I made a charcoal-like stick out of some of my magic ink. It's not quite translucent until it draws and rests, but it's still very difficult to draw with. I decided it would be better to draw this way than to use the ink directly, because ink is such an unforgiving medium. Now that I've actually experimented with the stick, I'm not so sure, but I'm committed at this point.

I'm pretty sure these sketches are going to suck. I've got the point sharpened but I'm going to need to resharpen it as I draw... Ugh. I wish I had Rarity's drawing skills at a time like this, but this is the best I can do.

Pretty self-explanatory, I think. Although it's obvious, I'll mention here that "FET." is short for "FETLOCK" and "EXT." in both places is short for "EXTERIOR".

Also, I'm not doing this thing justice. I exaggerated the knuckle-ness of the external knuckles in order to illustrate where they are, but in actuality the thing isn't bumpy like this at all. The segments are skinny and the bends are sharp. What I've drawn looks more natural or biological than the hoofoids actually are. In pony they look less organic and more, um... mechanical?

Alright, I'm going to wake them both up, then I'll continue this entry later tonight.

I'm writing all of this while Pinkie Pie fetches Zecora. I'll add an addendum after she gets here.

I woke Spike first to talk to him.

"You okay buddy?" I said, gently cradling his back.

"Ugh, my head. Yeah, I'm fine. What happ—oh. Oh geez," he said, blushing.

"You remember anything?" I asked him.

"Everything. It was crazy, Twilight. It was like this giant rush of power. I felt the goo touch my heel, and then there was a sharp stinging sensation. A few seconds later I was... well, I don't know how to put it. I guess I was horny, but I've never felt anything that strong before," he said. "I felt my forehead and my tail swelling, and I started acting on instinct. I think I wanted to do something to you. I'm kind of scared... Twilight, is this what it feels like to be an adult?"

I shook my head. "I don't know much about adult male dragons, Spike, but I doubt it," I said, trying to reassure him. "Nothing about that experience you just had was normal. Even when a stallion is really horny, he has control over his actions and can think straight. I presume the same is true for dragons."

"Okay. It looks like Pinkie's back to normal," he commented. "Is all the goo stuff gone?"

"Yeah, I burned all the hoofgoo away, except for a small sample. It'll take a while to clean up all the hoofprints and hoofoidprints and scorch marks from the ceiling," I said. "I think Pinkie's fine, but there's so much horse tranq in her we might have a problem. I'm going to need to perform a time acceleration spell on her so she'll be able to wake up."

"Twilight, do you really think that's a good idea?" Spike cautioned, eyeing Pinkie's slumbering form.

"I'm sure she's fine now that her hooves are back to normal. I don't want to go to sleep before I wake her, and it's late already, so we'd best get this over with," I said.

So I cast the time-passing spell several times. I did about two hours with the first spell, then backed off to shorter intervals. After approximately six hours of fast-forwarding, I noticed the rhythm in her breathing returning to normal.

"Hay, Pinkie. You okay?" I asked, lifting her up with my forelegs. Spike decided to hang out in the kitchen. (Can't say as I blame him.)

Pinkie Pie yawned and smacked her lips together dryly. She coughed a few times before she was finally able to speak. "Oh wow. Gee Twilight I'm really sorry," she said groggily. "I'm not used to the darkhoof form! I only did it once before when I was tied down. It was a lot of fun, but in retro—ow, my noodle."

"Yeah, you'll need to take it easy for a while. For some reason my magic wasn't having any effect on you, so I had to resort to something drastic. Fortunately Fluttershy left a large animal care kit with me before she headed to the Crystal Empire, and it had a lot of sedation darts," I explained.

"How many?" she asked.

"All of them. Enough to take down roughly eleven-and-a-quarter average-sized brown bears. Even for an earth pony of your mass, I'm kind of surprised you're alive. Don't get me wrong, if you had stopped breathing, I'd have teleported us both to Ponyville General; but that would have required a lot of explaining afterwards. I didn't try to overdo it, either. There were no apparent effects until the next-to-last dart," I said.

