Commencement

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Rainbow Dash stepped out from behind the curtain. Hooves clopped against the hard cement floors of the auditorium; a wave of unruly sound that she had revelled in for many years: the sound of excitement.

She stepped up to the podium, and the applause died down as silence fell across the audience. One pony coughed softly in the back row. Rainbow cleared her throat.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts!” she announced, beginning her speech. “Being a Wonderbolt was always my dream, and the dream of countless other bright-eyed pegasi since the very day the organization was founded. And tonight, in this very auditorium, for the hoofful of ponies ambitious enough, talented enough, and tenacious enough to stick with it through thick and thin, those dreams will become real. With me on this stage today are some of the most impressive young fliers Equestria has ever seen. It is my honor, to present to you, the graduating class of Wonderbolt Academy 1129!”

The curtain behind her lifted and Rainbow stepped to the side of the stage as the audience erupted in applause. Six ponies, clad in their brand new, official Wonderbolt uniforms hovered just over the stage as they were introduced.

Rainbow Dash held out a small diploma. “Skylark, of Appleoosa!” The small green mare floated forward proudly and accepted the proffered scrip.

“Thank you, Commander Dash!” she said, beaming from ear to ear. Rainbow smiled softly at her and then turned to the next pony in line.

“Golden Sunset, from Cloudsdale!” A gruff stallion whose color matched his name approached next, nodded to Rainbow, and accepted his diploma wordlessly before retreating back.

“Stormy Seas, from Vanhoover!” A blue and great streak darted forward, snatched the paper from Dash’s hooves, spat out a quick “Thanks!” and darted back to her spot.

“Bay Singer, from Ponyville!” Rainbow smiled as the young stallion with the rainbow mane stepped forward. His coat was slightly darker than hers, and the colors of his mane matched her own, though in the opposite order. He had to be pretty awesome, looking so much like her. And he would be a Wonderbolt, too!

But his eyes were downcast, refusing to meet her gaze as he approached and silently took the diploma, and then he nearly dropped it as he hovered back to join his peers. Rainbow’s smile turned to a frown for a moment, but then she turned to the next pony.

“Snow Storm, from Las Pegasus!” A pale blur turned a quick loop as a white stallion with an ice-blue mane showed off his skill right there on the stage. Rainbow wasn’t about to critique his form right there on the spot, but… it needed work.

“And finally, Silver Lining, from Canterlot!” A dark grey mare with a silver mane dropped to the ground and trotted to Rainbow on her hooves, before politely accepting her diploma and returning to her place.

“Let’s give our new graduates another round of applause!” Rainbow announced, gesturing widely across the six ponies.

The crowd erupted in cheers as a stampede of hooves slapped the ground incessantly. The new graduates were the center of attention for several minutes, until the uproar finally settled into a dull clatter. Finally, the new Wonderbolts shuffled off-stage, and the curtain dropped again as Rainbow Dash stepped back up to the podium.

The din ceased as she stood up again. “But, as much as we love to see fresh blood in the Wonderbolt uniform, with the addition of the new, comes the loss of the old,” she said somberly. “It’s been said by many ponies over the years that with age comes wisdom. And that’s true. But also with it, comes a loss of ability. A loss of speed. And an opportunity for the new to step in and take over for the old. Six Wonderbolts tonight will be retired. And we honor them tonight as well. But first, they would like to share with you something special.”

She stepped away from the podium. “Their final performance!” Rainbow whooped, taking off straight into the sky and bursting through the top of the cloud-build auditorium. The clouds swirled and dissipated in all directions as five more ponies joined Rainbow Dash in the sky; twirling, looping, diving, and screaming at breakneck speeds in perfect formation.

Tears filled Rainbow’s eyes as she performed - her last performance as a Wonderbolt after all these years. The dreams of young ponies were coming true tonight, but her dream was finally coming to an end.

Bay Singer watched with disgust as Commander Rainbow Dash took off straight up into the air. It was as if she exuded a sense of arrogance and smugness, constantly. Even in something as simple as a high-speed vertical take-off, she seemed to ooze with her own ego, and it absolutely infuriated him. And though she and the other senior Wonderbolts were retiring tonight, he could tell that their skills put the incoming freshman class to shame.

He was used to that. After all, everything Rainbow Dash had ever done had always put him to shame.

There was no need to watch the performance that would only make him angry. He was pissed enough as it was: the auditorium was packed. Not a single seat was empty, except for one seat near the front, among the seats reserved for each graduate’s family.

His father had been absent his entire life; Bay didn’t even know who he was. But his mother!? After all of the work he put in to become a Wonderbolt? Something he’d done just to make her proud?

This was something he had done just to be noticed by her! And now she wasn’t even here!

Bay Singer closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His mother would never look at him the same way she looked at that arrogant blowhard, Rainbow Dash. All he’d ever wanted was even a fraction of his mother’s attention, but Rainbow Dash always hogged it all. Tears welled up in his eyes, squeezing between tightly closed eyelids and running down the fur of his cheeks.

It was okay to cry here. Nopony would see - everypony’s attention was on the performance. He opened his eyes again to a blurred view of the crowded seats; a miasma of smeared colors that he couldn’t pick out. It was better like this. Her seat didn’t look empty if he couldn’t make out the individual outlines of ponies seated around her space.

He had worked so hard to get here, because he thought if he was a Wonderbolt, like Rainbow Dash, his mother would finally notice him… and she didn’t even show up to congratulate him. He knew it wasn’t really his mother’s fault. He knew it was irrational to expect her to come to the graduation, but that empty seat…

He knew, truly, that nothing he could do would ever make her notice him...

Because nothing could bring back the dead.

The reception after the graduation - restricted, of course, to the Wonderbolts and their families - was in full swing. Or what passed for ‘full swing’ with the somewhat bittersweet mood.

Streamers were strung about the party venue and congratulatory balloon bouquets at every table. Bombastic decor in Wonderbolts yellow and blue adorned every inch of the walls, with a centrally framed posterboard with some of the best action-shots in the history of photography pinned to it. Even Pinkie Pie would have been impressed.

Rainbow Dash turned away from the buffet table with a daisy and spinach sandwich on her plate, drizzled with a bit of vinegar and a side of hay fries. It wasn’t the worst meal, but it wasn’t exactly health food - not that she had a pressing need to keep quite as fit as she’d been for the last several years.

Her parents, Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles, waved at her from across the room. Her mother’s mane had grown out so much that Dash barely recognized her since the last time she’d spent time with her parents. Windy’s mane was parted such that it framed her face… and hid a lot of her wrinkles. And her dress was an absolutely fabulous emerald green, with a signature flair that was almost certainly Rarity’s work - not that Rainbow had any sophisticated knowledge of fashion to describe it further.

Dash trotted across the room, pushing past Spitfire, who was talking animatedly with her mother, Stormy Flare.

“That’s my girl!” Bow said happily as Rainbow approached. The silver strands in his otherwise prismatic mane and the tailored suit he wore really gave him a look of elderly sophistication completely at odds with his personality. “You really put on a great show out there tonight!”

“Pfft,” Rainbow scoffed. “All of my shows are great!”

“Because you’re in them!” Windy cheered, raising her glass. “And we’re so proud of you!”

“Yes, to all of our great shows, and to many more for the Freshman class!” Soarin announced from the table behind her. A show of glasses raised all around them, followed by a cheer.

Rainbow smiled abashedly. “Thanks, mom and dad.” She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. “It’s a little weird, though.”

“What’s that?” Windy asked.

“Well, I’ve wanted to be a Wonderbolt my entire life. It’s all I ever dreamed of, and all I ever wanted. Now that I’m retiring… I really don’t know what to do anymore. I thought I might become a flight coach, like Uncle Blaze was for me, but I don’t know.”

Windy and Bow exchanged a knowing look. “Well, you could do that,” Bow said. “I think that would be a wonderful job. And it would make your mother so happy.”

“Oh, it would!” Windy announced. “With a job like that, you could settle down with a nice stallion and you can finally give us that grandfoal we’ve always wanted!”

Subdued giggles came from another table as Rainbow rolled her eyes. She couldn’t afford to have a foal; the impact it would have on her performances would--

She didn’t have time to raise a kid; she was too busy with--

Rainbow froze, a daisy hanging out of the corner of her mouth, as she realized that she did not have the two (very real) excuses that she’d always relied on. “Uh… I’m too old for that?” she squeaked.

“Nonsense, kiddo.” Her father laughed boisterously. “You’re only 43! Plenty of mares still have foals at your age.”

“Only the crazy ones,” Rainbow muttered under her breath.

“Well, I don’t know about plenty,” Windy added, jabbing her husband in the ribs with a hoof, “but it’s certainly not impossible.” Bow flinched, but his smile remained undeterred.

Rainbow pondered the idea. It wasn’t that she had never wanted to settle down and have kids - indeed, she didn’t want the awesomeness that was Rainbow Dash to end when she passed. But she’d never made it a priority before. And though she’d had no shortage of ponies asking her out, she’d literally never dated a stallion in her entire life. Fortunately, Zephyr Breeze had given her plenty of practice turning ponies down.

“Look, Rainbow,” Bow said, pointing across the room. “Why don’t you talk to that stallion sitting alone over there? He’s got the same mane as you, and prismatic manes are a recessive trait. Wouldn’t your kids just be the most awesome thing ever, looking just like their mom?”

Rainbow had to admit, having a foal that would be just as awesome as she was made the idea slightly more appealing than it otherwise might have been. She looked across to where he was pointing. The rainbow-maned graduate was sitting there, alone. Bay Singer, was it? He didn’t look comfortable at all.

“Go on,” Bow said, pushing her with a wing. “Give it a shot. Just walk up to him and… y’know… flirt a bit.”

“But I’m terrible at flirting!” Rainbow protested.

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Windy chastised her. “You have to start somewhere, and it is that time of year!”

Bay Singer nibbled idly on a piece of celery, staring at the rest of the food on his plate. His mind was swimming with questions he didn’t have answers for: Why had he come to the reception? If he was doing everything for his mother’s approval, why shouldn’t he just quit now that she was gone? And after all these years, he still had no idea why his mother was so obsessed with Rainbow Dash, anyway.

A shifting shadow out of the corner of his eye caught his attention and he looked up. Commander Dash was there, almost right in his face. The very last pony he wanted to see right now, much less speak to.

“Hey,” Rainbow said, waving a hoof dismissively. “My parents are really weird, and they’re making this uncomfortable for me, so… can we just chat for a few minutes?”

Bay grimaced. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

Rainbow laughed dryly. “It’s not, unfortunately.” She pulled out a chair and perched on it. “My parents are kinda forcing me to talk to you.”

“Your parents…?” Bay raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little old to be bossed around by them?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow shrugged. “They’re pushing me to find a coltfriend. Wanted me to come hit on you.”

Bay Singer’s face fell. His own reasons for disliking Rainbow Dash were entirely personal, but this was his first real interaction with her outside of the brief moment where he accepted his diploma just a couple of hours prior. She seemed so… dismissive of him. Apparently deeming him not even worthy of flirting with. But why? Did she have something against him? What had he done to deserve this strange torment?

“And you don’t want to flirt with me,” Bay said, bitterly. “Well, that’s no surprise. The top Wonderbolt is so stuck on herself that she can’t even flirt with a low-ranking member like me, but arrogant enough to come and make fun of me for it?”

Rainbow drew back, eyes widening. “Wh-what? No, that’s not it at all. I actually think you’re quite attractive, but…”

Bay Singer turned his head, his ear twitching. Had he heard her right? Rainbow Dash thought he was attractive? That was… unexpected. She could probably get any stallion in the world if she wanted, and yet she thought he was attractive?

“But?” he asked aloud, not really sure if he wanted to know the actual answer.

“Well, honestly, you looked pretty down,” Rainbow replied. “And maybe a little angry. And that’s pretty strange, considering that today is supposed to be a big day for you.” Rainbow knocked her hoof against the table a few times. “So, I don’t actually care what my parents want, really. I don’t have anything against you, I’m just bad at flirting. And I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

This mare was confusing. Bay Singer glared at her for a few moments. “Everything’s fine. I just hate you,” he finally muttered.

Rainbow seemed stunned by his response. Bay pointedly ignored her, returning to the food on his plate.

“I’m sorry,” Rainbow whispered.

... She’s what? Bay jerked his head up and stared at her again, this time with confusion. “Why?”

“Well, hate is a really strong emotion to get from somepony I’ve basically never met, so… either I’ve done something horrible to you and don’t even remember it, or... I… I don’t know. I’m not actually good at personal relationships, and I’ve been a pretty lousy pony in the past, so… whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

She had no idea. He knew she had no idea; his hatred was completely misplaced, and he knew it, but…

But… she deserved at least some context.

“My mom,” Bay said softly. “She died yesterday.”

Rainbow stopped, her mouth hanging open. Clearly she didn’t see the connection. Which was to be expected.

“Yeah, I know,” he continued. “She was your biggest fan, and would never stop talking about you. And just seeing you is reminding me of her all over again. So if you would just give me some space for, oh, I don’t know, a few forevers, I’d really appreciate that.”

“My biggest fan?” Rainbow repeated, absently.

