Dawn approached. The horrible whispering inside of his head wasn’t getting any better. Sentinel, standing on the deck of The Scorned Mare, knew that there were probably going to be some sore bottoms and tender snoots once this was all said and done. This wasn’t the sort of thing one just got a lecture for. Piña was already rubbing her bottom and mumbling about about what both Berry Punch and Bon Bon were going to do, as well as mentioning the likelihood of them taking turns, picking up where the other left off when one got tired. It was the tragic drawback to having more than one mother.

Dinky mentioned that Thistle might even get in on the action; she was a Shetlander after all, and they had a different way of showing love as the foals had learned when Berry Punch was giving birth.

There was a collective shudder of terror when Piña quietly suggested that even Barley O’Blivion might be a wee bit upset over this fiasco. With Barley being a unicorn, there would be no running away, Barley had reach with his magic.

As the first few pink rays of dawn broke over the horizon, Sentinel considered his chances of a clean escape.

The whole ship shuddered; Scootaloo did not make the airship take off in the same smooth way as Bucky or Lyra. The ship jolted, lurched, and banged against its cradle, causing quite a ruckus. Sentinel gritted his teeth and hissed, fearing the worst.

Much to his surprise, nothing happened. At least, not yet. The sun was rising and the dawn brigade was hard at work. Sentinel thought of Loch Skimmer, she had her job of orchestrating the dawn again and she was happy. She had a wonderful, happy, fantastic purpose in life. She had a function in society that she loved. Sentinel still did not know or understand his place.

The Scorned Mare rose into the air, heading for clouds. Scootaloo had mentioned that the gasbag needed a refill. Sentinel stood near the rail, looking down, his gaze falling over the farm and in the distance, Ponyville. He wondered what Discord was up to.

Almost as if Discord had somehow sensed that Sentinel was thinking about him, chaos erupted. Over Ponyville, pink, fluffy cotton candy clouds appeared and in mere moments, there was a torrential downpour of chocolate milk. Looking down, Sentinel could see that the chocolate milk showers were only over Ponyville, but something truly horrible swarmed through the trees and descended upon the farm.

“OH FECK!” Piña swore, free to do so because there were no adults around, “it’s like the time that Pinkie Pie found the mirror pool!”

Below were hundreds and hundreds of Pinkie Pies, they swarmed the school and the farmhouse, no doubt to say, “Hello,” or “Good morning,” or “Hiya!” in a chirpy voice. Somewhere, the ominous sound of polka music began to play.

“Scootaloo! Full power! Full power! Get us out of here, NOW!” Sentinel commanded.

“Nopony is trying to stop us,” Apple Bloom said as she peered over the rail. “I didn’t think this would work. I honestly thought that we’d be stopped by now.” The earth pony filly looked at Canterlot, which was dead ahead. They were heading north, into a strong headwind. “I wonder if we will make it past Canterlot.”

“I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done.” Sweetie Belle stood beside Apple Bloom, her eyes watering from the wind, or perhaps something else. “I can’t be wrong for sticking by my friends. I’m hoping that Rarity will understand that.”

“My mothers are the Element of Loyalty and the Princess of Friendship. If I get in trouble for this, it would be, um… um… hippocratic?” Scootaloo’s face contorted.

“Hypocritical,” Sweetie Belle said, correcting Scootaloo and rolling her eyes. “Dodo.”

Sentinel, standing on the upper deck, watched as Canterlot began to drift by on his left. They were passing it, slowly but surely, and nopony had come to stop them. They had not been boarded. Sentinel was beginning to worry. By now, something should have happened.

He turned to look at Diamond Tiara, who was standing beside him, her mane waving and streaming in the wind. Sentinel raised his eyebrow and cleared his throat with a polite little cough, he then gave Diamond a soft nudge. “Why did you slap me?” He saw the pink filly bite her lip and he knew that he was in trouble.

“Because you are an idiot,” Diamond Tiara replied after spending a moment chewing on her lip. “You aren’t just any idiot, you are the official village idiot of Ponyville.”

Sighing, Sentinel hung his head and tucked his tail between his legs.

