KitKat and the Wizard quite well. A wave of yales would charge from around the rocks, the Wizard would pick off the rear guard, and KitKat would handle the front ones. Sometimes she used her axe, sometimes her hind hooves, in order to work all muscle groups and not unnecessarily fatigue herself.
The grass on the hillside was trampled and stained and the new barrier they had was surprisingly effective. Not all the yales had the courtesy to die in the proper spot, but she really couldn’t get upset at them for that.
Their vantage point wasn’t quite high enough to see if additional reinforcements were streaming out of the woods. Sometimes, they’d hear hooves overhead, and at one point several of them tried prying the upper rock off the cave. The Wizard considered leaning out but KitKat stopped him—that was probably what they wanted him to do.
By now, there was no effective way to assault the cave frontally—not without moving a pile of bodies first.
“Ponies haven’t invented grenades, have they?”
“Grenades?”
“They look like metal pineapples, pull a pin, toss it into a hole, and it explodes and everybody dies.”
“No, we don’t have those.”
“Thank God.”
“Griffons do, though. And probably minotaurs, they do lots of trade. Wouldn’t really be their style, though; they tend to rush in without thinking. You know, that’s another reason I suspect they’re related to goats. Although hippos do that, too.” KitKat frowned. “Probably the only reason they’re not currently attacking us is that they can’t get in.”
The Wizard looked out the hole, keeping his head far enough back that his movement couldn’t be seen. “Are they afraid of the dark?”
“Not as far as I know, why?”
“Because the sun’s setting.”
“Well, soon enough we’ll find out if this is a bat cave.” KitKat reached back into her saddlebags and grabbed a can of soup—Mrs. Grass’ Soup Kiburo. The bananas and coffee came in it, but she had to add in her own dirt for a local flavor.
She scraped some rock-dust in the top of the can and drank it like Popye downs a can of spinach. She’d been saving it for a special occasion, which this very much wasn’t, but she’d also kick herself in the afterlife if she’d never eaten that can of soup.
A sudden tremor shook the earth and jiggled the pile of bodies. Further down in the cave, the bats yawned and looked at the time and the eagerest of them started flying for the single entrance.
Where they discovered a pony with a saddle axe, a not-pony with a horn, and a stack of dead bodies that were shuddering each time some outside force slammed into them.
The bats weren’t stupid. Flying into that catastrophe was a terrible idea, so they went back down into the cave, reported what they’d seen, and everybat agreed that it was better to sleep late and wait for the problem to go away.
“Welp, looks like things are about to get interesting again,” KitKat said. “Step back, and let me handle this.”
“All yours, madam.” The Wizard even tried to courtesy, nearly tripped over his hooves, did step on his own tail, and then made an orderly retreat further into the cave.
On its own, empty, the soup can wasn't much of a weapon, nor was it meant to be.
It landed near a yale, who jerked back as it rolled to a stop between his cloven hooves.
He sniffed it, then started nibbling at the label and the tasty glue underneath.
He never even saw the rock coming.
•••
Meanwhile, back in the cave, KitKat continued her one-mare stand while the Wizard watched.
Also, the Wizard was watched, but the Wizard didn’t know that.
Besides just the bats, the cave held another denizen, this one not quite as big as a pony. He lived in a well-appointed side-chamber which the bats knew but avoided; they had little interest in the shenanigans of ground-bound creatures, so long as said ground-bound creatures didn’t bother them.
He yawned and stretched out, then stuck his dudeen between his teeth and shuffled up towards the entrance of the cave.
Unsurprisingly, he made the same discovery that the bats had. Rather than retreat, though, he spent a moment taking in the situation. There were two mares, and they were right in his cave, and he was a Gancanagh and this was going to be a memorable night.
He sidled up to the unicorn, it was closer, and nibbled at its ear.
The Wizard jerked his head around and lit his horn. Just as quickly, the Gancanagh put a hoof over it. “Hey, little lady, want a quick rutting?”
“I’m no lady,” the Wizard protested.
“And I’m not picky.” The Gancanagh blew a cloud of smoke from its pipe in the Wizard’s face and got into position, something it had plenty of practice at. “Trust me, it’ll feel amazing.”