Oh, right. Rainbow Dash had a reputation for her huge ego. And he’d just walked right into it. Bay sighed in resignation. “Yes, your biggest fan.”

“…Can we talk about her?”

“Why? So you can boost your already over-inflated ego? I’ve asked you to leave me alone.”

Rainbow balked. “No, I just… I just want to know. Who my biggest fan was.”

“Why?!” Bay exploded. “So you can rub it in my face that she’s dead? Piss off!”

Rainbow toppled out of her chair as he shouted, fluttering her wings into a hover. Ponies seated at tables all around them stopped their conversations and turned to look at the commotion.

“No! I just… sorry. I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m being selfish. I’ll go now. But… selfish or not…” Rainbow looked around, for the first time in many years feeling uncomfortable with the attention she was getting. “If you need to talk to somepony,” she said softly, “I would love to hear more about her.”

“Go away, Rainbow Dash,” he shouted.

Rainbow turned and quickly flew back the way she’d come. The conversation resumed, but Dash could hear some less-than-kind words said about her.

“That sounded like it went poorly,” Bow said as Rainbow took her seat at the table again.

“Yeah, he seems to hate me,” Rainbow replied. “Said his mom just died and that she was my biggest fan.”

Her mother fidgeted in her seat. “Who was his mom?”

Rainbow thought back on the conversation she’d just had. “Don’t know, he didn’t say.”

There was a momentary pause as Rainbow’s parents did that ‘wordless communication using just your eyes’ thing that some couples seemed to be able to do. Rainbow hated it when they did that.

“Well, that’s alright,” Bow said. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t get involved with him.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. That much was plainly obvious.

Bay Singer watched Rainbow Dash from a distance for the next half hour. She seemed… less excited than usual. Less chipper. The little voice inside his head - the one that was cruel and selfish - burst forth.

Good. Let her suffer.

He knew, logically, that she hadn’t ever done anything to hurt him, but the way his mother always fawned over her - ignoring him entirely in favor of attending all of her events, clipping all of her newspaper articles, gushing about her achievements to anypony in earshot and giving no attention whatsoever to his own accolades - it had left him with a bitterness that he’d always tried to quash.

And now that his mother was gone, he wanted Rainbow Dash to suffer.

...So why did he feel bad that he blew up at her like that?

Because it’s not fair to her.

The other little voice inside his head - the one that told him right from wrong - spoke up. And it was right; this wasn’t fair to Rainbow. She had even tried to help him. She didn’t deserve to suffer just because he had. He knew that, rationally, but his heart was filled with hatred for the mare who took his mother’s love away.

He also knew he needed to at least apologize to her. Maybe not right away, it could wait. She was with her parents now. But…

His thoughts were interrupted as her parents stood from the table, kissed Rainbow on the cheeks, and slowly made their way out of the reception hall. Rainbow continued to sit, staring at her plate.

Let her suffer more. Even her parents have abandoned her.

Go on. Talk to her.

Conflicting thoughts floated around inside of his mind. His heart was troubled. He needed to leave - that would be the only way he could get his mind off of it. He stood up, intent on making his way toward the exit, but that path would take him right past where she sat.

Admit your mistake and make amends!

Cuss her out when you leave!

The voices raged.

The plate refused to do any stunts, no matter how hard Rainbow Dash willed it. It was foolish, of course. She knew that, but it was keeping her mind occupied, instead of racing about how her ‘biggest fan’ was, apparently, dead?

The sound of clopping hooves approached, and Rainbow looked up to see Bay Singer trotting toward her. She looked down at her plate again. The hoofsteps continued past, but stopped a few paces away.

“Commander…” Rainbow looked up. “Look, I’m sorry, too,” he said. “You were just trying to cheer me up. I admit, I don’t like you, but I also don’t really know you, so…” his hooves shuffled around a bit. “Could you, maybe, stop by my house tomorrow? I think it would do me some good to talk about it. And then I can show you what I mean about my mom being your biggest fan.”

Rainbow smiled warmly. “I wouldn’t mind hanging out, even if we don’t talk about your mom. Sometimes just having somepony around helps after you lose somepony important to you.”

He nodded wordlessly, hesitated for a few moments, and then turned and walked away. Rainbow watched him go, all the way until he reached the door and his rainbow tail disappeared from sight.

Bay Singer buried his face in the couch cushion. Not because he was tired. He’d slept plenty, even if it wasn’t the best sleep he’d gotten. It was because he simply didn’t want to get off the couch and face the world - the one where Rainbow Dash would be coming to visit.

He shouldn’t have invited her. Or at least, he should have set an agreed upon time. Heck, maybe she wouldn’t even show up. He never told her where he lived.

But Rainbow Dash could find her. If you lived in Ponyville, Pinkie Pie - the crazy pink mare over at Sugarcube Corner - would be able to find you. And everypony knew that if you wanted to find someone, Pinkie would tell you how. And Rainbow was supposedly friends with the batty mare.

There was a knocking on the door. Great. She was here.

Bay Singer groaned and shoved his head under the cushion. Maybe she would go away if he just ignored the door.

Another knock. “Bay Singer? It’s me, Rainbow Dash. I know you’re in there.”

Bay Singer let out a deep sigh and fluttered off the couch.

You could just tell her to go away. You don’t need to let her in.

She doesn’t deserve to be ignored, you know…

The voices in Bay’s head continued to argue as he floated toward the door. His hoof rested on the door knob. It was now or never.

And since he had made the mistake of feeding her ego, she probably wasn’t going to take ‘never’ for an answer.

The door swung open and Bay Singer stood in the doorway. This was the first time since the stage that they’d both been standing on even ground, and she’d been slightly busy then. Now she had the opportunity to look him over.

Rainbow was short, even for a mare, so, like most stallions, he stood quite a bit taller than her. She looked up to meet his eyes, where his disheveled mane betrayed the fact that he had probably just rolled out of bed. He had a prominent jawline and a squared muzzle that reminded her a lot of her dad.

And while Rainbow had never looked at her dad in a sexual light, she’d always been attracted to ponies who shared his features. Rainbow could remember Twilight once explained to Flurry Heart why the filly found white stallions with blue manes so attractive. Genetic attraction, she’d called it. It certainly seemed to apply to Bay Singer: now that she had time to look him over, he was pretty good looking, but he also resembled her dad in a lot of ways.

“Hey,” she said. “I know I’m probably a little early.”

“Not really,” he muttered. “You, uh…” He fidgeted for a moment. “You can come in.” He turned aside and ushered her into his home.

Rainbow stepped across the threshold, and immediately stopped. There were many things her attention could have been on - the dilapidated couch, the coffee table that barely seemed to be standing, the badly stained rug with a half-dozen holes in it…

But it was the walls that held her eye. Every last tiny fleck of wall space was covered with posters, newspaper clippings, and photographs. All of them of Rainbow herself. Everywhere she looked, it was like she had stepped into a shrine toward herself.

“What in Equestria…” Dash mumbled, looking about the room. She had not expected to see anything that would put her parents’ fandom to shame, and yet...

“I told you. My mom was your biggest fan.”

“Yeah…”

Rainbow leaned in close to read one of the articles - one attached to a remarkably young photo of herself. It was from a school newspaper in Cloudsdale, and it was about one of her first victories in the Best Young Fliers competition. She must have been really dedicated to have tracked this one down.

“I don’t have much in the way of food,” Bay said, “But there’s some cereal in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”

“Mhmm…” Dash hummed, continuing to walk slowly around the perimeter of the living room, marvelling at the collection. “You weren’t kidding about your mom.”

“She’s always followed your career with great interest,” Bay replied. “Been doing it since before I was ever even born.”

Rainbow looked at Bay, who was chewing on some bran flakes at the kitchen table and watching her wander about. “Before you were even born? Just how old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

Rainbow paused. “That’s… long before I was ever a Wonderbolt.” Why would Bay’s mother have taken interest in a nopony?

“Believe me, I know. I remember when you got into the Reserves. She was so excited, she wouldn’t shut up.”

Rainbow nodded.

“You know how excited she got when I qualified for the Reserves?” he continued. “Not at all.”

It reminded her of her own parents. How she’d felt smothered by their affections constantly. As much as she’d hated that, at least they cared. But if they had been so obsessed with anypony else that they’d ignored her...

Ouch. Rainbow’s shoulders slumped. It was hard to even imagine how tough that must have been for him. She turned away from the all-encompassing shrine and hovered over to the kitchen table, picking up the bowl of bran flakes he’d poured for her.

“I’m sorry, Bay. I had no idea. You didn’t deserve that.”

His hoof was tensed up like he wanted to punch somepony, shaking. “No, I didn’t. But she never paid any attention to me, no matter how hard I tried. I thought… I thought if I could be more like you… If I could just be a Wonderbolt…”

He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. Rainbow set aside the bowl and grasped his shaking hoof in her own. “Bay…” She gazed into his flooding eyes.

Tears fell down his cheeks as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I hated you,” he whispered.

“Hated?” That was past-tense.

He nodded, opening his eyes again. “I really did. But now that I’ve started talking to you… you’re just…” He looked up at the ceiling, trailing off as he sniffled.

“It’s okay if you hate me,” Rainbow said softly, looking around again. Even the kitchen was adorned with Rainbow Dash newspaper clippings and a full-size ‘Best of the Wonderbolts’ poster on the fridge. She nodded sadly and squeezed his hoof. “I would probably have hated me too.”

He choked down a sob. “She’s gone. She’ll never see me as a Wonderbolt. Like you…”

Rainbow Dash embraced Bay Singer. “It’ll be okay. I...”

Bay put a hoof on her shoulder and pushed her away gently. “These chairs are...”

A quick glance showed that the chairs at the kitchen table were practically falling apart. Rainbow nodded. But she was still going to try and give him a hug - the poor stallion really needed one.

She looked back toward the living room. The couch was dilapidated and ratty, but it seemed like it would hold up under two ponies’ weight.

With a soft smile, she fluttered toward the living room, taking her bran flakes with her, and motioning for him to follow.

Bay sniffled as Rainbow settled herself onto the couch with her cereal, and patted the couch cushion next to her.

Why was she being so nice?

He walked over to the couch, taking a seat on the opposite end. She grabbed his hoof and pulled him close for a hug. It was warm, comforting, and entirely foreign.

“Why are you so nice to me?” he wondered softly.

“Because everypony deserves to be treated with kindness,” Rainbow replied, squeezing him tight. “And even if it wasn’t intended, you suffered because of me. And I’m sorry for that.”

Never in his life had Bay Singer ever been quite so intimate with a mare. Even his own mother had never held him close like this. It made him feel… safe. He buried his muzzle into the small mare’s fur.

“You’re making it hard to hate you,” he mumbled into her chest.

“It’s okay,” Rainbow said soothingly. “It’s okay, you don’t have to.” He felt one of her hooves stroking his mane as she whispered reassurances.

This was what he’d wanted. Not from Rainbow Dash, but from his mother: to be embraced. To be more than just ‘the worthless kid’. He curled up into her embrace, careful not to smother the small mare, but not wanting her to let go. His eyes opened for a moment, and saw two small mounds of flesh just a few inches from his muzzle.

Those were teats.

His breathing stopped. Not once in his life had he ever been so close to a mare’s teats. She continued stroking his mane, oblivious to his new predicament.

“Everything will be okay,” Rainbow softly said. “You can hate me if you want, but I’m here to talk if you need it.”

As she spoke, she adjusted her posture. Her teats shifted and danced ever-so-slightly with the movement. It was mesmerizing. He knew this wasn’t appropriate; he needed to pull away, before he…

Rainbow Dash held Bay Singer close, the same way her mother had always comforted her as a filly. It wasn’t the most natural thing for her to do, but he seemed like he needed it. And his mother wasn’t here to do it for him.

It was a little awkward, mostly because of his size and the relatively small couch, but there was something about doing this that felt… right. Was it her motherly instincts kicking in?

You could settle down with a nice stallion and you can finally give us that grandfoal we’ve always wanted!

Her mind wandered back to the conversation she’d shared with her parents just the day before. Would she make a good mother?

She glanced down as Bay seemed to be trying to sit up and create some distance between them. Perhaps she’d smothered him a bit too much. She raised her hooves and allowed him to sit up, which he did - rather quickly. Bay Singer’s head was turned away from her, probably to hide his tears as he got comfortable.

But her attention was drawn to the semi-erect stallionhood between his legs. Was he… because of her?

Wouldn’t your kids just be the most awesome thing ever, looking just like their mom?

Her father’s words floated to her mind, entirely unbidden.

You’re only 43! Plenty of mares still have foals at your age.

“Only the crazy ones,” Dash muttered under her breath, still transfixed on Bay’s half-chub.

You have to start somewhere, and it is that time of year!

Her reputation hadn’t been built on sanity.

Apologies

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Bay Singer tried to stop thinking about Rainbow’s teats, but it was impossible. He closed his eyes and all he could see was her teats. He opened his eyes and no matter where he looked, everything in the house was Rainbow Dash.

And now that he was looking at all of those pictures, he realized how often the media tried to catch her in sexy poses. His eyes flicked from one picture to the next, desperately trying to find one that would help shoo away the perky-nippled flesh seared into his mind’s eye only moments before.