"Thanks Twilight," said Pinkie Pie, "I can always count on you." She hugged me and sniffled. Privately, journal (as though I have any privacy left, ha) I felt kind of bad for launching the last dart, but it was all instinct at that point.

"Yeah, no problem. Anyway, I used a time spell to accelerate the poison out of your system, so it's been less than an hour since things went crazy. You should probably go urinate. Um, it might sting a little," I said, grimacing.

"Heh, nothing your Auntie Pinkie hasn't handled before," she half-smiled, rising to her hooves and almost tripping. A minute later there was screaming from the bathroom. It made Spike drop his sandwich, so he had to go back and make another one. (I'm pretty sure it's just for appearances, though. I've cau### him dig########## ###########a########### a b########## # #####ed.)

I hope he never reads this part. I already feel a little guilty. good

We took a break and Spike made more sandwiches. Pinkie ate almost all of them so he had to make her a bunch more. I never realized how many calories she needs in the course of a few hours, but I'm sure part of it is the transformation. It seems to sap a victim of their physical reserves as well as their mental ones.

This implies, of course, that Pinkie Pie has mental reserves. Further observation will be required. (That was a joke. Not the observation part, though.)

"Alright. If you feel well enough to chat, Pinkie, I have a few things left to ask you before we break for the night," I said.

"Sure!" said Pinkie Pie. "I can probably go get Zecora for you now that it's dark, though. It won't take long."

"That's a really good idea, but questions first," I said.

Spike yawned and rested on the pile of cushions adjacent to us. Pinkie returned to the pile to snuggle up with Spike, which I suppose is okay, but I sat on the floor apart from them to concentrate.

"Okay, first question. You have Mac's symbol on your collar and shoes. That means you're one of his slaves or something, right?" I asked.

Pinkie Pie giggled. "I'm a slave? That's kind of sexy!" she said. "I don't think slave is the right word, though. He's my Master, at least for now. I think I might want to end up belonging to Master Cake. Er, I mean Mister Cake. Would that be Master Mister Cake or Mister Master Cake?" she babbled.

"Ugh, Pinkie, Please," I groaned.

"Sorry!" she winced.

"It's okay. Alright, so—can you tell me anything about what it means to have a 'Master'?" I asked.

"I don't know too much. It's fun, though! He tells you what to do, and pulls on your mane, and makes you do sexy things," she said.

"That doesn't sound like fun," I lied.

"Well, I think it's his job to figure out how to make it fun? A Master basically is responsible for taking care of you, you know, like taking care of a pet or maybe the Cake twins, except it's a little bit more sexual than pets and babies are usually," said Pinkie.

I sighed and covered my face in my hooves.

"And he makes you do things," Pinkie continued, "and the more he does it the more you like it until you want him to do it all the time and it's all you can think ab—"

"Pinkie!" I barked. (Spike jerked awake, then relaxed and went back to a half-nap.)

"Oh! S-sorry, I can get a little sidetracked," she giggled. "What was the question again?"

"It was about the Master thing, but I'm going to guess that everything you know is just from sex play with Big Macintosh," I said.

Pinkie Pie nodded. "That, and watching Big Macintosh order Rarity and Fluttershy around. Rarity knows a ton more about it than I do. The materials have something to do with it, I think, but she won't give me details."

"Materials?" I asked.

"You know, the fact that I have copper, you have marble..."

"Oh, right! I'd been meaning to ask you about those."

"All I know is the different types she has so far. Marble is for initiates or not-yet-vamponies or something, and you're one of those. You don't get to lose your marbles until you accept what you've become," she said, and then stared at me with a very wide eyed grin: fangs glistening.

"Holy shit. Pinkie, don't do that," I begged.