There was a lot that the Wizard hadn’t figured out, and there was also a lot that the Wizard hadn’t figured out about being a unicorn or a mare, and the latter category was the relevant one at the moment.
“KitKat? A little help?”
KitKat ignored him; she had bigger fish to fry.
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” the Gancanagh whispered. “It’s just a little prick.”
The Wizard shrugged. “Well, we’re all about to die anyway, so why not? Might as well test this thing out.”
“That’s the spirit.” The Gancanagh nibbled on his neck and thrust forward.
It was not little, and it was a feeling that the Wizard had never experienced in his life, one which he completely lacked the vocabulary to describe. It pleasured nerves he didn’t know he had, he completely forgot that he was likely about to die, and as the Gancanagh buried itself completely into the Wizard’s wizard hole, a new even better sensation started gripping him.
This must be the clit that KitKat was talking about.
He was along for the ride, helpless to resist, imagining that this was how the Unicorn must have felt when he was fucking her, even if she’d glared at him and asked if that was it and then spit on his feet when he admitted it was.
He got off, and he hadn’t understood what she was mad about but now he did. If he only had his ramrod back, he could—
It just got better and better the longer the Gancanagh thrust into him.
“You’d better not stop,” he hissed.
“No intention of it.”
KitKat, meanwhile, finally noticed the odd squelching and panting from the Wizard’s direction, and since for now the pile of bodies was still standing fast, she turned to see just what the fuck was going on over there.
“What the fuck?”
The Gancanagh looked up at her. “Your turn next.”
“I am not getting sloppy seconds from a fey, not gonna happen. I’d rather be torn apart by that lot out there.”
“I know how to please a mare.”
“Less talk, more thrusting,” the Wizard moaned.
“A mare, huh.” KitKat grinned. “Boy are you in for a surprise.”
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π Climax Admiral Biscuit
As it turned out, they were all in for a surprise.
True to his word, the Gancanagh was well-versed in lovemaking and also had fantastic stamina, as one would expect a sex demon to have.
He brought the Wizard to a shattering climax, which in this particular case actually meant something.
KitKat had fair warning, she knew what the desperate pants and lolling tongue from the wizard meant, and she ducked just as he orgasmed, a whole-body orgasm that lit his horn like a torch and blasted the stack of bodies off the mouth of the cave where they rained down, flaming, landing with meaty thunks in the woods below.
The wizard then promptly turned back into a human again, just as he was before he magicked himself into a unicorn. He even still had a raging boner.
The Gancanagh got fused with the Wizard. The transformation had left some of him in the Wizard (which ultimately would give the Wizard better endurance in the future), and there was only one way to get the two of them unstuck.
KitKat hefted her saddle axe. “Good thing I got my field surgery merit badge.”
“You can’t—”
“You’re fey, it’ll grow back.” She brought the axe whistling down.
Out on the field, morale had already dropped when the flaming corpses started plummeting down. It reached a new low as the Wizard in all his glory was revealed in the entrance of the cave, and then . . .
. . . and then the axe came down and the entire force of yales broke rank and fled back to the safety of their temple.
The Gancanagh’s cry of anguish was enough to motivate the few stragglers, and also cause the Wizard to turn around. He didn’t see much, thankfully, just a glimpse of ruined stump and the bloody streaks on KitKat’s axe and he was smart enough to come up with at least a partial answer to why the Gancanagh was now fleeing into the depths of the cave as fast as its hooves could carry it. Yes, it would grow back, but until it did he wasn’t going to have any fun at all. Plus there was the pain and the off chance that the bats would notice and mock him.
“That all got sorted nicely,” KitKat said as the last yale tail vanished into the woods. “Thanks for the assist.” She held out a hoof and the Wizard reluctantly bumped it.
“I feel so . . . weird. I don’t even know how to describe it.”
“You’re lucky you got a pro the first time around; all I got was a stallion so young his cutie mark was still wet, and he wasn’t very good with his dingus, even though he got a lot of practice with his hoof. I didn’t even have my first good climax until I got my princum-prancum and spent a whole weekend experimenting.” She snickered. “Thought I’d gotten the short stick ‘cause nopony wanted to hang out with me that weekend, turns out I had the best time.”
