Horse People Go Naked
Chapter 158: Chapter 157: Just Smile like Normal
Previous Chapter Next ChapterIt was the morning—or night… or whatever the hell you called the time when nocturnal people first woke up—after Thomas’ diagnosis. Either way, it was too damn early to get hung up on semantics. That day’s erotic escapades were unsatisfactory, to say the least. Who knew that a terminal diagnosis could be such a buzzkill? Well, it was only a potentially terminal diagnosis, but again, no one was in any mood to deal with semantics.
Anyway, Thomas woke up. As usual, he found himself engulfed in a pony pile and had to extricate his puny form from their ample figures. Well, ‘had’ was a relatively strong word. He ought to pull himself free, but no one was going to force him. Besides, he recognized that Moonlight’s back was against his chest while Luna’s titanic tits enveloped his upper body. Somehow, another pair of massive breasts had engulfed most of his legs, and he was pretty sure those belonged to Surprise. Based on how the dim light poked through the holes covering the ‘ceiling,’ he estimated that he wasn’t looking at a blanket. As his eyes adjusted in the dark, he made out Silver’s familiar shape. There was also Talon’s fluffy head feathers against his lower legs, and somewhere, in the midst of this mess, was Honey’s smell. Basically, everyone was here. So, even if he could summon the superhuman strength to get out, he lacked the willpower even on a good day.
Accepting this predicament, the man shifted a little to make himself comfy. Feeling the blankets of soft and supple mare flesh glide across his skin was merely a welcome bonus. His hotdog between Moonlight’s buns was more pleasant than arousing, as he had no desire to hump himself flaccid and spray his mess across her back. Instead, it was more satisfying to simply lie there and revel in everyone’s touch. Science showed that babies deprived of human touch became emotionally stunted, and adults were only somewhat less needy. Mind-blowing sex was great and all, but at that moment, Thomas couldn’t imagine anything better than waking up pressed against the warm bodies of his loved ones.
“Morning,” Moonlight yawned, sounding more awake than the human. “I see you’re up.”
“You see nothing,” Thomas said into her back. “Go back to sleep.”
“Ya’ll heard the li’l fella. Jus’ let ‘im be,” Honey groaned, her movement rippling out and causing everyone else to stir.
“Aww, do we have to get up now?” Surprise whined. “This is too cozy.”
“Just shut up and keep your eyes closed,” grumbled Talon as she hugged the white mare’s thighs. “That’s a harem trick. If you look cute enough, no one bothers you.”
Luna huffed her contempt. “Liar. If you just lie there looking cute, you leave yourself vulnerable to fiendish snuggling.” She emphasized her point by guiding her tail to tickle the wren’s wings.
“Hey, no fair,” Talon whined, trying to fan her wings as though swatting an aggravatingly persistent fly. “Snuggles are fine. Just don’t make me have to get up.”
“Hmm, Moonlight, might you please release my leg?” Silver requested. “As much as I hate to leave my perch—”
“Then shut up and don’t,” Talon cut in.
“—I have to pee,” Silver finally finished.
Alas, the bat mare had triggered the first domino. At her word, everyone else likewise realized they’d been holding it in for far too long. So, one by one, the pile untangled itself, and everyone filed into the bathroom for their morning business. This included recharging Thomas’s wards. The human noted with a mix of disgust and amusement how utterly indifferent everyone was while playing horned instruments on the toilet, contorting their faces in the mirror, and showing off their natural, unkempt selves. At some point, they’d exited the honeymoon phase, and were all free to fart in front of each other. Although, Thomas was still a nervous pisser, and opted to take his turn last.
“What’s the schedule look like for tonight?” Moonlight asked as she brushed her horn.
“Busy,” Luna sighed after spitting. “Night court will be brief, but I have several appointments in the city. Ribbon cuttings, meetings, meetings during ribbon cuttings. Here, look.” Her horn lit and projected a map onto the mirror, followed by a yellow line starting at the castle, and then bouncing all across the display.
“Full tour,” Honey noted. “‘Bout time ya got that big plot movin’,” she said, lightly hip-checking the taller mare. “Though, that don’t look right. Ya stop by this one spot, go halfway across the city, only ta come back barely a block from that last spot. Who planned this?”
“Attentive Eye,” Luna answered. “This is actually the more efficient path, if you believe it.”
“Ah don’t.”
“It looks more like a game of tennis, but with a round court instead of a square one,” appraised Surprise.
“Surprise and Silver were on duty yesterday,” Thomas recounted as he applied toothpaste to the brush. “So, I think that makes it my and… Honey’s turn?” He looked to the green mare for confirmation, and she nodded.
“Don’t forget me,” Moonlight added.
