I slept somewhat fitfully due to stress, but when I woke up earlier than I usually did, just as the earliest rays of the sun were peeking through the curtains, I didn't mind so much. Multiple near-death experiences in a row had really taught me the value of a quiet, peaceful morning.

Knock knock knock.

...Just in time for it to be taken away.

I slid out of bed, though not without causing Derpy to stir awake as well. The busty pegasus sat up and stretched her arms and wings. Her proud nipples trickled pure white milk onto her thighs, demanding a good draining. All in due time, I promised them mentally.

Rubbing my eyes, I threw a robe around my shoulders and opened the suite's door to reveal Twilight Sparkle. The purple alicorn princess was now wearing a lab coat and goggles over her usual outfit, along with a custom messenger bag (with her cutie mark as the clasp) slung over her shoulder. As soon as she laid eyes on me, her magic pushed a small plastic cup into my chest. "Here. Take your own sample. I'll wait." With that flippantly said, she wrested the door's handle out of my grip with her telekinesis and shut the door between us.

Well that was slightly rude.

I walked back to the bed and stared at the plastic cup in my hand. I could understand her not wanting to get, erm, 'physically involved,' and I could even get her being a little snappy about it. But something was off about how cold she was behaving towards me, I could feel it.

Derpy took notice of the cup and figured out its purpose pretty quickly. "Want some help with that?" she asked as she turned to place her hoof-feet on the carpet beside the bed.

"Oooh, yes please," I replied, and walked over to stand in front of her. Being only in a robe and my underwear, it took no time at all to expose my morning wood to her. She placed her hands under her big gray boobs and raised them to meet it, capturing my dick between her cleavage and rubbing away. I sighed and let my eyes roll back – this never stopped being heavenly.

I wasn't there yet, but we were in no hurry. Derpy let out little 'mm's and 'ah's as she fondled her sensitive jugs all around my big, hard, hot shaft. Every time she pressed her nipples against my pelvis, her nipples would let out a small spray of milk that stained by thighs. "Mmm, will you return the favor after this?"

"Of course," I replied, grinning. Sucking her sweet milk dry and bringing her to several boobgasms in the process would be a great interlude between round 1 and 2 of the day. "Man, it's like we didn't even have a whole marathon yesterday."

"I've still got a bit of a dehydration headache..." Derpy said, yawning cutely while she casually fucked me with her tits.

I nodded. "That... That checks out. You fed me all that milk yesterday... Oooh." I started to thrust my hips back and forth, my length twitching in front of her chest.

"Let me know when you're close."

"Not quite yet. Getting there."

"Mm. I love that I had so much milk to give you, but yeah... I should've drunk more water."

"We all learned a lot for next time...!" I grabbed her breasts with my own hands for a second, humping them furiously, and then I drew back. My whole dick was pulsing angrily, dripping precum. "Okay, I'm right on the edge!"

Derpy nodded and took the cup out of my hand and grabbed my shaft with her other hand. She angled my dick down and stroked like she was milking me for a change. Even with all this drama surrounding my seed, I couldn't help but enjoy the fetishism of having my cum be such a prized commodity to these ponies, to have scientists study it and princesses crave it...

My whole lower body twitched and I started squirting into the cup, guided by Derpy's patient hand. This was an unusually dry position for me in the midst of orgasm, just standing there and cumming, but then again there was something satisfying about just standing upright and spilling my seed without a care in the world. I closed my eyes and let myself shoot and shoot and shoot.

When I finally cooled down and I gazed upon my work, the cup (which was not small, about a pint's worth) was nearly overflowing. A trickle of my cum had dripped over the lip and over Derpy's fingers, but the rest had formed a swirling, goopy pool. It... was a little gross to me, actually, but what can you do?

"Here we go!" Derpy chirped. She got off the bed and headed for the door while I wiped off my cockhead on the sheets.

When my marefriend opened the door with 'sample' in hand, I heard Twilight grumble, "That was fast..."

Derpy just said "Morning wood," and handed the cup into Twilight's magical grip.

I heard the zap of what I assumed to be a preservation spell, then: "Pascal! One more thing."

"Sure." I pulled my underwear back up, closed my robe, and met up with Derpy and Twilight. The princess had put a lid on the cup and was storing it in her bag.

Looking at me with a neutral expression, she said, "There's one more thing we need to test. This whole idea of 'curing' you hinges on the theory that you can be transformed, which gets us around not being able to change... to change Celestia." Twilight lost her composure and became saddened for a brief moment, but collected herself. "Luna has a theory that you don't have a transformational 'template,' which means you might be able to experience permanent alterations. That would definitely make things easier, but we don't actually have any data to support that yet."

