Predictably, we were not very good at giving massages. Derpy accidentally tweaked something in the lower right of my back, and I discovered that having wings meant there was a whole alien bundle of muscles beneath the shoulder blades that were quite sensitive and did not appreciate random grabbing and pushing. So we eventually hanged the idea and worked out our new kinks with a nice hot shower.

We didn't get up to any sexy business in the shower – we simply enjoyed the hot water and each other's company. For a moment, I was rather proud of myself for being able to stand near Derpy and not lose myself in the veritable playground of her naked body.

When we got out of the shower, however, and we were toweling each other off (Derpy greatly appreciated having someone to dry off those big, bouncy, hard-to-reach places), I found myself getting more and more randy. There was something about running my hands all over her boobs and her belly and... every inch of her, really, that set off some sort of dormant, masculine, possessive instinct. And as I spent extra time on her thick, juicy thighs, I waxed philosophical about it and shared this idea with her.

Derpy chuckled and asked, "You, um... want to treat me like a doll for a little bit?"

My face was already red from the muggy heat of the post-shower bathroom and my growing arousal, but it stood to grow a shade darker. "Um... well..." Despite bringing it up myself, for some reason putting it that way struck a nerve I didn't know I'd had.

She covered her mouth and stifled a sudden burst of laughter. "When– When you were younger, did you play with...?"

I cast my mind back to one incident that was inexplicably stuck in my memory, from before my age was even in double digits. My prepubescent exposure to the idea that maybe girls weren't full of cooties... I grimaced as I came to a very unfortunate conclusion. "...Crap, maybe it is because of my sister's Barbie dolls, a little bit."

Derpy's repressed giggling petered out and she actually frowned sadly. "Sorry, didn't mean to remind you of home. Or tease you."

I let out a dramatic, heavy sigh and stood up with towel in hand, a slight smirk on my face. "Well, I know how you can make it up to me," I said before vigorously rubbing the undersides of her jutting pontoons of tit once more.

The gray pegasus laughed again and moaned pleasantly at her sensitive boobs getting more of a rub-down. She enjoyed the feeling for a few quiet moments, then said, "You know, I don't mind if you wanna run your hands all over me like that. Like as foreplay or something."

"I'm not entirely sure I do," I admitted. I handed her the towel so she could dry her mane some more and ran my hands along her sides, my fingers and palms grazing against her pudgy belly. "It makes me feel like a creep. Comes from a selfish place... a desire to own you, to enjoy you because you're mine. But I don't want to make you feel owned, like I'm taking you for granted."

"Hmm," she hummed in thought as she finished drying her blonde mane. "Would it help if I told you my selfish touch-desire?"

I blinked in surprise and said, "Yes, sure, absolutely."

She turned around, facing the mirror. My hands left her sides as she moved, but she grabbed them and used my arms to pull me forward until my chest was pressed against her back and her wings. She bumped her booty back until it was pressed tightly against my crotch, and she even shuffled her legs back until they were pressed against or interlocked with mine.

Wrapping my arms around her stomach, Derpy smiled serenely and said, "I like this. Feeling a warm body against mine..."

I nestled my chin in the crook of her shoulder. "Spooning?"

"Yeah... But like, held tight and with as much skin contact as possible. I think it can be seen as kind of retrograde too, that sort of submissive female desire to be in the arms of a big strong male, exchanging love for protection..."

Understanding a bit more, I adjusted my stance so that she could lean back against me and I could hold her more comfortably. I smirked wryly and muttered, "'Big strong male'... Well, one out of three ain't bad." I kissed her on the neck regardless.

Derpy giggled and rubbed her cheek against my face. "I dunno, I think the whole 'creating a judgment-free zone with mind control' thing is pretty 'strong.'" She ground her big fat butt against my rising erection some more. "But if you want to work your way up to really really 'big' too, I certainly won't object."

"It is one of my fetishes..." I murmured.

