In an alternate universe where Sombra walks the ponies of Equestria’s dreams, Daybreaker and Big Mac have gotten together after a long and rocky friendship, and they couldn’t be happier. Everyone just doesn’t get them, but no matter. They’re in love.
In an alternate universe where Sombra walks the ponies of Equestria’s dreams, Daybreaker - the beautiful usurped Empress of Equestria - and Big Mac - the best stallion to ever live - have began a romance together after a long and rocky friendship, and they couldn’t be happier.
Everypony doesn’t get them, but no matter. They’re in love. What more could they ask for?
This and it’s sequel don’t necessarily have to be read in order to be understood.
Man, I’m really killing the cleverness of the previous title(s) with this one.
The cockerel started the day by making itself busy with screeching its hoarse soliloquy over Sweet Apple Acres. Daybreaker, as she sat up in bed with her eyes barely open, was instantly reminded that she hated that pesky piece of poultry more than the moon itself, and after having once spent a long and hard hour contemplating the pros and cons of sleeping over in the farmhouse, that had been the only con she could have possibly thought of.
Of course, the entirety of the pro list was filled with sweet nothings about her darling Big Macintosh. MacIntosh. McIntosh. By herself, she really should ask him how he spelt his name, sometime.
The aforementioned stallion moaned in his sleep. There wasn’t a doubt in Daybreaker’s mind that he hadn’t been awoken by the cockerel too, but today was his day off, which - as she had said the night before - warranted a lie-in. Besides, he had stopped his snoring just a few moments prior.
Daybreaker had found it absolutely, incredibly, indescribably vexing the first couple of nights she had spent with her beloved Big Mac, after having just woken up or otherwise. She had grown used to it, though - perhaps with the help of a temporary soundproofing spell or two on her own ears - whether he was snoring like a hog or emitting tiny neighs or whistles through his teeth.
Daybreaker looked down at Big Mac and grinned to herself. Upon his sweet little red face was a sleepy smile, and clutched in between his forehooves and chest was a tattered grey stuffed-doll. Daybreaker’s smirk fell the second she saw it.
Okay, perhaps Smarty Pants was her second con.
For one, it reeked of that bitter pungence of sulphur that every deactivated love-spell did. Daybreaker could only assume that Big Mac had grown used to the smell, and could no longer detect it, or he simply couldn’t smell it because of his earth pony heritage. She could only hope it was the latter.
As she ignited her horn to bring the Smarty Pants doll to her with a scowl, Big Mac turned over and faced her with his eyes closed. He had allowed Daybreaker to take the doll out of his grasp because he trusted her.
Daybreaker’s heart melted, which only made her hatred for the wretched doll explode even further, which then made her mane and tail flare up, which then made her panic in fear of burning another set of her dear Big Mac’s sheets.
Big Mac never let go of Smarty Pants as he slept. He never left his bedroom before making sure it - she, as he referred to it/her as - was tucked in and comfy. He even sometimes held it in his mouth by the scruff of the neck, which was somehow magically comparable to both a parent and a child.
It was as if Smarty Pants had made Daybreaker the other mare! Why, the little stuffed tart had earned Big Mac’s love and affection much easier and long before Daybreaker ever had.
Granted, one had been a fiery, narcissistic Empress and the other had not, but the point still stood.
In fact, Daybreaker would bet anything that Big Mac’s beloved ragdoll was glaring victoriously through her beady little vixen button-eyes.
Vixen Eyes, she should have been called.
Big Mac gripped onto the blanket as a substitute for his little grey doll, and Daybreaker felt everything that she had within her ease. She smiled sweetly, baring her glossy fangs, and tucked Smarty Pants back under her darling Big Mac’s arm. Then, she slid back down into a laying position on her left side as she deftly kissed his forehead before folding her hind legs up to stop her hooves dangling off the foot of the bed and elongated a wing to blanket Big Mac herself.
Big Mac had once said that he thought of her body heat as a bubble bath, which obviously meant that he found her inviting. She had found a sort of bubbly pride in that. She had lowered her body temperature to a less scalding climate a week or so after befriending the little red pony.
He hugged Smarty Pants gently and smiled just as such. For such a large, strong pony, he certainly was extremely gentle: gentle-spoken, gentle-eyed, gentle to touch. If anything that could belong to a pony - noun, verb or otherwise - if it was in reference to Big Mac, it was gentle. Even his anger was impossibly gentle.
Daybreaker figured that, being gentle in every nature, was what Big Mac brought from his size. When not in the wake of the likes of her, Discord, etcetera, Big Mac was a large pony. With that largeness came gentleness, one could suppose. He’d most likely been taught to act us such, too, Daybreaker had guessed.
