> Getting Laid
>  by Amit
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Qualia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight sat in the centre of her bedroom surrounded by several rather impressive book-towers, her quill removing itself from the paper as she began to read.

“Èch aveirde des lasterlaitcheurs,” Twilight began, swallowing her trepidation; she might have continued if Spike hadn’t burst into the room, causing her to let go of the implement as she toppled quite unceremoniously onto a pile of reference material.

“Twilight, I’ve got a—” Spike began, and then caught sight of a particularly sweaty Twilight sprawled over a knocked-over pile of enormous books.

In terror, she reached immediately for the nearest tome (bearing on its cover the rather impressive title Mittelnordhochlandseinhornssprache Studiengrammatik) and slammed it down on the paper, concealing it entirely from view.

His worried expression became something else entirely. “—what are you doing?”

“Nothing! Nothing,” she said, pressing the book down harder. “What’s, uh—what’s the matter, Spike?”

A few moments of somewhat uncomfortable silence came to pass.

“Well, uh,” he said, shaking his head quickly, “See, I’m going on a date with Apple Bloom, and—”

“Ooh!” Twilight shouted, tossing the grammar to the side and knocking over a pile of Old Lowlands dictionaries over. “Dating! I swear I’ve got a book on this somewhere.” She hopped over to the nearest shelf—her bedroom being a library of the most sordid sort—and began rifling rather hurriedly through the shelves.

“Twilight,” Spike said, his tone some mask of reassurance, “I don’t—”

“The Gynntyllemares Almanac to Engourdisry in the Fayce of the Ennemie Masculean?” she read, frowning. “No, too old-fashioned.”

“Twilight.”

“The Kama Sutra?” Twilight said, frowning. “You don’t speak Namadicus, right?”

Spike tapped a foot on the floorboards. “Twilight.”

“Adventures Carnal in the Land of the Porcines? I guess that might help with the whole interspecies thing, but—”

“Twilight,” Spike said, looking furtively over his shoulder, “If I say your name again the neighbors might get the wrong idea.”

“Aha! An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations! Perfe—”

“For Celestia’s sakes, Twilight!”

Her horn’s hold over the book slipped, and it fell quite loudly to the floor. “Yes?” she said, turning towards Spike; her voice had the slightest tinge of irritation.

“Rarity’s already given me advice,” he said, closing his eyes and putting his claw up to his face. “I just wanted you to know I’d be out for a few hours.”

Twilight’s ears dropped the lowest that they had since that time in the School when she had been led into thinking that it might be a very good idea to put weights on her ears; the intonation she put on the sound after was almost superfluous. “Oh.”

“I’ll be back at ten,” he said, coughing slightly. “Is there anything I need to do before I leave?”

“Uh,” Twilight said, looking around at the organised mess of her room, “It’ll wait until you get back.”

“Great!” Spike said, beginning to turn about, before stopping for a moment in concentration. “By the way,” he said, glancing at the covered bit of parchment lying squashed under the enormous reference text, “you’re seriously conlanging with historical reference texts?”

“Well, see,” she began, her face lighting up at the prospect of a kindred soul, “I’m constructing a theoretical creole of—”	

“Got it,” he said, shaking his head as if in great sadness as he trod out of the room. “You really need to get laid, Twi.”

With that, he closed the door behind him.

Twilight shut her eyes and groaned.

Then, instead of keeping her position long enough to warrant a scene break, she shook her head gently.

“I’m not just some no-name virgin making up conlangs in her father’s basement,” she said, her quiet voice slowly rising. “I’m a national hero, a household name, Princess Celestia’s personal student. I’m beyond the law! Above it! I can get any plot I want, when I want!”

She stood, her voice bold and eyes filled with fury. Her resolve did not falter, and her cause was just. “Nopony can stand against me in good conscience, mare or stallion! I stand in defiance of all who seek to denigrate me!”

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, bearer of the Element of Magic, and I’m—going—to—get—laid!”

“Rea—lly?” Rainbow Dash said, and Twilight screamed in absolute terror, jumping into a pile of fourteenth-century immigration ledgers.

She quickly pushed Volume Seventy-Nine off her head, glaring at the pegasus perched upon her cloud a few centimetres from the open window. “Dash, you scared the living daylights out of me!”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” Rainbow yawned, smirking. “I just didn’t know you were into oviparous unbirthing.”

“Celestia Dawnbringer that’s terrifying,” Twilight said, sticking her tongue out and shuddering in disgust. “How do you even know what ‘oviparous unbirthing’ means?”

“I’ve seen things,” Dash said, and for the slightest moment her eyes gained the quality of those of a mare who has seen too much; then she closed them, shook her head and grinned. “But that’s besides the point. You said you wanted to get laid?”

“Dash, I’m not going to discuss this with you.” Twilight walked over to the window and shut it in Dash’s face, trotting over to the nearest shelf as she commenced her plotting and scheming.

She might have, at least, if the squeaking of an opening window hadn’t interrupted her.

“There’s no lock on the window, is there?”

“Nope.”


—


Dash parried a tactical book strike with a risen wing; the paperback, a rather low-quality reproduction of a shilling shocker, disintegrated on impact against her ballistic cover.

“Get away from me!” Twilight shouted, her horn glowing; the door flung itself open. “I've got long-range weapons on standby and will not hesitate to use them in case of continued belligerence on your part!”

Dash walked carefully around her, keeping her back to the door. “For Celestia’s sakes, I’m not going t—”

“Launch authorized!”

A strategic tome travelled through the open door at a large fraction of the speed of sound, slamming into Dash's flank and sending her careening into a high shelf. The books within remained marevellously unrustled; she groaned, picking up the offending object and looking at the cover.

“A Worker's Guide to Ishpan? They don't let mares work there.” She stared at her. “Why do you even have this?”

“Oh, Fluttershy gave it to me,” Twilight said, her tone quite suddenly eager. “It belonged to her mother before the Revolution, and since she didn't need it any more—ah, she gave me this, too!” She glanced over to the shelves, reaching out for a paperback with her magic.

Rainbow, having observed Twilight's behavioural patterns closely, chose that instant to strike; she regained consciousness quickly enough to feel her wings smacking against the wall, followed quickly by her back.

“And as you can see,” Twilight said, the glow fading from her horn, “I'm smart enough to defend myself from you and I'm smart enough to get laid myself.” She tugged on the paperback and pulled it out so Dash could see the title—Ye Æcreponnyes Gwwedde to Unscaedwis Becaystræn bytwixt ye Cyorpfyolcyes in ye Courrynt Æra—and harrumphed. “With the help of old and established literature, of course.”

“Look,” Dash said, quickly fluttering her miraculously unbroken wings, “That book's probably older than both of us combined.”

Twilight smirked smugly. “I'll have you know that it's older than you, me and Luna combined. Written at a crucial time in a relatively isolated region around the dawn of the printing press, providing a vital insight into contemporary affairs and a comprehensive account of Earth pony tribal linguistics in the Early Celestian Ages. This thing's worth its weight in gold.”

“Even you've gotta admit you're scraping the bottom of the barrel here, Twi.”

“Horseapples. Just look at the names here!” She pulled it open to a random page and began to read eagerly. “Silver the Brighteared, Crusher Stronglegs, Candy Widthsmilings, Sunder Fillecunct, Candy Honeytongue, Candy the Strongbucked, Clover the Clever—”

The pegasus raised an eyebrow as she pushed herself to her hooves, walking slowly closer. “That would be a lot more impressive if those ponies weren't all dead.”

“Oh, Rainbow,” Twilight said, tut-tutting. “Poor, plebian Rainbow, obssessed as always with the flavor of the moment, stuck in search of ephemeral fame. Don't you know that a pony achieves immortality through her work? Today, we speak of the great Sunder Fillecunct, his name upon our tongues as surely they were on those of thousands in his time, such were his exploits—is that not immortality? Does he not ravage me as he did hundreds in his time by knowledge alone?”

“Give me that,” Dash said, and snatched the paperback away. The unicorn made no attempt to resist as she began to read aloud. “Thayn he sweng hes big filler wyde, and pleenged into ye tyte joak of ye sumbre fille, and shee did nyt beh eh bryeech but was insteed jollie thensfort and adaymore, and had the Mark apon hes seid?”

“I told you,” Twilight said, practically swooning. “He made Princess Celestia who she is today. Do you not feel him within you as you speak of his immortal deeds?”

Rainbow Dash stared at her, then back to the paperback, then back to her; she repeated the cycle a few times before speaking.

“You realize that you're just trying to lose your virginity by clopping to a story about somepony getting his cutie mark by rutting Celestia as a filly, right?”

She felt Twilight's hooves around her before she saw her move.

“It's true! It's so true! I don't know the first thing about getting laid and I'm putting up a fight because I'm too insecure to admit that my books can't tell me everything and I'm telling you my motivations because I might be autistic!” She buried her muzzle into her breast, and the tears began to flow.

“There, there,” Dash said, gently patting her head. “You're not a sperg.”

Twilight sniffled, looking up from her damp cyan—Twilight might have called it cerulean, but Dash put no great faith in words she couldn't spell—crying-spot. “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.”

“Just a psycho egghead.”


—


Rainbow Dash nursed a rather impressive shiner, slurping at a cup of Twilight-prepared tea.

“I'm so sorry,” Twilight said, clasping her hooves together in penitence. “I didn't mean to do it that hard.”

“It's no biggie,” Rainbow said, struggling to wink. “I'll just say Flutters likes it rough.”

“At least let me fix that hematoma—”

“Please keep your horn at least a foot away from me at all times.”

Twilight stepped back respectfully, and they sat and drank tea peacefully—if Dash could withhold her various poorly-concealed expressions of digust, the appropriate adverb might be quietly.

“So,” Dash began; she seemed to be anticipating a motion verb after her speech verb, but Twilight remained attentively in her seat. “Usually, we go to a bar.”

“In Ponyville.”

“Yeah. Normally we'd go down east, but with the Changelings running around they're tighter than Applejack in cider season.” She paused for a bit. “In a bad way.”

“Besides,” Twilight said, her expression rather far-off, “I want my first time to be special.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Wait, it's your first time? Aren't you like twenty-seven?”

Twilight put on a story-telling accent. “Well, there was that time with my Starswirl the Bearded tulpa—”


—


“T'ame,” cooed I, embracing Starswirl's magnificent beard, “Ne sai que face sans tu, mun amant.”

“Oh, Twilight,” crooned Starswirl, the strands of her beautiful chin-mane draped across her awe-struck lover's face as her majestic prosthetic wings splayed out to her sides, “It is only with you that I can express my true identity as a tribequeer pansexual beardkin forced into cisgenetic heteronormative transsexuality by the orthodox establishment. I wish that all of my achievements could only be yours.”

“Oh, Starswirl,” moaned I, leaning in close to smell my idol's splendiferous neck-growth, “You learned Modern Equestrian just for me?”

She stroked the length of her progidious hair-wave, flowing as it did like photonic wavicles, before her hoof came to rest upon my own mane. “There were not enough words in that dusty native tongue of mine that you could dig out of an old dictionary to express the full depths of affection I have for you, my cis pet.” 

I pushed myself up against his beard, revelling in its silky smoothness. “And surely it isn't because Old Lowlands Unicorn is devoid of proper documentation, and I'm tired of composing dialogs in it?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” enunciated Starswirl, grinning as her generous love-waterfall moving sensually downwards, scraping itself against her barrel and around her loins, teasingly tickling her hindquarters, “Your meta-ness is that most arousing thing of you.”

“Rut me, Starswirl, rut me now!” said I, pushing a length of her beautiful oak-moss up above my pudendal regions, but no closer, for I would have to wait for her full and informed consent before engaging in sexual activity, as her prior actions were in no way an indication of her willingness to engage in further instances of said activity.

“I, Starswirl the Bearded, give you my full and informed consent regarding our engagement in sexual activity, as my prior actions were in no way an indication of my willingness to engage in further instances of said activity.” 

“Oh, Starswirl,” said I, as we began to engage in mutually consenting adult sexual activity. Her thick, amorous curls bent down and then up, penetrating my virginial region as what remained stroked themselves against my puffy, purple labia, a few stray, virile strands positioning themselves at the entrance to my warm, fertile rectal cavity.