There had to be something, somewhere. Anything at all that wasn’t Rainbow Dash. His eyes flitted across a particularly saucy image of Rainbow in her flight suit, the nipples just barely visible through the thin fabric - that was the wrong one to focus on!

Rainbow muttered something he couldn’t make out, he risked a glance down at her - she was now leaning toward him, and she was staring…

He looked down at himself, and realized he was sporting a massive erection that was standing straight up in front of her, and she...

“I’m sorry,” he blurted, covering his erection with his forelegs. “Sorry.”

Rainbow looked up and leaned forward, placing a hoof on his foreleg. “No, it’s okay. It’s normal for stallions to get erections.” And she smiled. “Especially around attractive mares.”

Bay swallowed thickly, and nodded. Now that they were in this predicament, he couldn’t look away. Thankfully, her leaning forward had taken the clear view of her teats away. He tried not to let his eyes roam, or else she might think he was trying to ogle her, focusing instead on her eyes.

And they were… alluring. Beautiful. He swallowed again. “You… you are a lot prettier than I thought you would be.”

Rainbow squinted at him, cocking her head to the side. She gestured around the room. “How could you not know?”

“Your…” teats. “Eyes. They’re really pretty.”

She stopped, a twitch at the corner of her mouth. “My eyes?”

He nodded quickly. “The cameras don’t capture…them very well,” he squeaked.

Rainbow sat up taller and tilted her head, locking eyes with his. He found himself getting lost in those beautiful, fuschia pools. “You have pretty eyes, too,” she replied.

Something brushed against his erection for a moment and he gasped.

Was that incidental contact?

Rainbow’s hoof came up to Bay’s face, brushing a hoofful of stray stranded of mane out of his face. “You shouldn’t hide them behind your mane,” she continued.

Another touch brushed across his private region. “O-o-okay,” he said, voice trembling. Was she doing this on purpose? Was he completely misunderstanding the situation?

Why are you doing this, Rainbow? she thought to herself. There was a strange thrill in teasing the poor stallion in front of her.

It was so wrong, she knew that much. She’d barely even met him. But… he’d suffered so much for her success. He deserved something for that, right?

You’re just trying to justify this to yourself.

Her inner voice was calling her out on that. But she didn’t care. His eyes drew her in. His hesitant, innocent nature driving her just a little bit closer to something… primal. She dipped her wing down to tease a feather along his shaft for the third time.

“Rainbow…” Bay groaned, bracing a hoof weakly against her upper chest. “You’re touching…”

“I know,” she replied. “You don’t mind, do you?”

His mouth worked up and down silently. She caught his lips with her own, and kissed him, her tongue finding little resistance as she forced the kiss on him. She pulled away and he gasped for air.

One huff. Two. He looked back up at her. She smiled back at him.

“No,” he said. “No, I don’t mind, but…”

Rainbow kissed him again, gently on the lips this time, before slowly kissing down his chest. His body began to shake, as if he were vibrating.

“It’s okay to be nervous,” Rainbow said.

“Y-y-yeah, okay. I…” He stammered. “I…”

The flat head of his shaft was right before her eyes, a bead of pre-cum sitting right in the cleft on his opening. She wondered how it would taste, dipping her tongue into it.

She heard him draw in a quick breath as she began slowly licking across the broad end of his shaft. The flavor was almost non-existent, much to her surprise, but the texture was somehow sticky and slippery all at once.

There had been some expectation, deep in her mind, that it would have been disgusting. But it wasn’t bad at all. And with that, something inside of her begged her to continue.

“Oh, stars,” Bay mumbled above her. “R-rainbow, I’ve never…” Rainbow stopped lapping at his shaft and looked up at him quizzically. “Never done this before!” he blurted.

“Do you want me to stop?”

He stared at her for several moments, shook his head, and then stopped and glanced behind her. “What about you?”

Rainbow glanced back as well - her wings were stiff, and her tail was flagged almost painfully high. Rainbow could feel her dripping arousal. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation: she’d had a light fling with Applejack some years ago, though it had been cut short by an interruption. She certainly knew there was a way he could return the favor. All it would take is a little bit of six and nine.

“Let’s get more comfortable?” she suggested, fluttering off the couch. “Lay down on your back.”

Bay nodded, sliding down until he was laying across the couch. Rainbow carefully hovered up over him, her wingbeats sending a light breeze through the room that ruffled the various newspaper articles stapled to the walls.

She settled on his chest, his engorged member sticking out right in front of her eyes. Mares always talked about their ability (or inability) to deepthroat a stallion. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? She didn’t have the experience to know if it was large, small, or somewhere in between, but with it sitting right in front of her, Rainbow couldn’t help but feel it was challenging her.

If there was one thing that Bay had definitely never experienced before, it was the scent of a horny mare whose arousal was sitting immediately in front of his face.

He’d seen smutty magazines before. He knew, at least, in theory, what he was supposed to do. But he had no idea how to begin.

Before he could even try, a soft warmth enveloped the tip of his shaft. Every neuron from his cock to his brain fired off a shuddering celebration of some unknown achievement. A heavenly sensation that he’d never felt before, not even in his most incredible masturbation sessions, rocked his world. His breath hitched, letting out a groan right into Rainbow’s nether regions. He never wanted her to stop.

But the honeyed nectar before him called out his name. As he inhaled after his groan, a sweet aroma assailed his nostrils, awakening something more primal inside of him.

Though he had no idea how to go about pleasuring her, he had to try. His tongue reached forward, touching ever so slightly against the engorged flesh of her labia.

The sensations down below stopped for a moment as Rainbow briefly mewled in pleasure. He withdrew his tongue and, after a moment, the warm wetness on his cock went further down: no longer just the tip, but all the way to his medial ring. He inhaled sharply a second time, and again the sweet smell in front of him suffused his sinuses.

This time, he went in with significantly more confidence. His tongue darted forward, slathering along the lips of her quivering pussy - a slick, tangy flavor bursting on his tongue. Her gagged vocalization around his cock told him that he was doing something right as he went in for a third lick.

A wet bead of arousal shot forth from her winking clit as he continued to tongue at her folds, her desperate moaning around his shaft encouraging him to press deeper. He raised his hooves, one to rub at her clit, and the other to fondle her teats.

He wasn’t sure if he was even doing it right, but she began grinding back against his face, so it seemed she was enjoying it quite a bit, gyrating and flexing her toned ass back into his face, pressing against his muzzle until his snout popped between her folds.

His tongue snaked forward, but quickly encountered resistance. Unsure what he had found, he began lapping at it. Dash squealed and squirmed, going deeper still onto his shaft. Despite the immense pleasure down below, he was so entranced by pleasuring her that he was nearly oblivious to the precipice he was rapidly approaching down below.

Dash pulled up off the fleshy meat of Bay’s dick, holding just the tip in her mouth and catching her breath. It turned out that deepthroating a stallion was significantly more work than she’d thought. Even with all of her breathing exercises, she was running out of willpower to continue.

She looked down at the last quarter of Bay’s cock, covered in the spit and saliva she’d drooled from her maw and mixed with a generous serving of precum, yet that last bit had yet to be consumed by her lips. And she wouldn’t give up until she had taken it.

Her nether lips parted and Bay’s explorations began to move deeper than just the surface level they’d been before. She’d never done a lot of her own exploration down there, for fear she would hurt herself - he was in unexplored territory.

She might have stopped him, but she was far too horny to try. It felt absolutely incredible. She cried out around his dick, shoving herself harshly against his face, and taking a deep breath. She could feel him tense and moan into her tunnel as he continued to lap all around her sacred flower.

Her lips closed around his medial ring, popping it in and out of her mouth as he whined and started bucking his hips against her face. It was time to go deeper.

The engorged tip of his cock reached the back of her throat, and she inhaled deeply once more - her last chance before her airway would once again be blocked - and pressed further onward. The medial ring slid slowly along her tongue, finally blocking the entrance to her throat.

She could see that there was only a tiny bit of his cock left to go, but his ring would have to go even deeper. She tried to ready herself for another push, but something hot and wet latched onto her clit, sending a screaming shock of pleasure of her spine. Her muscles seized and her entire body began to quiver and shake uncontrollably.

Something was happening - something was coming out, gushing all over Bay, as if she’d peed all over his face. And she didn’t care, either. Was that what an orgasm was like? No wonder Rarity was always so excited about her suitors. She hoped Bay didn’t mind being soaked like that, because that had been amazing.

She was forced out of her orgasmic high by her body’s insistence that she needed air. She tried to pull off of Bay Singer’s turgid cock, but his cock had begun to throb violently within her esophagus, his flare expanding and trapping his member in her windpipe.

Almost instinctively, she began swallowing. Something was definitely coming out of his cock, and she needed to swallow it down and get him out before she passed out.

It seemed like the world was fading around her as she tried desperately to pull off of him, until finally, with a pop, his member sprang free from its confines and Dash gasped for air, choking and coughing up a mix of spit and semen. She rolled off of him and slammed into the floor, bending her wing in a painfully awkward position as she gasped again with the shock.

Bay Singer panted heavily, right on the heels of the first orgasm he’d ever had that wasn’t from his own ministrations. Clopping off had nothing on the amazing experience he’d just had.

He didn’t care that the fur on his face was damp with… whatever Dash had done a few moments before. It was soaking into his skin, but any possible inconvenience could be forgiven in that moment.

Dash herself was panting and gasping for breath on the floor, idly teasing her own teats with a hoof. He looked down at her, and she looked back up.

He smiled awkwardly.

And she smiled back, with a huge beaming grin, still breathing hard, but forcing it through her nose. A small bubble of cum burst from one of her nostrils.

He nodded. “I, uh…” Why was he talking without figuring out what he wanted to say first?

“Still hate me?” Dash said, still gasping.

“N-no, actually. I…” What did he actually want? That… was more evident to him now than it had ever been. “I think I want you to flirt with me more.”

“Like… a date?”

“We might have already crossed a bit further than just a date?” Bay suggested.

Rainbow smiled. “I think I can work with that.”

Renovations

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Even the Luna-damned bathroom was covered in it, though the decor there consisted of more resilient things, like framed photos, and less newspaper clippings that would be ruined by the moisture.

Rainbow stood under the shower, almost surprised that it wasn’t somehow rigged up so the spigot was a bust of herself causing a storm cloud to rain bathwater.

… Or worse.

She shuddered at the thought, hoping Bay’s mother didn’t just have some weird kink or unrequited crush.

… Or both.

She shook her head, lathering up her mane with Prism Bolt’s End of the Rainbow Shampoo and Conditioner, a specialty product for ponies with multicolored manes. She had been momentarily surprised at the rather rare product, but even a cursory thought about the resident who lived here made it obvious why it was there.

The water rinsed away the lather, suds washing off the back wall with the bizarre, larger-than-life-sized mural of herself. It dwarfed her small frame, and even with her admittedly massive ego, she felt incredibly narcissistic just being in this shower. Bay had tried to warn her about it, but reality was so much worse than she’d imagined.

Rainbow scrubbed her nether bits with a washcloth instead, distracting herself with idle wonderment of why scrubbing it with a cloth felt so… clinical and unpleasant, compared to the incredible high she’d experienced just a few minutes prior.

When she was satisfied that she was sufficiently cleaned up after her impromptu Adventure in Groinland, she turned off the faucet and pushed aside the Rainbow Dash-themed shower curtain and pulled a towel off the towel rack. Mercifully, it was only rainbow-patterned, and not actually a Rainbow Dash commemorative towel. That one, Bay had explained, was not for drying off with.

Now dried off, she stepped out of the bathroom and into the hallway. A newspaper article right at eye level announced “NEW WONDERBOLT RESERVES SELECTED”. Dash quickly turned to ignore it.

The house had been fascinating to Rainbow at first, but the more she was in it, the more she realized that Bay Singer’s mother was, in fact, some sort of crazy mare who desperately had needed therapy. It was no longer amusing or thrilling or flattering. It was just… depressing.

Bay was standing in the room at the end of the hall, watching her. She trotted toward him, forcing a smile.

“Y’know, you look even hotter when you’re fresh out of the shower,” he said, grinning.

“Yeah…” Dash said morosely, peering past him.

The room beyond Bay was a small bedroom. Apart from the bed in the center of the room, a small brown dresser in the corner, and a tiny blue end table with a red knob, it was devoid of anything except the routine decorations all over the walls of the house.

“Yeah...” Bay said slowly. “This was her room.”

Rainbow Dash looked around the room, unable to formulate any words of encouragement.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” he continued. “I might just leave it like this.”

“Wait, you’re going to stay here?”

“Ha, I wish,” Bay Singer shrugged. “Once everything goes through probate, I won’t even own the place.”

Rainbow glared at him. “You aren’t bucking serious?” she yelled, angrily.

“Completely serious. She left everything to you.”

She shook her head incredulously. This was insane.

“But, y’know, I wasn’t planning on keeping it either way. Wonderbolt money is good money, and living closer to Canterlot saves a lot of time and effort, even if it’s a bit more expensive.”

The quality of life Rainbow had gained when she finally left Ponyville was staggering. “Yeah, that’s true.” She nodded her agreement.

“And it’s not like I have anypony I have to take care of. Living alone in a studio apartment won’t cost too much.”

Rainbow nodded again. “Yeah…” Unless… “Uhh… why not move in at my place?” The words slipped out before she’d stopped to consider them.