“Chh, you’re the chimp’s shadow,” Talon dismissed as she ran a comb through her head feathers. “As if you wouldn’t go with him.”
“Not true,” Moonlight countered, still brushing her horn. “In fact, we’ve been working to separate our schedules more, so we can live our own lives.”
“Hmph. If you want independence, try doing what we do,” Talon replied. “‘Leste likes to send us as stand-ins on her behalf when she can’t make all her appointments. That’s what I’ll be doing tonight while the rest of you lazy butts either sit around or get sat on.”
“Ooh, that sounds fun!” Surprise chirped.
“But does that not show favoritism?” Silver asked. “It sounds as though you are sending a message that some appointments are worthy of the Princess while others are not.”
“But… they are,” Luna stated matter-of-factly. “A thousand and one events occur every day and night in a city this size, and only a fraction are worthy of royal acknowledgment. But even alicorns can’t be in two places at once… officially. Having our trusted concubines be our stand-ins is a fine substitute for lesser appointments.”
“I think the lesser part is what Silver’s talking about,” Thomas reasoned. “Some random nobody’s birthday getting ignored by the ruler of a country is expected. But if you’re bouncing around the city and making time for one rich guy’s party, but not another because he’s not as rich, well, it’s kind of like snubbing, I think.”
“High society is sensitive to that kind of stuff, but even they can be reasonable sometimes,” Talon explained. “They’ve got their own internal meetings to schedule this stuff. It’s like family planning so that birthdays don’t overlap. If things are planned right, the only way to snub someone is to put in the effort. Though, if someone tries throwing a fancy party without going through the right channels, that’s a kind of drama even I don’t wanna mess with. The point is, yeah, it’s favoritism, but it’s understandable favoritism. No one’s gonna feel snubbed.”
Thomas nodded thoughtfully. “In that case, as Senior Concubine, I’d like to start a system like that for the harem.” The silence that followed was deafening.
“Ya’ll sure yer up fer that?” Honey asked, voicing what everyone else was thinking.
“It just occurred to me that most of this stuff is public speaking, which isn’t my strong suit,” Thomas admitted. “So, I’ll just have to practice. Besides, we can just start with some small stuff and see how it goes from there.”
“An excellent idea. However, would not Surprise or myself be better candidates for such an endeavor?” Silver suggested. “She’s already a pony person—”
“It’s true,” Surprise cheerfully agreed.
“—and I am well-acquainted with high society etiquette.”
“Good, then you can teach me,” Thomas said before Silver could further argue why he shouldn’t do anything. “It still feels weird that I’m technically your boss, but I am, and I don’t want to be the kind of boss who sits back while everyone else works. I don’t think that anyone who doesn’t lead by example deserves to lead at all—ow!” Thomas rubbed his sore bottom and whirled around to spy Talon’s tail in retreat. He stared at her in confusion.
“Be careful what you say, chimp. Alicorns are emotional and highly unstable creatures, and one wrong word could set them off. It doesn’t matter how exhausted they are. Once those horny fun bags get their second wind, you risk walking funny for the next three days.” She then casually gestured with her beak, barely tearing her eyes from her reflection as she made herself pretty.
Thomas followed the wren’s gesture, his brain failing to register the reflection, and nearly jumped. Luna was bearing down on him with fiery intensity. Even at their distance, her hot breath still pelted his face while her heavy chest rose and fell with mighty huffs. Her tail rapidly wagged to fan her scent while her wings had that telltale twitch from fighting a wing-boner. The man blinked a moment more before finally finding his voice. “Did my wanting to do more stuff seriously make you horny?”
Luna first answered nonverbally when she levitated him up to eye level, tenderly snaked her large hands across his back, and pulled their lips together. The kiss was just shy of being too passionate. No tongue. However, she still had a heavy blush when she pulled away. “I’m proud of my stallion for standing tall against adversity. Now, deal with the consequences.” Her command brokered no argument as she carried him back to the bedroom.
“Uh, not that I’m complaining,” Thomas began as Luna set his feet on the floor near the bed. He watched with increasing awareness as she got to her knees and draped her body over the bed, ass up and tail flagged. “But, uh…” He was pretty sure he had something to say.
“You think yourself weak,” Luna accused, fighting the mewling whine that wanted to come out as her rump bounced with an enticing jiggle. “I know you. Even outside of your dreams, I know you. You think that you’re a leech who doesn’t pull his weight, but you don’t want to be that. You want to be better. So, instead of taking this bad news as an excuse to roll over and become that which you fear, you’re doing what you can to be better. You’re seizing control of your destiny, bettering yourself, and my marehood feels like it’s on fire!” she growled with growing intensity. “So, either clean up the mess you made, or—” *Thwack* “—Yipe!”