I nodded, getting where she was going with this. "You gotta try something on me." I spread out my arms and said, "Fire away."

A smirk appeared on Twilight's face, which put me on edge. "I was hoping you'd say that." Her horn zapped me like a slap to the chest. I looked down at myself to figure out what she had done, but nothing obvious appeared at first.

And then a really weird sensation occurred just above my butt – my tailbone. A very unnerving stretching feeling pulled out of me and downward.

"Any pain?" she asked a little too innocently. "There shouldn't be, but just to be sure..."

I looked behind myself and lifted up my robe. "No, um, uh..." It wasn't painful, per se, just extremely odd. In just a few moments, the unusual feelings ceased, and I beheld my newest transformation:

A tail.

Not a pony tail, I knew that for certain, but I was at a loss otherwise. Starting from the natural color of my skin around my tailbone, the new appendage transitioned to a thick but streamlined covering of... fur, I guess, the same hue of my body hair, before terminating in a large poof that matched the hair on my head. I moved my hips, and I could feel the weight of it as it swayed from side to side. Most bizarrely of all, it felt kind of natural. Once the initial weirdness of the spell itself had passed, my brain had no trouble processing this thing being part of me. I could even swish it upwards with a little concentration, like I'd always had a tail.

"Well! That should do it," Twilight said, still smirking. "I'm off to the Canterlot Medical College to get this study going. I'll be bringing in Trixie and Moondancer, since they've been 'exposed' to you the most and should make good test subjects. Can you think of anyone else I should pull in? The bigger sample size, the better."

I tried to put the tail out of my mind for the moment so I could remember who I'd cum inside that showed signs of addiction. "Um... Uh... I guess Golden Harvest back in Ponyville?"

Twilight's smirk fell and she blinked hard at me. "Golden Harvest? The mare who, because of you, threw a torch through–"

"Yes."

The Princess put a hand to her forehead and muttered something under her breath. "...Alright, I'll see if she's available. Enjoy the tail." She promptly walked off at a brisk pace.

I sighed, but then noticed that Derpy was looking at my backside, trying not to giggle and failing at it. "What's so funny?" I asked, turning my hips so I could look at my new tail again. Again, not a pony tail, but the way it was long and furry and ended in a big tuft of hair, I knew I recalled the shape from somewhere...

Wait a minute – was it a donkey's tail? Was this Twilight's way of calling me an...?

"Oh, COME ON!!"

Derpy clutched her gut and burst into tit-jiggling laughter.

I got my 'revenge' on the pegasus in the shower, sucking her nipples so fiercely that they throbbed in my mouth and her knees nearly gave out from under her. Then she got her 'revenge' on me by giving me a slow, steady titfuck in the same shower and denying me once to build me up to a toe-curling climax. By the time we got out the morning had officially begun – the sky outside was bright and blue – and we gave up the whole 'revenge' schtick to go have breakfast.

Throughout the morning meal, my tail was, um... kind of a pest. It would keep swinging around randomly every time my brain remembered it was there, smacking my marefriend in the butt or any passers-by in the legs. And, of course, all the staff who saw the human with the tail of a donkey sticking out of his robes got a good chortle at my expense. I couldn't even complain that much because it was for science. That wily, wily Princess...

When we returned to the room, our sheets had been changed (the staff was starting to get proactive about us) and there were two envelopes and a sealed scroll on the bed.

"Oh, we have mail!" Derpy observed, and picked up the items. "Oooh, this one has Luna's royal seal... That's for you. Plus a letter from Lyra to you... and a letter from my boss to me..."

"Lyra?" I echoed, and let Derpy hand my messages over to me. I'd been quite worried about her after passing out and missing the second half of the big meeting... I hoped she was okay. I set the night-sealed scroll down on the end table and sat at the side of the bed to open Lyra's envelope and read her handwritten letter. Or was it a horn-written letter? Whichever it was, the hand- or horn-writing was mostly neat but a little crazy here and there. Just like her.

Hey Pascal,

Sorry I left. I had to just get out of there. Think about things on my own for a while. Well, on my own plus Bonnie. You know I can share this sort of thing with my best friend, even if she does work for Celestia directly from time to time.

