Night's tail lashed as she walked the path behind the houses of Our Town. She felt huge, the bark-covering on her body hugging all over, keeping her safe and secure. But there was more to how she felt. She froze and stood dead still.

Double Diamond slowed to a stop beside Night Glider. He paused a moment, looking at his fillyfriend, he couldn't help but admire how well the bark protected her, and left her eyes glowing an eerie green. "Are you alri—"

"Of course I'm not alright, DD. Look at me!" Despite her anger at the situation, she felt an overwhelming urge to protect and nurture the big stallion. Turning her head to glare at him, she was startled to realize that as she was, she was the taller of the two of them. "I'm a freak…"

The bark deadened the actual touch, but Night could still feel the touch of a pony on the other side. Turning her head, Night was looking down at Patched. "What has it done to me?" Despite being the biggest pony in town—bigger than most of the Royal Guard at Canterlot—Night felt fear color her thoughts.

"We can work on that together, but you have a stallion to hug." Patched gestured with her hoof across to Double Diamond. "He loves you to bits, Night."

Night turned back and looked at Double, and winced. He had a look on his face like a kicked puppy. She reached out one of her hardened wings and pulled him against her side. The most amazing thing was, she didn't feel unwieldy or slow. It was like the bark actually moved with her, helped her. "And what about you, doc?"

"I really like you." Patched surprised herself by admitting the words. "Love… love will come when we know each other better… or not." Even now her body sang for the touch of a mare, and Night had already felt so good under her. "So if you would like to, could we—"

Capturing both her lovers under a wing each, Night felt warmth spread through her body. "You two aren't the worst ponies to get stuck with." She nuzzled from Double to Patched. More hooves walking past caught her attention, and she looked up at Tight and Sugar. "Hey, so what is the deal with this?"

"With what?" Tight was a bit confused. "Oh! Well, I don't think polyamory is that uncommon in ponies. Sure we tend towards pairs here, but…" He trailed off as all his companions gave him a strange look, even Night Glider's strange, covered face gave him pause. "What?"

"You," Sugar kissed Tight's cheek, "are amazingly oblivious for such a clever stallion. She was hoping you knew all about what has happened to her." The kiss wasn't enough, and Sugar opted to add a good nuzzling to her show of affection.

"S-Sorry…" Tight felt bad about misinterpreting the situation, but worse about not knowing what she needed. "All I know is that it hasn't… hasn't actually hurt anypony. I… I know it did things to me, and they were very personal things, but…"

"But you don't mind?!" Night was incredulous. "Look at us, Tight, look what it has done!" She looked to add emphasis to her words, and her argument died in its tracks. Double Diamond and Patched Scrape looked… they looked adorable snuggled against her sides. "You're ganging up on me." The words were petulant.

"Yup." Double wanted to nuzzle and cuddle Night, but the hefty armor covering her made the act difficult at best. "Want to tell us what happened?"

"The plant saved me from a cactus coyote and did something… I think it used its… stuff…" Night's memory and concept of what happened were both a bit off-center. "Okay… It probably saved my life."

"Who wants cookies?" Sugar trotted forward suddenly, leaving her companions behind. She felt good—great. Her husband was as close to her as ever, and she to him, and even their newest friend—the plant itself—seemed to be doing nice things. "Are you coming?"

Night's belly grumbled, and she had the distinct feeling that with the heavy armor on she was depleting her body's already flagging reserves faster than was healthy. A thought came to her, it was happy and joyful, it loved her new body, but it also pushed her to twist her muscles—muscles she didn't have only a day ago.

A cracking sound, like a tree splitting down the middle, echoed around the little group of ponies. Tight went into a panic, looking around. "That was loud enough to have echoed around town!" He trotted, being mostly normal still, to look down the alley between houses.

"Night!" Double Diamond's face split into a wide grin as Night Glider pushed and shoved her way out of the huge pony-shaped bark armor. "Night, you're okay!" He pulled the pegasus he loved into a tight hug, happy that he could hug her properly once again.

"Cutting… off… air…" Night managed to crack a smile and hug Double back. "DD, loosen up a little…" Despite her words, she loved the tight grip, the crushing reminder that she was a pony. A glance back at the armor she had extricated herself from made her gasp. "That… That was me?"

"This is amazing." Patched, having seen Night was safe in Double's embrace, examined the mass of bark. "It resembles plant matter, bark I think. I need to take a sample to test!" Using her magic, Patched tried to find a piece around the edge of the hole Night Glider had made getting out of it. Oddly, when she started to apply pressure, the bark snapped with a brittle crack.

"Not so tough without me in it, huh?" Night nuzzled Double affectionately. "Look, can we get back to the cookies idea? I am starving!"

It was the one word Sugar Belle absolutely hated. She marched towards Double Diamond and Night Glider. "Let her go, Double." Her tone was forceful, and she felt something inside respond too. "This mare needs food, and I think I am the most qualified here to make sure she gets it."