“Live with you?”

“I mean, y’know… until you can save up a bit and find a better place than a simple studio apartment.”

Bay Singer nodded slowly. “Okay, I’ll take it into consideration.”

There was a lot here that Bay still needed to deal with, though. “What are you going to do with all this stuff when you leave?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Rainbow had to admit, the building was practically falling apart. She didn’t really even want it, and it might be hard for her to find a buyer with how creepy the place was. But maybe she was being too hard on it.

“We could take everything down and box it up,” she suggested. “Then figure out if it’s worth remodelling.”

“And where would the boxes be put?”

Visions of her parents’ Museum of Dash came to mind. “Oh, I know a place.”

It felt a little strange to be walking around town with Rainbow Dash at his side. Ponyville was a small town, and the rumors would certainly start flying quickly.

Their destination was Davenport’s Quills and Sofas, a place Dash assured him had no shortage of spare boxes, but it seemed they were getting distracted at every turn by ponies who knew Rainbow Dash. Comparatively few ponies had stopped to chat with Bay Singer himself. And he was the one who lived here, not her.

Sometimes a pony would approach Rainbow, seemingly ignoring him. Every time it happened, a tiny bit of the old bitterness would come up, only to be quickly quashed every time Rainbow gleefully introduced him as her coltfriend.

Oh, how his opinion toward her had turned in just the span of the last 36 hours! Thinking about it too hard just made him feel shame for the way he’d treated her at first, but he tried not to dwell on it.

A pink and silver blur shot passed him and tackled Rainbow Dash to the ground in a ball of hyperactivity.

“Oh my gosh, Dashie, you didn’t tell me you had a coltfriend,” the mare shrieked. “How did you meet him? TELL ME EVERYTHING!”

“Hey, Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow said, a slight rosy blush on her cheeks. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it from you for long.” She gestured toward him. “This is Bay Singer.”

Bay raised his hoof and Pinkie Pie seized it, shaking wildly and nearly ripping his leg out of its socket. “Dashie, I already know his name. I know everypony in Ponyville. Congratulations, Bay, oh, sorry about your mom, but don’t you dare hurt my Dashie!”

When she finally stopped shouting and released his hoof, he rolled his shoulder a few times to make sure he hadn’t been injured. She continued speaking in a rapidfire manner with Rainbow before disappearing again in a cloud of confetti into the direction she’d come.

“And that’s why rumors move so fast around here,” Rainbow said with a sigh. “You okay?”

Bay grimaced, nursing his shoulder. “Just peachy.”

Rainbow pointed up at the sign they were just passing. Bay looked up. The Original Carousel Boutique. He had never been inside, but he knew it was something of a big brand.

“Another friend owns it,” Rainbow said.

“Rarity, right?” Bay asked. “From your Element of Harmony days.”

“Oh, right…” Rainbow trailed off. “Yeah, I guess your mom would know all about my friends, too. Please, don’t hate them.”

“I promise I won’t.” His ire had never been directed at them, anyway.

“Awesome.” She nodded and continued down Sugar Cube Lane.

Taking everything in Bay Singer’s house down and putting them into boxes was, to say the least, a strange experience for Rainbow. Every little newspaper clipping was like a tiny window into her own past. Many of them were from things she couldn’t even remember.

“Wow,” Rainbow said, poring over a page she’d taken off the wall. It was from a griffon’s school yearbook. The top half of the page showed a handful of griffons she’d never met, but the lower half featured a photo of herself and Gilda, back when they still were friends. The extremes that poor mare must have gone through to get her hooves on a griffon yearbook...

“Best Young Fliers, right?” Bay said over her shoulder. Rainbow jumped at the unexpected approach, her wings shooting outward and slapping her left wing against the wall. Ouch. Now both of her wings hurt.

“Yeah,” Rainbow replied, trying to ignore the stinging in her wings. “How did your mom even get some of this stuff?”

“She, uh… bought most of it.”

“Even the hard-to-find stuff?”

Bay shrugged. “If she had any other methods, I don’t know about them. As it was, we basically lived on welfare, so I don’t even understand how she got the little money we had.”

“Welfare?” Rainbow asked, confused. “I admit, I’m not surprised she couldn’t hold down a job with her… weird… problems… but no child support?”

He shook his head. “I have no idea who my dad was. If mom ever knew, she wouldn’t talk about him.”

Rainbow nodded slowly. “She wasn’t, like, a prostitute, was she?”

“Nah, she just… had… issues...” Tears were welling up in his eyes again.

“You loved her anyway, didn’t you?”

Bay’s lower lip stuck out and his face twisted up in a clear effort to not cry. Rainbow felt her heart breaking for him all over again as he fought with his tears. She stood up and pulled him against her, hugging his neck with her hooves.

Bay leaned into her, sitting down as he cried into the fur on her chest. Soon, heavy sobs that shook her entire self in a physical sense were cutting just as deeply into her emotionally. This stallion had been hurt. This stallion had been so desperate for love, from the one pony that should have loved him more than any other. And he had never known a love like that.

Rainbow was determined to show him. Everypony deserved to be loved - that was the fundamental part of herself - of loyalty itself. She would love him until he was so overwhelmed with love that he couldn’t contain any more of it.

But, for now, she would love him quietly, holding him close like a mother would. And she let him cry.

It was getting late. Without Twilight’s sunlight pouring through the windows, the crappy lamps scattered throughout Bay Singer’s home were no longer sufficient to make out the news articles without bringing them to your face and squinting closely at them.

He couldn’t help but feel that in some ways, that was a blessing. Rainbow had spent an inordinate amount of time trying to read about herself in random clippings, but now her tired old eyes just wanted to rest so she was simply putting things away.

It was making the work go significantly faster. They had originally started with the bedroom, filling up an entire box and a half before just a few minutes ago declaring it finished. Rainbow had started on all the articles hanging in the hallway.

“Rainbow?” She perked up, looking over her shoulder at him. It was pretty cute. “Don’t you think you should get home? We can finish in the mo-” Damnit, there was practice in the morning. “Tomorrow evening. Come by for dinner?”

“No, thanks.” Rainbow said, waving her wing in a universal pegasus body language that meant ’I’m going to do what I want’. “I don’t want to come back tomorrow.”

“What?” Bay exclaimed, taken aback by her sudden dismissive attitude. It was so incredibly different from her attitude leading up to this moment. “Why not?”

Rainbow stood up and carefully stepped over the box that blocked the hallway between the two of them. “Because I can’t.”

“Why not?” Fear began gripping his heart.

“There’s a certain prerequisite that needs to be met before I can come back.”

“Um…”

“You see, Bay, coming back would require that I leave.”

“Uh…”

Wait. She wanted to stay the night? Where would she sleep? Share the couch…? The still… very… very soaked couch?

“We can’t.”

Dash stopped mid-stride, tilting her head inquisitively. “Why not?”

“There’s nowhere to sleep.”

Dash pointed at the bed. “Why not there?”

“That’s my mom’s bed. Too weird.”

She scowled. “What about y--” Dash trailed off. “Wait, where’s your room?”

Here it comes. The judgement. “I never had one.” He hung his head in shame. “I slept on the couch.”

Rainbow planted her butt on the floor. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Bay nodded.

“Your entire life?”

“As long as I can remember.”

Dash went silent. Bay didn’t know what else to say, so the silence dragged on for quite a while.

“I’m gonna blow it up,” she suddenly blurted.

“You’re what?”

“The whole place. As soon as I own it,” she clarified.

“What do you mean, ‘blow it up’?”

“Low-altitude Rainboom. I used to help the Apple family knock down old farm buildings with it. This place likely isn’t any more sturdy than they were.”

“And where will I live?”

“My place,” she said matter-of-factly. “You don’t have any attachment to this place, right? I’m going to own it after you lose it anyway, right?”

Bay looked around him. The thought of losing it all was… strangely relieving. The whole place was just a shrine to his own anxieties, and getting rid of it would be... perfect? Except...

“I only want to keep one thing,” Bay replied.

Rainbow tilted her head. “What’s that?”

It was dark and pouring down rain by the time Rainbow and Bay Singer reached her old cloudhouse on the other side of Ponyville. Despite the short distance, it had been one of the most grueling flights of Rainbow’s life and her wings were screaming in pain as they forced their way into the mercifully dry abode.

The barren room made of clouds lacked any decorations whatsoever - just a square, light-grey featureless cube of fog. “Are you sure this is cloudsafe?” Rainbow barely managed to say.

“It is,” Bay Singer confirmed.

I hope you’re right. Rainbow dropped her end of the couch unceremoniously, desperately gasping for air in a decidedly un-awesome way. Bay seemed none the worse for wear, a clear testament to his strength and endurance.

“Why…” Rainbow huffed, throwing her hooves up in the air and glaring at the sofa. “In Tartarus… did you want… to keep this?”

“I don’t sleep well on beds,” Bay replied, seemingly unfazed by her agitation. That… that made sense, to be fair. Rainbow didn’t like it, but it made sense. “And also because I never want to forget when I lost my virginity on it.”

That wasn’t sex! Rainbow spun on him, her soaking wet tail slapping against her cutie mark. “I sucked your dick. You ate me out. That’s not sex, alright?” Her continued panting was certainly not helping her death stare with its intended effect, as he seemed utterly unfazed by it.

“It’s oral sex,” he replied defensively. “It counts.”

“Oh goddess, you and Twilight both…” Rainbow grumbled, trying not to remember the argument when she and Applejack had been experimenting and Twilight walked in on them. She threw her hooves up in the air. “Look, I don’t even care.”

Truthfully, she cared a lot. She had wanted to give him her virginity - that something special just for him. And she’d decided he would be the first to have a chance to seed her womb. But here he was with his stupid ‘technicalities’, trying to minimize that gift.

“Still a virgin where it counts, okay?” she blurted.

Bay tilted his head. “Are… we still talking about me?”

Rainbow kicked the couch with her hoof. It rebounded effortlessly by not moving at all, and it only hurt her hoof. “Dumb furniture anyway.”

She glared at the couch again, and then turned away. “I need to dry off.” She stormed off to the bathroom where the sunwell could dry off her coat, only to remember that it was night time and no sunlight could reach her. She silently cursed Twilight for her punctuality and turned to leave, only to be blocked in the doorway by Bay Singer.

Rainbow stopped and inhaled deeply, letting it out slowly.

“Are you okay now?” Bay asked her.

“I’m fine,” Rainbow replied, completely not fine.

“Your wings are super-stiff,” he replied, reaching for one of her wings with a hoof and pressing against her sore wing muscles. “You carried the couch the whole way here like this?”

Rainbow tensed as he touched her sore wing, but melted almost immediately. “Yeah.” His massaging of her wing felt heavenly. “Yeah, I did.” She leaned into the massage, her stance growing increasingly unstable, before she finally had to step forward to catch herself from falling.

The tension in her wings was increasing, but now for totally different reasons. She nudged him out of the doorway with her head. “Come on, if you’re going to give me a massage, let me get comfortable first.”

Rainbow led him down the hall and into her old bedroom, where her old cloud bed was just as she’d left it years before. That was the nice thing about cloudhouses: they didn’t gather dust. It all just fell through.

She jumped up on the bed and splayed herself out like a six-pointed starfish-pony and just sighed. Cloud beds were something heavenly.

Bay climbed up right behind her, nudging her toward the head of the bed. She begrudgingly shuffled higher up on the bed and then felt a slight tickle on her thigh as he knelt behind her. After a moment, his hooves came down right at the base of her wings, gently kneading and massaging her sore flight muscles.

“Mmm…” Rainbow groaned. In this position, he could really put some weight behind it. She hadn’t had a wing massage like this in ages. His hooves simply pressed the stress and pain away. She slowly drew her forelegs in and laid her cheek down where they crossed, basking in the moment.

“You good?” Bay asked her, not letting up with his massage. “Do you need me to do anything different?”

“Nope,” Rainbow replied. “You just keep right on doing what you’re doing.”

Getting it Out

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Bay Singer leaned into Rainbow Dash, pressing just over the base of her wing and then letting his hoof slowly run down the length of it, easing up on the pressure as he went so as not to hurt her.

She was so incredibly tense, and though she definitely seemed to be loving the massage, the tension wasn’t going away.

“Mmm…” she hummed as he pressed down again. “Preen me?” That was an incredibly intimate request. He had never preened another pegasus before - that was something normally reserved for family.

He glanced down at her wing. It was not in a position for preening. “I… can’t do that unless you roll over.”

“Mmm…” she mewled again, carefully and slowly folding her wings. She seemed to cringe in discomfort as she rolled onto her back, and then released her wings out with a pomf as she sighed in relaxation.

Rainbow Dash was now fully exposed in front of him. Her tail was spread out, each rainbow thread, still shimmering with wetness against the cloudbed, flowed up to her dock not unlike a river of rainbow flowing upon the side of the most beautiful of mountains. Just above her dock, the little pucker of her asshole and the succulent lips of her sex.

Her teats, still perky from her toned body in spite of her age, stood proudly above the cleft between her legs. Her fur, still wet from the rain, shimmered in the light of the cloud lamps.