In fact, he had been living by some sort of ‘be gentle with others’ mantra for so long, that when Daybreaker had treated him with a gentleness of which she reminded herself of once using the more and more she relearnt it - both inside and outside of the bedroom... and orchard, but if that was ever stated aloud, it certainly wasn’t for the likes of Granny Smith to hear - he had been quite surprised.
She remembered Big Mac’s flustered face, his bright red blush that made his freckles almost completely transparent against the rest of his coat, and what nerves he had lassoed up for the occasion diminishing before her eyes. Oh, how she had relished it. The two had practised together until Big Mac was excellent on his back.
You didn’t hear that from her, though.
Perhaps, Daybreaker let her crimson and amber eyes glaze over in thought, she should don her spiky vermillion regalia that cladded a plain wooden chair in the corner of the room next to Big Mac’s work-collar and head downstairs to make Big Mac breakfast in bed. She was still yet to see his emerald eyes, though, and decided that she’d do it later, after he had had his well-deserved lie-in.
Daybreaker recalled making pancakes for that angsty-emo sister of hers almost daily for breakfast-slash-supper as she started her day shift and her Sister ended her own. It had been back before the whole eternal-night ridiculousness had come around.
Daybreaker - then much less powerful and stunning - had noticed the gradual change between their typically pleasant and empathetic breakfast-slash-suppers to ones which included passive-aggressive remarks, ignoring the other or screaming down the dining table.
Never in a million years would Daybreaker have guessed that she’d be waking up next to a beautiful red farmpony and stroking his mane as she encouraged him to lie-in and enjoy his day off with great hedonism.
Daybreaker gave her sweet Big Mac’s nose a small kiss. The stallion nuzzled under her chin with the top of his head, which elicited a small chuckle from her. Daybreaker stifled herself; Big Mac nuzzled again, and so she squeezed him gingerly. The action compressed Smarty Pants between them to the point where, if she was a real mare, she’d have suffocated.
However, she was not, which further helped to ease Daybreaker’s mind and left both the tattered old thing and her dear Big Mac unharmed.
“Morn’n, Sugar.” Daybreaker felt Big Mac moan against her fur as his cheeks contracted into a smile. She replayed her stallion’s croaky morning-voice - his first two words of the day - in her head as she ignited her horn in scarlet to delicately play with his ruffled hay-coloured mane.
“Ssh...” Daybreaker made a sound not dissimilar to a hissing vat of steam, making sure to keep it slow and quiet and long as she rubbed circles on the small of Big Mac’s back in an almost identical fashion. She squeezed him lightly again; the only thing keeping them entirely apart was that silly little Vixen Eyes. “Go back to sleep, my darling.”
Despite the relaxed nature of their embrace, Daybreaker kept her grip. She didn’t intend on hurting him, and if she had - or was, whatever - he’d have told her, but rather the opposite. Big Mac knew this, otherwise he’d have objected by now. In fact, by holding him so securely she was protecting him. It was her way of showing that he was safe with her, that she’d never hurt him and that she wouldn’t let anything else hurt him, either. Timberwolves, evil villains, rogue dragons, time; it seemed as though nothing could touch him when he was wrapped up in between her forelegs like this.
Mostly because she wouldn’t let it.
If it was up to her, all she and her darling Big Mac would do was hug hug hug, and kiss kiss kiss, and touch touch touch, and picnic picnic picnic, and- well, the point could be taken from there.
Time went on by the amber light in the window turning into a clear, brilliant blue. Daybreaker had to admit - as much as it hurt her, so it would remain internal for now and -ever - Discord was a natural at raising the sun and lowering the moon, and vise-versa. He may as well have been called Concord. That sickeningly sweet Butterby of his probably had something to do with that.
Although, a part of her wished that he’d do it much more slowly, gradually, instead of just as quick as a snap of his fingers. Doing it properly to secure pretty sunsets and splitting sunrises were rare for Equestria. It was the Celestia-part in the back of Daybreaker’s mind that worried, surely. The rest of her was much more acrimonious.
The higher the sun crept in the sky - now at a much more subtle pace - the further the space between Big Mac and Daybreaker became, and unfortunately, the covers went with him.
Once upon a time, Daybreaker would have broken out in a wrathful fury, and the whole surroundings - covers included - would have been burnt to an ashy crisp. Now, as she sat up in bed, she was calm, and grinned to herself in silence. She could think of anyone who deserved those cosy covers more than her darling Big Mac, and with them bundled around him in a shapeless heap, she couldn’t wrack her brains for anything cuter, either.
Daybreaker ignited her horn as she got out of bed, dressed herself in her sharp vermillion armour as quietly as she could, and cautiously opened the creaking bedroom door to head downstairs. She gave her sleeping Big Mac another grin - much more petite and smiley than the last - before slowly shutting the door behind her.