I don't even know where to start. I guess how I felt from moment to moment? I felt betrayed. By her. I had it in my head that the whole "humans are demons" thing was just exaggeration, that they were really maligned, misunderstood. I think I'm ready to say I was wrong now... sort of. But when it stopped looking like she was lying and started to look like the truth, all I could think was, "She LET me believe this." She had to have known I was studying this crap, but Celestia just let me believe what I wanted to believe because APPARENTLY that was easier than just telling us the freaking truth. So yeah, I felt like the butt of the world's biggest joke and couldn't take it anymore. Still kinda feel that way, to be honest.

I've been trying to sort out how I feel about all this after the fact, and I think I've got it sorted out. Do I think the humans that did that to Celestia are dicks? Absolutely. Do I think ponies deserved to free themselves? No question. Do I think all humans deserved to get kicked off the planet forever? No, that's the sticking point for me. Couldn't we have tried to find the "good ones" and let them stay, kick off just the assholes? I mean, I guess if they were all demigod wizards they probably came out of it fine. But I can't help but think some of them must have been nice people just trying to settle down in a new land, even if they were complicit in all the sex slave stuff. I don't know.

I had to flip over the letter; she'd written on both sides.

I wanna know what you think. You're not human like them, but you're close enough. And everything bad that happened to you is basically because of their legacy. You probably hate them for what they indirectly did to you, right? I wouldn't blame you.

I don't know, I keep putting myself in all these different shoes, and then I pop back to being Lyra again. "What do I do now?" I keep asking myself. Just move on? I guess that's what Celestia wanted us to be able to do the whole time. We've got lives of our own, and that's not changing. Even if we do have big boobies. (I like having big boobies, just between you and me. And Bonnie won't admit it, but she does too.) So maybe she was right and now is a good time to come out with the truth, but I'd argue that she probably could've done it about 800 years earlier, too.

I'm running out of space, and I hate overstuffed envelopes. Let me just finish with a few things then:

– Write me back to let me know you're okay. You had us all worried with whatever you did back there.
– I wanna hang out when you get back to Ponyville. No sex or drama, just the three of us hanging out.
– Pascal, YOU'RE exactly the kind of human I was imagining all that time. YOU'RE my fantasy human. Not those stupid wizards.

Much love and thanks for everything,
Lyra Heartstrings

My heart heavy in my chest and my eyes stinging, I looked aside at Derpy and asked, "If I wrote a reply, could you help me send it? I haven't... actually... sent a letter since I got here. I'm not 100% sure I won't mess something up."

"Oh, sure," Derpy mumbled, frowning at her opened letter.

"Whatcha got over there?" I asked.

Derpy let out a huff and muttered, "Oh, just... my boss letting me know that I gotta be back on my route by Thursday. I wasn't sure how many days off I was gonna get for this 'family emergency,' but it looks like it's just gonna be three."

I scooched over and hugged her from behind. "That's a bummer. Hopefully I won't be in Canterlot too long after that and I can come back to Ponyville for a while. I don't think Celestia will need me full time – she probably shouldn't for her own sake really..."

She looked back at me, pouting. "Pascal... I was thinking... When you get back to Ponyville..."

"Yeah?" I asked encouragingly.

"Um... Would you like to... I mean you could just stay at the castle forever if you wanted and I wouldn't blame you, but would you want to move in with me?" she blurted out.

I blinked in surprise. "Really?"

Derpy nodded, still pouting tensely and adorably. "I live on the ground, so you wouldn't even need any cloud-walking things. There's just enough room for a second pony– I mean person – I only have the one bed but there's an old mattress you can use for a while, erm, actually maybe we should wait until we can find furniture for you to sleep comfortably, and the place is a mess anyway, so–"

"Hey, hey, hey..." I rubbed her shoulder and nuzzled her cheek. "It might not happen on day 1, but I'd love to move in with you once we get the chance."

The pegasus sniffled, and it looked like she was tearing up a little bit. "You mean it...?"

"Yeah! Twilight's gonna hate my guts if I stay at the castle anyway, and I can't crash on Lyra's couch forever. And I'm sure with this royal job and my power, I can handle getting any new stuff we need to make it work."

Derpy tittered and wiped her eyes. "Yeah, because my mailpony's salary isn't going to cut it..."

"Well, between the two of us, in terms of actually getting paid, you're probably the breadwinner right now."

"Heh heh! Maybe."

I gave her another hug and then turned my attention to the scroll with Luna's seal. It was fairly hefty compared to the other letter. I broke the wax and let the parchment unfurl, and it rolled off the bed and onto the floor.

Time to see what the Princess of the Night had to say – apparently it was a lot.

