“Cadance, I’m so lonely… I’m so lonely and I think I need some help.”

Ears perking, Cadance turned and looked at her aunt. The words were familiar, haunting even, Celestia had said she was lonely and those were the words that had started the whole whirlwind romance. And now, as Cadance saw, there had been a realisation. Her aunt had come around, as was evidenced by the expression upon her face.

“Cadance, I’m so alone that it hurts. I didn’t know it… I guess I wasn’t paying attention… at some point, I became starved for intimacy. I think… I don’t know. But I didn’t realise just how bad it was… or that it had become such a problem… I slapped Gosling earlier… I was so angry at him… wanting to kill himself… wanting to die… and then it all came rushing up in my mind and I started to think about how alone I would be without him and how alone I already was, and the full realisation of it came into my mind and it hurt me and then I was holding him and we made up and I wanted him so badly and he almost took me on the floor and then we took a cold shower together and afterwards we talked for a while and then we preened each others’ wings and when I left him, he was sleeping again, and it ached, Cadance, it ached to leave him, and I wanted to feel him near me, I wanted to smell him, to touch him, to hear him breathing, and Cadance, there is something wrong with me! I panicked when I left him in the room and then I couldn’t breathe! And when I realised I was panicking I panicked even more and then I didn’t know what to do so I came and I found you!”

And then, the floodgates opened. No more words were said, but Celestia began bawling. Cadance stood there for a moment, stunned, overcome with emotion herself, but she recovered almost right away. She strode forwards and stood neck to neck with Celestia, who collapsed against her. Cadance almost tumbled down to the floor and it took the strength of Cadance’s magic to hold her sobbing aunt up.

Silent, Cadance allowed her aunt to let it out. Celestia was consumed with her grief and her body was wracked by deep, shuddering sobs that made her convulse. Cadance of course, had seen this coming, and was wondering when it would happen. She had predicted it sooner, she had thought it would happen when Celestia had broken down a bit on the day that Gosling had painted her a sunset. But the full break and the request for help hadn’t happened.

Now, her aunt was broken completely, her pride gone, and she was begging for help. Celestia had finally come around to recognise the emptiness in her heart. Cadance held her and they stood, neck to neck, with Cadance wrapping her wings around her aunt’s neck.

“I feel... so... hollow... inside!”

Cadance held her aunt and wept with her. Sometimes, words weren’t enough.

Heaving a sigh, Cadance gave a weary shake of her head as she stepped away from Celestia’s bed. The big white alicorn was slumbering beside Gosling, a deep, deep, medicated sleep brought on by sedatives. She moved through her aunt’s chambers in near silence, stepped out through the wide double doors, and shut them behind her. She looked down at Raven, who stood waiting.

“I have taken control of the day,” Cadance said in a low, solemn voice. “Do you dispute this?”

Raven shook her head. “No, no I do not.”

“Princess Luna still rules the night.” Cadance blinked away a few tears and felt a heaviness in her heart. “I saw this coming. Good thing I was prepared. Prince Blueblood will perform the day to day duties of the day court, with me having the final say on any major issues. My aunt needs rest. Real rest. She needs a break. A vacation. A thousand years of near nonstop labour have taken a toll upon her.”

“Yes, yes they have,” Raven replied, nodding her head.

“Send a dispatch to Lumina Loveletter, Gosling’s therapist. Tell her I want her to begin couples counselling right away, and individual sessions as well, with both of them, starting tomorrow.” Cadance’s tone was austere, commanding, and left no room for questioning.

“Yes, Princess Cadance, right away, Princess Cadance.”

“And Raven…”

“Yes?”

“Consider taking some downtime yourself. I think we’ve all been a little frazzled.”

Raven blinked behind her glasses a few times and looked confused. “I’ll take that into consideration.” After a pause, Raven’s distress cleared away. “What of the engagement party? Everything was in the beginning planning stages.”

Cadance’s lips pressed together into a thin, straight line, and her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling as she became lost in thought. She stood there for a full minute before she responded, “Continue to plan. Auntie needs this. She needs somepony to do something wonderful for her. I’ll call for help. Make certain that we have well screened guests though. No troublemakers. This event will no longer be open to the public. We want to keep this stress free and low key. She needs to be able to enjoy herself.”

“Will do,” Raven replied.

“You must excuse me, Raven, but there is much to do. I have ponies to look after.” Cadance’s stern face wrinkled with worry and concern. Her ears splayed out to the sides for a moment, then stood up, and then drooped again. Saying nothing else, she departed, knowing there was much work to be done. While Celestia was down, it was time for a bit of housecleaning.

Feeling heavy, Celestia opened her eyes, which almost felt like an impossible task. Her eyelids resisted her actions and it took a supreme act of will. There was a warm body beside her and the bed felt delightful. The sheets and blankets had the sort of warmth that only came with hours of collected body heat.

Her vision was blurry, fuzzed over, and she saw something greyish black in the corner of her vision. Her mouth was filled with cotton balls, or at least that is how it felt. There was a warm, snuggly body beside her in the bed, beneath the blankets, and with extreme effort, she slid her head over her pillowcase closer to Gosling.