Daybreaker made sure to wake Big Mac up by tenderly kissing his ear and cheek, and nudging a careful hoof into his back. The red stallion moaned as he pried open his eyes and sat up, scrubbing at one of his eyes with a large shaven hoof as he smacked his lips.
Daybreaker smiled at him and flew back to the front of the bed with a single flap of her great wings. “Good morning, my gorgeous little pony!” She exclaimed. “I’ve made breakfast!” A trill of song broke through the ambient silence of the farmhouse.
With that said - or, rather, sung - she placed the mahogany-coloured breakfast tray over Big Mac’s lap. On it, the breakfast collection consisted of a large white plate of seven pancakes, each generously sized and fluffy and half-doused in syrup, with the top pancake portraying a resting place for a heart with a cute smiley face made out of apple slices; a knife and fork next to a tall glass of orange juice; a thin white vase with a singular lily inside, and a folded white tea towel with dark navy check-lines.
“Ya di’n’ have t’ do this,” he said at last, and given the bashful inflection in his husky morning-tone, it was evident that if his coat wasn’t red enough as it was, he’d be the prime example-picture of the official Equestrian dictionary’s definition of the word diffident.
If dictionaries were illustrated, that was. If they were, perhaps ponies would have actually read them. Daybreaker would have for Big Mac’s face alone.
“Oh, but I did, my dear,” she opposed him playfully as she sat Smarty Pants up by the left side of him. “I used to make these for You-Know-Who, you know! Not in bed, of course. That’s for you, and you only, darling! I suppose it’s just my way of saying that I care.” The tea towel was tucked against Big Mac’s legs and stomach. “A pancake for each month we’ve been together! And the lily, because, well...” the two blushed.
Lily petals had been what she had covered the bed in as some sort of grand and romantic gesture - to which the surrounding candles helped a ton - for their first time consummating their love together. Quite dirtily, too, might she add.
Upon removing her pointy vermillion horseshoes, Daybreaker planted herself next to Big Mac on the bed. A small smile made its way to her fanged maw as she examined Big Mac’s coyly curling lips.
“I do hope you enjoy, darling,” Daybreaker continued, “it has been a while for me.”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac smiled his gratitude at her, and she knew that his reply meant that he would enjoy it. She kissed his temple as he reached for the fork.
An embarrassed heat rose to Daybreaker’s cheeks as she imagined the hassle Big Mac might have had cutting each pancake with his unopposable hooves, and so she used her magic to cut the stack into almost-identical sixths.
Big Mac reached for the fork again, and shovelled a piece of pancake into his mouth. Daybreaker eagerly awaited his verdict and, without a second thought, kissed away the fat dribble of syrup that had leaked out of the corner of his mouth.
Her darling Big Mac made an unintelligible sound of ecstasy, and it wasn’t until swallowing his third piece that he heartily responded to her patience: “Eeyup!”
Daybreaker refrained from lunging towards the ceiling in pure joy. A warmth contrastive to her typical fiery heat spread through her and amounted to her chest, tugging her lips upwards so that she bared her fangs elatedly. Instead of taking flight, she merely balanced on her haunches and clapped her front hooves together with a shrill, musical and exuberant laugh. “Oh, I’m so glad!”
After forcing through every memory she had to get the exact measurements for the mixture right, and making sure to handle each pancake with so much care and love that a Changeling would bloat, all Daybreaker could think of now was that it had all been worth it for her darling to enjoy a nice breakfast in bed.
Presumably his first.
When she brought herself back to earth, she smiled more equanimously, and pressed her forehead against her dear Big Mac’s. If he were a unicorn - or an alicorn, in the more fortunate case, come a hundred years time, even though realistically she wouldn’t have changed him like that for anything - their horns would be tapping and grinding and rubbing together as an endearing form of great intimacy. If he had wings, they’d be preening each other.
Big Mac had neither, of course, for he was an earth pony. He was Daybreaker’s red bundle of love and muscle and she absolutely adored him. Him, and everything about him. Sometimes, it felt as though they could never be close enough, while other times it felt as though they couldn’t be closer.
Love was fickle like that.
“Ah love ya, Sugar-pop,” Big Mac said as Daybreaker kissed his nose and rested her chin atop his head. Her whole body was forced to slouch awkwardly, as usual, but she hardly minded. Just touching him - even if it was only for a moment, which thankfully it wasn’t - was worth it.
Her nose scrunched up and she snorted in an effort to stifle a particularly loud laugh. “You’re such a goof, Big Mac!” She proclaimed. “You know I hate those sappy...” she looked down at him, and his mesmerising emerald eyes met her amber and red ones. She was like a moth to a flame instantly, which was ironic for obvious reasons. “By me, you’re absolutely radiant.”
Big Mac’s blush grew enough so that it almost covered up his freckles like makeup. There was a grin on his positively perfect muzzle. “Now, who’s bein’ sappy?”