Dearest Pascal,

You, I, and my sister have a lot to talk about regarding how to wear a crown properly.

First off, I feel as though I should apologize. Perhaps your normality convinced me that everything would be fine and you would be able to handle the pressures that would inevitably arise from that meeting. I was clearly wrong. We could have spent more time "grooming" you for your first security council with Equestria's protectors and leaders, but we assumed it wasn't necessary. You also deserved rest, but that doesn't excuse having the meeting at the first possible opportunity without more time to prepare.

I say this because what you did during the break of that meeting was a clear example of trying to throw off responsibility, in my mind. I won't say the reasoning wasn't sound – surely making yourself less of a threat to everypony would help assuage all fears. But consider the following: If you can remove rules for yourself, you can surely reinstate them later without anypony knowing. So in terms of reducing your security risk, you have accomplished very little. Further, the third attempted and failed item you tried to address, along with the fact that you have apparently rendered several of your companions completely immune, and that you acted cavalier about Twilight Sparkle's potentially dangerous new spell, leads me to a more concerning conclusion: At the first sign of trouble, your first and immediate response is to abdicate as much power and responsibility as you can.

Let me be clear: Do not try to remove or hobble your power again. Not only is it dangerous to your own existence, as you experienced, but it is irresponsible and reckless in these situations where you should instead be taking corrective action.

I understand that you come from a culture of highly democratic ideals. You seem to believe that those who have power are merely temporary servants, who justly should be removed at the first sign of overreach, abuse, or scandal. Alas, in Equestria (and I suspect in your world as well), this is not the pragmatic or realistic way of things. Power is not mercifully taken away at the first mistake; it remains, and we must endure. The difference between a corrupt leader and a responsible leader in that situation is that the responsible leader will learn from that mistake and make things right.

I empathize with you; I truly do. More than a millennium ago, the responsibilities weighed upon our heads and the anger we often faced made me want to throw off the crown and fly across the ocean. I see you in very much the same situation. The crown metaphor is apt, for you are in many ways the Prince of Norms, and we are your Subjects. The responsibility for the actions of those around you does, in fact, lay upon your shoulders. But that does not mean it is time to shy away and shirk that responsibility because of your perceived self-worthlessness. For how far we've already come, instead it is time to face that responsibility head-on, and grow into it if need be.

Please, please do not mistake me for recommending total unchecked control. If you have even a passing knowledge of my history, you must know this position has to be more nuanced than that.

Instead, I implore you to ponder upon taking the opposite approach to what you did last evening. Instead of reducing your power whenever there is a problem, consider the benefits of perhaps using your power more, with greater control and authority. Your friend Moondancer explained in great detail how your power pushed her and my sister to believe in unhealthy notions, but as counterpoint: It is also your power that broke my sister out of that thinking and currently supports her mind. And did you not do something similar with Twilight Sparkle on Friday night? I believe you could have done the same with Moondancer had you trusted your own ability.

In short: A Prince does not cut off his arm to prove he cannot abuse the reach of his sword. All that proves is his madness.

It may be some while before we have time to speak again, and I cannot visit your dreams every night for several good reasons. So for now, these written words. I simply ask you to think on them.

Regards,
Princess Luna

"So what does it say?" Derpy asked as she sat down beside me.

I let out a huff out of the side of my mouth and somewhat sarcastically replied, "Well, if I'm translating the Olde Equestrian properly... it says, 'Nut up and stop being such a doormat already.'"

"Hehe, awww..." She hugged me from the side and scanned the parchment briefly. "You were just trying to stop what happened with Twilight, Moondancer, and Celestia from happening again, right?"

"But that goes against what I am, I guess," I muttered. I rolled up the scroll and set both it and Lyra's letter on the end table. "My destiny is to be a mind-controller that's at least partially above consequences. It's my destiny to make everyone else just have to deal with that. Apparently that's just an immutable fact now."

Derpy nuzzled my shoulder. "I'm sure that when you do something really wrong, somepony will always step forward no matter how Normal you are."

"And when that happens," I said, looking over at the scroll, "Luna's saying I gotta deal with that better next time."

Derpy nodded. She took one of my hands and placed it on the side of her bare gray breast. "You'll figure it out," she assured me, then pulled me around and gave me a big smooch on the lips.

Next thing I knew, we were laying back on the bed and making out.

Fifteen minutes and some wing-unfurling, scream-inducing cunnilingus I was very proud of later, there was another knock on the door. When I finally extracted myself from between Derpy's twitching thighs, wiped the excess cum off my face, and answered the door, a royal guard stallion was standing there.

"Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire have invited you two for morning tea," he reported.

My brow shot up as far as it could go. "Really! Uh..." I looked back at Derpy, who was massaging her poor overstimulated pussy. "We'll need some time to make ourselves presentable, and there's an errand we need to run... Can it wait about 15 minutes?"

"That should be no problem," the guard said with a bow. "When you're ready, just ask for directions to their suite."

"Thanks," I said, and closed the door.

I reached into the drawer of the small desk at the back of the room, where there was spare paper and writing implements. Working as quickly as I could, I scrawled out a letter of my own:

Hey Lyra,

Glad to hear from you. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for moral support when you heard the news. I know how hard it was when I first laid eyes on Celestia that way.

I'm feeling better now. You know me – had to go and be a dumbass for a little bit. Things are back to plodding along at their usual awkward, staggered pace. The takeaway is that I'm still a long way from truly understanding this power and how to use it.

What do I think about the "homo sapiens magicka"? You're right, I kinda hate them. They turned every last one of my fetishes into weapons. Do I think all of them had to go? Probably not, and even Luna admits it might've been a bad idea, but I can't blame the soon-to-be Princesses / former slave-chieftains at the time. When you do something like that to a sapient being and your only justification is "because we own you," there has to be some repercussion for that. It just can't go unpunished. And who knows, maybe ponies would've had a harder time becoming independent if even a quarter of the "good ones" were still around.

It's too late to speculate now. All we can do now is march forward.

I hope I'll be back in Ponyville by the end of the week, even if only for a little while. If I have to, I'll just straight-up demand a break. Who's gonna deny the Avatar of Acceptance, anyway? Let me know if you have any concrete ideas for the weekend, and I'll try to make it work.

Thanks for everything too,
Pascal

Just as I finished writing, Derpy sat up again, her mane even more disheveled and messy than usual. "So, uh, what's going on?"

I folded the paper and stood up. "First, I wanna send my reply to Lyra. Then we're gonna have tea with Princess Cadance."

After a trip to the mailroom and another short no-funny-business shower, we dressed up for tea time. Part of me wanted to wear the tuxedo Fancy Pants had given me, but the friggin' donkey tail made anything other than the robe pretty much unfeasible. Derpy also wore a matching robe instead of going naked – her version of 'formal' in this new nudist chapter of her life.

So we left and sought directions to Cadance and Shining Armor's quarters. After wandering the maze of the palace for a few minutes, we came to the door of a much more impressive bedroom suite than our own. Our room was apparently just nice enough for visiting dignitaries, but heads of state got a whole other level of treatment. The room we entered was about three times the size of our own, with a balcony that had a great view of the entire western valley beneath the mountain.

It was out on this balcony that the royal couple was seated, around a table adorned with fine china. Four place settings were laid out with tiny teacups and plates. Next to the steaming teapot in the center of the table was a tray of muffins, which made Derpy's eyes light up.

I noticed that the Crystal Empire rulers were also dressed down from how I'd seen them before – Shining was in a teal button-up shirt and brown slacks, and Cadance was wearing what looked like yoga pants around her shapely lower body and basically had a big quilt draped over the front of her dirigible-like upper body. You could tell she was wearing nothing underneath because her back was entirely bare. I guess it was a good thing I hadn't tried to pull on the tux.

Shining Armor took one look at me, noticed the tail between my legs, and started snickering. "I see Twily got to you first!" he said.

"Uh-oh," I said back, putting my hands on my hips. I'd had a feeling there was something up about that. "What's really going on, then?"

The white unicorn's face hardened slightly and he said, "We found out what you did to Mom and Dad."

I facepalmed. "Ah, hell."

"Yep. All it took was checking the Sunday paper." He levitated a newspaper over in front of me and opened it up. Sure enough...

I took the newspaper and scanned it. "Well at least it's on page 4," I muttered. "And they buried the lede, too – they don't even mention their names until the third paragraph."

"That's what I said," Cadance responded, setting her teacup down with her magic. "You did something to try and protect them, right?"

"Good for you it's not on the front page," Shining Armor said to me smugly. "Giving you a donkey's tail is just Twi being sassy. If you had really earned her wrath, you'd be part plant. And on fire."

"Sure..." I tucked the newspaper under my arm and glared a bit at the other male on the balcony. Derpy and I walked over to the two empty seats – she sat down, and I put my hands on the back of the remaining steel chair. "Alright, might as well ask right out of the gate. Where do you and I stand, Shining Armor?"