"Sorry! It's just so much fun," she pouted. "And besides, you'll be so happy once you lose your marbles! That's what Rarity keeps saying, at least. She also says I should probably still have my marbles in since I haven't done the stone-in-the-box thing yet, but it makes more sense to keep me in copper for now. I'm trying to stay away from Mac, though."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Oh, because I'm pretty sure if I see him, he'll tell me to give him that little piece of my brain, and if he does, of course I'll say yes!" she beamed. "I mean, you know me, Twilight! I can never resist giving other ponies a piece of my mind," she joked.

"Pinkie. Pinkie, no. Please, just no. Let's not even think about that now. The other materials," I urged.

"Right, right. Okay, you still have your marble ones in, and Fluttershy and I have copper. I think copper is maybe the default? Rarity acts like gold and silver are special. Oh, she wears silvers now instead of steel. She said those are a new type, but silvers are temporaries just like marbles and steels are."

"Temporary... hmm. I'm going to postulate that marble becomes any other type, steel becomes copper, and silver becomes gold. Probably wrong, but a working theory. Why would they be temporary, though? Is there anything different about Rarity? Is it the fact that she's a bloodhorn instead of a darkhoof or a nightwing?" I wondered aloud. "No, that can't be it... Mom had coppers, and she must be a bloodhorn."

"Rarity makes all kinds of accessories for each kind of pony," Pinkie said. "I really don't know why she wears silver now. Whenever I ask her, she just tells me to pipe down, then yanks really hard on my mane in a way that makes super-squiffy things happen under my tail!" she giggled.

"Really? You mean, it's like she's a stallion, or something?" I asked.

"Oh, no, Rarity's a mare, Twilight. Didn't you know that?" asked Pinkie Pie, and I rolled my eyes. "Even though she's a mare, Big Macintosh used to tell me to do whatever Rarity says. I think Rarity really likes telling ponies what to do."

"Okay. I think there's too much to go on, here," I mumbled. "It's probably a bad idea to speculate any further. Just let me know if there are any materials I've missed."

"Those are the five basic ones, but I've seen a few more. Two of them are special kinds of stones she uses only for earrings. One is made from opal. Not her cat, though! There's a white stone called opal, which is a lot less gross than making earrings out of a cat. Rarity only made a few of them because she thinks they're going to be super-rare. The other is a black stone called onyx, and she's made tons of those. The black earrings are tiny and round; they're different from all the others, which are flat and a little larger, just like mine. I don't know how she would put the Master mark on the onyx earrings, or how you'd even see it," she said.

"I'm not sure how she puts the Master mark on any of them to begin with, but I doubt the surface being round would prevent her from doing it," I said. "The color probably wouldn't matter either, because the symbol glows in magical lighting."

"Oh, and Rarity says Mac wears the black ones now," Pinkie added. "And she's doing some subtle things to all of the accessories she makes just in case they start a trend, so you can tell the exclusive vampony ones apart from the non-vampony copycats."

"Wait, Mac wears them now? That's weird. Maybe she's making some kind of badging mechanism for stallions, too. I remember Luna's nightwings saying something about stallions who become mar—no, excuse me—who become cunts. There's probably some weird hierarchical system at work here. I wouldn't really care about it if I didn't have this inside information that Rarity's work in Ponyville was so important to the Order," I explained.

"They become cunts?! Ohmygosh! Are they like, enormous pony-sized horse pussies, or do they get attached to a..." Pinkie gasped.

"Pinkie, I think she was speaking, um, what's the word... metaphorically," mumbled Spike, half-asleep, but apparently still picking up bits of our horrid conversation.

"Yeah. Like, they become slaves like the mares or something," I said. "Anyway, back to the topic: are there any more materials?"

"Yes! The last two are super-weird, too! At first I thought she was making tiny versions of the shoes and collars and wing-clippers..."

"Oh no. Pinkie, please don't tell me this," I said, biting my lip.

I really did not want this to be what I was already certain it was going to be.

"But, you wanted to know...?" Pinkie asked.