“Your father… he had such high hopes for you. You were supposed to be the reliable one. You were supposed to be the trustworthy one. You were supposed to be the one that the princesses could turn to in times of trouble, knowing that you were steady, stable, and reasonable!” Diamond Tiara sucked in a lungful of cold air and then continued, “But you blew that… you just blew all of that. You did something reckless, brash, and stupid. STUPID! You did something that you can never take back… you acted just like Bucky… and HE IS NOT A SMART PONY! BUCKY IS A SELF PROFESSED IDIOT AND HE WANTED BETTER FOR YOU! IT WAS HIS HOPE, HIS DREAM, IT WAS HIS MOST SINCERE AND FONDEST WISH! AND YOU… YOU JUST WRECKED EVERYTHING HE WANTED FOR YOU!”

For just a moment, Sentinel wanted to curl up and die. Each and every word hurt, cutting him right down to his marrow. He cringed away from Diamond Tiara, realising just what it was that he had done. “If I did something so bad, why are you here with me? Why not just slap me and go home?”

Diamond Tiara whirled on Sentinel, raised her hoof, and for the second time this day, she delivered a stunning blow across Sentinel’s chops. Her lip curled back from her teeth and her breath whistled as she inhaled so she could continue to let Sentinel have exactly what he needed. “BECAUSE I MADE A CHOICE! THAT CHOICE WAS YOU! RIGHT OR WRONG, GOOD OR BAD, HAPPY OR TRAGIC, I CHOSE TO BE WITH YOU! HOURS AND HOURS OF THERAPY, TIME SPENT WITH DOCTOR MAWU, AND SOMETIMES WITH RARITY AND APPLEJACK, AND WE TALKED ABOUT ME AND HOW I CAN IMPROVE MYSELF! AND I WANTED TO IMPROVE MYSELF FOR YOU! I HAVE INVESTED ENDLESS HOURS OF MY TIME SORTING OUT MY SHIT SO I CAN GET BETTER… FOR YOU! AND AFTER ALL THIS TIME AND EFFORT INVESTED, I CAN’T JUST GIVE UP ON YOU! YOU ARE MY LIFE! MY REASON TO BE A BETTER PONY! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH IT MAKES ME CRAZY! CRAZY! I PLAN TO STICK THIS OUT WITH YOU, COME TARTARUS OR HIGH WATER, BUT WHEN YOU SCREW UP, LIKE YOU HAVE JUST DONE, YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT I AM GOING TO LET YOU HAVE IT, BECAUSE IT MAKES ALL THE HOURS I’VE SPENT WORKING, SLAVING AWAY TO GET BETTER FEEL LIKE A WASTE OF TIME… YOU IDIOT!”

“I’m sorry,” Sentinel said, apologising and rubbing his sore cheek. She had gotten him on both the left and the right.

Squeezing her eyes shut, trying to hold back tears, Diamond Tiara lunged forward, smooshed her lips into Sentinel’s, gave him an angry kiss, bit his lip between her teeth, applied pressure, tugged, opened her eyes, stared into his surprised looking eyes, snarled in a way that no earth pony had ever done before, and then let go.

Eyes streaming tears, Diamond Tiara fled, running off to go and sob belowdecks.

Canterlot was now behind them and The Scorned Mare was making good time. It would be noon soon. Sentinel had seen a few airships off in the distance, but they made no move to follow or intercept. They had remained hovering over Canterlot.

Which worried Sentinel. By now, somepony should have tried to stop him. Nopony had. Sentinel found this suspicious, but he could not discern the reason. He knew that The Scorned Mare was a dangerous vessel for her size. The addition of the liquid methane cannons meant that any ship approaching would be frozen solid, plummet to the ground, and possibly shatter on impact.

Sentinel yawned. He hadn’t had any sleep since yesterday. He was exhausted and his face was sore. He frowned, what Diamond Tiara had done was nothing compared to what awaited. Sentinel had potentially just screwed up his life and possibly ruined his father’s plans. There would be no fixing that. Plus, coming home… when he came home… there was going to be an angry grey pegasus. Sentinel realised that if he had, in fact, just broken his father’s heart… Derpy was going to be furious. Sentinel shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold. He lived and breathed for Derpy’s praise and approval, just as he did for his father’s. The grey pegasus might do everything short of killing him. His mind reeled as he began to imagine all of the horrible ways he might be punished.

