“Derpy, what are these cards?” Thunderlane asked, holding a few in his hands. Instead of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs. They were entirely different. “We can’t play poker with these!”

The five ponies sat at a well sized wooden table, comfortable enough for card games. The place was well lit by bright ruby red candles. A warm summer breeze came through the window to the ponies on this splendid evening.

“Huh?” Caramel said. “What do you mean?” His eyes glanced down to the muscled stallions printed right onto the card. One of them on the card seemed to have an illustration of something between their hind legs hitting the ground. “Sure, it’s different, but these are the only cards left to play with.” He glanced over the cards again and noticed that some of them had something in common.

“That suit’s part of, ‘full mast’, Caramel,” Derpy said, pointing her hoof at him. “The cards I have here were bought cheap. I don’t know where though.” Big Mac picked up one with the illustration of a mare hugging a pole. She was winking and was wearing only bras and panties. “Oh, that’s a full mast one too.” Big Mac wondered why the mare was wearing bras and panties.

“Okay, then what about this?” Soarin’ asked, holding up a card with a illustration of a limp sausage.

“Flaccid.”

“Wait, wait, wait, I know where some of these are from!” Caramel exclaimed, digging through to find more stallion printed cards. “These are from the Stallion Special, one of Play Pony’s sub-magazines!”

“”If there isn’t spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs, what do we have to work with, Derpy?” Thunderlane asked. In the background, Caramel’s face lit up in delight when Big Mac seemed to acknowledge Stallion Special.

“Y’know, funny story. I accidentally bought this when I expected mares to be in it.”

Big Mac nodded. “Eeyup.”

“The name, ‘Stallion Special’, really threw me off.”

“Let’s see,” Derpy said, holding up both of her hooves in front of her. “We have flaccid, half-chub, full mast, and call a doctor.”

“Honestly, it’s more interesting to look at these cards than to play a game,” Soarin’ said. He picked up a card that had a shocking resemblance to Spitfire. His expression relaxed. “So that’s why she has a schoolfilly costume.”

“Sometimes, Play Pony cuts a deal with many celebrities to be featured in their magazine. In the end, they claim them to be just actors and actresses in costume.” Caramel explained.

“Why am I in a lumberjack outfit?” Soarin’ asked, showing a lookalike of him to be leaning over a hefty piece of redwood. The small captions read, ‘Big as a redwood tree.’

“Oh, they have neat little captions too,” Caramel said, completely ignoring Soarin’s question.

“Half-chub is my favorite one if you didn’t know,” Derpy said. “They have the best pictures on them.” She held up a card of a handsome red farm pony that had a disturbing resemblance to Big Mac. The stallion on the card was in a strong pose with a slight lump showing between his hind legs.

“Let’s just play a game or something right now,” Thunderlane said, rubbing his face. “I don’t want some half-chub deck to ruin the great night so far.”

“But it’s early right now. It’s only seven o’ clock,” Soarin’ said. ”And we just started not too long ago.”

“We have good cold drinks and us playing poker,” Thunderlane said, “Let’s have a lot of fun just like we did last week.”

“Let’s play,” Big Mac said, grabbing all of the cards and piling them together. Caramel, Soarin’, and Derpy threw their cards in the pile.

Now a little bit into the evening, Caramel suddenly raised a question. “Why are they called ‘hands’ when we have hooves?” he asked.

All the ponies in the game blinked. Some of them scratched their heads or sat blankly into space.

“Now that I think about it, it’s a really weird expression. Who made it up anyway?” Caramel continued.

The five ponies sat at the table in a moment of silence.

“And if you get a tough hand, can you call it a hard hand?” Soarin’ asked. “Can you get an easy hand?” Caramel replied with a long shrug of his shoulders.

“Hard hands are really annoying to get too,” Thunderlane said. He paused. “If there’s a hard and easy hand, is there a medium hand?”

“Maybe an expert hand?” Caramel asked.

“Ooh, I love the sound of expert hand!” Soarin’ said, “Could have a nice ring with the Wonderbolts!”

Caramel and Thunderlane chuckled. “You said it like that you’re actually with the Wonderbolts.”

“Uh, well, I…”

While the chatter was continuing on, Derpy sat at her seat. She slowly pulled out a muffin and slid it across to her poker chips. No one expected somepony to be bluffin’ with a muffin. But the pot in the middle was high. Most of her chips were in there. She didn’t want to lose it all. She had to go all in.

It was all or nothing.

A drop of sweat poked out from her mane. She had to relax. This was poker. She had to have her poker face on.

Her eyes drifted around. Thunderlane, Soarin’, and Caramel seemed to be running low on chips too. Big Mac had a decent pile, but she noticed he was piling extra into the pot. She smiled. Her muffin bluff would claim her prize by making all the stallions fold their hand.

“Anyway, Soarin’, what are you going to do?” Thunderlane asked.

Soarin’ groaned. He turned his cards down on the table, unable to meet the rising pool of chips in the middle. “Fold.” he said.

Caramel smirked. His turn came. He shoved a pile of chips into the pile. “Easy.”

“Derpy?” Thunderlane asked.

“Go Fish.”

“What?

“Oh, uh. Bullshit.”

“What? We’re not playing that game,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Derpy began to shake and slid in the muffin closer. “Peanut butter.” she said.

“You’re betting the muffin?”

“Uno!”

“I have a straight flush here,” Caramel said, slamming the half-chub cards. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 laid beautifully in front of him.

“The half chubs,” Soarin’ said, “It had to be the half chubs.”

“Read it and weep,” Big Mac said, placing down a Royal Flush on the table. Caramel choked on his breath.

“How?!” he exclaimed.

“And how come you’re winning constantly?” Thunderlane asked.

Big Mac glanced down at the flaccid suit cards he had. “I don’t get any hard hands.” He said. “I get soft hands.”

Author's Notes:

i don't know how to play poker