The world of swirling colors comes to an abrupt end as your arm reaches out to steady you. Instead of the cold marble greeting your palm, you can only hear the clack of a hoof in front of you. You blink a few times to try to get rid of the dizziness while you step completely through, but you don’t think you’ll ever be used to the transition through the portal.

“All good?” Sunset asks with that amused smirk.

You put a hoof up to your head to try to stop the spinning. “I’ve been transformed into a strange creature in a distant land. Also, I might throw up. Send help.”

Sunset playfully rolls her eyes. An amber hoof reaches out to help steady you and you feel a little better with your girlfriend’s support. “You’d think after a dozen trips together you’d be used to it by now.”

You shake your head, ridding yourself of the last of the dizziness. “I don’t know how ponies live like this. I’m also still kinda mad the portal decided to make me an earth pony. No cool powers at all? No flight? Come on,” you say as you walk down the steps with her into Twilight’s library.

Sunset giggles before pulling back to let you stand on your own. “It would’ve taken a few years to master the cool parts anyway. Besides, earth ponies have plenty of perks too. Stamina, endurance, hardiness…” she says giving you a sly look and a nudge. “Besides, you’re not staying that way for too long this time.”

“What do you—”

“Oh! You’re here!” Princess Twilight’s voice calls out from beside one of the bookshelves. In a flash, she teleports over to you in a shower of papers and clutching a notebook to her chest. Her purple aura flips open the notebook and catches a few pages around her, her eyes darting across the runes and diagrams. “Are you ready to get started? I’m ready to get started. I stayed up all night getting ready to get started!” she says as she flips through the pages with a bright, excited smile.

“I guess this is the ‘cool new thing’ you wanted to try?” you ask Sunset with a raised eyebrow.

Her otherwise cool and confident demeanor betrays a little excitement herself as Sunset watches Twilight. She turns her head over to you but still keeps her eyes on the princess. “Uh… yeah. We were going to try to—”

“I’ve been working on it for months. Going through the portal creates a magical tether binding you to the nearest carbon-based dimensional equivalent and with an inverse rune bind and a Cloverian arch reversal spell I should be able to cause a tether disruption that reverts your physical form!” Twilight says with an excited grin. All you can do is stare at her wide-eyed.

“Basically she’s going to turn you back into a human on this side of the portal,” Sunset says nonchalantly. “You up for it?”

You blink a few more times. “That’d be… pretty cool actually. It’d be nice to walk around without feeling like I’m about to trip over the extra limbs. It’s uh… safe, right?”

Twilight lets her papers float down to the floor as she makes a few final calculations in her head. “Of course! I practiced with Spike a few times and we only had one incident with him burning his dog tongue with dragonfire.”

“Well as lame as it is usually, I can’t breathe fire on either side of the portal, so let’s do it.”

Twilight lets out an excited squee before jumping straight into action. She closes her eyes, lights up her horn, and in an instant, you feel yourself washed with magic and enveloped in a bright light. You feel your bones and insides shift in an extremely uncomfortable fashion, but it happens so fast that you don’t even have time to dwell on it.

The flood of magic snaps away and your eyesight slowly returns to you. You feel even dizzier than before and stumble for a few steps before Twilight and Sunset both use their magic to steady you.

“It worked!” Twilight yells with an excited bounce.

“You feel okay?” you hear Sunset’s voice say through the daze.

“Yeah… yeah, I think… Woah.” 

Once your senses return, you look around the library from your new perspective. Everything seems a lot smaller now, and the portal you could easily fit through before looks like you’d have to crouch just to fit. You look down to see the girls, once just a tiny bit shorter than you, but now you easily tower over them. Their horns barely reach above your beltline and they’re both about the size of a somewhat large dog.

You barely resist the urge to pick Sunset up like a cat. You both share a smile once she sees the intention in your eyes. 

You clear your throat. “So, are we going to scare some ponies with a walk around town? Need any books off the top shelf, Twi?” you say over to the princess.

Twilight’s excitement quickly fades away into an awkward blush. You raise an eyebrow, but Sunset gives you a head nudge for attention like she’s a cat.

“Oh, no. We’ve got something else we wanted to try,” Sunset says, the excitement on her face plain as day now.

You look down at her in confusion, but that’s quickly resolved as she flicks her eyes up to her mane and smiles. You playfully roll your eyes and kneel down to her. “Yeah, I should have known.”

You kneel down to her level and stretch out your hands. Sunset adopts her own excited smile as she sits back on her haunches and lifts her chin up in preparation. Your fingers flow through the fur on her chin, then over her jaw, and behind her ears and you have to blink a few times in amazement at just how wonderfully soft she is. All the kittens in the world could never compare to the heavenly feeling of pony fur under your fingers right now.

Sunset looks like she’s enjoying a similar sensation. Her stiff posture quickly melts into you so much she would probably fall limp onto the floor if you let go of her. Her otherwise closed eyes open slightly to reveal her blissful daze. Things only get worse as you rub your thumbs up her cheeks and let your fingers explore up to her ears.

Sunset’s luscious mane falls over your forearms as she leans into you. It’s almost like she was caressing you back with the world of softness in your hands. As your hands explore and provide the scritches through her mane and neck, she lets out a long, satisfied sigh like she was getting a massage from the world’s greatest spa. You pay special attention to her adorable little pony ears and they happily flap back and forth at the attention.
“Enjoying yourself?” you ask her.

All Sunset can manage to get out is a few unintelligible stammers as you continue the petting. She nestles up to you, wrapping her hooves around your forearms like a cat refusing to let you pull away. A dark blush forms on her cheeks above the joyous grin. Your fingers rub back and forth to find the spots that make her lean into you the most, and once you’re in she starts letting out a long series of satisfied hums and coos. At this point, she’s completely butter in your hands and her completely relaxed muscles let you move her around however you please.

