“Everyone, let’s move out. Weapons free. Our objective is not to get another dragon’s blood our hands, but we will not let them kill us, or the children, if there is any way we can prevent it. I know we’re tired, but keep alert,” I said, as I started down the trail of destruction the alleged dragon had left behind. “Kindness, I know we let you out of it last time because you’re afraid of dragons, but are coming this time. Stick close. You’re our best chance of talking it down before things do become violent. If that fails, you have permission to withdraw.”

“About the, uh, knowing how to fire this thing… perhaps a few pointers before we’re in the thick of it?” Nanaki inquired. I stopped long enough to run him through the features: trigger, sights, safety switch and such. Let him fire off a few rounds at a tree before he nodded. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this, but at least I can put bullets in the right direction. And I still have my own materia.”

“It was all healing in nature, wasn’t it?” I asked, receiving a nod of confirmation. “I just hope they’re in good enough shape for you to work your magic.”

Several ponies swallowed nervously at the thought, while Nanaki gave a determined nod. We started on our way again, getting a little further before our reinforcements galloped up behind.

“Where’s Spike?” Twilight asked.

“No sign of him. Unless he somehow grew a few dozen feet in height since we last saw him,” I said. “Whatever attacked the clubhouse probably got him too. Luckily the trail is pretty easy to follow. Now that we’re together we should hurry. The sooner we get to the end of this trail, the less opportunity for something we can’t fix to happen.”

Nanaki lent his All materia to Rainbow Dash, so she could Haste all of us at once, and we rushed off into the woods, following the trail at a full gallop. The trail swung down to where the Diamond Dogs had had their mining operations. A massive hole now led into the cavern. All about the cave were claw-rent sections of wall and nearby piles of steaming mud.

“What do you make of all that?” Nanaki questioned.

“The dragon stopped for a snack,” Twilight suggested. “Dragons eat gemstones. It probably just scooped them out of the walls of the mine and spit out the dirt.”

“The trail continues over there,” I said, pointing out the next path of destruction on the far side of the clearing. “And I can guess where it ends.” The moon was obscured by a trail of smoke drifting up from a familiar mountaintop, nowhere near the volume it had been when last we had gone that way.

Fluttershy landed beside me, pressing her head into my hand for me to comfort her as we walked. I spared her a minute or so of petting while Rainbow Dash refreshed our magical acceleration. “Come on, everyone. Move out!”

We made it to the top of the mountain without incident, stopping to regroup around the mouth of the cave. Snores were audible from within, the stream of smoke oscillating with the sound.

“Kindness, you’re on point. Use your stealth to evaluate the situation, then report back to us. If you can evacuate the children safely, or otherwise deal with the crisis safely on your own, I’ll trust your initiative. If you need us to fight the dragon, just scream. If you need us to help in another way, shout ‘help!’. Got it?” I said.

“I think so,” Fluttershy said, barely audibly. “Just… wait out here for now.”

She quickly became visible only as a faint ripple where her cloak’s camouflage didn’t quite keep up with her slow, cautious movements. We watched it until it became impossible to know if we were really seeing it or imagining it, arrayed in cover outside the cave.

“This sure brings back memories, right Cloud?” Rainbow Dash whispered.

“I wasn’t here for it last time,” Twilight said. “Was it quite so… intense?”

I shook my head. “Not quite. There weren’t any potential hostages to worry about. Look, she’s coming back.”

Fluttershy returned, decloaked, eyes wide and having trouble focusing on anything while her cheeks were as red as Applejack’s wares. “I was not prepared to see that.”

“What was it, sugarcube?” Applejack inquired. “Are the fillies alright? And what about little Spike?”

“The fillies are all sleeping peacefully,” Fluttershy assured. “As for ‘little Spike’... I wouldn’t use that phrase, per se…”

“Spike?!” Twilight called out, as she galloped into the cave, leaving the rest of us behind.

“We’d better follow her,” I said, and soon the rest of us were in pursuit, except for Fluttershy, who seemed to be making a vague attempt to warn us against it.

Well before I could see what was going on, another sense gave me forewarning, as the smell of smoke was overpowered by the smell of sex. I wondered if Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle would have been able to place the smell. Nanaki and Rainbow Dash obviously did, judging by the glances they gave me, and I suspected it was the reason Applejack broke into a full gallop, quickly overtaking even Twilight.