He traced her body further with his eyes. Her wings were spread out fully, broken and twisted feathers staining the beauty of her otherwise incredible wingspan. The tuft of thicker fur on her chest - right between her forelegs - where he’d rested his head against her embrace.

Her lithe neck, framed by the colorful drape of her mane. Her lips, parted slightly as she breathed in sultry, wispy breaths. And the black pools of her eyes, watching him, barely blinking as she slowly followed his every move.

“You’re beautiful, Dash,” Bay murmured.

Her lips closed as she smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

He smiled back, and then bent down to her left wing. Feathers brushed his nose as he grabbed one of the broken quills in his teeth, pulling with a sharp tug.

“Eeek,” Dash squeaked as the broken feather pulled loose from her flesh. “Mmm…” He nodded, setting the broken feather aside, and returning to her wing for a second.

Bay, like any other pegasi, knew all too well the brief pain-followed-by-relief of preening wings. His own wings felt like a mess, well beyond a need for a fair amount of preening of his own.

He pulled the second feather and Dash squeaked again. This one carried with it a trace amount of blood, but nothing out of the ordinary.

One feather after another came free from Rainbow’s wings, a few dozen in total. Each one took little time but the exercise as a whole left Dash and Bay in a prolonged state of blissful, electric energy.

Bay leaned in again, this time taking an out-of-place feather and placing it back where it belonged. Dash giggled softly at his touch. Bay pulled back and gazed into her eyes.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it just tickles a little bit,” Dash replied, blushing. “And I’m hornier than a herd of unicorns.”

He couldn’t argue. His erection had been pressing against the soft fur of her thighs the entire time, held in check only by Bay’s desire to do things right with Rainbow Dash.

But it would wait longer still as he leaned in again to her other wing, ordering her feathers in a brazenly sensual dance of tongue, teeth, and quill.

Finally, he reached the end of her other wing and sat up straight, his erection standing at attention before him. He ignored the protrusion, instead gazing upon Rainbow Dash’s small form again. Her head was back, her eyes closed. If not for her shallow breathing, the soft moans and the slight fidgeting of her legs he might think she was asleep.

He drank in her whole self with his eyes, a nearly perfect form now that her wings had been returned to a pristine state. Not even the legendary Celestia herself could hope to match this level of beauty. And, at least for now, she was his.

Rainbow had never felt so relaxed in her life. Bay could do anything he wanted to her at that moment, and she wouldn’t argue for even a moment. A part of her pointed out that it probably wasn’t true, but it was a very small part.

“Mmm,” she hummed to herself, completely relaxed. And horny. Which was the opposite of relaxed, but only in her wings. And tail. And… She really wanted to relax more.

She opened her eyes and glanced down. Bay was simply looking at her with a stricken expression, and she could see his erection standing up between her teats. Rainbow smiled.

“It’s okay, Bay. I want you,” she whispered.

He nodded dumbly and looked down. His hoof lifted and came to rest on her teat, stroking it softly. Rainbow gasped and leaned her head back as her nipple caved under his touch. Her legs pressed against the bed, trying to grind her breast into the frog of his hoof, desperately seeking more and firmer stimulation.

She felt his other hoof touch her sex, brushing lightly down and pressing gently inward. Something warm and soft slapped against her folds - an unfamiliar sensation that she was all too eager to learn more about. His warm meat sat upon her sex, rubbing insistently against her crevice.

The wetness between her legs was unfathomable. There was no doubt that she was ready to take him - to allow him to be the first ever to take her. “Please,” she whispered.

“Okay,” came a hesitant reply. Something pressed into her - a warm, thick sensation. The tip of his cock was inside, now. And it was moving upward, into the sanctuary within.

A strange pressure began to build, painfully. She knew what it was. She assumed he did, too. Rainbow chewed her lip, risking a glance down at herself. Bay had stopped pushing, looking hesitant.

“It’s okay, Bay. I’m a big girl,” she cooed. “I want you to experience this.” Rainbow wanted to experience it, too.

The pressure increased. Rainbow braced herself as he continued to press forward, and something inside of her gave way. And suddenly, something was deep inside of her - far deeper than anything had ever gone before. It hurt, but the pain was transient, numbed by sheer horniness and a desire to continue making love to this stallion.

And it was amazing. Her walls clamped down on the intruding member, filling her up in a way she’d never been filled before. Then he pulled back and it was like an empty void opened up in her soul, begging to be filled again.

He came forward again, this time digging even deeper into her garden. And he withdrew again. And then thrust deeply again.

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash vocalized softly with each thrust. “Oh!”

His pace began to increase, each thrust going ever so slightly deeper, until he seemed to hit something deep within her - yet a sensation she’d never felt before. And she loved everything. The tingling pleasure of his entry, alternating with the longing desire to be filled with each thrust, created a constantly renewing cycle of disappointment and pleasure, yet each disappointment only magnified the pleasure that followed.

Bay could scarcely believe what was happening. Rainbow Dash was impaled upon his cock, mewling and moaning in pleasure as he thrusted forward. And he was giving it to her.

She loves you. That’s why she’s doing this for you.

She only pities you. She doesn’t actually care for you.

The voices in his head still fought. He wanted to forget the bitterness and hatred in his heart. He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t let it take him again. But the conflict in his head was pervasive. And he feared the hate was winning.

You don’t deserve her.

He thrust into Rainbow Dash again, the vivid sensations of her sex convulsing around his turgid rod sending a thrill up his spine.

She’s only using you for her own pleasure.

He thrust again, and again.

All she cares about is her own ego.

Again. Again. Again.

“Ahhhh,” he screamed out into the air around him, animal instinct kicking in. Rainbow’s own utterances escalated as his frantic pounding increased.

I. Hate. Her. I. Hate. Her. I. Hate. Her. I. Hate. Her.

Each word in his mind was punctuated by a thrust into Rainbow’s depths.

HATE. HATE. HATE. HATE.

Bay Singer opened his eyes. There was a mare in front of him, flailing wildly. She reminded him so much of his mother. That cerulean blue coat… the rainbow hair. He absolutely hated his mother. And he was going to fuck the shit out of her.

Over.
And Over.
And Over, and Over.

Something was building. He knew what it was, but in his delirious rage, he didn’t have the presence of mind to care, and the increasing tension only added to his anger. He began slamming into her without any regard for her well-being.

Rainbow was drowning in endorphins as Bay continued to ravage her tiny body. His grunting had given away to silent utterances with each powerful thrust that battered against her hidden barrier.

And Rainbow was loving every bit of it. The feel of her pussy lips grasping at his shaft as he withdrew. The feeling of her walls parting again to accept his thrust again. The not-so-gentle knocking against her deepest barrier at the end of each stroke. Her winking clit, grinding against his shaft as he moved.

And he was getting more and more frantic. Rainbow knew what that meant: He was getting close. And so was she.

“Fuck.” His utterances were beginning to clear up, too. “Fucking, fuck, fuck.” Each thrust was accompanied by a profane outburst.

The constant sensation of his thrusting against her sensitive folds was finally proving to be too much. Her entire body seized as her vision flooded with hot, white pleasure. She could feel her body convulsing uncontrollably around the foreign invader, squeezing down and desperately trying to coax his finale out.

“Oh, Goddess!” she screamed. “Bay!” Something inside of her gushed forth, a dam breaking as her fluids burst around his intruding member. And suddenly, he slipped even deeper inside of her. The orgasm had been mind-shattering, but this? This was even more heavenly than she could imagine, even in her state of delirium.

“Oh, yes, Bay… Breed me, please,” Rainbow begged.

“FFFFFuck. Fuck. You. Fuck. You,” he continued straight on through, punctuating each thrust. “You. Don’t. Get. To. Have. More!

He froze up and something inside Rainbow began to pulse. A warmth, deeper inside of her core than she’d ever felt, began to radiate from within.

He began thrusting erratically again. “Augh. Fuck. You Mom,” he roared, and then collapsed on Rainbow, panting heavily, his thrusting finally stilled.

Rainbow was conflicted. Bay had clearly been going through something just now, but it had been absolutely incredible for her. She wasn’t sure if it was good, or not. She simply laid there in silence, wondering what had just happened inside the poor stallion’s mind.

“You won’t ruin any more lives,” Bay breathed. “No more. I’m free.”

And then, the tears started anew. Rainbow held him there against her chest as he sobbed, his shaft still hilted inside of her.

Documentation

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“I’m pregnant.”

Windy Whistles spat her drink across the table. “You’re what?! Oh my gosh, sweetie, that’s incredible!” The elder mare bounded straight over the table with a few flaps of her wings and tackled Rainbow to the ground. “Oh, I’m so excited!”

Rainbow Dash hugged her mother back, smiling at the expected reaction - and thankful that cloud floors were incredibly soft. Bow Hothoof laughed at the pair.

“How far along are you?!” Windy asked, nearly shouting in Rainbow’s ear with her excitement.

“About five months,” Rainbow confessed. Her baby bump was only barely visible - small enough that it could have been weight gain from her lack of physical training post-retirement - but that meant she couldn’t have hidden it much longer.

“What?” Windy released Rainbow Dash from her embrace, and sat back on her haunches, glaring at her daughter. “Five months, and I’m only just now finding out?”

“Yeah, why not?” Bow wondered.

“I’m sorry.” Rainbow looked back and forth between the two ponies who had brought her into this world. “But as much as I love you both, I really wanted to be sure this was real before I said anything to you.”

“How can you not be sure?” Windy complained. “You just pee on the stick!”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at her mother. There were two really big reasons: Not being ready to deal with her parents, and early term miscarriages. Or worse, both. “Remember Rarity?”

Rarity had had a miscarriage the same day she told her own parents about her foal. It would have killed Windy if the same had happened to Rainbow.

Windy released Rainbow and pushed herself up to her hooves. “Yes,” she said, soberly. “Yes, I do. I’m sorry, sweetie, I just… I hoped you would trust us more than that.”

“I do trust you, mom.” Mostly.

Bow Hothoof stood up from the dining room table. “Well, that’s incredible, Rainbow,” he said, stepping over to help her stand up. “Five months along already… wow. Do you know if it’s a colt or a filly? A pegasus, or something else?”

Rainbow nodded and sat back in her seat again. “It’s a pegasus filly.”

“And who’s the lucky stallion?” he continued. “Why haven’t we met him yet?”

Windy’s hoof shot to her mouth. “You aren’t just sleeping around, are you?” she gasped.

Rainbow chuckled softly to herself. “No, no, nothing like that,” she replied, shaking her head. “His name is Bay Singer and he’s really sweet. And you guys already kinda know of him. We got together because you made me talk to him, after all.”

“We did?” Bow asked, confused.

“I don’t remember introducing you to any stallions,” Windy agreed.

“Remember last year, at my retirement celebration? At the reception, there was a lonely stallion in the back corner.”

Windy looked across the table at Bow and then back to Rainbow. “Didn’t he hate you? He made a pretty big show of that.”

Rainbow shook her head. “Mhm. He did at first. But it was just misplaced anger. And now he knows just how awesome I am.”

“Awesome in bed, too, right?” Bow joked. Rainbow caught her mother’s death glare and nearly burst out laughing. “What?” he said defensively. “You can’t tell me that he knocked up my little girl because she’s a bad lay.”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business, dad,” Rainbow replied, still repressing her mirth. “But yes, I’m awesome at everything. I can’t believe you even had to ask.”

“So, when are you going to properly introduce us to him?” her mom asked.

Rainbow glanced out into the living room. Just outside the bay window she could see a pile of eight boxes was sitting near the front door. Bay’s little house in Ponyville had taken nine boxes to pack away all of Bay’s mother’s things, and Rainbow had followed through on her desire to demolish the place. They’d been living in Rainbow’s Ponyville cloudhouse ever since, but the boxes of stuff had never been taken to her parents’ as planned - until today.

Now Bay was hauling all of the boxes from the Cloudsdale anchor station, one-by-one, to her parents’ house. He had insisted that Rainbow not carry any of them in her condition, and that she should, instead, spend some time with her parents without him before things went crazy.

Her parents hadn’t yet noticed the boxes being left there, nor the pegasus dropping them off. That was to be expected, though. Rainbow was always the center of attention where her parents were concerned.

“He’s on his way here, actually,” Rainbow replied. “In fact, he’s very close to arriving.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to meet him!” Windy chirped. “Oh, oh my stars, we need to have a dinner celebration! My little girl’s having a little girl! Best grandfilly ever!” She darted toward the kitchen.

“He hates bran flakes,” Rainbow Dash called after her. “Just so you know.”

Bow trotted over and held out a hoof to Rainbow. “Here, let me help you.”

“Seriously, dad? I can stand on my own,” she replied. “I’m five months along, not disabled.”

He stepped back, blushing sheepishly. “Sorry, I… I never had to deal with y--” He stopped abruptly and turned away. “I just don’t remember how these things work, y’know?” He ran a hoof through his silvered mane.

“No?” Rainbow replied, confused.

“Yeah, I need to get a drink…” And he quickly disappeared into the kitchen. “It’s a celebration, after all!” he shouted.

Rainbow looked around the room. This was the house she’d been born and raised in, and it was still very much home to her, even if she hadn’t lived here in over two decades.