I groaned in ecstasy as she unleashed a lollapalooza of multiple, simultaneous deep strikes into my waiting holes, the aiguilles of her beard gently treating my rectal flora to a hedonistic massage, stimulating my intestinal nerves as my vaginal canal winked fortuitously around the bulk of her fat, white hair-funnel. Seeking to reciprocate, I curled my hooves around her, licking at the base of her keratin-tunnels as she moaned in equal pleasure from the stimulation.

I reached down and began to nibble at her nipples, mumbling her name. “How is this even physically possible?” asked I, as my little tongue wrapped tightly around the lengths of her love-tubes and silky beard-hair began to sprout from them, growing into enormous curls, stretching past me and going to join the assault on my tender virgin anus.

“Magic,” groaned Starswirl as she reached her peak, her hair beginning to unload into me a thick, viscous substance. I climaxed as she did, my vaginal mucus spewing around her hairppendages, joined by a smooth flow of goopy hairsemen. “Magic, my dear Twilight, magic!”

With a long scream, she pulled her spewing, supercalifragilistic mineral-bearing strand-horns from my pudendal regions, shoving them into my mouth with an ejaculative thrust; my cheeks bulged with the weight of his candy pony hairjaculation, and I gulped it down with a gasp of pleasure, hugging her as my holes dripped with it. With a deep breath, she finally pulled her wondrous, hirsute prehensile organ from me, draping it on my face and wiping itself off on my forehead as I groaned in submissive pleasure like the pretty pony pussy I was.

“Please,” I said, my hooves drifting to my aching loins, “More.”


—


“—but I'm not sure if that counts.”

Dash sighed deeply, sinking her face into her hooves and swaying her head a bit.

She did this for a little while before looking up and taking a deep breath, opening her eyes and smiling a blessedly ignorant smile. “Forget I asked.”

They sat in a uniquely comfortable silence.

Twilight took a sip of tea.

“Right,” Dash said, having forgotten the concept of beards, “so you need to have your first time be special. I think I know just the solution.”

Twilight grinned giddily. “And what's the solution?”

Rainbow Dash grinned back.

“Whores.”
	
> Quantacumque
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Be aware that this chapter contains content that may be described as ‘emotionally disturbing’.

“Dash,” Twilight said, looking rather miffed, “when I said special—”

Dash pshaw'd. “‘Special’ my flank. What you need, Twi, is a good time. Else you'll turn into one of those lock-tight-break-right ballbusters in the House.”

Twilight tilted her head to the side. “One of those whats?”

Dash sighed. “Well, you know how if you make a lock real hard to crack it blows up in your face when you hit it?”

Twilight had already begun taking notes. “No, but that sounds like a metaphor for date rape.”

“Right,” Dash said, shaking her head, “Unicorn. Forget it. What's important is that you have a good first time, you see? I mean, it's fun to help some poor filly who's only had bad find out about the big, brave world inside her—”

“That sounds like a metaphor for acquaintance rape.”

“—but it's a lot more fun to help a kid get a head start.”

“That,” Twilight said, continuing to write in her little notebook, “sounds like a metaphor for foal rape.”

Dash's eye twitched a bit. “Please stop. Look. Would it help if I told you how I lost mine?”

Twilight lit up. “You'd do that?”

“As long as you don't interrupt.”


—


So, you're fourteen—Twi, if that mouth opens more than two inches I'm sticking a hoof in it—and you get your first exeat—yes, I know what an exeat is—from flight school. You go mingle, visit the Agora, look for something to do that doesn't make you spend fifty bits on a five-bit batch of imported cider. You've got Fluttershy with you, you're not fucking yet—stop blushing, ‘rut’s not accurate here—and Gilda, who you haven't started fucking either.

Gilda's getting up in your flank about how the place's an applehole, and it's kinda true: the whole place's got bits of the Unicorn Invalidation—alright, alright, the Earthenware Revolution—sticking out of the dirty-ass cloud buildings, lots of gears and bolts and so on and so forth, lots of homebrew ripoffs of already outdated architecture and machines just jutting out the bucking things like lanterns hanging out a griffon window to try and shake hungry ghosts off your tail.

I can see you're getting impatient, but buck you. I'm telling this story my way.

So you're all pretty unhappy, except for Fluttershy who's just absolutely rutting terrified. Right before Gilda's done griping about the place she starts hyperventilating. You've seen her like this in the school cafeteria before, so of course you know what to do: you grab her by the hoof, never the shoulders so help you Celly, and bring her into the nearest building with an open door.

No, it isn't a whorehouse. Those're in the Acro. It's a little mom-and-pop store, so genuine that the only Equestrian they speak is ‘five bits’. Fluttershy calms down a bit, and Gilda comes in and starts moaning about how globalization's going to make sure that place was gonna belong to her dad some day.

Come to think of it, Gilda really was kind of a bitch. Fuck me if that cloaca wasn't as sexy as Hell Tartarus, though.

Yes, as opposed to Purgatory Tartarus without the giant-dicked centaur and Limbo Tartarus with the fetuses. Luna, and you say I'm stupid. I bet you think drinking pregnant mare piss is safe, too.

Yeah, it's what they make hormone pills from. That shit can kill you concentrated. Found that out the hard way. Not a fun thing to hear from a doctor.

Anyway, so the owner comes along and really politely asks you ‘I fuck your mother of Luna, flightless pair of aged ballsack-dwelling immigrants, and I will burn your village and children’, which you might think isn't actually a question, but it's actually Hurricane Pegasus for ‘could you please buy something?’

So you've got maybe fifty bits in your saddlebag and you figure ‘hey, might as well get a slice of pie’, so you pat Fluttershy on the back and hand over five bits for half a tiny slice of pie like a chump and give the kid a bite. Gilda gets moaning about how there's no bone meal, and you ask the owner if he has any meat.

He says they've got pet food, and you evacuate the place with Fluttershy before the Invasion of Kopet kicks into stride and hit the refugee ca—I mean, the dorms before the wave of devastation reaches you.

By that, I mean you manage not to get caught up in a four-hour Gilda rant.

So you and Fluttershy are alone in your dorm, all alone, and every other pony's either having the time of their life in the city or pretending to. She gets all teary-eyed and apologizes over and over for screwing the trip up, and I tell her it's fine, try and cheer her up.

You say you'll make her some Duchess Blue.

She tells you she just wants you.

I can see the look on your face. No, there's no whore twist. They check IDs.

My first time was with Fluttershy.

Okay, so you get propositioned by this incredibly shy, incredibly cute filly, who you've spent the last seven years being besties with and who you've only in your bucking dreams ever thought would be down to fuck. Think of how that feels for a moment.

Good? Better than good. Your wings of course almost pop out of their damn sockets, and Flutters looks away like she's seen Tirek's enormous dong. You say yes, and she looks at you and does something that looks like it's come out of a seventies Playcolt, but she keeps mumbling about how what she's doing is obscene.

Now, that sounds hot, but she's doing it in that seriously freaked-out kind of little-foal way, and the way she's moving you can see she's begging for it, but she's begging for it like somepony's stuck a springshank to her neck.

She kinda creeps up to you and sticks her hooves on your shoulders, which is nice, and then she pushes you down onto the bed, hard, which is fine, and then she starts choking the shit out of you, which isn't fun or nice when you're seriously scared for your life. You try and struggle and she pushes like a bucking steamroller.

Your wings're pushing up hard against your back and you're gasping for air but she pushes her own pussy up against yours and starts grinding it against you, practically slamming herself against you like some kind of deranged I-don't-even-know-what-the-hay—yeah, it was kind of like a deranged bunch of sticky, soft, furry hay—and it feels kind of good but it's so fucking terrifying you're about to piss yourself.

But you took a piss on the way home so you don't piss yourself—you just try to—and she's just ramming at you and she's squealing like a pig in the mud—that's not racist, it's accurate—and you feel your pussy getting wetter real quick but it sure as hay isn't 'cause of you, and then she pulls away and girlcum's got all over your bits and it's not yours.

Then she hawks a loogie onto your face, dusts her hooves off and goes “did you like that”? And she's smiling, like she's really proud that she got through it and she has no clue what she's just done.

It was a whole year before I even dared to have sex again. A whole rutting year. That was with a whore, on my sixteenth birthday.

Next time, I was ready.


—


“No offense, but that sounds more like Fluttershy's fault,” Twilight said, shrugging. “You don't need to be a psychiatrist to know something's wrong when somepony's acting like that.”

“I actually forgot what I was trying to say,” she said, shrugging. “The point is, if I knew how good sex could be, I wouldn't have let that get me down. If you do it with a professional—”

“Come on,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “How bad could a first time even be? You're just projecting.”

Dash stood.

“Come on,” she said, her voice solemn, “I'll let Fluttershy tell you herself.”


—


Twilight sat in respectful silence as Fluttershy laid down a saucer and cup of tea, followed by a scone. Judging by the sounds of anguish coming from outside, Dash was distinctly mediocre at pre-gardening.

“Dashie told me you wanted to get her little talk from me,” Fluttershy said, smiling politely. A few months ago, she might have spoken in whispers; Twilight couldn't help but marvel at the change.

“Well, uh—”

“I know she's a little weird at times, Twilight, but she's basically right.” Fluttershy took a sip of chamomile. “What matters is that you enjoy it and learn from it.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Is Fluttershy telling me to hire an escort?”

She giggled. “Oh, certainly not. I think you should wait until you find a stable partner who you think you'll spend the rest of your life with, but I know most coverers don't like that too much. Dashie especially. She thinks I'm secretly, uh—” She paused, blushing. “—y'know. Not that she'd mind if I was. She's very understanding.”

“So,” Twilight said, eyes widening a bit, “your first time was with Dash? That's impressive.”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy said, before her face turned a shade of thoughtful. “Well, yes, according to Asham's—I mean, Celestia's Recitation, but no.”

Twilight had the minimal amount of tact required not to suggest that Celestia never wrote the Recitation, but not enough to fail to pry. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said, smiling gently. “I was raped.”

Twilight felt her metaphorical brain implode, and quickly thanked biology that its physical form hadn't.

“Oh.”

“I can tell you the story if you'd like,” she said, leaning over and pouring more tea into the cup. “It's really not a big deal—it was so long ago, you know.”

Twilight, critiquing Fluttershy's character from a literary perspective, concluded that she was utterly unrealistic and, having suitably distanced herself from the character before her which bore Fluttershy's face, shook her head quickly and stood. “Sure,” she said, bringing her notebook up with a purple flash of light.

Dash trod in through the doorway, batting at the clods of dirt gathered up in her rainbow mane. A few brown trails of sweat made their way down her forehead; the shiner had faded remarkably fast behind her fur, leaving a slightly darkened spot surrounding her left eye; she had trouble squinting at Twilight. “I heard magic. You're not trying to do a mindwipe, are you?”

Fluttershy's eyes fluttered. “Oh, Twilight wanted to hear the story. Are you joining us, Dashiekins?”

“Nah,” Dash said, turning about. “I'm gonna finish with the gardening. If she looks like she's depersonalizing you to try and emotionally shield herself, you give her a good buck on the head, alright?”

She giggled slightly. “Can you believe she's the sub?”

Twilight mumbled something incoherent, perhaps shocked that Dash knew half of the words out of her mouth.

Fluttershy took a sip and began.


—


Well, my dad was really busy, you know, with the whole Revolution going on, so most of the time I stayed home. I had to go to the market, and I wasn't wearing any clothes—that was back when that was legal—so once in a while somepony'd call me mean names and spit at me and said I wasn't a good Ashami—I mean, you know, Celestian—and mom told me to wear something but I wasn't about to let some mean old ponies make me change the way I dressed, you know.

Oh, you probably already know how it ended. I was walking to the market one day when I felt some big, strong hooves around my neck. I never saw his face and I can't remember his voice so well, so I'm not sure if it was definitely a he, but he dragged me into an alley.

I screamed, of course, but then I felt a little bit of metal up against my neck. Back then most of the younger revolutionaries didn't have any real weapons, so they had little springed tubes with spikes in them. I quieted down a bit—oh, sorry about the bruise but Dashiekins said I had to buck you if I saw you do that—and then he pushed me up against the wall.

A bit like this, see? I'd spread my legs a bit more to show you, but that'd be indecent.

He said some stuff—I'm not sure what, exactly, but I remember it was really hurtful—and then jammed his carpus upwards, really quick. I think I was seven or so, so it didn't hurt as bad as it would now, but it hurt really, really bad. I screamed and I think I peed myself—I remember there was some warmth there, but it might've just been blood—and then he grabbed me by the hair and rubbed my face into the mess—again, I'm not really sure whether it was his or mine—on the pavement, like a dog. Not that I'd ever treat a doggie like that, of course!