“Well, if it’s a contest, my dear,” Daybreaker situated her nose in Big Mac’s messy hayfield-mane and inhaled deeply. She pulled back and kissed his lips, then his nose, and then his forehead. “You are wonderfully intoxicating.”
A deep giggle sounded, and Big Mac covered his enormous grin with a hoof as he closed his eyes. His blush had stopped suffocating his beautiful freckles, but Daybreaker knew that it was still there, as was hers. She noticed how he was a little more talkative than usual this morning, not that she minded, but it was worth noting. Perhaps it was the sugar.
“Eeyup,” Big Mac kissed her through his giggling. She laughed quietly in turn; his laughter had always had a rather contagious effect on her.
Daybreaker pressed their foreheads together again, but now they were also muzzle to muzzle, eyelash to eyelash. A small ache formed in the back of her next at the horribly formed angle, but she didn’t mind. Everything was perfectly fine as long as her dearest Big Mac was there.
“I love you, too, darling,” she said at last. “More and more, every day.”
“An’ tha’s jus’ corny, Sugar.” Big Mac didn’t pull away. He simply smiled as his giggling subsided, sighed, and closed his alluring green eyes.
Daybreaker grinned, but didn’t reveal her fangs. “I know.” She could feel his hot blush; his content; his fluttering heart. “It worked, though, didn’t it, my handsome little pony?”
Big Mac gently pulled away at last, and placed a wholesome kiss on her nose, which made it twitch. “Eeyup.”
Daybreaker had had the scare of her life when she heard Big Mac’s yowl from halfway across the orchard. Applejack and Granny Smith had gotten up from the bench, and Daybreaker had frozen mid-sentence. Then - before Applejack and Granny Smith could even act... or they had already, Daybreaker hadn’t really paid them much mind - Daybreaker disappeared in a bright red flash and reappeared next to her darling Big Mac with Applejack and Granny Smith a couple of feet away from them.
As Big Mac had tried to get up, failed, and tried again, Daybreaker had gasped and rushed to him and wrapped her forelegs around him as she landed with twitchy wings from her drumming heart. “I know, darling, I know.” She’d said to him, but it was a blatant lie to make him feel just a bit better. From just one glance at his teeth clamped around his wobbling lip and watery eyes, she’d wished to burn every apple tree to the ground and then make him King of Equestria just to make him feel better and avenge his injured-whatever.
Of course, that would have been impulsive, not helpful on the matter, and definitely not in her dear Big Mac’s best interests.
“We hafta get ’im to the hospital!” Granny Smith had assessed upon first sight of Big Mac’s displaced hind leg, and that was all the cue Daybreaker had needed to immediately disappear in another flash right to the lobby of Ponyville Hospital, leaving Applejack and Granny Smith to walk.
For what the situation was, Daybreaker believed she had reacted rather calmly. She had only screamed at five stoic nurses - which only one out of the group had cried; Shedcart, or something, she had been called - and made only two doctors pass her dearest Big Mac over to another one of their colleagues to handle, and even then she had only deemed seven unworthy of handling her poor stallion.
Well, by technicality it had only been six doctors, as come the seventh, Big Mac had been given some painkillers and called her over to reassure her that he would be fine, that she should calm down, and that Doctor Horse had treated him for many broken bones - ribs, usually, or ripped tendons, or pulled sides - for years.
Slowly and hesitantly - acting purely on her darling half-lucid Big Mac’s word alone, and not the sorry sight of a few of the hospital staff cowering in the corner with their hooves over their heads and white uniforms charred - Daybreaker had reframed, and held her darling’s hoof all the way until he disappeared behind the operation theatre’s doors after his hip-reduction, or whatever it was blasted called, had proven to be unsuccessful.
Daybreaker had panicked more than Big Mac when Doctor Horse had declared the need for an operation. Of course, as her dear Big Mac had begun sobering up, he had worried a little and gripped both her hooves with widened eyes.
In all honesty - funny, that was typically Soarin’s job - Daybreaker believed that she should have done more. She blamed herself for letting any amount of fear reach Big Mac’s beautiful eyes. She should have banished Doctor Horse to the moon, and let that wretched gothy Sister of hers mercilessly devour him whole! Daybreaker inhaled deeply at that thought in an effort to calm herself.
Daybreaker had admittedly pined, paced, and panicked in the waiting room while Applejack and Granny Smith had been no help whatsoever.
When Daybreaker had finally decided to sit down, Granny Smith had placed two callused green hooves on hers and smiled with her wrinkly lips to reassure her. “Don’t you go worryin’ yaself none,” the elderly mare had said. “These here doctors are nothin’ but professionals.”