“Hello, Sunshine,” Gosling said in a low voice.

“My little Goosey-Goose,” Celestia said, shocked at how slurred her words sounded in her own ears, “they stabbed me in my bum-bum.”

“I know,” Gosling replied, “Cadance told me.”

“It hurt.” Celestia felt surprisingly foalish for some reason. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to keep them open. She could feel her eyelashes on her left side brushing against the soft silk of her pillowcase. “Whatcha doing, Goosey?”

“Reading a textbook for field command procedures,” Gosling replied. “I have a test coming. Passing it means a higher pay grade.”

“Goosey, that sounds incredibly boring.” Celestia’s lips were numb and she couldn’t feel them flapping together. She tried to move her foreleg and couldn’t. She couldn’t move much of anything at all. She struggled to even move her head. The siren song of sleep called out to her, sweet, gentle sleep, and she longed to sink back down into the velvet, abyssal depths. Somehow, she resisted and she continued to try and focus on her beloved Goosey-Goose.

“Cadance pulled off a coup d'état.” Celestia coughed; something about the Fancy words tickled her throat. She drew in a deep breath and was thankful for the warm body beside her. “She had one of her minions stab me in the bum-bum.”

“You had to be sedated,” Gosling said as he continued reading. “You were hyperventilating.”

“When I was stabbed in the bum-bum, I said to Cadance, ‘Et tu, Mi Amore Cadenza?’ and she just laughed at me. She’s cold, Goosey-Goose. She had me stabbed and then she took over.”

“You were raving.”

“I don’t remember raving.” Celestia blinked and relished the sensation of her eyelashes sweeping over the smooth, almost frictionless silk pillowcase. “I remember being a little upset and I might have got a bit shouty. Maybe just a little.” It took real effort to clear her throat. “But I don’t think I was raving.”

“Cadance and I talked a little bit earlier, while you were still asleep.” Gosling closed his book, wiggled around, pushed his book under his pillow, laid his head down, and then scooted around until he lay snoot to snoot with Celestia. He could feel her legs tangled up against his. “Cadance said she was trusting me with your body during your comatose state.”

“Did you give me a good sleep humping, Goosey?”

“No!”

“Well drats.” Celestia let out a sigh of discontent. “Why not?”

“We’re starting couples counselling tomorrow,” Gosling said.

Celestia felt her nose twitch. Gosling’s words tickled her snoot, which was weird. She couldn’t feel her lips, but she could feel her snoot. With slow, cautious movement, her tongue snaked out from between lips she could not feel, doubled back, and she poked the tip of it against her snoot. She could feel the rough tip on her snoot, but her tongue was numb and could not feel her snoot with the tip.

“Mthy thongue ith numbth,” Celestia mumbled around her tongue. To amuse herself, she extended her tongue and gave Gosling a lick. He was just close enough for her to do it. She saw his eyes cross and she couldn’t feel a thing on her tongue as she licked him.

With a slurp, Celestia sucked her tongue back in. She lay there, feeling drowsy, still fighting to keep her eyelids open. The feeling of warmth and having another body close by only added to her strong urge to sleep. The warmth of another body was intoxicating.

“I love you so much,” Gosling said to Celestia.

“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Celestia replied. “Goosey…”

“Yes?”

“Blueblood says that you need to paddle Luna to show her that you love her.” Celestia pressed her lips together and blew a flatulent raspberry. “He said that Luna is a bad pony and she needs to be punished so she can validate her own existence. You need to be a brave, brave pony, Gosling, and take up a paddle and heat up my sister’s backside.” She saw Gosling blinking and wondered if he enjoyed the sensation of his eyelashes brushing over the silken pillowcase. “You’re the only pony I trust to do it… don’t let me down, Goosey. Make her cry. It’s for her own good. She deserves to be happy. Stop looking at me like that. Go ask Blueblood, he’ll tell you.”

“I wonder how much ketamine it takes to drop an alicorn?” Gosling whispered.

“Cadance had her co-conspirators stab me in my bum-bum.” Celestia started to blink, but her eyes felt too heavy to open back up. She yawned, stretched a bit by tensing her body, and felt a moist heat spreading through her nethers as she thought about her beloved Goosey-Goose giving her a good Juicy-Goosey sleep humping. She struggled against sleep, trying to open her eyes, but the urge was just too strong.

“Don’t leave me, Goosey-Goose…”

“Never,” was the final word that Celestia was aware of.

Again, Celestia awoke, and her tongue felt like old, dried out leather. She heard muffled voices talking. An ear twitched as she recognised Cadance’s voice. There was not one, but two bodies in the bed with her. Gosling was off to one side, but something else was pressed up against her other side. Something small rested against her back.

“Are you comfortable, Gosling?”

“The painkillers are working, that’s for certain. I feel okay.”

“How do you feel about your surroundings right now?”

“I don’t follow… staying in Celestia’s room?”

“No.” A pause. “How do you feel being in the bed of the mare you love, outside of marriage? I know you feel conflicted, but how are you handling it?”

