“I don’t get it,” Ripple said to her sister, Loch Skimmer as she poked her sister in her ever-growing stomach. “Why would Rising Star willingly go out with Keen and Elm, two ponies that he can’t stand and they can’t stand him. I just don’t get it. They’re the enemy. He should crush them into dust.” Ripple stomped her hoof down upon the floor to make her point.

Loch Skimmer gave her sister a blank look. Politics had never been a good subject for her, and she had the average middling grades in school to prove it. She wasn’t sure how Ripple expected her to answer.

“Ripple, they’re not the enemy.” Sparkler looked up from her school work and gave Ripple the stinkeye for saying something stupid, a very good impression of her mother Derpy’s stinkeye. “Elm, the outcast, got Keen to listen to him, which is a good thing, which means that Keen has the potential to be a reasonable pony. Now, those two might be vehement critics of our lifestyle, our marriage, and our family in general, but they have some political clout. If things work out well, Rising Star and Spitfire, the Progressives, will work out a coalition agreement with some of the Tea Party, the traditionalists. If they can make a bi-partisan effort, it will work out to everypony’s benefit.”

“Ugh, booooo-ring. Not enough smashy smashy.” Ripple rolled her eyes and poked her sister in the stomach again, but this time Ripple pressed far too hard, causing Loch Skimmer to belch and fart at the same time. Wide eyed, Ripple backed away as Loch began to fan her wings.

Sparkler, laying on the bed, began to giggle as she tried to continue her schoolwork, a chapter of Public Safety Administration, Volume II.

“The only thing I care about,” Ripple said as she fanned her own wings, trying to blow the stench back at her sister, “is that Bittersweet has become the symbol of the Progressives.”

“More than you know,” Sparkler remarked with her nose tucked into her book.

“What do you mean, Sparky?” Ripple asked as she and Loch continued to blow the stink back and forth at one another.

“Bittersweet represents a disenfranchised minority along with a disability. The donkeys really haven’t gotten any fairness out of our system yet, even though changes are being made. With Bittersweet being deaf and mute, but still somehow working as Rising Star’s assistant, even with no magic, it goes to show that donkeys have a lot to offer, that there are services and skills that they can contribute back into the system. Bittersweet is a school teacher as well, well, sort of, in a part time sort of way, but her potential is seen as proof by the Progressives that the donkeys have as much potential as ponies do—”

“Well of course they do!” Ripple’s wings snapped out in frustration and anger while her tail whipped about. “I can’t feckin’ stand it when somepony thinks of donkeys as being somehow lesser creatures than ponies.”

“Most, but surely not all of the Traditionalist Tea Party sees donkeys as being inferior creatures, suitable only for the lowest of the low jobs and the sort of menial labour that was reserved for the lowest caste earth ponies under the old system.” Sparkler closed her book and looked over at Bittersweet, who was reading something.

“Ah, the bottom caste earth ponies, I was just learning about those in school.” Loch Skimmer shook her head and looked sad. “The earth ponies that never got their cutie marks for whatever reason and were classified as having no talents, and as such, had no place in productive society.”

“Which is why there is so much pressure to get a cutie mark here on the mainland,” Ripple added, “and why the Cutie Mark Crusaders went around in a mad panic trying to find their cutie marks. There’s lots of blanks on the isles… not much time for screwing around, looking for a special talent. Too much work to do and too much effort just to survive.”

“A lot of the low caste earth ponies came from the Shetlands.” Loch Skimmer’s wings drooped and the pegasus heaved a forlorn sigh. “Cheerilee said that it used to be against teaching laws to mention that in schools. She’s really happy that she can talk about it now. Nopony tells Bucky’s teachers what they can say and can’t say. Reform is happening. Things are changing. One day, low caste earth ponies will just be a memory and things will be better. I think my little one is going to have a pretty good future.” Loch paused, took a deep breath, and then let it out, saying, “Ripple, you and I have a pretty good future.”

“There will be no future at all if you two don’t settle in and do your school work!” Sparkler snapped. She glared at her herdmates and then pointed at the pile of books upon the table. “No excuses. Do it. Now.”

The two sisters exchanged a glance, sighed together, and moved to do their schoolwork.

Berry Punch closed her eyes, exhaled, and then went limp on the bed. She was tuckered out, almost as knackered as she might be after a marathon shag session. She thought about her plan, thought about what Violet had said, and wondered how her cousins on the Shetlands were doing. Berry Pinch would have a good chance there, there were a lot of ferals and half ferals on the isles that still turned out okay. The ponies there had a knack for dealing with ferals, or so said the lore of Clan Pickled.

Her back ached, her stomach was sore, and her teats were chapped. She needed some kind of soothing balm because Brandywine was an aggressive suckler with a lot of power, who did a lot more tugging and pulling than suckling. The filly was huge—enormous even, and there were pictures of her in the paper now. She dwarfed her newborn siblings. When sitting up on her haunches, which she could do now, she was almost twice as tall as the others. Brandywine’s legs were as big around as her sibling’s necks. Berry Punch had birthed a giant. In hindsight, Berry’s prodigious eating binges while pregnant made perfect sense.

The bedroom door opened, there were hoofsteps, and then the bed creaked. Berry sniffed, smelled something flowery, and knew it was Thistle. Berry’s face broke into a tired grin as Thistle flopped out on the bed.