Oh, don't worry about the mess; it's just saliva and tea, after all. I'll mop it up later.

Anyway, I think he probably did that—kicked me, that is—to loosen me up a little, you know? So it wouldn't hurt him too much. I tried to pull my head up, but he stuck the little tube at that kinda soft bit at the back of my head and said he'd pull the trigger if I didn't lick the floor clean.

Well, I thought that was a bit mean, so I kicked up and tried to hit him in the you-know-where. He laughed—again, I can't remember what he said, but I remember what his laughter was like, kind of high and cracked—at me, and then he grabbed me by the hair again—that really hurt—and threw me onto one of the old sofas leaning up against the wall—we were outside a residential kind of building, but I think it got abandoned before I came, because no one came and tried to help me.

He felt my, uh—

Ooh, are you okay with swears? Dashie says they make the story have lots of impact.

I'll try and keep it cl—alright, Dashiekins!

I'm sorry, but I just can't say no to my Dashie. I hope you understand.

So, uh, he felt my cunt up, pushed at the folds. It was kinda like he'd never seen one of those things before, but he said something about me being wet. Since I knew by now he was definitely going to rape me, I started screaming for help, and he shouted something about the infidels or the King or Celestia's hostage government and hit me on the jaw really hard, like this. I kept shouting until he started choking me with his forelegs, and while I was trying to breathe and my eyes were rolling up into my skull he just put his thing—sorry, his dick—up against my cunt and just pushed really hard.

I was kicking at him as hard as I could before that, but my legs kinda stopped moving all of a sudden. I think I might've been in shock. I'm not sure how far he got in me before he pulled out and started pushing again. I was still conscious and breathing, so at some point he must've let go of my neck, but I couldn't hear my own voice any more. 

That's kind of metaphorical, huh?

Oh, don't worry, I won't buck you in the head just for thinking that. It happened so long ago; Dashie's nice, but she has kind of a penchant for over—

—reacting. Please get your forehooves off Twilight's face, Dashiekins.

You're staying this time? I'll go make some tea!

Oh, you don't want any? I'll just go on, then.

So he started buck—I mean, he started fucking me. Tons of words for the same thing, of course, but 'fucking's the only word I can think of that's really being honest. I could say he was fucking my cunt, but it was more like he was fucking my whole lower body. He was grabbing my wings and just slamming into my hips. He wasn't fucking me, really, but he was fucking that part of me. It hurt a lot.

Well, it wasn't really him fucking that part of me. I like to say that he was using that part of me to fuck himself, like one of those toys Dashie likes to play with. He wasn't slamming into it as much as he was pushing and pulling on it really hard with his hooves, like he was doing it with himself and I was an, um—

Please don't cry, Dashiekins. Are you sure you wanna listen to this again?

That's not why I don't use the toys by myself. Don't even think of getting rid of them.

You're sure?

Smiling won't make me think you're not upset, Dash.

Alright. I love you.

So he was taking that piece of me and fucking me over and over for—for ten seconds before he let go inside me—that's better, Dashiekins, laugh it out—and pulled out. I found some stains on my coat later, so I know he got some outside. I didn't have my menarche yet and I wasn't in heat so I didn't get pregnant.

After he was done, he grabbed onto my hair and twisted my neck like this and spat on my face. I think it hit me in the eye, since I remember I closed my eyes instinctively. I tried to wipe it off before he hit me really hard on the face and it flew off entirely.

He told me the next time I came out naked, I wouldn't walk out of the alley. Then he left me there. I waited until I couldn't hear his hoofsteps before I ran straight home.

I came home very late and told my mother I wanted to wear clothes. A couple of years later, my mother managed to get me into Cloudsdale Flight School. And, uh, that's where I met Rainbow Dash, the best pony in the world!


—


“Oh, you,” Dash said, and embraced her tearfully.

“It's really no big deal,” Fluttershy said, giggling as she higher her back. “I've moved past those ten seconds.”

Twilight sat silently as she made a note, and did not question how ten seconds could have caused Fluttershy to come home very late.
> Quemadmodum
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“That doesn't prove anything.”

Dash stared at Twilight; she continued to speak.

“It's sad and it's interesting and I think I'm gonna hurl once it all sinks in, but it doesn't prove anything.”

Dash snorted.

“And you think Applejack's gonna give you a picture perfect pony?”

The road to Sweet Apple Acres had a peculiar sort of quality; it was just steep enough to allow one to bring a full cart down with as much reduced effort was possible while still allowing its puller to take breaks, and yet not so steep that it would impede a pony's movement as he returned with an empty cart.

This is an utterly pointless thing to know, not least because this means it was more or less flat.

“No,” Twilight said as they came up to the door of the Apple family home and knocked, “but I'm gonna increase my sample size before jumping to conclusions. She seems normal enough.”

“For Celestia's sakes, Twi,” Dash said, as she failed to notice the door opening, “just get a whore.”

“I'm not one to meddle in the country business of other ponies,” Applejack said, tilting her head a bit as she let the door rest against the inside, “but may I inquire kindly as to what in tarnation are y'all talkin' 'bout and why're y'all bringin' it to my doorstep?”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Twilight wants to hear how you lost your virginity.”

Applejack's raised an eyebrow. “Forgive me for sayin', Rainbow, but subtlety ain't exactly your prize melon. You do know I’m, uh—what’s the word? Not attracted t’anybody?”

“Asexual?” Twilight said, raising an eyebrow.

“Huh. I thought that there word only worked with plants. Well, I ain’t no virgin,” Applejack said, shrugging, “but yes, I s’pose I am.”

“Well,” Dash said, rolling her eyes, “are you gonna tell us?”

Applejack glared at her. “Now, why the hay would I go do somethin' like that?”

“Dash says that the only way my first time won't scar me for life—” she began, trailing off.

Applejack winced. “—will be if y'all do it with a ten-trick-pony with a two-bit cutie mark walkin' down the streets?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Hey,” Dash said, indignant, “I'll have you know that I've got a very reputable place in mind.”

“Sure y'do, Dash.” She shook her head. “If it'll keep you safe from Dash, Twi, come in. I'll fix y'all up some apple pie and write y'all up a good old yarn.”

“Wait,” Twilight said, “You're gonna write us a yarn?”

Applejack snorted. “I'll have you know I kiss my sister with this mouth.”

“And your brother,” Dash said, snickering.


—




	“An earth pony is very strong, but very precise; control is an integral part of earth pony neurophysiology. Their pioneering of advanced mechanical technology is a fundamental display of the fact; while it isn't nearly as spectacular as unicorn magic and far more complicated, the misoperation of a printing press is far more likely to break a pony's hoof than rend it apart.”
—Ehrenbürger Mars, Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie



Rainbow Dash, who had never read Das Kapital, might have been driven to admiringly compare the difference in the injuries she had sustained between the two if she had; Applejack's buck had left a perfectly round, swollen mark centred in her periorbital region, but Twilight's now-faded magical maiming had left an irregular, blotchy sort of impact, its edges peeking out from under the earth pony's multiple, careful, almost simultaneous deep strikes.

She did know, however, that it hurt like a bitch trying to nurse off her—an experience which she had indeed had—and was going to take several days to stop stinging. She ate her slice of pie moodily alongside a quietly giggling Twilight as the typewriter clattered in the background.

“And—done!”

Applejack came bearing six sheets of paper clamped between her jaws, bound through a hole in the upper-left corner by a meticulously-tied bit of string.

“Wow,” Twilight said, her magic surrounding the stiff sheets as Applejack opened her mouth obligingly, “That was quick.”

Applejack shrugged, turning out the room. “Used t'be a stenographer for a while on th’weekends in Manehattan. Granny's asleep, so try not t'blabber her awake, would you kindly? And try not t'let Apple Bloom see it when she comes home.”

Twilight nodded and, spotting Dash's imploring one-eyed stare, began to read aloud.


—


In the glorious nine-hundredth and ninetieth year under the Mistress Celestia wherein I had the pleasure to have turned the age of eighteen and thus rendered under the law of the saints and scholars eligible for courtship in the principality of my birth and place of contemperaneous residence, where I had, in Manehattan, just completed the final year of my studies in my second sojourn from my homestead, I was returning to the student dwellings wherein I had stayed for the prior years. By my incompetence at a part of the quadrivium of liberal arts, namely arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, I had forfeited my right to participate in the celebrations that heralded the completion of my matriculation, and as such I was greatly disheartened as I trotted from the institution of learning which I had once been so audacious to almost have called my home.

Before I was half-way returned, however, bearing my graduate cap, I was politely accosted by a gentlestallion a hoof's-width taller than me.

—Hey, aren't you from that prep school down the block? he said, trotting up alongside me. Just graduated?

—I am and have indeed, I said, giving him a polite smile.

—So, you didn't make the cut? he said, giving me a sympathetic frown.

—Indeed so, I said. It is quite the pity, but I nonetheless wasn't going to make great use of it. I am but a simple apple farmer from the town of Ponyville, as my cutie mark portrays me.

Presuming our dialogue to be thus concluded, I began to depart. Nonetheless, he placed himself before me.

—Hey, wait. You say you’re from Ponyville? 

—Indeed, sir. I was born and raised in Ponyvillle, formally la-Ville-des-Poneys-sur-la-Gorge-affreux-en-face-du-fôre—

—Whoa, whoa, he said. No hablo Cabellano. I just wanted to ask you if you were interested in a little job.

Being a pony even then wise to the world, I gave him a very skeptical sort of look.

—Am I to understand that you are offering me a position in the pornographic film industry?

He gave me a somewhat embarrassed sort of look, though my glare did not change in intensity towards him.

—Yes.


—


Rainbow Dash broke into peals of laughter. “Twilight—”

“Shush,” Twilight said, “or I'll stop reading this aloud.”

She quieted herself down rather quickly.


—


I had made a great many inquiries to the producer, and bargained as thoroughly as I could, using to my advantage my virginity and the quaintness of my origins and the various circumstances I had been subjected to so that I would surely obtain the highest price that I could find myself, which was very high indeed. I had, of course, never before participated in any acts that might jeopardize my virginhood, for I never felt any urge to, but I nonetheless must assure the reader of my tale that I was, at the time, feeling greatly fitful, and found myself caring little for either society or myself and I have found myself maintaining the same pragmatism throughout my lifetime, for it is a miserable state, for one to confine themselves out of principle like I had before.

I found myself at the studio of the producer in high spirits, freshly cleaned. There were a great many elements to the ritual, however, of the cleaning to which I was almost immediately subjected; I will not bore the reader with them, except to mention that my pudenda had never been so properly clean in my life.

I was also told to wear a certain ensemble, composed of the following articles:

* a mortarboard, or square academic's cap
* a uniform superficially resembling that of my former school's, though considerably more comfortable 
* a small saddlebag containing a false diploma, printed entirely (and unrealistically) with 'F's

I was eventually put into an enclosed chamber, whereby a stallion 'interviewed' me; it was a dull interview, scripted as all are, but it was nonetheless greatly humiliating in a way that I cannot say was unpleasant: I was interrogated as I had been told I was, spoke eloquently about my (false) aspirations in science, made a great fuss about how I had (not yet) disappointed my family, and noted (falsely) that the mark upon my flank, the mark of my sundorcræft, had been received along with my failing assessment, concluding with the truly incredible news of my recent foaling; I cannot recall the details of the conversation, though the tape is surely by now publicly available, but I do recall that it concluded thus:

—So, you're a failure?

—Yes, I said, making sure to smile as though I wished to cry. I am.

The red unicorn stallion before me, one of the three who surrounded me, then used his magic to force the lower part of my bottom coat apart, revealing my teats, which were engorged, forced into lactation by some sort of unicorn fertility magic. I made a great show of seeming fearful as he pounced upon me and dragged me to the floor by my tail, my cap falling to the couch, and let out a slight yelp as another stallion, a light blue pegasus with a dyed blonde mane—unusually feminine—pulled my hair backwards, and very quickly put his member up against my face; it was dripping rather furiously—no doubt under the influence of some sort of magic, for his horn was glowing—and he grabbed my hair, done into pigtails, with his hooves—here, I quickly jerked my head back before he committed his act, as I had been instructed, to ensure that he did not break his forelegs with the shock—and yanked downwards, my jaw gaping open as his magic stroked at his male organ, pushing downwards and rubbing itself at my face, as sticky strands of Cowper's fluid strung themselves from my 'chanfro', as it is known in Poneibeluese, to bridge itself over my open mouth before he held my skull and thrust it into my throat, swooping immediately to its base; I choked for air as his scrotum slapped against my eyes, stinging very slightly.