“I… I’m… I, well, I’m managing, you know? No plan ever survives contact with the enemy. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I almost boned her right on the floor today.”

Celestia’s ear twitched again. She didn’t feel like opening her eyes. The smaller body curled up against her back breathed with slow regularity. Her sleep addled brain decided that it must be Flurry. Something in her heart ached. She wanted her own foals in the bed with her, she wanted to feel foals that weren’t even born yet, much less conceived.

A new voice spoke. “Boning. You know, for a pony that puts so much stock into the sanctity of marriage and holds marital relations as being sacred, your words sometimes portray it as a crude, vulgar thing.”

“Well I can’t go around saying ‘sexual congress’ or something stupid like that.” And then, after a long pause, “Coitus just sounds wrong. I suppose I am a pony of my generation. I hold on to the old traditions, but I just speak what’s on my mind. I don’t mince words.”

“But words reflect how we feel about what we hold dear. In your chosen field, you know the power of a well placed word, Gosling. Your test scores all rank in the ninetieth percentile for communications. You are exceptional.”

Celestia did not recognise the second voice. It was soft, female, patient, kind sounding. There was a faint Grittish Isles accent. From experience, even with her drug addled brain, she knew that the accent would grow stronger with emotion. Some ponies were like that. Like her beloved Goosey-Goose.

“Fine, use my job against me. Yeah, I can be well spoken when I need to be. Sometimes though, the simplest words are the best. They drive the point across. What almost happened earlier today could have been classified as coitus, but as far as descriptions go, it would have been a boning, okay? In the state I was in, and by the way she was acting too, I don’t think it could be called making love. We woulda been like two animals on the floor.”

“Do you see your beloved princess as an animal?” the cultured, Trottingham accented voice asked. Celestia waited for a reply, fighting against the need to drift back off to sleep.

“Yes. Yes I do.” Hearing a strong, wet, bubbly inhale, she resisted the overwhelming need for sleep as she waited for more words from Gosling. “She’s an animal. I’m an animal. You’re an animal. We all are. And we all have needs. Strong needs. We need love, food, water, air, all those things, and we need all kinds of coitus. Sometimes, we need a hot, heavy boning. Sometimes we need a good screwing. A nice shtupping. An afternoon quickie. Angry make up sex. Waxing the morning wood. I could go on... but we can’t convey those feelings or their associations with just the word coitus.”

“Well said, Gosling.”

“Thank you, Cadance.”

Celestia felt a hoof come to rest upon her neck. “Yeah, she’s an animal. Just like I am. She’s a mare. She’s a pony, not at all different from the rest of us, and she’s subject to the same needs that we all have.” There was a pause and a hesitant sounding inhale of breath. “Are you certain that Flurry can’t hear us talk?”

“Positive. She’s sleeping and her ears are muffled.”

“Whew.”

Whew indeed. Celestia was losing her struggle and she knew it. The abyss yawned before her and she yearned to dive in. She wanted to lose herself in the darkness again. To rest. To sleep. Blessed sleep.

There was a soft knock upon the door which kept Celestia on this side of the void. She listened, her ears straining, curious. Hearing no reply, she assumed that Cadance must have pulled the door open with her magic and she heard the faint sound, almost silent, of it brushing over carpet.

“Princess Cadance, I come bearing news,” a gruff male voice said.

“Yes?”

“Skyfire Flash has entered early labour.”

“What?” Gosling’s voice sounded worried.

“She’s hemorrhaging and they’re preparing her for birth. She has requested that the future Prince Gosling be there with her. She’s scared. She wants the company of her only friend.”

The warm body beside her moved and Celestia waited, almost holding her breath, wondering what Gosling would do, hoping he would do the right thing. Her own body tensed as she waited. She very much wanted Gosling to do the right thing. Please, Goosey-Goose, be the good pony that I know you are…

“But I… we’re not… I can’t stand her—”

“Gosling, you were her friend once,” Cadance said in a low voice. “Think back to what it was like being her friend. Don’t let your hate or your anger cloud your judgment on doing the right thing.”

“Damn you!” Celestia felt the bed shake and she wondered what was going on. “Damn you, Cadance… I made a promise that I would be here with Celestia when she woke up! Don’t guilt trip me into breaking my promise!”

“And you’ve kept that promise,” Cadance replied, “because she’s been awake for a while.”

Celestia felt a hoof give her a firm poke. She struggled to open her eye. She saw her beloved Goosey-Goose looking down at her, and though her vision was fuzzy and blurred, she could see the agony on his face.

“Oy vey!” The bed shook again and Celestia felt Gosling moving around. “Fine. I’ll go do the right thing… somepony help me up.”

Celestia too, wanted to do the right thing, but the siren call of sleep was far too strong for her to resist. She started to say something, to praise her beloved Goosey-Goose, for being the good pony that she knew that he could be, but all that came out was a yawn.

She drifted off on velvet waves that crashed against the shores of the dreaming realm.

Author's Notes:

Like I said, it's all in the delivery...