Sentinel was far more afraid of going home than he was of facing Sombra.

Going north was safer.

Diamond Tiara awoke with a start, not realising that she had dozed off. She was groggy, her medications made it difficult to wake up sometimes, and even in the middle of an adventure, she had remembered to take her pills this morning. Feeling dopey, she tried to understand what was going on around her.

She was in bed and somepony was in bed with her. There was something hard, solid, and hot pressed up against her backside. The back of her neck and her mane were wet. Somepony was pressed against her back. That somepony was Sentinel, and by the feeling of what was throbbing against her, he was very, very aroused. Diamond Tiara gave her lips a nervous lick.

“Sentinel?”

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I can’t help it!” Sentinel sobbed.

Diamond Tiara tried to move, felt Sentinel’s turgid length brushing up against her, and then she felt it twitch as she moved her hind legs. She stopped moving and lay still, and she felt Sentinel’s forelegs wrap tighter around her middle. For a moment, she wondered, fearful, if something was about to happen.

Part of her wanted it to happen, she felt her own confused arousal growing.

“I just wanted to hold you, I’m so scared, I don’t know what I’m doing… I didn’t mean for this to happen,” Sentinel said, his words hot and his hot breath blowing over Diamond Tiara’s neck. “If you want me to let you go, I will… I don’t want you afraid of me.”

The pink earth pony filly paused and gave thought to the situation. Sentinel, even in his state of emotional upset and his powerful physical arousal, was still the tender, gentle, sensitive soul that she had come to love. She felt his hardness throbbing against the curved furrow of her plot. She realised that if Sentinel had wanted to do something, he would have, and could have, and there would be nothing she could do to stop it. He was stronger, bigger, and she was little, pink, and helpless.

There was also a good chance that she wouldn’t even tell him to stop. She was curious, even in her moment of confused, aroused terror. She had a dangerous predatory creature against her back and she could feel the points of his fangs tickling her neck. As she squirmed, she felt herself becoming a little slick down there, like she did when she read the trashy bridle ripper novels that Rarity had hidden all over.

“Sentinel, if that’s hurting you… if you feel a strong need, I can help you,” Diamond Tiara said, whispering in the dark of the cabin. The blankets were wet with sweat and tears. Diamond Tiara could not stop shivering, even though she felt as though she was consumed with a fever, and burning up from within from inner fire, most of which was burning down in her hips, between her legs. “Just… try to be gentle, if you can.” She felt Sentinel sniffle and snort against her mane, and she felt electric tingles running up and down her spine.

“No,” Sentinel replied, “we’re too young. Maybe when we’re older, but now isn’t the time. It wouldn’t be right.” Raising his foreleg, he rubbed Diamond Tiara’s neck and felt her tremble at his every touch.

“What about if I wanted it? Maybe it’s not just you right now.” Diamond Tiara felt her dock clenching and she felt a squishy sliminess down below. Inside, the fires raged. It almost hurt. She wondered if Sentinel could feel her wetness on what was pressed against her secret places.

“No. We’re in enough trouble… I just… wanted to hold you while I tried to go to sleep.”

“This is why I love you,” Diamond Tiara said in a low voice. She pulled herself away from Sentinel, hearing him whimper, she felt him clutching at her, but she pulled away, fearing that her heart would break as she did so. She rolled over, kissed him on the lips, a peck, and then, she pulled the blanket over him, covering him and his all too tempting erection. She folded the blanket back over itself, laid down, cuddled up against Sentinel, and pulled the blanket over herself. She felt Sentinel embrace her, but now there was a blanket between them, which did nothing to stop the feeling of flesh prodding against flesh.

“I’m so tired… Boadicea is keeping watch and she’ll come and wake me if something happens,” Sentinel said.

“Shh, sleep now,” Diamond Tiara replied.

“Are you going to smack me again?” Sentinel asked.

For quite some time, Diamond Tiara was silent. Then, after giving it a lot of thought, she made her reply.

“Maybe.”

Author's Notes:

Whoops.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3fka_-fzbA