“Long day?” Berry asked.

“Oh yes,” the kelpie replied, “the bodies of water around Ponyville are horrid. Full of junk and trash. I’ve been having to clean it out. The place where Ponyville’s drinking water comes from is full of old rusting steam engines. I go through the trouble of lifting it all out of the water using my water magic and then the city doesn’t want to dispose of it, because nopony can figure out who is responsible for hauling the rusty old junk away. I really love and hate my job.”

“Huh.” Berry reached out with her foreleg and found Thistle. After some prodding, some poking, and a bit of blind searching, she found Thistle’s foreleg, grabbed it in her fetlock, and held hooves with the kelpie. “How is Bell dealing with your job?”

“Oh, Bell Heather loves it. She gets to be with her mama all day, swimming. I think she misses Bucky.” Thistle heaved a sigh and then gave Berry’s fetlock a squeeze with her own.

“I miss Bucky. Derpy is beside herself missing Bucky. Harper is in a snit because she wants her Mamamama and Cadance… well… little Miss Priss has been acting like a real snot today. Derpy had to stand her in the corner for a half an hour because she threw a tantrum.”

“No… sweet little Cadance threw a tantrum?” Thistle let out a gasp and gave Berry’s foreleg a tug.

“Yep.” Berry’s lips popped when she pronounced the ‘p.’ She opened her eyes, turned her head, and looked at the kelpie beside her. “She demanded to see her Daddy… right now. Derpy told her ‘no’ and poor Cadance, she had a meltdown. She went down to the floor, kicked, thrashed, and cried for a good twenty minutes. Woke the newborns up. Nearly burst our eardrums. Little alicorns are loud. Scared poor Sukari half to death and she took off, lickety split, and hid in Sentinel’s hidey hole under the stairs.”

“She acts so grown up most of the time… it’s hard to remember that she’s not even a yearling.” Thistle shook her head and then looked over at Berry. “I guess she showed her age. I wonder what causes a foal to have a tantrum.”

“Something hurts them,” Berry replied, “something they can’t deal with. At that age, they have a lot of developing emotions that they have no idea how to cope with. It’s hard for them… everything is overwhelming.”

“I suppose so.” Thistle’s lips pursed. “I don’t understand.”

“Thistle, think back to the time when you were falling in love with Bucky and remember how emotionally overwhelming that was for you. Did you know how to deal with it? Do you remember all of your emotional whiplash?” Berry closed her eyes again and began to rub her stomach with her other foreleg.

“Oh… oh, that, that was awful. I mean, it was great falling in love, but wanting to cry one minute and laugh the next was terrible. It was so hard on me.” Thistle’s face lit up with understanding. “Oh, poor Cadance… poor little foals… all of them… it must be so dreadfully difficult for them.”

“Listen to you… ‘dreadfully difficult.’ You’ve come a long way, Thistle.” Berry Punch raised her hind legs up into the air so she could kick them around, so she could get the kinks out of her back and her hips.

Blushing, the kelpie let out a faint meep sound. “I’ve been reading a lot more. I like to borrow Dinky’s Daring Do novels.”

“Bucky’s act of generousity pays off yet again,” Berry mumbled to herself.

Berry felt Thistle wiggling a little closer to her, close enough that Berry could feel some of Thistle’s body warmth radiating from her. She could smell Thistle, a floral scent, and as Berry breathed deep, she felt a faint spike of arousal. Once you got past the pointed teeth, Thistle was a fantastic kisser. Berry thought about a nice, warm snuggle on the bed. A nice snuggle, with a bit of groping and maybe some smooching. But no slap slap slap of the floppy filly flaps, because Berry’s whole stomach and her teats were sore.

“Don’t you hate it when you get comfortable in the bed and then you need to pee?” Thistle asked.

So much for a snuggle. Berry wiggled her backside around, rubbing her dock against the bed, while kicking her hind legs up in the air. She could feel her teats slapping against the insides of her thighs and she winced in pain.

“I sometimes fantasise that I’m a unicorn… and I can lay in bed and pee into a bubble of magic… and then I just teleport it away.” Thistle let out a fillyish giggle and the whole bed shook from her mirth.

“Where does it go?” Berry asked.

“I dunno.” Thistle shrugged. “Not into the lake or Ponyville’s drinking water. Blech!”

“The whole toilet thing still weirds you out, doesn’t it?” Berry grinned and felt a faint pressure down in the lowest part of her bowels. If she kept kicking her legs around, that pressure would come out… eventually.

“I pee pure, clean water. You could drink my pee, but it would be warm.” Thistle continued to giggle and rolled over onto her side. “The rest of you ponies, you pee dirty yellow water… or orange water. Some of it smells pretty bad. And it gets dumped into the lakes. That’s icky.”

“You’re such a wonderful pony,” Berry murmured as she too, rolled over to be closer to Thistle. “You have the perfect body for sex… slinky, grippable, grabable, oh so screwable… and when dehydration sets in, somepony could get a drink… you’re perfect.”

Thistle blushed, her cheeks darkening. “When I come back from the bathroom, you and I are gonna have ourselves a snuggle…”

Author's Notes:

A wild Chase chapters appears...