I sighed deeply. "Okay. Go on," I relented, and braced myself for the worst.

"Anyway, she was making tiny versions of everything except for the horn caps. She made tiny horn rings instead. And all of them looked like they were made of wood and granite, which is another type of stone..."

"Pinkie, I know what granite is. Er, but thank you. So how small are these? I'm going to assume foal-sized."

"Oh, even smaller! Maybe baby-sized? But here's the thing: they're fake! They look like wood or stone, but they're super stretchy," she explained. "So I think adult ponies could wear them too? Also, the earrings are only a little smaller than the normal kind, but they're not fake like the other accessories: they're actual polished oak and granite."

"Probably latex rubber, though I have no idea how she makes them look like wood and granite. Fascinating, but this whole conversation has probably been a waste of time since you're not privy to the details, Pinkie," I complained.

"But I can fix that! Now that you're finally here, I can lose my marbles for realsies and tell you all the secrets I get from Rarity and Mac!" Pinkie said, bouncing in place where she sat amid the cushions.

"NO. Pinkie, I forbid it! Never do the brain thing! Do you understand me?" I yelled. It took me a moment to realize I'd grabbed her by the shoulders.

Pinkie Pie frowned. "Twilight, please don't worry so much. I promise it won't hurt me. It didn't hurt Rarity! And at the very least, you can do one of your before-and-after experiments to see what it does, right? You love experiments!"

"Pinkie, please," I said, reaching down to hold her hooves in mine, and looking directly into her pretty cyan eyes (her eyes are very pretty, Journal; I wonder why I never noticed before?). "I'm scared to death of losing all my friends. I can't lose you too. I need to you swear—Pinkie Promise—you won't do the brain thing. Ever."

Pinkie Pie looked very sad. "Okay Twilight. I promise I won't do the brain thing without your approval, alright? Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. But I won't be able to get you any new intel until then. At least do your experiment stuff on me now, okay?"

"What experiment stuff? I don't know what you're talking about," I said, frustrated.

"You know! You did some scans of my noggin back when you investigated my Pinkie Sense. Remember? You could compare those to now that I'm a vampony, but before the brain thing gets done."

"Actually... I think I do still have your scans in the basement. That's actually a great idea! Er, unless you think it gives you permission to destroy your brain, in which case I won't do it, whether or not it would save Equestria."

"Twilight—"

"We'll talk about this later. It's too much right now," I said. Pinkie rubbed her cheek against mine, pushing a tear aside.

I know it will happen at some point. I don't want it to, but I know it will. I just can't think about it now. It's literally too much for my emotions to handle. Even with all the hardening I've taken over the past few weeks, it's too much. I love you Pinkie Pie, I really do.

Horseshit.

"Okay Twi. What else did you have to ask? I think I've told you everything I know," said Pinkie Pie. (Spike was softly snoring at this point.)

"Let me think. There was one last thing... Ah, I remember! You said the words 'nightblood' and 'voidmare' in relation to Cadance, I think? I don't know what those are," I explained.

"Oh! Well, Cadance is a nightblood, and you're turning into one. That's a vampony with the combined pegasus and unicorn natures," she said.

"You mean an alicorn," I said.

"No, I mean what you and Cadance are."

"Uh, we're alicorns, Pinkie."

"Not according to Rarity. She says Celestia and Luna are alicorns, but you're only a pegacorn," said Pinkie Pie.

"That... is ridiculous. I know everything there is to know about alicorns, and I'm pretty damn sure I'm an alicorn. Where is she getting these stupid ideas?" I laughed.

"From Luna's night guard, I guess? I don't know much about it other than what she's said, but from the way she talks it sounds like maybe Celestia doesn't tell you a lot of stuff..."

"So what does this mean? What the hell is an alicorn, then?" I asked, furrowing my brow. I'm afraid to admit it, but at this point I totally buy the possibility that Celestia's been hiding information from me about my true nature—for good reason, no doubt, but still. I almost feel like I can't trust her anymore. Why wouldn't she tell me something like this?

