Originally posted on April 23

A rare picture of Lemon's whole family.

From the right, we have dad Pumpkin Bread, baby Poppy Seeds Bread, mama Vanilla Angel Cake, and little Lemon Cheesecake.

-

Their live was nothing special, there were no adventures to be had in the little town Vanilla choose to settle in: she had met a sweet stallion that loved her despite how demanding she could be at times, and he had given her two beautiful foals.

Yet ponies could tell there was a lingering sense of longing in Vanilla's eyes. 
She was a pegasus with a fully earthbound family, and many hissed that she was way too gorgeous and delicate to be the wife of a simple earth pony baker. 

So when one summer night the mare disappeared nobody was surprised. They had said a stallion as gorgeous as her had swept her away back into the clouds at dusk, but Pumpkin Bread didn't want to believe the rumors. He knew his wife, he knew she would have never hurt him like that! Something must have happened to her sweet Vanilla! 

But his daughter grew resentful of their mother despite all the sweet stories he insisted on telling them each summer on the anniversary of that tragic day.

Lemon and Poppy grew strong together, promising they would have never betrayed their father or their future families like their mom did to them.

Originally published on April 23

She had loved her husband more than anything, because she knew no matter how undesirable she may become one day, he would have always been by her side, he had promised so the day they had married in that golden wheat field, loyal like the first day she met his freckled snout.

So why was she following a complete stranger above the clouds, where the air was thin and her judgment turned erratic?

-

It had been a day like many others, the market had been busy with ponies and the usual fanfare of Saturday afternoon, her sweet Pumpkin by her side, the gentle stallion concentrating on not tripping on their two little foals as they played. She slowed her trot, keeping up with them in between market stalls, smiling at the scene with the fondness of a mare that had found her place in the world. She had been so focused on the little ponies giving hell to their father that when she felt something brush her side she hadn't even realized another pony had moved close enough to touch her flank in the first place.

She had quickly whipped her head to the side only to see dark midnight feathers slide across her cutiemark. She had never seen such a dark colored coat, especially not on a...pegasus?

With a sudden pivot her whole body, turning the way she had intercepted the stranger, but the figure was already indistinguishable in the crowd, as if it had never even existed. But she had turned just in time to see those eyes, piercing and intense like the sky before a storm. They sent chills down her back and made her wings vibrate with something exhilarating, her tail swaying upwards just a tad as she felt entranced for that eternal split second.

Vanilla was sure she had never seen a pegasus with such peculiarly dark feathers around before, yet before she could question her emotions any further, little Lemon bumped between her front hooves, calling for her.

"Mama, mama! Is it true that you saw a Princess once?"

The mare blinked down at her foal, feeling dizzy at having moved her head down so swiftly. She smiled still, craning her neck to nuzzle the little pony.

"Oh, yes, my baby girl, I sure did..."

-

She swore she had seen the black pegasus fly out her window, the powerful flexing of his huge wings almost magically cooling the temperature of her shared bedroom, making her shiver. Vanilla knew she was a married mare, a mother, but something about that pegasus draw her in like a magnet, forcefully pulling her away from the thought of her responsibilities.

 The mare hadn't even realized when she had started to touch herself thinking of the black stallion, and when Pumpkin had woken up at her movements, laying next to her in their shared bed, she had excused it on an early estrus fever. And when her husband smiled at her Vanilla couldn't decline her beloved, letting him take care of her boiling loins each single night.

He was a terribly gentle lover, a soft stallion, slim and powerful like many of his earthbound cousins. She knew she was a lucky pony, earth ponies after all were renowned for their vigor and incredible prowess, yet something instinctual kept deviating her thoughts to the terrifyingly large wingspan of that dark and mysterious pegasus.

She felt extremely ashamed of herself for her treacherous thoughts, yet each Saturday she kept looking for those jet black feathers from the corner of her eye.

And so she waited. Weeks passed, maybe a month, at that point she had almost convinced herself that the pegasus wasn't more than a distant memory, an obsession dictated by her betraying hormones.

Until she saw him again.

This time she had been alone at the market, the sun quickly setting. Their eyes met and his wings flared wide, framing him as an apparition overlapped on an orange backdrop. And they talked, his voice deep as thunder, but smooth as a summer breeze. She felt her heart sore and somehow her thoughts never drifted towards her husband or her little foals. All she could see and think of was the midnight stallion.

 And so they walked together. She had learned he had been in town to exchange his goods with the locals like many other ponies, but she had caught his attention just like he had done with hers. He had admired her white feathers, finding them just as beautiful as she found his dark inky ones, and like that they had started flying high above the small provincial town.

Vanilla had realized she hadn't felt the wind between her wings in so long, the birth of Poppy completely absorbing all her time and energies, and yet at that moment she felt as powerful and light as a filly, the midnight wings of her mysterious companions offering her warm uplifts to glide with no effort above those soft clouds.

And so she had started laughing, crisp like crystals chiming, and he had embraced her, smiling at her like the vague image of a freckled pony did in her mind, and she was almost sure she was in love. With whom? With the freckled pony...? With the midnight pauses?

 They had twirled among the stars, shared a moment of eternity, and when he eased her down upon a cloud Vanilla felt short of breath but so very alive.

And that's when she made the biggest mistake of her life.

She kissed the stallion, catching his lip in hers, swiping her tongue along teeth she should have noticed were too sharp for an herbivore, and she let him devour her.

It hadn't been gentle or soft like she remembered, but it was full of the urgency and excitement reserved for young lovers. And she became addicted. He bit her and she fed him her sweetest pleas, he unrevealed her with his tongue and she opened up like a flower.

He was ravenous like a bird of prey, his shaft seemed almost molded to fill her perfectly, scratching itches she had never known she even had. When she met her climax it had sounded like the call of a hawk as it reverberated across the sky.

And like that she was lost forever.