Applejack came to a stop just inside the cave, staring in disbelief. Twilight stopped beside her, a loud crunch of glass making her wince and the snoring stopping. I caught up to them shortly thereafter, as the inhabitants of the cave had just begun to stir, looking on at the scene over the backs of the two mares.

A massive purple and green dragon lay on his back in the cave, just starting to rouse. The five missing fillies all lay atop him, four sprawled across his massive chest and belly, while Sweetie Belle was settled between his legs. Looking at them gave me a painful headache, as geometry seemed to be on vacation, the space there warped somehow. As they began to wake and separated themselves, a member several times the filly’s size removed itself from her depths before ultimately returning to wherever it is dragons hide those things. Only when the process was done did I notice her flank was freshly marked with a likeness of Spike’s face.

“Spike?!” Twilight demanded.

“Oh, um… hi Twilight,” the dragon said in a far deeper voice than we were used to from the little dragon. “I can explain!”

“Somehow I highly doubt that,” I said. “The physics alone…”

“I did that… I made my first spell!” Sweetie Belle said proudly. “It came to me right when I earned my cutie mark.”

“Your special talent is having underaged sex with a forty foot dragon?” I asked, incredulously. “I know the princesses said my coming here disrupted destiny somehow, but this is a lot worse than I realized.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Sweetie Belle said, looking ashamed of herself.

“Hay! Don’t make fun of her cutie mark!” Scootaloo demanded, standing on Spike’s chest on her hind legs to look down on us more. “She hasn’t even learned levitation yet and she’s mastered an amazing new spell that nopony else ever has!”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s true,” Twilight said, “but it’s definitely an impressive feat, speaking strictly thaumatologically. But that doesn’t excuse the fact that she seduced my little Spike. And apparently showed off in front of an audience. And also, why is my little Spike 40 hooves tall!?”

“Well we weren’t, strictly speaking, an audience…” Diamond Tiara admitted.

“Each time he was with another of us, he got bigger,” Apple Bloom said. “We would have had to stop after the second if Sweetie hadn’t come up with her spell.”

“I can’t but feel this was my fault somehow,” Nanaki said. He looked over to Pinkie Pie for her thoughts on the matter, only to find her circling a space on a grid featuring Spike and five smaller pony heads.

“No, it’s my fault. I waited too long to have ‘the talk’,” Twilight said.

“Was this actually included in your outline?” I inquired.

“Well, I did have a section about polyamorous relationships,” Twilight said. “But no I didn’t foresee him becoming enormous as a side effect.”

“So… is there a risk we’re about to have a half dozen half dragons running around in the near future?” I asked Twilight.

“No, no, no,” Sweetie Belle said. “Mixed species couples almost never get pregnant without magic involved.”

“You mean like that spell that earned you your cutie mark?” I asked.

“What? That… that’s not what it does,” Sweetie Belle said, though a bit of panic was rising in her voice.

“Alright, don’t anypony panic. If it happened, it happened, and we’ll deal with it from here,” Applejack said. “Either way, I think everypony should be getting home to their nice warm beds-”

“No,” Spike said firmly, forcefully enough that everyone took a half step back instinctively. “I’m plenty warm for all of them to sleep here, aren’t I, my precious mares?”

“He is decidedly comfortable to lay on,” Silver Spoon assured, blinking down at us without her glasses. “Both in terms of give and warmth.”

“That’s not really the point. Aren’t your parents missing you?” Applejack asked.

“My parents were informed I would be spending the night with the other Elements,” Silver Spoon said. “Though admittedly, we are no longer in the building we expected to be in. I can explain that when I return to them in the morning.”

“My parents disowned me,” Diamond Tiara pointed out.

“My parents are out of town, and I’m pretty sure my foalsitter was doing pretty much the same thing with her colt-friend tonight,” Scootaloo said. “She’s probably glad I’m out of her mane.”

“None of which excuses having an orgy at your age,” I pointed out. “Especially when it was obviously having an unusual effect on Spike.”

“How do you know it’s unusual?” Spike said. “You don’t know anything about dragons. Maybe this is just how dragons grow up.”

“So you think the last dragon to sleep here got that big by having a lot of sexual partners?” I inquired.

“That’s… one possibility?” he offered.

“Anyways, I’m not leaving him,” Sweetie Belle said. “We’re destined to be together, obviously. The flank doesn’t lie.”

“Yeah!” Spike said, covering her loosely, but possessively with a massive, clawed hand, easily big enough to pick up one of the fully grown ponies without difficulty. While it might have been intimidating for anyone else to be in the position, Sweetie Belle was clearly pleased to have his hand around her.