She gently pulled out of my arms, turned around, and placed her hands on my shoulders. Her big golden eyes stared directly into mine (one of them, anyway). "Just as long as I'm not making your body issues worse," she said seriously. "Remember, I fell for you before you went and got that surgery. I don't care if you're overweight and 6 inches, or studly and 60 inches. So long as you're happy and you know that I'm happy with you. Okay?"

My heart was warmed by her words, but the mental image of myself with a goddamned five-foot penis kinda stuck with me for a moment and overrode my thoughts. I snapped myself out of it a moment later and said, "Okay. But now that we're talkin' about it: If sizeplay in general is going to be on the table at some point, what would you like?"

Derpy looked thoughtfully down at her boobs which were pressing against my chest. She stepped back and pushed them together, then fondled and groped the front of them. "Hmmm... I know you'd like to see me with a pair of these bigger than my body, and I actually wouldn't mind trying that... but I guess my big fantasy would be, like, drinking a potion and growing taller and bigger than the houses in Ponyville. Something like that."

I grinned. "Y'know, I had a dream along those lines."

"Really? Me too!" Derpy said excitedly. "And then Spike–!"

There was a muffled knock knock knock from outside the bathroom.

Both of us rolled our eyes. I groaned and muttered, "Why is it always when we're naked and the going's getting good?" I looked down and pouted at my newly erect dick, ready to go after a nice, patient buildup.

Derpy shrugged and said, "We could always try a quickie."

"Gahhh, but then we'd have to get cleaned up again." I clenched my hands exasperatedly. "And a quickie would be so much easier to pull off if I could actually, y'know, fuck you...!"

A pained expression came across her muzzle, and she reached down between her legs to her moistening pussy. Her fingers came up sticky. "Yeah... as much as I like boobgasms way more, 'down there' is starting to feel neglected..."

I wrapped a stray towel around my waist and opened the bathroom door. "Hopefully I'm getting cured soon. I'll find out what's going on."

Derpy sighed and resumed toweling her behind. "Gotcha."

I marched hurriedly over to the bedroom door and yanked it open. Out in the hall was a muscular gray pegasus of the Royal Guard. He nodded firmly and announced, "Princess Twilight Sparkle has requested your presence immediately at the Canterlot Medical College. She also asked me to pass along a message: 'We've made a breakthrough.'"

That was welcome news. "Very good," I replied with a nod.

"When you're ready," the guard continued, "a chariot is waiting."

"We'll get dressed, then," I responded. I turned to close the door and get my clothes, but a thought occurred to me and I stopped. Looking at the guard, I asked, "Hey, you wouldn't know anything about giving massages, would you?"

The guard's stoic facade broke and he blinked several times. "Um..."

The gilded sky-chariot bounced and rattled as its wheels made contact with the pavement in front of Canterlot Medical College – a large campus at the outskirts of the mountain city, matching the style of Canterlot's architecture with its non-angular facades and spiraling towers, colored gold and purple and white. The guard pulling our chariot, the same one who had come to meet us, gently decelerated his stride until we came to a stop in front of the glass double-doors that formed the main entrance.

Our escort lifted his goggles and looked back at me and Derpy. "So you want to lean more of your body weight into each push and rub, so that your arms don't get tired as quickly."

We disembarked from the back of the chariot, myself in my one set of street clothes and Derpy going nude again. "That's real interesting. Thank you," I said politely. Our guard had been sharing several nuggets of advice over the course of our short trip.

The guard shrugged. "That's just what I remember from what my physical therapy friend told me. Sorry I can't be much more help."

"It's fine," I replied. Privately, I thought: Without access to Google, this is the best we can do for now. I mean, I guess that's what libraries are for in a pre-Internet world, but I don't know where that is in Canterlot, and in Ponyville... that'll mean going to Twilight's palace.

"Thanks for everything!" Derpy called to him, waving as we headed for the entrance. The guard nodded back firmly and trotted off to park the chariot elsewhere.

I felt a strong urge to hesitate and take stock before walking through the glass doors, to savor the feeling of crossing another potentially life-changing threshold. Instead I marched through with purpose, shoving the doors open and entering the lobby with a stern look on my face. Derpy sped through the doors before they closed behind me. Ponies at the front desk and throughout the room, some professors, some students, some doctors, looked at us and our grander-than-usual entrance for only a moment before going back to their business.