The pony who had pulled me before then inserted himself at my cleft of Venus, keeping himself above me; I am later told that his glance, hidden from the cameras, had the slightest note of concern within it, and as I felt his pushing I tapped his upper thigh, as is customary and just under the laws of the Princess, to indicate my final consent; such being given, he pushed slowly, but found that he could not penetrate past my clenched loins—then tight from the stress caused by the somewhat occupying organ within my throat, the scenario being so constructed with the peculiarly urban sensibility that my inability to see my own 'deflowering' would be so demanding psychologically that they would be compelled, by their ethics, to offer me a slightly greater payment, as strange as the custom might be—and thus attempted, unsuccessfully, to prize my vaginal labia apart with his magic to ensure that his own organ was not harmed in the process of penetration; this eventuality being accounted for professionally, however, he then put his horn against my feminine entrance and pushed upon it very hard, the blunted tip forcing through my hymen, which stretched rather widely with a mild discomfort; the sensation of penetration, however, was greatly overwhelming, and the pegasus, in a motion which was likely choreographed, pulled himself from my throat so that I could shout.

The targeted audience for this film was clearly male and heterosexual, for my colleagues did not make the slightest voluntary sound but various small bits of praise and calumniation— even the unicorn, who had just put a direct channel to his central nervous system within an unbearably tight orifice, remained admirably almost silent. I pulled his head from within me, making sure to make it look as if it were an effort, and groaned; I was (falsely and loudly) informed that I would not be compensated if I did not follow through entirely, and the camera turned off for half a minute so that I could be gifted with hastily-applied teardrops, that miracle of acting, before they brought the camera close to my face so that I could sadly conclude my assent.

This melodrama thus concluded, the unicorn horn coated in my fluids and a dash of magically-conjured false blood thus penetrated me again, once, as if in spite but in reality to test my openness, before he mounted me, coarsely fondling my soft teats. A great volume of milk spilled from them as he did so, and I groaned theatrically as he berated me for abandoning my nonexistent child for a life of perversion, before he finally used his stallionhood to penetrate me.

My groan was unceremoniously interrupted with a slap to the muzzle in the form of the pegasus stallion's member, and I was slightly distressed by this, yelping in surprise, that itself cut off by the sudden repeated penetration of my throat. This having been expected, I stuck my tongue out around the member, and tasted it—I shall not endeavor to explicate in great deal my quale, but it was an interesting taste—upon which occasion I moaned rather salaciously.

The third stallion, purple in color, beforehand out of the picture, then came in; he was an earth pony, but the cameraman intentionally seemed to wish to obfuscate this—perhaps as a subtle sort of pandering, for the name under which the studio had released my film under had an interesting name, which I forget exactly though remember as relating in a very subtle way to the tribal nomenclature, and though they never went so far as to call me a 'mud pony', they were quite happy calling me a 'big earth mare'—as the other two pulled out of me so that he could flip me onto my front and put his greatly lubricated member up against my similarly virgin anus; I made a great deal of screaming as though I were a common animal until I was quickly gagged by the organ of the unicorn which had heretoforth been penetrating my vagina, and the earth pony, using a great deal of his strength, penetrated deep into my rectum, causing in me a great series of shudders; I did not feel a great deal of pain, for a great deal of lubrication had been used and my natural endurance played a great role in it, but the shudders continued nonetheless, and filled me with a beastly feeling, and I began to feign struggle—I might have struggled in reality, if I was not afraid of causing grievous injury to the workmen involved—only to be 'held down' by the pegasus above me, at which point I shook my hooves halfheartedly under his 'strong and firm' grip.

We then proceeded to engage in various varieties of intercourse, descriptions of which I will not bore the reader with; the earth pony did not at any point find himself anywhere but at my rectum, which had settled by a gel of rather ingenious composition to become comfortably numb, and the other two switched positions on occasion. There were two breaks, I recall, where I was given water—no snacks, however, for the production was not emetic in nature, though I would not have minded it greatly if the studio had offered the option.

The ending, however, is notable: I found myself kneeling upon my hindlegs unpenetrated, still wearing my torn, rather terribly messy clothes, and was told to pull from my saddlebag my false diploma; I did so, and it was promptly taken from me; I was told to put it up against my chin, and, recalling this part of the script, did so; this being done, I opened my mouth, at which point the three masturbated upon me; their semen fell over my face and covered it entirely, and one of the stallions put his hoof up against it and pressed it against my face, sticking the paper to me by the semen; I could not see, but I felt quite vividly the thence-forgotten graduate cap being shoved roughly upon my head, leaving me a rather picturesque wreck.

I was then again interrogated—after the soiled paper was removed from my face and I was 'made' to tear it to shredsand there came the pause of the camera for the miraculous eyedrops—and quickly recalled my lines; the dialogue was similarly immemorable, and doubtlessly very arousing for certain people. I had not at any time reached hysterical paroxym, but then again I had not at any point felt sexually aroused.

I was given a small bonus for my evidently outstanding performance. I must admit, however, that there was a single thing I did which I was not supposed to do before the credits were meant to roll.

I smiled.

I really was given quite a lot of bits.

FIN


—


Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath, her narration finished.

“Wow.”

“So,” Dash said, “does this mean I win, or—?”
> Quatenus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This chapter contains scenes that might be described as disturbing.

“By th’way,” Applejack said, rounding the corner and marching back into the living-room, “If y’all done messed up my couch with y—”

She might have continued her sentence, but her guests appeared to have vanished entirely. Her manuscript had been left on the table, and she trotted over and picked it up.

“Well, hay,” she said, shrugging. “I guess I’ll hafta find some use for this ol’ thing now. Be a waste t’just burn it up.” She held it at forehoof’s length, then decided that she should perhaps get it published somewhere.

She would later become one of the most influential authors in Equestrian literary history as the age of mass anonymous publication dawned, but her ascendancy is sadly a tale which may never be written.


—


“Draw?”

“Draw.”

Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle shook hooves, miraculously maintaining their balance as they walked back down the dirt path; the latter tucked her magical transcription of Applejack’s account into her saddlebag.

“So,” Dash said,  “who next?”

“Well, Carousel Boutique’s nearest.”

Dash made a face. “Do we have to ask Rarity next? What about the other ponies?”

“I’m a bit too terrified of Pinkie to ask her just yet, I’m not that good friends with Cheerilee and I don’t think anypony else would tell us. What’s so bad about Rarity, anyway?”

Dash gave her a look. “I’ll bet you her first time was with her dad to make her pay attention to her again after Sweetie Belle came into the picture.”

Twilight gave her a look in return, and then quickly stopped before the amount of exasperated sighing it represented gave her narcolepsy. “For Celestia’s sakes, Dash. Magnum is an upstanding pony and that insults him more than it does her.”

Dash’s returning look was unrepentant enough that if she had given it to a kadı, she might have been executed for jaywalking. “Hmph.”

“Fine,” she said, shaking her head. “We’ll talk with Rarity later. Who else do you have in mind?”

Dash took a second or two to think. “If you want me to pull some names off the top of my head? Cloudchaser, Rainbowshine, Raindrops, Score and Derpy Hooves.”

“And how many of them lost their virginities to you?” Twilight said, giggling at her own wit.

“Four out of five.”

Twilight found that she’d quite suddenly lost her ability to giggle.


—


“Are you sure this is ethical?” Twilight whispered, creeping through the mailmare’s darkened house.

“Hey,” Dash said, glancing about as she rummaged softly through a drawer. “You’re the one who went all ‘oh, we already know your mow-dus oh-pay-ran-dee, we don’t need more of that’ on me.”

“We could just wait until she got home,” Twilight said, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “This feels wrong.”

“It is kinda wrong,” Derpy said, and Twilight and Dash promptly screamed their heads off in a very metaphorical sense.

The lights went on, and a slightly sleepy pegasus rubbed her left eye and yawned slightly as she walked slowly down the stairs. “I mean, it’s kinda illegal too. I think. Not so sure ‘bout that whole ‘national heroes’ thing, but hey.”

“Oh, hey, Derpy,” Dash said, giving her a wide, impressively artificial grin. “We were just searching for, uh—a muffin recipe.”

Derpy looked at her closely through one eye before she nodded, knelt down, pulled the board off one of the steps and pulled out a shotgun, placing the twitch-trigger up against her mouth.

Her voice was rather cheerful as she spoke past the trigger. “You’re trespassing and lying, and I think one of them’s illegal. I think I’m allowed to kill ponies doing illegal things on my property in this country.” She glanced down at her device. “I don’t have to aim with this, y’know? It’s actually really neat!”

“Actually,” Twilight said, and found her muzzle quickly obstructed by a light blue hoof.

“Wait, Derpy, see, we were looking for your diary.”

“Why’s that?” she said, keeping her teeth on the trigger. Dash winced, partially at the lack of trigger safety and mostly at the prospect of her imminent death.

“We wanted to know how you lost your virginity.”

“Oh! Why didn't you say so?” she said, removing her mouth from the trigger and throwing the shotgun to the side; it promptly discharged, sending quite a bit of buckshot and a lot of Rainbow Dash—minus a few hairs—tearing through the roof. 

“I’d be happy to help,” she said, noting with interest how Dash’s streamlined flying pose had left her hind legs protruding almost seamlessly from the ceiling. “Sorry ‘bout that. You know how it is. Can’t trust anypony these days.”

Twilight regained her ability to giggle, albeit nervously. “Sure can't,” she said, as Dash dropped to the floor covered barrel-up in plaster. “Sorry about the, uh, roof.”

“Oh, no biggie!” Derpy said, descending the stairwell as she grabbed the weapon and tossed it back into its hidey-hole. It didn't discharge. “I've got floor insurance. Fully covered!” She went around them and into the kitchen, leaving the two alone.

“This pony's crazy,” Twilight whispered, gently helping Dash to stand. “Even more than everypony else in this town!”

“That’s why I thought of her,” Dash said, pulling a bit of shattered tile out of her mane. “Real character, right?”

Twilight’s whisper turned violent. “She would've killed us!”

She shrugged, dusting her flank off. “I stare death in the eye ‘til it blinks every day.”

Twilight was still vacillating between pointing out her cowardice or her own lack of experience in confronting her mortality when Derpy entered the room with a metal-bound journal tucked under her left wing.

“My first time’s in entry fifty-one, and I’m not crazy,” Derpy said, smiling as she handed the thing over; Dash took it eagerly. “I’m just a responsible homeowner with a good ear and a daughter to die for. Keep the diary. I’m not working on it anymore, and I’m sure you could do something better with it than I have.”

Twilight had never given anyone a smile more nervous than she had then.

“Oh, by the way, Dash, how’d you get a black eye?”

“Well, you know. Fluttershy likes it rough, and all.”

Her smile didn’t falter, but her hoof drifted over to a slightly loose panel in the wall. “I’ve seen enough unicorn kinetics and earth pony bucks to know them from a pegasus pounce. You wouldn’t have a skull left to bruise, y’know?”

“Applejack did the second and Twilight the first,” Dash said, and Twilight grasped her hoof as they absconded from Derpy’s place of residence.


—


Twilight took her time in the sun to breathe. “How in the wide, wide world of Equestria did she know the particulars of a pony buck?”

“Says here,” Dash said, poking at the then-open sheets, “she’s a vet. The war kind, not the Fluttershy kind.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “A veteran? Equestria hasn’t had a war in ages.”

Dash flipped through the pages. “Wasn’t an Equestrian war.”

Twilight magically snatched the book from Dash’s paws. “Let me see that.”


—


This is the record of Major Ditzy ‘Debir el-Hufiz’ Doo of the Trottingham Unified Armed Forces in her capacity as Confidential Attaché to the Republican Guard of the Khishbiri Republic in the service of Parliament.

I testify that I am not suicidal. I also testify that I am not insane, though I may once have been. I am simply a mare who did her duty as an officer in the Armed Forces, and utilised all possible means to do so. The only crime against the pony race I have committed is war, and that is not what I will be tried for.

If I am pardoned, I will soon resettle in Equestria, taking up a pseudonym; I will keep as my only reminder this journal, and will not directly reveal its contents until any and all matters related to it have been declassified.

At no point have I attempted to censor anything in this document. I sincerely hope that the tribunal who judges me injures no one by means of their popping monocles, for that would be a most firmly unacceptable circumstance.