A glass case in the corner held many of Rainbow’s trophies. A family photo hung on the far wall, with Rainbow herself front and center. The same ‘Best of the Wonderbolts’ poster that had been on Bay’s refrigerator was on the back side of the front door.

Her parents weren’t far off from the strange obsessiveness of Bay’s own mother, they were just more moderated about it. And they at least had the excuse that it was their daughter and not some strange, disconnected pony.

A chill went down Rainbow’s spine and through her wings. The comparisons between Bay’s home and her parents’ home… that made her a little uneasy. Not for herself, but for how Bay might respond when he arrived.

A knocking sounded from the door. “I’ll get it,” Rainbow called out.

The clatter of dropped pans exploded from the kitchen as both of her parents burst into the living room and tried to, very nonchalantly, make themselves comfortable at the table.

Her parents were so weird.

Rainbow opened the door. “Hi, Bay!” she said cheerfully. He immediately scooped her into a hug. “Not here!” she whispered in his ear. “So not cool!”

“Hi, Dashie,” he said affectionately, ignoring her complaints. “How are things going?”

Rainbow pulled away from him and stepped aside, feeling a bit giddy that her parents would finally meet... “Mom, dad, this is the stallion I’m going to marry!”

The sound of silverware clattering against plates bothered Bay Singer a lot. He had lived a simple life and this kind of fancy meal was nothing like he was used to. Whatever happened to just eating with your hooves?

But even more than that, Bay wanted nothing more than to get out of this house. Rainbow’s parents seemed like ‘lite’ versions of his own mother, and watching them interact with each other was... unpleasant.

And while they seemed more like normal ponies when asking him questions directly, the questions they wanted to ask were oftentimes far more personal than he wanted to handle just then.

“So, you’re in the Wonderbolts, now?” Windy asked.

Bay nodded. “Yeah, third wing.” Nowhere close to Rainbow’s level of prestige, but he had time to get there.

“Hm. Well, you’ve got to start somewhere,” Bow said, laughing heartily. Bay wasn’t sure if the laughter was mocking or not, as Bow didn’t seem to take anything seriously. “So, how great is it to get to ogle all those hot mares in the locker room, eh?”

“Geez, Dad, why?!” Rainbow fussed.

“Well, I couldn’t have asked you when you were in the ‘Bolts,” he said defensively. “I mean, why would you have been checking out the mares? Only a stallion can appreciate a question like this.”

Rainbow was glaring at her father. Windy was glaring at her husband. Bow was staring at Bay, waiting patiently for an answer. Bay was not about to give an honest one.

“I don’t ogle the mares,” he lied. “I have Rainbow at home. Why would I need to?”

“Oh, sweetie,” Windy said, turning to him. “I know you’re trying to answer with the ‘right’ answers to impress Rainbow, but you don’t have to lie about it.”

Bay swallowed the lump in his throat. This was nothing like he’d expected this dinner to go.

“Dad,” Rainbow growled, slamming her hooves on the table and taking the pressure off of him with her outburst. “I can’t believe you.”

“What did I do? It was just a question.”

“Yes, but I checked out both the mares and the stallions all the time!” Rainbow turned to Bay, bringing all the pressure right back. “And you! Don’t try and pretend you haven’t been checking out Skylark and Silver. And if you really haven’t been, you need to start, cuz they’re--”

“Wait, wait, no,” Windy interjected. “Tell me more about these stallions. Is Soarin’ as well-hung as they say?”

Everything about this meeting was uncomfortable. Bay just wanted to curl up and die.

Nine boxes were now piled in the living room. Nine boxes that hadn’t yet been opened. Nine boxes that Rainbow Dash really never wanted to see again.

Bay stepped away as he set down the last one.

“So, these are…?” Windy tapped a box with her wing.

“For the museum,” Rainbow said, nodding.

“Oh, sweetie,” Windy cooed, ”We don’t need all of your things for the museum.”

“They’re, uh… not hers,” Bay said awkwardly. “They belonged to my late mother.”

“Oh, Bay…” Windy whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Rainbow looked over at her partner and smiled sadly. This probably was both hard for him and cathartic, all at once.

“Wow, this much?” Bow asked. He turned to Windy. “I… I guess we could add Bay’s stuff to the museum? I mean, if we’re going to immortalize everything about Rainbow’s life -” Rainbow could see Bay visibly growing more tense. “- then I guess it would make sense to have a bunch of stuff for her husband, too.”

She couldn’t let Bay take all of this himself. “Yeah… about that,” she responded, giving a small, fake laugh. “These… uh… these aren’t about Bay, heh.” She opened the nearest box, removing the top newspaper clipping and passing it to her mother. “See, everything here is about me.” She took a photograph and passed it to her father.

And waited. Bow scrutinized the picture. Windy’s eyes darted left and right, reading in silence.

Her father was the first to respond. “I don’t remember this photo at all. You must have been, what, eight years old in this picture…? Wow.”

Another moment of silence.

“This article is really old,” Windy added. “It talks about the time Rainbow and that griffon girl got ejected from the Best Young Fliers competition after starting a fight with a bully picking on Fluttershy.”

Hoops was an asshole. He had it coming. Rainbow smiled slightly at the memory.

“But why?” The article shook in Windy’s hoof as she asked the same question Rainbow had been wondering about for months now. “Rainbow wasn’t even a blip on anypony’s radar back then. Why would your mother have all these things?”

“I don’t know.” Bay shrugged. “We didn’t have a very good relationship. She never paid any attention to me, because she was all-in for Rainbow Dash, all of the time.”

Windy looked over at Bow, a pleading look in her eyes. Bow looked back, his mouth slowly falling open. He looked back at the picture in his hooves, which Rainbow noted were now also shaking.

A deeply unsettling feeling fell over her - this was not like her parents at all. Something was terribly wrong.

“Bay,” Windy said, seemingly having trouble controlling some stormy emotions. “This is very important. I really need to know… what…” She trailed off.

“What?” Bay asked, tilting his head.

“What…” Windy balked again.

“What was your mother’s name?” Bow blurted, finishing Windy’s question.

Bay Singer looked at Rainbow with pleading eyes. Rainbow looked back at him apologetically, concerned for whatever was going on, but uncertain herself.

“Her name was Firefly.”

Windy looked at Bow. Bow looked at Windy.

“I… “ Windy stood up quickly. “I’ll be right back.” She rushed out of the room.

Bow placed his head in his hooves and he let out a heavy sigh before looking up at the ceiling.

“What’s wrong, dad?” Rainbow asked meekly.

“Nothing’s wrong.” he said. “Or maybe everything’s wrong, I don’t know anymore.”

Windy tossed a heavy manila envelope in front of Rainbow with a resounding whap. Bay leaned forward to read the lettering on the front.

The Intertribal Center for Uniting Foals and Adoptive Parents

… An adoption agency? His stomach lurched, a sense of dread washing over him. Rainbow seemed distressed, too.

“...What?” Rainbow said incredulously. She looked up at her mother. “This is real?”

Windy nodded, eyes misting up as she turned away. Bow immediately wrapped her up in his hooves and held her close as she burst into tears.

“Rainbow, your mother…” Bow tried to explain. ”Well… your mother’s, uh… barren. She can’t have foals of her own.”

Rainbow took the envelope into her hooves, opened it, and slid the contents out onto the table. Pictures of her as a tiny filly, wrapping in Bay’s mother’s forelegs, were on several of the pages.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rainbow demanded. She was shaking in anger, and her rising fury could be heard in her voice. “Why didn’t I know?”

“Because we didn’t ever want you to think… The reasons that we always fawned over you, Rainbow. Even when you didn’t want us to... we always supported you so strongly.” Bow seemed to be lost in his own explanation. “We didn’t ever want you to think... That we didn’t… love you enough.”

A slowly dawning realization came over Bay, and he carefully slid the stacked pages apart, hoping that he wouldn’t find what he thought he would find. And if she truly was adopted, then it had to be here, somewhere...

Another page of legalese slid aside, and there it was.

Name: Rainbow Dash
Birth Mother: Firefly
Birth Father: Rainbow Blaze

Bay stared at the adoption certificate. The mare he was in love with was…

but that wasn’t…

it couldn’t…

Right?

But it all made far too much sense.

The reason for his mother’s own obsession: she loved Rainbow. Or, at least, the phantom of Rainbow that she had built up in her own mind. It didn’t make him feel any better about the way his mother had treated him, but at least it gave a little bit more perspective.

“My mom... Is her mom, too?”

Bow Hothoof turned away without answering, burying his face into Windy’s mane. Windy’s cries grew even louder.

Bay turned to them, stunned. “And you… you’re not her parents? You’re not even her biological dad?” Then he looked down at the small mare shuddering silent cries in his hooves. “And she’s, what, my… sister?”

“Half-sister,” Windy whispered, fighting against her tears. “At the very least.”

“But Blaze was my uncle!” Rainbow said, on the verge of hysterics. “My uncle! Not my dad!” Bay held her tighter, and looked over at Bow askingly.

Bow sighed. “It’s complicated. Rainbow Blaze was my brother. A flight coach for talented young fliers, like Rainbow and, I presume, yourself.” His gaze seemed to grow distant and unfocused.

“Firefly... your mom, I mean. She was one of my brother’s best students, but she was always a little bit… off. Always trying to push boundaries. Incredible talent, and she would do anything to get an edge.”

Bay nodded silently. Maybe that was where Rainbow got her competitive streak.

“In her senior year, she got banned from competing in a major event for using illegal magic. She wanted my brother to bail her out by taking the blame for her performance enhancing spells. Wanted him to lie and said he’d done it without her knowledge so that she could have a chance with the Wonderbolts. She used her body as leverage. And my brother didn’t have the willpower. He caved to her pressure.”

Bay nodded. None of this surprised him. “She was addicted to risky behavior for as long as I can remember. I don’t think she ever found out that I knew she was sleeping around for favors, but… it wasn’t hard to piece together.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Bow laughed a little bit. “Anyway, that’s how she got pregnant. She wasn’t mature enough to raise a filly, and Blaze was never married. He couldn’t afford to ruin his career if the truth was out.

“Blaze had plenty of evidence of her cheating in multiple events, and she had plenty of evidence he’d slept with her. They were at a stalemate, and they still didn’t know what to do about the pregnancy. Blaze came to us for help.

“We wanted to raise a child, but couldn’t have any of our own, so we worked out an agreement between all of us. It was pretty simple: She wouldn’t rat on him for taking advantage of her and he wouldn’t rat on her for her blatant cheating, allowing her to possibly pursue a further career once Rainbow was born and she’d worked the weight off.

In theory, nopony would try to screw anypony else’s life over it. Of course, our role in the agreement was that we would take the filly and raise her as if she were our own, and nopony would be the wiser.”

A sob came from Rainbow. Bay squeezed her reassuringly. “Then, Blaze…?” he wondered aloud. “Is he my father, too?”

Bow paused for a few moments, putting a hoof to his chin as he pondered the question. “I can’t really say, but it is possible. I know that Firefly badgered him to try and fight for custody of Rainbow Dash several times, and Blaze wasn’t exactly the best at impulse control.”

Yeah, that was another trait Rainbow had inherited...

“I believe she might have tried to use her body to lure him into an agreement again,” Bow continued. “But only they could have known for certain.”

“And where is Blaze now?”

“Dead,” Rainbow mumbled softly. “From a nasty crash.”

Bow nodded gravely. “And after the accident, we started receiving letters from fake attorneys, threatening us if we didn’t surrender Dash.”

“They didn’t stop,” Windy muttered, still wiping away snot and tears. “We had to have all of our mail forwarded to Bow’s parents, because we didn’t want Rainbow to see any of it.”

“But why?” Dash demanded, somewhere halfway between screaming and crying. “Why did you hide all of this from me?”

Windy recoiled at Rainbow’s outburst. “I’m sorry, sweetie. We should have told you, I know that now. But back then, we just didn’t want you to worry that you might be taken away from us!”

Rainbow wrapped her hooves around herself, curling into a ball.

“It got bad,” Bow continued. “Eventually, she was arrested and jailed for falsely impersonating a lawyer, extortion, and blackmail. She was given a suspended sentence of 20 years, on the condition that she never attempted to contact us or Rainbow Dash ever again. As far as I know, she hasn’t.”

His mother never tried to be a parent, really. She regularly left him home alone, not even telling him where she’d gone. He’d go to school without her prompting, if only because he didn’t want to be at home amongst his mother’s personal hell. After school, he would spend much of his free time simply flying around to kill time.

Even the policemares that escorted his mother home that night were sick of dealing with her, staying only long enough to ensure that she got inside the house. His mom didn’t move from where they’d shoved her, instead she collapsed on the floor and cried inconsolably for over an hour.

‘The police took Rainbow away from me!’ she would wail.

It had been one of the few times in Bay’s life that his mother had paid any attention to him, even if it was only to lament losing Rainbow Dash.

“I remember,” Bay murmured, shaking away the memory. “Her obsession only seemed to get worse from that day forward.”

“Sorry,” Bow replied. “I didn’t mean for it to hurt you, but…”

“I understand,” Bay nodded. “It was for Rainbow. And she’s worth it.”

It was dark outside. Wind howled past the house, rattling the window shutters and creating a bit of a draft that carried the cooler night air into the house. Silver moonlight filtered in through the windows.