Your hands move all around her head, caressing through her mane, down her neck, across her forehead, and especially behind her ears. You shift your weight and pull one hand away slightly and in return you get to feel what the tug of magic is like on your human skin. Sunset gives a cute little pout before yanking you back into place to get back to work. You can’t help but shake your head with a playful smile.

Now that you knew there was no hope for escape like this, you think of a different strategy. You rest your hand on her cheek and let your fingers find their way behind her ear. You already know how much she loves this spot, and as soon as you start the scritches she can’t help but lean into you. You slowly ease her down onto the floor this time and instead of holding her head again, your other hand deviously sneaks down her chest fluff until you’re primed and ready for your secret weapon: belly rubs.

You look over to Twilight and almost break out laughing. She’s got her hoof up to her mouth and staring at the two of you wide-eyed with the darkest blush you’d ever seen on her like she was witnessing the most obscene act known to pony-kind. You resist the urge to cackle and go back to deliver the final blow on your girlfriend.

Your hand smoothly and gently rubs back and forth across Sunset’s belly. The fur there is just as soft and you can’t help but enjoy the process. You look up to Sunset and almost laugh again. She looks like she’s in heaven and her spirit is close to separating from her body entirely. The only signs of life remaining are the little snuggles she makes into your hand still running through her mane.

She lazily wiggles there on the floor like a puppy having the time of its life. The combination attack sends her into a bumbling mess that can’t even get a coherent thought out anymore. All she can do is lay back and occasionally nuzzle into you before going back to her limp, blissful state. Before she loses consciousness from the sensory overload, you finally manage to pull away from her and stand up. Your happy little heap on the floor might need some recovery time after that, you think.

“I guess you could call this one a success, huh?” You say, looking over to Twilight.

The pony princess can hardly contain her own embarrassment. She’s got her notebook pressed up against her snout and is peaking over it like she’s doing something wrong. You can’t help but let out a little chuckle this time.

“You okay?” you ask her. She blanks a few times then shakes her head wildly before putting on a cute, sheepish smile.

“Yeah! Yeah… I mean… great work team… um… very good… yes…”

Sunset flops over on her side,  barely out of her own daze. She’s got a sappy little smile on her lips and it quickly turns to an amused grin once she sees the state Twilight’s in.

“Mmm. Your turn, Twi. I know you want to,” Sunset manages to get out in a distant, relaxed tone.

Twilight’s wings fling themselves out and her eyes manage to go even wider than before. “I… are you sure?” she looks up at you, her blush growing even darker. She can’t hold eye contact for long as she starts fidgeting in place. “I mean if you’re okay with it… I wouldn’t… yes.”

You walk over to her and lean down to start the process again. Twilight looks like she’s about to burst from her own nervousness and constantly flicks her eyes between your hands and her spot on the floor. Her breaths are wild, short, and shallow as you make your approach. First contact causes her to flinch, but you gently press on with a few reassuring strokes of her mane.

You look over to Sunset who’s giggling through her blissful haze and slowly pulling herself up, but not very successfully. You can’t help but be a little amused too as your hands do their best to ease Twilight’s worry.

The muscles under her fur are tight and stressed, but you can feel them slowly loosening with each pass. Slowly at first, you let one hand start at her cheek and make its way down her neck and the other behind her ear flowing its way through her mane. Her eyes timidly look up at you occasionally as her posture eases up, but you know it’s gonna take a little more.

You shift your weight and prepare to break out your best technique. A move honed over years of petting dogs and cats that got them to instantly fall in love with you. You start one hand at her cheek again, then move it down under her chin and let your palm run back and forth under her head, your fingers caressing her and letting her relax into your grasp. Right after the first few strokes, Twilight starts melting into your grasp and lets out a soft, satisfied sigh. 

The soft tap of a hoof rhythmically beats in front of you. You look over in confusion at first to realize the spot you were scratching on the back of Twilight’s head was her spot. Her back hoof tapped in joy as she entered her own daze at the feelings. Her anxiety melted away, Twilight leans into your attention just as much as Sunset did now. Her soft sighs slowly turn into hums, and if you didn’t know any better you’d start to think you heard a little bit of purring.

You go back to running a hand down her neck, only for a horn to find its way under your forearm and pull it back to another yearning mare. You look over to see Sunset leaning into your reclaimed hand and looking up at you like a cat prompting you for more.

“Hey, you’ve got two hands and I want one of them,” she says as you get started again.

Twilight doesn’t seem to mind as she wraps her hooves around your other arm and snuggles into it. With both girls now addicted to the gentle attention, you start to realize you might be here for a while.

[hr]

You have no idea how long it’s been, but you do know the sun has long since disappeared from the library windows. You can barely move your fingers without them cramping and your forearms are beyond sore. The only solace in your current predicament is that the chair you moved to is actually pretty comfortable, otherwise, you now have to simply accept your fate.

Stronger than any chains of Tartarus that might restrain you, you’re trapped in place by the two ponies you’ve spent the afternoon with.  You can feel the gentle breathing of their slumber with your hands resting on both of their backs and you dare not move from the position. Both of them are draped over your lap and recovering from the endless bliss of your scritching session, and you think you might just need a nap of your own and a few weeks before your fingers can do anything useful again. 

You lean back into the comfortable cushion, briefly considering your newfound power and if it’d work on a few other pony princesses for the sake of world domination, but dash the thought as soon as you realize you’d probably just become the permanently designated royal petter.

You give the girls a few last gentle strokes across their backs as you drift off yourself. You silently remind yourself to ask Twilight for some kind of muscle recovery spell. You and Sunset planned the trip for the whole weekend and something tells you that they already know what you’re going to be doing for the rest of it.