—


“That’s cool,” Dash said, “but how’d she get laid?”

Twilight was ready to raise a variety of objections in favour of finding the truth behind the Ishpan-Khishbi war, but capitulated to herself and to Dash within seconds; her curiosity had its own priorities.


—


	51.

I believe that have not made an entry in several days; this is because I have recently been hit by a grenade, and spent the last five days recuperating. I have at least fared better than the Commander; it has been four months since he was shot, and I have so far been successful in gathering his troops. Even if they sent a new one, I doubt that he will be accepted as a replacement for me.

The shrapnel has been removed, but my eyes will forever be misaligned. I at least can thank pegasus neurological structure that my aim remains true. Situational awareness has its place; now I only see my target so that I can feel a bit better when I choose to miss. The troops notice my disability, but I have gone back into the fighting and my aura of invincibility seems just as strong as ever.

I have heard that they are now calling this the ‘Hurricane War’ in Khishbi, as though ‘we’ will soon win; they have called it an honourable, brave victory, driven by Celestia’s will. It is not honour to massacre these colts, fourteen or fifteen of age, as they charge towards our lines, and it is not bravery to choke them in gas from kilometres away, and it is not Celestia’s will that drives us.

The Ishpanians may be young and inexperienced, but they are many and they are fervent; one of our prisoners today killed himself, biting off his own tongue so that he could choke himself to death on it and meet the soul of his own Celestia in heaven—presumably the same Celestia whose immortal coil is ‘held captive by demonic powers that rule Equestria’.

There is, however, a thing that keeps me wondering: ‘my’ troops, insofar as they are mine in heart, have started calling me ‘The Teacher, the Protector’—in Husharic, this is ‘el-Darbheer-el-Huhfeez’.

Indeed: to them I am a teacher, as though I have taught them more than how to kill foals, and a protector, as though I have done more than delay their deaths.

I miss almost every time I fire, now, as if I am saving a life every time I do, but the machinegun fire hits what I do not and the gas clears what it doesn’t, the former so quickly that I am often complimented for a shot that I have missed, as though a single bullet from me might rend half a pony into paste.

The times where I have hit, it is usually a corpse; he might not be known as a corpse by any medical authority, but a foal choking to death on his own blood in the middle of a no-mare’s-land strewn with the bodies of his companions is sufficiently dead for my purposes.

It is only a matter of time before the Ishpanians break past our barricades and rend us to shreds, driven by the sights of the horrors we have wreaked upon them.

And I suppose they would be right.

As to my personal affairs, I today was approached by one of the troops under my command; his name was Private Masum Muhriz, a colt around eighteen years of age, (which is the customary age of adolescence for colts in the Khishbi law) and he was the second in his class before he signed up for the war, in which he has served for several months.

He engaged me in conversation; this is unusual in itself, because they seem to fear me as much as they love me, but the far more unusual thing about him was his introductory sentence. It was in Equestrian; Muwajahat’s education system has made it much easier to speak in languages she doesn’t understand.

‘Am I to die?’

A few of the troops nearby heard him speak and turned to look at him; two or three of them knew enough Equestrian to translate for their compatriots, and the entire mess hall soon began to stare at us. I held him by his shoulder—here, one of them covered his ears and eyes and cowered a bit, as if anticipating a one-liner and a gunshot—and led him out. One of the mares in the hall started crying; I later found out that she was his sister.

He seemed fearful, and I spoke to him quietly in Husharic:

‘Why are you asking such a question?’

He responded in slightly awkward Equestrian, presumably again to lower the chance that anyone might understand him:

‘My mother, before the war, said that I am going to wed a mare of her choosing, and that we would be happy together. Now I am worried that I may never wed, and die with my only consolation being in Celestia’s heaven. My mother is also not Ishpanian, and my death will only bring her grief.’

I did not know what to say to assuage him; he spoke quietly, and without inflection, but he seemed almost to be in tears. I did not share his faith, and so I could not comfort him on those grounds.

I have no doubt that somepony will read this one day, when it is no longer secret, and scoff to herself—but the truth is that now, as I write this, as I am sitting at my commander’s table and writing this journal, that I am a very lonely mare in a very lonely place. I have never had sexual relations before this date, and had kept myself satiated with masturbation; perhaps it would intrigue the reader to know that pornography is illegal in the Khishbiri Republic, and though it does not excuse me I hope that you will forgive me for the actions that I am about to detail.

I stared at him for a little while; he was not embarrassed, and his demeanour was genuinely distressed. I looked about, and then sure that I was not under observation, grabbed the colt under the jaw and kissed him fully, on the mouth, and stayed like that for around four seconds before I pulled back.

‘I too have never known another.’

He seemed overwhelmingly shocked, and spoke for the first time in Husharic, a simple, one-word proclamation:

‘It is forbidden!’

I blinked. ‘Why is it forbidden?’

‘We are not married. It is forbidden and immoral that we should have relations.’

‘What is immoral?’ I said, and I believe that I was beginning to cry at that point. ‘We cut ponies in half with our repeating machines and we suffocate them so that they drown in their own blood and then we burn their corpses so that their mothers cannot lay them to rest. What is immoral now?’

I suppose, if only to build the case against myself, that I should detail him: imagine a bright lavender unicorn pony with a green mane. He is slightly muscular, but overall his body is not well-defined; his fur is clean and his hair is short, because he is still in the habit of bathing and his fetlocks are unshorn.

‘The Recitation of Celestia does not allow it. It would be against Her will.’

I was so filled with pity for myself, then, that I simply ignored his words and began to drag him; he resisted lightly, but then seemed to realise that his superior officer was pulling him, and he remembered naïvely the penalties for disobedience. When we had reached the commander’s room without being seen—the trenches are far from the internal parts of the base—I simply threw him onto the bed with great force, my wings helping me propel him upon it.

I then bolted the door and began to strip him, laying atop him and beginning with his vest; perhaps stricken by fear, he did not move as I did this. His stallionhood had clearly made a bulge in his washed uniform, and he seemed genuinely embarrassed by it.

Irrationally fearing that I may embarrass myself, I did not say anything about it, but instead put a hoof against the bulge as I pulled the flak vest off him to expose his barrel. He whimpered and I saw a slightly damp spot grow against the fabric; no doubt he had never masturbated in his life. I found the thought very arousing, and rubbed my face against the fabric, causing the warm organ beneath to twitch.

I did not remove my uniform, but simply unzipped my pants; they split almost in two, and so my buttocks and my pudenda were entirely exposed.

I then stripped him of his trousers, easing them off his flank; in general, long-legged trousers are a griffon invention, and have no place on ponies, so it took quite a bit of fumbling to do this. His cutie mark—a symbol in Husharic, like those of most religions which forbid visual art—became visible along with his penis, and I could not help myself but lick at the latter.

My first thought was that it was salty, and I realised with a start that he had probably not washed it recently; my marehood had the discourtesy to force me into a state whereby I could not wait a second, however, and I simply pushed myself up closer to him and pressed my muzzle against his, tilting my head and forcing his mouth open as I began to let my tongue into his mouth. The feeling of his tongue on mine was particularly exquisite, but I could not focus on it while my aching loins remained unsatisfied.

I had used my hooves many times for the same purpose, and so I did not flinch as I grabbed his male organ and put it against my labia, and then eased myself down upon him; I pulled away and looked into his eyes—into one eye, rather, the other staring pointedly at the wall—as I penetrated myself with him. His own eyes rolled up into his skull and he moaned something unintelligible, but of which I could make out ecclesiastical terms like ‘sinful’.

He did not last long, barely half a minute; I let him ejaculate inside me. I did not reach orgasm myself, and continued to use his still-engorged member for a while while he groaned in discomfort. There was no real passion about it; I simply used him and my own hoof until I reached orgasm. It wasn’t a particularly special one; I could have done the same with a hoof and stick.

After that, I pulled myself off of him and threw him his clothing.

I then told him that I had reprimanded him, and that none of anything that we had done had just taken place; I told him that if he tells the troops that anything untoward has happened, I will hang him from his testicles, which I am told is a common punishment in this nation for insubordination. It is unlikely that he will tell anypony, in any case; the shame would be too much for him to bear.

I am not sure what I now think of myself; of all the crimes that I have overseen, this may be one of the most direct and the most heinous. I have let virgin lust lead me into abusing my position for the sake of my own gratification, and cannot conscience my continued freedom.

But I must, of course. I have not answered his question, but I believe the answer may be ‘yes’: I have heard that the Ishpanians are going to mount an attack tomorrow at half strength. I have let a pony’s only impression of sex be manipulative, emotionless, single-sided.

I suppose that I must tell myself that I am entitled to these petty liberties as a commanding officer.

I find myself wishing that if I die it will be just as the war ends, incinerated carrying my diary, perhaps, so that I will not live to incriminate myself.

For now, the best I can do is forget.

Whiskey is also illegal in the Republic, if I may note.

I detest this country with a passion.


—


Twilight Sparkle’s right eye twitched.

“Why is everypony in this town so incredibly bucked up?

Dash coughed a bit. “This coming from Little Miss Sentient Bea—”

Twilight glared at her. “Do you want another black eye?”

Dash quieted herself.
	
> Quomodonam
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This chapter contains various references to the fic Judgement (www.fimfiction.net/story/31375/Judgement), and takes part in the same continuity. Reading it isn’t necessary—it’s over nine thousand words long, no meme intended—but may help shed light on affairs.

Twilight leafed through the diary.

“Her first time didn’t effect her later self at all, even despite her short-term difficulties.”

“Affect,” Dash said, smug.

Twilight harrumphed. “I’ll have you know that ‘effect’ means ‘create’ as a verb. You only know the difference because Daring Do makes a joke to that effect in Daring Do and the Grammatical Caper.”

Dash humphed. “She was in the middle of a bucking war, anyway.”

“I can’t believe we’re still having this argument. Just look at all the data we’re gathering. I don’t think prostitution’s even relevant now.”

Her returning look was deadpan. “So you get a few interesting stories and you’ve completely forgotten about getting laid, huh?”

Twilight sighed, refusing to concede the point. “Look, we’ll call this another draw. Happy?”

Dash seemed content, and so debate ceased.

Twilight put the journal into her saddlebag; she’d get a copy to the Princess later. “We’re going to Rarity’s place.”

Dash was no longer content, and so debate resumed.

“No bucking way.”

“What is it you have against Rarity, Dash?”

She shuddered. “Just look at her! She probably doesn’t remember her first time.”

“Dash,” Twilight said, shaking her head, “was it with you?”

“For once, no. Not my type.”

The customary eyebrow-raising ensued. “What is your type, then?”

“The type that doesn’t go full Follower the moment she gets wings.” She stuck her tongue out. “C’mon, I don’t have an agenda. I just really don’t like talking with her. We’ll spend five hours getting past ‘ladies don’t kiss and tell’ and all the other cliche horseapples she’ll throw at us, and it’ll end up in the spa and she’ll say I’ll hafta get a manicure or something before she’ll tell us and it’ll all fall apart.”

Twilight sighed, more at Dash’s mispronunciation of cliché than at her tenacity. “Alright. One more pony before her. Happy?”


—


Lyra answered the door, rubbing her eyes. “Huh,” she said, shaking her head, “What’re the Helmets of Armoury doing here? Don’t you have worlds to save?”

“We need to talk to Bon-Bon,” Twilight said, grinning uncomfortably.

Lyra rolled her eyes, yawning deeply. “Ugh. Nobody ever wants to get music lessons in this podunk heap of a railway town. What d’you need her for? The confectionary’s not in motion t’day.”

“We’re, uh,” Twilight said, glancing over at Dash, “We’re conducting a study on the qualitative effects of, uh—” she paused for a moment, “an individual apoparthenevomation, specifically whether an expert application will result in metionizonization in the long term.”

“I took Ancient Ipparionic as a minor, Twilight. I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

Dash snickered; Twilight bit her lower lip and looked to the unusually dusty ground.

She shrugged. “Hey, so—if it’s a scientific study, why am I not in it?”

Dash and Twilight looked at each other.

“You’re not a virgin?”

Lyra stood upon her hindlegs and raised her hooves up on both sides of her head, looking to the left and right with an utterly alien expression upon her face; her lower lip pouted in a thoroughly unnatural way. “Ouch.”

Dash stood back a bit. “What in Equestria are you doing?”