“And the other four? Are you all serious about becoming a herd now?” I asked. “And moving out here to the mountains? Spike won’t be able to live in Ponyville anymore.”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to move out or nothin’,” Apple Bloom said. “Sorry, Spike. It’s been fun, and maybe we’ll do it again sometime…”

“Yeah, I still need to go to school, and practice my moves, and all that…” Scootaloo added.

“I’m going to have to decline as well,” Silver Spoon pointed out.

Diamond Tiara frowned, thinking things through.

“No, you’re all mine!” Spike said. “I love you all, I won’t let you go!”

He stopped when I landed on his snout, the tip of my blade inches from his eye. “You are going to let them go. For Sweetie Belle’s sake. She’s a bit young to be a widow.”

“You think you can stop me? I’m the Element of Power, and now I have the body to prove it. Sorry girls,” he said as he slowly rotated to get up on all fours, depositing the fillies on the ground as he met my gaze even past my blade. “You want I fight? I will protect what’s mine!”

“SPIKE!” Fluttershy screamed as she appeared in the air near his other eye. “You should be ashamed of yourself! These young fillies entrusted you with sharing that special moment in their lives where they lose a part of their innocence, and you repay them by acting like you own them?! Tearing them away from their families, school, and everything they know just because you got too big for you bed?! Look at them! Do you love them? Really! Then let them go! Even Sweetie Belle doesn’t deserve to be stranded way out here with only you. You should be amazed and grateful to have even one mare in your life that loves you!”

As the pegasus unleashed the power of her Stare on the young dragon, he seemed to shrink back away from her. At first it was just a matter of posture, but as his snout became too small for me to balance on it became clear it was more than that. He was down to my height when Sweetie Belle interposed herself between him and Fluttershy.

“That’s enough, Fluttershy!” she yelled back. “He just wants to be with us and keep us safe. How is that so bad? This wasn’t even his idea, it was mine. I wanted him. I wanted to share him with my friends. Now leave him alone. Haven’t you done enough?”

“Actually… I think she has,” Nanaki pointed out. “Assuming he can keep from getting bigger again, he should do fine in Ponyville as he is now.”

“He’ll need a new bed,” Twilight said. “And probably a bigger room at the library.”

“You’re down to the size you were after just two of us,” Sweetie Belle said. “Who else were you thinking?”

“Me, of course,” Diamond Tiara broke in. “I’m the only other one who didn’t say she had somewhere else to be. Besides, I am the greatest…”

“You are pretty great, DT, but I was more just thinking of keeping an open relationship with the other four of you,” Spike admitted, as he rested a hand affectionately on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder. “I mean, if you want to…”

“Hmmf. You could have at least lied about it,” Diamond said. “You owe me that much after you smashed up my home.”

“You can stay with me for now,” I offered. “I’ll even take the couch if you want the bed. It’s not much but-”

“Thanks, Magic!” she said, hugging my leg. “Just let me find my tiara…”

“And my glasses,” Silver Spoon stated, before picking up the remnants from where Twilight had stepped on them. “What’s left of them anyways…”

“Apple Bloom, you’re going home with your sister. Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash can get you home safely. Spike and Sweetie Belle…” I looked to the others for suggestions.

“We’ll go home to the Carousel Boutique,” Sweetie said. “Until Rarity gets back, we’ll use her bed.”

“Alright… but if you need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me,” Twilight said. “And tomorrow you’re both getting ‘The Talk’ from me. No more excuses.”

“Couch or bed,” I asked as we got into the house.

“Couch is fine. Beggars can’t be choosers,” Diamond Tiara said.

“I asked, that means you can choose,” I countered.

She looked at the bed again and then shook her head, climbing onto the couch. “It’s fine. You’re a lot bigger than I am.”

We were quiet a moment, as I shed some of my clothing, before climbing into bed. “Did you really want to get in a relationship like that?”

“You mean me and Spike?” she questioned.

“I mean you, Spike and Sweetie Belle. You acted offended at the end that he didn’t choose you, at least not as a second wife. Or marefriend anyways,” I clarified. “Did you really want to have a life like that?”

She looked away. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You really need to stop saying that,” I said. “If you want to wear that tiara, you can’t be begging for love.”

She took the tiara off her head and look at it intently. “Am I really worthy to wear it anyways?”

“Tell me you are like you believe it, and everypony else will,” I said.