"Pascal!"

The lobby had a tall ceiling. There was a hallway forward from us, and immediately within that hallway was a staircase leading up to the second floor. The landing of that second floor had a railing looking down into the lobby. Twilight Sparkle stood there and called down to us, tapping her fingers on the railing.

"Come on up," she said, her expression and tone forcefully neutral.

Derpy and I hurried up the stairs. I felt greater and greater trepidation as we climbed – not because of the potential operation, but because of this meeting with Twilight. For the moment, though, there was a more important question. "How's it coming? You said a 'breakthrough'?"

Twilight sighed. "Potentially. We have a hypothesis and some data to back it up, though it's a low sample size due to the time constraints." She put a hand on the side of her face, like she was nursing a headache. "Ironically... it's a good thing you got my friend Moondancer involved, because her observations gave us a roadmap for our experiments."

Derpy raised her hand, even though she hardly needed to. "What happens now?"

"Now I have to check one more thing," Twilight said, stepping around us and looking directly at my hinder.

Ah yes, the donkey tail.

Twilight's horn lit up and cast a ray of scanning light over the appendage sticking uncomfortably up and out of my jeans. I looked over my shoulder and watched her brow furrow and her mouth scrunch up in thought, and then her eyes widened. "Zero transformational decay... One-hundred percent adaptation... You really can be altered permanently. Luna was right."

"So whatever you have to do to change him," Derpy asked, "you only need to cast one spell?"

"Yes," Twilight replied, still kind of shocked. "This is... scientifically significant, to say the least. A magical being that doesn't automatically switch back to their 'natural' form after a few hours..."

"I would very much like to switch to my natural form right now," I muttered, and deliberately swung my tail back and forth.

The Princess snapped out of it and looked aside guiltily. "Right, yes..." She hesitated, though.

I groaned, rolled my eyes, and turned around. "I'm sorry I got your parents involved," I stated firmly and forcefully. "I was minutes– seconds away from death. I had to create a big distraction to survive. I asked for two married volunteers, and by the time I realized it was your parents, it was too late to send them back and find a different couple. If I could do it over again, I wouldn't pick them." I looked aside and added, "Though then it might've been someone else's parents..."

"Alright, alright," Twilight protested half-heartedly. She shut her eyes and her horn zapped my body.

The tuft of hair at the end of my tail fell off and disappeared, and the tail itself receded back into my body until only my normal tailbone remained – a supremely weird and uncomfortable sensation, I'll have you know. I craned my neck as far as I could, and when that didn't work I turned my backside towards Derpy, who looked in my pants and then gave me a thumbs-up to confirm that my butt was A-OK.

"Can we get on with this?" Twilight said, gesturing to a nearby hallway.

Before I was fully back in control of myself, I glared at her. I kept glaring at her for a few straight seconds without saying anything.

"What?"

"Not before you apologize too," I finally found the courage to say.

Twilight quirked an eyebrow at me. Then her face fell into a frown and she sighed, looking down and rubbing her temples. "I'm sorry I lashed out." She took a few steps down the hall and turned to face us, waiting, not saying anything more.

The burning within me just grew hotter and hotter. It took some effort to maintain control of it. I scrunched my eyes shut and shook my head. "No. That's not enough."

The Princess's hands formed an 'oh come on' gesture to match her annoyed expression. "Really, I'm sorry for the tail," she insisted.

I shook my head again. "Not just for that. For... For everything." My voice dropped and got gravelly as a whole gaggle of emotions threatened to tumble out through my throat. Derpy put a hand on my arm comfortingly. I looked around and spotted a meeting room that, through the door's window, looked empty. "Can we step aside? ...I have some... things I need to get off my chest."

Twilight took a deep breath... and on the exhale, nodded and walked back towards me.

Derpy stepped back. "I'll wait here, give you two some privacy," she said, watching me with a knowing expression. In the hours between the Cadance meeting and now, she'd helped me hash out some of my feelings. She knew this was ultimately between me and Twilight.