“Oh, it’s the ‘we’ve got a badass here’ face from My L—”

Lyra might have finished her sentence if a beige hoof hadn’t chosen that moment to shove her out of the way, allowing a somewhat more animated Bon-Bon to take precedence. “Keep your Cavelinan cuisine in your saddlebags, marefiddler!”

“You first, rodwaxer!” Lyra shouted back; the sounds of clattering hoofsteps resounded, terminating in a shutting door.

Bon-Bon shook her head. “She isn’t gonna wash that flank for weeks.”

Twilight coughed into her hoof. “Excuse me, but—rodwaxer?”

She leaned in a bit, whispering. “She said I could, like, keep saying ‘filly-fooler’ and ‘marefiddler’ if I felt the same way about her, uh—her words—” She cringed, as if blessing them with the title was an insult to the language. “—for straight ponies.”

“You don’t?”

“Funny thing is, y’know, I think I kinda do,” Bon-Bon said, stepping aside and gesturing to the inside, where a bunch of chairs and beanbags stood beyond some empty wooden shelves on the walls. “Make yourselves at home. Or, like, at shop.” She shook her head. “Whatever.”

Dash and Twilight trod in; they’d never been in the place closed before, and the confectionary’s oven had a peculiar stillness to it unlit.

“This place sure smells different,” Dash said, sniffing at the air. “Like wood ‘stead of cinnamon.”

“Don’t see the point paying for cinnamon gas if I’m not, y’know, using it.” Bon-Bon took a seat of her own, in a hard wooden chair. “So,” she said, “what in Celestia’s ever-loving name’s an ‘aypowparfuhbaimaishun’?”

“Well, see, since you seem really well-adjusted—”

Bon-Bon snickered.

“—we just wanna know how your cherry got popped, in full detail.”

Bon-Bon coughed politely. “Elements of Harmony usually go into ponies’ shophouses and ask them how they got their cherries popped?”

“Yes,” Dash said, nodding.

“Well, then,” Bon-Bon said, her expression turning thoughtful, “I guess it’s been a really long time since I told anypony but the indomitable Clops-To-My-Sweat up there, so what the hay.”


—


Kay, so, it’s the freshman year party, I get a bit carried away with the whole ‘do really stupid crap’ thing, and before I know it my butthole’s just got, like, a whole keg’s worth in it and a timed magic plug in it. Funny how these things just happen, right?

Nah, turns out I’ve got yay-cur ay-day-man-tee-num or something like that. It’s pretty nice. I think like three out of four earth ponies have it, or something.

So anyway, I’m basically walking around with a belly bigger than the rest of me—I know that, Twilight Sper—wait no that’d be mean—Sparkle, it’s called ‘exaggeration’, ugh—trying to keep it all in, and let me tell ya, I’m about to burst wide open.

Now, it’s a total tacofest. I can see one or two filly-foolers checking my flank out—y’know, like ‘hey, check out that crazy bitch with the ass full of hops, I bet she’s great in bed’, hay if I know how filly-foolers think—and I mosey right the buck outta there with my cherry intact.

Now, Twilight, you’re a smart pony, you’re probably thinking ‘oh, why didn’t you just disrupt the plug’s unstable kinetic disequilibrium with your geoenergetic stability field?’ or something like that, right?

Yeah, I know, I’m psychic.

Let me just, like, clarify something for you. It’s freshman year, I know just about jack about bucking nexus theory, I’m drunk enough to think that I’m a unicorn and there’s no way I’m gonna shove my hoof two feet up my ass, so that rains premarin all over that.

Yeah, nursing minor.

Now, the alcohol’s, like, totally hammering me hard-bucking-core by now, and I’m seeing at least quadruples. I’m so incredibly drunk I’d be lucky if I could feel my own assfur. Some nice zebra gentlestallion comes up to me, says something I don’t understand, helps me back to my own room and I hit the bed so hard I think I’m Sullen bucking Plummet versus the Quillington Bed Company.

Yeah, prelaw minor too.

So, naturally, I wake up at ten the next day—wait, ‘hangovers’ are real things?—get to Econ 101 ten minutes late—no, of course I didn’t get drunk-raped, what kind of traumatized-ass ponies’ve you been interviewing?—and burst into the marble-floor room, throwing the door open just in time to hear ‘greed is the magic that unites us all’.

Now, I do this all so quickly and I’m so high on ‘I’m late’ fever that I forget that I’ve still got like a few gallons of alcohol in my ass—yeah, earth pony thing with the regulator membrane or whatever you call it—and I’m so tense on the way that my butthole’s, like, tighter than forged steel.

So, once I’m in the room, guess how relieved I am.

Now, about four hundred ponies have just seen me piss several gallons of bear—sorry, beer, though I guess that’d be a lot more impressive—out my ass in half a second.

Now, instead of just bowing down and proclaiming me the Messiah like reasonable ponies, they start laughing their asses off. I’m a pussy back then, so I wail and turn around on the spot to try and run the hay away.

Let me just say that again. I swivel in a puddle of my own ass-beer on the marble floors of Canterlot University.

I totally slip and at that bucking moment somepony decides to walk through the door. I grab onto him or her, can’t really remember, swing around and bam, hit the just-opened door right in the cooter, the alcohol and the pain and everything just comes together and I black the buck out.

Woke up with, like, ten stitches in the campus hospital an hour later.

And that’s how I popped my cherry.


—


“So, uh,” Dash said, looking to Twilight. “How did you lose your virginity, though?”

She gave the two a slightly squinty look. “Wait. You didn’t come here to ask me because somepony told you to? You seriously thought I’d, like, give you a totally honest, off-the-cuff, full-detail story about the first time I had sex with somepony for no reason?”

“Well,” Twilight said, “that’s what everypony else in this town’s done so far.”

Bon-Bon groaned and leaned back in her chair, misery covering her features.

“Just get out.”
> Quamdiutinus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Be warned that this chapter's monologue isn't meant to be consistent or make sense in any way, shape or form.

Dash knocked quietly on Carousel Boutique’s door.

“Oh well she’s not here time to go,” Dash said, and Twilight suspended her about a foot in the air. She groaned and crossed her forehooves in the magical field; the door clicked and opened barely a second later.

“Welcome to Ca—oh, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash!” she said, smiling brightly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“My fat dil—”

The field stuck itself into Dash’s mouth; she gagged on it for a few seconds before the sounds faded into a contented sort of slurping. “We’re doing a comparative study on—Dash, are you fellating my magic?” Twilight said, her face turning into a mask of horror; the glow around her horn faded, and Dash fell to the floor flank-first.

Rarity shuddered. “A comparative study undertaken in tandem with a wife-battered Rainbow Dash? I take it this isn’t going to the Princess, is it? Oh, I couldn’t bear the embarrassment.”

“Not exactly,” Twilight said, glancing down at the glowering Dash. “We need to know how you lost your virginity?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “What’s a ‘virginity’, dear?”

Dash groaned, dusting herself off as she stood up. “Oh, boy. Let me help,” she said, her expression turning a rare shade of thoughtful.

Rarity had a concerned look on her face. “I honestly have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

“Right,” Dash said, “How’d you, uh, blossom fully like a flower of marehood, your stigma sown with the fruit of the anther yet withou—yet lacking the ovules of—of hay?”

“Oh!” Rarity said, blushing immediately. “Well, that’s a bit vulgar, but I suppose I shan’t expect less from those inexperienced in the matters of Canterlotian practise. Please, come in. I shall brew some dandelion tea and we may discuss this further in the sanctity of my home.”

Dash leaned up to a dumbfounded Twilight’s ear and whispered. “This is why I don’t wanna talk with her about this. She thinks she’s as white on the inside as she is on the outside.”

“That’s not what you said earlier,” Twilight said, shaking her head as she trod slowly in. The place was almost Pacifican in its resolutely purple décor, and she had the particularly strange sensation that she was starting to become part of the floor.

“Hey, do you remember exactly why you dislike every single pony you like?”

“Yes,” Twilight said, and Rarity came bearing insta-heated tea, her horn still smoking, as they settled down upon Rarity’s tea-table together.

“Well,” Rarity said, coughing politely. “I see that you wish to know the tale of the day upon which my innocence hath perished, and my flower of marehood did bloom and spread for the inevitable coming of the day.”

Twilight tilted her head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Rarity seemed not to hear her. “Thankfully, I have been ready always to speak of this flower, speak of this ecosystem that dare not construct its name.”

Dash groaned.

“By ‘flower’, do you mean your—”


—


For I had then in the bosom of my youth this most amicable bee, his raven stripes thick and luxuriant upon his golden fur, stinger enormous, who rendered unto me his sweet coaxings and gentle whispers and little buzzings, who spoke to me day by day.

He wished day and night that I should accept his gift of pollen, and to open my stigma for it; and yet I persisted in denying him, knowing that to allow him to fill my style with it would leave my form bloated, would cause my petals to fall, and I knew that I would then surely fall from the tree, to shatter upon the ground and rot away.

Now, I had known of this bee by the consistent hummings of a glorious hummingbird who I had occasionally allowed to graze my petals with, her gentle strokes causing them sometimes to contract inwards, almost as to protect my tightened stigma; yet her beak bore no fruit. I feared, however, that her long, bold strike of cartilage would harm me, and so I did not let her penetrate me, though her assurances fell upon my buds, and yet I closed them, and did not listen.

Together, one day, they came to me, and spoke, having then met one another, and realizing truly of their shared predicament. The bee came bearing a sleeve by which I might cover the insides of my style and keep the pollen from my ova and the hummingbird had come with the assurance that she had come across an exotic fruit that would surely render me safe.

And the flowers parted around us, and we were alone in the darkness where I could not photosynthesize, and we were one and truly the same, seeing ourselves only as bodies, driven by instinct, feeling only each other.

The hummingbird first untensed my stamen, her beak secreting some sort of fluid that pushed past it for the first time; the petals of my marehood blinked in delight, the funny little things around my stigma pulsating happily. She plunged her beak into it, until her chin reached the edge, and I fed slowly upon her beak, my style flooding with nectar as the bee rubbed his stinger upon my soft stem.

The hummingbird pulled out all the way, then, her beak slick with my sweet juices, and the bee flit up, allow thrusting its stinger into me, deftly avoiding the walls of my style, but yet I felt more the same, but with a far greater stretch; the hummingbird said that I must find my anthers, so that I may sow myself, and that I did not need those male plants or even them but had the power within me, and my leaves felt about for them, but I could not find it; and then the hummingbird pointed, and told me about those funny little things about my stigma, and said that they were the anthers, they were the pollen, and I begged her to bring them for me to my stigma; but she did not, and said that I must do it myself, that I must have the power and I shook them in a rush of utter frustration, and they pushed against my stigma, feebly at first, and the feeling began to come, as I batted my anthers against the enormous thing penetrating my stigma, and the bee pulled out, the sleeve wrapped about his stinger, and my anthers finally went deep into myself, and it came, glycoprotein S-layer by S-layer within the nuclei of my eukaryotic organism, and became unto itself a new organism all together, for I knew that my anthers were mine, and not those of another, and became an organism unto itself.

And my few petals bloomed into those of dandelions, brilliant and shining, and they broke into a myriad and fell unto the fertile ground, to grow and flourish in the glorious apocrypha of my endless soul.


—


Dash, who was daintily sipping at her dandelion tea, made a very accurate and impressively tranquil impression of a choking pig before putting it down gently.

Twilight allowed herself to cough slightly; the room had turned, with Rarity’s aid, devastatingly silent, and the quiet seemed almost to fill the air like a physical thing.

Dash, her accident-related expenditures being covered by Her Royal Highness’ Central Department for Collateral Liability, broke it happily.

“What was that?”

“It’s my very own Stigma Monologue. Did you like it?” Rarity said, smiling delightedly. “I’m doing a recital in Canterlot tomorrow afternoon, if you’d like to come along.”

The two shared a look; they spoke again at once.

“What was that?”
> Quemindignus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“How was I to know they meant societal stigmata?” Rarity said, wailing as she splayed herself miserably across the tavern’s bed; her soul, crushed a thousand times before, finally lost its elasticity as it only had fifty-seven hence and crumpled into a heap alongside her.

She went unheard, because Twilight and Dash were in separate rooms of their own and were then, in fact, walking about the political, ecclesiastical and cultural capital of Equestria together.

“You know, you’d think with a theme that bucked you’d have plenty of people who’d wanna tell us all about their messed-up lives.”