Night actually giggled at the intensity Sugar displayed. "She's right, DD. Either put me down or carry me back to her house." She booped Double Diamond on the snout playfully.

Double grinned. He was an earth pony stallion built to a large scale, and Night Glider was a pegasus mare on the slighter side. Tossing his fillyfriend into the air, he laughed at her squeal of surprise. Lifting his legs into a trot, Double Diamond took off when Night landed on his back.

"What are you doing? You hulking monster of a stallion!" Night's voice broke with laughter as she was jostled around. She spread her wings more for balance than to actually take off, but settled for wrapping them around Double's neck to hold on.

Tight spread his wings and gave a firm flap, then another. He shot into the air and, as quick as he could make it, zoomed towards his house. Spotting the broken-down back door, he remembered how distraught Double Diamond was. "Well, he gets to fix it then." Muttering further, he set the oven and turned it on. He could almost close his eyes and hear his wife's directions. "Flour, sugar, milk, butter…"

"You have the oven on already, darling?" Sugar stepped over her broken door, beating Double Diamond, Night Glider, and Patched Scrape to her house. When she spotted the ingredients Tight had already gotten prepared, she blinked a few times.

"Oven on and what I am pretty sure you are going to need already laid out." Tight stepped forward and kissed Sugar, nuzzling her cheeks one after the other. "I thought chocolate chip."

"You read my mind." Sugar delighted in the show of affection. "But now I need both my assistants at the ready." She stepped forward, checking ingredients and oven.

Tight Squeeze snapped off a credible salute, and felt his tail offer a similar one. He looked back at the extension of his body he seemed unable to control. "You behave for Sugar and maybe we will get some special fun."

"Did you know Tight talked to his tail?" Double Diamond wasn't quiet as he asked Patched the question. "Isn't that a sign of madness?" His tone implied jest, but the words cut a little close to the quick.

"I don't think we are the ponies to investigate it, regardless." Patched, now again in a room with three other ponies affected just like her, felt a warmth grow under her tail. The sensation was nice, but when her belly rumbled it completely broke the mood.

Tight's tail lifted up and grabbed onto the cookie jar. He barely noticed it, and was working so closely with Sugar making cookie dough, that he didn't notice it offering the cookies inside the jar to their visitors.

Night shrugged, ignoring that it was Tight's tail offering the snack. "Thank you." She giggled and took two cookies from the jar. Turning to Double Diamond, she offered one to him. A moment later she gasped in surprise when another cookie, held by Patched, was offered to her own mouth. "Thank you." She opened up and gripped the cookie with her teeth.

"They seem in good spirits." Sugar didn't have to explain her statement to Tight. With a nod back from her husband, she continued. "Do you think that is the key to this? That it pairs ponies up, or even groups, and uses their own happiness to calm them of its adjustments?"

Tight blinked at his wife. "I think that is a lot more devious than it actually is." He worked a mixing spoon around the bowl before him. "But even if it isn't intending it, the tactic is working." With a little kiss on Sugar's cheek, Tight continued his thought to its conclusion. "If we were going to bring others to the cave, it would be best to bring pairs of ponies together."

"Are we actually going to bring ponies into this? I feel… I don't think we should." Sugar tested her dough and shivered in delight at the perfect flavor. "But at the same time, if somepony goes in there we should fetch their partner. Offer them the choice to join them."

"Like you did?" Tight nuzzled and kissed Sugar Belle, tasting the cookie mix on her lips, as well as the taste he associated with her. "I don't regret it."

"Me either. We were close before, but now… I feel like we could have gone our whole lives and not connected quite this deeply." Sugar returned the favor. "More cocoa powder."

"Well, the deepest connection so far has been in me." Tight obliged his wife, adding more cocoa powder to his dough until she nodded. "But even that seems amazing. Foals. We are going to have foals." His heart danced, and he realized he owed this to the plant.

"I wonder what they will be like?" Sugar tested Tight's mixture again and smiled; it was perfect. "Step to your left, dear." When Tight moved, Sugar guided his tail to pluck up the baking trays and pass them to her. "Darling, you are even more helpful than ever."

"Y-You are really controlling it, aren't you?" Tight wasn't sure how he felt about the intrusion; on one hoof it was Sugar, he was practically already an extension of her in the kitchen, and on the other it was physically part of him, something very personal. He froze on that thought, and gave a chuckle.

"What's wrong?" Sugar had watched the emotions play out on Tight's face, and felt worried. "Are you alright?"

"This is just like my mare-bits." Turning, Tight waved over his shoulder at his tail. "Part of me is yours, and part of you is mine." He lifted his hoof up and gently rubbed Sugar Belle's puffy belly. "And this is ours."

"You are the sexiest stallion I have ever met, and twice so when you talk like this." Sugar barely stopped herself from pouncing on Tight's back there and then. "You, and your tail, are both getting a very exciting night."

Tight's eyes widened and he groaned. Arching his back and whimpering, he felt the hand of his tail reaching down between his back legs. It had closed carefully around his shaft, and was stroking him slowly. "L-L-Love… Y-Y-Y…" He didn't get the second word out, just a groan.