I opened the door and walked in, noting the sparse college decor – two desks, a few long tables, plenty of chairs, and a chalkboard. The front row of tables formed a walkway from one end of the room to the other, and I traversed that full length before turning around. When I saw the door again, Twilight was closing it behind her, but she was also casting a spell on herself that caused her to shimmer with familiar blue light.

As the door clicked shut and Twilight's immunity spell washed over her, she caught me noticing the spell and failed to conceal a smirk. "Just so you can't brainwash me while we're alone."

I just about facepalmed. This was it; this was the whole goddamn problem. "No, no that's good actually!" I half-shouted across the room at her, waving my arm in frustration. "Now I know I'm telling all this to the real Twilight, and you can't say otherwise."

Twilight folded her arms, took a few steps forward, and waited for me to speak with a grumpy and expectant posture.

My hands balled into fists of their own accord. My repressed anger was threatening to completely overflow now that the moment had arrived, and all of my complaints wanted to come out at once. Thankfully, my 'practice run' with Derpy had helped me figure out where I wanted to start: At the beginning.

"From the moment I woke up in Ponyville General Hospital... to now, I've been scared," I said to her. "Frightened. Terrified out of my gourd. Even after I got this power and I managed a few peaceful, happy moments–" Twilight's frown deepened slightly, and I continued with greater intensity. "–it was always balanced out by a life-or-death risk! I've never once not been scared! Not for a single second! Scared of the townsfolk, scared of what I've lost, scared of not really being in control of myself... and scared of you." I pointed at her. "I depended on you for protection, yet every time – a lecture, and then you'd throw me back out onto the street to face it all again." Twilight's knee-jerk anger faded and she broke eye contact, but I was too angry to care now. "How was that supposed to HELP, Twilight?! I'd just lost everything!! I never got a chance to grieve!! What good was sending me out there to get shunned again and again, huh?!" I made a chopping motion with my arm. "So I'm done. I am done living in fear. I can't keep going like that."

I stopped, because Twilight looked like she was about to cry. I worried I'd overstepped, but my anger dulled any sense of guilt. Twilight sniffled and pulled herself together. "Friday morning. I told you I'd realized we were wrong. That part of what I believed was true, that we'd never really treated you like a person, more like a science experiment and a nuisance." She rubbed her eyes and hardened her expression towards me. "Don't you see...? In the middle of me realizing how horrible I've been to you... next thing I know, I'm jacking you off, giving surgery to your penis, becoming obsessed with your semen, and growing my own breasts so I can attend a topless party in your honor!"

There were a few urges to say something – that the surgery turned out to be necessary, that the topless party really did help me acclimate, that Twilight's obsession had been a sobering sign – but they all came up at once and I didn't know if any of them would actually help.

"When I realized what you'd done, what I'd allowed you to do..." Twilight threw up her hands. "My first thought was, 'Of course! Of course the first thing Pascal would use it for is sex! That is so Pascal!' It's like everything I tried to tell you, to teach you – the second I took my eye off you, you spat it onto the back of my head!"

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. "You feel betrayed because I 'rejected your teachings'?"

The junior Princess deflated a bit. "I realize that's not quite what happened, but emotionally–"

"How was I supposed to learn anything?!" I shouted, slamming my palm against the chalkboard with a loud bang. I started to laugh, morbidly. "I was not... I was not in a receptive state, Twilight! I was in panic mode! Shut down! All I could do was put on a brave face and follow orders! That was the only thing keeping me sane! And so I trusted you, because who the fuck was I to say no to the goddamn Princess of the land?! And what did that trust get me? Pitchforks–" Bang! "–and motherfucking torches!" Bang!

Now Twilight was getting riled up again. "I'm not going to try and defend all of my actions," she said, her initial carefulness giving way to anger, "but none of us could have predicted how it turned out. The idea was not 'leave Pascal waving in the breeze,' it was 'let Ponyville get used to his presence and help him make a friend out there.' Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I was talking to every social group of every size in town to try and get them to give you a chance!"