Twilight shrugged. “Canterlot’s a big city. They’re bound to be a bit less open about this kind of thing with strangers. Remember Bon-Bon?”

“Pfft. Goes to some big-name college in Canterlot for like four years and she thinks she’s some kinda—some kinda, uh—some kind of—”

Twilight had a polite cough.

“—oh, hey!” Dash said, poking her hoof at the nearest convenient building she could see. “Isn’t that the Puddingham College or something? Your mom’s a teacher there, right?”

“It’s the central administrative building of the Chancellor Puddinghead University of General and Applied Sciences. And yes, my mom is a biology professor. She’s probably doing a lecture in the Grand Hall right now.”

“Well,” Dash said, expertly executing a mental hemicorpectomy on her sentence, “why don’t we pay her a little visit?”

“No,” Twilight said, and kept walking.


—


“What, you don’t like your mom or something?” Dash said, doing an admirable job of talking through a mouthful of hair.

“People are staring, Dash!” Twilight said, looking fearfully about the deserted hallways as best as she could with her tail in another pony’s mouth and her back dragging against the thousand-year-old stone. “Some of these people raised me!”

Dash shrugged, stopping for a moment to check the directory. “You’re seeing things.”

“Let go of me before I blast you, Dash!” Twilight said, whispering violently.

Dash yanked Twilight past the vestibule to Hall Block D. “That’s a tribalist hate crime,” Dash said, managing to state both an unfact and her motive for not already having done so. Before Twilight could reply, Dash had gently pried the doors to the Hall open, and the light of the sun streaming through the resonant glass that illuminated the thousands of students and the enormous amphitheatre—Twilight’s mother at the centre of it, reading from a lectern through a pair of glasses—at the base of the hall reaching so low that it was almost certainly partially underground temporarily blinded both of them, an effect similar to that of the reader who has just forced his eyes past the preceeding paragraph.

..and thus it is so, according to early racialist theory, that the three pony tribes and four other equine races known at the time can be said to form a triplet, converging into a trivium...

“She’s lecturing,” Twilight whispered, as Dash gently pulled her down the carpeted steps down the front steps; a few students saw them and quickly turned to their sides, poking them on their backs so that they could revel in the spectacle.

...the former being the aspects of control, mysticism and force, whereas the other races can be said to be the ‘trivium’, or ‘crossroads’, as it may be...

“As if she’s not reading from a book,” Dash said, making her way downwards as a gentle murmur raised itself in the fully-packed hall. “Relax.”

...of these aspects; to this end, for example, the Zebra—who are immune to most poisons and capable of turning many of them into potions by will alone—represent the intersection of mysticism and control and the Flutter ponies—whose heroic feats were so renowned...

“Relax?” Twilight hissed, quickly sticking her head up for the fiftieth time to avoid banging it against the step. “You’re gonna ask my mother about how she lost her virginity!”

...that not only were they made metoikos under Pegasus law after their conquest rather than slaves, their aboriginal languages were incorporated into mainstream Laconic culture...

“I’ll ask,” Dash said, continuing to pull, “you’ll listen. What could possibly go wrong?”

A great part of the enormous hall had begun by then to lift themselves precariously and discreetly off their seats to take a look at the theatre unfolding before them; they were almost halfway down the enormous incline that lead down to the amphitheatre.

...and though now extinct exist to this day as part of Nominal Ipparionic, such as in the names flitting-sunder and flutter-smash—represent the intersection of control and force, whereas Twilight Sparkle—who is currently showcasing her new alternative lifestyle...

“Wait,” Twilight said, her pupils contracting. “Did she just—”

...to the entirety of this lecture hall—represents helplessness, weakness and banality, the preceding words presumably feeding her apparently newfound fetish for public humiliation.

The ponies that had before been angling themselves awkwardly from their seats as if to engage in covert flatulence suddenly lurched up in overwhelming mirth; pegasi began to raise themselves over the crowd to look and then shout various things, and the rest, possibly out of an ancient survival instinct instructing them to trust the reports of friendly pegasi and possibly out of a more modern sentiment along the lines of ‘holy shit, seriously?’ and possibly out of various other concerns too numerous to enumerate, began to laugh quite uprariously.

If Twilight could blush deeper, her mother might have sent her to the hospital immediately so as to check for signs of hyperprofound craniofacial erythema.

As it was, Twilight’s mother pulled her glasses gently off her face and looked at Twilight concernedly and compassionately in the eye, as if—from Twilight’s perspective—daring her to kill herself on the spot.

Thankfully, she did not.


—


“Well, dear,” Star Sparkle said, pouring a cup of hot chocolate out into a foal suckling bottle and sticking the nipple over, “how was I to know you weren’t into public humiliation?”

Dash had started laughing about ten minutes ago, and hadn’t stopped since; it had faded gently into a continuous snicker, and she remained a very minor distraction.

“Why can you never stop trying to guess my fetish every single time I meet you? What would possibly—” Twilight began, before taking a glance down at the foal bottle. “Mom, why is this in this?”

“Oh?” Star said, shrugging. “Infantilism isn’t your fetish either? Oh well.”

Dash’s snicker dropped the bass, turning into a particularly interesting series of silenced hiccuping hysterics that, if she’d recorded them and put them on the internet, she might have earnt millions for.

“This is serious!” Twilight said, blushing at the memory. “You just humiliated me in front of two thousand ponies!”

“Two thousand five hundred seventy-three, and not all of them were ponies.” Star Sparkle gave her daughter a very disapproving look. “I never raised you to be a racist, Twilight.”

“That violates the Fire Code!”

Her mother coughed to herself. “I sure hope Lucent contributed the trinucleotide repeat expansion in the fragile X receptor.”

“I know what that means, mother!” Twilight shouted, looking as though she might be on the verge of tears.

“What, mental retardation isn’t your fetish?” she said, grinning.

Twilight began to sob.

Star Sparkle sighed and wrapped her forelegs about her daugher. “There, there. I’m sorry. I took it too far.”

Dash tried her best not to say ‘crybaby’, and succeeded well enough that she didn’t even laugh.

Star’s hooves clasped upon her shoulders. “Look. In ten years, nopony’s going to remember this. Nobody remembers the time I screwed Honeysuckle on the rooftops in ‘68; you didn’t even make out.”

Twilight let out a very slight groan.

She looked over to Dash and extended a hoof, pulling back from her daughter. “Rainbow Dash, yes? Element of Loyalty?”

“Yessir,” Dash said, taking the hoof and shaking it quickly. “Good to meet ya.”

“It’s good to meet you as well,” Star said, shaking back and taking the foal bottle from the table and sucking on it herself, “you’ve got my blessings. You’re starting the herd in May, right? It’s absolutely wonderful that time of year.”

“Oh, no,” Twilight said, pulling back and wiping her eyes, “we’re not—uh—uh—um—”

“So,” Star said, coughing politely, “you’re just going to have sex on a regular basis without any legal commitment whatsoever? I can’t say I object to that. I’m just not sure why you need my permission.”

“What she means to say,” Dash said, fending her giggles back, “is that we’re not together and she’s Stove Carousel.”

“Is that so?” Star said, her eyes widening to sizes not even remotely comparable to those of saucer-plates but which maintained their status, nonetheless, as abnormally large. “When I was your age—”

Twilight plugged her ears with her hooves and groaned in horror.

“Actually,” Dash said, “we’re here to ask you about your first time.”

“Is that so? She needs inspiration, maybe?” she said, smiling. “I’d love to. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Twilight promptly stood up and trotted out, slamming the door to the office behind her; Star Sparkle noted the closed door with some interest for half a second before she looked back to Dash.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and her horn began to glow. “The empath who worked the link was very reputable.”

She smacked her lips and began speaking in a moist, venerable tone.


—


It was my fourth year of high school.


—


A terrified, incomprehensible screech of horror came from the hallway, followed by hurried hoofsteps.

“Ah,” Star said, giggling. “He really was reputable. I wonder if she’ll get to the Proxima line before I finish. I wouldn’t put it past her.”


—


	It was my fourth year of high school. I’d been dating a very nice young stallion for a year. Mother and father did love him so and he was a very nice colt, but we hadn’t consummated our relationship; it was meant to wait until we were ‘ready’.

The problem was, he was never ‘ready’. The poor thing thought he wouldn’t be able to satisfy me, though of course back then I thought he was just being a little bitch, if you’ll excuse the accuracy.

So one day, when he was visiting and we’d just finished eating our dinner—mother and father did make amazing casserole—I started talking to him about it for about the fifth time that month. He was playing guitar.

“Bertie,” I said, because his name was Bone Pounder (he ended up making bone meal for griffon expatriates), “I’m horny.”

“Of course you are,” he said, and patted me on the head, making sure to avoid my horn. “You’re a unicorn, remember?”

Now, Bertie always did have such an amazing wit, but by now I hope you understand I was getting a little—a little impatient. Remember, we’d been dating for a year by now, and I have needs. Very, very serious needs.

“Tell me,” I said, staring up at the ceiling, “is your wit supposed to make up for your ED?”

“My encyclopedia—encyclopedia dromundis?” he said.

“‘Dromundis’ isn’t even a real word,” I said to him, “I guess your wit can’t even cover that, huh? I guess you just can’t joke your way out of being a limp-dicked coltcuddler.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.

“Hey,” he said, and he finally put down his pussy guitar, “that’s over the line.”

“You know what isn't over the line? Your two-inch piece of meat excuse for a coltcuddler, you limp-wristed pussyfooting pussy.” I was working on inspiration, you know.

The poor thing looked like he was about to choke on his own throat. I’d been super-sweet since before then, after all. I think he even had tears in his eyes. “I—”

I stared him right in the eye. “Or are you saving your dick for your little brother, you stupid foalphile bitch? Too small to fuck ponies your own age?”

Now, that got him angry. He went “don’t talk about my brother like that!” and his forehooves tensed up a bit.

“What? Don’t you pegasi just love fucking your little brothers over and over and over until they’re—” and then he just smacked me right in the muzzle, like a man; it shocked me so much that I fell onto the bed, at which point I just stared up at him for a bit.

“I—I’m sorry, but you just—you went over the line,” he said. His hooves were shuddering in such a delightfully angry way, and he stood up and picked up his guitar. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ll just—I’ll just forget about this. I’m sorry.”

Now, I’d recovered fully from the slap right about then. “Yeah, take your guitar and go home and stick it up your mom’s ass, you worthless, stupid cunt. Pussy out.”

“Please don’t talk about my mother like that,” he whined, so I spat at him and started shouting at him.

“Oh, ‘please’, oh, ‘excuse me’, oh, ‘I don’t know what came over me’? You little pegasus bitch, go back to bucking Cloudsdale, we don’t want your coltfucking little dick around Canterlot, you flying parasprite-fucking scum—”

Oh, you actually have fucked a parasprite?

Well, that’s one racial stereotype I can chalk up.

So he stopped at the door and put his guitar down and jumped on the bed and gave me an amazing backhoof. Hurt like a bitch gnawing at my teats, and mind you I’ve had that happen before so I know what I was talking about—oh, you too?—and then I saw his eyes.

There weren’t any tears in them, any more. There was anger. Not some kind of whiny, ‘I’ll-send-a-complaint’ anger, but actual rage. I just about came on the spot.

After I could speak again, which took about three seconds, I said “What kind of bucking worthless pegasus fairy slap was that? The way you smack your dad’s ass when you’re fuckin—”

So he smacked me again and again, and he kept shouting ‘stop’ over and over—mind you, I’m not even flinching because his slaps really were kind of weak, mostly shock power—and I just kept shouting and shouting, and it was wonderful.

Eventually, either he got the hint or he got so angry he wanted to just fuck me up as hard as he could—he was a bit too ashamed to tell me —so he grabbed me by the neck and started choking me, held on to his nine-incher with the other hand—sorry, hoof, my last coltfriend was a minotaur and I still mess them up.

“Come on,” I said, “can your little coltfucker even reach my cherry? You wanna fuck me to prove you got some balls?”

Then he just stuck it into me as hard as he could, staring at me and breathing like a raging bull; to virgin me, this was practically the whole entire world in an intromittent mass of spongy erectile tissue. It might as well have been a baculum, the way it stuck.

Now, I’d fucked myself before but I’d never managed to get past the hymen or anything, so when he plunged in without thinking he managed to rupture the little membrane and when he pulled out he saw the blood and promptly metaphorically shat himself. His eyes went wide and I think he realized what he just did, and the poor dear thought he was raping me.