Daybreaker had smiled, but warmed her hooves to that Granny Smith had to reel back and hiss through her dentures, before lifting her only slightly-burnt hooves to blow on. Applejack hadn’t found that even remotely entertaining, and had only scowled and glared before stating that she’d go and get some ice and then left the waiting room.
“Aw...” a terribly vexing voice of a particularly obnoxious stallion had then cooed, “somepony needs a hug!”
Oh, and Soarin had been there. Fantastic. That had been exactly what Daybreaker needed. In reply, she only groaned loudly and pulled at her cheeks with her hooves.
Sunburst - and Twilight Sparkle, probably, if she wasn’t on her sleep-break - had been too busy in Canterlot delegating with some Trainsylvanian leaders by the names of Tom Tankington III and Pippin Purse Railman Jr. about the lack of railroads-aplenty throughout all of Equestria to visit.
Or something like the hippogriffs and griffons fighting over who would get rights to trademark anygriff, everygriff, and the like. Or, it could just have easily been about stamps.
Daybreaker didn’t really know. She had only barely skimmed over Sunburst’s letter that had come in the mail just a few days later.
As for the rest of Big Mac’s friends, Shining Armor and Moondancer had been caught up teaching a class at the Friendship School - the same had gone for Flim and Flam, too, but Big Mac wasn’t exactly the fondest of those pesky salesponies, so Daybreaker would have even let them pass the threshold of the hospital even if they were free - and Zephyr Breeze and Cheese Sandwich had been on some lousy friendship quest in Ponesylvania.
Which had unfortunately left Soarin on his break from playing with the Wonderbolts.
It had been a grating three hours in that waiting room for Daybreaker, having been surrounded by three dithering idiots. Well, Applejack was only half a dithering idiot, so that technically made only two-point-five dithering idiots, but the point was still recognisable.
Daybreaker helped Big Mac up the farmhouse stairs only a couple of hours after his successful hip reduction. His left leg was in a cast, and his flank had been shaven in a square shape.
When they made it to Big Mac’s bedroom, she kissed him on the forehead and used her magic to gently position him onto his bed - on the left as she faced him, which was the side farthest from the window, to be exact - propped up his poorly leg with a particularly puffy pillow, smoothed out his mane with a hoof, and then took off her horseshoes to lay next to him with her legs tucked under her lithe barrel reservedly.
“Are you alright, my little pony?” Daybreaker asked, and it was at that moment that she realised that the two were on each other’s side of the bed, and that she could faintly feel the Big Mac-themed dent in the mattress from atop the covers. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind, either, that Big Mac couldn’t feel hers. It felt wrong. Taboo, even. “Would you like more pillows? Blankets? Some snacks? Soup?”
In a flash of brilliant red, Daybreaker teleported someone’s piping hot, untouched bowl of soup and a spoon from the fancy cutlery drawer in the corner of the Apple family’s kitchen. Granny Smith might have been peeved, later, if the spoon was to be used without her permission, but a screaming old lady was never a threat that Daybreaker - as Empress, princess, or simple unicorn civilian - couldn’t conquer.
But, Big Mac said, “Nope,” and so the bowl of soup and fancy spoon was gone in another flash of red.
For the next couple of days, Big Mac remained in bed unless it was to stretch his legs or to use the bathroom by verbal law of Daybreaker and his family. Apple Bloom had visited to tell him about her day or to curl up beside him with a book or magazine once or twice, and it was usually Applejack who would ask him what he wanted for lunch or supper, or if he wanted something for entertainment, and it would be Daybreaker to do all of the above.
For the days that had followed Big Mac’s return home, Daybreaker had taken the task of filling in for Big Mac to do some chores and harvest apples. As an alicorn, it had proved quite easy for her, and - from what Big Mac was told by Daybreaker and his family, and the compromised view from his bedroom window - come the second day, the entire orchard was almost completely apple-free.
Daybreaker entered Big Mac’s bedroom and closed the door behind her, and the darling red stallion looked up from his book Link Trammel 32IA: Dr. Neigh. He frowned, and his brows knitted together.
One of Daybreaker’s hooves instinctively found the small bruise on her hot-white cheek. “Oh, Apple Bloom threw an apple at me. Nothing to worry yourself over, dear.”
“Ah’ll make sure t’ talk t’ her ’bout that,” Big Mac said, closed his book on a folded corner, and placed it on his nightstand.
“We were - how did she put it? - messing around,” Daybreaker nudged off her shoes and rested herself beside him. Big Mac’s countenance eased, so she rested her head gently on his side and continued: “How’s your book so far? That’s the... first one, correct?”
Her beautiful Big Mac smiled. “Eeyup.”
“Is it a good reread?”
“Eeyup.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Daybreaker let loose a fanged smile. “I’m well aware of how boring just one equally boring scene can be.” Her millennium on the sun sprang to mind, and then the time she was cast into a marble statue of herself, and so she shuddered slightly, her white-hot coat bristling. “Well aware.”