Shining put his hands behind his head and took a deep breath. After he sighed it out, he said, "I'm mad. I can't help but be mad. You got my sister and my parents wrapped up in your whole... sexual rampage, even if you didn't permanently hurt their lives." He glanced at Cadance for a moment, and his expression became more sympathetic. "But you can thank my wife for this benefit of the doubt I'm giving you now. She reminded me that... sometimes this sort of thing has a blast radius at first, and you can't really control how far it goes."

I turned my inquisitive gaze over to the enormously endowed pink Princess. "I was wondering why you were suddenly coming to my defense back there."

"Well, maybe I'll clear that up for you," Cadance replied, smiling in that annoying all-knowing way. "Please, have a seat."

I did so. I wasn't much of a tea or coffee person, so I simply poured myself a cup of ice water.

Derpy, half a muffin already down her gullet and crumbs on her muzzle, reached over the table and mumbled, "Can you pass the butter? These are a little dry."

Cadance laughed, making acres of her body jiggle beneath the quilt she was using. "Of course." She levitated the butter plate over to Derpy's side of the table, and my marefriend got to cutting and spreading. The Princess then looked to me and said, "What do you know about me?"

An odd question... "You're the Princess of Love," I said. "You helped stop the return of King Sombra and now lead the Crystal Empire."

"It's the first part that's key," she replied. "Do you know why I'm the Princess of Love?"

I had a pretty good idea, but I wasn't sure if what I was thinking of and what she was talking about were one and the same, so I erred on the side of cautious ignorance. When I didn't answer, she closed her eyes and her horn's aura ignited. Very faintly, I saw the image of several hearts appearing over her head.

The next moment, I was compelled to look over at Derpy, and she looked at me. She had her cheeks stuffed with half-chewed buttery muffin, but in that moment... a whole wellspring of emotions rose up inside my chest, and I couldn't help but think that she was the most beautiful, kind, considerate, wise mare in the whole wide world, and I just felt lucky to have her by my side. And seeing how her eyes were tearing up too and her overstuffed cheeks rose in a smile, she was probably thinking the same thing. We both leaned in for a sloppy kiss–

And then I pulled back, shook my head, and stared wide-eyed at Cadance. A second later, Derpy snapped out of it and did the same.

Cadance poured herself another cup of tea like nothing was wrong. "So... how much of that would you say was mind control?"

"Wwwwwwhat?!" we both shouted simultaneously, Derpy spraying muffin crumbs out of her mouth.

"Naturally, one could argue that it's not," Shining Armor said, waving his hand around casually. "What that spell does is amplify the emotions that are already there, reminding couples of what they have."

"But there's also many types of love," Cadance pointed out. "The ancient pegasi even had multiple words for it. There was 'agape' – unconditional, selfless, charitable love. There's 'phileo' – platonic, affectionate love. 'Storge,' generally the common empathetic love between family... and of course 'eros,' intimate love. Then there's all the modern words we have: 'puppy love,' 'lovesickness,' 'unrequited love,' 'infatuation'... All of that is under my domain. My spell can either amplify all of it at once, or I can pick and choose, and I can determine how much to boost it. When does that cross over from 'a love spell' to 'mind control'?"

I was now more than a little creeped out. "Depennnds on how you use it?" I said very cautiously.

Derpy swallowed the bits of muffin left in her mouth and stared slack-jawed at the pink Princess. "Wait a sec, you're not saying...?!"

Cadance put her elbow atop her quilt-covered breast and her chin on her hand. "How long did your 'rampage' last, Pascal?" Cadance inquired, like she was asking about how my weekend went. "What was it, three days? About 72 hours?"

"Um..." I thought about it. I'd had the power in that chaotic state from the dead of night Thursday morning to the break of dawn on Sunday... but the 'rampage' had kind of only really started that Thursday morning (counting Lyra and the whole discussion about nudity), so... "Yeah, I guess about 72 hours total...?"

"Interesting," she said, magically lifting her drink to her lips. "Mine only lasted 48."

My whole body tensed up – except for my jaw, which dropped to match Derpy's. Cadance took a long, graceful draw from her tea.

"Yyyyep, here we go," Shining Armor muttered, a blush across his features. "What we're about to tell you, Luna's the only other pony who knows about everything that happened."

"Oh good," I mumbled back in a daze, "because I hadn't heard enough state secrets this week..."

"Well, this one's less of a state secret and more... personal, really. Honey?"

The Princess set down her cup and proceeded to tell us the story of her eighteenth birthday.