The lights were off. The family sat around the living room. Rainbow lounged on the couch, her head resting on the arm of the sofa. Bay sat in a chair next to it, resting his own head softly on Rainbow’s. Windy and Bow sat together in a loveseat on the other side of the room. None of them had yet gone to bed, even though they knew they should.

Rainbow could make out the outlines of the boxes in the dim moonlight, all but one still unopened, still sitting on the floor in front of them.

Nopony spoke. So much had been said already.

Silent, even though there was still so much left to say.

The clock on the wall ticked the minutes away, the solitary sound acting as a quiet metronome that measured out the long hours of night. Rainbow wasn’t sure how long they’d been laying there. It could have been minutes, or hours. It made no difference.

The silence was broken as Bay began humming a tune; a strangely familiar lullaby.

Before she could even ask how Bay knew the tune, her father began to sing along, a rasping baritone that she would recognize anywhere.

Come, my child,
Come with me.
Come and find a world of wonder.

Come, my child,
Come with me.
Come embrace the storm and thunder.

It was the song her father always sang for her when she was feeling down as a filly. Tears filled Rainbow’s eyes as her mother’s beautiful soprano joined in on the chorus.

‘Cause Life’s a storm,
And Life is pain.
But Life’s the spring, the wind, the rain.

For all the seasons
Life ordains
And when the storms leave, sun remains

Bring your storm
Clouds to me
Come, my child,
I’ll stay with thee.

And Bay himself began to sing, a rich baritone that she’d never heard before.

Come, my child,
Come with me,
Even when your life seems colder

Come, my child,
Come with me,
Lay your burdens on my shoulder

Rainbow began to sing as well, her soft alto completing the ensemble. Her heart swelled as she imagined singing it to her own little filly someday.

‘Cause Life’s a storm,
And Life is pain.
But Life’s the spring, the wind, the rain.

For All the seasons
Life ordains
And when the storm leaves, sun remains

Come, my child
Don’t you fear
All the love you need is here

The chorus of voices faded away and a powerful sense of familial togetherness hung in the air. The connection Rainbow shared with her family in that moment was stronger than she’d ever felt.

And in that very moment, Rainbow made a decision.

“I’m pregnant,” Rainbow whispered. “And it’s my brother’s baby…” Her voice carried perfectly in the still air.

Bay laid his head on hers again. “We’ll raise her up right,” he replied. “Like any good parents would.” Rainbow smiled.

“You’re going to destroy your career,” Bow cautioned. “And Rainbow’s reputation will likely go down with it.”

There was a time, perhaps only hours ago, that Rainbow would have cared about such a thing. She had enough money tucked away to live comfortably for the rest of her life if she was careful.

But even if everypony in Equestria thought it was wrong, she didn’t. This was real. This was love.

Nothing would stop her from having this child. Nothing would stop her from raising this child. Nothing would stop her from loving this child. And nothing would stop her from marrying this stallion.

Nothing.

Bonding (Post-Contest Bonus Chapter)

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“Where did you learn that lullaby?”

Bay Singer did the best imitation of a shrug that he could muster as he lay with Rainbow Dash on her childhood bed. It was a good size for a teenage filly, but not so much an adult stallion and his mare. They were spooning more out of necessity than anything else, not that either of them would complain about it.

“My mom would sing it to herself sometimes. When she was stressed out. I think she wanted you to hear it.”

“My great-grandfather wrote that song,” Rainbow reminisced. “He wrote it for my grandmother, who passed it on to my father. But I’ve never found anypony else who knew it. It was a family thing.”

Bay hugged her close. “I am family,” he whispered in her ear. “If… If Blaze really was my dad… maybe he passed it to my mom somehow.”

Rainbow lay there in silence for several moments. “Your mom really was my biggest fan.”

Bay nodded. “I know. But I wish she hadn’t been.” Rainbow laughed - a very unnatural, bitter laugh and Bay couldn’t understand why. “What’s so funny?”

“I always said my mom was my biggest fan… I didn’t know how wrong I was. And somehow, I was still right.”

Bay frowned. “I understand what you’re getting at. This whole thing is just strange. I can’t believe you’re my sister.”

“And you’re my brother,” Rainbow replied simply. “And I love you.”

They snuggled into each other again.

“Hey, Bay?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m your sister… Don’t you feel like this is wrong?”

He hadn’t thought too hard about it. He’d already loved - and made love - to her so much that it barely even registered as a component of their relationship. Up until just a few hours ago, it hadn't been a component at all. “Seems completely irrelevant to me.”

“Yeah...” Rainbow tucked herself in closer into him. As she moved, her tail flicked, brushing against his sheathe. He didn’t know if it was intentional or not, but it had an effect.

Her head tilted back and she peered up at him, scowling. “Really? An erection? Now?” Probably not.

He smiled awkwardly. “I’m in bed with an attractive mare that I love dearly, and will be the mother of my foals. What do you expect?”

“My parents are just across the hall.”

“Technically, they’re not,” he reminded her. “Besides, your brother would probably see us going at it before they would.”

She blushed so fiercely that he could make it out even in the dim moonlight. “I don’t think that makes it any better.”

Despite his arousal, he made no move to continue. Neither did she.

“Foals, huh?” Rainbow mused. “You want more? Even knowing what we know now?”

It would never stop him. He loved her. “I told you, Dashie,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “It’s irrelevant. It wouldn’t matter if you were my own grandmother. ”

Rainbow grimaned. “Even if I was that old?”

“Well, you’re not that old. But I think I’d still love you and want to sire more children with you.”

“Grandma probably can’t have more kids.” Rainbow stretched out, forcing him to release her from his embrace. “It’s too bad, really.”

“Huh?”

“You’re talking about having more foals, but we have to wait for the first before we make another,” she said, facing him as she curled back into his embrace again.

“Ah.”

Her hoof slowly curled its way up his chest. “Do you want to roleplay it anyway?”

Roleplay… making another foal? Oh.

Rainbow pressed herself firmly against Bay, his growing shaft nestled between her swelling teats. Her nipples rubbed against his thighs as she rocked against him, sending electric tingles up her spine. A damp heat radiated from her nether regions - a thirst that desperately needed to be quenched.

“I thought you didn’t want to risk your parents…?” Bay wondered.

She pressed against him harder, gyrating against him and rubbing her teats up and down his cock. “What parents?” she asked innocently. “I’m more concerned about my brother.” A little part of her hoped he would cum all over her belly, but the desire to be filled overpowered that by a significant margin.

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her small frame down and inward, increasing the pressure from his turgid stallionhood against the cleavage of her teats. The tip rubbed against the thin fur of her lower belly as he began slowly thrusting against her. A low moan of pleasure purred from his throat.

After a few thrusts, he looked down into her eyes. She smiled back up at him. “You mean the brother who is fucking your teats like a cheap whore?” he asked.

“No,” Rainbow shook her head, grinding her nipples into him. “I’m not a whore if I’m giving it away, brother.” It was so fun to tease him.

Bay frowned, lifting Rainbow up and away from his stallionhood, and then lowered the entrance to her honeypot against his oozing tip. “I think I’ll just have to fuck some sense into my slut sister, then.”

Oh Goddess, yes please!

His hooves pulled her down as his cockhead split her pussy in half, burying itself deep within her in a single thrust. “Ah!” Rainbow cried out. She leaned forward and tried to grasp him tight, but her hooves slipped against his feathered back.

“Such a cocktease,” Bay growled. “Stupid, sexy…Mmmfff.” He began moving his hips in earnest, and Rainbow gasped a little gasp with each of his thrusts. His medial ring touched her madly winking clit with each entry, a new sensation that was driving her completely wild.

He pulled back and slammed into her again deeply before stopping. She could feel the tip of his cock pressing against her cervix. “Hah…” she breathed, having a momentary respite from the onslaught of his love.

She didn’t have long to breathe, though, as he bent his neck down and seized her lips in his, his tongue exploring the depths of her maw. She wrestled his tongue with her own, pressing up into his kiss. This was perfect.

Her hooves moved to the back of his head, holding him down as their kiss became increasingly sloppy. He could no longer thrust effectively with this posture, but it didn’t stop her from grinding herself against him.

“I love you,” she whispered, breathless and gasping from the prolonged kiss. “I don’t care who sees us. I don’t care who hears us. Please, don’t leave me wanting, and just fuck me.”

He slowly pressed into her again, and another moan - still girly, but not from Rainbow - drifted on the air. Her parents must have started their own play. She idly wondered if her first few moans hadn’t started that, too.

The sound of Windy’s voice as Bay buried himself into Rainbow’s snatch set off a wild idea. He’d fucked her so hard that her mother felt it.

That thought was hotter than anything he could imagine. He stayed still for a moment, buried inside a mewling, desperate Rainbow Dash, and listened closely to the tempo across the hall.

And then he began slowly thrusting into her, trying to match his pace to the errant gasps and squeaks of Windy’s voice. Confident that he’d found the right rhythm, he began to thrust. No faster, no slower, but deeper and more forceful.

Rainbow’s squeals increased in volume, and soon both mares were singing an impromptu duet of blissful pleasure. She seemed to be really getting into it, too, as her canal squeezed down on him desperately every time he pulled back.

“Oh, my little girl’s voice is so hot,” Bow cried out across the hall. Bay couldn’t agree more as he continued thrusting away into the quivering mess that was Rainbow.

“Yes, fill me up Daddy!” Windy cried. Oh, goddess, yes.

The noise Rainbow made between her moans of pleasure was strangled and incoherent. He wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying, but she continued to thrust herself back against him.

“I’m coming!” Bow shouted. Bay was getting close too.

Fluid gushed around Bay’s cock as Rainbow squealed loudly, thrashing and convulsing against the bed. Random bursts of syllables escaped from her lips, clearly pleasurable but lacking any sense of coherence.

He buried himself inside of Rainbow, and his cock throbbed as he reached his peak inside her seizing pussy.

“Yes! Fill up my ass, Bow!”

Rainbow froze. Bay froze, too, still mid-climax.

“Oh, that was great, Windy...”

And then, still covered in their fluids, Bay collapsed onto Rainbow as they both devolved into a fit of giggles.

Proclamation

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Historically speaking, there was a well-regarded list of things one should never do at your wedding. Rainbow Dash didn’t necessarily claim to be familiar with all of them, but some of them were fairly intuitive, while others were rooted in superstition.

For example,

1) Don’t get knocked up before the wedding. If you do, get married before it’s obvious.

It makes the wedding look suspicious, or so they say. Rainbow didn’t care about that so much - everypony who mattered already knew she was pregnant anyway, though not necessarily the nature of her relationship with the father.

Which brings around another mantra.

2) Don’t marry your sibling.

Rainbow was already off to a great start.

Bay’s eyes travelled slowly up the ever-so-slightly translucent white train of her dress, covering Rainbow’s colorful tail. As it reached her hips, the white lace turned to a form-fitting bodice that cupped her growing teats, accentuated her thighs, and left no question in anypony’s mind that she was expecting a child.

His gaze continued to move along her white form. White fur. A purple mane -- wait.

Rarity had stepped in front of him. “Out!” she shrieked. “Get out!”

Bay fell backward as Rarity’s horn ignited and shoved him out the door.

“I was just looking for the--”

The door slammed in his face.

“--bathroom.”

On the other side of the door, Rarity began wailing about the wedding being ruined. Bay shrugged it off. He still had to piss like the racehorse he was, and the erection he was dealing with wasn’t helping.

A catcall caught his attention. Windy was standing there with Bow, her own attention on the shaft that was standing at attention.

“Wow, son,” Bow said. “You’re really packing.”

“Rainbow sure is lucky,” Windy added.

He was rapidly learning that Rainbow’s parents were far from uptight or reserved about sexual subjects. This was no exception.

“Ah, haha…” he laughed nervously, trying to get back on his hooves. “Horseapples, I’ve really gotta pee.”

“That way,” Bow pointed toward the next hallway. “Third door on the right, can’t miss it.

3) Don’t let the groom see the bride in her dress before the ceremony begins.

“Rarity, calm down,” Rainbow yelled. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? Rainbow Dash, I did not make this wedding dress for you to buck tradition and brush this off as an inconvenience!”

“He just saw me in my dress, Rarity. It’s not that big of a deal. What’s the worst that can happen? It catches fire?”

“Don’t tempt me, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow paused, somewhat concerned by the crazed look in the fashionista’s eye. “What?”

“I said, ‘don’t tempt fate’, Rainbow.”

“I’m already tempting fate, Rarity. Have you forgotten that I’m marrying my brother?”

“Hmph,” Rarity huffed. “You are making a mockery of one of the most important ceremonies. Can you at least try to care? You’re getting married, for Celestia’s sake.”

No, she thought to herself. I’m getting married for my new family’s sake.

Bay sighed with much-needed relief. Perhaps without his bladder pressing on him, his erection would go away. He straightened his suit in the mirror, and stepped back out into the hall just in time to see Fluttershy passing by with her strange draconequus friend. She was lecturing him about what was and wasn’t appropriate behavior at a wedding

Once they had passed, Bay tracked down the nearest clock and checked the time. Only 45 minutes until the ceremony was set to begin - enough time for him to find a snack, and hustle back to the chapel to take his place.