A large hoof ran against Daybreaker’s spiky vermillion helmet, took it off - there was a light clank - and revisited her head tenderly. Big Mac’s shaven hoof met Daybreaker’s fiery mane - which had been cooled down to a mere tickle of pleasant warmth long before out of love and caution - and she eased into him.
“Today was fine,” Daybreaker said quietly. “Applejack has gone out with that Rainbow-bolt mare, just so you know.” A heat rose to her cheeks as she felt one of Big Mac’s hooves trace her face and neck. He could have hit her then and there if he so wanted, and she’d let him, but wouldn’t have, as he was far too kind and she was far too trusting, and they were both far too in love with one another. “Apple Bloom’s out with her friends. G-Granny’s...” she paused, taking in the sensation of her scalp being gingerly kneaded, “taking a nap.”
A soft, bass humming made a beautiful tune around the room as his other hoof met her chest. Another clank after her neck-piece was removed. One of Daybreaker’s hind legs rose like a dog’s to tattle of her complacence and ecstasy as that same hoof travelled to the in between of her chest and belly. If she wasn’t careful, her lengthy tongue might have lolled out of the side of her mouth and slathered the covers in drool.
If anyone - particularly her Sister, or any other villain - walked in on them now, and found a lovestruck puppy made out of melted butter in the place of a has-been wolverine, Daybreaker would have been done for. Not that she cared anymore. Her Sister had already seen her collection of framed photos of Big Mac back when she had been sent by Discord to take her Sister down instead of Sunburst and Co..
It should have been Big Mac and Co., really. As Daybreaker had said before, and she’d say many times again: Big Mac was her favourite.
Daybreaker sniffed. Being cooped up in a room for a prolonged time definitely made things - particularly ponies - rather musty.
So, Daybreaker came to a decision: she slowly nudged her way out of Big Mac’s sweet caressing, after having to struggle past the tough embrace of sleep, and blearily made her way to the bedroom door. Then she paused, and returned to her darling Big Mac to apologetically nuzzle him. “Care to join me in the shower, darling?”
And that was that. She helped Big Mac across the landing to the bathroom, and let him rest on the closed toilet as she undid his bandages and adjusted the temperature of the shower to a degree tolerable for the both of them. Then, she assisted him across the side of the bathtub, and pulled the shower-curtain around.
Personally, Daybreaker found the water a little chilly, but whatever Big Mac said would go. It was his happiness that she found most important over all, given everything. The water seemed hot enough for him, and that was what counted. Smiling, Daybreaker ignited her horn and set Big Mac down in the bathtub.
Just as Daybreaker’s horn defused, it ignited again and the bathroom window opened. There was a moment of hesitation, before she dunked her head under the water. Smoke filled the bathroom, and tangoed with the steam until they both hit the ceiling, but both ponies went unharmed.
This hadn’t been the first time they had showered together, of course, so several immunity spells were cast onto Big Mac in caution. If anything happened to him because of her, Daybreaker didn’t think she would have been able to forgive herself.
Daybreaker grinned as a flat amber mane attached itself to the side of her face and neck; Big Mac was staring intently at her, so she fluttered her orange lashes suggestively. “Please, darling; hasn’t anybody told you that staring’s rude?”
Big Mac - the silly little thing he was - turned away shamefully and covered his bright blush with a shaven hoof. His freckles were almost completely gone. Daybreaker smiled, her fangs glistening with a mix of saliva and water as she leaned down to the beautiful stallion before her.
His emerald eyes met her amber and red ones. She let her smile and eyelids droop naturally as she edged closer and closer. “Comfortable?”
Big Mac nodded. “Eeyup,” he said softly, resting his once-raised hoof next to his flank, mirroring the other. As he stared up innocently again through the veil of smoke and steam - this time biting his bottom lip - Daybreaker felt herself melt into him.
Fine! She admitted it. He had her completely tamed. On a leash. Reduced to an idolising pet. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was true.
Daybreaker closed her eyes and stuck her head under her dear Big Mac’s chin. Her long horn met his cheek as they nuzzled, and her ear flicked to the sound of Big Mac chuckling. An icy cold unlike the chill of the shower’s stream ran through her spine: what was so ridiculous to him, that he felt the need to laugh?
Resisting the urge to turn into a massive hissy ball of flames, only to be put out by the steam and water, Daybreaker inhaled deeply, and pulled away to check Big Mac over. “What? What is it?” Her tone bore a sharp edge of accusation.
“Nothin’,” he said, but grinned nonetheless. “Jus’ that” - oh, so there wassomething to it, “-ah’m waitin’ fer ya t’ not act like ah’m gonna break th’ second ya touch me.”