Even after the swift spank, Thomas kept his hand over Luna’s bottom, rubbing the beautiful, expansive flesh until the soreness faded. “As if there’s another option,” he laughed as he took his position behind his mare. With Silver or Moonlight, he could put his hands on the mare’s hips. But with Luna, he’d have to throw himself across her bountiful butt and lower back just to reach. Instead, he contented himself with pressing his palms into her rump’s soft and warm flesh. Pressure caused his hands to sink into the skin like memory foam on a mattress, only a lot more fun because he felt the lift beneath his fingers.
Enticed by the sounds from outside, Silver was the first to finish her hygienic business and rushed for a spot with an ideal view. She found it where she could see the front of Thomas’ hips disappear into the ample plushness of the alicorn’s rear. The bat mare bit her lips and clamped her thighs together, but did not move to intervene. Luna had specifically chosen Thomas, and it seemed like this was something special between them. However, just because the posh and proper mare couldn’t join in, there was little to stop her from watching.
Luna bayed as Thomas played with her, rolling her cheeks like they were his personal toy. He pried them apart and pushed his pelvis forward, teasing at her dripping sex with his morning wood. The air was hot around his junk as the mare wiggled to help align everything. “How is this still so amazing to see, even after all this time?” he asked as his tip poked Luna’s clit, making everything bounce.
“It’s either an ancient alicorn secret,”—Talon began as she casually joined beside Silver—“or you’ve just got a thing for big asses. Oh, and maybe butts too, but that’s just a theory.” Smirking, the wren’s claw struck downward, catching Silver’s tail mid-whip. She turned a shit-eating grin on the shorter concubine and said, “Nice try, little filly. Next time, give it your a-game.”
Thomas moaned when he finally slipped inside. Luna’s marehood was large enough to take stallions several times his size, but her inhuman muscle control made her impossibly tight when she wanted. The mare was literally the best of all worlds, and the moist embrace caused the man to fall forward into her vast crack.
Honey poked her head out of the bathroom and said, “Ah’ll get the water ready. Ya’ll hurry so we can get clean. Busy schedule ‘n’ all that, ‘n case ya fergot.”
“Hey, don’t hurry him,” Moonlight whispered while yanking the taller mare back inside. “He needs this.”
Honey leveled a flat stare at the shorter mare. “Ah’m pretty sure the last thing he wants is ta be coddled,” she whispered back. “That was bummin’ him out even before this mess, so more’ll only make it worse.”
Moonlight’s ears splayed as she faced the door, seemingly trying to look through the wooden obstruction to the source of the erotic sounds beyond.
Honey then adopted a gentler expression and put a hand on the unicorn’s shoulder. “He’s yer stallion, so ya wanna help. Ah get it, but ya gotta remember that he ain’t a regular stallion. Humans got their own issues that even we’re tryin’ ta figure out, like how he wants ta be more involved in stuff. So, fer now, just be there fer ‘im, ‘n’ trust he knows his own limits.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Moonlight whispered back.
“Just sit on him,” Surprise answered plainly. “If he goes overboard, just put him in his place… under that sweet, orange-flavored booty. Didn’t I tell you about that?”
Moonlight whickered her lips and slumped her shoulders. “Get involved, but not too involved. I’m glad we cleared that up.”
“More like be on standby ‘n’ use yer best judgment,” Honey amended. “Kinda like standin’ guard.”
“Okay, yes, that sounds better. Thanks.”
Honey then craned her head down and kissed the unicorn’s cheek. “Hey, we’re a weird herd, but a herd, all the same. Lookin’ out fer each other comes with the territory.”
“Preach it,” chuckled Surprise as she wrapped an arm around Moonlight’s neck and pulled her close. “Let him know he can lean on you by leaning on him a little. I may not get all that stuff about experimenting magic, but I know that the worst thing any of us can do is get down in the dumps. In herds like these, moods are as contagious as disease, with symptoms just as annoying.”
Finally, the noise in the main room reached its crescendo before going quiet.
“Thanks, guys,” Moonlight sighed as she shared nuzzles with her pseudo herd mates.
Everyone gathered in the bathing pool with Luna at the center. Cleaning her massive body was the priority since her job was the most important. At least, that’s how it read on paper, but the concubines would argue their tasks were the more demanding, what with how needy alicorns could be. Besides, it was kind of fun how Silver would start washing Luna’s arm, only for the more massive mare to suddenly lift her limb high while the bat mare hung as though from monkey bars.
“Okay, I have been thinking about this since we went to bed,” Silver began. “Feel free to tell me if I am speaking from my rear, but I have to say it.” She took a breath, keenly aware of all eyes upon her. “If the ambient magic is experimenting with Thomas, can we not do the same?”
“How do you mean?” Luna asked.