This was news to me. Unbelievable news. "Then why did I have to stay outside for hours and hours while you were doing that? Why couldn't I just stay home for two weeks?!"

"I– Because–" Twilight faltered. "Because... I was certain, the one thing we couldn't do was leave you completely alone."

I balked. "I was a... risk?"

"No, no. Not quite like that. But, I mean, you had just lost everything. You needed a group of real friends to help you cope with that, to help you accept your new life here. Otherwise, you were just going to retreat into your shell and get worse and worse. That was the true purpose behind everything."

I started to pace between the chalkboard and the tables, sweating and grimacing. "Who were you to decide what I 'needed'?! Why did I need friendship right away, even though I was clearly not ready for it?"

Twilight's brow furrowed as she frowned. "Well... and this is where it all went wrong... Princess Celestia – and later on, Mayor Mare – were breathing down my neck to give them results quickly. The whole 'experiment,' your status in Equestria, depended on my promise that 'I believe he can adjust to normal pony life.' So... I felt forced to rush it a bit." She sighed. "It was a hard three weeks for me too."

I was reaching levels of mad I hadn't felt in a long, long time. "Don't... Don't... Don't you dare give me that, Twilight. You. Risked. Nothing. I was the one getting raked over the coals every single day. All you had to do was follow and watch."

"I was getting constant, serious complaints towards the end!" Twilight protested. "The ponies in town–"

"The townsfolk would have forgiven you if I'd left. If I'd disappeared. You've saved them, what, a dozen times now? Eventually, they would have gone back to loving you." I folded my arms. "But I was looking at banishment to the Everfree fucking Forest. It was life or death for me. Every day. Every day it felt like that. Fight-or-flight, for 21 fucking days, every second."

"I-I...!" Twilight's hands curled into fists. She stood up on the toes of her feet, increasing her presence (not that she needed to, she was already a bit taller than me).

"And all I got from you," I continued, "was lectures."

"I was never going to give up on you!!" Twilight finally screeched. Her breaths came in sharp and heavy. "No matter what happened! Didn't matter if Celestia herself came down from Canterlot to smite you – I promised to protect you! Against everything! Against the world!" Her steam began to fade, and her eyes shut tightly as they misted up. "I only went along with Discord's idea because, for a moment, we were convinced it was the end. But it wasn't really the end. I was open to other solutions. I was two list items away from sending you to the Crystal Empire! Cadance might've been able to protect you!"

I couldn't help rolling my eyes. "A list... Of course there was a list."

"And then you–" Twilight's breath caught in her throat. "And then you go and do all of this. Using me without me even knowing I'm being used. Perverting everyone I know. Breaking..." Her purple equine face became stained with tears. "Breaking my mentor. My– Our sun."

"Celestia was not all my fault," I said, my voice softening. "This started long before I got here."

"I know," Twilight mumbled. She rubbed her eyes and tried to get her sniffling under control, but she was failing. "It's just... I was never going to give up on you, either of you. But... But I feel like you both gave up on me...!"

On any other day, on any other planet, I would be moved and capitulate. But my resolve didn't waver. "Twilight," I said, "I think Celestia just wanted to protect you, but as for me... I couldn't depend on you! I couldn't trust you. I never got 'help' from you – just more orders."

Twilight's anger flared up once more. "So I'm the reason you used me?"

Immediately, I shook my head. "No. My fear and my greed led me to use you. I own that. But the three weeks that led up to that..."

"...didn't help," she mumbled sadly.

I came to an utterly depressing realization. "Holy shit – we weren't just never lovers, we were never friends. Even though... we both might've wanted to pretend we were. Friends don't keep screwing with each other like this, whether they mean to or not."

Twilight's head hung. "I failed you. I'm the Princess of Friendship and I completely, utterly failed you."

"And I... betrayed the faith you put in me," I muttered back, rubbing my neck. "However misplaced."