Daybreaker reeled, her back hitting the less-than-tepid water as she did so. In an inevitably failing effort to save face, she fought her way through a horrendously uncouth string of bumbling: “Well- I- uh- you- I- absolutely not- I- er...” her amber and red eyes set on Big Mac’s entertained grin, and her verbal bug ceased, and her face found its way into a practised smirk by muscle memory alone. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Eeyup.” That one signature word came as an answer. If it always came from someone else, it would have been insufferable, and that someone else could have been burnt to a crisp without much of a second thought by now. But Big Mac’s voice was a donut glazed in honey, powdered with sugar and then dunked in deluxe vanilla ice cream - the kind with the itty-bitty brown bits seen in it so you knew that it was fancy - which meant that Daybreaker only wanted more of it. He could have said anything, something completely nonsensical and pigheaded, even, and she would have listened to every word of it.
Every single word.
Everything about dear Big Mac was addicting. To no fault of his own, of course. Daybreaker had once thought that it had been because he was her first true friend, but now it was evident that she had been falling in love with him. She still was, in a sense. The second she thought she couldn’t love him more, she was instantly proven wrong. It was a surprisingly heartwarming feeling. No longer was it scary, but pleasant and addicting.
Big Mac’s smile, for one, was something Daybreaker strived to see at least hourly. The smell of his scent - that of apples and hay, and easily obtained through sticking her nose in his mane or against his strong neck - was absolutely intoxicating. She craved it; it was a sickness for her. A beautiful sickness.
Daybreaker sniffed, and all she could smell was the sweet scent of smoke. That seemed to be the one downside to showering with the gorgeous stallion before her: his smell was dampened. No matter. It would come back. It had to, eventually.
In a dazzle of red, Daybreaker placed one of the bottles of shampoo in her own hooves. After squeezing out an adequate dollop, she returned the bottle to the metal rack and smiled. Big Mac frowned, and his brows creased together.
“What?” She asked, as she began to lather Granny Smith’s rose-scented shampoo into his wet mane. “You’re not allowed to smell pretty, now? Treat yourself, darling!” After all, if it was up to her, Big Mac would have had at least a dozen - no, scratch that; a baker’s dozen - servants waiting on him, flank-and-shoulder.
Big Mac remained silent, though, before he slowly closed his eyes. Humming in content, the stallion tilted his head back and let Daybreaker work her hooves into his scalp. He sighed. Before long, he was covered in a thin layer of soap suds, and her delicate hooves left him.
“My turn...” Daybreaker trilled in song, turning around, sitting, and presenting him her back.
For such a strong stallion, Big Mac was so gentle when he touched other ponies. Creatures, sorry. Daybreaker coated one of his hooves in Granny Smith’s rose shampoo, and he dug both of them into her back. The pleasure - almost completely sensual in nature - of his large hooves pressing into her muscles and large feathery wings was indescribable.
A moan escaped her lips, and she arched herself backwards and further into her darling Big Mac’s touch. “My! By me, darling, have I ever told you how good you are with your hooves?”
“Eeyup...” the expectedly bashful response barely made itself known over the splatting of the shower’s unkempt stream. It made an amused grin spread to Daybreaker’s whole face. Oh, how she loved him.
Spreading her wings a little more, Daybreaker laughed breathily, and said, “I don’t think you get enough credit, my dear.”
“Nope,” Big Mac disagreed, and she could tell that he had given one quick shake of his head.
“Don’t give me that,” she scoffed, and twisted her whole body around to face him. She let her posture go slack, but remained towering over him. It only served to give some painful insight on their size difference. A playful smirk curled her lips upwards as their noses touched, allowing themselves to breathe in one another’s air. A complex notion, but the ordeal seemed to pump butterflies into her chest. “You deserve much, much more than what you think is just! And sometimes it hurts to see or even hear of ponies not treating you like-”
Big Mac didn’t let her finish. He snorted through his nose and gave her a stern glare. She had been silenced.
A wickedly prideful grin split through Daybreaker’s face, letting her round, snake-like tongue drop out and dangle like something deliciously obscene as she chose her next words widely. Her tongue wasn’t snake-like because it was that of a snake’s, per-se, but rather it was a perfect snake of a tongue. It was round and long and thinned the further it came to an end - definitely unlike a regular ponies, but that was corruption and power-ups for you - and as it was so cunning and sneaky during the more intimate or mischievous of opportunities, sometimes Daybreaker believed it might have even had a mind of its own.
An impossible thesis, but Big Mac certainly had no complaints at most times.
A bright blush coated Big Mac’s face like thick paint at the sight. He was well accustomed to Daybreaker’s little quirks by now. He leaned back a little, as if bracing himself for something that Daybreaker’s wasn’t going to let come until his leg was completely healed.