"I think an alicorn has earth pony nature as well? Anyway, Rarity says that Celestia or Luna would become a voidmare, which is what an alicorn vampony is. You and your sister-in-law are nightbloods. But she tries not to use words like that around me anymore, so that's pretty much all I know," said Pinkie.

"Damn. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate being in the dark like this," I groaned. Pinkie Pie opened her mouth as though to offer something, then quickly closed it. I didn't ask.

Alright. I've finished this entry now. Oh, I just carried Spike upstairs and set him in his bed. He kissed my lips without waking up, and I was afraid to break it when his little arms grabbed me... it lingered for about twelve seconds, and while it didn't appear to arouse him, my body, um... Ah, whatever. He had a smile on his face and looks like a little angel when tucked into his cozy bed, so I don't care. He's pretty tiny for an eleven-year-old foal, but size is deceptive. I mean, he's still way too young, and shouldn't be kissing his sister no matter how old he is, but it's not quite as bad as it looks.

Yes, I am aware that I'm rationalizing, and I'm probably a hopeless pervert now.

Pinkie should be back soon (hopefully, anyway: I'm a little tired myself). I'll leave the customary space after this entry in case I have forgotten anything.

Zecora is here now, with a bunch of supplies and no doubt useful information. I'll post a final entry after this one before I "hit the hay" (as AJ would put it).

It's time to write down what happened in the hills, so I'm going to use the extra space after this entry for that. I've kept this thing brewing long enough. Even here I'm going to abbreviate the details somewhat, because all I need is a record of events. Or, to be perfectly blunt, a record of my crimes. Ongoing crimes, I suppose.

By "what happened in the hills", I mean the first time in the hills, of course. This was in the evening after recovering from the Twiliport Loop (I guess it sounds less dorky to my ear now?) when I was physically and mentally exhausted and Spike and Pinkie were taking care of me, even though they were pretty banged up themselves.

We cuddled together for warmth after the Sun set, and Pinkie Pie started talking about sex. I don't remember all of the details of the conversation because I didn't have the transcription spell up, but it just kind of happened. For some reason, it didn't seem all that bad. The conversation veered into how naive I am, and how I probably needed to learn more about sex in order to be safe from the vamponies.

Of course, Pinkie Pie was a vampony at the time herself, but I didn't know this. Thinking back about it I feel a little betrayed, but I don't really think she was trying to deceive me. I'll bet she thought what she was doing was helping me in the fight against the vamponies, even though she was one. Actually, I'm certain of it, even as mind-numbingly illogical as it may sound. Pinkie Pie seems to thrive in contradictions. She's pretty amazing. Her skills and abilities seem to compliment mine like intersecting puzzle pieces.

Journal... am I actually starting to fall in love with her? Holy Sun, I hope not. I can't handle all these feelings happening at everypony...

Anyway, Pinkie and I argued about whether Spike should know about sex or not, and in my weakened state, she won the argument. Somehow she made everything sound like it made perfect sense. Spike needed protection against the vamponies too, and Pinkie said sapient beings like ponies and dragons were capable of sexual pleasure before puberty. I didn't really believe that, so she said she'd show me, and I guess that's when it started.

I was lying prone, resting, and Pinkie and Spike gathered around me. Spike said he wanted to explore kissing and stuff with Pinkie, but he was a little scared, so he wanted me there. It just seemed so cute, I couldn't say no to him... Pinkie kissed me on the cheek, gently, as we hugged each other. I asked her not to go any further with kissing me because I was afraid of falling in love the way Applejack had warned me about. So she started kissing Spike instead, right in front of my face, and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. He blushed and gripped her hoof in one forepaw, his other claws gently resting on my shoulder. Then his eyes fluttered closed as Pinkie Pie kissed closer and closer to his lips, and then on the lips, and finally she started kissing him in kind of a weird way. She would kiss him gently but firmly, then gently spread her lips just a little, which would force his lips open. I didn't realize she was doing things inside his mouth with her tongue at the time (yeah, I guess I was pretty naive—probably still am) but the more she did this, the more he relaxed against me and accepted his fate.