My words seemed to stir something in Twilight, and she turned towards the blackboard and stared at it like it was an abyss. "Maybe... Maybe on some level, I was taking advantage of your fear," she thought aloud. "Mistaking panic for pliability. Seeing you as a test of my friendship authority. 'If I can instill positive pony values into this human that won't stop staring at my chest...'"

I recalled the first time Twilight and I had ever spoken face-to-face. It wasn't the first day of my quarantined stay in Ponyville General; it was the third. And I definitely remembered marveling at how busty Princess Twilight Sparkle was. She'd been my first clue that this version of Equestria was ripped out of my fap folder. It probably hadn't made a strong first impression. Was that why she'd been so cold to me those first three weeks? Was that why she'd had to search for somepony to be my good friend; because she'd unconsciously ruled herself out?

"'...and if I can do it all in record time, everypony will be happy,'" Twilight went on, her shoulders sagging. She looked over at me. "Is that what you want? An apology for my... gross negligence?"

I nodded firmly. "Yes." I was tempted to take the initiative and apologize again, preemptively, for everything I'd done to hurt her, but I'd done that so many times it hardly mattered anymore. This time, I needed it from her.

Twilight turned away from the blackboard and faced me, then lowered her head. "Pascal... I'm sorry for all the fear I caused in you. I'm sorry for taking advantage of that to try to control you, even now that you're trying to help."

"Was that what the tail was about?" I said with a bit of a smirk. "Trying to show me 'who's boss,' that I'm not above punishment?"

"On some level, I guess..."

I spread my arms out and spun around. "Look at us. Look at all this drama going on. If this power was unbeatable, if I was above all real consequences... would any of this be happening?"

"Maybe not, but... You realize that you're officially scarier than Discord, right? When Discord changes reality, it's obvious. But you can change our whole society without us even noticing. At some point, I'm going to have to accept that I can't cast this temporary immunity spell forever and just... let you do your thing to me..."

"...and you've already been burned once."

Twilight nodded, her lips pursed thin.

I stewed on that thought for a moment, not sure what to say. Eventually, I shrugged helplessly and said, "I'm in the same situation as Discord. I've done real harm, and now I want to use this power for good."

"And sex," Twilight muttered, a bit of her old sass biting back.

"And sex," I admitted with a small smile. "But mostly good. Can you, of your own free mind right now, be willing to give me one more chance? Knowing full well that if I really screw up, no amount of Normal's really gonna stop my comeuppance?"

Sooner than I expected, Twilight gave me a solid nod of her head. "Okay," she said. "No pressure, no intimidation, no watching your every move like a hawk. One more honest chance."

A weight lifted off my shoulders. "I accept your apology."

"I... accept yours, too," Twilight replied, her eyes barely meeting mine.

I couldn't help but smirk a little, putting my hands behind my head. "And I didn't even need mind control to do it."

Twilight allowed herself a bit of a laugh. "Yeah... where did all this charisma come from? That's not fair, having that and mind control."

"A solid week of life-or-death philosophy homework," I said with utter seriousness. "Kinda friggin' changes a man. Also, I've been literally reborn once and I've just faced my fears head-on, so I'm probably riding some kind of high."

Looking at me somewhat wistfully, Twilight said, "You know... You'd think I'd be more sympathetic to that exact feeling."

"Never too late to start. Now that we've, y'know, aired our grievances and all." I took a step forward and spread my arms out. "Awkward hug to seal the deal?"

"Sure," Twilight muttered with narrowed eyes, "and get a whiff full of your human pheromones."

"Hey, I showered like ten minutes ago."

"Not with the special soap, I'll bet."

"Look, Twi, I'm gonna level with you: The special soap was gross and I'm not sure it even worked."

After a moment's hesitation and tension, Twilight said, "You're probably right," and crossed the length of the room. She leaned over awkwardly (so I wouldn't press against her head-sized breasts) and we hugged – her arms around my shoulders, my arms around her waist (also to avoid her breasts). Awkward hug, signed and delivered.

When we broke apart, attempting to lighten the mood, I fist-pumped and declared, "Now let's go make my semen non-addictive to ponies!"

Twilight just stared at me like 'Really? Really?'