Just then, thousands of bats rushed out the entrance of the cave, rushing around them just close enough for leathery wings to brush against flesh and fur and effectively putting an end to what could have been an eye-opening conversation for one or both adventurers.
Once the bats were gone, KitKat looked back over at the Wizard. “Probably ought to put your robe back on.”
“Yeah.”
•••
Walking back to the hotel, through the vast somewhat uncharted woods was a risk, but neither of them wanted to spend the night in the cave; they were also still both riding a high from the battle and the successful mission.
As unbelievable as it seems, their journey back was uneventful. Koko the Kelpie was asleep, Kukka the Skunk was also asleep, belly full of tasty, tasty scorpions. Even the Roombas were on their chargers, dreaming of cleaning the world of all filth tomorrow, or if not tomorrow surely the day after.
The hotel, being on the edge of the forest as it was, welcomed all guests at all hours so long as said guests didn’t smell like a skunk’s asshole or weren’t a shambling mound (they weren’t making that mistake again). Six AM was a weird time for guests to arrive, but the deskpony didn’t bat an eye.
“One room,” the Wizard said.
“With a bath,” KitKat added. “And two spa ponies with loose morals, one stallion, one mare.” She slapped a small sack of bitcoins down on the desk—she wasn’t against robbing the dead, and a few of the yales had had some money.
•••
The room was easy; the spa ponies took a bit of time to arrange and didn’t arrive until after the pair had had a continental breakfast and both taken showers.
The Wizard watched as the spa ponies worked KitKat over, currying out her coat and detangling her mane and tail. The stallion was also an expert in weapons, which was an extra bonus; while his partner worked on KitKat’s hooves, he sharpened her axe.
“I thought you were going to share.”
KitKat stuck out her tongue. “Buy your own. This is me time. I put up with your shit longer than anymare else would . . . but I am feeling generous, you can have the rest of those bits, go down to the bar and see if you can find some mare to chat up. Who knows, you might get lucky.”
“Deal.” He snatched up the bag of bits and stormed off to the bar.
•••
Amethyst Star wasn’t a fan of hotels in general, and especially ones that catered to mixed clientele. At least she knew where she stood; there was always a risk at a pony-only hotel that the pony she thought she was talking to was actually a changeling.
She was almost lost in the depths of her Lemon Drop (the cocktail, not the pony) when he walked in and sat himself down.
A human.
Her aura went to her marzipan monstrosity . . . her horn was itching for a proper portalizing, it had been too long.
The Wizard of Whitetail Woods π Epilogue (or, ‘Thank Somepony it’s Over’) Admiral Biscuit
KitKat woke up the next morning after getting fully worked-over by the two spa ponies, feeling properly herself again. After breakfast, she asked the Wizard for her pay, and he offered it up, reminded her of the NDA she’d signed, and she was a free mare again, now wise enough to demand a demonstration of magical powers before signing any contracts.
The cult leader berated the yales for losing the McGuffin and demanded they build him a new one and after much discussion, the yales rose up, ultimately deposing the high priest and forming a forest commune that taught of the pleasures to be gained by living simply in the forest and avoiding at all costs KitKat the Dismemberer. In time, she would be honored among them as a baleful goddess, as capricious as the moon, she who freed them from their captivity but who would exact a terrible price if she were wronged
Kukka could have been the first skunk to space on the power of focused stink and carefully-timed ignition, but she wasn’t a skunk to think big.
The Gancanagh went back to his lair to lick his wounds, and a couple of weeks later he was fully-healed and he went back to his old ways, although he never trusted a mare with an axe again. Really, nobody should.
And the Wizard. Sparkler didn’t portalize him, despite her every instinct saying she should. And he went on with his life as normal for the next eleven months or so, when suddenly one night his chest burst open and the offspring of the Gancanagh crawled out and latched onto one of his boobs, which he’d also suddenly grown.
It was neither the biggest surprise nor the worst day of his life.