I felt Pinkie gently stroking my teats and I was too entranced by everything to stop her. It helped, too, because I was becoming aroused and at least this way I didn't have to blame it on being attracted to my little dragon. I'll bet Pinkie knew exactly what she was doing. She seems so idiotic most of the time but when it comes to social interaction, she's kind of a genius. We were both putty in her hooves, and we loved her for it. A small part of me still does, I must admit.

She wanted me to kiss Spike, but I was really worried about that so I only gave him a small, gentle kiss on the lips, just once. It wasn't romantic or anything, but it made my heart do flips in a worrisome way. Then she said she was going to do something special for Spike, and she lay her body against my lower legs. Spike was resting on his side, against my side, and he just looked into my eyes with those precious lizard-green irises, and nopony said anything because we didn't need to. I started stroking his back, then his tail, and eventually cupped his tiny rump in my hoof. I didn't understand why, and I didn't care.

Pinkie's head rested on my belly, and as I looked into Spike's gaze, I saw him gasp and twitch and I knew she was doing something to him. I knew she was doing something to his penis; I knew it, and yet I didn't try to stop her. His face was so perfect, just blushing, eyes watering... I kissed away a tear or two, and held him close with my hoof on his rump. His little pink tongue dangled out of his mouth: long and just a little forked, but otherwise a lot like a pony tongue, I thought. I could hear something liquid, kind of like somepony sucking on a popsicle. At the time I didn't really get it, but I know what was happening now. I think she was kissing him there, or maybe even had his penis (penises?) inside her mouth, which seems pretty disgusting and dangerous, but maybe it's not so bad after all... it feels really, really good to think about it, which is why I'm trying not to.

Pinkie kept making these moaning sounds like she was eating the most delicious treat in the universe. I thought she was faking at the time, but maybe it really was that amazing? Could anything feel as amazing as she made it sound? Spike was just beside himself, though. Eventually he had his claws on either side of my face, and tears were falling onto my cheeks, and he just smiled gently and said, "I love you, Twilight," over and over again. The first time it prompted a muffled sound like "mwww" from Pinkie, so I think she actually liked that he was fixating on me. And in my addled mental state, I liked it too. I told him I loved him very much, just the same, and—and this is the part I really can't forgive myself for—I told him to relax and enjoy how it felt, because he deserved to be happy.

It went on like this for a while, until eventually he shivered and jerked and whined in a high pitch. I knew something important was happening, so I pulled him tightly to me and kissed him on the cheek. In retrospect, I bet he was having an orgasm, but is that really possible for somepony his age? What would the evolutionary point be of having orgasms before you can breed? Social, perhaps? In any case, it happened, and with one last SLURP sound Pinkie Pie giggled and propped herself back up into my field of vision, and we all gently held each other. She said something about how Spike would be able to make some kind of special batter someday and oh, bleah, ick. Okay, now I get it. Well, anyway, she said some stuff. And she started rubbing my teats again, and I asked her to stop because I was too tired, but that was a lie and I think she knew it.

When we woke up I felt much better, though I was a little sticky downstairs (ugh, sorry Journal). Spike acted very shy and embarrassed, and I felt embarrassed for him and for myself. Pinkie Pie seemed very cheerful and pleasant. We all kind of pretended that what happened hadn't happened, but I did see Spike rub up affectionately against Pinkie's shoulder a couple of times on the remainder of our walk, and when he looked at me I noticed a shy but genuine spark in his eye. Love, I think; whatever that means, anyway. I know enough about love now to say with certainty I don't know what it is.

I'm sorry, Spike. I failed you then, and I still am, even now...