Silver glanced between Moonlight and Luna. “You magic users likely understand more than I, but if the problem is that Thomas has no magic, then would the solution not be to give him magic?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as stupid as she felt.
“It kinda sounded like the doctors were already doing that with my cells,” Thomas reminded.
“Yes, but the way you described it, it sounded as though their actions were on par with opening the floodgates, letting everything in at once. Now, unless I misunderstood the core issue, which is likely, then would an incremental approach not be more preferable?”
Everyone exchanged curious looks.
“I… don’t think Feelgood mentioned that,” Thomas concluded.
Luna’s horn lit as a quill and parchment manifested before her face, and she quickly jotted the first part of a message. “We must ensure the doctors consider all variables,” she firmly stated before turning her sights back on Silver. “We’ll have to wait for their reply, but I’d like to further explore this idea before sending an inquiry. As such, was there something in particular that you had in mind, my dearest Silver?”
Silver cleared her throat and averted her gaze as her cheeks reddened. “Well, it is like when you give one of us a stallionhood. It is a minor, temporary augment that we dismiss as soon as it proves too inconvenient to keep. What if the change was even lighter and purely superficial? Could something like that slowly acclimate Thomas to magic?”
All eyes now fell upon the horned mares. And then an additional pair of eyes fell upon the tallest horned mare.
“That… seems plausible,” Luna allowed. “However, I reviewed a copy of the charts. It seems that one of the challenges to such an experiment is how quickly the ambient magic moves in once the barriers go down. Essentially, magic floods the non-magical cells only slightly slower than light fills a dark room.”
“If that’s a note to Feelgood, then ask about food,” Thomas added. “If magic is already in literally everything, then I’ve been eating and drinking magic this whole time. Shouldn’t that have done something?”
“An excellent point,” Luna noted as the pin scribbled.
Thomas stared at his dripping hands, imagining the invisible barrier that essentially protected him from this world’s deadly radiation. Well, the comparison wasn’t perfect, as this radiation was semi-conscious and possibly experimenting with his cells to achieve whatever it determined to be the best outcome.
“What if the barriers don’t go down?” Surprised asked. “The wards that protect those cute little toseys don’t have to go down if we, like, turn his feet into hooves, right?”
“Would givin’ ‘im a different skin color do anythin’?” inquired Honey. “We wanna start small, right? So, changin’ skin color sounds so small, it might as well not be nothin’.”
“Since we’re all talking out of our butts anyway, I’d say that sounds less than what magical food ought to be doing,” Thomas noted before facing the horned mares for clarification.
“I should think so,” agreed Luna.
“There’s just so much we don’t know,” Moonlight countered in deep thought. “I’m remembering my old roommates from the Academy discussing theories about hypotheticals. Things that could only be speculated on because the conditions simply didn’t occur in nature, or things so common that no pony even thinks about them until you bring up what might happen if those conditions were absent.”
“So, I’m both the trailblazer and the trail, huh?” Thomas reasoned, internally questioning why this discussion was exciting him so much. “Neat.”
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable blazing any trails unless it was under the safest possible conditions,” Moonlight asserted.
“So, back to the quarantine room?” Thomas asked as he recalled his first apartment after coming to Equestria. Luna’s quarters were definitely an upgrade, but let it not be said that ponies didn’t know how to treat accidental alien invaders. Sure, the doctor ponies wore thick insulation whenever they crossed the magical barrier to so much as take his temperature, but the room itself was nothing to scoff at. The bedding was damn soft, they offered a curtain for the toilet after he asked, there was no shortage of reading material, and the food seemed to go out of its way to put standard hospital cuisine to shame. All that was missing was a window and a TV, and it would have at least passed for a two-star hotel.
“You sound oddly amicable to the idea,” Silver warily observed.
“It honestly wasn’t too bad. Plus, this time, I’d have more than just one cute mare to keep me company.”
Surprise shivered. “Being cooped up all day sounds so… grherher. You introverts are cute and all, but you can freak me out sometimes.”
“Don’t ya’ll spend most ‘f yer day cooped up in here?” questioned Honey.
“It’s not cooped up if it’s by choice,” Surprise countered. “Being locked up somewhere with no way out is one of my greatest fears. I don’t see how you can stand it.”
“Introvert powers,” answered Talon while smirking at Thomas. “The quiet freaks can just live in their own heads to deal with boredom. Lucky jerks.”
Thomas smiled back. “I’m not apologizing.”
“I believe we are, as you say, jumping the gun with discussions of quarantine,” Luna gently informed as her horn continued writing. “We still don’t know what the doctor will say. For now, are there any other suggestions?” When none came, Luna signed the parchment and ignited it in green flame, the smoke blowing through the balcony door to its location. “In that case, I believe things are as settled as they can be, and we have a night shift to begin.”