So, of course, I had to teach him how to ride the bull at Gillie’s.

“Ooh, you took my cherry with your little faggot cock,” I said—I was eighteen, give me a break—and rolled my eyes. “I hope you don’t cum in me. I wouldn’t want your daddy to get disappointed in you when you can’t get it up with him.”

“Shut up, you stupid bucking bitch!” he shouted, and grabbed onto my hips and thrusted like he meant it.

Say what you want about pegasi being mo-bi-le, but they’ve got more than enough endurance when they’re ready to fuck you up. I think I must’ve cum at least three times that night. Still one of the best bucking lays I ever had.

Except for the part where my father came in and started throwing a fit.

We broke up about a year later, after both of us went to college. Until then, though, it was some of the best angry sex I ever had.


—


“Thanks for the story, grandma,” Dash said, nodding. “I can’t wait to see what Twi thinks.”

She smiled warmly. “I’m glad to have had the pleasure, dear.”

“Wellll,” Dash said, standing up. “I guess I’ll have to go find Twilight now.”

“Feel free to visit me any time you wish,” she said, winking. “You seem like a nice enough mare.”

“Sure will,” she said, trodding over to the door and reaching her hoof for it before stopping and turning her head over for a bit; she noticed a small shudder in the building’s foundations, and considered it irrelevant.

“By the way,” she said, her hoof resting on the doorknob, “I know Twilight’s fetish.”

“Ooh!” she said, giggling. “Do tell. I’ve been trying to find out for years.”

She leaned in a bit, looking conspiratorially to the sides.

“Beards.”

It was upon the completion of her voiceless alveolar sibilant that the door burst open, sending Dash slamming into the very nicely-papered walls.

“Professor Sparkle!” the red pony shouted, “urgent news!”

“Doctor Starshine Jingle,” Star said, “did you spill the concatenation fluid again? I’m not going on euthanasia duty for you just because you’ve got a pretty mouth.”

“No, ma’am,” she said, “the Equipment Proctor just informed me that your daughter’s just used the long-range teleportation equipment to focus her arcane matrices towards a point in the Alpha Centauri system!”

A muffled what? came from behind the door.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Star Sparkle nodded, reached over to her drink and sucked on the chocolate bottle’s nipple once more, then sighed.

“I’m sure it’ll work itself out.”
> Quamobrem
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight.

There was no response.

Twilight Sparkle.

There was no response.

Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, respond to me this instant!

There was a rather bright flash of light, and Twilight found herself blinking up from a hospital bed.

“Pr—Princess Celestia?”

“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student,” Celestia said, standing at the foot of the bed, “I am incredibly disappointed in you.”

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight said, and quickly pushed herself up; if she hadn’t been chained to the bed she was in by several tons of arcanomedical equipment, she might have succeeded. “Wh—what happened?”

“Twilight Sparkle, I have just scorched thousands of telepathic alien worms to ash in an attempt to save your life. What possessed you to teleport yourself to a distant, theoretical planet so far away that it would have taken light itself several years to reach you?”

She mumbled something incoherent about empathetic links.

“I don’t mean to be harsh on you, Twilight, but what you did was beyond irresponsible. You would have died in the most horrific fashion yet unknown to ponykind if I hadn’t felt the disturbance immediately. The teleportation feedback was strong enough to cause a physical tremor. You almost killed a meditating student in the tower above you.”

Twilight meeped.

Celestia sighed and began to deliver to her a declaration on the various rights and responsibilities of individuals, guilds and organs of magic to promote and protect universally recognised controls on conscious magic and maintain the universal availability of safe magic in all situations, emergency situations in particular, the contents of which any reasonable reader can surely be assumed to imply and upon which thus the humble scene closes with only a pinch of self-reference.


—


“...contrary to the provisions of the Charter of Celestia.”

Twilight nodded, with a diligence only she could muster.

“Now,” Celestia said, “Now that you’ve learned that lesson again, my faithful student, is there anything you wish to ask?”

“Yes,” she said, summoning a quill and piece of parchment, “how did you lose your virginity?”

Celestia, having been asked far worse questions in far more surprising circumstances, found her inquisition not so nearly as unpleasant as the time a Royal Guard asked whether her vagina or anus was tighter as he laid dying upon the battlefield and so, instead of feigning shock, tilted her head to the side. “Why would you ask me, Twilight?”

“It’s a long story,” she said, and proceeded to explain her motivations in exacting detail.

Celestia nodded sagely.

“Well, Twilight—the truth is that I’ve never been married or fornicated in my life.”

“What?” Twilight said, her eyes going wide, “but ye Æcreponnyes Gwwedde—”

“Was written by me.”

“Wait, that wasn’t what I was imply—” Twilight began, before Celestia drew herself closer and hugged her around the neck with a foreleg, looking into her eyes as she leaned forwards.


—


	When I was your age, Twilight, I had urges as well. Even then, however, I knew that involving myself with a peasant would hurt the aura of infallibility I had built to unite Equestria.

So, in the short spaces I had when I wasn’t trying to enforce tribal interdependence on a lower scale in an attempt to prevent the pegasi from divebombing their gardeners and the earth ponies from crushing their topiarists and the unicorns from blasting their waterfillies—that’s not tribalist, it’s accurate—I wrote. The census had some interesting names on it, and I wrote about these almost nonexistent ponies, wishing every day that those stories were true and that I could be a part of them.

As the centuries came and Equestria stabilized a few decades after, I knew I could have any mate I wanted—a sword couldn’t bring me down, and so neither could a dildo. I courted many, and rejected them all; they were boorish or obeisant, stupid or pedantic, cowardly or temeritous, treasonously loyal or loyally treasonous. My advisors were all of these things and more, the peasants never bathed and my dog died before I could choose him.

So I started thinking, instead. I started imagining my perfect lover, shaping it in my head, just as I’d done so long ago as a filly. She took shape over years, and her personality, from her childhood to her adulthood to her immortality—but when she came, she came a perfect shade of gray.

And I was happy. We played together, we did everything together; she was a part of me in a literal sense, yes, but we were more conjoined twins than anything else. She was the distilled intelligence of my impression of every great scientist, advisor and general I’d ever had. She was a mirror, really, whispering to me from the shadows and advising me where I was too stubborn to know the truth and being bold where I was meek.

I imagined consummating our relationship, of course, but it felt strange to think that I’d be consummating my relationship with a part of my own mind.

So, naturally, I tried to bring her into reality.

This was easy.

When I saw her form—in reality, this time, away from my mind entirely—I immediately noticed the problem:

She was exactly as I knew her.

Her perfections suddenly became flaws; her intelligence became obnoxious, her boldness became loudness, her audacity became temerity, her brashness became insensitivity, her progressiveness became promiscuity and, perhaps cruellest of all, she was outrageously bootylicious, with royal flanks so tight that had they not been forged by magic, their mass might have created singularities.

She and her amazing booty were abominations against nature, and though I loved her deeply I could not imagine myself ever consummating our relationship.

I named her Luna, and called her my sister.

I realized something, as I crowned her and smiled at her sororally: I’d been living in my fantasies so long that they’d kept me perfectly occupied. There was no reason to give them up. I love my sister, slut that she is, but I will never know her intimate touch as I may have known her perfection in my dreams.

I desired verisimilitude, and I got it.

But I am wiser now, and I know this:

It doesn’t matter when I lose mine. What matters is how, and with who.

I don’t care if I ever lose my virginity—but if I do, well—

I want it to be a story that will be told for millennia in languages I will never know.

I want it to be something that, even as I traverse the void eternally, I will never forget.

I want it to be perfect.


—


“So what you’re saying is that I don’t need to worry about losing my virginity? That I can just content myself with my Starswirl tulpa until I find the right mate?” Twilight asked, hopeful sparkles in her eyes.

“Oh, no,” Celestia said, nuzzling her student on the forehead slightly before pulling back and giving her a warm smile. “I’m immortal and my fantasies can spawn gods. You’re just a schizophrenic permavirgin. I’ll have Luna come by in a while to tell you about hers. Ta-ta!”

She disappeared in a flash of yellow light.

Twilight’s groan of despair was so deep and so heartfelt that it warranted more than just a scene break:

It warranted an entirely new chapter.
> Interregnum
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Twilight, y’all okay?”

Twilight pried her eyelids open to be faced with a pair of green eyes.

“Applejack?”

She stepped aside; Apple Bloom—upon whose back Spike rode—stood behind her and Dash gently fluttered above the bedcurtains. “And a few others. I got on the train the moment I heard ‘bout your little incident. Big Mac, Fluttershy, Rarity and your parents’re waiting in the back. Visitor limit. Pinkie’s comin’ tomorrow, an’ I figured you’d like t’see Spike first.”

Spike gave her a weak smile. “Just because nopony in this solar system’d wanna get you laid doesn’t mean they’d want you in Alpha Centauri, either.”

In any other circumstance, Twilight might have hit him with a bolt of energy; as it was, she laughed back and refrained from threatening castration. “How’d the date go, Spike?”

“Oh,” Spike said, shrugging, “turns out I’m actually gay. Strange how that works, huh?”

Twilight wondered about how it might have worked.





She shook her head of the thought just in time to hear Apple Bloom’s next sentence.

Apple Bloom nodded solemnly. “He’s mah gay best friend, now. Ah’ll try and turn him straight until somethin’ inspirin’ happens an’ ah learn to accept him like he really is. Right, Spike?”

“Right,” he said, and leaned in towards Twilight, whispering. “She watches a lot of movies.”

“Spike,” she said, squinting up at him, “y’realize you’re ridin’ on mah back, right? An’ ah can hear everythin’ you’re sayin’?”

“How’d y’all get tangled up in all this mess, anyhow?” Applejack said, leaning back on a tray table.

“Dash,” she said, throwing the guilty-looking pegasus a guilt-inducing look, “decided to ask my mother how she lost her virginity.”

Applejack winced. “Wasn’t a good story?”

Twilight’s look contained enough semantic context that her future biographers could infer the entirety of her mother’s story by closely studying a scrying-frame of her eyes at that very moment.

Applejack blinked. “Darn.”

“By the way,” Twilight said, “did you say Big Mac was here?”

Applejack sighed. “Twilight, if I say I’m not gonna let y’all ask him ‘bout his first roll in the hay, are y’all gonna do something requiring divine intervention to sort out?”

“Yes,” Twilight said.

Applejack, being the pragmatic mare she was, nodded. “Let’s get this over with. Clear out for a bit, will y’all?”

Apple Bloom, who had been quietly discussing boys with her newfound gay best friend, nodded and cleared out with him on her back.

“And you, Rainbow Dash?”

“I’ll stay,” Dash said, “thank you very much.”

Applejack, not being of the inclination to chase a pegasus out of a confined room in a public hospital, shrugged. “Suit yerself,” she said, and turned out.

A minute later, Big Mac himself came past the bedcurtains and tipped his head politely.

“Mornin’. How’s the trauma?”

“Fine,” Twilight said. “How’d you lose your virginity?”

He looked to Applejack, who gave him a look that quite plainly said I told you I wasn’t lying.

“In the barn.”

Twilight wrote in her notebook. “But how was it?”

“Fun.”

“Of course it was,” Twilight said,  “but how? With who?”

Big Mac rolled his eyes. “Caramel.”

“Wait,” Twilight said. “doesn’t Caramel have a girlfriend? Sassaflash or something?”

He snorted. “Fag hag.”

Dash butted in, exasperated. “How’d you end up screwing your cousin?”

“Slightly drunk. Cute.” Big Mac narrowed his eyes. “Why’re you askin’?”

“Science,” Twilight said. “Now, how’d it happen? We need details.”

“Details?” he said, tilting his head to the side. “Dingle goes in the kennel. Not that complicated.”

Applejack’s ongoing, almost silent snicker erupted into a rather raucous laugh.

“Excuse me,” a nurse said, sticking her head past the bedcurtains, “but you’re disturbing the other patients. Could you please tone it down a little?”

“Terribly sorry,” Applejack said, giggling under her breath. “Y’all about ready t’give up?”

“Never,” Dash might have said, if a deep chill had not suddenly enveloped the room, filling her and the others with a sudden, existential dread. The lights flickered as they found themselves covered in a thick coat of pure darkness. Applejack quickly turned to spread the bedcurtains, seeing as she did the darkness congealing—as though it were a mass—into a shape of a pony.

Suddenly, with an enormous flash of rather poetically dark light, the figure of the Princess of the Night emerged resplendent in all her glory.