The unborn filly was getting excited, too. Rainbow smiled as she felt the tiny life inside of her shifting around. That life was the true symbol of her love for Bay.

… And that life had just kicked her in the bladder.

“Rarity, I’ve got to pee!” Rainbow whined. “Like, really bad.”

Rarity pinned up another part of the dress, her hooves sparkling with the spell that allowed her to walk freely on Cloudsdale’s surface. “You will just have to hold it, Rainbow. There isn’t any time for that nonsense.”

Nonsense? She was going to ruin the dress at this rate.

“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Rarity cursed. “I need to go find another box of safety pins. Let me just…” Rarity tucked several pieces of fabric around Dash’s waistline and pinned them in place. “There. Now, don’t move.”

No way, Rainbow thought to herself. There’s no way I can ignore this.

She trotted over to the door, pushing it open and peering both ways down the hallway, just in time to see Rarity disappear around the corner. Nopony else was around.

If I’m quick, I’ll be back before Rarity even knows I’m gone! Rainbow thought to herself. I can do this. I’m the fastest mare in Equestria!

She quickly trotted down the hall in the opposite direction from Rarity, peering around the next corner to ensure nopony would see her, and quickly scampering her way into the bathroom as she desperately tried to hold her dress in place.

Thankfully, nopony was in the filly’s room. She pushed the door to the toilet open and was confronted with another problem she hadn’t considered: getting the dress off so she wouldn’t pee on it.

And her bladder was not going to wait that long.

Bay had skipped breakfast in the rush to get everything prepared that morning, so a single apple wasn’t really sufficient to sate his stomach. Still, it was better than nothing.

He set off back toward the chapel. He needed to be in position in ten minutes, and he didn’t want to be late to his own wedding. But as he passed the bathroom, his ears picked up a sound: Somepony in the ladies room was crying. Hard.

Rarity, a few caterers, and the four ponies that made up the rest of the wedding party were the only ones who should be back in this section of the venue, and they were all busy. And the mare sounded dreadfully like Rainbow Dash herself. His very pregnant marefriend, Rainbow Dash.

A sinking feeling that something terrible happened washed over him. He pushed the door open a crack.

“Hello?” he called into the restroom. “Is everything okay in there?”

Though it took the mare several choked cries before she could speak, eventually a weak cry of “Bay?” came to his ears.

His fears were confirmed. His bride was in distress.

“Rainbow?” Bay said, pushing the door the rest of the way open. He could see under the stall where Rainbow was collapsed on the floor, her dress splayed haphazardly around her. He went over to the door and peered inside.

Her face was buried in her hooves, heavy sobs wracking her body. Her dress, once immaculately white, had stained yellow from around her private area. Parts of the dress were soaking up liquid from the floor, too. Only her veil was unharmed.

4) Don’t wet yourself in your wedding dress.

Everything was ruined. And it was all her fault.

Rainbow couldn’t control herself, ugly-crying into Bay’s chest as he held her there and whispered sweet nothings in her ear, but ultimately couldn’t come up with anything to say to fix the situation.

Crying like this wasn’t the awesome Rainbow Dash that she knew herself to be. She didn’t even like dressing up for special occasions, but this was more than just special: this was her wedding day. And while she was sure her pregnancy hormones were amplifying the sense of hopelessness and loss, she couldn’t stop herself from feeling worthless.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity’s voice came from the doorway. Her friend’s hooves clipped daintily across the tile floor of the bathroom before stopping just behind Bay. “Oh, my stars, Darling, I’m so sorry. I did not realize you needed to go so badly…”

“Uh… my suit, too,” Bay said softly. Rainbow looked down. His black and white tailored suit now sported an embarrassing yellow stain.

5) Don’t ruin your husband’s tux.

Rainbow looked up at her friend, feeling hot tears running down her cheeks. “I r-r-ruined it,” she wailed, barely able to speak. “I ruined my wedding!”

“Oh, no, no, Rainbow, don’t blame yourself. We’ll find a way to fix this…” Rarity suddenly brightened. “Oh, idea!”

Rainbow couldn’t stop keeping track of all the things that were going wrong. She was going to have the worst wedding ever, and it would be all her fault.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Rarity said, slowly lifting Rainbow’s veil from her eyes. “Listen to me. Both of you, go outside. I’ll provide a distraction.”

“And what do we do when we’re out there?” Bay asked. “How is that supposed to help?”

“You go out there, and you…” she trailed off, laughing to herself. “This is going to sound ridiculous, but just trust me.”

Rainbow wiped tears and snot from her face with a hoof, careful not to get any more of it on her dress. “Okay,” she said. “I trust you. You’re one of my best friends.”

“In a situation like this, I wouldn’t trust anypony more than you, Rarity” Bay said. “Just tell us what we need to do.”

“I need you to take her outside, find a private place, and just ravish her. Rip her dress off like you can’t even control yourself and take her like…” the image-conscious unicorn seemed to struggle for a good term. “Like…”

“Like an animal?” Bay suggested.

“Close enough,” Rarity nodded. “But here’s the trick: You need to get caught.”

Rainbow was so shocked by the absurdity that her crying ceased momentarily. “What?” she blurted.

“If there’s no scandal, ponies will expect the ceremony to go on as planned,” Rarity explained. “We can’t have that. The chaos will keep ponies distracted while I use my magic to quietly retrieve your ruined attire. Nopony will be the wiser.”

Rainbow hugged Bay as she listened to Rarity’s explanation. It was absolutely insane. But it was the only truly good option she could even imagine.

“Okay,” she whispered. “We’ll do it.”

Bay Singer nodded. “Yeah. If other ponies see us… well… it’s just one more public performance, right?”

Just one more performance. Rainbow smiled.

Rarity’s scream echoed down the halls. Bay half-wondered what kind of crazy drama the seemingly drama-prone mare was manufacturing, but he didn’t have time to find out: that scream was his cue. He scooped Rainbow Dash into his hooves and flew down the hall toward the side exit.

Rainbow threw her hooves around him and held on tightly. “You know, I didn’t think you would be putting me in a bridal carry quite so early in the day. And I didn’t think you’d be flying a race, either.”

They crashed through the door, sending a roosting flock of birds scattering from the rooftop. With a powerful flap on his wings, he flew up to the edge of the rooftop and scanned the landscape around them. Cloudsdale didn’t exactly have the best landscape for ‘covert’ lovemaking.

“Don’t get too comfortable with it,” Bay said, spying the perfect place.

“What do you mean?” Rainbow replied, her mane blowing about as he bounded off the roof.

“This,” he said, throwing her into the huge fountain outside the front courtyard. Rainbow flailed about wildly in the shallow water as Bay grabbed parts of her dress and began ripping them off of her.

He tackled her down, and started tickling her with his wings. She fought him for a moment, but then burst out laughing.

Bay smiled. That was what he needed. A happy bride. A sad, crying Rainbow Dash would never put him in the mood for what he needed to do next. He tore away the thin fabric covering her teats and shoved his face down into them, motorboating between her teats. Rainbow’s laughter doubled.

6) Don’t run off for a quick rut before the ceremony.

His face was between her teats. Rainbow couldn’t see anypony, but she knew the splashing of the fountain would rapidly draw attention. From an outsider’s perspective, it might look like he was going down on her.

… And that thought was really turning her on.

“Bay,” she gasped. “Lower.”

He obliged, burying his muzzle into the cleft between her thighs. It was a strange experience, having him tounging at her slit while submerged in water. Exotic, but pleasurable.

“Yeees…” she hissed, leaning her head back. The water gave her a little bit of buoyancy, letting her enjoy a strange sense of calm as he explored with his tongue.

“Mmm…” Bay pulled his head up, gasping for air, and then took a deep breath before diving back down and suckling on her engorged clit.

Her world went white. Her body writhed in the water, completely beyond her control as she felt the rushing sensation of her own orgasm.

“Already, hon?” Bay asked, pulling his head up out of the water again.

“You know me,” Rainbow said, panting for breath. “Fastest mare in Equestria.”

He shook his head and smiled. “You must really be liking the attention,” he whispered.

Rainbow peered to the side. Bay hadn’t been kidding - a small group of perhaps a dozen ponies had already gathered.

“Yeah, we’re not alone,” he continued.

“Who cares?” Rainbow replied, not bothering to be quiet about it. “We’re here to celebrate our love, and I’ve always loved to put on a show. I want you to rut me. And I want them to watch.”

Bay fell back on his haunches, letting Rainbow out from underneath him. She stood to her hooves and bent down low, her head barely staying above water. She flipped her tail up, sending droplets of water into his face.

Right below her little pucker, her slit beckoned to him, the winking, pulsing mass of her clitoris begging for more. He’d been concerned about his ability to get aroused before they began, but that brazen invitation was all he needed.

Raring on his hind legs, Bay pushed himself up over her back, taking care not to harm her delicate wings, and pressed his arousal into her cavern.

Moments passed as he lay against her, savoring the strange moment. Two pegasi, rutting in a public fountain, and surrounded by onlookers - some of whom were showing visible signs of arousal themselves.

He shook his head, trying not to think too hard about it, lest the absurdity of it all take away his ability to focus. He needed to distract himself from the distractions.

And the best way to do that was to just start thrusting, which he began doing with gusto. Rainbow mewled a tuneless song with each stroke, her soft moans slowly turning into pleasured gasps.

She turned her head to face him, her lips desperately seeking his own. He leaned down to meet her, and their tongues danced together. He continued thrusting, her desperate clenching around his shaft milking him for everything it could.

And it was working. Rainbow continued to kiss him fervently. He continued to thrust into her until she reached a second orgasm.

“Bay!” she shrieked, her vaginal walls once again clamping down on his shaft. “Please, I need you to cum. I want nothing more than to be filled with you.”

And that was all it took. He howled like a wild animal, driving into her faster, deeper, racing toward a precipice of carnal satisfaction that only breeding a mare could do.

“Rainbow!” he cried out, feeling something inside of his tighten up and his entire self beginning to tremble. “I’m cumming!

His muscles went taut, every fiber of his being dedicated to the task of inseminating the mare beneath him. And then, he went slack. His body crashed heavily onto Rainbow’s back, and slid sideways into the fountain.

Water filled his lungs almost immediately, forcing him to roll over. Rainbow snuggled up to his side.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

A shadow passed over Rainbow and she opened her eyes to see Princess Cadance standing over them. She tapped Bay on the shoulder, and his head jerked up to look before rolling off of her. They both sat up, still seated in a fountain that was far less full than it was before they began.

“I was wondering where you two were.” Cadance said, smiling. “You’re tardy.”

7) Don’t be late to your own wedding.

Rainbow looked at her groom, both of them soaked from mane to tail. Not to mention thoroughly satisfied. Who cares about silly superficial things like rules, she decided. This was the best ceremony ever, and nopony could ever convince her otherwise.

“And you’re certainly having fun,” Cadance continued. “But I think we have a wedding to perform.”

Rainbow Dash blushed. “Sorry, Princess. We kinda got carried away.”

A thunderous laughter erupted in the sky around them and Rainbow Dash looked around to see hundreds of ponies around them - ponies on the ground, ponies in the air - dozens upon dozens of ponies who must have been witness to most everything they’d just done.

And, as if nothing strange had happened at all, Princess Cadance launched into a routinely rehearsed script, performing the ceremony right there, with two waterlogged lovers sitting side by side in a Cloudsdale fountain.

The congregated ponies cheered and celebrated as Cadance delivered an impassioned speech about love and togetherness, and the importance of family. And, as per Rainbow’s own request - not shying away from their familial connection.

Cadance looked at Bay. Bay nodded, and Cadance plucked a primary feather from each of his wings with her magic. Rainbow winced as she received the same treatment.

And then, Cadance came to the big question.

Rainbow’s feathers were held aloft in front of Bay. “Do you, Bay Singer,” Cadance recited. “Take this mare to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Bay stepped forward and accepted the offered feathers, and tucked one feather among the primaries of each of his wings. “I will love my sister, now and forevermore,” Bay said. “And I will carry her love with me, wherever I may fly, until death takes my wings away.”

Cadance turned to Rainbow and offered Bay’s feathers to her. “And you, Rainbow Dash. Do you take this stallion to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Rainbow accepted the feathers, and placed them among her own in the same way Bay had done.

“I do,” Rainbow shouted, the water dripping from her mane masking tears of joy. “I love him, absolutely, and with all of my heart, and I would follow him to the ends of the earth. I do.”

"Well, I would say you may kiss the bride," Cadance said, joking. "But as we've all seen, you're already well past that."

Rainbow smiled as Bay leaned in, his lips pressing against her as she melted into his embrace. She kissed back passionately, sensually, and yet still perhaps the most chaste expression of love they had shown that day.

They separated. Rainbow's heart soared as she gazed into the eyes of her lover, now husband. They had always been family before, but now it was time for a new family to begin with Bay. He picked up up into his hooves and swung her around, her tattered dress flinging water in a wide arc around the fountain. And then he set her down again.

The day she met Bay Singer, her only dream had died. But today, another dream began anew. And she couldn't be happier.

The Fan She Never Knew

by ScarletRibbon

Commencement

Apologies

Renovations

Getting it Out

Documentation

Bonding (Post-Contest Bonus Chapter)

Proclamation