Night's eyes locked on Tight Squeeze. She couldn't look away as the stallion's own tail gripped him, stroked him. "That's… That's pretty hot…" Finally able to look away, she looked over her shoulder. So far her own tail hadn't shown the signs of sentience that Tight's had, but she wondered if it would.

Sugar's ears twitched at Night Glider's comment. She focused her thoughts at the mare's tail, and made it twitch a few times. While Night didn't have anything to grip with, she did have a swollen plant-bulb on the end of her tail. Part of her felt guilty at offering, like it would be cheating on Tight if she played with Night. "I guess I need to be upfront. I can control your tail if I think about it." She blushed, and gestured to Tight at her side.

"You're doing that?" Double Diamond shook his head to clear his vision, but when he was done he could still see what Sugar had described as the tail under her direct control, pleasuring Tight Squeeze.

"Y-Yeah." Sugar blushed only a little, and it was mostly at the thought of doing something like that with Night. "Don't worry, Night, unless it is important, I won't take over your tail."

"It's… It's a big thing. You could take it over, and do what you wanted to?" Night half-expected Sugar Belle to just do it, to use Night's own tail to do something as a demonstration. When Sugar just nodded, Night breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "Well, thank you. That is at least one thing I don't have to worry about."

"Besides, I think I have my tails full with Tight." Sugar leaned over and kissed Tight on the cheek. "Don't I, darling?"

"L-L-Love… Y-You…" Tight barely got the words out before his body trembled excessively. He groaned with relief and painted part of the floor with his seed. Turning, Tight couldn't and wouldn't stop himself from pouncing on his wife's back.

"Let… Let me get these in the oven…" Sugar Belle groaned as her mate shoved himself deep into her. She wasn't even aware how turned on she was, but the evidence of her wetness was damning. Rocking her body back against Tight's, she tried to use her magic to load the trays into the oven.

"Let us get those." Patched cut in on Sugar's attempts, using her own magic to take the trays and get them set to bake. Unfortunately, the heady scent of Tight's climax combined with the sight and sound of the couple copulating, caused Patched to curl her hooves a little in need. "Let's leave them be." Her words were almost pleading her lovers, begging them to help drag her from the room.

"Y-Yeah…" Night felt her wings get twitchy, and her tail squirmed in the air in excitement. "Living room." She spread her wings and herded her coltfriend and fillyfriend out of the "exciting" kitchen.

Author's Notes:

Dear Mr. or Ms. Plant,

why don’t you make any sense? It seems like you’ve specialized on transforming ponies, yet you’re living in a remote cave in a rocky wasteland. That makes as much sense as an artic parasite that needs butterflies to survive. If I hadn’t been for that one town conveniently build nearby and one unlucky stallion conveniently falling into your lap you probably wouldn’t have got hold of any pony in the foreseeable future.

I also don’t understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Obviously you don’t need them as a food source, because then you would’ve just eaten them. Your new minions best friends don’t seem to bring you any food either, so there must be another reason for turning them into pony-plant hybrids.

Do you need protection? Then forgive me for being so blunt, but animals would’ve been a better choice. Not only are there more of them, they are also easier to manipulate than ponies. After all, you cannot directly control the minds of your victims new best friends (yet). Altering theirs mind so that they see you as their new best buddy takes time. Until then they can still act against you.

Look, I don’t want to tell you how to do things but if Patched wasn’t a Darwin award nominee who insisted on going into your cave without telling anypony else, despite your previous victims new friends telling her how dangerous it is, you would be compost.

But maybe this is not about food or protection or taking over Equestria. Maybe you’re just curious. Maybe you woke up one day and thought to yourself “Mmmhhh I wonder what would happen if I put some plant stuff into one of these colorful quadrupedal?”, and then things just snowballed from there. And can I really blame you for that? Considering how boring it is to spend all your time in a cave in a rocky wasteland with no company I would be desperate for any kind of entertainment, too.

Sugar Belle blushed and looked at the glowing plant in the corner of the cave. "This is a little non-canon, okay? I will explain what I can from it." She cleared her throat and closed her eyes. "They are experimenting. They want to make a home for themselves, but they like ponies..." Sugar blushed hotly. "They really like ponies."

"As for Patched, she is just about the most curious mare I have ever met. If I told her the plant had opened a new cave and was devouring anypony that went in, she would actually gallop in to take a look." Sugar blinked and looked down. "Oh... uh... welcome to the town. I hope you like it here, I must admit I am interested to see how you turn out." She was, of course, looking at the vine wrapped around your leg.

---

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

Support me on atreon

Join me on Discord. Please use your FimFic name as an alias. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
Boulder
Canary in the Coal Mine
Daremo
Dio-Drogynous
Ian
Javarod
Jeffh4
Mary Rowland
Mephia
Nils
Sirion123

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Cross Lament
Jeffh4
Vutava