Daybreaker oozed with love now, and she was sure that - if she were Discord, with chaos magic at hoof - she would have had enormous, throbbing love-hearts for fiery amber pupils. A changeling could have only gorged silently. If one was present, that was.
“You know,” she let a small laugh escape her as she twisted back around, “I love it when you do that. You’re getting so good at it.”
“Thank ya.” Daybreaker could tell that her darling Big Mac was smiling. To what extent, she was unsure, but its presence was beautifully known in the inflection of his voice.
“You’re very much welcome,” the smile was infectious, and soon she too was grinning as Big Mac resumed his deep massage into her wings and back. “Lower, please.”
Big Mac heeded, and his hooves went down her spine and pressed into her skin. Daybreaker hummed in delight, both a blush and a look of content spreading across her timeless face.
“Thaaat’s it...” Daybreaker drawled, feeling Big Mac’s miracle-working hooves slide up over his head to her shoulder blades, and then back to the small of her back. There was a sudden wince when he pressed in between her shoulders, and soon the smiley atmosphere disintegrated.
“Ya tried yer hoof a’ some buckin’, di’n’ ya?”
“Once or twice,” Daybreaker spoke through the last moment of silence before there was a horrendous crunch sound as Big Mac pressed his hoof quickly into the area, and before anything else was known the pain had disappeared.
“Eeyup,” the grinning, and somehow all-knowing Big Mac said. “Happens ev’ry time.”
“Wow,” Daybreaker twisted herself around to face him, and they grinned at one another. A half-soapy wing tenderly caressed Big Mac’s half shaven flank as they grinned at one another. Then, she kissed his forehead one-two-three times. “You really know your stuff, don’t you?”
“Eeyup,” upon saying this, Big Mac giggled into his hoof, and Daybreaker felt her heart flutter. Big Mac’s joy would never cease to draw an instant reaction of pure adoration out of her. His laughter was a beautiful noise; it could make even the gloomiest crack a smile.
Daybreaker kissed her darling’s chin, lips, nose, and forehead - he had giggled once more at the penultimate location - and then asked for him to turn around. The question was only half rhetorical, he replied with his musical “Eeyup”, and she used her bright red glimmer to gingerly turn her beloved around herself.
As Daybreaker used her magic to drizzle Granny Smith’s rose-scented conditioner into her wet hooves and allowed the stream of the water to wash her wings and back, Big Mac craned his head back to look at her with one of his dopey smiles; she kissed him on the forehead. It was an obligation, by now. “Love you, darling.”
“Ah love ya, too,” Big Mac smiled. “Now ’re ya gonna get to it or what, Sugar?”
Daybreaker had to catch her tongue before it lolled out again. The water was washing most of the soap from her back, by now. “I really do love it when you’re like this... you know that, right?”
“Eeyup!” Of course he did. She told him every week.
“I know,” Daybreaker proclaimed, “but I’m just so proud! You’ve come such a long, long way.”
Big Mac’s smile grew, but he remained silent. A comfortable lack of words filled the air around them as Daybreaker’s white-hot hooves ran through through her darling’s shaggy barley mane.
Just the colour of it always seemed mesmerising to Daybreaker; while only a colour that was simply simple to the uncultured swine, accompanied by the red apple coat and grassy eyes that matched the cutie mark on his flank, to Daybreaker it was a reminder of pristine sunshine as it beat down on the luscious hayfields of Equestria, refreshing them with an ardent goldenness only ever seen in those luscious hayfields. And Big Mac’s hair.
“Did you know,” Daybreaker began, almost uncharacteristically wistful as she continued massaging the conditioner into Big Mac’s scalp, “my mane used to be pink?”
Big Mac gasped softly. “Nope.”
Of course he hadn’t known. No one but Daybreaker and her angsty little Sister did. “It was!” She exclaimed. “As pink as Dee-Dee’s coat!” Pausing her task, she took a moment to think. At last, she smiled: “And my eyes were purple, too!”
Her darling Big Mac gave one of his deep laughs. “The pitcher yer paintin’ sounds mighty purdy.”
Daybreaker took this opportunity to teasingly poke at him: she gasped loudly, and dipped herself backwards with a wet foreleg draped across her eyes; by now her orange eyeshadow and mascara had almost entirely washed off; “What? I’m not pretty now? How dare you!”
“Eeyup,” Big Mac said mischievously, and so Daybreaker prodded his shoulder playfully.
“After just under a hundred years it started to do the whole magic thing,” her nose scrunched, “you’ve seen it with Sombait and - wait - didn’t it happen to you when you guys and Sunburst defeated Nightmare Moon?”
“Nope,” Big Mac replied.
“Just Sunburst, then?”
“Eeyup.”
A comfortable silence set over them again. From time to time, they’d talk, and then settle into silence once more. That was how they conversed, is all. But, that was fine. They had each other. What more could they ask for?