“Easy as that?” she said.

“To start,” I answered. “The hard part is living with the consequences. Everyone makes mistakes. When you lead, you can do even greater things with the help of your subordinates. That means you can make even greater mistakes.” I held my own tiara in my hand and studied it, the Element of Magic. It seemed to have lost quite a bit of its luster, but I didn’t know if that was the dim lighting, the effects of the death of the Tree of Harmony, or just my own disillusionment with myself. “You have to have confidence. There isn’t always time for self doubt and deep analysis. When the time comes to choose, you have to choose and bear the responsibility for the outcome. Even when you aren’t the one to deal the killing blow.”

“Somehow I don’t think we’re talking about Spike anymore,” Diamond said, looking up at me.

I tossed the Element on a small table. “Not every decision is about death. Some are about life,” I said, turning to her. “Do you want that kind of life? I think Sweetie and Spike will still welcome you into it, if that’s what you want. Just tell me why.”

She thought in silence for a moment.

“What’s really bothering you?” she came back with eventually.

“Nanaki,” I admitted. “I want him for myself. I think. Maybe it’s just because he’s the only other human here. I mean, we haven’t even been on a single date. What claim do I have to him? But I don’t want to be just one of his seven mares. Honestly, I don’t think he even looks at me with as much lust as he does my friends. He just got here and the ponies are already more attractive to him than one of his own kind? That’s just weird.”

“Well, we are pretty great,” Diamond teased. “And didn’t you have a marefriend already? Loyalty, right?”

“It took me months to even consider ponies that way,” I countered. “And even then it was only because there wasn’t anyone else to consider. That’s not really the point though.”

“The point is you want him to yourself but you’re not willing to fight for him,” Diamond said, before tossing her own tiara onto the small table, where it landed atop my own. “I was willing to share to get anything. Are you?”

“I keep wondering if I should,” I said. “But no. I’m not.”

“Then here’s what you’re going to do. Tomorrow, you go down to the town hall and fill in the adoption paperwork. Then you tell Nanaki you’re taking him on a date. And you make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that if he wants this,” she said, gesturing at me, “that it’s all or nothing. He either puts a ring on your… wherever a human would put a ring. He either marries you, or gives you up forever. And if he gives you up, you find yourself somepony better. Somepony who appreciates you.”

“Adoption papers?” I asked. “Who said I’m adopting you.”

She smirked at me. “I did. I’ve made up my mind, and I’ll deal with the consequences. If you want to stop me, I’m going to fight hoof and mouth to make it happen, so you’d better be ready for a fight.”

I looked at her, one eyebrow raised, until I couldn’t help but smirk back. “You’re not going to beg me for it?”

“Choosers can’t be beggars,” she said.

Noise echoed through the darkness. They were clopping hoofsteps, she knew, though she wouldn’t have recognized them as such. The echos here made anything that distant impossible to make out accurately.

“Hello?” she called out quietly. “Is that you, Stocky?”

“Sshhh…” the voice hissed back, before gently placing a tray before her. She could barely smell it, because it had gone cold. The bread was stale, and the sauce was starting to turn. But to the starving mare it was the sweetest ambrosia the gods could dare to dream of, and in moments all that remained was a smudge on her snout. “Keep it quiet, or the others will hear. And you know what they’ll do to you. To me, if they find out I’ve been helping you.” His long tongue darted out, cleaning off every last morsel. It felt more marvelous than making out with her fiance, even though her magical senses told her there was no love behind it. Maybe they were just blinded, somehow? The crystals here seemed to shut out all her other magic. But she could still see her own love, flowing out to her savior.

“Thank you so much, Stocky,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “I’d be lost without you. Be careful. I…”

“Ssshh…” he hissed again, placing a holed hoof on her mouth. “No need to say it. I’d better go while I can.” Quietly he clopped off again, carrying the empty plate back toward the palace above. When he was well out of the pink alicorn’s sight, green flames washed over him, restoring his disguise as a service mare.

A pair of changelings disguised as thestrals stopped him on his way back up. “So, you finally ‘stick it to her’?” One of them asked, smirking.

“Not yet. There’s an art to these things,” Stock Holmes answered quietly. “She’s already giving me more than I can eat, as it is. That fun will come in due time.”

“Just promise you’ll let me take your place from time to time,” the other guard said.

But Stock shook his head. “No, not with this one. She’d know, and then that’d be all she was good for. This one will feed half the hive if we let her.”